by Regine Abel
We ignored the first couple of hover platforms that we encountered as they both only headed upwards. As we approached the third platform, this one going down, I sensed the growing concern from Varnog.
“Tabitha, you okay?” I asked, not wanting to make it too obvious by asking Linette.
“We found our weapons. We’re on our way,” Tabitha answered.
The same relief could be read on all of our faces. Tyonna eyed the platform then cast me a questioning look. Still unable to sense any emotions from any potential lurker beyond the group surrounding me, I shook my head with an apologetic expression.
“Should we wait for you here?” Tyonna asked Tabitha, echoing the thought that had just crossed my mind.
“If you’re in a relatively safe location, then yes. We’ll be there shortly,” Tabitha replied.
The sense of relief emanating from Varnog clawed at my heart. Despite my desire to respect the privacy of his feelings, I couldn’t help that they seeped through our connection. Unable to resist, I sent him some comforting waves. He stiffened, and a sliver of anger rose from him, quickly quieted. Then, to my complete surprise he gave me a gentle thank you nudge.
The snarky, bloodthirsty, yet elusive Scelk was steadily growing on me.
Joy and hope filled my heart when Linette, followed by Tabitha, entered the maintenance shaft and jogged to us, burdened with our gear. We quickly armed ourselves and activated our shields. Unfortunately, the platform could only carry three of us at a time, if we squeezed tightly. That meant two separate trips.
Tabitha gave me an assessing look. “Is Varnog still with you?”
“Yes,” I said with a sharp nod.
“You, Linette, and I are going down first,” Tabitha said. “If that Mimic or anyone else shows up, fuck with their minds. Linette, you focus on activating those pods, even if there’s someone, even if there’s fighting. The rest of you, you run straight to an active pod. Feel free to toss a blaster shot or two if there is a battle going on but do not stop. Understood?”
“You expect us to leave you behind with that bumbaclaat?” Tyonna asked, disbelieving.
Despite the ‘don’t argue with me’ look on Tabitha’s face, I couldn’t help but snort at the expletive. During our trip here from Khepri, I’d fallen in love with Tyonna’s musical, light Jamaican accent. But whenever she got worked up about something, it tended to thicken and the swear words reared their heads.
“Yes, I do,” Tabitha said in a severe tone. “I don’t intend to stick around here either. But when I make a dash for my pod, I don’t want to be forced to backtrack because one of you decided to dick around.”
Tyonna pursed her lips but didn’t argue further. Despite the harshness of her words, love and gratitude flowed from Tabitha to our team’s Portal. Like her, Tyonna was very protective of the team, and the idea of leaving someone behind was abhorrent.
Pulse racing, I squeeze in between Tabitha and Linette on the platform, the three of us forming a protective wall with our respective shields. A whitish membrane closed before us to prevent anyone on that floor from falling into the hole once our platform began its descent. It was a short ride to the lower level, but halfway through, I sensed insanity and malice.
“Oh Maker!” I whispered with fright. “He’s there.”
“We’ve got company,” Tabitha mentally said to the group in a calm, collected, and determined fashion that left me both in awe and ashamed of feeling on the verge of hyperventilating. “No change of plan unless I otherwise specify it. Shoot all you have at the bastard while you run for a pod.”
“We’ve got this,” Linette said, staring at me with unwavering determination.
The strength in her eyes reminded me not to be fooled by Linette’s petite stature. The decorated US Air Force pilot had earned her stripes both on Earth and throughout the galaxy. Sandwiched between these two badass females, I let myself be infused by their fierceness and readied for battle.
As soon as we reached our destination, the whitish membrane hiding the shaft parted open, showing us both the General and the cyborg Mimic, standing three meters directly in front of us. We immediately focus-fired on the General while getting out of the lift, only to hit the same energy wall that had thwarted us earlier.
“So, this is how you reward my hospitality?” General Khutu asked with that grating voice. “How rude, killing my assistants, sneaking around, thinking I wouldn’t notice, and trying to abandon ship without even saying goodbye. My feelings are hurt.”
Ignoring him, Linette made a beeline for the escape pods lining the walls all around the room. The trouble would be getting to the extra ones we needed that were located behind Khutu.
“Ghosting the Mimic,” I warned Tabitha before proceeding.
Once more, it took me half a blink to connect with her due to our physical closeness, although her psychic level, being clearly higher than the Workers’ had been, demanded slightly more effort. It worried me that my body would remain standing there, vulnerable, within reach of the most insane being in the galaxy. But Varnog, wasting no time in messing with the Mimic, gave me hope we might just make it.
The cyborg female suddenly started walking forward, her gaze vacant.
The General’s head jerked towards her, a shocked and baffled expression on his frightful face. “Temrin! What are you doing?”
She kept advancing, heedless of his question.
“Get back here, female!” Khutu shouted.
It was fascinating that anger and outrage—not fear—were bubbling inside the General. Moments later, when Tabitha shot her dead the minute the Mimic cleared the energy wall, it was still only outrage at having been disobeyed and to have his toy broken that I perceived from him.
“Sorry for breaking your puppet,” Tabitha said, “but we never accepted your shitty invitation, and we have far more interesting places to be.”
“Oh no, you don’t. You females will learn,” the General said, raising his blaster towards Linette.
“NO!” Tabitha shouted, putting herself in the path, shield raised high.
Varnog’s ethereal form closed in on the General who began advancing towards Tabitha, his shots bouncing ineffectively against her shield. My blood froze as long, chitin spears started protruding from his forearms. The savage expression on his face and the bloodlust swirling around him left no doubt that, as much as he had wanted to spite his son by taking his mate, he intended to kill Tabitha in the most brutally painful fashion.
Tabitha dodged and rolled out of the way just as he was lunging for her, but his steps faltered. Blinking furiously, the General shook his head as if trying to clear it. But his years of experience and fierceness as a warrior showed in the way that, even with Varnog attempting to control him, he still managed to face Tabitha with his shield up, absorbing her shots. If only I wasn’t stuck, helpless while Ghosting, I could have finished this as the General had his back exposed to me.
Just as Linette was successfully activating the fourth escape pod, the membrane of the lift parted, revealing Yumi, Jessica, and Tyonna. His shield still facing Tabitha, Khutu turned towards the lift and shot a mouth dart at the girls who barely had time to dodge. The aim had been clumsy, no doubt thanks to Varnog mind-fucking him. The women immediately raised their blasters to fire back at him, but he spit out a long stream of acid, spraying their shields which quickly started flickering. Whatever the nature of his acid, it was wrecking them.
The three women ran backwards towards the first three open pods, covering themselves as best they could with their faltering shields. Our pilot joined her fire to Tabitha’s, forcing the General to back away…
…towards me.
“SABRA, IN A POD, NOW!” Tabitha yelled telepathically to me.
At the same time she finally gave the go ahead to get the fuck back inside my body, General Khutu turned to look at me with so much hatred, it almost felt like a living entity.
“You are doing this!” he hissed.
My abnormal still
ness had no doubt tipped him off at last that I was somehow involved with whatever was messing with his head. I couldn’t even begin to fathom how psychically powerful he was that Varnog couldn’t control him.
In the two seconds it took to end the Ghosting, reintegrate my body, and for the darkness to lift before my eyes, the Kryptid leader was already upon me. I sensed his intention even as it formed in his head and dove right into a roll and back on my feet. Feeling the next attack coming, I raised my shield higher, expecting a blaster shot, but a mouth dart struck it instead, immediately followed by a stream of acid.
His mind now clear, the General charged, shield up, blaster blazing, and acid spraying. A perfect shot from Linette knocked his weapon out of his hand. Without missing a beat, he reached for some sort of blade on his weapons belt. As if in slow motion, I saw him throw it at me with deadly precision. Aiming low, Tabitha shot Khutu’s leg a fraction of a second before the blade left his hand. He shouted, stumbling and falling to a knee. I raised my shield to block the incoming weapon, but it collapsed from the acid damage. Carried by my momentum, I couldn’t dodge out of the path of the blade racing towards my face. I jerked my head to the right only to feel the sharp edge slice the side of my neck.
My hand flew to the wound to stem the blood, my steps faltering, barely a couple of feet from what would have been my salvation.
“LINETTE, GO!” Tabitha shouted.
Our pilot complied. Blaster blazing, Tabitha ran towards me and tackled me into the open pod, jumping inside it with me. My breath rushed out of my lungs from the strength of the impact. Through blurred vision, I saw the General get back up and triumphantly grin his needle teeth at me. The door closed and gravity pressed me against the capsule as it shot out into the void of space.
There was barely enough space for the two of us. Tabitha’s weight over me, her hand pressed over mine to staunch the bleeding, and her genuine concern somehow comforted me.
“Don’t you fucking die on me, Sabra! Don’t you do it. You hang in there. You don’t get to leave Chaos.”
My Chaos. I didn’t have the strength to reach out to him, but I didn’t need to. Varnog was gone, but as darkness descended over me, it was my mate’s loving consciousness that I felt wrapping around mine.
Chapter 19
Chaos
I felt numb, refusing to believe the words Tabitha had said, refusing to accept that my mate had been at the mercy of the General. At this very moment, she was bleeding out, confined and suffocating in a tiny escape pod. There wasn’t enough room with two of them there. Tabitha had tried to staunch the bleeding, blindly using her sealant as the lack of wiggle room had made it impossible for her to see where she’d applied it.
That Khutu had not given chase to destroy the pods was only thanks to The Bulwark—Doom’s vessel—rapidly closing in on them. The Kryptid leader was ruthless, but his survival was more important to him than spiting us.
We were still five minutes away from their position, despite flying at our fastest speed without jumping to warp. I had never felt so helpless nor in so much pain. I couldn’t lose her. Not her. Not now. Had I not lost enough, sacrificed enough to this war? This would break me… what was left of me.
I could feel her fading with each passing second, and all I could do was give what comfort I could to the better half of my soul. Her psychic shield had collapsed. The once mesmerizing rainbow colors of her soul’s dancing lights had faded to a dull hue. They still swirled around, although sluggishly, their speed slowing with the beating of her heart. Dark lights, akin to lightning, appeared in scattered areas of Sabra’s psychic void, indicating her quickly fading health. Even her psychic vessel that should have been my soul’s shelter looked wilted. I should have been the one dying, awaiting to find refuge in her vessel until my rebirth, not my Sabra.
“Brother, we’re approaching The Bulwark,” Doom said in a gentle voice. “Let’s get you in that shuttle.”
His voice startled me. I’d been so lost in my sorrow and in my efforts to comfort my mate that I hadn’t heard his approach. Without a word, I followed him to our hangar. Normally, we would have docked with his ship, but that maneuver would take longer than just landing a shuttle in The Bulwark’s shuttle bay. Time was not on our side. Doom piloted, knowing I was in no condition to do so.
“We’re onboard The Bulwark,” Tabitha mind-spoke to me. “She’s still fighting. We’re rushing her to the Infirmary.”
“Don’t let her die, Timbits. Please, don’t let her go,” I begged.
“You know I won’t,” Tabitha said reassuringly. “You’ve got a strong woman. Hurry.”
The two-minute flight stretched indefinitely. I all but smashed the shuttle’s door open the moment we landed and dashed down the hallway to the Infirmary. I barged into the room, finding Tabitha closing the glass lid of a stasis chamber over my mate. Thanh, who was their Shield, Science Officer, and Medical Officer, was putting a blood sample in an analyzer.
“Someone talk to me,” I demanded, rushing to my mate’s side.
Tabitha stepped aside as I placed my hands over the glass dome to peer at Sabra’s ashen face. A large gash ran over the side of her neck and part of her shoulder. Blood matted her skin and part of her uniform. But below the messily applied sealant, yellowish bumps appeared to fill the wound.
“What is that?” I whispered, imagining the worse. “Is that pus? It can’t be pus so fast. What—?"
“Chaos, stop,” Tabitha said in a stern but soft voice. “That is the good news. It’s not pus. It’s one of the reasons she’s still alive. No arteries were touched because your mantle stopped the blade. Those are the scales you gave her when you bonded. The skin simply hasn’t shed yet. My mantle almost killed me, but yours saved Sabra.”
My breath caught in my throat, and my hearts soared. What greater sign than for the physical symbol of our union to shelter my soulmate?
“But… But why is she still fading? Why the stasis?” I asked, confused.
“The blade was poisoned,” Thanh explained. “And that is why we haven’t done anything to the wound because we don’t want to risk giving her something that will accelerate the poison. I believe that your mating fluids in her system and the medicated properties of the sealant have slowed the effects of the toxin. I’m putting her in stasis so that it doesn’t progress until we have identified the poison and have the proper antidote for it.”
“So… That means that…?”
“It means that your mate will be fine,” Thanh said with a smile. “It might take a bit of time to find the cure, but she will be all right. You can thank the Dragon Queen for saving your mate.”
I turned to look at Tabitha, hiding none of the love I felt for her.
“No,” Tabitha said, shaking her head with an affectionate look on her face. “I only tackled her into a pod. But we’re all alive today because Sabra saved us. Sabra and Varnog saved our asses. You’ve got yourself a great woman, big brother. I’m happy for you.”
Drawing me into her arms, Tabitha hugged me. I gratefully returned the embrace. She rose to the tip of her toes to kiss my cheek then, letting go, she slowly walked out of the room. Doom, standing by the door, gave me a happy smile and a gentle, psychic nudge.
“My Red and our son’s mate will make sure your woman is back to her old self,” Doom mentally said. With a final nod, he turned and left the room as well.
I smiled, feeling the crushing weight that had been choking me since Khutu first appeared on that monitor finally lift from me. Victoria and Liena would indeed stop at nothing until Sabra was fully recovered. It amused me that after all these years, Doom still called his mate ‘Red.’ It struck me that I, too, should have a special name for my beloved.
Pulling up a chair, I sat down next to my woman’s stasis chamber and rested my forehead against the glass dome. I wrapped my consciousness around her soul, sending her loving waves while cycling through the endless list of lovely words that best described my Sabra.
Fo
r the hundredth time, I playfully slapped Sabra’s wrist when she once more scratched at the drying skin around her neck and shoulders. In the days following the Dragons fixing our hormonal imbalance that had prevented a proper bonding with our mates, that desperate scratching had temporarily become a familiar sight on Khepri as my brothers’ soulmates developed their own mantles. As the scales finished forming, the skin covering them gradually dried, flaked, then fell off. But the process made their skin very itchy around the parts that hadn’t fully dried yet. Some scratched so hard they made themselves bleed.
“Next time, I’m gluing thimbles on each of your fingertips,” I said teasingly.
Sabra glared at me and opened her mouth as if to say something but revised herself when she saw Victoria returning with a small pot of ointment.
“My dear Victoria, I think you just saved me from a tongue lashing,” I said as she stopped in front of my mate, sitting on an examination table.
Victoria gave me a stern look. “A well-deserved one, too. You have no idea how unbearable it is,” she mumbled.
I gave her a commiserating, but non-apologetic smile.
“We are genuinely sorry for your discomfort,” I said in a conciliatory tone. “But you look stunning with your mantle, as do you, my mate, not to mention that it saved your life.”
Sabra pursed her lips, somewhat mollified. I repressed the urge to laugh at her fake tantrum. However, joking aside, my golden scales gracing my mate’s shoulders and neck looked amazing against her bronze skin and made her look like a queen. Unable to resist, I leaned forward and kissed the scales exposed where the dried skin had fallen off.