She didn’t want to retrace her steps, and not only because she’d have to pass by the body of Parente, the first guard she’d killed.
She managed to find a closer access tunnel instead, and immediately grabbed hold of the ladder at eye-level. She climbed as fast as she could, with less regard for noise, moving hand over hand, blinking sweat out of her eyes as the tunnel grew hotter.
When she heard voices outside the tunnel the next floor up, she stopped, panting as silently as she could just under the lip of the opening, hoping they would move on before she had to do something drastic yet again.
Eight minutes. Maybe nine by now.
Jet gripped the hilt of Black, aiming the blade downward, her fingers slick with blood. She stared up through the hole in the floor, fighting to keep her breathing as silent as possible as she heard the guards talking loudly overhead, mostly to be heard over the sound of the breach alarm, not to mention the continued tremors and shaking of the building.
She had no where to go.
Whatever Richter had set in motion, whatever he’d wanted from her, dragging her here, planting her in the house of the Nirreth Royals, Jet now knew the truth.
She wasn’t a person at all to him.
She doubted anyone mattered to Richter, really.
They were all just pawns in his twisted game, dancing to a tune he didn’t share with anyone, not even Laksri, who followed him like some giant, lizard-skin dog.
But she couldn’t think about Laksri right then.
Jet knew now, she probably wouldn’t make it out of Richter’s conspiracy alive.
At the same time, as much as she hated him for it, Jet already knew she’d play Richter’s twisted game to its logical end. Not because Anaze asked her to, or because of some warped sense of loyalty to the promises she’d made all three of them, but because, at base, Jet knew Richter was right about her.
Richter was right.
She could hate him for it as much as she liked, but the truth was, they were a lot more alike than not.
Both of them would do pretty much whatever it took to get humanity out of slavery and out of the horrors of the skag pits. Both of them would do whatever they could to win Earth back for humanity, in some form at least… even if that meant sharing it with the lizard skins.
Even if that meant killing kind-hearted Nirreth like that guard, Parente.
Or even a nine-year-old Nirreth boy, if he stood in the way.
Or that nine-year-old boy’s parents.
The realization made her sick.
Swallowing, Jet reinforced her grip on the sword, trying to blank her mind, to get the image of that guard’s face out of head.
She was still trying when the explosions started behind her.
26
A New Queen
Whatever else it did, the bomb going off gave Jet the opening she’d needed.
She heard exclamations from the guards overhead, yells in the corridors below her, then pounding footsteps as someone… or several someones… ran for the main elevators.
Jet listened until the voices faded.
Then she began to climb.
When she reached the top, she half-expected at least one of the guards to be there still. She expected she’d have to kill again, and again, just to get back to her room.
The guards weren’t there, though.
She didn’t have to kill again.
The corridor was clear.
Her relief was so intense, tears came to her eyes.
Jet vaulted up the last few rungs of the ladder, knowing if she hadn’t hit the ten minute mark yet, she would in a matter of seconds. She climbed nimbly out of the utility tunnel, then gasped when she landed funny on her ankle.
Briefly conscious of the pain in her hip from the Rings, as well as the wrench in her shoulder, she shoved both things from her mind and began to run. She stumbled again briefly when a second set of alarms exploded, these signaling a second breach of the compound…
Then she broke into a full sprint.
Positive by now that she’d passed the ten minute mark, she hoped like hell that it wasn’t too late. She hung a right at the corridor that led back to the civilian residency center, using her hand and arm to slingshot herself around without losing speed.
Then she just ran, all-out, pounding past the still-closed doors.
She reached Laksri’s cabin at a full sprint, half-skidding as she grabbed the door handle to stop her momentum and slammed into the wall.
Gasping from the pain that exploded in her shoulder, she jerked open the door and slipped inside, gasping hard by then, her hair matted to her neck and forehead with sweat.
She couldn’t seem to get enough oxygen, even in the oxygen-flooded Nirreth room, and when she slammed the door shut behind her, she could only stand there, fighting to breathe, even as her eyes took in the space before her.
She wasn’t alone.
Richter stood there, in the flesh this time.
So did Anaze.
Behind both of them, Laksri watched her with his dark eyes, his tail lashing behind him in what might have been worry… or perhaps anger, Jet couldn’t tell for sure. From the way he was looking at her, though, Jet didn’t get the impression he was angry at her.
Smiling, Richter stepped forward first.
Before Jet could get her breathing under control, he was clapping his hands. That thin, smug smile lifted his lips as he walked towards her with measured steps, clapping louder. He glanced at Anaze without stopping, his voice a smirk.
“I told you,” he said, turning back to wink at Jet. “Didn’t even flinch, our girl. Took out four of theirs without batting an eye…”
Jet didn’t hesitate.
Pulling her weight off the door, she straightened as Richter reached her.
He might have been about to clap her on the shoulder, hug her, or perform any one of his other condescending, obnoxious gestures, but Jet didn’t give him the chance. When he reached for her, she drew her fist back in one swift pull, and punched him in the jaw.
Staggering back, Richter threw up an arm in reflex, blocking a second hit.
Having him on the defensive might have calmed her down, but Richter’s smile turned into a genuine-sounding laugh, which only infuriated her more. When Richter lowered his arm, she swung at him again, and Richter only laughed harder.
That time, he also stepped neatly out of the way.
He moved like a boxer, a martial artist… maybe even a dancer.
Once he was out of range of her feet and hands, he shook his head, smiling as he continued to rub his jaw.
“Not a bad cross, kitten,” he said, moving his jaw as if making sure it still worked right. He smiled at her again. “…Stellar work, too. Sorry you don’t feel the same.”
“What was that?” she snapped, still breathing hard as she glared at him, then at all of them. “What did I just do? Besides kill a bunch of people… for no damned reason?”
“People?” Richter raised an eyebrow at her, glancing at Laksri. “You really have the magic touch, Laks. Just what did you do to her tonight?”
Laksri stepped forward when Jet lunged at Richter again, inserting himself between the two of them and lashing his tail in darting jerks.
Anaze moved between them, too.
Jet found herself watching Anaze for some reason, studying his face.
She saw him bite his lip, staring at his father as if willing him to shut up, but when Laksri turned on Richter, as if maybe he was going to hit him, Anaze lifted a hand to the Nirreth, his eyes an open warning.
“Laks. Don’t. Not now.”
For some reason Jet couldn’t understand, Laksri obeyed.
Taking a few steps back, Laksri was looking at Jet then, his dark eyes holding something that looked like a promise to her. She couldn’t get the exact meaning, but she felt her shoulders relax, at least a little, enough that her eyes shifted back to Anaze.
Anaze returned her gaze warily, but she couldn’t read the
emotions flickering across his face, either.
“What did I just do?” Jet repeated, swallowing thickly, looking between them. “Is anyone going to tell me? Did I kill them? Ogli’s parents?”
“Yes,” Laksri said, blunt.
Jet refocused on him.
The Nirreth’s eyes held a faint apology. Or perhaps guilt.
“We needed you to do it,” Anaze said, drawing her eyes back to him. “Laksri had to be seen elsewhere… and they already have a trace on me and my dad. You were the only person we had left inside the royal compound who could do it. They would never suspect you. Not for something like this.”
“But why?” Jet said, staring around at all three of them. “Why would you want to kill them in the first place? Doesn’t that just put Ogli in charge?”
“No,” Anaze said.
He looked at Laksri, and that time his eyes held something like resentment.
“No… the current queen and her husband are safe. That’s where Laksri was. He was moving them out of the royal compound, using his contacts to relocate them away from the attack. As a part of that, we’ve just made a deal with them, with the true ruling family.”
As he spoke, Jet realized it had grown quiet overhead.
Too quiet.
“The bombing stopped?” she said, looking around at the three of them, her eyes accusing. “Why? Is the attack over?”
“Yes.” Laksri’s voice was quieter than Anaze’s had been. “The deal included the usurpers. We’ve gotten them both to compromise. To work together.”
“How?” Jet said. “Work together on what?”
“They’ve agreed to acknowledge Laksri’s claim to the throne.” Anaze paused, letting his words linger in the air before he added, “They can’t do it right away, and he won’t rule until the current queen dies, but––”
“What?” Jet stared at Laksri, then back at Anaze. “I thought he was a terrorist?”
“All is forgiven, pet,” Richter said, smiling.
Jet frowned, without taking her eyes off Laksri. “How can that be true?”
“It is complicated––” Laksri began.
Richter spoke up before he could go on, rubbing his jaw.
“The queen agreed to contest the legitimacy of Ogli’s rule, to appease the usurpers.”
Richter glanced at Laksri and Anaze, that more smug expression on his face.
“Since Laksri’s betrayal was never publicized,” he added. “No one in the Nirreth public needs to know. Both sides want assurances, of course, but they’ve agreed to trust us on that, at least for now. The throne alternates sexes as the dominant lawmaker. As Laksri’s a male, that won’t screw up their royal lineage laws. So the queen is happy, since it doesn’t interfere overly with her reign now. And she prefers Laksri to the people who just tried to kill her…”
Smiling, Richter added with a shrug,
“You just helped us fulfill our end of the deal with them… part of it, anyway. The only person the usurpers want on the throne less than the current queen is Prince Ogli. They were already losing their battle here, so they agreed to the compromise.”
“What’s the other part?” Jet said.
Her voice came out hard as glass.
When Richter only shrugged, Jet looked at Anaze.
“What’s the other part, Anaze?” she said.
Again, it was Richter who answered.
“You’ve just crowned yourself the future queen, kitten,” he said.
At her expression, his lips slid upwards in a broader smile.
“You and Laks… you’re going to rule together. How’s that for a bit of payback for all we’ve put you through? Queen Aligara wants it, and the usurpers think it’s symbolic, and probably that they can take it away from us easier with you on the throne… but they agreed to go along. They’ll wait to announce until after you’ve made more of a reputation for yourself in the Rings.”
Pausing, he rested his hands on his waist, one eyebrow quirked.
“Even the full-bore racists among the Nirreth are more likely to be open to the arrangement with an adult, male Nirreth on the throne as rule-maker. Especially if you gain yourself some celebrity status, pet.”
Jet could still only stare at him.
For a long moment, not a single thought penetrated the static as she replayed Richter’s words.
Queen?
She looked at Anaze, but he only folded his arms, meeting her gaze reluctantly, his expression suddenly a lot more tired.
Something in what she felt as she and Anaze stared at one another, in the emotion she saw under the tightening of his mouth, reminded her of what she already knew, what she couldn’t help but know, given her experiences with Richter so far.
This new development, whatever else it might be, was anything but a gift.
Her eyes shifted to Laksri. The Nirreth’s expression was harder to read, but she couldn’t miss the worried flicker she saw in his dark eyes, too.
They’d allied with the human-hating faction of Nirreth.
They’d cut a deal with them, and with the current queen.
In the process, they’d put her and Laksri on the throne of a new world.
The more Jet thought about it, the more she found herself thinking that this couldn’t possibly end well, no matter what came next.
She also couldn’t help seeing her new throne as nothing more than a death sentence.
She would be Queen Jet, the already-deceased.
~ END OF PART II ~
Copyright © 2014 by JC Andrijeski
Published by White Sun Press
Cover Art & Design by Damonza (2014)
www.damonza.com
Ebook Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please visit an official vendor for the work and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.
Dedicated to Irene
The most intense survivor I know.
M’dear, when the zombie apocalypse comes
You’re still the one I want to have my back.
...Bow and arrow optional.
1
Have A Care
Jet stood on a high dais overlooking the steps of the main plaza in Green Zone, Hezeret.
She fought not to think about why she was there.
She tried instead to focus on the part of her that was just happy to be outside the palace walls. And just, well, outside period.
Whatever her status with the Royals or the Rings or whatever else these days, they still rarely let her walk around without armed guards.
The irony that the improvement in her status and position among the Nirreth only worsened that trapped feeling didn’t elude Jet entirely.
It didn’t exactly help her, either.
Inhaling deep the smell of flowers and cut grass and the rising odor of cinnamon and baked bread from the cart sitting on the street below the wide stretch of lawn, she tilted her face up towards the sun, wondering if anyone would try to kill her that day.
So far, no takers.
That pretty much made this a banner occasion.
She considered walking down to look at the cart, maybe try and persuade one of the guards to lend her a few coins to buy one of those lizard pastries she’d developed a taste for––the ones with the meat filling and the light-blue glaze on top––when a shadow blocked her view of the sun.
The height of that shadow forced her to blink, then tilt her eyes upwards, even as she raised a hand to shade her face.
Instead of Laksri, who she’d expected, Trazen stood there.
One of his human slaves had wrapped his muscular shoulders in a gold fabric that matched the tents standing behind them on the hill. The fabric
also highlighted tiny, gold specks in Trazen’s irises, and the pale rings of gold around the rims of his deep-black eyes.
She swallowed, fighting to keep her expression still.
She still found his appearance strangely disarming, even knowing what he was.
He was a serial killer, especially of human females.
He also happened to be shockingly handsome, especially for a Nirreth. His long jaw, large black eyes, and strangely symmetrical face made him fascinating to the eyes, even to human eyes, even apart from his muscular body and long, midnight-blue tail.
Staring up at those unusual eyes, she wondered if he’d had them surgically altered to look like that. She’d yet to see another Nirreth with eyes like his.
She doubted it.
Whatever his other faults, it was difficult to imagine Trazen being vain enough to get a surgical procedure, purely out of vanity. The guy might be a psychopath, but he didn’t really strike her as one overly obsessed with the opinion of others.
Maybe it would be better if he was.
Either way, she kept her thoughts to herself as she stared up at his muscular, dark-skinned torso, noting the position of his tail warily in her peripheral vision.
“Do you think it’s wise, princess?” the well-dressed Nirreth said.
He seemed to notice her looking at his size, perhaps even his eyes and clothes.
His lips lifted in a faint Nirreth smile. His English––by far the best English she’d ever heard from a Nirreth’s lips––came out in a deep, purring growl, and Jet felt herself tense slightly, when even that voice managed to disarm her.
She’d wondered more than once if the Ringmaster hypnotized his female consorts.
There was just something so… odd… about him.
“Is it wise?” he repeated, his eyes lingering as he spoke with that silky, deep tongue. “…To be outdoors, in such a public venue? You are known here. You are known everywhere in the city now. Your face. Your hair…”
His eyes flickered from her black hair back up to face.
The Complete Alien Apocalypse Series (Parts I-IV Plus Bonus Novella): An Apocalyptic, Romantic, Science Fiction, Alien Invasion Adventure Page 45