Siege Weapons Page 4

  “Yeah, okay. Let’s go eat.”

  Chapter Four

  I SIPPED MY tall glass of fruity beer and sank into the soft velvet-lined couch of the booth. I stared out the restaurant window, trying to ignore Boren and Franx being all coupley across from me. The city-world shone brighter in the darkness than it had in the daytime. We’d come to a bit of a fancy place; they’d already had a reservation. Our restaurant rotated on top of a building, taller than most around us. Below me, transports of all sizes zipped between towers plastered with neon images advertising the latest novelty that idiots like me risked our lives to bring to the pampered masses of Targuline.

  “You need to try the Voladian crab, Ales,” Franx said, holding back giggles as Boren nipped on his ear. Disappointingly, the sides of the booth were high enough that no one could see, although the restaurant was packed with well-to-do Targulians enjoying an expensive night out, as Targulians tended to do.

  “I’ve tried before, thanks.” I tapped twice on the table to summon the hologram menu and swiped through it for the fifth time, returning to the one thing I would eat.

  “Really? Chicken?” Franx leaned across the table as if it would create our own cone of silence. Boren shifted to the side and pretended to be interested in his wrist-tech. He hadn’t known about our little visit earlier or how awkward we’d left things. But from the moment I’d stepped out of his transport, Franx’s face showed I was a rather unappreciated surprise.

  “This is exactly why we never went anywhere nice. You always take the same old shit,” he half whispered.

  Feeling a little bit like a prisoner, I was in no mood to be cooperative. “Sorry that I don’t eat imported fucking sky-shell oysters from the far end of Thranga. I know what I like.”

  “Hey, hey,” Boren cut in, attempting to place a settling hand on Franx’s white knuckles. “Why don’t we order a few different things and share? Then we’ll all have something we like.”

  Franx retreated into a sulk.

  “How’s the beer, Ales?”

  “Good,” I said, inspecting the glass and trying desperately to think of what else I could say about it. “Very fruity.”

  “Everyone’s drinking it now. It’s super popular.” Boren smiled, seeming particularly pleased with himself, and took a self-congratulatory sip. I could swear he winked at me. “What do you normally drink?”

  “Lactarian malts are my favorite, but the nice ones cost more than my ship’s worth…”

  “Since when do you drink Lactarian malts?” Franx demanded.

  “Since a long time, actually.”

  I could sense Boren start to regret the whole endeavor. “Why don’t we order now? I guess we’re all a bit hungry. I’ve been on shift for fourteen hours.” He tapped his own menu, selecting a copious amount of food. At least I knew now Boren would be paying. There’s no way Franx would pay that much money on food. I might be fussy, but he’s cheap—if he really wants to know the reason we never went to fancy places like this. I caught Franx’s eye as Boren carried on talking about his day.

  “Three hours I waited at GSC headquarters,” Boren continued, not caring that neither of us were really paying attention.

  I glanced at my wrist-tech: over five hundred messages since I’d arrived on Targuline. I hadn’t had a moment to open any.

  “I said I only need to inspect the original ship logs, nothing more. But no, they have to call the head of division, don’t they? Who, of course, is off world precisely when I need to speak to her.”

  I dragged my fingers across the screen and deleted all of them. There was something wrong with me that I complained about weeks of not receiving any messages, then came to Targuline and complained about too many. The same thing had happened the last time I’d been here. I’d been so overwhelmed I ended up deleting everything then, too, and going to a sex palace.

  “That’s an odd way to treat an invigilator,” I said, trying to at least feign interest in my newfound benefactor.

  “You’d think, right?” Boren glugged down more beer and gestured widely, his hand waving in front of Franx, who could barely disguise his annoyance. I could tell I’d hit a sore spot in their relationship. Franx despised the Trades Council, or at least used to. I could sense something bubbling under the surface.

  “I tell you the Trades Council ain’t what it used to be. No way. We invigilators used to be feared across the Verge. Feared.” He finished the rest of the glass in two gulps and ordered another by placing the empty glass on a drinks pad at the end of the table. Franx rolled his eyes. “It’s been falling apart for a long time. Losing its grip. No one respects us anymore. The big trading giants, GSC and the like, they’ve got all the Council members in their pay now. Have done for a long time.” A miniature drinks drone flew over, dropped a hose down into Boren’s glass, and filled it with frothy dark-red beer. It zipped over to mine and filled it, too, before I could wave it away.

  “What about those private security people they brought in?” Franx asked, trying to play the supportive boyfriend role. It didn’t suit him. “What are they called, the United Verge something?”

  “Union of the Outer Verge. Pfft, they’re the worst. Those are the bastards that held Ales up today.” Boren burped loudly. “The Council gave ’em a full sweep of enforcement powers, and they go around abusing it, extorting folk, stealing. It’s a mess. Things are becoming a nightmare here. I’m worried about what will happen to the Verge; really I am.”

  “Everyone’s so desperate to keep their freedom to trade,” I said, glancing over at Franx for support. He’d heard my thesis a hundred times before, “they forget we also need freedom from piracy, freedom from tyranny, freedom from corrupt corporations taking over whole worlds and stripping out the profit.”

  “That’s a bit rich coming from a…”

  I kicked Franx under the table before he could utter the word smuggler. Boren gave him a brief side-eye with a flash of suspicion.

  “Foreigner.”

  “You also think there should be a stronger central authority in the Verge?” Boren asked me, leaning forward on his elbows.

  “No, I don’t mean that, but if they started enforcing a few of the rules at least, breaking up the huge corporations that squeeze the life out of…”

  “There’s a lot who think like you in the Council,” Boren continued, clearly not having heard a word I’d said. “There’s been talk for a while we should become a Democria like the Shakti.”

  “Why not an imperial oligarchy like the Kyleri?” Franx offered sarcastically.

  “Or a bloodthirsty death cult like the Crejan?” I said, although deadly serious.

  Boren sat back and folded his arms, holding his head as high over the top of our arguments as he could. “Just something more…powerful. Look what the Invgarians did.” He leaned forward again, commanding the table. “Threw off centuries of Crejan occupation and slavery and established a pretty decent star-state. We should learn from them, if you ask me,” he said with the air of someone who regurgitates secondhand opinions as if they were scientific proofs.

  “Oh?” I said, surprised and slightly concerned at Boren’s casual praise of the Ingvar. “Seems to me like the rebel army established a military dictatorship across the Ingvar systems pretty swiftly.”

  “They have elections,” Boren defended. “Rebuilt their worlds after the war, opened up the trade routes again. I’ve dealt with a lot of their customs people in the border systems, Ales, and their situation now doesn’t even compare to how bad things were under Crejan rule.”

  “You don’t have to remind me about how bad things are under Crejan rule,” I said darkly.

  Before anything else could be said, four server bots arrived at the table, carrying a mountain of food and laying it out in mathematically prime position. Our opinions on galactic politics thankfully forgotten with the impending orgy of eating. Every bit of the table covered in plates interlocking together to save space.

  A bucket of bright pink Voladian
crabs stewing in lemon butter sat in front of Franx; curried hot and crispy chicken with rice for me; and a rack of Forasian ribs for Boren so large that it took over a third of the table. Plus sides and extras of delicately wrapped parcels of meat and fish with spicy sauces, hot herb-crusted bread, and sides of multicolored potatoes baked, mashed, chipped, and fried. I realized how hungry I actually was. Churlie’s Chicken seemed like a lifetime ago.

  Boren sucked the meat clean off the bones in between shoveling handfuls of fries into his mouth. I did try a leg of the crab, but I couldn’t pretend to have the refined palette Franx seemed to have taken to.

  Eating took forever, but since we’d all had a few drinks and our stomachs had become fuller, the initial awkwardness turned into friendly banter. We even shared a few laughs. Franx and I fell back into the easy rapport we’d once had, while Boren delighted in seeing how his lover interacted with an old friend.

  “So,” I asked, as a bot cleared away our dishes. The high sides of the booth and lights of the cityscape outside made our gathering feel ever more intimate. “How did you two meet?”

  Boren smiled and placed a thick arm around Franx, who gave an almost bashful shrug. Something about their love, as unlikely as it seemed, could be genuine. A faint sense of regret hung in my head, although I wasn’t quite sure why.

  “I arrested him,” Boren said, kissing him on the cheek.

  “What?” I spluttered, suddenly worried that I might be, too, and not able to fuck my way out of it like Franx obviously had.

  “We were raiding Kri dealers, trying to find the top of the chain. Franx’s name came up, and I brought him in.” They smiled at each other. “But, there wasn’t enough evidence to charge him, and my boss decided there were other priorities to focus on. So he got released.”

  “Then what? You two decided you wanted to meet each other again but outside the interrogation cells?”

  “Pretty much, yeah,” Boren said, squeezing his lover’s shoulder.

  “I changed, Ales,” Franx said, leaning across the table, his eyebrows drawn sharply across his furrowed brow. “I’m not who I used to be. And I’ve got Boren to thank for that.”

  “Yeah. That’s for sure.” I avoided Franx’s stare and turned toward Boren. “Are you Targulian?”

  “No, I’m from Morahiah.” His face dropped as he said it. I sensed a weight of unsaid sadness.

  “Don’t know it.”

  “It’s one of the border systems,” Franx chimed in. “We’ve passed it before.”

  “I know where it is. I just don’t know anything about it.”

  “It’s not like here,” Boren said, the corner of his mouth drooping slightly, enough to tell me he still missed it. “Not at all. Although nowhere else in the Verge is like Targuline.”

  “And that’s exactly why we live here,” Franx said, the strain of snobbish urbanite coming through. I’d always hated the pretentious side of him, and it seemed like it had only grown stronger in the intervening years.

  “Morahiah is…different. There’s no cities to speak of, only endless farmland and villages. Most people work the land for their local overlord…”

  “His father’s the king,” Franx cut in, showing off.

  “A king,” Boren corrected him, absentmindedly placing his empty glass on the pad and watching it refill. “And he wanted me to marry the daughter of another king.” He shrugged, then took a long, deep drink from the glass.

  “So you ran away?”

  “We’re all running away from something, Ales,” Franx said to me with a warning tone. I shot back a dark glance. I wondered how much of his story he’d told Boren. I only knew what he’d endured being raised in a brothel on a mining colony from many, many drunk nights together over the years.

  “Franx told me what happened to your world.” Boren’s eyes grew wide with empathy. It was clear he didn’t know how to deal with the subject. Few people did. Why it’s easier not to talk about it. “But, we’re here for a reason. On Targuline, I mean. There’s no way two men could’ve ever shared a home on Morahiah. It wouldn’t happen.” Suddenly, a leg from his side of the table rubbed against mine. “Could that have ever happened on Teva?”

  I stayed silent, my lips drawn into the most neutral expression I could. I knew the answer to his question. I’d agonized over it for more nights than he would ever know.

  “Come. Let’s go home,” Franx said, the only good thing that had come out of his mouth all night. “Ales, you’re coming with us. I’m not letting you fly to the end of the Verge without a good rest.”

  We rose from the table and headed through the restaurant, Boren and Franx walking arm in arm, and me following behind. I took a moment to take in the hundreds of other people packed in, enjoying their food and laughing in couples or in groups of friends. No one even glanced at the two men walking in front of me. At least on Targuline, for all its many faults, no one cared who you went home with.

  I REALIZED I’D fallen asleep in the back of Boren’s personal transport when we suddenly came to a halt inside a parking pod.

  “Ales, wake up. We’re home.” Franx reached around from the front and touched the inside of my thigh. The memories of nights long ago came flooding back, of Franx and me stumbling through the corridor connecting the parking pod to the main hallway of apartments. Boren’s wrist-tech opened the front door, the way mine used to. I was a stranger in my old house, now occupied by a stranger to me and another who now was beginning to feel like one.

  Inside, I kicked off my boots and stripped my jacket and shirt, dropping them on the couch that I assumed would be my bed. My body breathed with relief at finally being out of my clothes. Franx got inside the bathroom, and I was about ready to flop onto the couch when Boren emerged from the bedroom. He stood in the doorway, clad only in white skintight underwear that wrapped around calves as thick as Shards, his eyes drinking in my body.

  His body could’ve been sculpted out of solid marble. His shoulders and pecs were enormous, giving way to a ripped, thick muscular stomach. His torso completely smooth except for a light smattering of brown hair that led from his bellybutton down beyond the underwear line, the skin as soft as a cloud. Only then, I noticed his bulge. The outline of his cock as thick as my forearm resting against his inner thigh. The climate was kind to the men of Morahiah.

  “Do you have everything you need?”

  I broke out of the spell he’d put me under and nodded. I turned away and folded my clothes for no reason, only to hide the shame of suddenly being jealous of Franx’s life and imagining his boyfriend seizing me from behind.

  “I know this must be hard for you,” Boren said, sounding closer to me than the doorway. I kept sorting through my clothes. A thick, warm hand pressed my bare back and gently rubbed my skin. “But you can relax here.”

  Now I stood straight but stared at my trousers, undoing them as slowly as possible as if taking them off to sleep. Still hoping I might be able to stay out here. Their relationship suddenly made a lot more sense to me. Boren hadn’t tamed Franx. I doubted any man could. The bathroom door opened, and I looked up with a heavy heart, resigned to what would come next.

  Franx had a fluffy white towel wrapped around his waist. His feet still wet. He smiled at me. “It’s okay, Ales. Come join us in the bedroom.”

  Boren put his rocklike hand under my chin and gently lifted my head. He smiled, soft and warm. I sighed. I could almost be safe. He touched me as gently as one might caress a wild animal poised to flee. His hand grazed my ass and his fingers floated along my bare back. I was reluctant still, but my hard dick gave me away. Franx stepped toward us both, his focus trained on me, still smiling, as if this was some great reward he offered me.

  Boren embraced him but kept one hand on my ass cheek while the other grabbed Franx by the waist and pulled him in for a deep, heavy kiss. Franx dropped his towel. His cock exactly as I remembered. Nothing beyond ordinary, but that’s not why men loved Franx.

  Boren pulled me in too. As thei
r lips parted, with one strain of saliva still binding them, Boren’s face plunged into mine. His soft lips opened my lips. His tongue as powerful as his countless other muscles overpowered my mouth, demanding I submit. Stepping in-between Franx and his new love was the last thing I’d wanted, but I could no longer shield myself from the whirlwind of their desire. I gave in and melted into his arms while his hand slipped inside my underwear, running it along the smoothness of my ass cheek. His fingers found the hole he seemed so desperate to have.

  Franx slunk to his knees, pulling Boren’s tightly clad underwear off with him. I took an eyeful as his cock flopped out, then pinged out straight and stiff. It must have been at least the length of my elbow to my hand and maybe twice as thick. I didn’t even know how to deal with such a thing sober. The varieties of homosapiens in the galaxy were many, but Boren’s race must tip the top for cock size.

  Gleefully, Franx took it in his mouth, working the head of it and hungrily licking the veiny shaft. Boren tried to work a pudgy finger inside my hole while sucking on my neck and making me drool. The last thing I expected was to ever share a sexual encounter with Franx again, but here I stood, a tongue down my throat and a finger working its way inside my ass. I gave in to the dreamlike experience and let my body be used, hoping it wouldn’t become a nightmare.

  While Franx choked beneath us, Boren’s mouth moved to my nipples, testing how hard I could take a bite. I moaned and made a grab for my cock still stuck inside my underwear. Boren jumped one step ahead of me and pulled them right down. His eyes enlarged at the sight of it. Yet strangely, as he did not desire to touch me, but desired to possess me, like I was some toy to be played with then left to rot on a shelf in his mind.

  It didn’t matter. Boren bent and swallowed my cock whole. He worked it hard, slamming his nose into the hair around my crotch, his hands all over my ass. I glanced at Franx. Half to check if this was okay, half to try figure out what he was so into.