Lessons

See File


 

The Green Lantern Stories

Part Four: Lessons

by Michael F.

 

 

Both of the lovers jumped, but Aurora recovered first.

"So it is all just a setup," she sneered at the Arion who spoke. She dropped into a defensive stance and kept her eyes glued to the Arion nearly in front of her, fighting the impulse to scan wildly around. She trusted the Guardian's ability to do that task more efficiently. She just hoped he was doing it!

"Oh, don't feel too stupid, Veloran," the Arion patronized, "we put a great deal of effort into this little ruse." He sauntered over to stand directly in front of the pair.

"Eight normal sized ones, three big ones," the Guardian said very quietly.

But not quietly enough.

His super hearing picking up the whisper perfectly, the lead Arion focused his attention on the armored figure. "Impressive," said the Arion a little sarcastically, "and without even turning your head."

"Just three Alphas?" Aurora laughed, trying to project more confidence than she felt. "What were you hoping the Betas were going to do? Cheer?"

"Oh, very good. No, the three of us are going to...'tackle'...you," he said, licking his chops. "The troops are armed with the latest anti-electronic gear and weaponry just for your friend, here. I imagine that'll make short work of his armor."

Aurora sensed her lover relax a bit.

"You have a good imagination, Arion," he said. Out of the corner of her eye Aurora saw a green flash from Seth's left fist.

Abruptly, the garage was filled with the sounds of Betas falling helplessly to the floor! Each one now sported two pairs of green manacles...one for the feet and one for the hands. Their shiny equipment fell unceremoniously to the hard concrete, as well.

While the Alphas goggled in amazement, Aurora launched herself at their leader. He was fast, however, and managed to stand his ground against her body blow!

The Guardian also reacted quickly. He pitched two speedy punches into the shortest of the three Alphas. Seth's incredulity knew no bounds when the alien merely looked down at his own stomach as if wondering what he was trying to accomplish! The Arion almost leisurely took an impossibly firm hold of the Guardian's throat piece and lifted him off the ground.

Busy with her own fight, Aurora felt herself snapping into "automatic", that semi-trance she learned during her Bad Time...her time of recovery from Sh'lyra's domination. A very special teacher drilled her in both physical combat and mental discipline, a long process she had definitely needed to center herself. And now she allowed that intense training to take over her mind and reactions. She was no longer the martial inferior of the Arion race.

Caught at a disadvantage, the Arion still managed to block the first sixteen blows Aurora threw at him in less than a second. The seventeenth caught him solidly across the bridge of his nose. The next spun him around like a child's top. The last, a lightning fast open-palmed blow to his neck, embedded him two feet into the concrete wall!

Seth, meanwhile, hung from the end of the short Arion's arm like a side of beef on a hook.

Swiftly, the third Arion picked up one of the fallen weapons and leveled it at the Guardian.

"Let us see how good your armor is against our technology!" rasped the Alpha holding him.

The armed Alpha raised the sleek weapon and fired!

Seth braced for the impact. Nothing much seemed to happen, however. Several of the nearby lights illuminating the garage abruptly went out, but Seth felt nothing wrong.

What was that all about? he asked his ring silently.

"THE WEAPON FIRED A 14,782 WATT ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE," answered the ring's computer inside his head.

They think my armor is a machine, something that can be shorted out.

"A LIKELY HYPOTHESIS."

Suddenly twitching, Seth reshaped his armor as if it had melted slightly and caused green sparks to leap out of his suit's joints.

Both the Arions laughed and said something in their own language. Seth was tossed carelessly to the hard ground. He lay awkwardly where he had fallen, like a giant broken action figure.

Aurora could not let her enemy regain control. She followed mercilessly, like a hungry tiger. In rapid succession she landed a flying kick to his groin, spun on one foot and smashed into his face with her open palm, pulled him out of the pulverizing concrete wall, dropped like a pro wrestler and savagely crushed his neck with her elbow, then picked him up by his hair and threw him again into the concrete wall in one fluid motion.

Almost without hesitation he regained his feet, only to topple dizzily and land on his butt. His face held a confused look, as if wondering why his legs were arguing with him.

Again, not wishing him recovery time, the mighty femme was upon him in an instant. She got him in a headlock from behind and squeezed. And squeezed!

Her left arm virtually exploded with swiftly expanding muscles as she tried to stop the blood flow to his brain. A biceps the size of a bowling ball pressed terribly against the side of her captive's head. She began to shake him violently by the neck like a dog with a bone in its mouth...furiously side-to-side.

The Arion couldn't even gurgle. His hands were frantically grasping for any part of her they could find, but to no avail. It was now a contest of raw strength; a contest this Veloran Protector knew she could win!

And after one long, desperate minute, the Arion passed out... not from lack of oxygen, but from the monstrous pressure inside his head. Even after his body went limp, Aurora held onto him for another few seconds to make sure he was not faking. Then she forced her hand into and underneath his tough ribcage, trying to grasp his beating heart. It was one of the few ways to kill an Arion, and she wanted this fucker dead!

Halfway across the level, two Arion Alphas suddenly found themselves each caught in the grip of a pair of fantastically large and strong hands! They had been walking swiftly to the aid of their leader when two green hands, each the size of steamer trunks, had pinned their arms close to their sides as if an emerald giant had somehow surprised them from behind!

The huge hands began coming together, almost like in prayer, threatening to crush the aliens against each other! Panicked, both Arions looked to their side and saw the Guardian, impossibly restored, standing arrogantly with his left arm outstretched as if the pulse gun had been completely ineffective!

Inside his armor, Seth was gathering as much information about the Arions in his "grip" as he could, while they were still aghast.

Compare the physiology and power levels of these aliens to Fairchild's, he mentally demanded of his ring.

"BOTH QUALITIES REMARKABLY SIMILAR," replied the ring.

How difficult would it be for me to kill them?

"VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE WITHOUT SPECIALIZED KNOWLEDGE."

Believe it or not, this was what Seth wanted to hear. He was forbidden to use his ring with murderous intent. This made it tricky when he was facing an unfamiliar alien in combat. It forced him to start small (as far as raw power level) in his attacks lest he kill his opponent. Ignorantly assuming an attack was not strong enough to kill was close enough to "murderous intent" for the ring. But now he knew he could whale on the Arion Alphas without fear of destroying them.

If I could even hurt them, he thought in alarm, for, having recovered a bit from the shock, the Arions were straining within their manual prisons. Seth felt spikes being driven into his skull as his willpower was gradually being overcome by the fantastic alien strength of the two warriors!

"WARNING! HEAT RAPIDLY INCREAS..." began his ring, but it was too late. Showing off their training, the Arions coordinated the release of their heat vision so all four eyes focused on the Guardian's chest plate at once!

Feeling like his suit had become a sauna, the Guardian staggered back, releasing his captives to redirect the greatest drain of his power into his armor. Not wasting any time, the duo strode forward and each gripped an armored shoulder, slamming the dazed hero against a concrete column.

"Let's see if your as hard where your armor ain't," quipped the taller one. Seth realized he was referring to his eyeslits! If a heat blast were to penetrate there..!

He didn't need the openings to see; he just sometimes found it useful to be able to meet an opponent's eyes in a crisis. Not willing to test his strength of willpower versus the Arion's in such a lethal situation, the Guardian snapped covers over both his eyes with an audible "click". Almost simultaneously, four fist-sized green pyramids seemed to emerge from his armor, flying about swiftly and erratically, like surreal hummingbirds!

"Get away from me," growled the Guardian, the ring lowering and amplifying his voice for effect. The drones, never flying far from the struggling group, began firing intense beams of energy at random intervals, unerringly hitting the Arions!

"Aaauugh!" screamed the shorter one, unprofessionally. Both of the big males were frantically trying to track the dangerous whirligigs and keep the Guardian held in front of them at the same time. With this excellent distraction the Guardian pushed at the Arions with fantastic strength, send both sprawling to land twenty feet away, still being stung by the drones.

The aliens were so busy trying to bat the maddening devices out of the air that they failed to notice the menacing figure of the Guardian approaching them with an enormous green cutlass in his right hand!

Stepping over a prostrate Beta (who, bound as she was, still took a swing at the Guardian, badly bruising her hand in the process) the green figure engaged the infuriated and anxious Alphas in combat. He swung his great sword deftly, cleaving the air and connecting with the short Arion. The sword did not actually break the invulnerable skin, but it did leave a painful pink line on the alien's temple. The Guardian continued to connect with both opponents, dodging their uncoordinated blows with ease.

After a minute of this, however, the vastly superior stamina of the Arion Alphas was beginning to tell. The Guardian began to take hits...he was better prepared for their power but still nearly stumbled under each fist. His ring was handling the complex trajectories of the swirling drones, but it was his willpower and intent that was keeping them active. The strain of fighting two superpowered, tireless beings and of restraining eight Betas and of keeping four drones firing powerful beams of energy and...

Hell, he was still restraining Aurora's tits! That had to cease right now! He searched his mind for any extraneous drains, and let them go.

Somewhere in the frigid Arctic, a green bag evaporated in the wind.

Out in the middle of a weedy field, an airplane's wings and tail lost a bit of area.

Some distance away in the parking garage, Aurora gasped in surprise as her breasts seemed to leap from her chest!

She looked down. "Oh, Goddess," she breathed in alarm. She knew Seth's creations disappeared when he was asleep...or unconscious!

She dropped the still twitching but quite lifeless body of her enemy and anxiously scanned the garage for Seth. She found him and his two opponents easily. He appeared to be okay, but it was clear he was outmatched. He had probably nixed her top to get her attention; he needed help now!

She literally flew to his aid. She was a little startled by the zipping pyramids, but they were green so she figured they were his. She latched onto the taller Arion's shoulder and spun him to face her. His eyes followed her naked bust automatically; a grievous diversion! Still bracing him with her hand on his shoulder, Aurora's right fist rained a dozen blindingly fast hits across his jaw.

The other Arion paused in his pitched battle with the Guardian to take in the new situation. The armored man took this opportunity to transform his cutlass into a mighty sledgehammer worthy of John Henry and drew it back behind him. Just as the shorter Arion turned back to the Guardian the head of the seven foot hammer landed cleanly against his already sore temple, the powerful swing moving faster than sound! The Arion's trajectory was deflected upwards as he flew into a parked pickup truck, not stopping until he burst through the nearly deserted street above.

Aurora stopped pounding her enemy into Supremis hamburger long enough to yell, "Follow him!" then resumed her own tireless hammering.

As her lover rocketed out of the garage, Aurora brutally shook her hated enemy until his head snapped back and forth on his shoulders like a rag doll's. Her rage and pain, built up over the years as the Arion race's atrocities had taken their toll on her spirit, spilled over onto the badly bruised warrior in her hands. He had stopped fighting. His only voluntary movements were the flinches caused by the pain of the little drones that were still tormenting him like miniature Harpies.

"Who's idea was this? Who is your leader?" she screamed into his battered features.

His left eye swollen shut, he looked at her with his right, trying to focus. Then a smile crawled across his damaged face like a wounded animal...a cracked, withering smile that struck deep into Aurora's heart. He spit on her face.

She wanted to torture him. She felt a desire pour over her soul to break his back and leave him paralyzed, helpless.

But he would not remain helpless. His Arion physiology would heal him in hours or days. He would become a threat to human lives once again; an incurable murderer of fantastic power.

She had to kill him, too.

The Guardian found the escaping Arion running at tremendous speed down a city street. Glowing with energy but aching with the strain of the battle, the Guardian blazed towards the alien. Raising his left fist, an emerald tentacle sprang from his forearm and lassoed around the Arion's left ankle. He then strung him up so that his enemy's upside-down head was at eye level.

The Guardian walked up to the flailing man.

"Hey, Arion," he said nonchalantly, "you ever play tetherball on your planet?"

WHAM!

"Aaaaaa!" cried the Arion as he spun in circles!

WHAM! WHAM!

The Arion picked up speed as the Guardian got into the rhythm of it. Soon the helpless alien was blurring by at two hundred rpm. Parked cars were rocking from the wind. Glass shattered from the powerful impacts of the Guardian's gauntlet.

WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!

"AAAAaaaaAAAAaaaa," the Arion exclaimed in an interesting stereo effect.

The Guardian paused to watch, then readied his opposite fist and threw a dynamic swing...

POW!!! Derelicts three blocks away covered their ears from the echo!

The Arion hung limply by his swollen ankle. Not a shred of clothing was left on his body. He dropped to the roadway below like a sack of laundry when the tether dematerialized .

"Well done, Guardian," said a wonderful female voice from behind.

The Guardian stopped shaking his sore fist and turned to embrace his lover. She wearily but warmly returned his hug.

After a moment they broke the clinch and Seth turned to look upon the prone Arion.

"What shall we do with him and the others?" he asked.

"The U.S. government now has a holding facility for Betas," sighed Fairchild. "I don't know if I trust them to hold or treat them properly, but it is someplace to put them."

She shrugged, then stepped forward.

"But there's only one thing for this guy," she said plainly, kneeling down.

Seth watched in puzzlement as she seemed to press her hand into the man's abdomen with great difficulty.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Trying to stop his heart," she returned easily. "It's almost the only way to kill them."

She was not aware of it, by she had nearly stopped Seth's heart.

"You-you're going to kill him?!" he cried in stunned amazement.

"Yes," she said, concentrating her strength.

"But...what about the other two?"

"They're already dead." She found the beating organ. She began to squeeze.

"They're...they're...stop that!" he exclaimed, stepping towards her.

Fairchild looked up in shock.

"What?" she asked.

"Stop killing him! Please!"

She released the heart, confused and angry.

"Look, I don't want to kill, but there's no other choice!" she said tensely. She stood and faced her armored love.

"There must be!" he cried.

A part of her was aware of him shaking like a leaf, but it didn't really register as something inside her heated mind snapped.

"No!" she shouted at his helmet. "There isn't! I can't let him go...he's a fanatic...all Alphas are! He'll just destroy more innocent lives trying to hurt me...us! Nobody on Earth can imprison him. He can break out of anything this soft little planet has to offer! No drugs will harm him! He'll just kill and kill and kill...so unless you can hypnotize him or whatever it is you do...I can't let him live, goddamn it!!"

Seth reeled inside his armor.

"I...I...no, I c-can't do any..." he stammered.

"Then he has to die," she interrupted bitterly. She turned and rammed her hand into the unconscious man viciously. She throttled the life from the Arion heart within seconds. Still she held on, squeezing the muscle until the chamber walls met, her own muscles bunching and vibrating violently. Hot tears ran down her face and still she tore at the silent organ, her teeth chattering with helpless rage.

"F-Fairchild...please, please, my sweet love...he's dead...he's dead..."

Seth's ragged, shell-shocked voice still somehow cut through the turbulent haze of her emotions.

"Fair..." said Seth, reaching for and gently touching her trembling shoulder.

She looked down at the corpse below her and removed her hand in a sudden revulsion, her eyes staring and disgusted at the sight. She turned to her beloved and locked her mind onto him like a drowning mortal.

Her lips quaked with the force of her volcanic emotions. Her white-knuckled fists, too, were shaking, wanting more Arions to destroy. She looked at them with undisguised horror.

"Fairchild..." said Seth, holding her by both shoulders now, "...what have they done to you?"

Her cheeks paradoxically wet yet burning, she lowered her head onto him and forced her vengeful hands to embrace his.

"I'm sorry," was all she said before she broke into a sob.

In that moment, Seth began to hate the Arions...

* * *

"Sir? They're ready to see you now," said the secretary respectfully.

Chris stood up from the bright vermilion sofa he had parked himself on and smiled his thanks to the pale little man.

The secretary, who's name Chris could never remember, opened the door for him and stood aside. Chris strode into the unassuming corridor, mentally making a note to beef up the security in this sensitive area of the complex. He was walking into the control center of the Oahu branch of New Woman and, except for the secretary, it felt nothing so much as like walking to the restroom in a Burger King. He always expected cameras, flashing lights and armed guards.

As usual, the feeling of being underwhelmed culminated with his opening of a plain door into the Operations Room. His cinematic side always envisioned a NORAD-like complex saturated with flat-screen monitors and crisp conversation.

Instead, he stepped into what appeared to be a lower level executive's office: fairly small with a simple desk, a plain grey table with metal folding chairs, one computer, one coffee-maker and a filing cabinet all under excruciatingly normal white acoustical tile.

On the plus side (cinematically speaking), a beautiful woman was rising from behind the desk!

Like most of the women in his life, Aiwi Kirosoka was far more than merely beautiful. She was the Coordinator of Covert Operations for this branch of the New Woman organization. Like most of the administration, she started out as a model, which in and of itself was remarkable. Aiwi was thirty-five years old when she started in the organization's front business five years ago. She stands at just under five feet in her socks. She rarely smiles. But a more fiercely professional person Chris has never met. Within seven months she was a covert agent; after two years an administrator. Today she holds this branch's top position. Chris figured she would make Chief Coordinator within three more years.

"Mr. Frandel, I appreciate your time," she said in perfect English.

"Of course, Aiwi. I assume this is about the Melbourne business?" he asked, closing the door behind him.

"Yes, Mr. Frandel. As you know we lost contact with a remote operative yesterday. I asked Oliver if he could get the Feds to part with some specific spy satellite shots. He came through not two hours ago."

Oliver Nise, Chris knew, was this branch's Government Liaison. Chris had hired him personally.

"What did the photos reveal?" asked Chris.

"Something very disturbing, Mr. Frandel," said Aiwi ominously. "Oliver is in the conference room and will show you himself."

She briskly walked to another nondescript door and allowed Chris to precede her. He did, walking into a smaller room equipped with a screen, an overhead projector, a square metal table and, most importantly, anti-eavesdropping electronics.

Standing up from the only chair was a one-armed man as tall as Aiwi was short. His ice-blue eyes sparkled when they met Chris'.

"How do, sir!" the man said in a warm baritone.

"Hello, Oliver," Chris returned easily. "What do you have for me today?"

The pair shook hands as Aiwi emptied a large cardboard tube of its papers.

"Straight to the point as usual, sir," laughed Oliver, absently rubbing the bridge of his hawkish nose. He turned to Aiwi and helped her spread the sizable papers onto the table as he continued. "I managed to procure some telling snaps from those strumpets down at the BETA and we think you should pop a gander at them," he said.

Chris sometimes found Oliver a bit hard to follow. He knew BETA referred to the newly formed Bureau of Extra-Terrestrial Affairs in the CIA, an organization that Oliver regularly dealt with and for which he had little respect.

"You mean the satellite pictures?" he asked.

"Yes, sir, got Ôem right here," Oliver said, folding the rolls of paper back surprisingly well considering his single limb.

Aiwi took control of the conversation. "These are photos from space of the agent's last known location." As she spoke she pointed to the appropriate place on the picture with a wickedly sharpened nail; a holdover from her front-line days. "Here you can just make out the remains of the cabin where she stayed. Over here," she said, indicating a nearby series of structures, "is where the supposedly abandoned Kintzi base is."

A cold tremor passed briefly through Chris.

"What do you mean Ôsupposedly', Aiwi? You're not saying we sent an agent to watch an active base by mistake, are you?" he said incredulously.

The Coordinator and the Liaison exchanged grim glances.

"The base was investigated by three agents in advance, including your Laura, Mr. Frandel," she said evenly. "The report they gave positively indicated an empty, obviously abandoned facility."

Chris found himself thinking what Laura would say about the phrase Ôyour Laura', but instead said, "But you now believe otherwise?"

Aiwi allowed herself a small sigh. "This area, like most places in Australia, is remote and fairly untouched. Even by transport helicopter it's hard and costly to get to. So if the cabin, say, burned down..."

"Which it looks like it did," Oliver interjected.

"The agent would have little choice but to use the alien base for shelter until help arrived," finished Aiwi.

"But...you don't think she did," guessed Chris.

Aiwi pulled out another satellite picture from underneath the others. It was much darker, except for one very bright spot.

"This is an infrared photo taken from the same satellite," she continued. "The cabin, indeed, appears to have burned down, as you can see from this faint spot here."

Chris studied the photograph. The faint spot she indicated was nearly drowned out by the light from what he assumed was the Kintzi base.

"Well," said Chris thoughtfully, "it does look like she went inside the shelter of the base and built a bonfire, perhaps to signal for help."

"A bonfire, Mr. Frandel?" said Aiwi dryly. "No. A forest fire might produce the kind of heat we see here. And there are no trees to speak of in that part of Australia."

She let the enormity of her words sink into Chris until she could see his shock rise like a specter.

"Mr. Frandel, I'd say the cats came back."

* * *

"Earlier today, a press conference was called and attended by Aurora and the new mystery man simply named the Guardian."

Laura watched as the camera zoomed in on the pair. Fairchild looked strangely exhausted. Also odd, she had on a light green bikini top.

The anchorwoman's voice-over continued.

"The duo, seemingly working together ever since the Ôfalling satellite' incident on Friday, announced to the American public that the nuclear threat to Denver had never existed, and that the whole thing was a criminal hoax."

The camera focused in on the Guardian. Laura noticed that his "public voice" was modified from his own, which made it hard to tell if he sounded tired, too.

"Let me repeat," intoned the Guardian into the cameras, "there was never an atomic bomb. Instead, the entire event was staged to lure Aurora and I into a trap, a trap which failed badly. Needless to say, the Government has custody of the perpetrators."

Another film ran showing men in uniforms marked "F.B.I." leading dark-haired men and women bound in green shackles into a three-and-a-half ton truck, with the beautiful Aurora supervising.

"The identities of the alleged perpetrators," continued the anchorwoman over the film, "are not being released at this time, to aid the F.B.I. in their arrests. However, it is suspected that several casualties resulted from the violent confrontation..."

Here was played an unclear shot of a huge white-draped body being carried by a stretcher into a nondescript black van.

The shot switched back to the conference. An unseen reporter's voice spoke up from the throng.

"Aurora, were there any deaths involved in your confrontation with the terrorists?" he asked.

She looked a little dazed, but focused on the questioner and shook her head.

"No innocent lives, no."

The Guardian immediately qualified the answer: "But several of the criminals...overextended themselves in their efforts to subdue us."

Rather ghoulish laughter played amongst the crowd. Flashbulbs went off continually.

The anchorwoman came back on the screen.

"Unfortunately there had been very few witnesses on the scene, as much of the Denver area had been deserted during the scare," she said briskly. "One man, a parking garage attendant, did catch the beginnings of the incident, but fled soon after."

Laura removed her attention from the television just as a Pakistani man appeared on the screen, wringing his hands and talking into the microphone offered him. She thought she had heard the front door open. Standing up, she realized she had on nothing more than tight navy sweatpants. She smiled wickedly and crossed into the living room.

"Hi, where you guy's been?" asked Laura to the pair before her. Fairchild, still wearing her unusual bikini top along with the standard red skirt and tall boots, turned as if to say something, but scowled slightly when she saw Laura's ultra-casual state of undress.

Laura felt a thick resentment run through her. This was Seth's doing, she thought. Fairchild has never frowned at my tits before!

"We've done five press conferences so far," answered the still-armored Guardian instead. He acted like he had lived around Laura all his life. His easy familiarity grated on her. "Reminded me of home," he finished.

"Then we had to dispose of the Ôairplane' that attacked us before any Terran could get a hold of it," added Fairchild, still watching Laura uneasily.

"And now we're back," Seth said, dropping the armor and stretching, "and I, for one, am going to relax a little."

"I'll be in my room," said Fairchild, starting in that direction. "I'm going to log the Arion contact into the computer. Chris keeps a record for New Woman."

She stopped and turned. "Where is Chris, anyway?"

"He went to the big island. Aiwi had important news to tell him or something," answered Laura, watching Seth pull off his shirt as he trotted off to the bathroom.

Fairchild seemed to consider this a moment, then shrugged and continued to her room. "Thanks," she called back, untying her bikini top as she walked.

But Laura hadn't noticed. She was deep in a nasty fantasy; a fantasy a small but very vocal part of her desperately wanted to fulfill in real life!

She began to think about the many subtle ways she might try to separate Seth from his ring.

She waited until the shower was running, then snuck in very carefully. The steam made her bare nipples erect. His form was visible behind the frosted glass of the shower door. She felt very wicked. But to no avail; the ring, not surprisingly, was not so delicate that Seth could not take a shower with it on. He probably wore it everywhere! She would, if she were a puny man. She crept back out of the half-bath and sat down thoughtfully on one of the two couches in the living room.

It was fifteen minutes later when Seth came back in, dressed in a midnight blue terry robe and carrying a tall glass of pineapple juice. He sat tiredly down on the unoccupied sofa (actually just a love seat), set his glass down on a nearby table and closed his eyes.

Laura pretended to read a National Geographic. She found herself trying to catch him looking at her, but he always seemed to be dozing.

Well, too fucking bad. She cleared her throat.

"First time with the Arions?" she said conversationally.

He opened his eyes a little and said, "Yes. I'm beginning to understand Fairchild's feelings towards them."

"You didn't seem tired at all during the news conference I saw," said Laura. "Fairchild looked beat."

"Believe me, we were both exhausted. But you probably caught the fourth or fifth one. She was very ready to go home by that time."

Laura nodded, trying to feel her way through the conversation. She felt like she was walking a tightrope in pitch darkness. She took another blind step.

"Cool ring," she hazarded. Oh, real subtle, she thought with chagrin.

A smile threatened his lips. "Thanks," he said. He had closed his eyes again.

"How'd you come by it?"

He paused only briefly. "I was given it by aliens who thought I could use it the way they intended," he answered.

"Chris told me you're some kind of police officer where you come from," said Laura.

Another half-smile. "Something like that. Closer to Ôplanetary guardian', as I rarely ever get called back to headquarters."

Laura could sense perspiration gathering under her breasts and on her forehead. She hoped Seth couldn't tell.

"It looks awfully ordinary...kinda like a wedding band..." she said, trying to keep the tremor out of her voice.

"It's supposed to," he said without a trace of suspicion.

Laura could not believe the next words that came out of her mouth.

"Can I see it?"

But her surprise at her audacity was nothing compared to his effortless response!

"Sure. Here..." Opening his eyes and sitting up, he removed the ring from his hand and tossed it to her deftly.

It was pure reflex that allowed her to catch the bright little object. She was struck dumb! How could he be such a fool?! What was she missing?

Still thunderstruck, she barely registered the fantastic piece of jewelry in her powerful hand. She looked up at him. He was leaning back, his eyes closed again!

Waiting for her voice to return, she dazedly studied the ring. It did indeed appear to be a wide silver men's wedding band. It looked to have a dull, brushed finish. Peering closely, however, revealed an extraordinarily complex surface pattern resembling thousands of computer circuits so densely packed together as to give the impression of brushed metal.

A thought struck her mind; a thought so evil it seemed alien to the rest of her. She was so consumed by anger and contempt she managed to ignore the larger part of her that was begging for her to reconsider.

She slowly looked back up at Seth. He was still oblivious, apparently dozing. She carefully looked back down at the ring. Moving leisurely, she closed her left hand about the ring like a sundew trapping an insect.

Her left arm swelled like a balloon inflating. Her hand began to shake with the strain, but she continued to increase the awesome pressure on the ring. Her conscience now screamed at her to cease, to consider the consequences should she succeed, but to no avail. Her bitter resentment of Seth's intrusion, of Fairchild's betrayal supplied the energy pulsing in her hand.

In her mind's eye she saw the ring deform and compress, the intricate traceries warped to the point of uselessness. And all the while the insipid little man across from her was ignorant of his peril, relaxing on the love seat after a hard day's work with her lover! Well, they wouldn't make a good team now, would they! The coldest part of her mind was wallowing in the image of Fairchild accidentally compressing Seth in the same way his ring was now being crushed...Ooops, Fair would say, so sorry...so sorry, Sethie...oh, well...back to good ol' Laura and Chris...what was she thinking with such a little...ow...OW!!!

Her fantasy evaporating, Laura opened her hand in alarm. The ring...the ring was whole! It was her hand that she had felt deforming!

The skin had not broken, of course, but there were white, bloodless marks where the ring had pressed into her flesh. It had hurt! And the ring wasn't even warm!

She looked up to see Seth calmly gazing at her. Discomfited beyond reason, she wondered how much he had seen. In a mental panic, she searched for the lost thread of the conversation.

"Uh..." she began lamely, "...what, uh...how does it work?"

This time a full smile lit upon his lips, but it was seemingly innocent of any knowledge of her treachery.

"Like a charm," he said, winking.

Laura found herself staring at him...but before she could speak again she heard Fairchild's voice calling to Seth.

"Just a minute! I can't hear you!" he hollered. Without another look he stood up and strode off to Fair's room, wrapping his robe about him.

Laura, all alone, blinked a few times, nonplused. Looking down, she was quite surprised to see she still had the ring...

* * *

Bathed in the glow of the computer screen, Fairchild finished the sentence she was typing then turned her head to see Seth enter her room. He closed the door behind him.

She turned back to her report.

"Could you give me an account of your side of the fight, Seth? I need it for the report," she inquired.

"Sure," he said, then proceeded to relay his point of view. While he was doing this he stood behind her and caressed her bare neck and back.

Ten minutes later she saved the report to disk, shut down the computer, and gave a heartfelt sigh. She closed her eyes and tried to relax as her love touched all the right places and gave her goose bumps. When he gently brushed her stiffened nipples she opened her eyes and got something of a shock.

"Seth..." she said slowly, "...where's your ring?"

He traced his long-fingered hands around her firm breasts. "I gave it to Laura to look at," he answered.

She turned back to look at him, a little wide-eyed.

"You...was that wise?" she asked, raising her eyebrows.

He shook his head, as if in answer. "I hope so," he spoke. "I think it's the only way she can get to trust me." He ran his fingers through her fine, light blond hair.

She shivered in involuntary pleasure, but still wore a concerned countenance.

"The way she's been acting lately, I...well, I'm not sure I'd trust her not to Ôlose' the ring, or something," she said.

This time he nodded. "She just now tried to crush it."

When Fairchild found her voice again, she cried, "What??"

"Yep. Before you called me in here."

Rubbing her temples as if experiencing one too many surprises for one day, she looked dazed. "I swear," she said softly, "maybe I don't know her quite as well as I thought I did." She raised her head to fix on Seth. "We've got to get that thing away from her..."

Seth frowned, but did not stop touching her.

"No," he said, obviously uncertain. "No, I think it really is the only way to get in her good graces. If she's weaker than you, physically, then the ring's in no danger whatsoever. And I can sense it's general location at any time. For instance," he nodded in the direction of the front door, "she's leaving the house with it now." He frowned again. "I admit I'm concerned, but she's been your companion for years, now. I trust your judgment of her, even if you don't."

He said this last smiling easily at Fairchild. He massaged her scalp roughly, which suited her fine.

"Why don't you just...I don't know...do to her whatever you did to Chris to make him like you?" she asked, her lids half closed.

"I didn't Ômake him like me'," said Seth. "I cannot get anybody to do something they wouldn't want to do, deep down, unless they were very weak willed, drugged, or in some other very suggestible state."

He started massaging her neck again. Fairchild found that despite his lack of strength he really managed to give her some powerful sensations. Just like the time he was tickling her...

"No," he continued, "Chris respects authority. I sensed this pretty early on. I made myself an authority figure in his eyes. He's still jealous of me, but at least he feels he's Ôlosing out' to someone he can respect. I don't consider him to be an inferior in any way. Christ, he was here first. But something in Chris needs a pecking order, I think."

Fairchild smiled. She had noticed that trait in Chris. He was much more complex than that, but she saw where Seth was coming from.

"And Laura?"

Seth frowned again. "Laura I'm not so sure about, but she's obviously not a Ôteam player' like Chris. I think she's more of a Ôdominator' type. You may not feel that from her, because she's chosen you to look up to. But I'm willing to bet you're the only one."

Fairchild thought about this. This much was true: Laura couldn't stand people who were weak. Unfortunately, that included most of the planet!

"She respects strength," she volunteered.

"Yes, but she certainly doesn't see me as strong. And I suspect if I tried to exert my will over her, she'd just go ballistic."

Fairchild laughed. "She is strong-willed!"

"Exactly. She'd hate me even more."

"So you gave her your ring? I'm not sure I follow that," Fairchild said, leaning into his touch.

Seth sighed. "I'm not sure either, honestly. I was hoping to show her that I trusted her...that I wasn't a competitor out to take her lover away."

Fairchild nearly froze. Seth paused in concern for a moment, then chuckled, resuming his sensuous stroking.

Fairchild found her mouth was dry. "So," she said carefully, "she told you about that?"

There was a pause.

"No," he said gently.

There was another pause.

"You're a damn good judge of character, you know that?" she said, letting both amazement and exasperation into her voice.

"A side effect of the willpower thing, I guess," he said, moving his hands down again onto her chest.

No one talked while Fairchild thought, rocking back and forth as Seth massaged her.

"How do you feel...about...about that?" she eventually asked, slowly and softly.

He started working on her breasts again, rubbing the firm orbs solidly.

"Do you love her? Her, and Chris? Do you love them?" he asked.

"Yes..." she nearly moaned, sounding just a little afraid.

"Then I have no problem. My parents were polyamorous, and I was raised in something of an extended family for about a decade. I wasn't really sure if I considered myself to be that way until...well, until I became a Guardian and got a much bigger view of the human condition."

He chuckled again.

"Besides, with your libido, alien, I would have been disturbed if you said you didn't have numerous partners!"

She laughed with great relief, then gasped as he tweaked a nipple. She suddenly felt light...lighter in spirit than she had any right to be.

She surprised him by standing and picking him up effortlessly. She threw him onto her bed, where he fell breathless, nearly shrieking in an unmanly manner.

She hopped in next to him on the queen-sized bed.

"One bad thing, though," he said, embracing her.

"What," she said, hugging him back and incidentally getting his robe off.

"Without the ring, we really can't have sex," he said, mock seriously.

"Oh, I've been in this kind of situation before, dear," she said reprovingly, teasing him. "I bet I can think of something."

She slid her boots and skirt off with practiced motions. Instead of jumping his bones, however, she forced herself to slow down. She snuggled closely against his full length, feeling his warmth, breathing in the freshly-showered smells of his body.

She repeatedly caressed his side from his arm to his thigh in long, languid strokes. Soon their breathing quieted, even though they were both quite aroused by now.

They looked into each other's eyes for a long time.

Finally she smiled. "You must be a good hypnotist."

"Yes, actually, I am. Kind of a natural, I guess."

"Really?" she asked, not truly surprised. "You've hypnotized people in your role as Guardian?"

"Oh, no, not as the Guardian," he said. "This was before that, in high school. I helped some of my friends relax before finals, or before a hot date."

She considered this. "So you've always been strong-willed?"

He waggled his head, playing at being pompous. "Strong-willed? My dear, I won't have you insult me with such an understatement. I'll have you know that out of the five billion most willful people on Ômy' Earth, I tested out at number five!"

"What?" she asked, her brow furrowed.

He dropped the fake demeanor.

"No, really. The Master Guardians actually can measure willpower as a tangible thing, or so they say. When they were searching for a Terran to become a Guardian, they first picked out the most powerfully-willed people on the planet. Then, working from the top down, they eliminated from the list anyone who was emotionally or ethically unsuitable for their purposes. When they got to me, they found the person they were looking for. I even had the bonus of being particularly motivated, because..." he broke off, suddenly uncomfortable.

She finished for him, understanding and gentle: "Because you had lost family when the alien attacked the islands..."

He nodded, avoiding her eyes now.

"So, anyway..." he eventually continued, "I was number five on that list, I learned later."

Fairchild could hardly comprehend the numbers. "Number five out of five billion people...no wonder you seem psychic!"

Suddenly inspired, Seth sat up. "Here, let me show you a trick you haven't seen before. I can't really read minds or control someone's thoughts, but I can do something else that most people think borders on science fiction..."

Interested, Fairchild sat up and watched as Seth got out of bed, found a penny, balanced it on edge on top of her desk and then got back into bed.

"This isn't going to be spectacular, but...well, just watch," he said.

Fairchild did as she was asked and observed as he stared at the penny six feet away from him. She glanced over at the penny, but saw nothing unusual. But after fifteen seconds went by the penny slowly but definitely rolled towards Seth, until it fell off the edge of the desk!

She looked back at Seth, who was smiling in satisfaction and blinking to refocus his eyes.

"That was neat!" she exclaimed.

"Yeah, I think so, too, but it sure as hell isn't a very useful talent," he said, laying back down. "I can't move much more than the weight of a penny, unless maybe it was a real emergency. And it really helps if it can roll. But what kind of emergency would require me to remotely move a penny?" he said, humorously.

"True," agreed Fairchild reluctantly. "But I still think it's neat." She lay back down with him and resumed stroking his skin.

"Well, thanks. You must be in love," he said tenderly.

She looked deeply into his eyes again; it was her favorite place to be, she was discovering.

"I do, you know," she whispered minutes later, her heart full. "I do love you. So very much." A tear wandered down to her nose.

He rescued it with his finger. He placed the shining bead on her semi-stiff nipple and smiled.

She giggled quietly. Her hand reached for his erection and held him firmly.

An idea made her eyes twinkle.

"What?" asked Seth, noticing.

"You don't have your ring on," she announced sexily.

"Uh...yyyes?" he said, puzzled.

"Oh, the fun I'm going to have with you..!" she grinned toothily.

"And what...yipe!" he exclaimed, as the superwoman gathered his wrists up in her other hand! She raised his arms roughly past his head.

"Ack!" he cried out. "Hey, it's me, remember? Flesh and blood?" He was beginning to sweat.

She vigorously stroked the length of his erection.

"Oh, don't worry, my love...I won't hurt you...too much!" She licked her lips, carefully watching his level of arousal.

"Uhh! Ohhh..." he groaned, his cock swelling painfully. "What are you trying to do...make the (pant!) gold in the Olympic hand-job event?"

"No no, Seth, you don't understand. You're not going to come unless and until you beg for it. Even if it takes hours..."

His eyes went wide. "Hey, I'm easy! Please, please make me come, Mistress!"

She laughed a devious little laugh. This was getting her so wet!

"No, I mean when you really beg for it!" she said. Her hand was nearly vibrating on his member now, but when his eyes started to glaze over she stopped and pinched his cockhead.

"Ahh! Ah! Ow!" he cried, losing a little tumescence.

But then her hand started up again. Between her tireless stimulation and the fantastic pheromones she was giving off, she brought Seth to the edge of climax numerous times, only to stop abruptly before he could spend.

She stood up, bringing her helpless charge along with her, dangling from his captive wrists. She held him high and teased his now purple erection with her lips. With her other hand she gently fondled his balls, rolling them within their tightening pouch.

Seth gasped and moaned above her. When she finally engulfed his cock within her hot mouth his breathing almost ceased! She sucked on him with a force a human woman could not manage, drawing it even tighter inside her.

"Oh, God, that hurts..." he moaned, but he didn't sound like it was pain he was entirely feeling! Still, she eased up a bit and licked the underside of his veined shaft with her tongue. With her fingers she found the spot between his balls and his anus and pressed firmly.

"Oh! C-coming..!" he yelled.

"Oh no you're not," she said around his aching shaft and pressed his perineum hard!

"Aaaggh! Uh...uh..." he panted. He groaned in pleasurable agony when she started sucking again!

After ten more minutes of this he was panting uncontrollably; after a half-hour he suddenly calmed down, becoming nearly motionless.

Fairchild disengaged her mouth from his raging stiffness and brought his face down to hers in concern. His eyes were focused inwards. His breathing deepened.

She glanced down to see his cock swell slightly all by itself! He was willing himself to come!

"No you don't! No you don't!!" she commanded, throwing him down on the bed. She immediately reached between his legs and grabbed his sack roughly. She pulled, drawing his heavy balls away from his body.

He whimpered, unable to come. She looked into his eyes.

"Not until you beg for it, boy...not until I hear you beg!" she growled.

His lips worked for a second before a sound came out.

"P-please..." he managed hoarsely.

"Not good enough," she decided.

She swung her hips over his head and took his priapic organ into her mouth again. She began to lower her yearning pussy onto his face when he heard him whisper urgently.

"No, I can't do that. Listen to me...I mustn't do that right now..." he said very seriously.

She was confused. He didn't balk at licking her before! But he sounded extremely sincere so she let it go for now. Instead, she moved her shapely legs and hips to one side of him and continued to suck strenuously. He cried out again from the overwhelming sensation, the fantastic pressures inside of him.

Fairchild had some pressures building up inside her, too! She groaned at the powerful feelings completely dominating this man generated in her. Her tits tingled and her nipples were pulsing in time with her neglected clitoris.

After another ten minutes of intense sensual torture Seth could do little but gurgle powerlessly. His mind, potent though it was in some respects, was lost in a red haze of animal passion and agony. He felt himself almost black out several times. His penis was the center of his universe now; try as he might he couldn't think past it! His strong lover's incredible stamina was unstoppable. Without his ring, he couldn't take control of her overwhelming libido, so he had no way to counter her punishment.

Suddenly, she stopped sucking his twitching manhood and brought her face to his. With one hand she grabbed his chin and shook him until he focused his glassy eyes onto hers. With her other hand she started jacking him off again!

"Would you like to come, lover?" she said sweetly, when she had his attention again.

"Unnng...uhhh..." he vocalized.

"Seth? Would you like to come now? Just ask nicely..." She stopped jacking him, pinching his cockhead again instead.

"Oh GOD!" he yelled between clenched teeth. His jaw muscles worked beneath his skin convulsively.

She began to stimulate him again.

"C'mon...just beg for it...c'mon..." she cooed. She was on the edge herself!

His eyes almost frantic, every fiber in his being screaming for sweet release, his throat worked again.

"...please...make me come...please?"

Fairchild's eyes rolled back into her head as she reached a mind-blowing climax herself! Completely off guard, she threw herself away from her vulnerable lover and thrashed convulsively around her room, destroying two wooden chairs and narrowly missing her computer!

"Ahhh! Ahhh!" she cried, utterly taken aback at the intensity of her reaction! Fearful for her love she tried to cut short her orgasm, but how do you stop a climax that required no touching to start? Everything she did seemed to prolong the delicious convulsions.

After more than a minute, still somewhat caught in orgasm, she struggled over to her suffering lover. He lay there, apparently paralyzed, panting in short, fast gasps like an overheated dog.

Fighting her rebellious muscles and feeling renewed pleasure building inside of her at his helpless state, she lightly touched his burgundy cock and whispered hoarsely into his ear...

"You may come, my d-dearest love..."

His back arching almost impossibly, his entire body went into a startling rictus! His bellow was raucous and painful-sounding, leaping from his throat like the first burst of semen shooting from his cock. The pearly jet spattered upon the wall, as did the second and third ejaculations. He pumped and continued pumping, layering his chest, face and hair with his thick spend.

Fairchild fell to the floor, curled up in a ball, her body flushed and racked with a series of small but encompassing orgasms. Her hand was pressed between her spasming thighs, simultaneously urging on her climaxes and trying to prevent them.

Continuous moans and ragged panting filled the small room for many minutes, until Passion lifted her sticky hand and let the lovers rest.

* * *

Never before in her life had Laura's head and her heart disagreed so completely.

She walked aimlessly along the rolling surf of the island. She was in such turmoil she had little sense of where she traveled, or for how long. Her sweatpants were soaked to the waist for absently wandering too far into the waves. Her left hand constantly toyed with Seth's wondrous ring: twirling it, tossing it, even putting it on experimentally. She was not surprised at all to discover she could not activate the damn thing.

A growing part of her was screaming for even thinking about destroying the ring, while her resentful heart demanded that she throw it as far out into the ocean as she had strength. Her restless hand was a mirror of that struggle.

She could hardly bring herself to believe that losing Seth would truly alienate Fairchild for long. Let's face it...Seth was no David. Fair had clearly (she told herself) fallen in "love" with what the ring could do. Sure, she'd miss it at first. Yes, she be pissed at Laura for tossing it. But in the long run it would be for the best. And then things could get back to the way they were. Fair and Laura...and, of course, Chris.

Laura found herself standing amidst a rocky part of the beach. She looked down. She was standing no longer on sand but on very rough black lava rock. Her feet were inches from the lip of the rock. Below that the ledge fell away sharply. Every few seconds the waves would explode upwards from beneath, almost directly under her. Farther away lumpy turrets of lava stood like Hell's sentries, slowly but constantly being gnawed away by the incessant flux of the rushing water.

Almost as if in a trance Laura found her left arm drawing back. It dawned on her, with some satisfaction, that she had decided to cast the token after all. Once amongst the rock and sand only Fairchild could find it, and only then if she knew where to look. And Laura wasn't going to tell!

Her arm rocketed forward.

"No!" she cried. Her arm halted in mid swing.

With her arm still out, Laura shook her head in mad amazement. This is what it's like to go insane, she thought. How could I be doing this? I'll be ruining a man's chances to return home...tearing apart a real superhero, nearly as good as Aurora...I'll be crushing Fair's heart, even if only temporarily...and hell, he's probably madly in love with her..!

Shaking her head again at how close she had come to committing a truly evil and petty act, she looked in her outstretched hand at the little silver miracle she held.

And froze.

The ring was gone.

Just then she heard a pure, high tone, like a metal ring hitting a distant rock. Focusing past her paralyzed arm, she saw the waves swallow up a silver shaft of light nearly ninety feet away.

Son of a BITCH!!!

She really did it! She really threw the damn thing in the drink without meaning to! But, Jesus Christ in a canoe, no one was going to believe that!

Finally getting the use of her arm back, Laura brought her hands up to her sweating face as if to shield her senses from the reality of it all. What the hell was she going to do?? Fair would really and truly kill her! Or, worse yet, she would dismiss her...cast her out of paradise...

Laura could not face that possibility. Looking around her to make sure no one had observed, she instinctively drew a large breath and dove into the warm saltwater below.

Without seriously enhanced vision, the odds of finding the ring in the turbulent water were slim. But she wasn't coming back up until she did!

* * *

"It's funny how agony can make you smile," Seth said to himself.

After he had recovered enough to move, Seth had gotten up weakly from bed, stepped over a groggy goddess and made his way to the bathroom to wash. Midway there, he thought how a swim in the ocean would accomplish the same thing and be much more fun. So he went back, nabbed some brand-new swimtrunks, put them on with embarrassing difficulty, and limped outdoors.

Almost every muscle in his body trembled and complained, but it only served to remind him of his near-religious experience in bed with Fairchild! And that made him smile.

"I have truly seen the Goddess this day," he said quietly.

He realized he was talking to himself. He did not usually talk to himself, he conversed silently with his ring. He was beginning to miss it.

Finally making it to the beach (it seemed farther away when he could not fly), Seth concentrated on his ring's location. He "felt" it nearly a half-mile away, stationary for the time being. Hopefully, Laura still had it in her possession and he hadn't made a gross error when judging her!

He was moderately confident of his assessment, on the other hand, so he first waded into the tide and rinsed the cum from his hair and skin.

Thus refreshed he set out to find Laura.

He found the walk a little tiring in his condition, but peaceful. He needed the rest. The fight with the Arions had really taken more out of him than he was fully prepared to admit to himself.

"And Fairchild...she took a lot out of me!" he grinned.

He thought back again to the recent sexual marathon. He had been honestly terrified when his love had presented her vulva to his face; he had been afraid he wouldn't have been able to stop her. But much earlier his ring had detected powerful mutagenic properties in her cum.

Truth was, he would love to taste her! And he suspected the "mutagenic properties" are what happened to Laura and possibly Chris, so that wouldn't be so bad, either.

But his ring was set only to activate when in contact with his DNA...and Seth Abrons wouldn't be Seth Abrons after swallowing Fairchild's juices as far as his ring would be concerned.

After all, he had to get home. God damn it.

"God damn it all," he grumbled.

He stopped. His inner sense told him his ring was only a hundred yards away, but he still didn't see Laura anywhere. Not only that, be he was hearing some sort of nearly subliminal hum. He could not identify nor locate it, but it was getting swiftly louder. What the hell..?

Seth saw the flying saucer only when it was nearly on top of him! He staggered backwards, his mind attempting to handle yet another shock. An oval disk about as big as a Mississippi barge wobbled very slightly in mid-air, causing the air around it to shimmer.

Even though it was still four hundred feet up, Seth could make out a human form on its lip, acting like it was going to jump to the surface.

And it did! Sand exploded around the impact, spraying Seth and getting into his eyes. He tried to scramble away blindly, but fell sideways on the soft sand before he had gone twenty feet.

"Rikhta ki re traclia, manak be ," said the presence in a deep male tone colored with obvious derision.

Seth panicked.

"Aurora?! Laura?!" he shouted desperately! Still blinded he felt a massive hand grab him by his throat and lift him clear off the ground!

"Who are you, little man?" the Arion said, switching to heavily accented English. "One of those pathetic ÔNew Woman' agents?"

Seth's presence of mind returned.

"Yes...I mean, no! I'm n-not going to tell you!" he stammered very convincingly from under the hand on his windpipe.

The Arion laughed heartily. Then Seth heard him plant something into the sand.

"Well, we shall find out soon enough! You are coming with me!" he crowed.

The Arion gathered him in his arms and launched himself with tremendous force towards the shuttle above him. He held Seth so tightly the relatively frail human passed out!

* * *

Laura was swimming just under the sun-glazed surface when she felt something latch onto her hair and lift her bodily out of the water!

"Where the hell is Seth!!" screamed Fairchild furiously into her startled face.

Laura's mouth was opening and closing as if Fairchild had caught herself a most amazing fish. She noticed in the back of her mind that they were still thirty feet from the beach. Fairchild was standing above the turbulent water holding her by the roots of her invulnerable hair. Fair's eyes sparkled an ominous violet.

"Answer me, goddamn it!" she roared, shaking Laura as if to loosen her mouth. "And where did the Arions go?"

Laura was completely lost. "What?" she squeaked. "What Arions?"

"The ones who left this!" Fairchild then brandished in her other hand an odd scepter about three feet long. It was a vaguely metallic indigo rod with a wider cylinder on top.

"What-what is that?" asked Laura, trying to make sense of all this.

"Oh, for G...it's an Arion message marker. What is wrong with you? How could you miss Arions just a hundred feet away?!"

"I-I was underwater for a long time...I didn't hear..."

"What were you doing? Have you seen Seth? Did you give him his ring back?" Fairchild spat in rapid fire.

"I-I-oh, boy..." Laura tried to get a hold of herself.

"ANSWER ME, LAURA!" screamed Fairchild.

"I a-accidentally lost the ring in the surf..." she tried.

Fairchild's face went white. Laura could literally feel the heat from her eyes.

"You..." she began, her voice sounding utterly different.

"It really was an accident, I swear to you! That's why I was down for so long...I needed to find it before Seth...missed...uh, F-Fair?" Laura stuttered, watching anxiously as tears ran down her love's pale cheeks.

Fairchild's words were barely above the sound of the surf.

"I th-think they have Seth..."

"Why? What would he be doing...", started Laura, but then a light sparked inside her mind. "Oh, shit, he could tell where the ring was..."

Still holding her by her scalp, Fairchild flew the dripping woman to the dry sand and released her ungently. Wordlessly, she glared at Laura while twisting the rod's cylinder a quarter-turn. An Arion voice filled the humid air with thickly accented English.

"Aurora and Guardian...we have tracked you to your island with ease, but refuse to fight you on your home ground. To ensure your cooperation with our choice of location, we will take an inhabitant of your island, trusting that you will show the same regard for the mewling little Terrans that you have in the past. Don't worry about our captive's safety...only the finest harm will come to it!"

The machine gave a tiny whine and stopped.

"Can you tell where they've taken him? Are you sure he's gone?" asked Laura.

Settling fitfully to the ground, the nude goddess walked to the lip of the crag and scanned the water intently. "I have no idea where they've gone," she growled at the sea.

"But why would they challenge you to a fight and then not tell you where it's to be held?"

Fairchild spun so violently on Laura that the shorter woman reflexively brought her arms up to shield herself!

"Because they don't really care about the captive! It'd be fun for them to just get another and another because they know it'll hurt me!" She advanced on Laura menacingly. "I can't see the ring, and I don't have time to look. If Seth were here he could point to it and I could get it, but he's not here..." Her demeanor began to break. "Lord, if they find out he's the Guardian...!"

Laura stood silently in her wet sweatpants.

Regaining her temper, Fairchild grabbed Laura by the arm.

"C'mon, Laura. The ring's lost until Seth can find it. Chris just got in fifteen minutes ago; he may be able to help us locate where they've taken Seth."

"Help...us?" Laura said slowly.

"Damn straight. Once we find out where they are, you're coming with me to get Seth back. Hopefully...hopefully you can explain to him personally how you Ôaccidentally' lost his ring!"

After only a couple of minutes both women were standing with Chris in the living room. Fairchild and Chris were speaking to each other rapidly in very serious tones; Laura merely stared straight ahead, letting events wash over her.

Fairchild looked to where Chris was pointing on a satellite photograph. "It can't be coincidence! All this Arion activity and this ex-Kintzi base...the Arions must have claimed it!"

Chris frowned, but nodded. "We have no hard evidence, but I would have to agree it's very likely."

Fairchild bit her lip. Then she sharply nodded once.

"That's it, then. That's where we'll try."

Chris reached for her arm as she turned.

"Fair..."

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye.

He continued. "You two come back alive, okay?" he said. "Preferably with a third in tow..." he tried, smiling sadly.

But Fairchild would have none of it.

Still looking askance, she said "If I can't bring Seth back..." and, leaving it at that, grabbed a doll-like Laura and left the house.

* * *

Seth felt his eyelids pried effortlessly open. First his left, then his right were being examined, as if in a doctor's office.

But this was no Terran office. He was in a dark, slate grey room sitting in a cold and uncomfortable chair. A somewhat bony Arion with slicked-back hair was peering at his face and speaking into a spherical recording device.

"Manak be dekhta tris, etekh be mur pytill..." intoned the Arion into the machine, squinting at Seth's features.

Suddenly a lower voice spoke behind Seth, out of his field of vision.

"Jala mekht ri cama Lytarr dokh, ne? " it gargled.

The first Arion, who was probably small enough to be a Beta, glanced up at the hidden voice with a mixture of irritation and fear.

"Ki kecht," he replied.

The Beta scuttled out of Seth's sight, while the possessor of the lower voice walked into view. It was an Alpha male, probably the Arion that had captured him.

With an inquisitive, smirking face, the Alpha placed one meaty finger lightly upon Seth's breastbone. Then, as if testing a loaf of bread for freshness, the alien pressed once and released.

"Aaooww..!" exhaled Seth involuntarily, feeling his sternum bend and crack slightly.

The Alpha chuckled at his captive's pain from such a dainty touch.

The Beta came back into view, rolling a cart with an odd, hemispherical contraption on top of it. The alien device had thousands of small, needle-like projections all over its convex surface. Next to that was an elongated red box very much like a remote control for a VCR.

"I shall leave you in the capable hands of the doctor, Earthman," grated the Alpha. "I am sure you will have...an interesting time," he said, grinning broadly.

As the Alpha left through unseen doors, the "doctor" lifted the spiny device and placed it concave side down so it fit over Seth's head.

The Beta took the remote in his hand and leaned into Seth's face.

"Now," he said in English, "you will tell me exactly who you are..."

* * *

Laura hated outer space. She had no choice, however, but to experience the biting "thrill" of hard vacuum as she road on the curvaceous missile that was Fairchild...no, Aurora. She was clearly in "Aurora" mode. Laura had never seen her so intense before. She had even insisted that Laura ride on her instead of with her, because Laura could only go about half as fast as her lover.

The enormity of what had transpired still hadn't quite hit Laura's gut yet. She was just now realizing...they may never see Seth again...not alive, anyway. A part of her was very cold to that possibility, as cold as the airless space she was rocketing through. But a growing part of her...the part that adored Aurora more than freedom or life...the part untouched by the anger and pride that was so much a part of her...that part was just figuring out that maybe...

Maybe Aurora really, genuinely loved Seth...not just the Guardian...loved him so much that he was now irrevocably a part of her and her of him. Loved him so deeply that if he should be taken away from her forcefully, she would never be quite the same person again. The Aurora Laura knew and loved would change forever.

But it was so hard to imagine...

* * *

Back in after leaving Doctor Hanak alone with his subject for almost an hour, Lieutenant Jreder returned to visit the Terran he himself had captured.

He knocked at the interrogation room's door; not so much out of politeness but to make sure he did not interrupt a sensitive stage of the procedure. The doctor opened the door for the officer.

"Are you finished?" he asked the Beta in the Arion language.

"Yes, sir," came the businesslike reply. "I have him still activated, but he is in a docile Ôstand by' mode."

The Alpha stepped inside the small room. He saw the Terran sitting slackly in the chair, his eyes half-closed, a bit of saliva inching its way down the corner of his mouth. As the doctor had indicated, he was still strapped into the Mental Probe.

"What have you concluded, Doctor Hanak?"

"If I may be complimentary of the enemy, sir, I'd have to say that New Woman is a soundly professional espionage organization," said the doctor.

"Why? What makes you say that?"

"They know enough not to tell their agents anything important," he confessed. He reached for an electronic note pad.

"He resisted the Mental Probe?" the Alpha asked, skeptically.

"Oh, no sir, nothing like that...no subject has ever put up more than a token resistance to the Probe in its history. Instead, all we really learned about, uh," he consulted the pad, "...Steven Abrons is his age, that he's an agent of New Woman, he has an unrequited crush for Aurora, and endless details about his unhappy marriage and family life."

"Did you ask him about New Woman strategies and plans?" growled the Lieutenant incredulously.

Doctor Hasak looked annoyed. "Of course,sir. That's standard procedure."

"And..?"

The Beta sighed. "As I said, he was ignorant of anything but commonly known facts. He wanted to tell me...he was eager to...but they never told him more than he needed to know."

"What was he doing on the island, then?"

Another sigh. "Believe it or not, he was on vacation. He wanted to be near Aurora," he explained, shrugging.

Impatiently, Jreder took the pad from the doctor's hand and read over the contents. His stark features softened somewhat after a minute.

"You did get a great deal of information..." he said, blandly impressed.

The doctor was full of sighs today. He nodded, too. "Yes, his pets' names are...let me think... ÔFreya, Misha, and Tinkerbell'."

"Tinkerbell?" the Lieutenant asked, eyebrows upraised.

"Yes, one decent Arion name in the bunch. My senior officer in basic training was Tinkerbell."

The Alpha nodded, looking back down at the pad again.

"I commend you on the thoroughness of your efforts, Doctor. It's too bad the Terran makes such a poor informant," he said, giving the pad back and standing up. "His saving grace as far as Lytarr is concerned is that he may still make an exemplary hostage. In fact, we have detected a semi-ballistic object reentering the planet's atmosphere that is quite probably the Veloran. If it is her, she will be here in less than twenty minutes, so finish up." He turned to look at the insensate Terran again, then left the room and shut the door behind him.

"That was fast," the Beta said under his breath. He wearily walked to the subject, checked the various connections and turned to check the power supply. He reached for the control baton. After a couple of seconds of pawing around for it blindly, he sighed again in mild exasperation and visually searched for the thing. Puzzled, he realized it wasn't on the table where he thought he had left it.

Just then something dropped over his head! Before he could even cry out his brain was flooded with synapse-dampening energy, making him limp as a noodle. He fell into Seth's arms, who then lowered him into the chair.

Wiping at the corner of his own mouth, Seth squinted at the remote control in the dim light. Half closed eyes also meant half open, and he had been studying the technician's every move as best he could. He tried to ignore the ferocious headache that assaulted his temples as he examined the buttons closely.

He chose what he thought might be the correct ones. Pressing them, the doctor stiffened slightly, his eyes widening. Seth leaned in closely to the Arion's face.

"Now, Doctor, I want you to tell me, in English, everything that you know about the layout of this base..."

* * *

"Why don't we just plow into them?" asked Laura. She was still riding on Aurora's naked back, clutching her shoulders. "Y'know, catch Ôem by surprise."

"Because they wouldn't be surprised," Aurora said tersely. "I'm sure they know we're here. What I'd like to do is drop a thousand ton rock on them from orbit, but Seth is probably in there."

The pair were floating in the lower atmosphere about four miles up and two hundred miles away from the base. Aurora could see it clearly enough to determine that the base was lead-shielded, as expected.

Aurora felt Laura shifting.

"Stop squirming up there," she snapped.

"Sorry, just hiking up what's left of my sweatpants," said Laura, sheepishly.

Aurora made a face Laura could not see. "Oh, so suddenly you're modest now!"

"Hey, you want me to fly, I'll fly!" shouted Laura.

Aurora shook her head. "I apologize. For now. But if Seth doesn't make it out of this in one piece...I will never forgive you."

"I know," Laura said, lowering her voice.

There was an uncomfortable silence. The thin, cold wind blew sharply through very blond hair.

"I guess the front door is out, too," Laura said eventually.

"Yes, I thought of that," Aurora replied. "It would be just their style to strap Seth helplessly there, waiting for us to barge on through and pulverize him. Besides, going in through a wall will probably bypass any gold chains, orgone generators, and Goddess knows what else..."

Another long silence stretched out into the wind.

"Aurora, what are we waiting for?" asked Laura. She wasn't impatient, but honestly curious.

"We'll go when I'm ready!!" yelled Aurora into the air.

Laura felt her love's steely muscles trembling under her hands as if in terrible effort. Sweat evaporated into the dry atmosphere as soon as it formed on her back. Laura, her heart close to breaking, held her lover tightly and closed her eyes.

If the Arions knew what prize they had (and by now, how could they not) then they certainly knew they had Aurora in the palm of their collective hand. Aurora was trapped between a rock and a hard place...and although her awesome body was invulnerable, her spirit was starting to crack.

Laura's eyes opened. "A-Aurora..."

"What," she asked tiredly.

Laura paused, then, fighting within herself, swallowed what she was going to say.

She hiked up her sweatpants unnecessarily. "We have no time for this. Let's get them," she said instead.

Aurora took in a deep breath and let it out.

"You're right," she said emotionlessly. Laura felt the woman's rear flex powerfully beneath her hips and the two heroes sped forward!

Laura had a hard time seeing anything with Aurora's hair lashing at her face, but she did catch glimpses of the base sparkling in the early morning Australian sun. It was mostly a collection of dusty, squat domes sitting in a large sinkhole about a quarter-mile across, just as she had left it. She knew from visiting that the domes were connected underground. The tunnels had largely been inaccessible at the time. She suspected that was no longer the case.

The two golden women set foot on the bare earth mere meters from the largest of the domes. Aurora did not hesitate this time...she strode up to the dusty chrome surface and punched her way inside! The alien alloy barely withstood the first two strikes before breaching explosively.

Laura followed the Veloran rather than make her own entrance. As soon as the pair entered the dimly lit interior they were assaulted on two fronts: a squad of Betas with combat pazers started firing instantly; and powerful wall-mounted energy cannons blazed away at the duo!

Laura was forced to her knees, but Aurora vaporized the Betas with ferociously delivered bolts from her glaring eyes! Still under attack from the cannons, she helped Laura up and waded through the barrage into the next room.

"Ah, my pants!" cried Laura as the fierce energy caused most of what remained to burn. Laura scrabbled at her crotch.

"What is with you and those pants?" exclaimed Aurora. "I have seen your naked ass before!"

"Never mind, it's okay..." said Laura as the rest of her covering disappeared into smoke.

"What a time for you to go crazy," said Aurora in pain and bewilderment. She was about to grab Laura and drag her if necessary when a large fist slammed into Aurora's head and sent her sprawling!

The Arion Alpha, smiling in pleasure, picked up an orgone projector and leveled it at Aurora.

Laura flew for his legs! With incredible strength she tackled him, sending the device flying into a wall. In a heartbeat Aurora was on top of him, too, her fists a blur! But an energy blast from a cannon hit her back and caused her to yelp in pain as her skin reddened. Laura tried to protect her but was hit by another cannon in the face! Stunned, she felt the Arion kick her away powerfully. Her vision clearing, she saw him grapple with Aurora, bending her backwards as she was simultaneously baked by the automated weapon systems firing into her.

The Arion had her nearly bent in half when, with a thunderous silence, the cannons stopped firing and the lights went out!

* * *

Seth fell to the floor of the tiny Power Node, nearly exhausted and in significant pain. His brain felt like it was trying to leave his head through his ears.

He panted laboriously on the warm metal surface. He could still smell the horrible stench of singed flesh coming from the Arion Beta he had had to attack. The Beta was probably dead; Seth doubted the hand weapon he had liberated from a weapons locker had a "stun" setting.

It had taken most of Seth's remaining energy to move a manual override switch designed for the strength of Beta Arions, but he had done it...he had shut off the base's power. According to the interrogator, the power could not be reactivated for nearly an hour while the cells recharged.

The dim red glow of emergency lights mirrored the burning he felt inside his head and body. The combination of the nauseating pain, the grotesque odor, and the thought of inflicted death forced Seth to retch. His naked, sweating body curled involuntarily into a fetal position as he vomited out what little was inside him.

He suspected his brain's vascular system had been damaged somewhat during the interrogation. He had been able to resist the demands of the machine, but not without a price. The agony swamped his senses, mixing them up into a mushy blur.

Actually, the pain had been easing until the fight with the Betan guard. The physical effort coupled with the emotional strain had brought back the hot anguish with a startling vengeance.

Curled up inside the glorified closet that was the Power Node, he felt his body grow warmer and warmer. The heat began to scare him.

"What-what's wrong with me?" he asked quietly to himself.

His back felt like it was blistering! Soon, he realized with a start that it wasn't his body, it was the room that was becoming a furnace!

He scrambled painfully away from the door. He could see the heat radiating from its metal surface! At the same time he vaguely heard a nightmarish...voice?...getting louder, the unfamiliar words sounding like a car being crushed with people still inside!

The presence in the hallway stopped in front of the room. The heat was overwhelming! Seth felt his lungs burn with every breath he took! His skin visibly pinked where it faced the door.

The intense heat diminished slightly, then the door opened with a hiss. Behind the Arion Alpha that peered inside was a coagulated horror on two legs, hideously bloated by the clots of raw power it barely contained! Clearly it was this creature that was the source of the radiation. It stood well back and allowed the female Alpha to step in and grab the unresisting human.

* * *

Once the infernal cannons had stopped firing with the power shutdown, Aurora became hell on wheels. Laura could barely see, even under the emergency lighting. All she had to do, however, was follow the swath of sparking cables and groaning Arions.

Aurora was still flinging about the original Alpha that had bent her backwards. She was using him like a club after having dislocated his shoulder, cutting a path through the machinery and defenses of the base. The constant battering was keeping him punchy and ineffective, except as a blunt instrument, at which he was exemplary!

Laura could hardly believe her lover's performance. She was viciously efficient, stacking up Beta corpses like cordwood, something that in the past she was reluctant to do. Her face held a grim demeanor like an iron mask. Her eyes frequently spilled violet energy in a deadly light show. Both walls and skulls collapsed under her terrible onslaught.

How much more clear did it need to be? thought Laura. Aurora was going after Seth like she would if Laura were in trouble. Like it or lump it, Seth was...is...one of the family. On the other hand, this meant that he could still be one of the family without his ring...

After trashing what was probably an operations center, Aurora and Laura were about to exit into one of the tunnels when a booming crash came from behind them!

Walking through the hole he had created, a grotesque creature with silver eyes stomped heavily into the room! Laura felt her eyeballs dry under the fantastic heat the thing was radiating. Both she and Aurora gasped aloud at the horror as it moved to one side, never ceasing to inflict its swollen, leering face onto the women. Its skin was a livid bronze and clearly had numerous implants and mechanisms underneath. It was possible it had at one time been Arion, but that was subject to debate. It lumbered confidently to the right-hand wall and indicated the hole it had come from with a ludicrously dramatic but effective gesture.

Aurora actually cried out in dismay when a female Alpha smirked her way into the room, carrying a burned, battered and barely lucid man by the back of his neck.

Even Laura started. Seth looked like he had been caught breaking out of Hell. He was clothed only in cuts and burns from head to toe.

But as Laura watched, Seth's head went up. He focused immediately upon her. His face was carefully neutral, but intent.

"Your friend the Guardian must not share your concern for human life," belched the bloated creature. He spoke with difficulty, as if his throat was thickened by the power packed inside.

Aurora looked upon the monstrosity with horror and befuddlement.

"What?" she managed.

"He did not choose to accompany you, Veloran," explained the thing. "My estimation of his intelligence has increased."

Aurora, filled with a desperate dismay, was not following this whatsoever. Before she could speak again, however, Laura chimed in.

"The Guardian still does not treat the capture of agents lightly!"

Both the thing and the Alpha woman laughed at this.

"Too bad," retorted the monster. "This one's life is measured now in minutes unless you surrender yourselves unconditionally."

As if that was a cue to act, the Arion woman tightened her grip on Seth's throat, causing his face to go purple and his tongue to hang out. He thrashed helplessly.

"NO!" screamed Aurora. She launched herself at the woman, her face a twisted veil of fury! But the beast was impossibly fast. His hand flashed upwards open palmed. Weird, searing white light crackled from his thick hand and drilled into Aurora's speeding form, deflecting her path and sending her careening into a monitoring station! Showers of sparks fell upon her smoking and twitching body.

The monster's laugh arose from him like blood welling from a wound. Tears ran down Seth's face, then his eyes moved to Laura accusingly.

Something suffered a change within Laura while watching Aurora, obviously in deep agony, struggle vocally to regain her feet. The moan that escaped her Veloran's lips transformed into a long low keening that filled the room. The sound tore brutally into Laura's bruised heart; it was a cry of pure, unmitigated misery...the dread knowledge that her injured body was not going to be enough to save the one she absolutely must save...the soul-tearing realization that she was unable to do the only thing that would have allowed her to return home.

Whatever it was that the monster had done to her, it was enough to doom her. And make her betray her true love.

Her true love.

With a suddenly crystal clear heart, Laura now believed.

Seth was Fairchild's true love.

There was only one thing to do.

"Hey, you fucking beast," cried Laura. Affecting a wide stance, she reached between her legs. All eyes were upon her now as she thrust her fingers deeply into her vagina.

"Is this what you are looking for?" she crowed, holding aloft her previously hidden prize.

In her hand was the ring, glistening in the red light.

"I was trying to hide my identity. But to save the life of one of our agents, I offer myself instead."

She strongly suspected the monster's eyesight was more than enough to see the intricate circuits on the ring.

After peering at it from across the room, the thing spoke in a voice like black smoke.

"And just who are you?"

Laura rolled her eyes dramatically. "Don't be fooled by my unmodified voice, dipshit. I am the Guardian!"

 

END CHAPTER #4