An answering cry cawed.
Suddenly the air was thick with arrows, and before the Harbingers could shift, two of them fell, clawing at the arrows in their chests and screaming.
Smoke sizzled from their wounds. Jasper could smell something bitter and pungent. The arrows must be tipped with some kind of poison.
Jaspar and his clan mates shifted, their bones cracking and reforming under the pressure of the transformation. Silver wing membranes unfurled from their backs and luminous scales tinged with smoky black rattled over their skin.
Jaspar threw back his head on his long, sinuous neck and bellowed a challenge. He could feel the heat of battle fire rising in his stomach and chest.
The Harbingers shifted too, their skins becoming scaly orange-red hides, wings that looked like gore-streaked membranes beating the air. They had horns that curled like a ram’s, wickedly sharp.
Two of them advanced on Jaspar, their tails thrashing against the floor. He reared on his hind legs, wings spread in challenge as his clan mates took flight around him.
The larger of the two Harbingers charged at Jaspar’s exposed belly, head down, meaning to gore him with its horns. But he’d anticipated that. He leaped into the air, lashing out with his tail and knocking the advancing Drakken back against its clan mate. They tumbled backwards together.
Above him, his brother and their clan were fighting in flight. Drakken wings pounded the sultry air, whipping up a storm that thrashed through the tropical foliage. Streaks of flame cut across the purple sky. With a roar of triumph, Sterran sent his Harbinger adversary plummeting from the air. It trailed fire from its jaws as it fell, like a comet’s tail, then crashed into the ground, leaving a furrow behind it before it slid to a halt, bones broken, eyes glazed and dead.
Jaspar flapped his wings, gaining height above the two Harbingers who were snarling at each other as they tried to untangle themselves. He directed a stream of battle fire at them, so hot and intense that it was a jet of pale blue.
One of the Harbingers shrieked and retreated, rolling and thrashing against the ground to extinguish the flames.
The other, scales smoldering, leaped from the ground and built up speed, then tucked back its wings and used its momentum to speed towards Jaspar like a fiery dart.
An arrow caught it in the throat, and it tumbled from the sky, pungent smoke sizzling from the wound. It clawed at the shaft of the arrow as it fell, and hit the ground with a bone-shaking thump.
Jaspar landed and looked around. More of the Balthazar clan had joined the fight. Korl was there, Jaspar realized. So were his other missing clan mates. Where was Liza? He could not let himself be distracted…
More arrows zinged out from the jungle foliage, striking the Harbingers with deadly accuracy.
Jaspar looked around, rage flowing through his veins. The Harbingers were dead. All of them.
Chapter Fifteen
“Can we come out now?” a child’s voice called out from the bushes.
Max, Susie, and Louis, Barbara’s three children, came trooping out of the jungle. Their faces and clothes were filthy and their hair was matted, but they were unharmed.
Jaspar shook himself and shrank, returning to human form. His bones cracked and reshaped themselves. He retracted his fangs and smoothed his skin. His wings melted into his back, and his tail withdrew.
Marjan hurried out from behind a thick mass of underbrush, holding a bow and arrow. There was a quiver half full of arrows on her back.
“Hey! I told you kids to stay out of the way until the killing stopped,” she said, scowling at them.
“But we got bored,” Max said. “And they’re all dead now anyway.” He kicked the enormous scaly corpse of a Harbinger.
Liza came running out of the trees. She had a bump on her head, and her lip was split. There were several burns on her arm that looked painful, but she had an enormous grin on her face. Jaspar felt a massive weight lift from his shoulders. She was alive. She was mostly unhurt.
Jasper threw his arms around her, and she winced. He stepped back quickly.
“Ouch, sorry,” she said. “Burns and cuts. The Harbingers kidnapped me and I fought back, so I’m a little sore right now. But you found us!”
“Of course I found you. My heart!” he said. “You are safe!”
Korl hurried up, now in human form. He was splattered with blood and grinning from ear to ear. “What a glorious battle!” he cried.
Jaspar glanced at Korl’s neck, then at Marjan’s. “You have mating marks. While we have been going mad with worry, you two have been honeymooning on a tropical paradise planet?”
“Not just honeymooning,” Marjan said indignantly. “We have spent most of our time hiding in the forest and setting traps for the Harbingers. We rescued the children from them after we first stumbled through the portal, but there were too many of them and they were too well armed, so we could not make it back through. We have been picking them off one by one. They kept sending more, and we kept killing them.” She smiled broadly at that. “Almost as much fun as the honeymoon.”
“My mate is most bloodthirsty,” Korl bragged. “She was the one who discovered the poison for our arrows. Our children will be monsters.”
“Savage, terrible beasts.” Marjan bobbed her head in happy agreement.
“And we rescued Liza when they dragged her through the portal yesterday,” Korl said. “They had her in a cage. We freed her. I assure you, it has not been all fun and—” he glanced at the three children “—honeymooning.”
Jaspar looked around at their surroundings, shaking his head in wonder. “This portal has been hidden underground all this time. It is an absolute marvel. Very few portals open onto habitable planets. Why, the natural resources here…” He peered at a tree. “Look at those fruits. Are they edible?”
“They are. Those are the fruits that Roger, the grocer, sells in his store. He’s been selling them for years,” Liza said. “He must have discovered this cave system years ago. And it can’t be a coincidence that shortly after he arrived and set up shop, the first case of black fur fungus was discovered. He’s somehow connected to all this – I’m sure now.”
“Brother, we must hurry to the meeting,” Sterran said impatiently.
Korl looked alarmed. “The meeting is today? We lost track of time. Our electronic equipment does not function here.”
They all hurried to the portal and rushed through. They were immediately hit by a blast of cold air, and they ran through the cave system to reach the hovercraft.
Jaspar headed straight to the conference center. He leaped out, with Korl and ten of his men accompanying him, then Sterran guided the hovercraft towards Barbara’s house so they could return her children.
“I do not understand,” Sterran said to Marjan as they glided to a stop in front of the small ranch house. “My brother is your heart-mate? I thought you had warned Liza that you sensed danger from him.”
Like most structures on Far North, the house was Christmas-themed. The walls were painted white, with the woodwork picked out in a glossy red. From the eaves hung glass candy canes, like red-and-white striped icicles, which made pleasant wind-chime tones in the breeze. It was as neat as a pin, except for a pink bicycle that lay in the front yard, looking lonely and forlorn.
The hovercraft door unsealed and opened. Marjan waved off Sterran’s concerns. “I felt a storm of emotions when I first met him, and of course I assumed that meant that he was an enemy. But now I know that those feelings mean I want to mate with him, not kill him.” Marjan paused. “Pretty sure.”
They all climbed out of the hovercraft. Barbara and her husband were hurrying out of the front door, and they shrieked with joy when they saw their children.
“Mom! I learned to shoot a bow and arrow!” Louis cried as she hugged him to her.
“Daddy, I still get presents, right? Did we miss Christmas?” Susie demanded.
“Of course you get presents, princess.”
“Are you cr
ying?” Susie asked him.
He sniffled hard. “Nope, nope, it’s just the cold making my eyes water.”
Marjan stomped over to them, and her fangs shot out of her mouth. Her eyes went feline, and her fingers melted together until her hands were enormous furry paws with claws that curved like daggers.
“I should kill you for having my friend kidnapped,” Marjan snarled. “The Harbingers put her in a cage. They planned to kill her and send her body back to her heart-mate. You would have been responsible. And they were going to kill your children too.”
The children looked at her with alarm. “Don’t kill her!” Louis pleaded. “It’s Christmas! She’s our only mother!”
Paul went pale, but he stepped in front of his wife. If Marjan wanted them dead, though, it wouldn’t help. She could dispatch both of them with one swipe of her paw.
“No, Marjan, don’t kill them,” Liza said quickly. “I understand why she did it. I wish she’d had more faith in me, but I understand why a mother would be willing to do anything or sacrifice anything to keep her children safe.”
“You’re lucky she’s here,” Marjan said in disgust, and turned and stalked off to wait by the hovercraft.
Sterran was looking at his wrist-holo. He swore loudly.
“What is it?” Liza asked, but she had a feeling she knew.
“The Arbitrator has ruled that because Jaspar was not there at the negotiations, the Harbingers win by default.” Sterran’s face went pale. “We will appeal, but appeals take a long time. The Harbingers will almost certainly take possession of this planet next week. That bastard Arbitrator. He ruled against us because he was angry that Jaspar filed that complaint.”
Liza’s heart throbbed painfully in her chest. It was all over, then. If the Harbingers took over the planet, she was sure they would destroy it out of spite, so that even if the Balthazar clan eventually reclaimed it, it would be ruined beyond repair.
Sterran’s brows drew together. He read the message on the wrist-holo and shook his head. “As soon as the Arbitrator pronounced his ruling, Fabian began bragging about why they really wanted this planetoid. It’s not the planetoid – it’s not even the portal, although that is certainly valuable. There are asteroids circling your planetoid that contain a certain mineral that increases strength and aggression in the Drakken. Fabian claims that it will give them the edge they need to defeat us in an all-out war.”
“So what do we do?” Barbara asked hopelessly, hugging Louis to her.
“It’s Christmas Eve,” Liza said. “We go into town and we celebrate with our loved ones. That’s what we do. The Harbingers can’t take that from us.”
Chapter Sixteen
The Christmas carolers gathered in the town square did their best to sound joyous, but the mood throughout the crowd was somber.
The Harbingers had gathered outside the town, many of them descended from their spaceship now. They didn’t violate the order that kept them out of town, but they stood right on the outskirts. Since the town was not large, they were close enough to the town square that their shouts of triumph could be heard.
There were almost a hundred of them now, howling and shaking spears that were adorned with the skulls of dozens of different species, both humanoid and alien. The carolers had to sing louder to drown out the howling.
Roger stood in the crowd with a look of smug triumph on his face.
Jaspar held Liza’s hand, and she sang at the top of her lungs and blinked back tears that froze and clung to her lashes. The rest of the Balthazar Clan stood by, grim and silent. La La was unusually subdued, but she accepted the pieces of candy that Karmelite kept feeding her. She was too glum to back-flip, however.
Barbara and her family stood near Liza. She had apologized again and again. Liza just waved her off with a weary, “What does it even matter anymore?”
The carolers paused before moving on to their next song.
“Look!” Louis pointed up at the stars. “There are new stars! The stars are moving! ”
Everyone looked up.
“Those are spaceships,” Liza said worriedly. She glanced at Jasper. “There’s no way that the Harbingers could take the planet early, could they? I really want to spend Christmas here.”
Jaspar shook his head. “No, even they would not openly cheat like that.”
Three massive hovercrafts descended from the sky and landed on Main Street, just behind where the crowds were gathered. Dozens of Galactic Peacekeepers began pouring out of the ships. Hundreds. They marched…away from the town square, towards the Harbingers.
“Now, that’s something you don’t see every day,” Liza murmured to Jaspar. She glanced at Mawmaw and Pawpaw. “I feel like this is good news,” she said.
A short time later, the Enforcers marched back, surrounding the angry, protesting Harbingers. The colonel of the enforcers went and murmured into the ear of the chorus leader, and the carolers dutifully trooped off the stage, to be replaced by a Peacekeeper Colonel and an enraged-looking Fabian.
“Greetings!” the colonel said, his voice ringing out over the hushed crowd. “I am Colonel Bianchi of the Third Spaceborne Fleet, Milky Way Division. The Galactic Federation has an announcement to make. This planet will not be taken over by either the Balthazar Clan or the Harbinger Clan. It will remain in the possession of the colonists.”
An enormous cheer swelled up from the crowd. Liza found herself screaming with joy, screaming until she was hoarse, tears running down her cheeks. People threw their Santa hats and top hats into the air. Strangers hugged strangers. Humans hugged aliens. Insectoids hugged furry horse-beasts.
The Harbingers had obviously been caught screwing up big time, and they were about to be publicly humiliated. The Galactic Federation was deadly serious about enforcing its Concord, including the Rules of War. When anyone was caught violating it, they made a huge spectacle of punishing the culprits.
When the cheering finally died down, Colonel Bianchi directed a cold, angry look at Fabian. “The Harbingers have violated the Rules of War. We were alerted to this when we were sent a sample of the black fur fungus that has destroyed this planet’s trees. Through investigation, we discovered that the fungus is of Harbinger origin.”
Now everyone began booing, shouting threats, and throwing things at the Harbingers.
“Silence!” Bianchi bellowed.
Jaspar smiled broadly. “We sent the sample to them,” he told Liza quietly. “The first day that I arrived, after you accused us of being the ones to import the fungus.”
“You sent it all the way to the Galactic Federation to be tested? That must have cost a fortune.” Liza stared at him, wide-eyed.
“Also,” Colonel Bianchi continued, “we tested the Weather Control Station, and the Harbingers sabotaged that as well, in an attempt to prevent the Balthazar clan from reaching the negotiation on time. Furthermore,” he said to them, “you kidnapped members of the Balthazar Clan, in an attempt to affect the negotiation. You also kidnapped the children of non-involved non-combatants. Because of all these violations, you have now forfeited your dispute.”
“Absolutely not!” Fabian said furiously. “We will not tolerate this! We will declare war!”
“When would you like to be vaporized? Please submit your formal declaration of war to us, so we may begin lining up our fleet.”
Fabian swallowed hard and stared at the ground. Scales rippled over his skin and he was so furious that his body heated and steam swirled around him, but he did not dare say a word. Nobody could withstand the full might of the Galactic Federal Fleet.
“Furthermore, we find that you are responsible for the financial loss suffered by these colonists. We require that you pay them in full, and you will also pay to clear out all the diseased trees, eliminate all trace of disease from the planet, and replace all trees with new, mature specimens, to be completed three months before the next Christmas season. You will also repay the colonists for all financial loss caused by the death of their trees, from
the moment of first infection.”
“But that will cost a fortune,” Fabian whined. “Hundreds of millions of Stan-Creds.”
“Yes, it will,” Bianchi agreed. “Your bank accounts have already been frozen while we calculate the appropriate amount of reparations. Deathbringer Fabian, you and your clan members will be taken into custody immediately and taken to the Galactic Central Court to stand trial.”
Fabian glared at Bianchi with pure, burning hatred. He knew better than to resist, however. As leader of his people, if he were to defy the Galactic Federation, that would be the death of his clan.
Two Enforcers marched up, dragging a struggling, kicking Roger between them.
“Furthermore, we find that this human collaborator, Roger Penroy, was the one who first contacted the Harbingers, and we have ascertained that he helped to introduce the fungus to the planet’s trees. Roger Penroy will also be transported to the Galactic Central Court to stand trial.”
There were shouts of fury from the crowd at this. The colony had been plunged into despair for years, had nearly lost everything, because of this man.
As the Harbingers and Roger were escorted off the stage and to the Galactic Federation hovercraft, they were roundly jeered and booed.
It was not until after the Hovercraft lifted that the celebrations began.
* * * * *
Later that evening, the Drakken and Liza’s family and Marjan all gathered at the bed and breakfast, in the living room, in front of a roaring fire. La La had eaten so much sugar that she’d passed out, lying on her back on the carpet, snoring loudly.
“I am glad all of that is out of the way. I have a wedding to plan. Actually, a double wedding,” Karmelite said. “Korl must receive his celebration as well.”
“But you were dead set against it,” Liza protested.
Karmelite flashed a smug smile. “Was I? Or did I push my son to mate with you, because I knew that if I forbade it, I could all but guarantee that he would do it?”
“I thought you opposed the idea of me marrying a human.” Jaspar look at his mother in confusion.
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