Tatum's War
Chapter 16: An Awkward Encounter

Bam.

Tatum let his breath squeeze out of his lungs for the gazillionth time, knowing full well that trying to suppress the urge to hold it in would only cause more pain. He laid there on the mat, staring up at MeerRhonda with the same look on his face that she had witnessed a gazillion times before; why me. She remained silent at his unasked question. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending how Tatum did that day, MeerRhonda changed her tactics since their arrival on the ship four months ago. Instead of critiquing what he did wrong, she began letting him figure it out on his own. At first, Tatum had though he had pissed her off with his sneak attack at the Sanctuary, but it slowly dawned on him what she was doing. He didn’t like it at first, because it caused him more pain repeating the same sequences of mistakes over and over again. But he grudgingly understood that even though it took him longer to figure out what he did wrong, the lesson was incorporated more quickly with other moves in his subconscious.

Tatum let his body relax until his lungs filled with air and he sat up. He waved away her outreached hand, rolled over and got up. He looked at her.

“I know. My right foot should have slid forward and left to counter balance my reverse fist chop. By allowing my balance to stay over my hips, it left me vulnerable to your counter grab and throw.” Tatum sighed.

“And?” MeerRhonda stated.

“My arm was too straight?”

She nodded. “If your elbow had been in tighter, then you could have countered my grab by pushing my hand down and way, allowing your momentum to counter punch.”

“Possibly getting the elusive bloody nose.” He smiled.

Her condescending smile told him not in a million life times. “We are done.” She walked over, grabbed her towel and wiped her face.

Despite looking like she barely sweat, her towel always was came away from her face drenched. This time was no different. Tatum always sweated like a pig, even though he was in the best shape he had ever been. He slowly walked over near MeerRhonda, sat down and took a drink from his water bottle.

“How is it that you look like you barely sweat? Even when we first met, your shirt clung to your body from your sweat, but without that indication, you always look dry. Is there something unique about your fur?” Water dribbled down his chin and onto his sweat soaked shirt.

MeerRhonda didn’t respond to the insult having learned that Tatum’s attempts to upset her with comments like this were his way of being friendly. That didn’t stop her from breaking his arm the first few times he’d done it, until she learned he wasn’t trying to be mean. Tatum never seemed to hold a grudge against her for it. She realized it was his way of trying to understand more about her. Sᴇaʀch Thᴇ Find_Nøvel.ɴet website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

“Since your small ape brain can’t seem to understand, let me explain again. My home world is very dry. The hair on my skin is able to trap moisture, which allows my people to stay cool in the hot climates. Normally, my skin is very dry, but because you are so clumsy as a student, I have to exert more energy than with someone who can control their movements.” She finished wiping her face, and tossed the towel into the chute on the wall that disappeared into the darkness beyond. She turned her Meerkat features to him and waited for his reply.

Tatum stared at the open chute where she had just tossed her towel. His mind was racing. Since his meeting with the Two, he had spent all his time focused on trying to predict the movements of the Draco Conclave. Between worrying about Alexa and poring over movement reports given to him by a very pissed off Buccaneer Zulutan; who thought it a waste of time to give movement reports to someone with no military strategy training; nothing presented itself as to why they would attack one territory, leave, and attack another one that had no strategic significance with the territory they had just conquered. But realization was starting to dawn. What he thought was random movements were carefully placed pieces on the GO board.

He leaped up; eyes wide with excitement and grabbed MeerRhonda. So surprised at his movements, she was caught completely off guard, not expecting him to attack her, and suddenly became embarrassed as he placed the side of his face on her third breast. He picked her up and began swinging her around shouting in joyous utterances that her translator had trouble interpreting. The moment stopped as fast as it had started.

He pushed her away, excitement bristling in his every movement while still holding onto her hands. She couldn’t understand why she hadn’t tossed him across the room for his action and she certainly couldn’t reason out why she left her hands in his.

“You are amazing!” Tatum shouted.

“What is wrong with you?” MeerRhonda stated, continuing to let him hold her hands.

Tatum let go of her hands as he began to walk around.

“I’ve been going about his all wrong.” He told her. “I’ve been thinking about this like a standard game of GO.”

“I don’t understand?” She said.

“Two dimensions. This isn’t a board I’m looking at, it’s a three dimensional sphere. The galaxies are not on an even plane. They populate an area that has an x, y and z axis. I’ve been trying to play this game on a two dimensional grid, not a three dimensional sphere.” Tatum couldn’t believe how stupid he had been. In his rush to find something that would allow him to go and find Alexa, he had missed the most fundamental aspect of his time with Mr. Chance. That the game isn’t just confined to one space.

“Thank you!” Tatum shouted as he ran from the training room.

Tatum raced down the corridors avoiding crewmen with quick movements that would have seemed impossible months ago. Jumping into the Zero tube, he willed himself to go faster, narrowly missing others getting in and out of the tube. He grabbed the handle to his exit, leap out and then began bounding down the corridor with its lighter gravity, and almost missed his room. The door slid open on his command and he jumped into the room, completely unaware of the person lying on his bed.

“Flexi, bring up the chart on the Draco movements with the updated planets and galaxy conquest and those that were taken and then retaken by the Observer forces.”

“Roger!” Flexi’s female voice responded.

Tatum began to strip out of his clothes and was down to his underwear when his consciousness registered the mound lying on his bed. He turned to see Iyara, smiling at him from underneath his covers. He froze.

“Don’t stop on my account. I was just lying here wondering how I was going to get you out of your clothes and here you have done it for me.” She purred.

Stunned, which did nothing to alleviate the excitement that was growing in his groin area, he fumbled his hands down to cover his private area. “What are you doing here?”

“Dr. Trindle and I were having a discussion about the breeding habits of humans, and she said she needed data to compare to other species. I volunteered and, well, here I am.” She winked. “And by the looks of it, I’d say, it should be an enlightening experience.”

Tatum’s face turned red, as he rushed into the bathroom. His erection couldn’t be contained behind his hands just as his thoughts couldn’t be contained about, what appeared to be Iyara’s naked body underneath his covers. He turned on the sonic shower, when Flexi’s voice shouted that the data he wanted was done. Tatum wanted to go out and look at the data right away, but with his current state of arousal and with no indication that it was going to come down soon, he didn’t know what to do. After a short deliberation with himself, and after several failed attempts to curtail his arousal with thought of MeerRhonda’s menacing face, which turned into an uncomfortable reliving of the first time they had met, he told Flexi to put in in 3’d form and that he’d be out in a minute.

“Need some help?” Iyara’s voice sounded from the other side of the door.

“No! I got it.” Tatum assured her.

“You don’t need a helping hand?”

Tatum turned the sonic shower to its coldest setting and visualized every zombie movie and bloody horror film he could. Thankfully, the sonic shower didn’t take long to freeze his body and extinguish his adolescent fantasies. He stepped out of the sonic shower and noticed that he didn’t have a towel. Cursing himself, he was afraid of opening the door, incase Iyara decided to pursue her research in a more aggressive manner, but he also wondered why he was acting the way he was. What boy or man wouldn’t want to have sex with an alien? It wasn’t like she was some hideous hag that wanted to breed with him. By any standard, Iyara was amazingly beautiful woman. Tatum sighed. Then decided to let nature take its course, no matter the consequences. He opened the door and stepped naked into the middle of the 3d holographic image of the universe that Flexi had projected into the middle of his quarters.

Iyara stood by the open door, fully clothed, and looking somewhat perturbed. Her closed white lab coat, tan legs, and blue fuzzy slippers didn’t fit with what he had seen or imagined was under the covers.

Her eyes widened at this nakedness, despite the double swirling galaxies that covered his groin. “Some other time, perhaps.” Her voice sounding disappointed.

The low growl on the outside of the door, clearly indicated that that proposition wasn’t an acceptable one. Tatum had heard that growl too many times before not to recognize it: MeerRhonda. Somewhat relieved and disappointed, Tatum quickly dressed and didn’t listen to the low conversation taking place between the two women of different species. Iyara smiled, said goodbye, and carefully exited the room. Tatum quickly wrapped Flexi on his arm before walking over to see a very unhappy MeerRhonda standing in the doorway.

Tatum grabbed her hand and pulled her into the room, with a thanks. “I appreciate you coming to my rescue. She can be very straightforward at times.”

“And you like that?” MeerRhonda said tight lipped.

“What? No. I didn’t even know she was in my quarters until I got here.” He explained. He didn’t want her to go all Rambo on him during their next training session.

“That thing isn’t the reason you ran off?” Her right eyebrow twitched. Something she always did when repressing her anger.

“No!” He said. “Two dimensions, Flexi. This is why.” Tatum pointed to the flat panel of light in the middle of the room.

Flexi took the 3d image and displayed the data in a two dimensional linear line like a map. The exact way he had wanted her to.

“This is what I was talking about. See how these points here, have no real connections to these points over here.” He pointed at lights at the ends of the map. “I couldn’t understand why they would attack something over here, and then go way over here and attack this place, even if they can travel instantaneously from one place to another.”

“Of course. Space isn’t flat.” MeerRhonda agreed. “They are not on the same plane of influence.”

“Exactly. But even so… Flexi move the lights to their Z-axis.” Tatum ordered.

The lights began to move up and down creating a cube of lights.

MeerRhonda studied it, then stepped away shaking her head. “It still doesn’t make sense. Those lights at the top of the cube still don’t have any connection to the ones on the bottom. Not even with a Streem Tunnel.”

“Right. That’s what I couldn’t understand. Then, when you threw your towel into the chute and it disappeared, I wondered why. It’s because it fell out of sight. Not because the chute blocked my view but because it curved out of sight.” Tatum’s smile couldn’t be contained. “Flexi, curve the grid into a sphere.”

Tatum watched the lights start to bend. And just like his smile, that started to turn upside down, so did the lights as it moved further into shapes that made it even more perplexing as to why the Conclave attacked where it did. When the final map was displayed, Tatum’s smile was an all-out frown, which turned quickly into frustration.

Tatum moved around the bent space. He for sure thought this was the missing piece that he needed to figure it out. Nothing before made sense to him. The patterns, the times of the attacks, the regions or anything. Nothing! And when he thought he had it, taking into account that space is not flat but curved, he still didn’t understand. He based his whole decision on the notions that he was playing a three dimensional game of GO. That the random attacks on galaxies and worlds would point to a strategy that would make it clear, once the pieces had been placed in the right area. But now, nothing.

“Son of a bitch!” He ranted again.

“I can assume that you didn’t get the result you wished for? I don’t think the translation of a joyous outburst of love is appropriate.” MeerRhonda commented.

Tatum looked at her. “Outburst it right, but not a happy one. I just don’t know what I’m missing.”

Tatum wandered over to his bed and plopped down. MeerRhonda stood watching him clearly unsure what to do. Tatum heaved a heavy sigh.

“This doesn’t get me closer to getting Alexa back.” He hissed.

“Does she mean that much to you?” MeerRhonda’s carefully controlled tone made him look up.

He saw the uncertainty in her eyes or was it jealousy.

“Yes. She’s my friend.” Tatum scooted back and leaned up against the wall. “I don’t know how to explain it to you. I don’t know anything,” he waved his hand around encompassing the room. “But she’s very important to my little sister, who looks up to her. Alexa has been a much better sibling than I could have ever been. And she’s the only one that has stood by me when I wouldn’t have wasted my time on someone like myself.” Tatum ran his hands over his face.

He couldn’t completely understand why he kept talking but it did make him feel better.

“And what kind of person are you?” MeerRhonda asked.

Tatum chuckled. “An asshole.”

MeerRhonda’s face waited a moment, and then a small smile appeared, finally understanding his meaning.

“Did the translator get it right?” Tatum smirked.

“No, but I understand your meaning.” MeerRhonda said. “I won’t disagree that you are troublesome, and that you are thick headed…”

“Is that a nice way of saying, I’m an asshole?”

MeerRhonda continued but she did dip her head in acknowledgement of his statement. “But I think this Alexa is fortunate to have a friend like you. Not many would go out of their way to do what you’re doing.”

“Are you saying that the Observers wouldn’t go and save a comrade?” Tatum asked.

“Not at all. That is one of our founding principles. But anyone who has chosen to join the Draco Conclave is considered dead. For they will not be the same once you meet them again.”

Tatum couldn’t keep his voice from rising. “She didn’t choose anything! Mr. Chance made it sound like she was abducted. She wouldn’t willingly go with someone like that. She isn’t mean!”

“Regardless. She is among them now. That is enough. You shouldn’t hold out hope that she will be the same when you meet again. She may very well try and kill you.” MeerRhonda’s flat statement brought Tatum up short.

Would she really try and kill me? Tatum wondered. Could she be brainwashed to do that? Had the Abaddon been talking about Alexa? He had assumed it was MeerRhonda, but she’d had plenty of time to do that. As long as he’d known her, Alexa never harmed anything. She’d even let flies out of her room instead of smashing them or capture a spider and let it outside. How could they possibly make her kill someone? There is just no way.

“Well, you’ll forgive me if I don’t share your low opinion of my friend.” Tatum said at last.

“It’s not a low opinion, just fact.” MeerRhonda corrected. “Take tomorrow off and we’ll continue the next day.” MeerRhonda turned to leave.

“Does this mean you won’t help me save her?”

MeerRhonda stopped at the door without turning around. Her voice was low. “I’ll help you. Even if it means going against my own code.”

The door wisped open and she was gone.

Her own code, what could that mean. Tatum shook his head. He slid off the bed, took one last look at his failed assumption, and left his quarters to get something to eat.

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