by Regine Abel
Oh, Maker! She’s feeding that rebellion.
And from the emotions flooding me from all parts, the Kryptid females didn’t need much convincing. Shuria was indeed expressing out loud what they had been feeling for a while, even if they hadn’t clearly organized their thoughts in such a fashion.
“Seventy years ago, Queen Aitxa sent General Khutu in search of a new, primitive, and low population planet to settle because Kryptor had become overpopulated,” the first Elder Worker said. “Instead, he began a war with the entire galaxy. Today, Kryptor is at its lowest population in its history because the General has recklessly sacrificed our Soldiers and disposed of anyone who challenged him. What are we still fighting for? We no longer need to expand. We need to rebuild.”
Shuria opened her mouth to say something but her head suddenly jerked towards me. Her eyes widened ever so slightly, then a wave of relief and excitement emanated from her. Even though she couldn’t see me, she had sensed my presence.
“How do we do that when he keeps depleting our resources for his experiments?” a young Kryptid asked.
“We make sure he doesn’t find out about the Generals being raised,” the first Elder Worker replied. “And we must raise three more Queens.”
While half of the room gasped in almost shocked outrage, the other half—all older Workers—nodded slowly.
“Before Khutu’s ascension, it was common to have four Queens, one per continent,” the Elder Worker said in a stern voice while glaring at those who seemed shocked. “The General’s seed was once strong, but it is now as rotten as he is inside. He’s no longer Kryptid, except in appearance. We do not know what their coupling is doing to Queen Rahissa. Whatever is going on with him will soon come to a head. When it happens, we cannot be left helpless without at least one perfect Queen and a couple of mature Generals. Those of you who return to Kryptor on the next rotation must rally the others to our cause. It is our duty to protect the colony or die trying.”
As the conversation switched to schedules and assignments, Shuria made a subtle gesture with her head for me to follow. I complied, avoiding passing through any of the Workers so they wouldn’t feel me as every Kryptid possessed basic telepathic abilities.
We ended up in an endless, arched hallway made of the same reddish-brown stones with a dozen doors split on each side. Shuria opened the second door on the right and entered the room. I squeezed inside as she slowly closed the door behind us. There was no one else inside, if you ignored the fifty or so stasis chambers containing deformed mutants.
“The first four rooms on this side of the corridor contain others like them,” Shuria said out loud, although in a whispered voice. “They remained stable the longest before going feral. The Workers are trying to figure out what allowed them to last so long. Destroy them when you arrive. The first four doors across from these ones contain the larvae batches they came from. Those, too, must be destroyed.”
She shifted her appearance slightly, giving herself the thicker scales and larger Deynian horn of an Elder Worker before exiting the room. I followed her, mesmerized by the unnatural swaying of her excessively narrow ant waist. A couple of Workers walked past us, paying us no mind. We entered the fifth room on the right. It was cold and contained a variety of items that looked organic, which Shuria explained was food for the larvae. The next couple of rooms contained different types of foods, the fourth one down, being larger, containing ‘livestock’ also to be fed to the larvae. The way she said ‘livestock’ made me shudder.
“It is basically lunch and break time for most of the Workers, which explains why these rooms are empty,” Shuria said. “This would have been a good time to raid. As I have not yet heard from Bane, I’m assuming your ship hasn’t arrived yet. After I’ve received confirmation from him, wait until I mind-speak to you before initiating the attack.”
We walked past the other rooms which she didn’t enter.
“Staff and storage rooms,” she whispered.
We reached the end of the T-shaped corridor, and she entered the left one. It started curving after ten meters, a burgundy, fleshy texture starting to cover it. A thick reinforced set of doors blocked the access to whatever lay beyond. Shuria walked slowly up to the numeric lock next to them.
“Memorize it,” she whispered.
Taking her time, she tapped five symbols on the sixteen-digit keypad, pausing for at least two seconds between each symbol to make sure I had seen it clearly. I forced myself to memorize it by numbering them according to their position on the grid since I would never recognize the symbols themselves. The doors parted silently. A musty scent slapped me in the face, but it was the sight of hundreds of giant Kryptid eggs that knocked the wind out of me.
Unlike the previous rooms we had entered, this one had a number of Workers with the same, crazy needle fingers Shuria and her sister had on Fobos to inject the mutant children with the substance that kept them from shifting. A dozen Kryptid Soldiers stood in the huge room, the size of a basketball court, with walls covered in the thick organic membranes of a liveship. Eight of them guarded four doors in pairs, which I assumed provided a back entrance to the larvae rooms Shuria had shown me from the other corridor.
My heart was trying to pound its way out of my chest as I shadowed the Mimic who was casually crossing the room towards another entrance at the back. Even though I was invisible to the people in the room, I kept fearing one of them would detect my presence or challenge Shuria about hers. When a couple of the Workers glanced in our general direction, I thought I would pass out. But they went back to their business of injecting the eggs.
It struck me then that as dutiful as they felt about their task, the Workers hated not their job but the eggs they were working with. You would never guess the depth of the resentment they felt based on their neutral expressions. The Soldiers, utterly clueless, emitted more boredom than anything else.
We reached the backdoor and the musty, slightly rotten scent that hit us almost made me gag. I could hardly see in the semi-darkness of the warm, stuffy, and humid room—the Birthing Chamber. Here, even the floor was covered in that organic tissue, making it cushiony, almost a little bouncy. As far as the eye could see, eggs filled each side of the room, leaving a large, uncluttered path to Queen Pahiven. A series of trunk-like appendages dangled from the high ceiling of the cave, some of them interacting in who only knew what fashion with the eggs.
As we approached the Queen, and as my vision adapted to the darkness, I got a better view of what poor Pahiven had become. My throat constricted with pity for the former Mimic, and horror clenched my stomach. Shuria’s sorrow and anger further fueled my own distress.
Initially, she had no doubt been a beautiful Queen. Her slim torso, with a narrow waist would have made her the envy of many women, if not for her flat chest. The dark chitin scales covering only part of her light grey skin in swirly patterns were reminiscent of those found on the elegant ballroom gowns humans used to wear. Her elven face with plush lips would also have been deemed very appealing, in spite of the small mandibles framing her mouth. The feminine curve of her large, multifaceted eyes and the tall, double set of half-moon-shaped Deynian horns on her forehead gave her an undeniable regal air.
But the sickly appearance of her skin, like dried grey mud or grey paint peeling off a wall, and the drool dripping from her slack jaw, were but the first hints that all wasn’t fine with her. I couldn’t tell what her legs looked like, swallowed as they were by the organic membranes that held her up. A few organic tubes protruding from those membranes connected to her navel, various points of her inner arms, and one more to her neck. I didn’t need Shuria to tell me that those tubes weren’t standard for a Queen. They were essentially life support for a vegetable.
Behind Pahiven, connected at the base of her spine, a humongous sac, at least six meters long and two meters high, contained her hundreds of thousands of eggs. It jiggled and heaved as the eggs moved within. They slowly came out at the other, narrow end of the
sac, which recurved to the side. The trunk like appendages on the ceiling picked up the eggs and placed them in a vacant spot in the room.
A handful of Workers, wearing some sort of protective armor and carrying a long, spear-like weapon, were slowly marching around the endless rows of writhing eggs on the floor. They appeared to examine them for defects. One of the Workers suddenly stopped in front of one and viciously stabbed it a few times with her spear. The grating squeal it emitted accompanied by the wet, crunching sound of the egg cracking, automatically triggered my gag reflex as my stomach convulsed.
Heedless of her actions, Shuria marched up to her sister. She pulled a wand-like object from her belt, removed its cap, revealing a needle-sharp tip, which she poked into the side of Pahiven’s neck. After a few seconds, it emitted a beep and Shuria glanced at the results on the handle’s interface.
“Sedate, three units,” Shuria said in Kryptid.
Immediately, another tube protruded from the membrane and latched onto the back of Pahiven’s hand dangling by her side. Shuria didn’t wait for it to finish giving her sister the requested dose. Turning on her heels, she stiffly walked out of the room. I could only assume she was keeping her sister sedated so that she wouldn’t be aware of the nightmare her existence had become, or at least feel no pain.
Keeping an impressively neutral expression on her Kryptid features despite the fury burning within her, Shuria took me back out of the Chamber and of the Egg Room, and down the other corridor from the T intersection. It led to a series of rooms crawling with Soldiers. We passed in front of more dorms, a training room, and a large kitchen. Finding out that the Queen’s room was a floor down from the exit meant we would have no choice but to mow down through the throngs of Soldiers to reach her.
In the meantime, Shuria had managed to find a dark corner to morph into a Soldier before we reached the exit. Apparently, a female Worker had no business at the surface. Instead of taking me to the main docking area, she showed me a secret passage to the back entrance of the facility. And once more showed me the access code.
“This place is usually unguarded. A select few people have this access code,” Shuria said. “I must go back before raising any more suspicions. When you get here, kill all the Soldiers and larvae, and destroy all the eggs, but do not touch Pahiven. And, to the extent possible, spare the Workers.”
That last comment hadn’t been necessary. They would win the war for us from within. That Elder Worker especially had to be allowed to get back to Kryptor.
“Goodbye, little human,” Shuria then said before rushing back the way we’d come.
This time, I didn’t flee out of the Ghosting; she kicked me out. For some reason, that bothered me. Still, I welcomed the falling sensation that would bring me back to my man’s arms.
My consciousness smoothly returned into my body. I jerked right up into a seating position then jumped out of bed. Chaos, immediately woke up, instantly alert.
“Sabra?” he asked, worry in his voice.
“One second,” I replied, quickly scribbling down the access codes before I could forget them and hoping they were accurate. Turning back to him I slowly walked back to his side of the bed and climbed next to him. “Do I ever have a story to tell you.”
Chapter 15
Chaos
As my gaze roamed over our team gathered in the mess hall, a part of me kicked myself for not picking a bigger ship. Then again, it would have increased our chances of getting detected. Doom had met us at the rendezvous point during the night. It warmed my hearts to see him sitting next to my mate, engaged in a friendly conversation while she petted Stran, his faithful Creckel companion.
Vaguely reminiscent of a pangolin the size of a Tibetan Mastiff with the head of a dragon, Stran was a formidable killing machine. His black scales made him immune to pretty much any type of physical damage. He could shoot with deadly precision the dagger-like darts beneath his scales and could spit one of the most virulent acids in the galaxy. Highly intelligent and able to converse through psychic imagery, it would be a fatal mistake to think him merely a beast based on his appearance.
And, right now, he was busy charming my mate.
“Settle down, everyone,” I said, projecting my voice so that everyone would hear me. With their usual discipline, they all quieted down in seconds and gave me their full attention. “According to Bane’s last communication with Shuria, we should begin the attack in about one hour. As soon as this meeting ends, I want you all geared up and ready to go.”
I turned to look at my woman, leaning against Stran, her arm around his shoulders, and both of them staring at me intently. For some silly reason, I wondered if Victoria would be jealous to see how well those two were hitting it off.
“Sabra had another Ghosting with Shuria last night,” I continued. “She and I created a 3D map of the facility, showing the layout as best she remembered it. Keep that in mind as there will likely be discrepancies.”
I activated the 3D projector to show a holographic display of the map. With Sabra’s occasional intervention, I walked them through it, indicating which rooms were assigned to each unit within our team.
“Wipe out the Soldiers, the eggs and the larvae,” I said. “DO NOT touch Queen Pahiven. Shuria will personally take care of her sister. As for the female Workers, as always, spare them to the most possible extent. In fact, go especially out of your way to be gentle with them and to make sure they know that we do not have a quarrel with the Kryptids, but with General Khutu and his agenda.”
“So, the rumors of rebellion are true?” Doom asked.
“Yes,” Sabra answered. “But the females are still divided about it. Not so much about the need to get rid of the General. They’re all in agreement that he has become an abomination, and that he’s slowly taking the entire colony down with him. However, they still seem to be struggling with the need to follow hierarchy.”
“An accurate assessment,” Bane said. “But I would caution you against trying to feed it or influence them; you would only make the case for the General, and they will rally behind him, thinking you’re trying to sabotage them from within.”
“What do you propose, then?” Wrath asked.
“Let nature follow its course,” Bane said. “Khutu is at least forty to fifty years older than a Kryptid General’s normal lifespan of one-hundred years. Generals are no longer supposed to impregnate the Queen past their sixtieth birthday as their seed becomes weak.”
“Which further explains why so many of the new larvae, even with the Kryptid Queen Rahissa, are being born defective,” Tabitha mused out loud. “The clock is ticking against him. Are you saying we do nothing?” she asked her husband.
“Yes,” Bane answered with a nod. “If he is wise, Khutu will save himself by allowing the Nursery Workers to raise a couple new Generals to sire a new, healthy generation of Soldiers, while retaining his power. If he lets his hunger for total control go to his head, he won’t. Once the percentage of defective eggs reaches a certain threshold, the Workers will revolt. They represent 70% of the population. If there is an uprising, they will move as a single hive mind and obliterate everything on their path. Do not underestimate the Workers. They may be weak and clueless about combat, but when the colony is threatened, they become feral beasts.”
“Duly noted,” I said. “Either way, today’s mission isn’t about the General. If you have any questions, ask them now. Otherwise, go get ready and be on standby.”
Everyone moved out, and I took my woman’s hand to head towards the armory. She was wearing the same official, black and gold Vanguard combat armor as the other girls, despite her Aspirant status. It looked ridiculously sexy on her the way it hugged each of her delectable curves. And yet, it wasn’t lust that had my blood rushing through my veins but worry—which I did my damnedest to block from her. Sabra didn’t need to be undermined by my fears and insecurities.
But if something happened to her, if I lost her, it would destroy me.
Stran kept following Sabra and bumping his snout against her hand. He hadn’t been this playful since the birth of Raven, thirty-two years ago. It pleased me that the Creckel should be so fond of her as that would make him twice as protective towards her.
Sabra remained silent as she quickly put on her weapons and shields. She was mentally preparing herself, and as much as I ached to make the most of our last few minutes together before things got heated that, too, I refused to mess with just because I felt needy.
Bane suddenly stiffened then turned to look at me.
“I have disabled their sensors and security systems,” Shuria’s voice said telepathically to both of us. “I can’t say how long it will last. You must come now.”
The Mimic disconnected as soon as she said those last words.
“This is it,” I projected loudly. “You have your assignments, and you know your roles. Keep the mind-chat uncluttered. You do not proceed unless Sabra gives the all-clear. Yumi, Shield our women.”
While she proceeded to give Sabra, Tabitha, Linette, and me a psychic Shield that would make us immune to psychic disruptors, I kissed my woman deeply, almost desperately. Bane did the same with his mate before all of us Warriors drank the vial of Crinax that Yumi and Tyonna had handed us. The toxin provided by our new allies, the Miegly, temporarily enhanced our venom and bodily fluids, turning them into acid the minute they made contact with anything that didn’t possess Dragon DNA. Therefore, for the next half-hour—although preferably next hour—there would be no kissing our mates.
“Let’s go,” I said, while Tyonna opened the chaser’s doors.
Yumi and Tyonna would remain on board to revive our Shells if we died, while Doom’s own Shield and Portal had remained aboard his ship at our rendezvous point, running long range scans to hopefully detect any incoming enemies. While Linette was our main pilot, Tyonna could take over if required.