His voice grew a harder bite.
“Even before this announcement of your new status, you are likely to attract attention, Jet Tetsuo. Simply from your recent exploits in the Rings. I saw you giving autographs earlier, to those children. It is not safe for you… out in the open. You must realize that?”
Jet held his gaze, doing her best to keep her nerves off her face.
Was he threatening her?
Or was he actually warning her?
She couldn’t help noticing he’d inserted his body between her and the only vantage point someone with a long-range weapon could have used, at least out there.
Of course, if he meant his words as a threat, he could just as easily be hiding her from view of the Royal Guard, and anyone else in that tent.
Something about the last thing he’d said felt more truthful than not; it also felt less like he was screwing with her, and more like he was trying to tell her something.
“Do you really care so much, Ringmaster Trazen?” she said politely. “I am touched by your concern.” She gave him a faint smile, an almost-Nirreth smile. “After all, what is one less mammal in the world, in the scheme of things? There are so many of us, are there not?”
His dark eyes took on a more amused cast.
He stepped closer to her in the pause, moving with such a gliding step that she didn’t have time to compensate until he was right up next to her.
Again, she couldn’t help noticing he’d both hemmed her in, and blocked her from view of anyone in the hills or trees above the pavilion.
“You are both polite and not polite, mammal,” he purred in that deep, melodious rumble, flicking his tail sideways as his eyes fell on her mouth. “You behave both as one very clever, and one who is not very clever at all. I must only imagine you are very polite, and very clever, and it is the Rings fills your thoughts so entirely. In my imaginings, you simply forget when you are in the real world. You forget, in the real world, it is not enough to simply outsmart me, or distrust me, or out-think the Rings Operators at my disposal. You must match wits with those who are far more clever. You must match wits with those who design our lived experience.”
Jet frowned faintly, studying his deep black eyes with the gold flecks.
She didn’t know what game he was playing, or whether this was a warning or a threat, but she had to assume a threat. She grew overly conscious of his tail again, wanting to step back. She wasn’t sure if it would only ignite the predator thing in him more.
When she didn’t speak, he prompted her again.
“Perhaps we can find a more interesting challenge for you soon, dearest friend of the Nirreth?” he purred in that deep voice. “Particularly given our new crop of female candidates for the Rings. You must have noticed some of them are quite… exciting.”
He slid sideways, and once more, the sun blinded Jet’s view.
She managed to keep at least half of her attention on the course of his tail.
“Novelties,” he hissed softly. “After all, are only novelties until they are no longer thus. Such a thing will not protect you forever, my young friend. I would very much hate to see you put yourself in danger needlessly…”
He spoke in Nargili that time, the Nirreth tongue.
He must know she was nearly fluent.
She’d made an effort to learn it for real after her first Rings match.
That had been five months ago.
Jet knew a little more about Trazen now.
As far as she could tell, none of it was good.
She hadn’t even managed to discover anything about him that might be exploitable as a weakness. Compared to most Nirreth, he was deeply private. According to gossip, he didn’t do a lot of drugs, or even drink to excess frequently. He didn’t seem to care for gambling, like most of them, or even for political intrigue.
Of course, he was rumored to kill women.
Despite that last part, as the current Ringmaster and controller of the games, Trazen had treated her fairly in the Rings, as far as Richter and Laksri could tell. She’d managed to pass the minimum bar for points, at any rate, in every match since the first one.
As a result, the Boards classified Jet as undefeated.
Trazen was right about one thing; that fact alone made Jet a recognizable face.
She’d garnered mini-celebrity status after her first match, and not only in Hezeret. She’d been invited to visit other Nirreth Green Zones in the intervening months, including one on a different world, in a different solar system than the one where Earth lived.
Laksri had refused all those requests, citing safety concerns and the fact that such travel went against the recommendations of her personal guard, both of which happened to be true. Having her own personal security team was another perk of her new fame… or another curse, depending on perspective.
That same personal guard, while getting her out of quasi-prostitution requests from horny relatives and business partners of the Royals, also forced Jet to endure a ridiculous amount of protection in the day-to-day as part of her new status within the televised sport.
Personal guard or no, she definitely didn’t feel safe provoking a Nirreth as powerful as Trazen. She worried about doing it accidentally, much less intentionally.
For the same reason, Jet plastered a polite, if somewhat vacuous smile on her face.
“I only meant to see more of the town, Ringmaster Trazen,” she said, using the more formal version of Nargili. “I get out so rarely. And it is pretty here, do you not think?”
When Jet saw his tail coil in a sinuous curve behind his legs, darting closer to where she stood, she slid a few steps backwards, in spite of herself.
It occurred to her that speaking to him in Nargili perhaps wasn’t particularly wise under the circumstances.
Since it was already too late, she focused on maintaining a healthy distance from the stinger she knew he housed in that snake-like appendage.
Trazen didn’t follow her when she retreated, but Jet saw him notice.
A thin, Nirreth smile again ghosted his dark lips, but he didn’t take his eyes off her, or off the dress she wore, the first they’d made her wear since Jet arrived here, what must be over eight months ago now.
She saw the look in Trazen’s eyes and felt herself tense.
She’d seen the same look in a lot of Nirreth eyes lately, ever since she’d become the newest rock star, and darling, of the Rings.
Laksri warned her, more than once, to not to let Trazen sting her.
He’d warned her not to be alone with Trazen at all if she could help it, no matter in how public a place. She understood Laksri’s reasons, and took it seriously when he said it.
Now, however, when Jet was in a position to take Laksri’s words even more to heart than usual, she found she’d already disregarded his advice. She’d let herself be alone with the giant Nirreth, almost without knowing how it happened.
Still, even she could tell Trazen wasn’t trying to offend her, or even scare her, per se. Rather, he was trying to charm her, a thought somehow more frightening than if he’d been threatening her outright.
In Nirreth-speak, he was flirting with her.
He was even playing the role of gallant protector.
She let her eyes slide past Trazen’s muscular upper body, focusing on the interior of the gold tent. Unfortunately, she could only see darkness beyond the flap opening. Rippling in the low breeze that whispered over the hill, that same opening didn’t remain wide long enough for Jet to glimpse any movement through its folds.
Which meant no one might be anywhere near where she stood.
Either that, or they could be right there, watching. Or Trazen’s people might have Laksri in a choke-hold on the tent floor.
All of this flickered through her mind, right before Jet raised her voice.
“Laks?” She kept her words bright and cheerful-sounding, but belted them out as loud as she could, despite how close she stood to the tent, and to Trazen. “Laks! Don�
�t forget to bring me the coins you promised! I want to try some of that bread I smell!”
Barely a heartbeat passed before Laksri appeared in the slit of the door flap.
When she saw him, Jet felt her shoulders abruptly relax.
Laksri, for his part, didn’t seem to relax at all.
Taking in the scene before him, with Trazen looming over the much-shorter Jet, Laksri’s eyes lingered on the smile on Jet’s face, possibly seeing the strain there before he gave a bare glance to Trazen himself, acknowledging the athletic-looking Nirreth with a faint smile of his own. Laksri’s broad shoulders relaxed in the same set of seconds, right before his tail coiled back behind his body in a friendly-seeming arc.
“Of course,” he said politely, walking directly towards them.
Jet couldn’t help noticing that Laksri moved more like a soldier than an athlete, which she found faintly reassuring in comparing the two males.
Before she could line them up in any more detail in her mind, Laksri had already reached where she stood.
He glanced at Trazen, but only after he succeeded in inserting himself between the other Nirreth and Jet, and then only after he had his tail coiled tightly around Jet’s waist. His dark blue eyes shifted to Trazen’s black ones, still holding that friendly smile, even as his arm flexed noticeably where it curled around Jet’s shoulders.
“Greetings, Ringmaster Trazen,” Laksri said, bowing his head politely. “Are you looking out for my young companion for me?”
Trazen looked between the two of them, his smile growing taut.
“She is a clever one, your mammal,” Trazen said.
His eyes lingered on Jet’s long, black hair as the breeze caught it, fanning it out to one side of her face. His gaze shifted back to Laksri.
“…I highly doubt she needs my protection.”
“She is clever, it is true,” Laksri conceded.
Jet saw the tension in his eyes and leaned against his side, smiling up at him. Jet got the feeling he would have pulled her behind him entirely if he could have, but instead he merely squeezed her against his hard form.
“It is admirable, so much devotion,” Trazen remarked.
Jet still followed the Ringmaster’s tail in her peripheral vision, but relaxed when she saw him pull it further behind him, out of range of any part of her skin.
“…Perhaps you should not make it so obvious how much she pleases you?” the large Nirreth suggested. “You are liable to make your subjects jealous, Prince Laksri.”
Laksri only inclined his head, pretending to miss the look Trazen gave her.
He tugged on Jet’s waist, pulling her back another step from Trazen’s still-moving tail.
As he did, Laksri smiled again, motioning with his head and fingers towards the cart.
He spoke to her, his voice as calm as before. “We must go now, before the crowd gathers, and you are recognized.” He glanced back at Trazen. “Thank you again, Honored Ringmaster. Would you like anything from the cart?”
“No. No, I am not hungry for such things…”
Trazen let his voice trail, even as his eyes lingered on Jet’s face. They shifted briefly to her hair, then traveled down over her body and the dress.
Jet bit her lip to stay silent.
Turning away from Trazen, she smiled at Laksri, who also pretended he’d missed the added meaning in the Nirreth’s words, along with his too-long stare.
Jet let Laksri lead her away.
She only realized after they’d gone a few yards that she’d been holding her breath. She let it out in a sharp exhale, trying to shake off her anger.
Only when she and Laksri were well out of hearing range did she risk trying to talk to him. Even then, she spoke in a murmur. She knew how good Nirreth hearing could be.
She had to guess Trazen’s would be better than most.
“I thought you said he would back off, once he knew who you really were?” she murmured.
Laksri didn’t answer, but she saw his mouth pucker in a Nirreth frown.
“He is persistent,” he admitted.
“He practically threatened you.”
Laksri conceded her words with a tilt of his head.
“Richter is looking into it. He thinks perhaps Trazen has some agenda of his own in this fight. Beyond his personal interests… and a dislike of being bested in any visible way.”
“Agenda?” Jet frowned. “You think he’s working for the usurpers?”
Laksri smiled thinly, glancing at her. “It seems more likely, does it not?”
Jet nodded, but felt her mouth firm into a frown of her own.
Trust Richter to suspect him without warning her.
“So he might be the one?” Jet said. “Behind the attack on the compound? And the assassination threats on us?”
Laksri looked at her, hesitant, then made that conciliatory gesture again.
“Yes,” he said, his voice reluctant. “Yes. It might be him.”
“What does Richter think?”
Laksri frowned. “I do not know for sure. He is being even more indirect than usual, in regards to Trazen.” He met Jet’s gaze. “He suspects something specific, though. Perhaps not the usurpers, after all.”
“Who else is there?”
Laksri’s expression held real puzzlement that time, and more than a hint of frustration. “I have been trying to find out. Not with Richter. Through other means.”
Jet nodded, biting her lip as she gazed out over the field beside the pavilion.
She fought to shake off the fear that wanted to steal over her limbs, even as she tried to determine its source. She couldn’t do either entirely.
The truth was, she felt powerless in this. Unless Richter and Anaze found whoever had been hired to kill her, there was a good chance Jet might not live to see many more sunrises inside the Green Zone’s dome.
If it was Trazen, he could kill her easily enough.
All he needed was to arrange for her death in the Rings.
The fact that he hadn’t yet done that didn’t particularly reassure her.
It just made her wonder what he was waiting for.
2
Not Amused
The security set-up was ridiculous.
Laksri had his own personal guard, a segment of the Palace’s Royal Guard, now that he’d been named Eldest Son, prince and heir to the Nirreth realm.
Between the broader Royal Security Force, the Palace’s Royal Guard, and Jet’s protection unit for the Rings, she should have felt safe.
She should have felt safe even in such a public place.
She didn’t feel particularly safe, though.
She had no idea where the loyalties of any of these Nirreth truly lived. She knew enough by now about the Palace of the Royals to know that most of the beings there, human and Nirreth, weren’t exactly what they seemed.
Pretty much all of them had their own agendas and side deals going on, whether political, personal, or financial, related to the black market, the slave trade, the gambling clubs, the human districts, or whatever else. The problem lay in figuring out whether those deals were relatively benign, relatively not-benign but unlikely to impact her, or likely to get her killed.
Laksri played it cool, probably to reassure her.
He even pretended to have faith in his Nirreth guards.
Jet found herself doubting that, however.
Richter gave her assurances too, but Jet believed those even less than she believed Laksri’s.
According to Richter, he and Anaze had all their available resources out searching for whoever made the threats against her and Laksri. The threats had a pretty big anti-human flavor, but Jet knew that didn’t necessarily mean anything.
Anyone could use that as cover for some other agenda.
Also, plenty were racist against humans but also had more than one motive.
Supposedly, Richter had informants seeded all through the Royal Palace, the broader Nirreth society, the human slave pens, and even t
he more democratic branches of the Nirreth government, as well as the Nirreth black markets.
He’d been mining those contacts for intel (again, if Richter could be believed), but so far, all he’d gotten were rumors. Richter claimed he also had at least one contact among the usurpers, but that hadn’t yielded much, either.
Despite their complete lack of usable information, Anaze and Richter both pretended to be confident it was only a matter of time before they caught whoever put the contract out on Jet.
Jet had her doubts.
Moreover, the ceremony would be the perfect place to make a strong statement against the compromise Laksri and the Queen made with the usurpers.
Being here, surrounded by faceless bodyguards and a crowd of strangers all straining to get a look at her and her Nirreth “boyfriend,” only made that uneasy feeling worse. The fact that Laks recently got named successor to the throne didn’t help.
Laksri already warned her that his supposed supporters among the Nirreth could be just as deadly and unpredictable as those who came out directly against him.
If Laksri did something to anger them, they could turn on him fast.
She’d already asked all of them, more than once, when she could contact the humans back in the skag pit where she’d been born, including her mother and her brother, Biggs.
They’d all said no, or “not yet,” which hadn’t exactly surprised her, but angered her anyway. It angered her more when she won her first ten Rings matches, which should have meant she could bring five people from the outside into Green Zone Hezeret.
Laksri and Richter both asked her to wait on exercising that privilege.
According to them, Jet’s family could easily be used as leverage against her, which was dangerous for her and for them, given the current political instability.
Jet highly doubted her mother or brother would be open to relocating to the Green Zone anyway, even with her assurances. They’d probably think she’d been brainwashed, or that the Nirreth put her up to it by force.
Even so, she really wanted to have the conversation.
She just wanted to see the two of them, to touch them again.
In the pits, her life had been shortened by everything she drank and ate, even the air she breathed. The overwhelming feeling she got, thinking about her life back at the skag pit, was to wonder why. She didn’t understand why humans lived the way they did, when the Nirreth could produce so much, seemingly with so little effort. Between their miniature machines cleaning up select areas of the planet, their water processing systems and greenhouse gardens and solar-powered atmosphere generators and clean husbandry methods, Jet didn’t see the point living in the toxic waste dump that had been Vancouver.
The Complete Alien Apocalypse Series (Parts I-IV Plus Bonus Novella): An Apocalyptic, Romantic, Science Fiction, Alien Invasion Adventure Page 46