by Kayla Stonor
Her pheromones and accusations raised Tierc’s blood. He couldn’t cope with the pain of a threatening shift, her accusations, and her alluring scent. He fought back rising anger. The witch played to an audience.
She threw a dramatic hand out. “Raped them!”
“What the hell? I haven’t raped anyone!”
“Maybe, but the first human-Qui hybrid was the product of rape! That’s your people!”
His eyes widened in shock. “Crendea? Bullshit! For one, Crendea’s K’lahn father and human mother loved each other!” He didn’t even bother correcting her mistaken assumptions on his ancestral line.
“No,” she argued, “that’s Qui propaganda.”
“Ah, no! You’re drunk on HD-X propa-juice! Fear and paranoia, it’s rolling off you so hard you don’t know what’s real. They feed you people lies upon lies, I can’t even begin to untangle your fucked up beliefs.”
“Next you’ll be saying Earth’s first tribute volunteered!”
“He did volunteer! Skal! The historical record is so popular it’s been portrayed in that holovid show ‘Empire’. I think they’re up to ten seasons now. Haven’t you seen it?”
She scoffed. “Dramatized fiction!”
“It’s factual history. The story of the Qui Treaty. It won a documentary award! You’re telling me the Qui Treaty is a lie? The same treaty that grants humanity free travel across the entire Qui Empire?”
“Of course there’s a treaty. We were enslaved by it.”
“Your willful ignorance is astounding. General Jaden of the United Regions sacrificed his freedom in Tribute and brought the K’lahn invasion to an end. The love he and the Qui Empress shared positioned Earth at the center of the Qui galaxy. Your twisted beliefs discredit humanity’s greatest legend.”
“You chained Jaden in a cage! Like an animal!”
“I did? I wasn’t even born! Look, I can’t defend everything that happened back then. It was a different time. We can’t judge the past by the standards of today. The treaty ended the war and morally it was questionable, I agree, but what Human Defense-X does? Assassinating Qui-humans? That’s not only immoral, it’s criminal. Terrorism. Whether you admit the truth or not, Ahnna, you’re not just complicit in HD-X’s activities, you’re a gullible pawn in the whole goddamn charade. HD-X makes the Qui of yesteryear look like angels!”
* * *
Ahnna stormed to her room and discovered Crandal in holo-form waiting outside her cabin. She walked straight through him, remembered Zeke had been on the bridge, had witnessed everything, and slammed shut the door.
Crandal simply popped up inside her cabin.
She frowned at him, anger collapsing to mortification. “Zeke told you what happened.”
“I watched the whole thing. Great stuff. Viewers will love it.”
“Shit.” This race was a fucking nightmare, and they hadn’t even started.
“Look, Ahnna, Tierc may be captain on the ship, but that doesn’t put him in charge of your race.”
She pulled back from metaphorically showing Crandal the door. “I’m listening.”
“Octiron just issued a new rule change.”
“What a surprise. You gonna change the prizes too? Remove our bid for freedom from commercial slavery? Octiron’s rule changes are giving me whiplash.”
“No, that’s part of your contract. This is one of those race procedures subject to change.”
Ahnna walked to her desk, accessed a digital copy of the race rules and spotted an update applied four minutes earlier. The teammate who is not designated ship’s captain may overrule the selection of one task. Crandal was drawing her attention to it. How convenient. He probably wrote the change to incite drama and boost viewer enjoyment. Sick fucker.
Or…
She eyed Crandal’s duplicitous image. “You want us to free Xecara?”
Crandal’s image sat on a chair she couldn’t see. “Yes. House Verdon dominates comms outlets to enforce their agenda. They publicly deny they hold the high priestess. We know they do, but we need visual proof, a story we can broadcast galactic wide. It would be a delicious coup if our space race exposed their lie.”
“And how many rules will you change to make our task more difficult?”
“Not for this task, it’s already a substantial challenge.”
Ahnna folded her arms, disbelieving.
“The viewers need to understand why you want this task so badly. When you were talking with Tierc–”
“That wasn’t talking.”
“Okay, fighting. You make your grievances with the Qui about him. How is Tierc responsible for events hundreds of years past?”
“Because he won’t acknowledge what’s happening. Not just him, the United Regions—and don’t forget, Tierc works for the UR; he’s a part of this. They’ve twisted history to their own ends.”
“So the HD-X believes the Qui took a human hostage?”
“Yes. You heard Tierc. They call him a Tribute. As if the subjugation of a five-star General, brought to heel by Empress Sonestra, was a noble thing. The romanticized love story between the General and the Empress is the velvet curtain wrapped around the ugliness of Qui Imperial enslavement.”
“When did this happen? You must understand this is fascinating stuff. Viewers will want to know.”
Ahnna hesitated. The more she talked, the harder it got to stop. She didn’t want Crandal digging into Tierc’s Qui nature or they’d want to see him for real. “I’ve told you all this. How’s it important?”
“Ahnna, you come from a parallel universe. Your story is important to understand our own history. When did your timeline diverge from ours? How did the Qui Empire in your universe stop human space exploration? Did you know that Tierc is significantly better informed about worlds and galaxies outside the Milky Way than you are? Why is that?”
His words sunk in slowly, an ice-cold band wrapping her heart as the implications of his last question unfurled in her mind. “You’re taking his side?”
“Side? Interesting. No, but it’s obvious that Tierc is informed by his upbringing within the Qui Empire. Your knowledge is limited to your cause. There is a distinct difference in breadth.”
Ahnna dragged breath into her lungs. Crandal could be lying, inciting trouble between her and Tierc. That made sense. Octiron wanted drama. Don’t rise to the bait. “Human Defense-X is focused on preserving the human genome. Not on exploration.”
“Of course, and, correct me if I’m wrong, but there was no HD-X until the arrival of the Qui on Earth. When was that?”
“Mid-21st Century AD.”
“We use the same Gregorian calendar with reference to Earth events.”
“I know.”
“So what happened in the mid-21st Century AD? Explain to our audience.”
Ahnna hesitated, but she’d signed up to this. “It began with the K’lahn invasion. The K’lahn are Qui foot soldiers—reptilian-like scaling and bone structure, more cold-blooded than humans, talons instead of nails.”
“We know of similar species, although none that invaded Earth.”
“In our universe, the K’lahn invasion killed billions, trafficked millions throughout the star systems of the Qui Empire, but humans formed a resistance movement, and we were winning. We forced the K’lahn off-planet, and that’s when a Qui arrived and negotiated a treaty. She took General Jaden hostage in return for peace, a tribute. The United Regions, our political leaders, they caved. We were winning, and then the Qui arrived and conquered Earth without another shot fired.” Ahnna felt sick. She shook with anger. “The United Regions formed a Treaty alliance with the same aliens responsible for the K’lahn invasion. They betrayed humanity. How could they do that?”
* * *
Tierc watched Ahnna’s perverse account of the Qui Treaty with Earth, with increasing unease. It wasn’t her words, her fundamentally flawed understanding of historic events, it was her bewilderment, anger and disgust with the United Regions that concerned him mos
t. Her emotional convictions made the UR’s alliance with the Qui impossible for her to accept or understand.
As Ahnna’s interview finished, Tierc turned to Crandal’s lurking holo-image—impossible to kick the man out.
“Ahnna’s passion is sincere,” Crandal observed. “Many would consider her outrage justified.”
“Perhaps, but her flawed view of history is distorted by hatred. The facts are different. Yes, there was an invasion. Yes, the Qui Empress ratified a peace treaty to end the invasion. Ahnna failed to explain why the Empress ordered the K’lahn’s withdrawal. Sonestra didn’t want to destroy humanity. She took a human tribute who despised her, a General who would just as soon kill her, and she taught him devotion and sacrifice. In the process, she discovered what all Qui know today, the potency of human love and emotion is a powerful mating call for Qui. Within decades, humanity assumed a prominent position in the Qui Empire.”
He laughed aloud. “Ahnna forgot to mention that the Empress eventually ended slavery across the empire.”
He resented the need to justify his heritage. If Ahnna would only open her mind…
“I won’t deny that Qui culture and human culture are very different, alien in nature and diverse in origin. Humans are romantic in their viewpoint, feel morally superior, and are sometimes willfully blind to their own flaws. Ahnna condemns the trafficking of humans by K’lahn or Qui and forgets that slavery is also a human failing. She refuses to accept that Qui and humans united found a higher calling and brought vast improvements to the Qui Empire. As I understand it, slavery is a travesty that still flourishes in Paragon today.” Tierc clamped down on a growing aggression towards Crandal and his provocations.
“The Central Alliance outlaws slavery.”
“And yet it exists in multiple systems, a large interstellar trade, billions of credits.”
Crandal’s holographic head flickered as he nodded.
Tierc sighed. “Ahnna condemns the Qui for the attempted genocide of humanity, and she’s right, as most would condemn any holocaust, but it doesn’t end there. Human Defense-X is committed to the expulsion of Qui-human hybrids from Earth. They wish to delegitimize my existence. The mating attraction between Qui and human can be intensely powerful, irresistible, a force of nature that overrides our physical differences. Sexually and physically, Qui and humans are compatible. I don’t expect your viewers to find that immoral or repugnant. Interspecies relations are common in Paragon.”
“We have groups—cults, orders, whatever you call them—who outlaw unions between different species. As long as they do not impose their views on others, problems are contained.”
“Well HD-X does impose their view. They assassinate any Qui or UR official they can get close enough to target. They are waging a terrorist campaign against the United Regions, the Qui-Earth Alliance, and Qui-human hybrids. They claim the moral high ground by celebrating all human unions, regardless of race or religion. So human purity is without constraint, but a union between human and Qui is deemed a crime against humanity. I am evil, my very existence a crime. No! I am the product of a universal law. I am the child of genetically compatible parents who fell in love and enjoyed a family together. Where is the crime in that? What gives HD-X the right to condemn me from birth? What gives Ahnna the right? I am not evil. I am not a crime against nature. I am me.”
* * *
Me? Right. Says the Qui hiding the truth of his scaly ass and demonic nature.
Between them they deceived a galaxy.
What did that make her?
Ahnna punched her door, regretted it immediately. She headed to the galley for ice, left Octiron’s upcoming broadcast spewing the hybrid’s lies to an empty room. She stopped dead at the sight of Tierc nursing a glass of water at the table.
He grimaced, his gaze dropping to the hand she cradled and back again. The glittering blackness of his eyes chilled her spine. One eyebrow hooked higher than the other. “I’m guessing Crandal showed you my interview.”
Ahnna huffed. “Of course he did. Octiron want drama and you gave it to them. They are playing us against each other and getting exactly what they want.”
“As if the race won’t be hard enough already.” He nodded at her hand. “Your nanos not working?”
“Not as fast as I’m used to.”
Tierc got up and ordered ice from the food dispenser. He brought the bowl to the table.
Damn. Now, if she rejected the gesture, she’d look churlish, and they still needed to work together. Giving in to the inevitable, Ahnna took the chair opposite and dumped her hand in the ice. “Fuck, that hurts.”
A smile lifted one side of his mouth. God, he was hot. Ahnna studied him, glad she wore a jacket that would hide the electric effect his presence forced upon her. That was the danger with Qui pheromones. Humans couldn’t resist them and Tierc tested her training, responding to her pheromonal output, but she’d been practicing. She slowed her heartbeat, reduced her body temperature to discourage perspiration. “You think HD-X brainwashed me. They didn’t.”
“I disagree.”
“It was a nice speech.” There had been real pain and depth of conviction in his words, a perspective on history that would give many pause, and she had to admit, his argument was hard to dismiss out of hand when he sat a bare three feet away.
His head tilted, his eyes studying her. “What difference does it make now? I’m the only Qui in this universe—and half-human at that. I’m making a life here, same as you.”
She shivered. “Are you going to breed?”
His dark-chocolate eyes flashed gold and his hissed intake of breath betrayed she’d provoked his Qui. “Let’s think about that. A new Qui dynasty, an extinct race reborn. Are you going to let that happen, Ahnna?”
His saccharin words played upon her fears. Zeke’s holo image materialized before she could answer, privacy in short-supply.
Ahnna pulled her hand out of the ice. “Plenty of time to decide that.”
Tierc shot out of his seat, making her jump. He wheeled away from Zeke’s holovid and placed palms on a counter top with shoulders hunched. She caught a flash in his eyes. She’d provoked a shift and now he battled his cuffs.
“I miss something?” Zeke’s eyes dropped to the ice bowl. “You two get in another fight?”
Ahnna showed him her hand, almost back to normal. “Caught the edge of a door.” Her nanos forced her unruly pulse to even out.
Tierc turned around, his expression ruggedly handsome. “We’re discussing the other two challenges we need to complete.”
“Before we attempt the big one,” Ahnna added. She snuck a glance at Tierc, found him looking at her. He had to know Octiron had forced her right to select a challenge, but his eyes were only watchful, assessing.
“The big one?” Zeke asked.
“Let’s avoid discussing details on the record,” Tierc said, “but we should select challenges that get us closer to Ahnna’s goal.”
Ahnna heard reproach in his voice and her rigid control slipped. She’d forced the House Verdon challenge on him, a challenge he’d rejected. The triumph felt petty.
“Unless you want to change your mind,” Tierc asked her.
She shook her head. Blood warmed her cheeks. “What do you suggest?”
“There’s a three pointer on Trax.”
“Help a child change his world?” Ahnna couldn’t hide her surprise.
He shrugged. “It’s an easy challenge in Verdon territory. We can research the sector and get a feel for how these challenges roll.”
Ahnna frowned. “Three points seems very low.”
Zeke leaned towards her, his holo-head moving through his vid drone. “The ‘Help a child’ challenge is a crowd pleaser. Octiron keep it for contestants requiring less challenging tasks, but it shouldn’t be underestimated. One team picked up this lost kid and dropped him back home—got beat up for their trouble. Kid sent them to a drug den.”
“So we ask questions first,” Ahnna said. “T
ierc will smell a lie.”
“Didn’t work on you,” Tierc replied without looking at her. “Axo, what should we expect?”
The AI holo-image materialized at the far end of the table. “Trax is highly populated near the spaceports. Traders recruit there, but it’s also a popular stop for Rafters—raiders for the traffickers. It can be dangerous. You should know the sun is strong. You will need to purchase protection at the spaceport before transporting planetside.”
“Do we have any credit?”
“Negative,” Axo replied.
Tierc ran his hand through his hair, his muscled chest straining his clothes. “We’ll figure that out later. Right now, we have a destination to plot and a race to start.”
* * *
Ahnna pressed her hand to the console, confirmed she no longer had access to the copilot’s systems and snapped her head around to face Tierc. “You locked me out!”
He shrugged. “We’re one of twenty-odd ships jostling for position. I want out this mess. We’re not exactly team material and I don’t want any… um… misunderstandings until we’re clear of the starting gun.”
Ahnna bit her lip, hearing the logic, wanting to tear strips off him.
She fumed, staring out at the space station, stars twinkling beyond the gaping hole forming one side of the docking bay on one of Primaera’s space stations. A countdown ticked in the background. T-47 yachts extended either side of them, sleek and white, each boasting a team name emblazoned across their hull. Crandal had designated their ship the Orion Nebula. “I’d have picked Resistance.”
“Huh?”
“For our name.”
“Stop trying to pick a fight.”
The race announcer appeared as a holo-vision before them, alien pink and all horns and teeth. Engines roared as he verbally prostrated Octiron before a galaxy of race sponsors. He paused and Ahnna flushed to hear a recording of her snarling voice broadcast across the galaxy.
“Lay a finger on me—if I fucking smell your pheromone assault shit—I’ll slit your throat and die happy.”