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    Returning to Dr. Wessinger’s office, N-Vorl slams a clawed fist against the expensive Earth Oak desk. For the most part, N-Vorl has kept his extreme anger at bay. However, it threatens to boil over as he imagines what the ooman doctor may be doing to his son. Pressurized gas escapes from the side of N-Vorl’s mask as he angrily removes it. Placing the mask in its customary spot on his back, N-Vorl leans heavily against the wooden table. Teresa approaches him and touches his right forearm.


    “N-Vorl?! I did my best. You have to believe—,” Teresa explains.


    Before she can finish her statement, N-Vorl turns halfway in her direction. Releasing the desktop, he grips Teresa’s forearms. Not tight enough to hurt, but tight enough to keep her from easily pulling away. Teresa’s eyes widen with apprehension. Is he angry with her over the loss of their son? Or is it something deeper?


    N-Vorl’s eyes soften and Dr. Boyd relaxes ever so slightly. This is more like the N-Vorl she remembers. Removing his hand from her right forearm, N-Vorl gently places it under her chin. Tilting her head upward, he lowers his mouth to hers. Memories. So many memories.


    N-Vorl drops his hand from Teresa’s chin and encircles her waist with a muscular arm. Teresa does the same, snaking her arms under the large elaborate robe N-Vorl’s new title has afforded him. She rests her hands at the small of his back, her fingers gripping the threads of his mesh suit.


    Before she knows it, N-Vorl’s right hand blindly fumbles along the front of her gown. He finally finds the dual buttons over her shoulder and undoes them. He draws the material down until it falls away from Teresa’s flesh. Teresa removes her hands from N-Vorl’s back and enfolds his neck with her arms. N-Vorl continues his task of undressing her, repeating his former process on the other side of her gown.


    The gown slides down Teresa’s body, halting at her waist. She casually twists her hips and allows the gown to slip further before stepping out of it. N-Vorl’s hands travel the length of her body, as far as he is able to reach. He has hungered for her for well over two years. The taste of her flesh brings back feelings and energies he had nearly forgotten. But not anymore.


    Teresa draws apart and stares up into N-Vorl’s large green eyes. She looks over his left shoulder apprehensively.


    “What about Mau-Nis?” Teresa whispers. “He could be back any minute.”


    N-Vorl removes his left arm from around Teresa’s waist and brandishes his wrist device. Flexing his wrist in a particular fashion, the cover of the wrist device springs open. Reluctantly removing his other arm from Teresa’s waist, N-Vorl presses the touch pads on his wrist device in what seems like no particular order. A tiny representation of Mau-Nis appears midair. Teresa gawks at the image, peering at the tiny speck which is Mau-Nis. The image is so detailed, it takes Teresa’s breath away. She is able to follow every step the tiny Mau-Nis makes, as he walks through the facility. Another command from N-Vorl’s dexterous fingers and every yautja warrior on the station appears as a tiny floating image.


    “Oh wow! It isn’t just a bomb,” Teresa coos. “You never told me this.”


    “Typically only hunt leaders, and others of significant rank, carry such a device,” N-Vorl explains. “As Elder-Apparent…I have eyes on every hunter under my command.”


    “Talk about perks of the job,” Teresa says. “What else can it do?”


    N-Vorl smiles secretively and flicks his wrist twice. The cover to his device closes, and he once again wraps his arms around Teresa’s waist.


    “I don’t believe I have time enough to show you right now,” N-Vorl says, his eyes riveted to Teresa’s face.


    “Hmmmm,” Teresa says. “Then, what do you have time for?”


    N-Vorl’s smile grows wider. More and more, Teresa is returning to her usual quick-witted self. While occasional dark clouds seem to hover over her mood, she averts her eyes less and less. Since enjoying a small meal, and drinking of her bitter coffee, she walks faster and a lot straighter. It is as if a heavy burden is slowly being removed from atop her shoulders.


    Gathering Teresa up into his arms, N-Vorl carries her to the large couch in one corner of the office. The couch where Dr. Wessinger often sleeps—to avoid walking the long distance to her quarters on rickety bones. N-Vorl lowers Teresa to the couch and removes his robe. Placing his robe on the back of the couch, he carefully straddles the former scientist. Teresa runs a hand down his neck and chest, stopping to touch the small array of bones hanging around his neck.


    For his part, N-Vorl caresses Teresa’s face, neck, shoulders, and chest. He watches as her color deepens. He listens for the accelerated beating of her heart. Leaning forward, he kisses Dr. Boyd’s forehead. Holding her face in both hands, he focuses his eyes on hers.The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    “I am not angry with you. I am angry with myself,” N-Vorl says in a solemn voice. “I should never have let you return to that ship. I wanted you with me. But like a coward…I let you go. Now…Our son may pay with his life.”


    Teresa cups N-Vorl’s face with a trembling hand.


    “It wasn’t your fault, N-Vorl! It was mine!” Teresa insists, tears running down her face. “I should have terminated the pregnancy. I should have set a different course for the escape craft. I truly believed we’d be floating out there forever. Just the two of us. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I could have done any number of things. You have to believe me, N-Vorl…I tried to escape. More than once I tried. But it was next to impossible to do alone. I tried to get our son.”


    N-Vorl’s eyes travel to a small scar on Teresa’s left shoulder. One of his clawed fingers traces the round outline and his brow furrows. Only an ooman pellet makes wounds of this type. At some point, since their last meeting, Teresa has been shot. The wound is still soft—the pigments in her flesh not yet attempting to blend back together. There are other injuries as well. Numerous pale streaks crisscross the flesh of her chest mounds. The wounds look as if she were cut with a small weapon—possibly a thin blade. Whatever she has been through, it was not long ago. N-Vorl’s blood boils with rage.


    “Were you injured?” N-Vorl questions.


    The youthful leader knows what she will say. He simply wishes to hear it from her own mouth. So that his wrath upon the oomans may be multiplied ten-fold.


    “I…Yes,” Teresa utters in a soft voice. “They used the brother of one my colleagues aboard the California. He poisoned me to get information. I tried to use him as a human shield while I escaped. I stupidly believed they wouldn’t kill him.”


    Teresa chuckles uncomfortably and turns her face away, staring off at nothing.


    “They shot through him to get to me,” Teresa says, her voice cracking. “Harold’s kid brother is dead because of me. His mother…She’s all alone now. So much death. Will it never stop?”


    N-Vorl silences her with a passionate kiss. Teresa sighs and her eyes flutter closed. N-Vorl kneads the flesh of Teresa’s stomach, bringing her to a higher state of arousal. Teresa arches upward, and N-Vorl kisses the mounds of her chest.


    By the time he enters her, Dr. Boyd is breathing heavily and sweat glistens on her skin. N-Vorl kisses her over and over. His mouth finding the flesh of her face, neck, chest, shoulders, and stomach. Teresa mostly lets him do what he must, stroking the beaded dreads on his head.


    -


    -


    Leyyu enters the undamaged administration wing and marches confidently down the hallway. The few living oomans have been rounded up. All that awaits, is for Elder-Apparent N-Vorl to give the order to blow the station. Leyyu rounds a corner and his acute hearing picks up a strange sound. Stopping to listen, Leyyu grins mischievously. Somewhere, a pair of oomans are mating—unaware of the danger they will soon find themselves in.


    Ejecting his wrist blades, Leyyu continues down the corridor. He stops when he reaches a set of thin double doors marked with the ooman name: Dr. Wessinger. There are definitely beings inside. The soft noises of their ooman passion are strange. However, there are also noises which mirror those made by his own kind. Leyyu stands listening for a few moments, intrigued by what he is hearing. Could it be?


    Adjusting the imaging on his mask’s interface, Leyyu peers through the tiny glass viewports situated at the top of the doors. His mandibles click furiously as he glimpses the sight on the other side.


    Although they are some distance away, Leyyu can make out two figures. That of a nude ooman female and a very large yautja. The ooman female arches provocatively, the hands of the massive yautja male finding and groping her large chest mounds. As Leyyu watches, the yautja warrior energetically fills the gasping female with the seeds of his descendants. The ooman’s hair has fallen about her face, but Leyyu is certain it is the ooman scientist they have come to apprehend.


    Curiosity causes Leyyu to remain where he stands, watching for several more minutes. Has such a thing ever been done? And what yautja, of their team, would dare commit such an act? And for what purpose? A bribe perhaps?


    Leyyu cannot deny the racing in his heart at the sight of the forbidden tryst. He has felt the same desire on many worlds. He’d come close to mating with a Glividian refugee soon after a skirmish with ooman forces on Fililtaf.


    The female had run into his arms, begging to be let aboard his ship. The Glividians, a race of nearly parallel evolution, were close to extinction. War and disease had ravaged their planet, leaving it fruitless and barren. The Glividians had taken to the stars, in order to save what little of their kind remained.


    Emerging from the jungles of Fililtaf; bloodied, torn, and without a leader—Leyyu had met up with the female Glividian. Racing toward him, she had wrapped her arms around his middle. Placing kisses on Leyyu’s face, neck, and hands; she’d begged him to take her aboard. He had relented, because her beauty was undeniable. While having only one set of mandibles, and no tusks, she was otherwise no different than a yautja.


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    Once aboard the ship, the female had expertly cleaned his wounds. Kissing him tenderly, she’d undressed herself—inviting him to touch her. Something about her behavior had seemed off. She’d later revealed that an ooman salvage ship had arrived days before. Each of the ooman males finding favor with the strange alien female. However, they’d abandoned her on the planet’s surface after their captain received word of an approaching alien vessel. Leyyu, and his fallen hunt team, were the first signs of life she had seen since that time.


    Leyyu had been unable to mate with her. Knowledge that numerous ooman males had also mated with her made his stomach do crazy flips. He had settled for simply enjoying the suppleness of her body. The entire journey back to his habitat, they had played at being lovers. Still energized from the hunt, he’d been grateful for the distraction.


    However, watching this coupling between one of his clan and this ooman female also makes his stomach do flips. But not in the way of before. He finds himself mesmerized, frozen to his place behind the door. There is almost a musical rhythm to the sound of their lovemaking, as if it has all been rehearsed.


    Remembering his reason for being there, Leyyu backs away from the doors to the ooman office. He waits until he is far enough away before retracting his wrist blades. The yautja warrior continues down the corridor. In search of Command Leader Mau-Nis.