Sean-Michael Argo - Ghost Faction

Jada remembered how George had always enjoyed getting a few drinks in them and grappling in a dark corner of the barracks.

Instantly, her physical bliss turned to something else.

She had left the pits of Vorhold a half-person, a sad and wounded thing, and in a way, she was ashamed to have survived when so many others had not. George had made it out; he could have left her there and reached the sunlight alive, but instead had gone back into the darkness to save her and take her place in death.

Jada would have insisted that he let her go, that after even her brief captivity at the twisted hands of the Stalkers, she would rather have died in that bitter place. George had robbed her of that choice, he and Boss Marsters, and even the ganger Vol.

Suddenly, Jada was furious that it was she who yet clung to life. Having Ranec inside her was a frustratingly pleasurable and forceful reminder that she not only lived, but was thriving as a grim bringer of destruction to any unfortunate enough to be on the other end of her weapons.

Ranec’s firm, but gentle, lovemaking suddenly annoyed her, as if he was wasting the power in his enhanced body, holding back when he should be pushing her and himself to the edge of exertion. They were meta-humans capable of feats beyond the natural capacity of humanity and they were both holding back. What was the point of all the suffering they’d endured up to this point if they did not go all the way? Jada found herself enraged.

She snarled and twisted her body, using her arms to shove Ranec onto his back, squeezing her thighs together, holding him inside her while the pressure of her legs kept him from being able to draw a full breath.

Ranec let go of her and she pinned his arms against the bed, all the while grinding her hips into his. The Dire Sword was impossibly strong, and he pushed up against her, both with his sex and his arms, even as Jada thrust back against him with hips and hands.

They were opposites in that way, Jada realized. Ranec was a bravo in combat, but more poet than beast in his sexuality, while Jada was a warrior of cold efficiency and now a ferocious creature who tore at his flesh even as she coupled with him.

Ranec was visibly concerned with the swift and aggressive turn their intercourse had taken, though the allure of the savage beauty writhing on top of him kept the man fully engaged.

Jada leaned down and dangled her necklace against his face and he seemed to finally understand what was happening between them. This wasn’t about the two of them at all, more that it was about Jada and the ghost of the man she’d once loved.

Ranec’s lips parted and he took the ring into his mouth, closing his teeth around it and tying Jada to him by the chain as they continued to collide with one another. The merc’s eyes were ablaze with a blend of intense passion and something akin to madness as she growled with climax.

They did not speak after, as they had not spoken in the beginning, their silent communication somehow capturing their mutual understanding more profoundly than unwieldy linguistics. They lay together, bodies entwined, neither able nor interested in sleep.

Their bodies, enhanced as they were, revealed an appetite for more than just calories and hydration, and the next time they coupled, it was a calmer, almost mechanical affair, as Ranec held Jada’s back to his chest while they embraced. This time, it wasn’t about Mors, or George, or even the passion that had temporarily ignited between Jada and the man whose life she had once saved.

Neither of them had what it took to love another human being, at least not in the way they once had, though there was a comfort of a kind in companionship. The passion of their initial encounter, realized Jada, as she pleasantly pushed back against Ranec’s slow thrusts, was about loss. This second encounter, more methodical and yet more honest, was where the real intimacy between the mercenaries was revealed. They were living weapons, and all weapons needed to be maintained. Like a gun needed oil, cleaning, and ammunition, so too did the body need sustenance, sexual release, and rest. There would be no love between Dire Swords, but there would be respectful care and attention of all the weapon’s needs.

There was little acknowledgement between them when they were reunited hours later on the training deck. To Jada, it seemed that all of the Dire Swords approached the day’s PT with the same cool detachment that they usually did.

The mercenary’s muscles burned as they struggled to push against the magnetized resistance of the training bar. Jada was once more shocked at how, despite the difficulty, she was able to lift it to full extension. There had been a time when she’d watched Harold Marr, the largest and strongest salvage marine in Platoon Tango, struggle mightily to lift less. Jada breathed in and lowered the bar once more to her chest as she lay prone upon one of the many workout benches on the PT deck of Sword Base.

After seizing the urium train, the Dire Swords had been spending their time aboard Sword Base as the merc battleship performed more low-risk patrols of Grotto held territory this side of the Line. Occasionally, there would be a ground engagement, usually just pushing out pirates or squatters looking to snag a few resources before being noticed.

The cold spots and the ghost signals on the scanners had become commonplace, having been encountered over and over by the mercs as they executed their duties across the newly founded Indron sector. On the average punitive run, Jada could see dozens of them through her instruments as Poe drove next to her in silence. He, like the rest of the squad, found that it was easier not to think about the oddities of these cities of stone, and to focus on the mission at hand. They had long agreed amongst themselves that these were likely alien cities, crafted with some, as yet, unknown technology, though the cold spots and signals were a matter of some debate during the few idle hours the mercs endured aboard Sword Base.

Jada knew that all of them had questions aplenty, but the Dire Swords were professional soldiers, and asking questions wasn’t in the contract. Neither was passing judgment on the particulars of any given mission, with regards to the client’s overall stratagem in the sector, the goals of the enemies, or any other value assessment that was not related to the tactical reality of the pending conflict.

Mors was gone, but life aboard Sword Base continued as always. Jada felt, hefting more grav-plates onto the exercise bar for Poe as the man worked through his first set of reps, that it was this return to normalcy that showed respect for the fallen. The temple’s interior window was set so that the helmets upon the many shelves could look down upon the living, to bear witness.

Jada found herself wondering how long it would be until her own helmet sat upon those shelves and finding there was a comfort in the certainty of its eventuality.

Briefings among the Dire Swords reminded Jada greatly of the many others she had sat through during her time as a Reaper of Grotto Corporation. She supposed that most military briefings were much the same, and, as with many things in the world of modern war-making, the similarities tended to stay in line with maximum functionality.

Just as the soldier in the field using iron sights lined up the back of the rifle to the front, so it was that the living weapons of war were prepared for their deployment. The metaphor worked for her, more so now that she was part of a military unit named after a weapon, and she felt in those briefings as if she were being aimed at her target. There was a freedom in being loyal only to the contract, a kind that she had not felt during her years as a salvage marine, even if in truth, that was the world she’d been living in without realizing it.