Catch a Falling Star

Nocturne One – The King and the Dark Beauty

    The infamous King of Killers was watching as Sheherazade ran out of the caverns calling for Doctor Blake.  His sour face was smudged with oil and soot from his daring rescue of the beautiful female pirate.  No one knew how much his heart ached for her.  Seven years he had watched her flirt with Elvis, Blue Death, and even Ensign Pavel.   Seven years of wishing and hoping and planning which had all come to naught.  Sooner or later one or both of them would die in combat.  Probably sooner now that Tron had made the horrible mistake of taking up with Goofy Dalgoda again.  The Goofer was a pure Jonah, poison to the corsair band.

Sheherazade found the puny little doctor by his ATV.  The scrawny medico was patching up war wounds.  He could prevent scars with Imperial medical tech, but no pirate would forgo a chance for a real battle scar.  Patching was all he was allowed to do.  Blake was both a doctor of medicine and a top notch combat pilot, but in King’s studied opinion, he was a prissy little nerd, with luminous lady’s eyes and a pencil thin… moustache.

The doctor rushed down the tunnel as soon as Sheherry relayed the order from Tron.  He was gone from view in a flash.  Not so with Sheherry.  She lingered, slouching alluringly.  The brass bikini she wore covered only the ends of ample bosoms and the areas critical to earn a PG-13 rating.  Was she conscious of the effect she had on men?  Surely she must know.

“Thanks for what you did today,” she said without looking in King’s direction.

“You know I didn’t want to lose a good pilot.  I may need you to cover my butt next time.”

“Don’t worry, King.  You have a pretty butt.  I would never let anything happen to it.”  She looked him square in the eyes and smiled evilly.

King Killer blushed.  He hoped the soot kept the red from showing.  He was not the sort known for blushing.

Sheherazade straightened herself up to her full, beautiful height and walked over to him with the slink of a leopard in her own jungle domain.

“You have orders from… erm, the boss?” he said with an uncustomary stumble.

“Maybe, but other matters have been weighing on my mind too.”

“Like what?”

“Like why you stare at me constantly but never say anything.  Like why you blush when you hear me say dirty words.  King, you are a man of action.  You are cool under fire and unshakable.  What is it about me that shakes you up?”

“Well, I, uh…”

“Could it be that you love me, but are just afraid to say the words out loud?”

“No, erm… I mean…”

She laughed.  She ran her ebony hand along the line of his jaw, and then kissed him on the lips.  It lasted longer than he would have ever expected.

“After what you did today,” she said, looking him steadily in the eye, “I realize that your feelings are no longer just an amusing detail for me.  I need you as much as you need me.  I’ve been watching how much Maggie and Tron love each other.  I need that too.  And, I know, it’s you, King.  You are the one for me.”

“What about Elvis?” asked King in his hard, cool combat voice.

“The man’s a pig.  I could never love him the way I do you.  Don’t tell me I’m wrong about you.  I’ll die if you shoot me out of the air now.”

Something changed for the first time in King’s life.  He cracked his first real smile.  He kissed her again.

“The Captain can marry us, you know.”

“Yes,” she said.  “I already asked Tron to do it for us at about twenty hundred hours this evening.”