Synopsis
Edward Robert Teach is a modern-day barbarian that encompasses
everything a woman loves and hates in a man. He abhors his notorious
namesake, correctness in any form, and has a habit of expressing his
opinion whenever it does the most offense. When he meets Kamini, a
stunningly beautiful, large eyed woman from the planet Feletia, he
thinks he has finally met the girl of his dreams until he is recruited
by her, and he becomes the unlikeliest captain of a prototype destroyer
in the Feletian space navy, giving him the ability to stir up more
trouble than he can get out of. Queen Aphelia, leader of her female
dominant society, and Kamini's mother, takes an interest in him. She
uses Robert to attain her political goals, forcing him to learn harsh
and sometimes painful lessons in humility when his earthbound attitude
clashes with the strong-willed Feletian women. When Robert is powerless
to stop the assassination of the Feletian royal family, Kamini ascends
the throne and takes him as husband. He becomes Feletia's Regent,
sparking a political and marital struggle that could bring the flames of
galactic war to the peaceful planet.
Buy Link
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/451744
Excerpt
To be ready for fun on the party
circuit, you had to exercise, hit the weights, and do a little roadwork. I had just finished the last leg of my
morning run when a Feletian recruiter noticed me. How she could look through the limo’s dark-tinted
window and know I’d be of any value to her was beyond my understanding,
although I was wearing nothing but shorts and shoes at the time.
When the chauffeur opened the door
and she gracefully stepped out, she was utterly breathtaking. Everything about her was beautiful. The fall of her raven hair, curves of her
statuesque body, her large, emerald green, Tinker Bell eyes all added to her
jaw-dropping presence. When she sashayed
over to me, she could’ve battered me to death from across a room with her long,
natural eyelashes that fluttered and danced at me. She stopped in front of me, looked into my
eyes, and I felt all my secrets lay bare before her.
“My name is Kamini. I am selecting candidates for my queen’s
space fleet. Would you like to join with
me in protecting your home world?” she said with a captivating musical lilt to
her voice.
My inner man screamed, Take me; I’m yours! The voice of reality said, You don’t have a chance in hell of bagging
that. All I managed to say aloud was
a breathless, “Okay.”
“Excellent. Your government would like me to give papers
to every candidate to complete, but you will not need them. We will be departing from an air force base
not far from here. Be at the main gate
in five days.”
Somehow, without her giving me any
details, I knew exactly where to be, and what time to be there.
“Would you like to come in for a
drink?” I said, almost begging for a chance to prove the voice of reality
wrong.
“Thank you for asking, but I have
others to recruit for my queen. I will
be expecting your arrival. Please, be
there.”
Breathlessly, I stood with my jaw
hanging open as she walked to the limo.
When she looked back, she smiled, her face shining with radiant beauty
that left me weak in the knees as I tried to recover from what the sun-bronzed
beauty did to me. I couldn’t believe how
she affected me so. Knowing she’d be
waiting for me had me all hot and bothered without a woman in my immediate
future.
***
That evening, the reality of what I’d
done hadn’t quite sunk in until I invited myself to my parents’ house for
dinner.
“Mom, Dad, I think I’ve found the
girl of my dreams,” I announced when I walked in.
“What, again?” Dad said. “What number is this one? Eight, nine, seventy-two?”
“Walter, stop it. Who is she?” Mom said.
“Her name is Kamini, and she’s a
Feletian recruiter.”
“Did you join the Feletian navy?”
Dad said bluntly.
“Uh, yeah, kinda.” My
non-definitive answer in front of my dad surprised me.
“That’s my boy! I’m sure they’ll teach you some discipline,
and then you can do something with your life, like I did for thirty years. Do you think you’ll get the chance to captain
one of their ships?”
“Dad, I haven’t even left the
ground, and you already have me in command one of their space ships. Do you realize how big those things are?”
“What they call a Concordance
vessel is the largest ship they have with a crew of thirty-six hundred. It displaces over four million metric tons
with enough firepower in their fusion core reactors to lay waste to our
planet. I’d love to get aboard and take
it for a spin.”
“How do you know that?” I said,
incredulous at his knowledge.
Mom said, “You can take your father
out of the Navy, but you can’t take the Navy out of your father, even if it’s a
different kind of Navy. Did you join
because you want to follow in his footsteps, or because of a girl?”
I’d been soaring all day after I
met Kamini, and Mom’s question brought me crashing back to earth. I actually had to stop and think about it,
because I didn’t usually act on impulse.
“It was the girl, as usual,” Dad
concluded.
“No, it wasn’t. Besides, I don’t think I’d have a chance with
her.”
“That’s quite an admission coming
from you. Shot you down, did she?” Dad said
with a wicked grin.
“No, she’s more interested in
recruiting for her queen, but she did say she’ll be waiting for me. I’ve got five days to do something with my
stuff, and I don’t think I’ll need cash or any of my investments, so I want to
give them to you.”
“You’ve given us too much already,”
Dad said.
“I have to give it to somebody.”
“Walter, you can quit your job and
truly retire. Then, we can buy the motor
home we’ve always wanted,” Mom said.
“I’ve offered to buy a camper for
you many times.”
“It’s too expensive,” Dad said.
“We can travel wherever we want and
not have to worry about anything,” Mom said.
“Do you realize what’s involved
with something like that? Gift taxes
alone would take most of it,” Dad said.
“Robert, let him sleep on it
tonight. We’ll figure out something
tomorrow. Come on, let’s eat. Dinner’s getting cold, and turn off the TV,”
Mom said.
Mom was good at marital
arm-twisting, so I was sure they’d enjoy themselves living the life they
deserved. After all, they’d made me.
***
When the day came to present myself
for departure, getting through base security was a problem. I got good and drunk at my farewell party,
and when my drunken friends dumped me off in front of the main gate, I wasn’t
looking or feeling my best, especially when I hurled all over the military
police guarding the gate. When they didn’t
want to find my name on their puke-covered list, I wasn’t really disappointed
because I had parties to attend and women to entertain me, after I recovered
from my hangover.
When I arrived at what used to be
my home and staggered out of the taxi, a limo was waiting in the driveway. Kamini shanghaied
me, and we rode through base security checkpoints without a look from anyone,
which was good because I passed out on the floor of the limo.
When Kamini helped me join a mob of
other candidates seated in a closed hangar, I noticed many were officers from
every branch of the military wearing their best uniforms, with ribbons and
medals impressively displayed on their chests.
My counterpoint was jeans and a T-shirt.
Government officials were already into their inspiring speeches about
how proud everyone was, the duty to our planet, blah, blah, blah, and it rendered
me to tears. Actually, they were tears
of pain from a roaring headache, and all I wanted to do was find a quiet corner
to curl up and die for a few hours.
When they finally finished jaw-jacking,
we plowed through a series of questionnaires, some of which had to do with
taxes. The government was going to lose
all of us as taxpayers, and I felt bad about it. I really did.
All four-hundred some odd of us were given a checklist and told to go
through stations set up in an adjacent hangar.
During an assembly line medical
exam, they checked and inspected every single part of me, and they didn’t leave
any part untouched. My annoyance reached
a new high when one doctor stuck his finger up my ass and tried pushing my boys
out from the inside, so I removed the finger by ripping a big one on it. Those drunken farts are potent and they
cleared everyone out of the area, giving me a few moments of peace. I didn’t enjoy becoming a pincushion from the
inoculations, although I did find messing with the psychiatrist entertaining. Through it all, there were twelve Feletian
women who were quietly overseeing the operation, looking as hopelessly bored as
I felt.
Being the last to drag through the
final station, I discovered everyone else had been taken to accommodations for
the night. I didn’t consider sleeping in
crowded barracks with bunk beds very accommodating, so rather than take a
chance on sleeping in, which was a real possibility in my current condition, I
propped a chair against a hangar wall and grabbed a nap.
***
Awakened by a slamming door
resounding loudly in the empty hangar, I was all set to unleash my opinion of
the disturbance until I saw Kamini stretch up on her toes with her arms wide
and head back. She held the position
until my toes hurt just watching her.
“Good morning, Robert. May I sit with you?”
“Yes, please,” I said with sleepy excitement.
“What is your opinion of the
departure operation your government has set up?”
“It’s a bunch of bureaucratic
crap. Just load me up and get me outta
here.”
Another Feletian approached us and
said, “Kamini, I hope you are not recruiting for your stable.”
“Unlike you, I have all I want in
my stable. Robert, this is Tayana. She is responsible for our recruiting
efforts.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” I
said, politely standing and holding out my hand.
“Handshaking is a custom we do not
share,” she said with her hands on her hips.
When I looked at her fingernails,
they looked like miniature daggers.
Kamini’s were the same way, and I couldn’t tell if they grew that way,
or if they were filed. Either way, a
great set of back scratchers, or rakes, depending on how good you are.
Tayana looked in my eyes, and I
felt her see deep into me, like Kamini had done.
“This one has potential, although
he may be too wild to fulfill what I see,” Tayana said thoughtfully. “Is he your separate selection?”
“Yes, he is mine.”
I
really hope so, I thought.
“Not surprising. We will see how he compares to mine.”
“Tayana, I hope you are not
recruiting for your stable,” Kamini said.
“No, of course not,” she said,
scowling at Kamini, who beamed a delightfully disarming smile back.
“You say you have stables. Do you have horses?” I asked.
“Not exactly,” Tayana said.
“What do you keep in your stables?”
“Men. Kamini, we must prepare for our candidates’
arrival,” she said, and they walked across the hangar.
Men? Something must’ve been lost in
translation. Nonetheless, I stood at the
door to watch the other candidates as they arrived. There wasn’t one woman in the crowd. I decided this was going to be a very
interesting trip, if I could survive whatever indignities the government heaped
on me next.
Using my best party etiquette, and
to stay awake, I circulated and talked with as many as I could. Most of the officers, especially the younger
ones, felt it was beneath them to speak to me.
Some were downright rude. Being a
civilian, and outside their military clique, may have had something to do with it. I know what you’re thinking, but I was very
pleasant and kept my incorrectness tightly reined in.
I watched the recruiters as they
moved among us, introduced themselves, and looked into everyone’s eyes. I noticed a slight widening of their eyes,
and a glance at Kamini, when they were done looking at me.
I was fortunate to be walking near
Tayana and two government suits when I overheard a report that one-hundred
eighty-three candidates would not be going to Feletia. I kept circulating, and frequently returned
to linger near Tayana, especially when I noticed small groups being escorted
from the hangar. I didn’t overhear any
elimination criteria, but I did learn it was an ongoing process, even while we
just milled around inside the hangar.
I was browsing through a nasty
lunch buffet when Kamini asked me to follow her. I thought I was being tossed out like the
others until I was taken to another hangar where three sleek Feletian shuttles
were parked, and boarded one where other candidates were seated. During our wait, we compared speculations and
discovered each of us had been recruited by Kamini. When thirty of us were seated, Kamini
returned, secured the door, and made sure we were properly strapped in.
“Robert, you look tired.”
“I am. The chair was uncomfortable, and I didn’t get
much sleep,” I said, sneaking a peak down her tunic when she leaned over to
check my harness. Hey, if women were
going to bend over and let their charms spill out, I was damn sure going to
look.
“You can rest on the transport. I am pleased you are coming to Feletia,” she
said.
“Are you recruiting for your
stable?” I said, not knowing what I was asking about.
Her large, emerald green eyes
seemed to sparkle when she smiled at me and said, “Initially, everyone will be
in the queen’s training stable.
Afterward, I think you will be picked for a position in a permanent stable
very quickly.”
Before I could catch my breath to
ask what a stable was, she moved on to check the other passengers. I wasn’t the only rutting animal to take
advantage of her braless show.
When the great hangar doors creaked
and groaned open, Kamini stood near the control console and said, “You are the
first candidates to leave Earth for Feletia.
When we arrive on the transport, I will take you to your rooms. You can explore the vessel, but you are not
allowed to enter the control center or the fusion reactor area unescorted. I know you have many questions, and they will
be answered when we arrive on Feletia.”
Kamini strapped in when the pilot
floated the shuttle out of the hangar, took a short run on the taxiway, and
gracefully arced straight up.
Meet the Author
Having been born on December 24 created an important life
lesson; choose wisely, the best gifts are not always large, or heavy. Armed with a high
school diploma, I followed a family tradition of military service, and despite Army
tours in Vietnam and Iraq, I continued to pursue my favorite activity of
reading science fiction. Being retired,
I have more time to pursue reading, and now writing which I hope never to tire
of.
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