Upon a Savage Shore Ch. 20

"Not for nothing," M'pel E'kmel said, her voice was low but there was steel in her words.

"Bullshit, Commander!" he growled. "If you cared about them, you would have told them the truth. You would have told me the truth. We should have known what was going on!"

"I was not allowed to tell you!" she said, her tail flicked in frustration. "I was supposed to observe your interaction with the other females. When rescued, I would report my findings. You weren't ever to know about the experiment. None of you. Not until peace was made. And then, if the experiment were successful, you would all have been hailed as heroes. Your actions would have ended the war and laid grounds for a great alliance. Not for nothing!"

"Experiment," he said disgustedly. "If I had known... If you had told me, I would have gone along with whatever you needed me to do. To end the war, the killing, I would have done that."

"And that would have invalidated the experiment!" she said, throwing up her hands. "We had to test our own people as much as yours. If you had knowingly cooperated it would have skewed the results. It would have given a false positive. I love you, Liam, but you're still the enemy! What if the admiral was wrong? You have to understand! My people, my race must come first!"

Liam and Tem'Ma'tel were both struck silent. They stared at her, amazed. For his part, Charlie had understood none of this and decided now was a good time to slip away in case something bad should happen.

"I followed my orders, knowing you would be angered if you ever learned of the reason behind all my actions," M'pel E'kmel went on with passion. "And I would do it all again if it meant my people were saved from defeat and dishonor. Even now this new enemy may be encroaching on our territory. Perhaps they have launched an assault on jZav itself! My people, Liam. What would you have done in my place? I never meant to hurt you, but I was left with no choice."

Very quietly Tem'Ma'tel looked back and forth between them. She had never seen M'pel E'kmel in this state, so vulnerable. As unobtrusively as she could, she joined Charlie in his retreat to give the commander and the sergeant some privacy.

"Are you going to say anything, Sergeant?" M'pel E'kmel asked softly.

"You love me?" Liam asked.

She blinked at him, confused for an instant and then the realization of what she had said crashed in on her.

"I..." she said, but choked on the words. "I was not... supposed to get close to you. I was not supposed to become attached to you."

"But you did," he said.

"Yes." Her voice was small. She sounded much younger than she was and did not at that moment look like an experienced officer.

"Why?" he asked.

"I... I liked you," she replied and turned away from him again. "I didn't want to at first. I didn't want to dislike you, either. I had a job to do and needed to be on good terms. But then you were..."

Liam frowned as he tried to understand what had motivated her.

"You were so much fun," she said finally, sounding frustrated and confused. "You weren't what I expected. I became interested. That night, when the hyena-frogs attacked, you were everywhere at once. You defended us. I had never seen a Human in close combat before then. You killed them and didn't stop until the whole pack was driven off. And then the day at the stream, you charged those blade-beasts stark naked with nothing but a rock and a club."

"You never said you loved me before now," he said into the silence.

"Where did you get that club, anyway?" she asked softly.

"It was under the water. I found it when I was scrabbling around looking for a rock," said Liam and stepped around the pod to be closer to her. "So you love me?"

"Yes." Her voice was small again and more uncertain. She turned and looked up into his eyes.

"I love you too," he said and took her in his arms. There in the forest, next to the alien pod that might signal the end of their world, they kissed and for that moment it was all that mattered.