by Regine Abel
Khel sucked in air, his eyes bulging.
“You mean Korletheans?” he asked.
Kamala shook her head.
“No. Not a single Korlethean there. They are definitely Xelixians.”
“Thylin lab?” Ghan asked.
“We believe so,” I said.
“The plan would be for me to take a small stealth team in range of the compound while our fleet goes through the official channels,” Kamala said. “We will scramble all incoming communications to prevent the Axian government from sending them any warning while the rest of you arrive and tag any ship leaving before the raid begins.”
Ghan turned toward Kamala, a look of admiration and respect animating his normally very stoic expression.
“Very well done, Kamala.”
Her beautiful face heated with pleasure.
“Indeed,” Khel said. “Excellent work.”
Although she beamed at Ghan behind her mask, she merely responded to both men’s praises with a stiff nod. The unusual pressure warning on the display in my visor made me realize I was clenching my fists with enough strength to nearly cut the blood flow in my hand.
I relaxed my fingers.
“Will you co-lead this raid with me?” I asked Khel, to move the attention away from Kamala.
Khel shook his head and leaned back in his chair.
“No. I’m afraid my days of raiding are over.”
My jaw dropped, as did Kamala’s. Even Ghan seemed taken aback. Khel was a born warrior and a phenomenal leader on the battlefield. He was also the only male I didn’t think I could ever defeat in a fair duel, meaning without my celesium armor. Ghan was a coin toss. I believed I would win some and lose others against him.
“Is this for good or only for this mission?” I asked, unable to believe he would give up such a passion. “Didn’t Zharina fully heal your lung defect?”
“Yes, for good,” he said with a sad smile. “My daughter did fix me. More than fixed in fact. I feel younger and healthier now than ever before. However, it is time for me to start acting like a proper Anchor.”
Finally…
I felt myself warm toward the General, my respect growing even more for him. Khel loved being on the battlefield. This was no small sacrifice on his part, but a much needed one. I remembered all too well the devastation my beloved Amalia went through when she feared losing both her mates as Khel fought for his life. I couldn’t begin to imagine what it must have been like all these years for Lhor, wondering each time Khel left for battle if he would return, knowing his own life would end if his Geminate died.
“A painful decision, no doubt,” I said, “but a wise one. I applaud you.”
“A long overdue decision, more like,” Khel said. “You shouldn’t be applauding, but kicking my ass for taking so damn long to come to it.”
“I’d be happy to oblige,” Ghan said with his usual barely-there smirk.
Khel snorted and Kamala bit the inside of her cheeks not to laugh.
“Amalia wouldn’t be happy with me if she found out I spanked her big brother,” Khel teased.
Ghan sniffed haughtily at Khel then turned toward me. I fought my own urge to smile.
“I’ll be leading this raid for Xelix Prime, with Sohr as my second. He will be shadowing me from now on as part of his advanced training.”
No. You’re training your replacement for when you die.
My chest contracted with a dull pain. He was far too young to die. As the Goddess was my witness, no matter the cost, I would see to it that he didn’t.
“Very well,” I said, revealing nothing of my inner turmoil. “We set out tonight at eighteen hundred hours. I suggest our fleets meet at these coordinates.”
I sent the coordinates to Khel and Ghan’s respective datapads. They gave it a cursory glance then nodded their approval.
“Perfect. Khel, you and I are needed in a different meeting. Kamala, I’ll leave you to iron out the final details with Ghan,” I said, rising from my chair.
“Of course, Lee,” she answered.
Khel stood and followed me to the door while Ghan went to stand next to Kamala. Jaw clenched, I walked out of the room, their image, shoulder-to-shoulder, burned in my mind.
CHAPTER 4
Ghan
The Tuureans never ceased to amaze me. They worked with the efficiency of a hive mind, yet there was no question they were individuals. The preparation work Kamala and her team had performed was stellar. After Khel and Lee’s departure, I finished going over the plan of attack with Kamala, and she had answers for every question, every concern. I’d never felt so impressed... and so useless.
Lee, eight Tuureans, and I flew aboard a Tuurean shuttle, closing in on the compound’s location in the Morian Desert. Five more shuttles with a mixed Xelixian-Tuurean crew followed us. As Lee had expected, the Axios border patrol swiftly backed off when we stated the nature of our business on their planet, especially when Lee ordered the fleet to decloak. The Axian controller nearly pissed himself. He would’ve had a stroke had he known nine ships led by Kamala and Sohr had already landed near our target.
The ground team, comprised of a strike team of Tuureans and Xelixians, kept their ships cloaked. Their last communication confirmed they had disembarked and were approaching the building while wearing camouflage gear. Among them, a young Veredian named Taneja would disable their security systems including cameras, alarms, and secured doors. She wasn’t a hacker like Amalia. She couldn’t take control of systems and implant commands. However, she could target a specific system and tell it or parts of it to stop working. It bothered me having a female on the battlefield, especially a sixteen year old.
What of Kamala and the other Tuurean females?
That was different. Or at least it didn’t feel the same. When we first interacted with the Tuureans, we believed them to all be robots, some with female appearances. Three years later, while I now believed they were mainly organic, I still struggled to fully see them as normal females. Plus, their combat skills were off the charts. Knowing four of them guarded the young Veredian somewhat alleviated my concerns, but I wouldn’t fully relax until she had returned to one of the ships.
Sitting next to Lee in one of the passenger seats, I cracked my neck and swallowed a groan of pain. Despite the painkiller I had taken this morning, my Taint was acting up again. The battle couldn’t begin soon enough. Once the adrenaline and bloodlust kicked in, everything else became secondary.
“Beginning our approach,” said our shuttle pilot, a female Tuurean.
“Decloak and hail the compound,” Lee said.
A few minutes ago, Kamala had confirmed the ground team was in position, awaiting our arrival. My datapad displayed the technical schematics of the compound. The minute we decloaked, a number of its systems lit up on the device. One by one, Taneja disabled them.
“The compound is answering,” the pilot said.
“On screen,” Lee said.
“You are trespassing on private property,” said the burly Guldan male who appeared on screen. Black eyes, brown hair, he leaned his head forward as if to threaten us with his thick, black horns. “What do you want?”
“You know what we want, Guldan,” Lee said in a clipped tone, his synthetic voice making him sound even more threatening. “You are surrounded. Surrender to us without a fuss or prepare to die.”
“Tuurean scum, you think a handful of shuttles will breach our defenses?” the Guldan asked with condescension. “Your shiny little helmet is going to make a nice addition to my trophy room.”
“If you’re done making threats you can’t deliver on, prepare for our arrival,” I said, my blood already pumping in anticipation of the impending battle. “Have all the Veredians and Xelixians currently held captive ready for transfer to our shuttles. Any harm comes to them, and I will personally make your death a very slow one.”
The Guldan snorted.
“Feruuk, blow up those sons of Gharah,” he said with a malicious grin.
“Yes, sir,” an off-screen Guldan voice said.
Lee leaned back in his seat and crossed his long, armored legs as if relaxing by the pool. Although we couldn’t see his face, his entire demeanor screamed smugness. As the seconds lapsed, the Guldan’s grin faded and he looked to the side, probably at Feruuk.
“Problems?” Lee asked, sounding casual.
I held back a smirk. The Admiral could be quite the jerk when he wanted to. Although I’d never admit it, I’d been learning from him to drive Lhor up the wall.
“What the fuck is going on?” the Guldan asked.
“We’re locked out of all our systems,” the muffled voice of Feruuk replied.
The pilot landed the shuttle, and Lee rose to his feet.
“Don’t fret, Guldan,” Lee said. “We’ll fix all of your problems in a minute. See you soon.”
Cheeky bastard.
I followed in his wake, his lithe silhouette almost gliding as he strode with determined steps. At six-foot-five, Lee was of respectable height, though he still looked tiny compared to my seven-foot-one. He was nowhere near as bulky as Khel and slightly lither than Lhor. Without his armor, his androgynous body probably wouldn’t look overly impressive, but that would be a deadly mistake to make. That Tuurean was lethal. I loved battling alongside him nearly as much as I did with my General, although I’d yet to meet anyone as skilled as Khel.
Lee’s black celesium armor shone under the glaring sun of Axios, its orange sky devoid of any clouds or birds. His feet were almost silent as he stepped through the yellowish sand blanketing the ground.
I still had mixed feelings about him. Over the past few years, we’d developed what I thought of as a genuine friendship. Yet, at times, he’d suddenly become cold and distant, almost like my presence irritated him. But the most disturbing was his attitude whenever one of the Veredians acted friendly toward me. At first, I thought he wanted to prevent them from bothering me, but of late, I was getting the distinct impression that he didn’t think me worthy of their attention. As starting a relationship held no interest whatsoever for me, Lee had nothing to worry about. Even though I usually didn’t give a shit what people thought of me, that he would entertain such thoughts actually bothered me.
Lee headed toward the side of the building, where Taneja and her protection detail awaited with another small unit. Sohr led a camouflaged unit at the entrance to intercept any potential attackers. Kamala led another team on the other side of the building.
With the cameras disabled, the small unit dropped their camouflage. Lee looked next to them at what appeared to be vacant space.
“Excellent work, Taneja,” Lee said. “You protected a lot of lives today. You can return to the ship.”
“I can stay, Lee,” Taneja’s voice said, although we couldn’t see her with her camouflage.
Lee had been adamant she remain invisible throughout the mission for her own safety.
“I appreciate the offer,” he said in a gentle tone. “Had you not done such a perfect job already, I would gladly accept it, too. You’ve handled all the systems we needed disabled. Until you’ve completed your combat training, I would prefer you return to the ship. You’re too valuable to expose to the upcoming battle.”
“Yes, Lee.”
Although disappointed, I could nevertheless hear the pride in Taneja’s voice at Lee’s praise. I watched him, making no effort to hide my admiration as the sound of Taneja and her team’s footsteps receded. No wonder the Veredians loved the mysterious Tuurean leader so much.
Scanning the room beyond, I gave Lee the all-clear. He walked up to the wall, and I stared once more with fascination as he placed his splayed hands against the face of the outer wall. The armor covering them shimmered as the nanites shifted, forming a circular disk around his hands. Sliding them sideways, the wall parted with a ripping sound, opening like a vertical mouth.
I never tired of seeing this. Khel, gadget freak that he was, also got worked up when he saw it, drooling like no one’s business. I had once tried to sweet-talk Lee into gifting one of those devices to Khel for his birthday. The Admiral had gently but firmly declined. Although it had been a long shot, it had been worth trying, considering the Tuureans had shared some of their technology with us before. In this instance, though, Lee had enigmatically said that even had he wanted to gift it to him, Khel lacked the right genetic makeup for it.
Needless to say, that got my speculations about the nature of the Tuureans running wild again.
We filed into the empty room. Three more Tuureans were creating similar openings in other sections of the compound so we could attack on multiple fronts. As per the schematics provided by Kamala, we stood in a storage area. Nearly two hundred large crates lined the dark-grey metal walls of the rectangular room. The temperature-controlled containers gave me a hint as to what lay within. A Tuurean male scanned the crates.
“Vials of Bliss inside them all,” he said.
The expletives muttered by a couple of my warriors echoed my thoughts. Bliss was the name under which they sold Thylin as a recreational drug. The Guldans would feel my wrath for this. Worst still, only a quarter of the room had been used. The Goddess only knew how much more they had intended to harvest before their next shipment.
Three holding areas surrounded the storage room. At least, we surmised as much based on the number of Xelixians within them detected by our scans.
“Enemies closing in on our position,” Lee said. “Let’s go say hello.”
He hadn’t looked at any device to make that statement. I could only assume the information was displayed inside his visor. Either way, I loved his bloodlust. My own armband monitor indicated a group of about twenty Guldans entering the hallway leading to our position.
Lee raised his fist in front of his chest. The air shimmered around it then an energy shield formed in front of him. Two more Tuureans summoned their own shields and followed Lee into the hallway, flanking him on each side. The shields absorbed the blaster shots that the Guldans rained down on us the minute we stepped out of the room.
As we stampeded towards them, my fangs descended, my venom glands going into overdrive. Blood pumping with anticipation, I pulled out my celesium sword. After drooling for two years over the ones the Tuureans had gifted Amalia, Lhor, and Khel, the Admiral finally took pity on me on my last birthday and gave me the invaluable—and extremely lethal—weapon.
As we closed in on our enemies, the three Tuureans released their shields which collapsed, expelling a powerful energy blast outward. The Guldans, knocked back a couple of meters, scrambled to get back on their feet. Those among them who hadn’t already drawn their swords never got the chance to before ours bit into their flesh. Lee went straight for the Guldan who had answered our hail.
Like all Tuureans, the Admiral was graceful in his attacks. He never struck with force, but danced around his prey at lightning speed, striking like a snake at tendons, arteries, and vital organs. The economy of movement made it all the more fascinating. Some opponents would try to lull or confuse you with flourishing swordplay. Not Lee. He flowed with you, glided out of harm’s way, almost hypnotized you with his apparent stillness right after, then took you out when you least expected it. Whenever he struck, he always drew blood.
While I could be graceful in swordplay, I preferred a more brutal approach. My naturally greater strength forced me to constantly hold back for fear of hurting people or breaking things. In battle, no such restrictions constrained me. Like most of my opponents, the Guldan before me assumed my size would make me slow. In three swings of my sword, I had him disarmed. He threw a meaty fist at me. I caught it in my palm and squeezed. His screams drowned out the satisfactory sound of his bones crunching. I easily blocked his pathetic attempt at kicking me and slammed my knee into his gut. He doubled over, blood pouring out of his mouth. Grabbing him by one horn, I threw him head first into the wall. He collapsed, unconscious. I would have preferred to bash his head in, but we needed to keep some gu
ards alive for questioning.
Even though the Guldans outnumbered us more than two to one, our warriors were doing too good a job of dispatching them, not leaving much for me. Thed, however, would be getting a stern talking to. Too focused on battling his opponent, he’d left his back open. Another Guldan came at him from behind, sword raised in what would either be a grievous or fatal wound.
Before I could move to intercept, a nearby Tuurean female kicked her own opponent in the chest, knocking him back, then whipped her head around. The tip of her ankle-long armored braid, which all Tuurean females possessed, appeared to extend before wrapping around the neck of Thed’s attacker. The Guldan raised his hands to the braid choking him, but before his fingers even touched it, sharp spikes protruded from the braid’s armor, severing his head.
The Tuurean female didn’t even turn to watch her victim’s corpse collapse as she continued to battle her opponent who had recovered from the kick.
The fight quickly ended with two Guldans having survived the encounter, mine included. I sent three scouts ahead, two Xelixians and one Tuurean. As our scanners indicated no more Guldans in the vicinity, Lee communicated with the other units, informing them we had secured this section. We split into three teams to go free the Xelixians from their holding areas.
Thanks to Taneja disabling their security systems, the doors to the largest holding area opened as soon as we approached. The spectacle that awaited us inside made me want to go back and kill the Guldans all over again.
It wasn’t a holding area but a milking factory. At least two hundred Xelixians hung vertically in some kind of suspension alcoves, a feeding tube going through their noses, nodes monitoring their vitals, and drain tubes plugged into their venom glands. The dim blue light in the otherwise dark room made their grey skin look sickly.
“Gharah’s teeth!” Zakh cussed.
As our field medic, he walked up to the closest alcove. They were divided into four clusters of five alcoves per row, ten rows deep.