Shortly after Team One left Jeff’s hospital room, Orange Scorpion Dale Bowerman went to his quarters to arm himself for night duty. One message was flashing brilliantly. “NIGHT DUTY WILL BE HANDLED BY THE PERIMETER ROBOT FORCE. PERSONNEL ON DUTY ROSTER WILL LEAVE COMM UNITS ON IN CASE OF AN EMERGENCY.

“All Right!” Bowerman thought, then paused to read the second notice. Bemused, he stepped through the door into the adjoining room. “Is this some joke?” he asked Van Blair, pointing to the screen in the Blue Scorpion’s room.

Van Blair glanced at the screen. “If so, everyone’s getting zapped because it’s on every- message terminal in the base.”

Bowerman glanced at the screen again. “A party in the main battle gym?” He shook his head. “Kerrington will have a cow!”

“Maybe not,” Van Blair mumbled as he went to his closet and pulled out a blue dress uniform. He was whistling a strange little tune that told Bowerman volumes. The Blue Scorpion was “In on things.” He somehow got wind of and was privy to whatever was going on.

“Formal?” Bowerman said in a disgusted voice. “That kind of ruins the relaxation bit, doesn’t it?

Van Blair shrugged. “It’s not mandatory; wear what you like.” He continued whistling as he carefully spread the uniform across the bed, grabbed his shower kit, and headed for the shower room.

Bowerman and the rest of Scorpion Team One took the hint. As a group in full dress uniform, they made their way to the main gym, past the hoots and catcalls of less formally dressed Scorpions. As they reached the gym, the large double doors burst outward, and Scorpion Team Nine rushed through, racing as fast as possible back to their quarters.

Paul Kerrington looked after the dirty, sweaty bunch until they had all leaped the rail to the return moving sidewalk. His left brow was raised in what his team knew to be an expression of amusement. He then led the way into a very elaborately decorated gym.

From behind him, there came a choked sound. “Girls!”

Orange Scorpion Dale Bowerman heard the gasp. He shoved his way forward to look for himself. He rubbed his eyes in disbelief, then looked again. The vision remained. In the middle of the gym, near a long line of refreshment tables, were a ton of girls all in long flowing evening gowns and formal satin gloves that came to little points near their shoulders.

Mike Ketchner chuckled. “I’ll bet Bolivera’s team set a record for a shower and change.”

Mark Parelli’s eyes were bright with excitement as he glanced around the gym, then returned his gaze to the girls who were whispering and giggling. “What’d we do to deserve this.

Kerrington smiled. “The girls will be helping us down here for a couple of months, so I thought it’d be a good idea for you to get acquainted informally first. Be nice to them; they’ll save us a lot of time on non-combat work.”

No one needed encouragement along that line, but it took a word from Tage Bennett to get them moving. “You've been given a few minutes’ headstart, men,” he said softly. “Our team is not the kind to waste an advantage like that!”

It was all they needed. In scarcely-disguised charges, every unmarried Scorpion demonstrated how fast Scorpion commandos could move with a bit of motivation. The married ones moved almost as fast as they realized their wives were among the girls.

Kerrington and Bennett hung back, content to watch. Girls weren’t mysterious creatures to them; both had wives before. Kerrington’s had run off with another man three years earlier. Now, like Bennett, the Scorpion Force was his life.

Other Scorpion teams arrived, obviously forewarned, dressed in orange, green, blue, and red dress uniforms, according to psi type. Before long, the gym was packed.

At the sidelines, over the combined noise of music and laughter, Tage Bennett leaned closer to speak to Kerrington. “Paul, has it occurred to anyone that some of these kids may want to form matches not advantageous to themselves or us in the long run? It’s happened before.

Bennett was referring, delicately, to Karrington’s marriage. For a Thran, his wife had been unusually devoid of psi ability, latent or otherwise. She couldn’t have been a mindmate to anyone, let alone to a Red Scorpion. As a result, it hadn’t been a happy marriage for either of them.

Kerrington pursed his lips in a frown. “I asked the psych people about that last week and again this morning. They say that couples with good mind match potential will naturally gravitate toward each other. I asked how they knew and got an answer resembling a verbal rat maze.” He scowled. “I Am prepared to intervene if they’re wrong, especially in Jeff’s case. Too much depend on that.”

Kerrington’s eye again swept the colorful crowd. He spotted a shadow where there shouldn’t be one on the far wall. He moved a few feet to the left to study it better. It was a girl, standing half-hidden behind a support girder on the far side of the gym. She apparently intended to stay there for the duration, out of sight of most of the crowd.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Amara Okoye had not had high expectations when she answered a Thran job ad for Clerical help. Those part-alien people were highly advanced and capable of handling any job requiring complex skills. When they advertised, it meant they needed Terran workers for more menial jobs.

Still, Amara applied because it was easy for a just-out-of-college person to get job experience. Also, the Thrans paid well.

Her hard-earned business degree landed her a job doing routine clerical work. The job had gotten so monotonous and boring that Amara seriously considered resigning even though she had only been there six months. One day, she got an e-mail offering her an advancement to a better job and a hefty raise if she took and passed a bunch of psychological tests.

Amara spent two full days taking the test while being paid a regular salary for her time. Apparently, she did well because a few days later, they called her back for more testing. This time it lasted a couple of weeks.

Eventually, Amara was interviewed and offered a special job at a top-secret military base at a salary she never dreamed of making. But there were snags. For one, she’d be taken to the base in a sensory-damped compartment of a special air vehicle and eventually would leave the same way. This would ensure her inability to report the base location in case WSA came sniffing around later.

Then there was the matter of being cut off from civilization for two whole months. Amara could not leave the base during her contract time, and cell phones were limited to audio-only calls.

Finally, the workforce being sent to the base included only five Terrans; the other 200 to 300 girls were Thrans. The Elite! Which meant that she and the four other Terran girls would be socially and professionally at the very bottom of the rung.

Amara was intimidated, but since the job was for only two months and would advance her career and financial standing considerably, she accepted and hadn’t regretted that decision until now.

Amara glanced out at the crowd from the steel beam's relative shelter. Thran girls---all Thran! At the last minute, the other four Terrans either changed their minds or were dropped and replaced by Thran girls. Amara hadn’t been told, but she began to suspect when she arrived at the decorated gym and noticed the girls seemed to all know each other. Thrans always seemed to know each other. Lonely, Amara began searching for her own kind and was finally told she was the only Terran.

It was a shock. Amara had only a moment to wonder what she had gotten herself into before the Scorpions started pouring through the doors, decked out in colorful dress uniforms. Amara had never seen Scorpion Commandos before. She backed away a little and watched them warily. She knew about Scorpions, of course. Everyone did. They were the Thrans’ deadliest warriors. They seldom went into action, but when a Scorpion team did make a “sting,” as their brief, hard-hitting attacks were called, the news and the internet played it up worldwide.

During the flight to base, a speaker in the sensory-damped compartment of the helijet had sprung to life to give Amara an official briefing on Scorpion Forces. She was told who the Scorpions were and what the uniform colors meant.

From the news reports, Amara already knew a little about those things. But the briefing gave details she was sure most Terrans didn’t know. Then, just before the helijet landed, she was told something else. The Scorpions would be in intense training for the next few weeks to fight a dangerous off-world enemy. The battle was expected to take place in a very short time, hopefully well away from Earth.

Her job, and the other girls, would be to take as much of the non-combat workload as possible off of the Scorpions. That meant computer work, secretary work, helping in some training exercises, and doing whatever else might be needed to help launch a successful mission.

It sounded exciting! And frightening.

A battle? Were these people actually planning to fight a space battle soon? It must be necessary since the Thrans were noted for restraint. Neither the Scorpions nor the Thran Marines ever attacked without a just cause.

With that in mind, Amara didn’t object to helping any way she could. What she did mind was being alone, the only one of her kind in the whole crowd. In fact, what had started as feelings of mild loneliness and uneasiness were, for some reason, gradually turning into deep apprehension.

When Scorpions started pairing off with the Thran girls’ Amara edged farther and farther away against the gym wall, hiding like a frightened child beside a steel beam. She chided herself, arguing uselessly that she should go back and mingle. These people were not to be feared. They were more civilized than most Terrans. Besides, hadn’t her psychological profile been a good one? She should be able to handle this situation.

Amara argued with herself for a long moment, but her legs wouldn’t move. Those were Scorpions out there! Vicious Thran fighters, each having twice the physical strength of Terran men. Besides, she had already warmed a spot on this beam, which made it as good a place to stay and watch as any.

Amara was studying the movements of a group at one end of the gym who were attempting an ancient form of square dance. As a result, she didn’t see the approaching Thran soldier until he had rounded the corner at the other end of the tables and started her way.

A Red Scorpion!!!

Alarmed, Amara shrank further back into the protective curve of the steel beam.

Silly! Silly! Silly! She scolded herself. He’s not coming here! And even if he were, they can’t actually read minds and do all that stuff. The briefing said, “Potential. That’s different from “Can actually do!”

But the Red Scorpion was headed her way. The next moment he was standing in front of her introducing himself. Frantically, Amara worked at gathering her 22 years of courage and sophistication so she could answer without doing something stupid, like stuttering or letting her voice break with nervousness.

I’m Amara Okoye,” she finally managed. It’s nice to meet you.”

…………………………………………………………………….

Paul Kerrington smiled at the obvious lie. Amara Okoye wasn’t finding it nice at all. The poor girl was terrified. He took a close look at her. Ah, a Terran! So that was it. She was the only Terran girl here and feeling very much alone because of it.

Kerrington made small talk as he pondered the problem. It could be classified as a unique circumstance calling for a special solution. What he had in mind would be harmless enough since she’d never know what he had done. And since it could make her stay at Tara Base much more pleasant, it was justified.

Having made the decision, Kerrington wasted no time. He sent out a light telepathic probe, intending to scan Amara’s mind for a way to put her at ease. To his surprise, she made a gasping, groaning sound and tried to bury herself in the steel beam. Her eyes were wide with terror.

Immediately, Kerrington withdrew. “You felt that?” he asked the trembling girl.

She nodded, and he murmured, “Amazing! You aren’t supposed to even faintly sense a telepathic prob from one of us.” Had it been a combat thrust, she would have felt the in the second she had between the onslaught and unconsciousness. But Kerrington had been gentle.

Amara didn’t answer. She just stared at him with wide, dark brown eyes that were inviting the Thran to teleport himself to the bottom of a bottomless ocean permanently.

Kerrington chuckled. “Okay, so I didn’t play fair. In fact, that wasn’t gentlemanly at all. So I’m sorry. If I promise not to do it again tonight, would you join me for refreshments?”

He knew she would refuse, so he gave her no chance to answer. “Besides, we need to talk. Your ability to feel my probe is unusual. It may have an important significance.”

Amara took a deep, shaky breath. “I thought you people couldn’t do stuff like that.”

He didn’t answer right away. Kerrington gently guided her to the table, occasionally putting a light hand on her shoulder to direct her. “We couldn’t until a few days ago. We all wore inhibitors. But they were removed, and the teams activated so we can successfully fight the RiaZan.”

Kerrington began telling her about the RiaZan, past and present events leaving out the gruesome details that would have ruined the evening for her. The WSA, of course, already knew about the RiaZan, but the rest of the Terran population had never been.

Across the gym, Tage Bennett watched in pleasant surprise. The girl’s visible shock at Kerrington’s raw telepathic tampering was revealing and very encouraging. Bennett knew that he could never remarry. His heart was buried in the past with Kara and the babies. But Paul Kerrington was young, still in his twenties. If he had finally found for himself that rare thing, a mindmate, Bennett was happy for him.

He also was pleased on behalf of the Scorpions. A mindmate would increase Kerrington’s psi powers significantly.

Bennett chuckled. If Paul didn’t blow it first. Kerrington was a top-notch soldier, but if he continued using blunt military-type tactics in a courting situation, he would likely be in for a few surprises.