Additional thanks to SharonBest for letting Julie meet some other interesting people. Not to mention for creating the entire Aurora Universe in the first place.

Julie

Chapter 24

I tried to fly out of there. But her pounding kept me from flexing my muscles properly for flight. Every time I started rising up another blow would smash into me, causing my body to spasm from the pain and dropping me back down against the stones again. I could taste more of my blood in my mouth. Oh, the pain! Oh, the pain!

Then mercifully the pain stopped and everything went black as I lost consciousness.

I slowly regained consciousness. It wasn't my usual snapping-instantly-to-alertness kind of awakening. I just lay there with my eyes closed, trying to remember what had happened.

Strange, there was no pain. There was no sign of the pounding headache I had felt before. There was no sign of the blood that I had tasted earlier.

There was no sound. No roaring in my head. No sounds of fists striking my body. No sounds of rocks being smashed.

Slowly opening my eyes, I carefully looked around myself. I was lying on my stomach on a large flat boulder, my golden hair cascading around it, my right arm hanging down and resting on the ground. I was in between some other boulders.

Turning my head and looking up, I saw that it was night, but I couldn't see the stars above clearly; there was a slight grayish overcast. I couldn't see the moon. It had been broad daylight when I was battling the 'Dark Supergirl'.

The air smelled and tasted funny. Much worse than the Denver brown cloud, and different. And the air was cold. Very cold. It certainly didn't smell and taste and feel like Mexico either. Nor did it look like Mexico. At least not the part of Mexico that I remembered.

At least there was one good thing about my current predicament. I didn't see the Arion Warrior Prime the media had named the 'Dark Supergirl' around.

The last thing I remembered, I was battling the 'Dark Supergirl' in some old stone ruins down in Mexico. I had been in the fight of my life. And she had really been kicking the shit out of me! I remembered actually fearing for my life.

But now, there was no pain. No pounding headache, no sign of my own blood I had tasted in my mouth. I almost felt comfortable. As comfortable as one could be while lying on rocks and boulders, out in the cold night air, at any rate. Of course, being a Velorian, I would have been not too uncomfortable either in a freezer or in a blast furnace.

My clothes, the colored Arion uniform, still seemed to be intact, even if my memory wasn't.

At first I thought that I had to be dreaming. The fight with the 'Dark Supergirl' was too real, too painful, to have been a dream. If that wasn't a dream, then this must be. But I could feel the rough edges of the boulder under me. Running my fingers along the corner, I was able to break off chunks of the hard volcanic rock. That was a relief, at least I still had my Velorian powers.

I sat up and looked at the boulders around me. They didn't look familiar at all. There was no sign of any vegetation. They were just boulders. Natural, nothing built. Not stone walls, and not ruined stone walls. Nothing smashed. No signs of a fight between a Velorian and an Arion Warrior Prime. And no signs of an Arion Warrior Prime. No signs of the 'Dark Supergirl'.

"There you are."

I almost jumped out of my skin when I heard the voice. A soft feminine voice, almost musical. Definitely Supremis. I turned around, prepared to face the 'Dark Supergirl' attacking me again. Instead I saw a young blonde woman, still almost a girl, with her hands on her hips, standing between two boulders on my right. She couldn't have been more than nineteen or so. Even in the cold of the night she was wearing very little, no more than what I was wearing, just a red and blue bikini, with a long flowing red cape around her shoulders. She reached out her hand to me. "Come with me."

Something wasn't right. It wasn't even close to Halloween. Or were we close to a beach? But I couldn't hear or smell the water.

Why was she dressed like a Velorian? "Who are you? Where am I?"

"Come on. I'll try to explain as we go. By the way, my name is Xara."

"Uh, hi. I'm Julie."

"Of course you are. I've been told I'd find you here. Now c'mon and get up. We don't have much time. We have to be going."

Huh? She knew who I was? She was expecting me? "Told? By whom? Where am I? Going where? Where are you taking me?"

"C'mon, we don't have all day. Whatever a day is here." She shrugged her shoulders, and then took my hand and easily pulled me up to my feet.

Standing up, I momentarily felt a little lightheaded, as if somehow gravity had lessened. Shaking my head to clear it, I tried to pull my hand free of hers. Gently at first, and then with more and more force as she refused to let go. I pulled a little harder, hard enough to tear steel, but she still wouldn't let go. I saw the corners of her mouth turn up a little at my surprise. "In case you can't tell, I'm a Velorian. Just like you." With that, she let go of my hand, making it clear that she was letting me go. "My mother told me that I'd find you here. I'm supposed to bring you to meet with the others."

She's a Velorian? Of course! Sure, she looked like one. She was dressed like one. And she definitely was strong. She may even be stronger than I was. Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas any more.

Her mother? The others? Who the heck are they? More Velorians? What did they want with me?

I'd had enough of this mystery. I put my hands on my hips and looked at her. "Okay, one step at a time, please, Xara. Who's your mother? Do I know her?"

She glared back at me, like she was insulted that I had to ask who her mother was. "My mother is Kara, also known as SuperFemme, the Protector of Earth," she said proudly, almost arrogantly, putting her hands on her hips and sticking out her chest. And her chest was quite a nice chest, at that, her nipples tenting the thin fabric barely covering her large full breasts. Very much like my own chest.

"SuperFemme? Never heard of her." Wait! What did she say? Protector? The Protector of where? "Earth? Protector of Earth? No way! There is no Protector on Earth! NO WAY! I'm the only Velorian on Earth!"

"What-e-ver." She sounded exactly like a California teenager dismissing a friend's choice of a dress at a mall. She shrugged off my outburst; momentarily distracting me with her gesture as it caused her fine young breasts to bounce around a little. After all, they were the first set of Velorian breasts that I had ever seen, other than my own. "Look, I don't know all the details, Julie. But apparently, we're both from Earth, but from Earths in two different dimensions. Now c'mon."

I calmed down a little, trying to digest what she had just said. I took a few steps after her. "Okay Xara, let's assume for a moment that I believe you. Where are we? And just where are you taking me?"

"This is a little planet somewhere in space. In Sagittarius, I believe. In my dimension, not in yours. As for where we're going, I assume the Ancient Ones or somebody else is going to be telling us real soon now. Now c'mon."

Huh? I stopped in my tracks. The Ancient Ones? I get to meet my first Velorian, other than the one I see every time I look in a mirror, and my first Ancient One, all in the same day? Who's next, the Easter Bunny? How about Santa Claus? Or maybe the Tooth Fairy? "The Ancient Ones? They really exist? They brought us here?"

"Well, somebody told us to come here. Not just Mother and myself, either. There's about three thousand Velorians here, mostly Protectors. And there are more coming. C'mon, let's go, we can't just stand here and chat all day." She again reached for my hand.

Protectors? Three thousand of them? I pulled my hand back. "Wait a sec!" I wasn't about to go anywhere just yet. "Three thousand Protectors? But I'm not a Protector. What am I doing here?" I feared the worst. Somehow the Ancient Ones had found out that I was on Earth, in clear violation of the First Directive. They were going to put me on trial, and probably execute me afterwards. I briefly thought about trying to fly away. But fly away to where? And Xara was a Protector; I probably couldn't escape her. And even if I did somehow manage to escape from her, there were three thousand other Protectors around. No way was I going to escape from all of them.

But Xara said that she and her mother were from Earth. Her mother was the Protector of Earth. If they could be on Earth, why couldn't I? This was getting to be real confusing.

What on Earth was going on here? Or rather, what off Earth was going on here, since we weren't on Earth? I almost preferred the straightforward battle with the 'Dark Supergirl'.

Almost.

"Well, duh! Why else would anybody ever come here? We're going to be kicking some serious Arion ass," she grinned at me.

Oh good! What a relief! As long as all those Protectors were gathering here to kick some Arion ass, and not a certain Velorian's ass. That 'Dark Supergirl' had kicked enough of my Velorian ass for this millenium, thank you. "But what am I doing here? I'm not a Protector."

"Apparently, you made the cut. You're on the varsity now." Her grin widened as she reached for my hand again.

This time, I needed no more urging to follow her. I took her hand as she led the way up a hill. We didn't talk much more, as I tried to digest what she had told me.

We crested the hill to find a small bowl-shaped valley on the other side, a natural amphitheater with a stage made of apparently volcanic boulders at one end. It kind of reminded me of the Red Rocks amphitheater just west of Denver. I'd always enjoyed going to concerts there. George and I always managed to avoid the traffic hassles by flying. Though this amphitheater was smaller, and not as red. And there certainly was no need for a parking lot here.

The sight took my breath away. My head started reeling again. But this had nothing whatsoever to do with what the 'Dark Supergirl' had been doing to me only a short time before. It had to do with what was in the bowl.

The bowl was filled with people. Tall beautiful blonde women. Thousands of them. Many were sitting down on the ground, talking with their neighbors. Others were still standing in small groups, also talking amongst themselves. More of them were coming from over a hill on the other side, some of them walking, others flying.

This was SO cool! This was absolutely awesome! I've never even seen another Velorian before today, except in a mirror, and now there were thousands of them in front of me. All of them tall, beautiful, and blonde. And all of them women. All of them just barely dressed, like Xara, in tiny red and blue bikinis, with long flowing red capes. I looked around but I couldn't spot a single man. Not one man, married or single.

Some of them waved and shouted at Xara. She waved and shouted back. I couldn't understand what she was shouting, but I hoped that she was being friendly; I'd had enough of a fight against one Arion Warrior Prime, I certainly didn't want to be involved in a fight against three thousand Velorian Protectors. At least she didn't give anybody the finger. But then, judging from the three Supremis women that I knew best, Mom, Karen, and myself, the finger just might be considered a friendly greeting. Or at least the promise of a very friendly greeting to come.

Xara led me down to the edge of the crowd and sat down on a rock after running her hands over it to smooth it out a little. I did the same to another rock and sat down next to her. I strained my ears to try to catch some of the conversations around me, but I couldn't understand what they were saying. I assumed that they had to be speaking in Velorian. Mom had taught me a few words, but she had never learned the language herself. She and my real mother had usually spoken together in Arion.

After a couple of more minutes the last of the stragglers seemed to have made it in, as the parade from the other side ended. A tall beautiful blonde woman (Is that redundant, since all about me there was nothing but tall beautiful blonde Velorian women?) walked up to the front of the assembly as heads turned in that direction and the voices began quieting down. Even though it was still dark, I had no trouble seeing, and I assumed that nobody else had any trouble, either.

"Hey! That's Aunt Lilly!" Xara told me as the woman jumped up on top of a huge flat boulder. I took another look at 'Aunt Lilly'. I took another look at Xara. I looked back at 'Aunt Lilly'. She looked awfully young to be anybody's aunt, especially of somebody like Xara; the two of them looked to be just about the same age, both of them younger than I was. I decided that 'Aunt Lilly' was just some kind of pet name between the two of them.

'Aunt Lilly' clapped her hands together, creating a thunderous boom. The talking died down. 'Aunt Lilly' began speaking, not loudly, but her voice carried. She was speaking in the same almost musical language that everyone around me had been speaking in. It sounded sort of like Swedish, not that I would have understood it if it had been. Xara leaned over and started whispering to me, translating the Velorian for me. "For those of you who don't know me, let me introduce myself. My name is Lillith, I am the Protector of Tetra. You have all been brought here by the Ancient Ones. You have all been brought here because Tetra is under attack by a massed Arion fleet." There was a loud outcry from the assembly. Apparently the Arions weren't very well liked by this particular bunch of people. A sentiment that I could understand quite well.

She didn't know exactly how many Arions there were in the attacking fleet, but if it was going to need thousands of Protectors to battle it, it had to be a large Arion fleet. I looked at Lillith. On her face I could clearly see the pain and the anguish she must have felt at the Arion attack. She also looked a little tired, as if she had been fighting for a long time to Protect her planet.

Looking around me, I saw that the other Velorians seemed also surprised at the size of the task before us. Apparently, they'd never been a part of anything this big before, either. However, they also seemed excited at the prospect, almost as if they were looking forward to doing battle with that many Arions.

Lillith clapped her hands together again. When the roar of voices died down, Lillith continued. Xara kept translating for me. "These are the Tetrites, the people I Protect." She waved a hand. The air in front of her shimmered. Forms appeared out of thin air. I looked around for a projector of some sort, before realizing that anybody that could get four thousand Velorians together probably didn't need any projectors to make images appear out of thin air.

It was clear from Xara's reaction that she had never seen Tetrites before, either. Little balls of fur, ranging in size from my fist to larger than a basketball, standing on eight legs. Their colors ranged from light tan to light gray to red, shading all the way to black. Some of them were almost pink. Sort of like huge tarantulas, but of wildly different sizes and colors. Kind of cute, though I didn't know if they were poisonous or not.

As Lillith continued talking, Xara kept translating for me. Lillith told us more about the Tetrites. "Their only passions are their eternal quest for information, and for sunning themselves upon their favorite rocks." She talked about some of the things the Arions had done to these peaceful and peace-loving creatures. The Tetrites, being a peaceful race, had absolutely no defense against the Arions, no weapons more advanced than sticks and stones. The crowd roared as she went through a list of the Arion atrocities. No, the Arions definitely weren't very well liked by this particular bunch of people.

After clapping her hands together again to get everyone's attention, Lillith outlined the plan of attack. We were to travel through a wormhole and emerge just above the surface of Tetra. Most of us would then go after the Arion spacecraft above the planet first, before going down to engage the remainder of the Arions down on the surface. She again reminded us that we were the best fighters around, the best that Velor and Daxxan had to offer. The crowd roared again.

Four thousand Velorians, all of us picked for our fighting abilities. And I was one of them! Me! Yours truly! Julie of Earth! Well, of my Earth, anyway, not Xara's Earth. I really had made the varsity! Not bred as a Protector, and raised by an Arion Beta as her own daughter! Oh, Mom! You did well! My mother would be proud of you! I'm proud of you!

Now, I had to make them proud of me.

I knew that I couldn't let Mom down. And I couldn't let my mother down.

Nor could I let the Tetrites down. They were counting on us. Counting on me.

After that little pep talk, there wasn't much more for Lillith to say. Even though I couldn't understand the other Velorians around me, I agreed with their sentiments. We were all ready to go kick some serious Arion ass. Any ill effects I might have had from my battle with the 'Dark Supergirl' were now completely gone and forgotten.

Except that I had a minor little problem.

I didn't know how to get there in order to do it. I didn't know a wormhole from an Arion's asshole, let alone how to travel through one.

Xara seemed to be reading my mind. Or maybe she'd been told what to expect from me. Or to not expect from me, as the case may be. As we stood up, she took my hand and started leading me away. "This way, Julie."

As we walked she gave me a quick lesson in traveling through a wormhole. She pointed out the tachyon emitters showing the proper course. She told me that I had tuck myself up into a tight ball to lessen the gravitational stresses as I entered and traveled through the wormhole.

After she made sure that I had the proper form for the tuck, we took off. There was a steady stream of Velorians flying by. All beautiful blonde women. Unarmed beautiful blonde women. Of course, what weapons did we need, besides our fists and our bodies? That was all we would ever need for battling Arions.

We took up our assigned place in the parade and headed off for the wormhole.

What a trip! This was SO cool! It was like flying through a kaleidoscope, a long colored, melting tube. Sort of like that sequence in Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. I mean, it was really, REALLY, cool!

Coming out of the wormhole on the other side was like being shot out of a cannon, except for that I was moving a lot faster than any Terran cannon shell ever moved. Well, not that I really knew what being shot out of a cannon was really like. I had sometimes thought about trying to talk the Navy into shooting me out of one of the big guns on a battleship, just to see what that would be like. I just might have to do that, when I got back.

If I got back. But now was not the time to be thinking about that.

Anyway, I emerged from the wormhole and unfolded from my tuck. There in front of me was Xara, along with several hundred other beautiful blonde women of our attack group. One of them was 'standing' in place and directing traffic, lining us up into our attack formations. Behind her were a couple of the moons of Tetra. Lillith had told us that there were a total of seven, making for some beautiful night skies as the moons chased each other across the sky.

No time to be chasing moons right now, though. I had to chase Xara to our assigned position in the attack formation. But I did I manage to look around myself as I followed Xara. At more of the scenery, besides Xara and the other beautiful blonde Velorians.

Once we were lined up, we went charging towards the planet Tetra. There was a large majestic mountain range; mountains that made the mountains of my native Colorado look like mere hills. Off in the distance I could see an ocean. In between was a wide barren desert. I didn't see any cities or roads, but I knew from Lillith's briefing that there wouldn't be any.

That was enough sightseeing for now. Back to the business at hand.

I saw the Arion ships to the right. The sky was covered with them. Big ships and little ships. Some of them were actually flying below the level of the mountaintops. All were marked with the black and red bird symbol of Aria.

I followed Xara as she streaked down towards one of the big ones. A really big one, it was circular and had to be over two thousand feet across. It kind of looked like one of the city destroyers in the movie Independence Day, but smaller. I had absolutely no idea what kept it up. And frankly, at the time I didn't care. I didn't care what kept it up, I just wanted to bring it down.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the faintest idea on how to bring it down. But Xara seemed to know how, as she flew right at it at high speed. I saw Xara flexing her legs for even more speed as she hit the upper hull. A shower of sparks and metal fragments flew out as she went through the hull. She disappeared into the dark depths of the ship.

Following beside her, I hit the hull about two hundred feet to her right. Having lost sight of Xara, and not knowing what target we were trying for anyway, I just plowed straight on through, drilling through I don't know how many decks. If there were any Arions inside, I didn't see them; I was going too fast to get a good look. And if I actually hit any Arions, I didn't notice. I finally punched through the bottom of the hull and emerged into the clear air underneath the ship. I managed to slow down and stop just before I plowed headfirst into the rocky surface of Tetra.

Turning around to get my head up, I saw that Xara was right beside me, looking up. Following her gaze, I saw the ship we had just come through starting to stagger and tilt. I saw explosions from within as other Velorians punched through to emerge from the bottom. Finally the big ship tilted over almost completely on its side, hitting one of the smaller ships and all but knocking one of its wings off. More Velorians emerged from the bottom of the big ship as it began sliding down, crashing down between two mountain peaks.

A smaller ship started spinning out of control. Before the pilot could regain control, a Velorian streaked down onto it, and right through it. The ship exploded in a shower of blue and white sparks, the fragments raining down onto the ground below.

"C'mon, Julie, quit gawking. We're not tourists." With that, Xara streaked off towards a flock of smaller ships. She didn't plow through it like we had done the first time. Instead, she grabbed onto the leading edge of the stubby wing, about ten feet from the wingtip. Her biceps flexed to incredible dimensions as she started to spin in place and swing the ship around. After a couple of complete spins she let go and the ship hurtled towards the ground, exploding as it hit.

As she turned towards another one, I streaked towards the one next to it. This one, like the one Xara had just flung into the ground, was much smaller than the first one. Of course, that's only relative. This was no Piper Cub I was going after; by smaller I meant that the fuselage on this thing was only slightly larger than that of a Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet, though the wings were quite a bit shorter. I grabbed the wing as I had seen Xara do, my fingers ripping into the hard metal. I wasn't sure whether I could control something this big, Xara was a real Protector after all, much stronger than an ordinary Velorian like yours truly, but after she had made it look so easy that I just had to try it for myself.

I could feel and hear the powerful engines straining as I tried to spin the ship around. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I could indeed control it, as I started spinning in place, swinging the ship around. I didn't know whether it really was that easy, or if I was just pumped up from being here, but I felt stronger than I ever had before. Even stronger than when I had been under the influence of Orgone. Maybe it was the anger I felt towards these Arions after having heard Lillith tell us what they had done to her planet and its inhabitants.

I looked at the cockpit and saw the stunned expression on the face of the pilot as I overpowered his engines and put the ship under my control. I turned my head towards Xara as I swung the ship around again and saw her looking at me, smiling, holding another ship's wing in her hands, beginning to spin it around her. I instinctively knew what she wanted to do.

I kept spinning and swinging the ship around. After another complete spin, I let it fly. But not at the ground, as Xara had done. Instead, I let it fly right at Xara. At the same time she released her ship, right at me.

There was a very cool and very satisfying explosion as the two ships crashed into each other. As we flew above the smoke, she grinned at me and gave me a thumbs up sign. I waved to her, returning the thumbs up. We then turned and dove, heading towards another pair of the smaller ships.

I'd never cut loose quite like this before. I was letting out all of the anger I felt towards the Arions, paying them back for all of the pain and suffering they've caused me. All of the pain and suffering they've caused on Earth. And all of the pain and suffering they've caused on the world below me.

I was really kicking some serious ass. And it wasn't just me. There were four thousand other Velorians, all of them just as mad at the Arions as I was. And, let me tell you, four thousand Velorians can really kick some serious ass.

I barely noticed that the Arions were shooting back at us. But their aim was terrible. I supposed that I really couldn't blame the gunners, if four thousand Velorians came at me out of nowhere, I'd be a little rattled too. And when they did manage to hit me with their laser cannons, all it did was tingle a bit.

Xara and I made our way through this portion of the Arion fleet, taking care of their smaller ships two at a time. We only missed once. I tried to catch the one Xara threw at me, but when I grabbed the wing it came off in my hands. The rest of the ship continued on, to crash into a mountainside about a quarter of a mile behind me. I turned around just in time to see the ship I had thrown at Xara coming right back at me. Using the wing I still held in my hands as a giant tennis racquet, I swatted at the ship. The wing shattered as I hit the ship with it. I managed to deflect the ship into another mountainside where it crashed with another very cool and very satisfying explosion.

Xara swooped down towards me with her arms outstretched and her palm forward as I tossed away what was left of the wing. Seeing what she intended, I slapped palms with her, exchanging high-fives with her before she turned and climbed again towards the other ships. I followed closely behind her, trying not to stare at her long shapely legs and her very cute backside. At least not too much, we still had other Arion ships to take care of.

Approaching another pair of the smaller ships, we swooped in and grabbed the wings. Swinging them around, we hurled them at each other. This time, we didn't miss.

All around us, I could see other Arion ships, and pieces of Arion ships, and pieces of Arions, falling. Xara and I must have taken out more than a dozen of their smaller ships. After the last pair, we turned to look for another pair of targets but didn't find any. The last two of the bigger ones were already on the way down, repeatedly holed by invulnerable Velorian bodies.

Other Velorians were already taking care of the remaining smaller ships. A couple of ships were climbing away from the surface, trying to escape the slaughter, but there was a group of Velorians in hot pursuit, closing fast. Even as I watched the Velorians caught up to the fleeing ships. In less than a minute there was nothing up there except for pieces of Arion ships raining down on the ground, and the Velorians circling around above the falling debris. Other Velorians were on the ground, sifting through the wreckage, eliminating any Primes that might have survived the crashes.

With their air force totally destroyed, and with the falling wreckage doing major damage to the army on the ground, the remaining Arions didn't seem to have their hearts in the fight. As I followed Xara down towards the ground, I saw that the Betas were throwing down their weapons and putting their hands on their heads in surrender, knowing that they didn't stand a chance against Velorians. For the most part the Primes didn't seem to be too enthusiastic either, they were putting their hands on their heads and surrendering just like the Betas were.

What a sight! Not only had I never seen so many Velorians before today, well, I hadn't seen any before today, but I had never seen so many Arions, either.

But not all of the Primes were surrendering. Here and there I saw Primes locked in hand-to-hand combat with Velorians. But we had the advantage and the momentum, believe me, four thousand Velorians can build up a lot of momentum, and we saw no need to fight fair against the Arions. I saw Velorians streaking down from above, using the advantage of flight, smashing into the backs of the Primes, smashing their skulls, smashing their bodies.

I even got two of them. Well, Xara and I got two of them; we made a good team. We were going through the remnants of an armored column on the ground, freeing the surrendering Betas from the rubble. It was like walking through a junkyard, a junkyard that covered the ground all the way to the horizon.

Xara had bent down, and reaching out with her right hand was righting an overturned personnel carrier when I saw some movement behind another wreck. He was raising his weapon, preparing to fire it at Xara, when I tackled him from behind, knocking the weapon away and knocking him practically on top of Xara. The two of them grappled for a while before she managed to lift him up off his feet. I was flying over to try to help when she threw him at me. Clenching my hands together, I swung. The blow sent him right back down at Xara. With a terrific uppercut, she sent him back up at me. I clubbed him again. That was the last time I hit him; somewhere between that blow and Xara's next uppercut, his body just fell apart and burned up as his internal fires rapidly consumed him, reducing his body to ashes swirling around in the blowing wind, his empty uniform drifting down to the ground.

I landed beside her and we high-fived each other again. Then I suddenly found myself flat on the ground, a Prime on my back pounding my head into the ground. After another blow the pounding stopped and I got up. I saw that Xara was behind the struggling Prime, pinning her arms over her head in a full nelson. As Xara leaned back and lifted the Prime off of her feet, I struck. My first punch hit her in the stomach as Xara continued to hold her in the full nelson. My second punch hit her in the face, causing blood to spurt out of her nose. My next punch hit her in the stomach. I was winding up for another punch when I saw that between my punches and Xara's full nelson the Prime's back had been broken. Xara let the broken body fall at her feet as the internal fires consumed it.

"Are you okay, Julie?" Xara asked me. "I thought she had you there for a moment."

"Yeah, I'm fine, Xara. How 'bout you? I didn't know what that weapon was gonna do to you. Never seen one like that before."

"No sweat. But thanks anyway, Julie." She went over and picked up the discarded weapon. "It's an Arion Gar model whatever disruptor. It would have stung, and multiple hits would actually hurt, eventually drawing blood." She wadded it up like a used tissue and tossed away on the pile of ashes of the second Prime.

We high-fived each other again and looked around us again. I saw that most of the action seemed to be happening on the other side of a low ridge off to my left. A steady stream of Arions, mostly Betas with a few Primes scattered among them, were coming from that direction. I also saw that a lot of the other Velorians were heading that way. After a quick talk with one of them, Xara waved to me and started trotting that way.

By 'trotting', I mean that she wasn't going much faster than about a hundred miles per hour. I trotted along at her heels.

Cresting the ridge, we quickly came to a concrete structure near the peak of a good-sized mountain. Or rather, we came to the remains of a concrete structure. Three of the walls were still standing, mostly. Most of the roof was gone. I knew that there had to be underground tunnels or something like that somewhere, there couldn't possibly have been that many Arions inside just the part of the structure that was above ground.

The surrendering Arions gave us a wide berth as Xara led us inside, and down a ramp, which soon turned into a wide tunnel hewn out of the solid bedrock. I saw other tunnels branching off to the sides, with streams of Arions pouring out of them in surrender as more Velorians went in. The tunnel was dimly lit, probably for the benefit of the Betas, as the Primes certainly didn't need the lighting to see. Neither did we.

I grabbed hold of Xara's hand and stopped her as she went past a section of the wall on the right that was colored slightly differently. "Wait, Xara. Does this look like some kinda door to you?" We both used our tachyon vision to look through the colored section of the wall. We saw nothing. That is, we didn't see solid rock on the other side. There definitely was a hole there. A hidden tunnel.

We turned and looked at each other. I nodded. "On three," she said. I nodded again. "Three!" She threw herself at the wall as I turned and punched at it. We quickly tore down the wall and opened up a hole.

Sure enough, there was another tunnel leading away from the main one.

We went into the tunnel. This one was not quite as wide as the one we had been in, but still a good-sized tunnel, too big to be merely for ventilation purposes.

There were more Arions inside. This definitely was not a ventilation shaft. We ignored the Betas, unless they shot at us. We could have ignored them; their light weapons didn't hurt us at all, only tickling a little. But a quick blast of heat vision took care of the ones that shot at us, that just made the rest of them that much more eager to surrender.

The Primes were a different story. They weren't about to surrender without a fight. And a fight they got. But Xara and I were on a roll; the Primes didn't stand a chance against us. Maybe, if they had fallen back and gotten organized, then they might have stood a chance against us. But instead, they came at us piecemeal, singly or in pairs. Or we came upon them piecemeal. Either way, it was a massacre, as we continued kicking some serious Arion ass.

We showed them no more mercy than they had shown the poor defenseless Tetrites. Xara was absolutely magnificent, her muscles expanding incredibly, making her arms even bigger than those of the Arion Warriors Prime, as she wasted them with her fists. Xara was absolutely magnificent. Usually it didn't take more than one devastating punch of her small but powerful fists to completely crush a Prime's head or body.

Did I mention that Xara was absolutely magnificent?

I didn't think that I was too shabby myself either, even if it did usually take me more than one punch to take out one of them. I must have plowed through at least half a dozen of the Primes. Most of them never even landed a punch on me. I didn't know whether the Primes in this dimension were not as tough as the ones back home, or if somehow I was stronger here. I really didn't care, either. Maybe it was the sheer emotional energy, the rush of adrenaline, or of Orgone, or whatever. If I had thought that I had cut loose in the battle in the sky, this was something else entirely. That had been an impersonal fight, just taking down space ships. This was something different. This was personal, going face-to-face, hand-to-hand, and mano a mano with Arion Warriors Prime. It was almost cool, plowing through all of those Primes almost as if they were nothing more than mere Betas. Not too shabby at all, even if I do say so myself.

Did I mention that Xara was absolutely magnificent?

Only two Primes gave me any trouble at all. I had just taken one out, a single punch going through his guard and shattering his skull. I stood there for a second, watching the fires beginning to consume his body. As I started to turn away in order to follow Xara deeper into the tunnel, I suddenly found myself flat on my stomach.

I could see the solid floor crack and shatter in front of my eyes as somebody began using my face as a jackhammer, pounding me on the back of my skull. I tried to get up, but another blow between my shoulder blades smashed me back down to the ground. I tried to call out to Xara, but all that did was to force me to eat some rock as a couple of battleships landed on the back of my head, sending my face crashing against the floor again. That didn't taste very good.

I again tried again to get up. A couple of more battleships landed on the back of my head, forcing me to eat more rock. The second mouthful didn't taste any better than the first mouthful had.

I finally managed to kick out with a leg and rolled to the side. Raising my hands, I caught a foot that was swinging for my head. Twisting the foot, and the leg that it was attached to, I managed to bring the body down.

Even before the body came crashing down on me, I knew that it was female. With my mouth still full of crushed rock, I quickly got my arms around her, succeeding in pinning her arms to her sides in a bear hug. I kept squeezing tighter and tighter. She kept squirming to get free. I managed to get my legs around hers, pinning her further.

I was squeezing her as tightly as I could, even tighter than I had held those two Primes in Kentucky when I had been under the influence of Orgone. Yet she kept squirming to get free. With a tremendous effort she managed to force my arms apart and got free.

I kicked out with my legs, driving her into the rock wall. Literally into the wall, she was half buried in the rock. As she tried to get her arms and legs free of the rock, I flew at her feet first, without even bothering to turn around. Before she could get herself out of the wall, I drove my feet into her stomach, driving her even deeper and deeper into the rock. I flew about five feet above the floor as I kept on kicking, hitting her face, her chest, and her stomach. Finally a kick caved in the side of her face. I spat out the rocks in my mouth as I watched the internal fires that quickly consumed her body. Somehow the rocks tasted better when they were accompanied by the sight of the Prime's body being reduced to a pile of ashes.

But that was it for my lunch break. I quickly ran deeper into the tunnel to catch up with Xara. I found her in a large room to the left of the tunnel, surrounded by three Primes. I saw the remains of a fourth one on the floor, nothing remaining any more but his uniform and some gray ashes.

I leaped at the one nearest to the door. Since he had his back to me, I took him by surprise. I tackled him from behind, at the same time getting an arm around his neck and forcing his head back. With an audible CRUNCH his neck snapped.

That left the two of us and the two of them. Two young Velorian women against two older Arion Prime women. We were running on momentum, and anger at what the Arions had done to this planet. The Primes fought out of sheer desperation.

Not only were they desperate, they were good. Very good. We circled around each other for a while, trading some punches. We weren't losing the fight, but we certainly weren't winning. Over the noise of the fight, I heard Xara telling me to back away, back to the doorway.

We withdrew, as the Arions also drew back to other side of the room, standing in front of the shattered wall. One of them raised an arm and a leg, apparently working out the kinks in her muscles. There was a feral, almost animal-like grin on her face as she looked at us retreating, almost as if she was daring us to come back. I was half tempted to try my Arnold impersonation, to tell her that "I'll be back."

We withdrew all the way out of the room and back to the tunnel. Xara hurriedly but quietly whispered her plan to me, using English on the premise that an Arion on Tetra wouldn't be very likely to understand it. Of course, she couldn't use Velorian since I didn't understand it. Hers was a plan utilizing the advantage our flight powers gave us. It was a daring plan that would require split-second timing on our part. I decided that our Velorian reactions were better than their Arion reflexes, and nodded my agreement.

We turned to face the Arions, standing side by side, Xara on my left. She signaled, and we leaped at them, flying side by side straight at the two of them. In the short distance we had, we couldn't get up to full speed; we would still be visible to the Primes. But we weren't planning on losing them through our speed alone.

Just before we got there, I dropped towards the floor and to my left. Xara rose and moved to her right. We crisscrossed right in front of the two Arions, each of us taking out the Arion who was looking at and preparing for the other one of us.

That was enough to give us the edge we needed to get through their defenses. My fists smashed into the face in front of me, while she was still looking at Xara, completely crushing the skull even as the skull crushed the stone wall behind her. I stopped and stood up to see that Xara had done pretty much the same thing to the other one. We really did make a good team. We high-fived each other again and turned back to the doorway just in time to see three more people arriving.

But these weren't Arions. All three of them were tall beautiful blonde women, dressed in red and blue bikinis. The cavalry had arrived.

With the reinforcements, it didn't take us too much longer to clear out the rest of that tunnel. Not even the bravest Warrior Prime was stupid enough to attack five Velorian Planetary Protectors by himself.

Even if it was actually only four Protectors and yours truly. But of course, we weren't about to tell them that.

Actually, there was one. One Prime, that is. He was either very brave, or else he was very stupid. Or maybe he was both. Of course, I didn't get a chance to talk with him to find out which.

As we came around a corner into a room full of surrendering Betas, he charged straight at the five of us, roughly shoving the Betas out of his way, while screaming something at us. Probably not a very polite something, judging from the expression on his face. Or from the reactions of the other Velorians.

It wasn't a very long fight. With the five of us, I didn't even get in one good punch, before there was nothing of his body remaining other than a pile of black ashes on the floor of the tunnel.

Along with the bodies of two of the Betas that he had killed in getting to us. That probably made us madder than his attack had done, that he would actually kill two of his own people in his eagerness to attack us.

I know that it made me mad. Mom had told me of the Primes' attitude towards the Betas, their callous disregard for their lives. But I had never seen it in action, illustrated so graphically right in front of my eyes. It further stiffened my resolve, to stop the Primes from doing any more damage. To Tetrites, humans, or Betas. Or to anybody else.

Hell, I didn't even want them hurting rocks. Or breathing air, for that matter.

As mad as I was, it was probably a good thing that we didn't run into any more Primes. At least none that tried to resist us.

Eventually, we cleared out that hidden tunnel, herding the surrendering Arions outside. Xara and I followed along towards the exit.

As Xara and I came out of the tunnel, a shadow passed by overhead. Looking up, I saw another Arion warship in the sky. This one was HUGE! It was even bigger than that first city destroyer that I had helped to destroy had been. Triangular in shape, it had to be at least a mile across.

As I continued to stare in amazement, there was a flash of greenish-blue light from underneath it. At first, I thought that it was either the engines or a weapon of some kind. But then, I saw a Velorian emerge from the spot of the flash. A couple dozen others followed her, all emerging from various places on the underside of the ship, after they had apparently passed completely through it, as Xara and I had done to that first city destroyer we encountered.

The ship staggered and started falling as additional explosions wracked it. Those Velorians got under it and managed to move the falling ship out into a desolate valley below us, to keep it from falling on top of anybody. Not just on top of us, but all of the Tetrites that were around us, and the Arion prisoners.

After we had helped clear out the entire underground complex, we got drafted into helping to round up and guard the Arion prisoners. Since I didn't speak Arion or Velorian, I probably wasn't as useful as I could have been. I really felt like a dumb blonde. All these other blondes could talk with each other and even swap jokes; I saw and heard a few laughs. I mostly just stood around and tried to look mean. That wasn't too hard to do; after I having heard Lillith describe some of the things they had done here, and having seen some of the results, I was ready to kill them all. But I just glared at them. That must have been enough, the Arions didn't give me, or any of the other Velorians, any trouble at all. We didn't even have to tell them to not talk, a nasty glance in their direction was enough to make them shut up; they must have been real scared of our heat vision or something. And I really couldn't blame them.

Occasionally, a couple of Velorians would come by, draft some Arion Betas, and go back down into the tunnels. They would come out carrying stacks of boxes and crates, the contents of which were then distributed among the other Arions. I sampled the Arion field rations; they were no better than the stuff I had tasted in the Aleutians after Karen and I had rescued Mark. I didn't know what the Tetrites ate, and I wasn't curious enough to find out.

But I did take a drink of water; Tetra was a hot and dry place. Not that the heat bothered me much, but the water was useful for washing down the dust.

Here and there I saw a few Tetrites scurrying around doing whatever it was that Tetrites did. I could tell that they were intelligent, they weren't just animals running around; they were much too well organized for that. But they also kept well clear of the Arions. I got the distinct impression that the Tetrites didn't like the Arions very much, and I couldn't blame them after having heard Lillith tell us what they had done to this planet. And from what I've seen so far with my own eyes.

There were a couple of makeshift aid stations set up, where the Arion medics tended to the wounded Betas. And a few wounded Primes, though the Beta medics seemed to give them a lower priority. I didn't know whether they were doing it out of spite for the Primes or just because a wounded Beta needed more prompt care than an equally wounded Prime.

I did see Xara getting a little spiteful, occasionally using her heat vision to heat up a chunk of rock upon which a Beta was sitting. She'd flash me a wicked little smile when the Beta sprang up to his or her feet when the heat got to be too much. But that was a little too petty for me. They were Betas, not Primes, and they had already surrendered. The war was over for them. I didn't see any point in tormenting them any further.

Though I actually kind of hoped that some of them would try to cause some real trouble, I was still pumped up from all that fighting. But while I was still ready for more action, the Arions obviously weren't. They had seen what had happened, and they were in no mood to emulate their colleagues. Their former colleagues, the dead ones, that is.

Guard duty did give Xara and me a chance to talk with each other, while we kept our eyes on our prisoners. I learned that Lillith, the Protector of Tetra, really was her aunt. Aunt Lilly was the younger sister of her mother, Kara, the Protector of Earth.

As we talked, we also learned more about each other. And about our two Earths. It was obvious that she was from sometime in the future, but apparently not my future. At least I wasn't from her past. Some events that had happened on my Earth had never happened on hers. Two different Earths. Two different dimensions, as she had said when we had first met.

I discovered that my first impression of her as a California teenager had been right on the money. She really was from California, born and raised. She was the first Velorian that I had ever met, and she had been born on Earth. We were even, I was the first Velorian not born on either Velor or Daxxan that she had ever met.

Some of her experiences growing up among Terrans in California paralleled mine growing up among Terrans in Colorado, though I was surprised to discover that she had actually had her full powers since birth. Likewise, she seemed surprised to discover that I hadn't even known that I was a Velorian until after I turned fifteen. She did have an advantage over me, in that she wasn't alone. There were other Velorians on her Earth, aside from her and her mother. But there were also more Arions.

We were fully agreed that the two Earth-born Velorians made a very good team.

Finally, after what felt like weeks but actually wasn't much more than a Tetran day, we were done. At least I thought that we were. A group of Velorians herded our prisoners away. Another Velorian came up to us and said something. I didn't catch a word of it, but Xara obviously did. The two of them talked for a while, both of them also gesturing with their hands. Xara then turned to me. "C'mon, we have to go find Mother and Aunt Lilly." She took my hand and started leading me away from the tunnel and its prisoners.

I didn't know where we were going. Xara didn't seem to know much more than I did. But she stopped another Velorian occasionally and said something to them. It was clear that she was asking directions, because the other woman would invariably point in a direction and then Xara would lead me off that way.

Between flying, running, and walking, we got further and further away from the mountains. We didn't see any more Arions. We did see a few Tetrites scurrying around, headed in the same general direction that we were going.

After a couple of dozen miles we came upon a cluster of buildings. Or what was left of a small cluster of Tetrite buildings. Nests really, not buildings. But there were the remains of a larger structure, big enough for humans.

There was a group of three Velorian women and a man who looked more Terran than Velorian or Arion. He was scratching the head of a large blue, well, a large blue something. It was about the size of a small horse, but it was shaped like a dog. A large blue dog. It was even acting like a dog, wagging its tail, lolling its tongue out, splitting its time between licking the man's face and chewing on a tattered tennis ball.

And there were several of the furry spider-like Tetrites, of various sizes and colors.

They were all gathered about a big stone fountain that had somehow survived the carnage, even though all around was nothing but ruins and shattered rocks. All around us other Tetrites were already beginning the job of rebuilding. Here and there some Velorians were helping by moving some of the rubble. After all, what could be better earthmovers than Velorians?

Xara spoke to the other women, in Velorian. I thought that I heard my name in there, but I wasn't sure. The dog didn't seem to understand her. Neither did the Tetrites, not that I could really tell. The man didn't seem to understand her, either.

Then Xara switched to English. "Julie, this is my mother, Kara, the Protector of Earth. This is my aunt, Lillith, the Protector of Tetra. And this is Sharon, the Scribe, also of Earth." She gave her aunt a hug before going to stand beside Kara, as the mother put an arm around her daughter's shoulders.

Lillith stepped towards me, her arms outstretched. She said a few words, I assume in Velorian. At my blank look, she turned her head to give Xara a quick look, and then turned back to and smiled. She then spoke in English. "Thank you very much for coming to help us, Julie." She had a strange accent, I could only assume that it was Velorian. But her English was far better than my Velorian was. She took my hands, before giving me a big hug.

Oof! I didn't think that I've ever been hugged that hard. This was the first time I've been hugged by another Velorian, after all. Our breasts flattened against the other's. That felt kind of good.

She must have felt it too, for she broke off the embrace.

As we let go of each other I heard the man clear his throat.

"Oh, sorry. This is William," Lillith said, gesturing towards the man. "William, this is Julie, of Earth." She walked back over to him and put an arm around him as he put an arm around her.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance." I offered him my hand and he took it, with a surprisingly firm grip, much firmer than I would have expected from a Terran. "And since Lillith won't complete the introductions, this is Flare," he pointed to the large blue, well, dog, for lack of a better description, that was doing its best to keep William's face wet in the dry heat. He then pointed to the first of the Tetrites. "And this is Phil," pointing to a brown Tetrite who apparently had been injured in the war, since he only had five legs, "and.... Earth? Did she say Earth? You're from Earth?" His eyes had opened wide as he turned back to stare at me.

Lillith looked to be just as surprised at William's reaction. Kara and Sharon seemed to take it a little more in stride. Flare ignored it and kept on trying to lick William's face. I couldn't tell how Phil and the other Tetrites were reacting.

Sharon stepped forward. She wasn't as tall as the other three Velorians, maybe three inches shorter than I was. Her clothes, such as they were, were identical with that of the others, except for being a greenish gold color, instead of everyone else's red and blue. I remembered that she had been introduced as a Scribe, not as a Protector. "You're from an Earth in another dimension, aren't you?"

"Uh, I guess so. I've never been in another dimension before. But Xara and I aren't from the same Earth, so either it's another planet or another dimension."

"No, it's the same planet, but another dimension. Kara's been in a few dimensions, herself. Haven't you, Kara?"

Kara was the tall one. Since Mom had told me that Velorians don't breed naturally, I didn't expect to see any family resemblance between the two sisters, and I didn't see any. Besides both of them being tall, beautiful, and blonde. But I did see a family resemblance between Kara and her daughter, Xara. "Well, I think just two. I think most of my wanderings have been in time, not across dimensions. But I have been to two different Earths."

Sharon and Kara started to explain about other dimensions. At least they tried, I was sure that I didn't understand half of it; we never covered stuff like this in my physics classes at the University of Colorado. I was trying to follow Sharon's explanation of time vortices when I felt something tickling my left leg. I was about to shake my leg free when I looked down.

Good thing I looked before shaking my leg. There was a little brown ball of fur, about the size of a grapefruit, with two of its legs feeling my leg. Suppressing a shudder, I reached down and gently picked it up. I lifted it up to my face and turned it around, trying to find its face.

"Mistress," I nearly dropped it in my shock when it spoke to me. I knew that they were intelligent, but I hadn't know that they could speak to us like that. "Are you really from Earth? From the William's home?" It pronounced William's name funny, but I wasn't about to criticize a native's accent.

"Well, I'm from Earth, but according to Sharon and Kara, it's not his Earth. And my name is Julie, not 'Mistress'."

"Yes, Mistress Julie. And my name is..." I wasn't even going to try it.

I set the little furball down on the top of a warm flat rock, patting it gently on what I hoped was its head. "No, no, not 'Mistress Julie'. Just 'Julie'."

"Yes, Mistress Just Julie."

"Mistress Just Julie, how can there be more than one Earth? Is there more than one Tetra as well?" Another Tetrite, this one a little larger and dark gray in color, joined the conversation, approaching and feeling my other leg. Just as Lillith had told us, these little critters had insatiable curiosity. I picked this one up and set it down next to the other one, patting it on the top. The two Tetrites went through some kind of a ritual, to determine who gets which sunning spot. It was early afternoon, the warmest time of the day, and the two Tetrites weren't about to let the sun go to waste. Even with everything that they had just gone through, they still had their priorities.

Flare, the large blue dog, tried to go over and lick the two Tetrites, as they cowered back from the big wet pink tongue. William managed to pull her back. Of course, that just got him the big wet pink tongue right in his face for his troubles.

Sharon and Kara quickly realized that their physics lecture was going over our heads. Lillith had caught my exchange with the two Tetrites, and eventually managed to get them, and the others, to refer to me as 'the Julie'. It took her a while, and she couldn't get them to drop the 'the', but at least that was better than being called 'Mistress Julie'. Or 'Mistress Just Julie'.

I realized why when I heard them address her as 'Mistress Lillith' or refer her to her as 'the Mistress'. In fact, she had to tell them that she, and no other, was THE Mistress of this planet. That got a laugh out of Kara and William, or 'the William' as the Tetrites addressed him.

Flare didn't address me as 'Mistress Julie'. She didn't address me as 'Julie', either. She didn't address me at all. She just licked my face with that big pink tongue of hers. Despite her size and color, she was just an adorable puppy. A big blue puppy, as big as a horse, but an adorable puppy nonetheless. Not of Terran origin, according to William, but still just a puppy. A great big blue adorable puppy. With a pink tongue big enough to cover my entire face and then some in one big wet lick.

We sat and talked for a while. It turned out that William was from Earth, the same Earth as Xara, Kara, and Sharon. Sharon, though a full-blooded Velorian, was not actually a Protector, but instead was a Scribe, whose primary duties were to record the doings of the Protectors.

William had been on a scouting mission when his scout ship had gone through a wormhole. He had barely managed to crash-land here on Tetra. Lillith had found him, and, well, you can guess the rest. I'll give you a hint, Lillith had been here for years, alone with these spiders, I mean Tetrites, and along comes a man. I mean, I know what I would have done if I had been in that situation, even if the man hadn't looked even half as good as William did.

Not that I was going to do anything with him here and now. I had my own darling husband, and I certainly wasn't going to put any moves on Lillith's man right in her presence. Not to mention the presence of these other Velorians, all of whom knew Lillith a lot better than they knew me.

William had been taken prisoner by the Arions earlier during this war, and they hadn't treated him too well. But he was back up on his feet. I was sure that Lillith would be nursing him back to full health as soon as we were all done here. Maybe even before.

As we talked, some other Velorians periodically came by to talk with Lillith and Kara. Since Lillith was the Protector of Tetra, she was both the hostess and the one in charge here. Kara, as her older sister, was her right-hand man. Or her right-hand woman, rather. One of the others, Lillith had introduced her as Carpathia of Tolan, took a lot of the load off of Lillith and Kara's shoulders, organizing a lot of the details. I won't bother to repeat myself by saying that Carpathia was a tall beautiful blonde woman.

We joined the relief and salvage efforts, even as we continued to talk. Since I was apparently the only Velorian here who didn't speak Velorian, Xara, Sharon, and Kara made sure that at least one of them was always with me. The Tetrites seemed fascinated with me, another Velorian from the same planet as William, even if it was in a different dimension from theirs.

The Tetrites were full of questions; their quest for information was truly insatiable. Many of their questions, I couldn't answer. Even Kara and Sharon couldn't answer all of them. But I did learn a few things about wormholes and other dimensions from listening to them. The Tetrites also contributed to our pool of knowledge.

Not that I was going to start a new career teaching theoretical physics when I got home, much of what I heard was still way over the head of this blonde.

I also learned that not all people are humans. That is, one doesn't have to be human to be a person. For the Tetrites were, well, people, despite their non-human appearance. They were intelligent and caring. They loved each other, and they loved their children. They loved us, as their Mistress Lillith's sisters and cousins. And Lillith loved them.

They loved all of the Velorians. They loved Earth and its people, especially William. Being a Velorian from Earth, they really loved me. And in a way, I loved them. They really were nice, well, people.

They were a little too formal at times, insisting on referring to me as 'The Julie' and sometimes forgetting and addressing me as 'Mistress'. But they really were nice, well, people.

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't about to take some of them to bed with me; love doesn't have to involve sex. And I didn't think that they would have come to bed with me anyway. But they really were nice, well, people.

They were just as deserving of being Protected from the Arions as anybody else.

Soon, the other Velorians began going back through the wormhole. After Kara and Lillith had a good sisterly hug, Xara, Sharon, and I followed Kara up into the sky.

After another cool trip through the wormhole, we were back on the surface of that dark planet somewhere in Sagittarius. I discovered another useful tidbit of information about wormholes. Going through one can clean you off better than a good long shower; all of the sweat and dust and dirt from Tetra was gone from my skin when I emerged. I wasn't absolutely certain, but it was probably the gravitational stresses just sucking everything off that wasn't permanently attached to my skin. Sort of like an incredibly powerful vacuum cleaner. After all, if you don't tuck yourself in, those stresses could tear even a Velorian limb from limb.

And it was a good thing, too, since there wasn't any water on that little planetoid, let alone any showers, hot or otherwise. And the work we had just done on Tetra had been hard enough make even a Velorian sweat.

When we landed, Xara gave me another high-five. That drew a crowd of curious Velorians, all jabbering at us. Xara apparently explained that it was a Terran custom, and we demonstrated it a little more. One-handed, two-handed, high, low, leaping, all sorts of ways of doing high-fives.

Have you ever seen a couple of dozen tall beautiful blondes, all laughing as they ran around and tried to slap each other's palms? Yeah, me neither. Until then.

But not everything was high-fives. Xara pointed out a couple doing what she called the Velorian embrace. This was standing face-to-face, each with a hand on the other's breast, squeezing hard. As hard as only a Velorian could do, hard enough to crush the hardest steel.

But when I reached a hand towards her, intending to give her a Velorian embrace, Xara slapped my hand away. Apparently, she didn't like that particular custom very much. And I didn't know any of the others well enough to try it with them.

Eventually, all of the high-fiving and the embracing died down as everyone started walking off. I followed Xara as we started gathering in the natural amphitheater. Since Lillith had remained back on Tetra, it was Kara and her daughter Xara who went up on the stage. Kara clapped her hands to get everyone's attention, and then after the noise died down began to speak.

"I am Kara, the Protector of Earth," I heard in English beside me. Turning around, I saw Sharon standing next to me, smiling as she translated Kara's Velorian for me. "This is my daughter Xara. On behalf of my sister Lillith, we'd like to thank all of you for coming to the aid of Tetra. With your aid, we have defeated the Arions."

Even without knowing a word of Velorian, I had no trouble determining that the roar of the crowd was a cheer. Looking around at the crowd, I saw a few more Velorian embraces. I even saw a few isolated high-fives. I slapped palms with Sharon.

Kara clapped her hands again to get attention. She then told us about the death toll. Twelve million Tetrites killed! Four million missing! Nearly a third of their entire population wiped out by the Arions.

The outcry from the crowd was terrific. Even though I couldn't understand Velorian, I got the distinct impression that the Arions were not very popular with this particular bunch of people. I even got the feeling that some of them wanted to go after Aria, the whole planet, right then and there.

The fact that we had taken out over one and a quarter million Arions, albeit mostly Betas, assuaged our feelings only a little. Nearly a quarter of a million Arions dead, many on the ships and many on the ground from the destruction that rained down on them from the skies. But it did feel good, knowing that we had taken on an armed force outnumbering us by more than three hundred to one, and we hadn't lost a single woman. I saw some bruises and cuts, but they all but healed in front of my eyes.

One by one, the Protectors left, some of them heading back down to Tetra to help Lillith with the cleanup and salvage operations, the rest of them heading for the wormholes that would take them home. "Hey, wait a sec! How do I get home?" I turned around to look for Xara, but she was already gone, apparently flying off with her mother. I was about to take off to try to find them when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

Turning my head, I saw Sharon standing there, attached to the hand on my shoulder. She was looking up and to the left.

Following her gaze, I saw Xara. Just before she followed her mother into the wormhole, she stopped and turned around. She 'stood' there with her hands on her hips and looked directly at us. As she smiled and waved at us, both Sharon and I waved back. Then she turned again and dove into the wormhole after her mother.

"She's a nice kid," Sharon said. "A bit young and inexperienced, and she's not really sure she wants to be in the Protector business. Sometimes, I think she just wants to be an ordinary Terran teenager."

"You're kidding! She was absolutely awesome during that battle."

"From what I heard about you, you were no slouch either."

"Well, maybe. I have to admit, I've never kicked ass like that before. It kinda felt good. It's definitely not like taking down a bunch of drug dealers or other Terran scum like that."

"No, it's not. Arions are definitely something different. And you were quite superb. Xara told me that she couldn't have done any better."

"But she's a Protector! I mean, she's got the Protector genes. Her mother is the Protector of Earth."

She sighed. "And Xara will make a good Protector, in her turn. She's already stronger than her mother is, and Kara is one of the best. But Xara's had so many problems growing up on Earth. As if ordinary teenagers don't have enough problems on their own. Finding the right clothes, the right boyfriend, stuff like that."

"Tell me about it."

"Exactly. I'm sure you could tell me all about it." Then Sharon turned to me and took my hand. "Before you go, Julie, can we talk for a while?"

"But Sharon, I need to get home as quickly as possible. There's an Arion Prime on the rampage. I'm leaving Earth unProtected. My Earth." I thought about the 'Dark Supergirl', and what she might be up to now. Nancy and Ted were down in Veracruz, but they wouldn't stand a chance against the 'Dark Supergirl'. Not even Karen and Mom together could hope to stand up to an Arion Warrior Prime in combat.

Before I could express my worries to her, Sharon squeezed my hand. "Don't worry, Julie. Whether you go now or tomorrow, you'll come out the other side of the wormhole at the same time."

"Huh? How's that?"

"Your wormhole not only goes across space and dimensions, but also across time."

"You mean I'll come out right where I was before?" Oh, great, just what I needed. Back to having the 'Dark Supergirl' pound my brains out in that ruin down in Mexico.

"I don't know exactly for where and when the Ancient Ones have that wormhole targeted. But I don't think they pulled you off of your world to help Protect this one without making sure that yours is safe. I expect you'll return not too long after you left. I'm staying here for a conference of Scribes, and yet I expect to get back about the same time as Kara and Xara."

That made me think about Karen. She had been gone for about a month, our time, though she had spent about eight months in the past, her time. I wondered whether the Ancient Ones had sent her back to fight the Kintzi. I was about to ask Sharon about that, when she continued on.

"Tell me a little about your Earth, Julie. As a Scribe, I'm supposed to record the feats of the various Protectors I encounter. If you're the only Velorian on your Earth, then there certainly isn't a Scribe there." She switched on a little recorder she had. At least I assume it was a recorder, it was smaller than most microphones I've ever seen before.

"Uh, where do I begin, Sharon?"

"Why don't you tell me where you live, Julie? You speak English, and unless accents are completely different there, I'd say the United States."

"Uh, yeah. I live in Colorado and...."

"Colorado! I live in Boulder!"

"I went to school there!"

"At CU?"

"Yeah! I live in Lafayette, not too far from my parents."

"Your parents? But I thought you said that you were the only Velorian on your Earth."

"Uh, yeah. It's a long story. Is there someplace where we can sit?"

She looked around. "I guess this looks as good a place as any." She punched a rock a couple of times with her fists to shape it more appropriately for her cute rear end. She then sat down and pushed her hair back out of her eyes.

I shaped another rock and sat down. "By the way, Sharon, where is 'right here'?"

"This is a little uninhabited planet, about five hundred lightyears from Earth. We use it for meetings because it's far from any inhabited planets. Though I don't think there's ever been this big a gathering before. I've never heard of more than a couple of hundred Protectors getting together at any one time. Four thousand is astounding. The planet's atmosphere lets us talk with each other, even though it's no good for breathing."

"What! No good for breathing?" Suddenly, I started feeling a shortness of breath.

She giggled like a little girl. Well, the giggle was like a little girl's. On her, it just made her even more beautiful. And even more sexy. I felt a little damp between my legs, despite the shortness of breath. "The atmosphere is almost pure carbon dioxide, with a little ammonia and methane, and almost no free oxygen."

"What? No oxygen?" Now I really felt a shortness of breath. I brought my hands up and encircled my neck.

She giggled at my reaction. "When was the last breath you took here?"

I thought about it. I hadn't breathed at all. "It's just like being in the vacuum of space."

She giggled yet again, making her even more beautiful and even more sexy. "That's right. Except that it tastes and smells worse. Even worse than Los Angeles." She took a small sniff and wrinkled her nose. "Just another advantage of being a Velorian. But you were telling me about your family."

"Well, my stepdad is a Terran. Mom is an Arion Beta, she used to be a military nurse."

"An Arion! Military!" She wasn't giggling any more. She jumped back up on her feet, looking like she was ready to punch me out like I was an Arion myself.

I put my hands up to shield my face, trying not to make a threatening move. "No, no. I'm not an Arion. My birth mother was a Velorian. She died while giving me birth. Mom, Joan, was her lover. She adopted me and raised me, as my mother would have. She's been working with the US law enforcement agencies. She got me into that line of work, as well, instead of robbing banks with my bare hands." I told her about Mom. I also told her a little more about Mom's life before coming to Earth.

She sat down while I was talking, with a totally different expression on her face. "She must be a very special woman. To not only have been the lover of a Velorian, but also the mother of one. I've never heard of a Velorian having been raised by an Arion. Was she alone?"

"When she got to Earth, with my mother, she didn't see any signs of either Arions or Velorians. The Arions didn't come until much later, after I graduated from college and got married. And as far as I know, I'm still the only Velorian there. There doesn't seem to be an official Protector assigned there. I don't know why."

Sharon couldn't come up with an explanation any better than what Mom had told me. "So your mother raised you by herself?"

"She didn't marry until I was thirteen. I can't remember her having a man in her life before then. Steve, uh, he's my stepdad, played for the Denver Broncos." I told Sharon about Steve, and she told me that Kara had actually played quarterback on her high school football team one season, along with being a cheerleader.

I told her how I had enhanced Mom, even after my real mother had enhanced her first.

That surprised Sharon. "A double enhancement? I've never heard of it."

"Well, my enhancement didn't do as much for her as my mother's did." I then told her about my darling husband. By the time I got to my 'cousin' Karen, she didn't seem to be too surprised to find that there was another Arion in my family. But she was surprised to discover that Karen was half Prime.

"I didn't think that it was possible. From what I've heard, the Prime baby always kicks its way out of its Beta mother's womb long before its time. Her mother must have been something quite special, too."

"Twins!" she exclaimed, when I had told her about Karen's brother. "Two Prime babies at the same time!" Then she giggled. "Or two half Primes. I guess that still adds up to a whole Prime." I laughed along with her.

I then told her about how we had met, and how Korek had freed me from the gold chains. And how Korek had been killed by a Prime as a result. And how I had then in turn killed the Prime, by launching him towards the sun.

We then got into a long discussion about growing up and discovering my powers. She confirmed what Xara had told me, that in her dimension the Velorians grew up with all of their powers while mine didn't start to manifest until I was fifteen.

I also told her that Karen wasn't that much stronger than a Beta, until after she had joined us.

"Are you going to try and enhance her?" she asked.

"We've talked about it some. Mom thinks we should wait until Karen's strength stops growing on its own. We don't want to enhance her Beta half at the expense of her Prime half. She doesn't know what enhancement might do to a Prime."

"That sounds reasonable," she nodded.

"What about your father? Your real father?" she asked when I had finally wound down about my life story.

"Uh, I don't really have one. When the Arions captured my mother, they experimented on her. They got her to conceive parthenogenically. So I have a mother, but no father. Sorta like a clone. But according to Mom, I'm not an exact clone of my mother, either. I'm quite a bit stronger, though not as tall. She thinks that it might have something to do with being born under the yellow sun of Earth."

"I've noticed that same effect on Xara. She was conceived and born under a yellow sun, and even as young as she is, she's already considerably stronger than Kara."

"She was conceived on Earth? Then she wasn't, uh," I waved my hands about, splicing my fingers together, "designed like other Velorians?"

Sharon giggled at my antics. "No, she had a father and a mother, the old-fashioned way. It seems that our two Earths are the only planets with native-born Velorians." She giggled. "Though I think Lillith and William are trying to get Tetra to join that elite group."

We continued talking. Well, I did most of the talking. She asked a few questions, and told me a little about herself, and Kara, and Xara, when events happened in their lives that paralleled events in mine.

"Ah, that explains your clothes. I thought that looked like an Arion Warrior Prime uniform," she said when I had told her about the Prime I had killed after I had brought down the Arion drop shuttle during the 'Battle of the Rio Grande' and the uniform I had taken from her.

Since we were talking about clothes, like any pair of ditzy blondes at a mall, I then asked her why her clothes were greenish gold in color, while everybody else I saw had been wearing red and blue.

"This is the uniform Scribes wear, to distinguish us from Protectors. The golden color is supposed to remind us of the effects of wearing gold, that we're not as strong as the Protectors are, that we're supposed to leave the fighting to the Protectors." She giggled. "It's supposed to make us think we're wearing gold. Of course, there's no actual gold in it, I'm not about to wear gold into combat with Arions. But I like it because it matches my hair." She also told me more about what Scribes did, recording the exploits and deeds of Protectors like Kara so that they could be used for training future Protectors back on Velor. She also told me that the Scribes weren't supposed to be involved in the fighting.

"Then what were you doing here, if you weren't supposed to be fighting?" I asked.

"I told Kara I was coming along to record her exploits. I knew that since this was her sister's assigned planet, Kara would be right in the thick of things. I told her that there was no way I was staying on Earth and miss recording her exploits. And besides, Lillith is a good friend of mine." She giggled again. "Though I did miss some of Kara's exploits, some Arions inconveniently got in the way and I had to take care of them. And of course, I completely missed everything that Xara did."

We then went off on a long digression, as I told her about Xara's feats, from my perspective, in the just completed 'Battle for Tetra'.

"They'll be talking about this battle for a long time back on Velor," she said when I had finished. "Four thousand Protectors in one place! Not to mention a couple of stowaways," she winked at me. "Completely unprecedented in recorded history. And you know what's so cool about the whole thing? I was the only Scribe here. It's MY story to tell. I'll be the envy of everybody at the Scribe's conference." Then she frowned and punched the rock next to her, sending fragments flying in all directions as she shattered it completely. "Damn! Knowing those Tetrites, though, they're probably already spreading the word. The biggest story of my career, of any Scribe's career, and those damned spiders are gonna scoop me on it." She shrugged her shoulders. Since her shoulders weren't the only parts of her body that moved, I almost missed her last words, "Oh well, I guess that'll teach me to stick my nose in where it doesn't belong."

In exchange for my life story, I got her to tell me more about herself and about her Earth. And also about the Velorians in general. The kinds of things that Mom had been unable, or unwilling, to tell me.

She also told me about Kara and some of her early experiences, of growing up twice on Earth, separated by nearly eight hundred years. As the Scribe, she knew everything. She told me about Xara growing up as a supergirl, some of her experiences paralleling mine. "I think Kara has done an excellent job of raising Xara, just as your mother has done with you. It's not easy. Most Protectors are raised and trained on Velor and don't leave until they're seventeen or so." She went on to tell me about their family, and about Eric, Kara's husband and Xara's stepfather. There were a lot of parallels between Eric and Steve, my own stepfather. But that's to be expected, a Terran man married to a Supremis woman and raising a Velorian daughter.

She also told me that unlike most Velorians, Xara didn't seem to work both sides of the street, exclusively favoring men. I told her that when I tried to give her a Velorian embrace, she had slapped my hand away.

"Yeah, that's Xara. So unlike her mother in that way." She sighed and looked a little wistful. "And she's got such a nice pair."

"So does everyone else I saw here." But I could definitely see her point. I admitted to her that at several times when we were working together, that it was all I could do to keep my hands to myself. After all, Xara was the first Velorian that I'd ever seen, and the only one whom I've spent much time with. Until this talk with Sharon, anyway. And Xara was quite a beautiful young woman.

Sharon nodded and sighed again. "I've never gotten my hands on those melons, either." Her voice got real low and husky when she said that. And there was a sparkle in her eyes. I was pretty certain that I wasn't the only one participating in this conversation that wouldn't have minded getting into bed with Xara.

She also told me about herself. About her life in her Colorado after having spent a previous Terran lifespan in her California. How, as a Scribe, she was supposed to let the Protector do all of the fighting. But being a superwoman herself, she couldn't just stand by as the Arions threatened her Earth.

As we talked, we discovered some additional differences between our dimensions. How the Arions had been on her Earth much longer than they had been on mine. The subtle and the not so subtle political changes that they had caused.

And how different the mutagenic enhancements worked. In her dimension the enhancee received much more of the strength of the enhancer, making them much more useful allies in the fight against the Arions. Conversely, the Arions could enhance Terrans much more also, making the enhancees that much more dangerous to the ordinary Terrans.

I felt a brief twinge of regret, that I hadn't been able to enhance my darling husband like that. It would be so nice to have him hug me back with a significant portion of my own strength. That would be SO cool!

But there were also downsides to such enhancements. Sharon told me some stories about an enhanced Arion Beta. Mandi was a mutant, with some abilities to control others mentally. After she had been unintentionally enhanced by a Velorian, she had gained strength that made her more than a match for a Prime. Sharon told me about a battle at a Los Angeles TV studio where Mandi had fought, and defeated, three Velorians, including my new friend Xara and her mother Kara. That was a bit of a shock. I had just seen Xara in action. It was hard to imagine anybody besting her, let alone two other Velorians with her, including her mother, the Protector of Earth.

When Sharon told me that Mandi had acquired the nickname 'Dark Supergirl', I was struck with the parallelism. I told her about the 'Dark Supergirl' that I had been fighting when I was brought here, at least what little I knew about her. In return she told me about a Prime that she had run across a few times, a real nasty bitch named Kirrin.

I also got a bit of a glimpse at a possible future for my Earth, if the Arions were left to run loose. It wasn't a future that I really liked all that much.

I wasn't sure whether our timelines were synchronized or not. I didn't know whether her Earth was several decades ahead of mine, or if I had actually traveled through time to get here. She tried to tell me that it made no difference, in fact that there was no way to tell. Her explanations about wormholes were way over my head. Relativity is one thing, I mean I knew the basics of what Einstein had said, and Hawking after him, but this stuff! If Sharon hadn't been a blonde herself, I really would have felt blonde.

I learned a little more, but I still wasn't going to go home to become a physics professor. And I wasn't about to go exploring wormholes on my own.

"How do the Terrans treat you? What do they think of Velorians and Arions?" I asked.

"Not too many people know that I'm a Velorian. I've been trying to keep as low a profile as I can. But Kara is widely known and loved as 'SuperFemme'. Xara is still mostly unknown."

"People know about the Arion threat?"

"Many people still think it's all tabloid stuff. And a lot of people don't like aliens at all. To them, a Velorian is just as bad as an Arion."

"How can they think that? After what you've told me about Mandi and Kirrin, and what Kara's done, how can they think that?"

"Some people just don't like aliens. Especially ones as powerful as Velorians and Primes. They want to keep Terra for Terrans." She told me about the Earth First movement and their anti-alien views. "How about on your Earth?"

"We haven't gone public yet." I told her what we had and hadn't done. We discussed the pros and cons of going public with the knowledge of the Arion threat. I still wasn't sure whether we should go public, but she certainly gave me a lot to think about.

"You seem to be one step ahead of us, though, if you're already working for the government. Our government fights us almost as much they help us," she lamented.

Sharon also told me that apparently mine was a dimension that nobody in hers had ever visited before. She also told me that I was apparently the only Velorian in the recent battle that hadn't been from her dimension.

That had really surprised me. It also had surprised Sharon. Why should I alone have been selected from my own dimension, instead of the any of the other Planetary Protectors, the Protectors that Mom had told me about? Was I a better fighter than any of those who had been bred and trained for it were? Mom had said that I was stronger than my mother, but she didn't think that I was actually stronger than a Protector.

Or had I been selected precisely because I wasn't a real Protector? Were the Ancient Ones trying not to involve the 'official' Protectors of my dimension? Did the Velorian authorities in my dimension even know about my existence on Earth?

We pondered on that point for a while, but we couldn't come up with any satisfactory answers. Whatever the Ancient Ones had done to bring me here, they must have had good reasons for it; we just couldn't figure them out.

It was apparent to both of us that both the Arions and the Velorians were taking much more of a hands-off approach to my Earth. Especially the Velorians, unless there really was a Protector on my Earth that I didn't know about. Even the Arions were being much more subtle, sending a force numbering only three hundred.

"Would the Velorians take the First Directive that seriously? Not even stationing a Protector on Earth at all?"

"They may have tried, and the Ancient Ones prevented it."

"Would they do something like that? Prevent the Velorians from Protecting a planet?"

"They may have, if it was necessary to get you there. If there was a Protector, you would have become known to the Velorians, and most likely sent home to Velor. Then you wouldn't have been available to come to Tetra."

"Oh, come off of it, Sharon. I'm not that special. I wasn't even trained as a Protector, let alone bred as one. You wouldn't have lost this battle if I hadn't been here."

"The Ancient Ones have their reasons for everything they do. But usually, they don't tell us."

We also swapped stories about our rôles in the just concluded battle. She giggled when I told her about how Xara and I had taken out the Arion spaceships two at a time. I told her about our battles in the hidden tunnel. She told me about the final confrontation with the Arion commanding general in the depths of the bunker.

We also talked about Tetra. I told her that I felt really good that I could do something to help out the Tetrites. It made me proud that I was considered worthy enough to have been brought here.

Sharon told me that this was not her first visit to Tetra, but that she had once accompanied Kara on a visit to her sister.

As we continued to talk, I had noticed that we were both leaning further and further forward, bringing our heads closer and closer together. There was a force of mutual attraction, a force that had absolutely nothing to do with gravity. By this time I had learned that she preferred women over men; she had told me about her partner Deb, her best enhancement, as well as her feelings towards Protectors and other Velorians in general. That certainly explained why she had talked the way she did about Xara earlier. She also knew that I wasn't totally averse to the idea; I had told her about Mom and Karen, and my enhancements of Nancy and Linda. I saw the look in Sharon's eyes. I was sure that the same look was in my own eyes. The dampness between my legs was definitely back.

Not only were our faces almost touching each other, our breasts were only inches apart. One deep breath each, if we had been breathing in this atmosphere, and they would have touched. When we both stopped talking, she brushed her lips against mine. As I pressed my lips harder against hers, I felt a tingle, almost an electric shock, run through my entire body.

We stopped talking, as we began communicating in a completely different manner. "We have all night," she said with a giggle, before kissing me again.

With one hand, she brushed off my halter, freeing my breasts. This was the first time anyone else had ever accomplished that; none of my other lovers had the strength necessary to do that. I reciprocated by slipping her halter aside, freeing her large firm breasts.

Her breasts were just as large and just as firm as my own. A Velorian woman's breasts. My mouth was immediately on one of her large nipples. As large and hard as it already was, it got larger and harder as my tongue played over it. I could feel my own nipples getting larger and harder in response.

I heard a moan as her hands caressed my breasts. As they closed about my breasts with more force than anybody else had ever applied to them, I let out a moan of my own. She introduced me to my first Velorian embrace, that unique embrace possible only between two Velorian women, as we each squeezed the other's breast with more than enough force to pulverize the hardest steel.

It felt SO good to have her arms around me. Someone else in my own strength class, someone that could hold me as tight as I could hold her. So different from those Primes in Kentucky. There was more to this than just the physical acts. And without the Orgone dulling my mind, it was even better.

And of course, there was the obvious difference between Sharon and those Primes. It was a totally new experience for me, to be with a woman in my own strength class. Not even Karen could match this blonde superwoman in that department. It felt SO good, as we each squeezed the other's breasts with more than enough force to crush the hardest steel in the Velorian embrace.

As I bent my head forward again to suckle at one of her beautiful breasts, she put a hand on my waist and flipped me upside down so that she could suckle at one of mine at the same time. That felt SO good, to have someone with her strength working over a breast even as I worked over one of hers.

It got even better when she rose up into the air, carrying me with her. What a rush! This went way beyond cool! I'd carried lovers aloft before, but I'd never had one carry me aloft before, I'd never met anyone who was capable of doing that. Sharon was capable. Very capable. She introduced me to other pleasures. I felt some of the pleasures that Mom must have felt, being loved by a Velorian woman, and loving a Velorian woman. I hoped that I was at least as half as good in return, that Mom and Karen got some of this when they were with me. And I hoped that Sharon was getting something back from me. She must have been, because she never complained.

She seemed to know my body even better than I did. Her strong hands made me tingle in places I didn't even know I had places, as they did things to me that no other woman, or man, had ever done to me before. Her mouth was even better, as her lips and tongue explored my entire body. Her tongue did things to me that no other tongue had ever done before, with the strength and speed that only a Velorian possessed.

For the first time in my life, I was able to use all of my Velorian strength with another woman. With a Velorian woman.

She taught me things that Mom had never been able to teach me, how a Velorian woman makes love to another Velorian woman.

Not that I was a passive partner. My hands were busy exploring the body of the first Velorian that I had ever gotten intimate with, as I tried to do to her what she was doing to me. And my mouth wasn't idle either, as I tasted deeply of another Velorian for the first time in my life.

I don't know how many hours we spent in each other's arms without touching the ground at all. But I loved every second of it.

From her reactions I didn't think that Sharon minded it very much, either.

Not that it wasn't any good once we were back down on the ground. But we did do some serious landscaping on our little rock garden as went after each other's bodies with reckless abandon.

I also found out what she had meant when had said that we had all night, and why she had giggled so much when she had said that. We were on a planet circling a dying star, which still gave off some heat but almost no light at all. There was no day here, only perpetual night. It also explained why it was so cold here.

Not that we were cold. Oh, no. Sharon and I certainly were not cold that long night.

Finally it was time to leave, as much as we had enjoyed each other's company. After a slow lingering kiss, Sharon told me which wormhole guidance cone I had to follow in order to go home. She told me that it would send me through what she called a dimensional rift before ejecting me out somewhere near the orbit of Mars in my own dimension.

"Will I ever see you again, Sharon? You, and Xara, and the others?"

"A Scribe only knows what has happened, not what will happen. If the Ancient Ones ever see a need to bring us back together, then we will see each other again."

"Well, I certainly hope we do. I sure wouldn't mind your help in taking care of the Arions back on my Earth."

"From what you've told me, you seem to be doing a pretty good job by yourself. And with the help of your Arion 'family'. But if the Ancient Ones do decide to send you some help, I do hope it would be us. I would be honored to come. And I know that Kara and Xara also would be. So would Lillith, and Carpathia, and any of the others."

After another slow lingering kiss and another long Velorian embrace, I took off for home. Sharon accompanied me out to the first of the guidance cones, before turning back for the gathering of Scribes. But first, she gave me another kiss. That was another cool experience, a kiss in the vacuum of space.

As I flew I thought about what I had seen. There had been thousands of tall beautiful blonde women, and not one man in sight. Mom was right; the Velorian men stay at home. Though I did wish that I had the chance to meet just one Velorian man. And just maybe, to get to know him a little better.

Not that there had been anything wrong with Sharon. Most definitely not, my body still tingled all over from that experience. But there are obviously differences between men and women. And my first, well, taste, of another Velorian had left me more than a little curious to know what it would be like with a Velorian man. With a good Velorian man.

It was another cool trip through the wormhole. I could really get used to travelling this way.

As I emerged from the wormhole and unfolded from my tuck, there almost directly ahead of me, just as Sharon had promised me, was Mars, with its two tiny moons. I realized that I was out further than any person from my world had ever been, and I was already most of the way home. Though I had never been out this far before.

Beyond it and sunward was the blue globe of Earth. Earth! Home!

Flexing my legs to generate the flight power, I headed for home. Soon, I was going faster than I had ever gone before. Outside of a wormhole, that is.

A couple of hours later I swung around the Moon and headed for Earth. I now knew that there was more to the universe than just the Earth. There were other planets, other worlds, other peoples. Every one of them just as important as the Earth and its people.

Every one of them just as deserving of being Protected from the Arion menace.

Just as I had helped Lillith Protect her world.

Just as Kara and Xara and Sharon were Protecting their Earth.

Just as I would Protect mine to the best of my ability from those Arion invaders.

Starting with that 'Dark Supergirl' bitch, if I could get my hands on her. She'd kicked enough of my ass. Now, it was my turn to kick her ass.

Kick it hard.

Kick it completely off of the planet and completely out of existence.

And then follow it up by kicking the rest of the Arions off of my world.

I was not going to let this world down. Not my world.

Yes, this Earth that was mine to Protect to the best of my ability.