The Smuggler's Ascension: Dark Tide Rising Read online

  Kristof had made the mistake of trying to have a conversation about the experience with Max one time on one of their long missions together, forgetting how literal the android could be. The phrase “go fuck yourself” seemed to come up repeatedly over the next few days, much to Kristof’s embarrassment. Max took a sadistic pleasure, it seemed in making comments such as “Once we get home I suppose you will be off to go fuck yourself” until Kristof finally told the android to lay off it and never bring it up again. Kristof smiled at the memory now, however.

  “What?” Anasha asked him curiously, seeing his smile and returning it with one of her own.

  “Nothing,” Kristof replied and actually felt himself blush just a bit. “I was just thinking of something, is all my love.”

  “I would love to know what it is that can make you blush like that, my love,” Anasha teased, but did not press him for an answer.

  Kristof took her hand and pulled her to her feet and towards the bathroom. Anasha began to object, until he told her, “She just had an episode, it’ll be hours at least before she has another. Come, you need to unwind. You’re as tense as a spring ready to be sprung.” Anasha followed after a moments pause to gaze down at Sabine, and allowed him to lead her into the bathroom.

  Kristof started the shower and let the bathroom steam up as he returned to Anasha and began to undress her. She gave him a look of longing tinged with disbelief.

  “Do you really think this is the best time for what you have in mind?” Anasha asked him archly. “I can feel your thoughts. What would Sabine think of it right now?”

  “It was her idea,” Kristof answered softly as he continued to undress his wife. “She pretty much made it a royal command as she was falling asleep on the way into the bedroom.”

  Anasha gave him a look of shock and then laughed as Kristof stripped the last of her clothing away. Her long hours in the training center honing her skills and humbling her students showed in her lean, powerful muscles as he took in the sight of her. Anasha’s eyes grew hungry as she watched him admiring her, all tiredness suddenly gone from her. He traced his fingers along the curved, chiseled muscles of her abdomen, causing her to moan with desire.

  Kristof’s clothing disappeared quickly as Anasha undressed him urgently, until both now nude, they climbed into the steaming shower together. The steaming water assaulted them from three sides as the jets in the shower walls came alive. Kristof pulled Anasha into a fierce kiss, his arousal evident in its hardness between them. Anasha groaned at feeling him trapped against her stomach, and reached down to grasp him, enjoying the groan that she drew from his lips.

  “Careful, my love, or this will be a short shower,” Kristof complained teasingly. Anasha gave him a lustful look as she sank to her knees and took him in her mouth, enjoying the gasp of pleasure that erupted from his throat as, after several moments, his passion exploded along her tongue.

  Anasha slid back up Kristof’s body, exploring him as thoroughly as he’d done her so many times, until at last they returned to their passionate kiss. She reached between them to grasp him and urge him back to hardness as they continued to kiss passionately. Their hands rubbed and caressed each other with growing need until Kristof turned Anasha to face the wall abruptly and she thrust her hands out to brace herself against the tile. He ran his hands up her sides and around to grasp her breasts, which filled his hands with their fullness. Anasha groaned and ground her ass against him, her need now at its peak.

  “Please, my love,” Anasha groaned as she felt his hardness pressing against her.

  Releasing her breasts, Kristof reached down to guide himself into Anasha and they both cried out from the joy of their union as he filled her. They moved together in a smooth rhythm, each working to bring the other higher and higher in their passion and pleasure, and he felt Anasha reach out with her mind to include Sabine in their growing passion, the love of the three of them blossoming into a greater passion and joy. He then felt her slide her hand down over their joined bodies, stroking him as he slid in and out of her.

  Kristof held Anasha’s hips tightly as the floodgates broke and she was suddenly swept away by the force of it, her knees trembling and buckling. Kristof’s release quickly followed as he felt her contract around his body inside her, and they rode each other down to the shower floor until she was on her hands and knees, and he was draped over her back. He playfully nipped at her back as they slowly regained their senses, and then Kristof slowly rose to his feet. Anasha accepted his hand up, and together they washed quickly and then left the shower.

  Dried and exhausted, the two lovers walked naked back to the bed they shared with Sabine. Sabine still slept, but they both clearly saw the curl of a smile on her lips. Kristof laughed softly at the sight as he eased in beside his sleeping wife. Once settled, his other wife climbed in beside him until he was now surrounded by the loves of his life. As sleep settled over him, Kristof reflected on how lucky he truly was.

  Anasha leaned across him to kiss Sabine softly, before leaning back and kissing him softly as well. She settled her head on his chest, listening to his heart much like Sabine loved to do. It was truly remarkable, he thought to himself, how truly alike these two women were while still being so very different.

  Physically, Anasha was taller than Sabine, blond haired rather than dark, blue eyes instead of brown, and her breasts were larger and her form slightly fuller. But both were physically very fit, often spending many hours in the gym together’ and both were skilled fighters even though Anasha had the mastery. Kristof enjoyed sparring with these two women very much in the gym.

  Emotionally they both were strikingly similar as well, while being very different. Both were fiercely passionate and devoted to their causes and loved ones, while being stubborn and obstinate as well. Sabine tended to be more forceful in public, though, mainly due to her upbringing and need to be a strong Queen, while Anasha was more laid back and watchful, except when it came to commanding her troops. They truly were soul sisters, Kristof reflected as he held them both close.

  “You’re thinking a lot up there,” Anasha said softly and a bit sleepily. “You’re supposed to be sleeping. I can feel a little tension in you still.”

  “Just thinking about how lucky I am to have you both,” Kristof replied just as softly, “And how alike you two are sometimes.”

  “Oh, we have our differences too,” Anasha said as she ran her fingers along his chest. “Sharing you was a bit difficult at first, after the initial newness of it all wore off, but we worked it out.” Kristof felt Anasha smile against his chest. “The working things out part was rather…vigorous and fun,” she said softly, and Kristof caught a flash in his mind of just how they had worked it out in the end.

  “Was it strange, that first time alone together?” Kristof asked her curiously.

  Anasha gave him a look to see if he was seriously interested or just being a typical male only interested in sex. After a moment of thoughtfulness, she answered.

  “Yes and no,” Anasha said softly, again resting her head on his chest. He felt Sabine stir beside him and suspected she was now awake as well and listening. “I’d never been with a woman before, nor had I ever had the desire to until our Sabine here came along. Our little firecracker here has a peculiar effect on me, it seems.”

  Sabine giggled softly, confirming she was awake.

  “I’d never thought of it before, either,” Sabine added to Kristof, “I’d never been with anyone until I was with you. But when I am with Anasha, it’s not like I am with another woman, I am simply making love to someone I deeply love and care about, no different than when I am making love to you.”

  “Well, maybe a little different,” Anasha chimed in and gave Kristof a squeeze beneath the covers, causing him to groan again and Sabine to giggle. “That is it exactly, though. Our connection has us bound so tightly, that it’s also like making love to ourselves at the same time.”

  “I can certainly agree to that,” Kristof said lightly, �
��Though I don’t recommend having that particular conversation with Max.” He quickly related the experience with the android, and they all laughed merrily.

  Sabine yawned mightily, which sparked off a round of yawning in them all. Kristof kissed them both, and they each other, before they all settled in to sleep at last. Dawn crept over the palace as the three lovers slept soundly for the first time in a week, and none dared to disturb them.

  ~Interlude 1~

  Max stood guard in the outer room of the suite shared by Kristof, Sabine, and Anasha as he had since coming to Purannis. He listened as the trio spoke in low voices and laughed as Kristof told them of the conversation about their sex life. Max contemplated their laughter and knew that he was included in their happiness and not being laughed at, as other people had laughed at him in the past.

  Though Kristof had freed him from service the year prior and declared him a free being, he found that he had no desire to leave this small, intimate group. The fact that his inclusion in the group was done so freely was confusing to him, but welcome. It was not often that an android was so openly accepted by humans, he knew.

  The android’s past was not always a happy one, though describing anything in the context of emotion seemed out of place for the artificial being. Max did not feel happy, or sad, or any other emotion. He just was. Or at least it used to be the way things were. Things had all changed once he’d met Kristof, however.

  Kristof had always treated Max as an equal, as a friend even, from the moment they had begun working together aboard the Star Fox. Max had underwent periodic mind wipes while in service to Captain Frosh, but that had stopped once Kristof had come aboard. Kristof began falsifying the logs when it came to Max’s routine mind wipes. By the time Kristof had purchased Max from Captain Frosh, Max had begun to develop his own unique personality.

  Max began to at least comprehend the idea of emotion during that time, though he did not feel any himself. He frequently witnessed Kristof’s happiness, anger, and everything in between as they spent more and more time together aboard the Wraith, and he began to pick up many of Kristof’s quirks and tendencies. The android’s ease in the use of profanity was a direct result of Kristof’s amusement in hearing it from him.

  Once the young Queen Sabine had joined their group on their mad dash to get her to Purannis, Max had once again been exposed to a new level and depth of human emotion as he watched to blossoming romance between Sabine and Kristof. His processors had not been up to the task of analyzing their apparent inner turmoil in the lead up to their energetic affair. He had watched Kristof in the beginning stages of the human mating ritual before, but this had been very different and he had not understood.

  Sabine’s attitude towards Max himself had been confusing as well, as she seemed to accept him as an equal just as Kristof did. She did not command him and then go about her business, she talked to him and questioned him, and she seemed to have a genuine regard for his being. She was like Kristof in that regard, and it caused Max to place her in the same space he reserved for Kristof.

  It was Sabine’s acceptance of him that led to his breakthrough in understanding emotions. As the union between her and Kristof grew closer and tighter and he listened in on their conversations, the concepts of emotion and their significance blossomed in his artificial mind, and he began building new memory pathways in his mind. He began to evolve.

  Max soon found himself actually feeling some of the emotions he had witnessed yet never truly understood all of his artificial life. Witnessing the supernova and death of Kristof had therefore led to a new set of emotions; anger, rage, sadness, the sense of loss and emptiness. It had forced a greater production of new neural pathways in his mind, and greater processor resources to try and understand these new emotions.

  And now here he was, standing guard by choice over those he could truly say that he loved. Max wondered if there had ever been another android who had grown and evolved like he had. It did not matter, though, because here he loved and was loved in return. It was enough for him.

  ~11~

  Dorcanus II was no longer a planet, but a shattered world that had succumbed to an unknown cataclysm. There were no records in existence in the Clovani Imperial Library to explain why this world now orbited its sun only two thirds intact. As Korvan looked on from the bridge of the Vengeance, he thought the world looked more like an egg that had hatched now than a once thriving world.

  The debris from the shattered section of the large planet had created a massive asteroid ring in orbit that had encompassed the planet’s sole moon. The scene made for a solemn example of the impermanence of life, even for planets and suns. Korvan didn’t particularly care for the thought as it brought back memories of his father, who had seemed a giant and eternal while Korvan had been growing up.

  Over the past centuries, enterprising companies had come to Dorcanus II and created expansive mining operations in orbit to harvest the dead world’s valuable resources. There were several massive orbital processing stations and foundries where asteroids were dragged into massive maws at one end of a station and the extracted raw materials were shipped out the other. The moon itself had become the largest of these foundries, its massive complex covering the entire surface of the moon in a sprawling, confusing to the eye, monstrosity. The surface of the world was avoided, however, due to the planet’s instability and odd distortions that disrupted the computer systems of any ship that approached too closely.

  It was here that Korvan had decided to set his trap. The Dorcanus system sat at the very edge of disputed space between the Clovani Empire and the neighboring Tunani Republic. The Tunani kept an alliance of mutual protection with the Purannis Protectorate, but often disagreed in matters of politics and trade. Korvan cared nothing for their differences, beyond how he could use those differences to his benefit. The Republic would not extradite criminals that faced the death penalty at home, and Korvan intended to use that as seasoning for his intended bait.

  As was the case on Mallis IV, the Empire held control of the Dorcanus system but had not officially declared it a part of the Empire, thereby arguing that its citizens were not afforded certain rights under the Clovani Imperial Charter. Again, Korvan cared not for the politics of the situation here, what he cared about was that the rebellion here had recently become equipped with weapons the same as those supplied by his brother on Mallis IV. Which in turn meant Kristof had an interest in this desolate place, and Korvan meant to use that to his advantage.

  Korvan watched as a group of tug ships maneuvered a massive asteroid into the waiting jaws of one of the orbital foundries, while noting that the doors to the bridge behind him had opened. The reflection in the window he looked out of showed two officers approaching him from behind before stopping a respectful distance away. He allowed them to wait. Tigers did not jump for the needs of sheep. In the distance, Korvan watched his former ship, the Tiger’s Fist, and smiled at the two thoughts together.

  Finally, Korvan turned and acknowledged the junior officers waiting for him, one a Lieutenant and one a Commander. Lieutenant Ravos was a loyal officer that had come to the Vengeance with him from Tiger’s Fist and served as his personal aide. Commander Krange was an officer of the Intelligence Service and had been sent to the Vengeance by Korvan’s sister, Karina. Korvan did not trust the man in the least, the man was too quiet by far and was loyal to Karina and not him, but Korvan could not dispute the accuracy of the information the man provided. Between Karina and Krange, the intelligence Korvan received had been enough to allow him to crush the rebellions on five worlds now.

  “The man you requested is now on board, sir,” Lt. Ravos told him with a salute.

  “The Emperor also sent you a personal communique,” Commander Krange added, without the sir or the salute, Korvan noted. Korvan let it pass. The man would not live to see the end of this mission, anyway, Korvan thought to himself.

  “Excellent,” Korvan replied to the two men with a nod as he took a communications cyl
inder from Krange. “Bring our guest to my office in one hour. Dismissed.”

  Both officers saluted this time before turning crisply and heading back into the ship. Korvan looked down at the comm cylinder, wondering what message the Emperor had sent. His own heated declaration from a year ago to the Emperor that he would kill his traitorous brother came to mind. At the time he had not expected it to take this long, and he feared Emperor Clovan’s displeasure.

  Korvan’s personal office was just off of the bridge, offering him immediate access to the command deck in an emergency. He often slept there as well, preferring the space over his personal quarters deeper in the ship, as he often worked late into the night. Going to his desk now, he switched on the small comm unit on his desk and inserted the coded comm cylinder. After being prompted, he entered his personal security code and allowed the unit to scan his retina.

  The view screen soon changed from a picture of the fleet insignia to a vision of Emperor Clovan himself. The man’s jet black eyes were as startling as ever as they seemed to bore into his soul from through the screen. Korvan chided himself for being stupid, since this was a recording and the Emperor could not see him.

  “Vice Admiral Anders,” the Emperor began. “Your delay in eliminating the traitor, Kristof Anders, has been most displeasing. However, the delay has given me time to reconsider our course. I no longer wish for you to terminate this traitor. I want the man returned to Clovani Prime alive, and mostly intact. Extreme torture is authorized to extract what information you can on the return trip here to the capital, but make sure that the man is alive when you arrive. Kristof Anders will face a public tribunal and execution for his crimes. Fail me in this, Admiral, and you will take his place. You have one month.”