Game On Askole (Coletti Warlords)

by Gail Koger

  “We are at maximum velocity. In the void, the Katanic executioners are unable to harm us.”

  Color me happy. Wait a minute. “Executioners?”

  “Must you repeat everything I say?”

  “When I don’t know what the fuck is going on, yeah.” I flinched as they shot more tentacles at us. “Zoey never said anything about seeing specters when she rode with the Gorum.”

  “Katanic teleporting abilities are quite different from a Gorum’s capabilities.”

  Adan was sidestepping the question. “What do the executioners want with you?”

  “To kill me.”

  “I kinda figured that out. Why do they want to kill you?”

  “A thousand years ago, I was banished after I refused to mate with the king’s daughter.”

  “That’s a stupid reason to banish you.”

  “It was. Unfortunately, I was forced to return to my world to complete my transmutation, or I would have become a killing machine unlike anything this galaxy has ever seen.”

  The thought of Adan eating his way across the universe gave me the heebie-jeebies. “They wouldn’t grant you a pardon or temporary amnesty?”

  “They would not.”

  “That sucks.”

  The violently rotating walls began to collapse. I gulped and fought back a shriek. Zoey had said that teleporting with a Gorum was like falling down the eye of a tornado at warp speed. This was so much worse.

  After what seemed to be an eternity, the vortex spat us out on the Overlord’s patio. Slashes of lightning danced and pulsed over the walls.

  I shuddered and shook.

  Adan released me. “Breathe, little human.”

  “Breathe? I can’t feel my face! I’m covered in goop, and we’re being pursued by dementors!”

  “The executioners will not bother us again,” Adan responded.

  “Oh goodie.” My legs buckled, and down I went. Slime dripped off me. “I’m never, ever doing that again.”

  Detja appeared on the terrace. “Riding the vortex can be a challenge.”

  “Ya think?” I got to my feet, slipped in the slime, and did a face-plant. “Fuck.”

  A tentacle held out a bar of chocolate. “Eat.”

  Trying to ignore the snotlike mucus dripping off the wrapper, I reached out reluctantly and took it. Was Adan being kind or a jerk? “Thanks.”

  Zarek stepped out of the shadows and pulled me to my feet. “Dementors?”

  “Katanic executioners were chasing us,” I said, watching in horror as ooze dripped from my arm and splattered over the Overlord’s highly polished boots.

  His gaze never leaving Adan, the Overlord growled, “Do I need to put Tanith on battle alert?”

  “No need. I tricked the executioners into entering a black hole.” Adan transformed again. This time he was human and resembled the kid in those wizard books. Minus the glasses. If he was going for harmless, it was the perfect disguise.

  “I should have never sent you those vids, Father.” Detja hugged him. “We have much to discuss.”

  “We do.”

  I butted in. “Yeah, like who put the bounty on me?”

  “Our investigation is still ongoing,” Zarek responded tersely.

  “My money is on an Askole. All this started after Sariel nullified my mating contract.”

  Every inch the ice queen, Detja reprimanded me. “Your manner is rude and will not be tolerated.”

  “Sorry, ma’am, this day has overwhelmed my good sense.”

  “So, it would seem.”

  Mucus slid down my cheek. “If you will excuse me, I’m in serious need of chocolate and a stiff drink.”

  With a smirk, Adan handed me another chocolate bar. “And a shower.”

  “Ass,” I muttered under my breath and gave Adan the one-finger salute.

  He transformed into a prehistoric wolf.

  I laughed. “Is that the best you’ve got? The one Tihar killed was bigger.”

  Shazam! Adan morphed into a monstrous crocodilelike creature. The toothy jaws snapped at me.

  I jumped a good foot. “Not funny.”

  Detja clapped her hands sharply. “Adan.”

  Presto. He was the wizard kid again. “My apologies.”

  “Go to your room and wait for me,” Detja commanded.

  To my utter astonishment, Adan obeyed her.

  Detja smiled at me. “Adan is still a youngling.”

  Huh? That would explain his fascination with the jukebox, Vegas slot machines, and arcade games. “How young?”

  “In Earth terms, he is a teenager.”

  “With a voracious appetite and immense power,” Zarek added.

  Detja nodded. “Adan must be handled carefully.”

  “You’re kinda his daughter and mother at the same time.”

  “I am. I must spend more time with Adan, and I have the perfect job to keep you out of trouble.”

  I eyed her warily. “Oh? What’s that?”

  “Wulf and Lothel found their mates. I need help arranging the bonding ceremonies.”

  “Uh. I can strip a jet engine, but don’t know anything about bonding ceremonies.”

  “You will learn.” With that alarming statement, Detja teleported.

  A grinning Zarek followed her.

  Whoopee! I was going from fighter pilot to wedding planner. Didn’t that sound like fun?

  Chapter Seventeen

  Aunt Tess, Bree, Zoey, and Kaylee had also been drafted into helping with the ceremonies. None of us were pleased with the situation, but you didn’t tell Detja no. If she wasn’t happy, neither was the Overlord. Nothing good ever came from pissing him off. Just ask Bree. She made the mistake of mouthing off to Zarek and got stuck with latrine duty on a Coletti space station. She still has nightmares about it.

  Detja’s office was high tech with a feminine touch. A crystalline desk was the centerpiece. Behind it was an ornate metal bookcase filled pictures, knickknacks, and a variety of crystals. A curved blue linen couch with colorful pillows filled one corner. A collection of willowy plants was scattered across the walls.

  To operate the computer, I simply ran my hand over the desk. My biometrics had been keyed into the workstation. In an instant, the holoscreen appeared at eye level and a keyboard formed in the desk. Pretty cool.

  We had all been assigned specific tasks. I got stuck with sending out thousands of wedding invitations, and if that wasn’t bad enough, I had to find and buy the bloodred Tar flowers. The Coletti considered them the symbol of unity, and no ceremony was complete without the flower. The planet they came from was smack dab in Askole territory and had been repeatedly bombed. I did a little research and found the Tar flower’s double on Earth. A Mystic Wonder Dahlia.

  Aunt Tess was sure Detja would notice the difference. Me? Not so much. Adan was driving her nuts with his pranks.

  The ceremonial chamber was a thousand feet below the city. Holographic devices had been implanted in the ceiling. During the ceremony, it would resemble a night sky blazing with stars.

  My aunt and Zoey were blessed with supervising the candle placements and hanging of godawful tapestries on the walls. The warlords considered them romantic. All of us thought the bloody battle scenes and the graphic pictures of women being fucked by warriors didn’t belong in a wedding chapel.

  Believe it or not, Zarek thought the graphic sex scenes would show the nervous “brides” what masterful lovers the Coletti warlords were. Yeah, right. Kaylee said the captured women usually took one look at the tentacles on the warriors’ enormous dicks and started screaming.

  We Earth girls, not so much. We’re made of sterner stuff and usually armed to the teeth.

  Bree and Kaylee got the fun job of the preparing the “bridal” suite. I had taken a quick peek. The room belonged in a Las Vegas brothel. A huge four-poster bed with red silk sheets dominated the chamber. The walls were covered by more of those naughty tapestries. The only things missing were paddles, whips, and chains.


  A furious Detja linked with me. “Have you seen Adan?”

  “No. What’s he done now?”

  “He ate all the chocolate.”

  “What!”

  “And most of the chips and salsa,” Detja added.

  A big black cat strolled into the office.

  Speak of the devil. “You ate our chocolate?”

  “Another shipment arrives from Earth tomorrow,” Adan responded without an ounce of remorse.

  “That doesn’t justify your actions. It’s that time of the month, and I need my chocolate.”

  Abracadabra! Adan transformed back into his true form. A tentacle grabbed me. “Then I will take you to Earth for more.”

  I yanked and tugged at the tentacle. “Oh, hell no! Let go of me!”

  “You said you wanted chocolate.” The little brat dragged me closer.

  “Dammit! Let go!” I hung on to the desk for dear life. “Detja! Help! I found him.”

  “We help Momma.” Musa flew in with KeeKee on her back.

  KeeKee pelted Adan with web balls while Musa spewed fire at the tentacle holding me.

  He released me and tried to catch Musa, who evaded him easily.

  “Don’t you dare hurt my kids!” I yelled.

  “Your kids?”

  Musa landed on my shoulder, and KeeKee scrambled to my head to peer at Adan. “Who that?”

  “This is Adan. He is a shape shifter. That means he can take different forms.”

  Musa jabbered and KeeKee translated, “Want see.”

  Like magic, KeeKee’s double appeared.

  “Do again! Do again!”

  Adan obliged and became a large flowering plant in a clay pot.

  Two seconds later, Detja and the Overlord teleported into the room.

  A low growl rumbled in Zarek’s chest as he grabbed the potted plant and heaved it out the open doors. It hit the lake with a loud splash!

  An eerie, shrieking howl sounded from the water.

  “What the hell?”

  “Adan hates getting wet,” Zarek answered with a satisfied smile.

  I eyed the lake nervously. “He won’t try to eat you now, will he?”

  “No. Adan’s psychic skills are no match for mine. He knows I will kill him if he harms any of my people.”

  “Good to know.”

  The Overlord’s bracelet chirped repeatedly, and he glanced at the screen.

  “Go to your meeting,” Detja said.

  Zarek gave her a melt-your-panties kiss and teleported.

  Whoa! Guess their romance was alive and well.

  Detja ran a hand over the keyboard. “I see you sent out all the invitations.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “How many have responded?”

  “I was working on the totals when Adan popped in.” At Detja’s inquiring look, I added, “Around eight hundred guests.”

  “And the Tar flowers?”

  I cringed. “The flowers I found will arrive tomorrow.”

  “The Mystic Wonder Dahlia is an adequate replacement. I want you and your cousins to meet the ship from Earth and greet and entertain Eve until her daughter Yakira and Wulf arrive.”

  I gasped, “You found Eve’s daughter? My God, Kira’s been missing for almost twenty years!”

  “Wulf located her ten years ago, but her adopted family took her from him,” Detja replied.

  “Adopted family?”

  “A Bjarke mercenary rescued her from the Tai-Kok slaughter ship and raised her as his own. They named her Yakira.”

  Fury welled up in me as I remembered that horrible day in Rocky Point, Mexico. It was the first time I’d come face-to-face with the monstrous Tai-Kok. Our fun beach vacation had turned into a macabre slaughter-fest with butchered tourists littering the sand. The Tai-Kok rampaged through the picturesque restaurants and bars, feasting on their prey. The tourists’ screams still echoed in my head. I had taken a dead police officer’s gun and shot as many of the fiends as I could. “Did you know the Tai-Kok had been raiding Earth for over twenty-five years?”

  “I did not.”

  “I was ten years old when they attacked Rocky Point. It’s a beach town in Mexico. I saw them take Kira. I tried to stop them, but I wasn’t fast enough or strong enough.”

  “You were only a child.” Detja hugged me. “It was not your fault.”

  “No, it was the government’s. The fucking morons thought that since the attacks were sporadic, they would keep the existence of the aliens a secret. Didn’t want to frighten the public. They had to know the Tai-Kok would be back, but they did nothing to prepare for that possibility.

  “Fifteen years later, the Tai-Kok attacked. The alien blitzkrieg shocked and awed our military with a spectacular display of force. They hoped to destroy our will to fight, but that didn’t happen. One look at the media’s horrific stories about the Tai-Koks butchery and you knew. You fought or you died.”

  “Know this, Yakira not only survived, she flourished. The Bjarke took good care of her and even had her missing limbs replaced with bionics. She is a cunning warrior,” Detja declared.

  Tears welled in my eyes. “Oh, dear God. The Tai-Kok ate on her?”

  Detja patted my arm. “Her Bjarke father had her memories erased.”

  I sagged in relief. “Good. I can’t wait to see Kira, I mean, Yakira again.”

  “Eve is bringing supplies for the ritual called a bachelorette party.”

  I laughed. “Yakira has a lot of Earth traditions to catch up on.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  The Coletti space station reminded me of Grand Central Station. Crazy busy. Everything from warships to one-man scouts and a multitude of freighters were berthed at the airlocks. Hundreds of robots scurried like ants, loading and unloading cargo. The shiny, well-kept hallways were full of Coletti civilians, Prithvi, some weird-looking alien species I’d never seen before, spacers, and a variety of off-world warriors.

  As we hurried to meet Eve’s ship, my psychic senses went on alert. Instinctively, my family and I formed a tight defensive circle and searched for the source.

  Poof! Rho appeared. He took one look at Aunt Tess and growled. Damn, he had the demeanor of an enraged grizzly bear down pat, and why was he setting off my radar?

  Why my aunt continuously antagonized him, I had no idea. Was she a touch suicidal or in love? She definitely wanted his attention. I had to ask, “What’d you do this time?”

  “Put a bunch of baby ducklings in his chambers,” Aunt Tess replied.

  Bree gaped at her. “You do know they shit all over everything? Right?”

  Aunt Tess smiled.

  “You have gone too far!” Rho reached for my aunt.

  I hastily cut in front of Rho, stopping him from strangling my aunt. In my sweet, Debbie Sunshine voice, I said, “You poor thing, your muscles are all tensed up again. Let me give you a massage.” I fluttered my eyelashes at him. “If you know what I mean?”

  “Touch me, and I will snap your neck.” The menace in Rho’s voice was terrifying.

  Good thing I didn’t scare easily, and I was pretty sure he was all bark and no bite. He’d had plenty of opportunities to kill Aunt Tess, and she was still breathing. “All that rage isn’t good for you. What you need is a little tender loving care. Right, girls?”

  Bree and Zoey looked at me like I was nuts.

  A giggle escaped Kaylee.

  “I do not need a female’s tender care. I am a warrior.” A muscle twitched in Rho’s cheek.

  I clucked my tongue. “I told you before, if you don’t stop grinding your teeth that way, you gonna break off your choppers. Then we’d have to call you fangless. Which would totally spoil your image. I mean, you can’t be a big, bad warlord without fangs. I’m telling you this ’cause I love ya.”

  Rho snarled at me.

  “Group hug,” I called out.

  Always up for making a male squirm, my cousins and Aunt Tess wrapped themselves around Rho. Bonus point, he couldn’t teleport away.
I patted his arm carefully. “Don’t you feel better now?”

  “That you still live is a mystery.”

  “Hey, it’s no mystery. All of us Jones girls are hard to kill. Right, ladies?”

  “Hell, yeah!” Aunt Tess and my cousins yelled in unison.

  My internal radar went to DEFCON 1 as shitload of Legionnaires appeared out of nowhere.

  Without a second of hesitation, all of us had our weapons out and pointed at the dead men walking.

  The hallway emptied like magic. Huh? Had the Legionnaires used a cloaking device to sneak up on us, or did they have one of those gizmos that projected the illusions? Had they been the Prithvi or the weird-looking aliens?

  The Legionnaires pulled their swords and rhythmically pounded their feet against the floor. “Waewae tama-nur-ra. Waewae tama-nur-ra. Waewae tama-nur-ra.”

  I rolled my eyes. Dumb is forever. “I have some questions. First one is: who comes to a gunfight armed with only a sword?”

  “Idiots,” Aunt Tess answered.

  Bree snorted. “Plus, how in the hell do you forget to wear your battle armor to a gunfight?”

  “Lilkee isn’t known for her clever battle strategies,” Kaylee commented.

  The dancing stopped, and they charged toward us yelling, “Ka nate whakatu. Tutu ngarahu. Ka nate whakatu. Tutu ngarahu. Waewae tama-nur-ra.”

  “Never mess with Earth girls, buster!” Zoey shouted, ducking a whizzing sword.

  “Oorah!” Aunt Tess bellowed, kicking a wannabe off his feet.

  Bree launched herself in the air and planted a booted foot in a warrior’s face. His head snapped back, and he toppled over. “Mess with the best, die like the rest.”

  “Prepare to get your asses kicked!” Kaylee yelled as she flipped into a backward somersault and dropped to the floor. She lashed out with a solid side kick, catching the Legionnaire in the knee. His leg crumpled and down he went.

  I shot a wannabe who was sneaking up behind Rho. “Love ya, big guy.”

  With a rumble of disgust, Rho started blasting away.

  We followed suit.

  A zillion sparkling fireflies floated to the floor as the Legionnaires disintegrated.

  Zoey frowned. “This was a little too easy.”

  “Anyone else think it was a distraction?” Aunt Tess scanned the area.