by Laurie Roma
“Fuck you,” Patel screamed. “Fuck all of you. Let me out of this fucking room!”
“Let him go, Patel,” Malik demanded, stepping forward as he drew his sword out of its sheath.
Patel just pulled the chain tighter. “Get back! You stay the fuck away from me with that thing, and let me out of this fucking room. Do you hear me?” His voice held a sneer in it when he said, “Commander fuckhead is going to get me out of here. But first, I owe you, bitch.”
He pointed the blaster at Reva’s head, but before he could pull the trigger, he disappeared in a burst of bloody dust. Everyone froze in place, just staring at the mist as it started falling to the floor. Then, their attention was pulled toward the doorway.
Amari stood there, twirling a wrist unit on one finger. “Can we go now?”
Reva and Malik shared a look before he looked back at the specs of blood on the floor and whispered, “That was…”
“Yeah.”
Maverick pulled the chain away from his neck and looked down on the floor. “Holy nova! What the hell just happened? And who the fuck is going to clean this shit up?”
A few seconds later, the room was clean again and looked better than it had before they had all walked into it.
“Thanks,” Maverick said, looking around the room again. “I appreciate the cleanup, but you can’t leave until we see what’s on that wrist unit.”
Amari just grinned. “Watch me.”
Then, she disappeared from the room.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Reema base was empty.
Frustration set in for their group after they had stormed Quilla’s desert compound, and found nothing but empty space. It had been clear that people had been there, but in the days it took for them to arrive, the base had been completely cleared out.
They could have moved before that, and the amount of dust and sand that had swept inside cracks within the foundation and walls suggested that was the case.
They had searched the surrounding area, and the Reema they had spoken to in a nearby charging station had told them that the base had been abandoned around the same time that Quilla had been at New Vega. They had given the Reema some credits to talk, and though they had taken the payment, it was never safe to assume they were telling the truth.
So, Amari had given them an incentive to tell them what they wanted to know when she’d threatened to come back if she found out they were lying.
And they couldn’t fix what she would do to them.
The Reema were the wheelers and dealers of their corner of the universe. They were a race of lizard people who could grow back their limbs when one was damaged or ripped off, and they were often motivated by profit more than morality. Even though they were greedy bastards, most of them had a code. When a deal was struck, they stuck to it…most of the time. The Reema simply had a different interpretation of what was honorable and decent, and they couldn’t be trusted without paying their price.
Still, facing a Dragon Warrior’s wrath was a good motivator to tell the truth.
Reema was the obvious choice for any criminal base of operations, and that was why no one had been surprised the place was empty. They had spent a few hours looking over the compound, but there was nothing there for them to find beside trash of various sorts.
And when the Reema from the charging station had showed up and asked if they could have the base if the people who owned it weren’t coming back, that wasn’t surprising either. When they left to go back to their ship, the four Reema were already in the process of redesigning the place to change it into a bar.
Back on the ship, they had gone through every piece of data on Officer Patel’s wrist unit again, even though they had already done so before. Commander Cain had been pissed when they had just left the station without telling him what was on the unit, but that hadn’t bothered their crew. If they found information that would affect him on Beta Station 4, they would tell him.
Because of the information they had found on the wrist unit, two more Strike Force Teams had been sent after two mercenary vessels. One was still being pursued, while the other one had been found on Alpha Station: X4. By the time the Strike Force Team got there, there was nothing left of the mercenary crew after the Krytos on X4 got done with them. The mercenaries had captured females for Quilla to sell as slaves to the Tarin males, and they’d had to face Krytos justice for their crimes.
Which meant the mercenaries were dead.
After finding no more information, Matt was ready to give up, but Amari had taken the wrist unit and was able to recover several messages that had been deleted. Most of the messages hadn’t said anything useful, but one of those recovered had included the name of a planet where another of Quilla’s bases was located.
Now, they were headed to the planet Vexar.
Unfortunately, Vexar was about three times the size of Earth. Without some idea where Quilla’s base was, they could spend years searching the planet. Even if Amari went down to the surface to search alone, it could still take her weeks to look for the base.
However, that wasn’t the only problem.
The planet sat on the edge of Alliance controlled space, making it a very isolated. Humans had discovered Vexar hundreds of years ago, but the place had been too volatile to colonize at that time…and still was. Vexar was the home to a race of beings that humans had named Dinos. They were similar to the dinosaurs that used to live on Earth millions of years ago, and were just as dangerous, if not more.
Years ago, the Alliance had built an outpost there, but it was very small, and run by strictly military personnel and research. Matt had told them that most of the elites that served there weren’t very pleased about it, but the scientists absolutely loved it since it was like studying Earth’s history. Still, it wasn’t a place anyone really wanted to go visit, even if they had got permission from the Alliance.
Except for Amari, who had already been to the planet.
“Vexar is fascinating,” Amari said as they sat in the lounge. “But I do not believe you will enjoy going to the surface.”
Reva, Malik, Kahla, Darius, and Lazio were speaking with Amari, who had created a special chair for herself next to one of the long couches. Matt and Rob were on the other side of the room, trying to contact the commanders of the outposts on Vexar. So far, they didn’t seem to know anything about Quilla or what had been going on.
Lazio bit his lower lip before asking, “I know I’m probably not going to like the answer to this, but why not?”
“I am not certain you could survive it without me with you,” Amari said bluntly. “Vexar is the home to many species that are very dangerous, and there is no way you will be able to reason with them. I was going to bring one of the Vexar cats with me the last time I was there, but she would not stop trying to eat Rhys, so she had to stay.” Her glowing eyes focused on Reva. “Speaking of, I am very excited to see you shift.”
“Ah…okay…” was all Reva could manage.
“Great, we’re all going to die,” Lazio muttered. “I’m going to be eaten by a cat, and not in a good way like my lord.”
Malik shot him a look and growled, “Control yourself. We’re still going.”
Amari sighed. “Then you will need to be prepared. The larger Vexar will eat you whole, but they cannot see very well, so try not to make noise. That will attract them. They may look fierce, but it is the smaller ones you have to worry about. They hunt in packs.”
Lazio’s head fell back against the back of the couch he was sitting on. “Yep, we are definitely going to die.”
“You cannot trust the world either. Colors mean death.”
Darius scowled. “What in bloody hellfire does that mean?”
“The world is dark, but the Vexar are colorful. So are the vines. They are beautiful, but deadly. Do not touch them, or they will pull you down into the ground, where the vegetation will roll you up and digest you…slowly. The branches on the trees will do the same.”
“How does
the Alliance manage to have an outpost there?” Malik wanted to know.
Both elites walked over, and Matt said, “They have two now, actually. The outposts are heavily guarded, and there are three levels of sonic barriers that keep the Dinos from attacking. Each barrier runs on its own generator, so it gives them added protection. This was a new venture, and they don’t even have a shield around the planet yet.”
Darius shook his head. “I still don’t understand why the Alliance would want to be on such a hostile planet to begin with.”
“Artane Electronics has a plant on Vexar,” Kahla explained.
Matt glared at her. “How the fuck do you know about it?”
“Because Nico Artane told me.”
Matt slumped down in his chair. “What happened to when top-secret actually meant something?”
“A plant? Why would humans bring vegetation to Vexar?” Amari asked with a frown.
Kahla laughed. “No, they have a small warehouse there, so that is why the Alliance outposts are close by. As Malloy said, it’s sort of a secret, but he told me so we would expand the trajectory of New Vega to come closer to the planet in case they ever needed assistance. They are in the ass end of space, after all.”
“True,” Rob agreed. “The only things out this way are X21 and Xenthian.”
“But they are still pretty far away,” Kahla countered.
Malik thought that over. “So, it wasn’t just about putting that new space station near Xenthian. The Alliance was already planning to move the station there to have more people close to Vexar.”
“It was two birds, one stone,” Matt answered.
Amari’s brows furrowed. “What does one stone have to do with the birds?”
“You’ve never heard killing two birds with one stone?” Rob asked.
Amari’s expression darkened, and her glowing eyes swirled with anger. “You would kill birds that way? Unless you need to eat them, that is wrong. I will not let you kill the birds on Vexar.”
Reva shook her head. “It is an old human saying. He just meant that he could achieve two things in one single action. By having the space station located near Xenthian, they could watch over the plant, and still be close to Vexar.”
Amari nodded. “This is good strategy, however, if the Xenon want the space station gone, they could easily move it somewhere else…or destroy it. Their magic is strong, similar yet different than mine.”
“That is…not what I wanted to hear,” Matt muttered. “We still aren’t officially allies with them yet.”
“You will be,” Amari promised. “They are a kind race, or most of them are. And your commander is mated to the king. That will breed friendship.”
“Did you meet them?” Kahla asked.
Amari smiled. “I did, but they did not know it.”
“Shit,” Matt muttered.
Reva brought everyone’s attention back to the topic at hand. “This still doesn’t make sense to me. Why would Artane Electronics have a warehouse on Vexar? Why that specific planet?”
“I do not know about a warehouse, but if you mean the holding in the mountains, I have been there. The Vexar do not like the mountains, except for the cats…and the flying ones, so it was a good place to build,” Amari added, “It is interesting what they do with the bones of the Vexar, or Dinos, as you call them.”
Everyone gaped at her for a few seconds, then Rob murmured, “Leave it to you to find a top-secret facility hidden on a dangerous planet.”
“Secrets make me curious.”
Malik remembered that for the future. “What are they doing to the bones?”
Amari held out her hand, then a small, metallic-red cylinder with intricate metal caps on each end appeared in her palm. “They are making this. The bone is the red material.”
“Damn it! None of you are supposed to know anything about this.” Matt held onto his head with both hands as if he were trying to stop it from falling off. “That is a jump drive core, and I’d really be happy if you put that thing away, because it would suck if it exploded and we all died here.”
“Can it do that?” Lazio blinked.
“Oh, yeah,” Matt answered. “And probably create a black hole big enough to destroy anything near us.”
Lazio gulped. “Yes, let’s put away the red tube of death.”
Amari huffed out a breath, and the red tube disappeared. “It would not have exploded. I removed the charge from it.”
“Why do you have that?” Reva asked. Obviously, Amari had gone into the secret facility. That wasn’t what she was asking. She wanted to know why the Dragon Warrior had been holding one of the most powerful energy sources in the known universe.
“It was intriguing. I collect things that interest me.”
No one knew how to respond to that.
“So, that tube is what powers Alliance vessels?” Kahla grimaced. “Shit, I thought they were just storing holo-room tech or something on Vexar, not making jump drives. Can you imagine what that psychotic bitch would have done if Quilla had gotten a shipment of jump drives? She could—”
“Destroy worlds,” Malik said softly.
Matt looked extremely uncomfortable. “Quilla couldn’t have known about it. And if she did, she would probably assume the same thing you did. They are making some holo-room shit there, too, but very few people know they make the jump drives. Everyone assumes that they are made by one of the Alliance tech teams.”
“I know they were made on Earth,” Reva argued. “I visited the plant in the Capital with my mother and fathers. Magnus showed us around.”
Matt nodded. “They used to be, but the process changed. Listen, the first outpost was there to study the planet, nothing more. They have an atmosphere that is similar to Earth, and it was supposed to be a failsafe in case anything ever happened to Earth. That’s why there are scientists there.” He looked at Kahla and added, “The planet was suggested to the Krytos when your home world was destroyed.”
She rolled her eyes. “And we would all be dead if we lived there with the Dinos.”
“Well, it was an option. After the first outpost was there for a while, they realized what could be done with the bones of the Dinos…so, now there are two outposts, and the Artanes have their facility.”
Amari eyed him. “Do they kill Dinos for their bones?”
He looked nervous as she growled at him. “I don’t know how they do what they do. That is totally and completely the Artanes’ deal.”
When people looked over at Rob, he just held his hands up. “I had no fucking clue about any of this, so don’t ask me.”
“The bone is what is used to hold the mineral from Tartarus that you trade us for,” Malik surmised. “I wonder why they use bone instead of a metal casing.”
“Does anyone else think that shiny red bone is weird?” Lazio queried. “I do. I really do, and don’t know if I want to meet something that could eat my face off and has red bones. What color blood do they have? Green?”
“Blue.”
“Fuck…see? That’s just weird.”
Darius glowered at Lazio. “I think you need to stop hanging around the humans so much. You are beginning to sound like them.”
“Hey! He is so not our fault,” Rob protested, but Lazio just grinned as if he was pleased with Darius’ comment.
“The bones do have a strange metal component to them, which makes them very strong. They are also able to retain and hold in heat, which would be beneficial being used within a vessel’s engine. They would have to cut and shape the bone soon after the death of the Vexar, else it would be too difficult to mold since it hardens quickly. The particles of the bones are also added to the construction of many of your vessels and space stations, as well.” Amari scowled when everyone just looked at her again. “What? This knowledge is in our records. It used to be a planet my race would go to learn how to fight when they came into their magic, similar to your Hunt.”
Reva was fascinated by that. “Seriously? But…don’t Dragon Warr
iors get their magic young?”
“Aye. There is no actual timing. It is more when we are ready for magic, and it does not happen all at once. Most come into their magic between thirteen and fifteen. I came into mine at ten years,” she announced with a grin. “Some Dragon Warriors have weapons made from the Vexar bones they fought. It was a shame we were not near Vexar when I turned ten years.”
Reva exchanged glances with the others. She could not imagine fighting a vicious Dino when she was ten. The Hunt had been bad enough when she was twenty. Not knowing what else to say, she said, “I’m sure you would have had fun.”
Amari manifested a wicked-looking red dagger in her hand with a black hilt, then began cleaning her nails with it. “That is why Eden and I wanted to visit the planet. I made this one from a particularly stubborn Vexar that would not stop trying to kill me. It was interesting fighting him without using magic.”
“Did you…never mind,” Matt said after a few long beats of silence. “The old jump drive cores needed to be replaced after six to ten years, depending on how much the drives were used. Commanders didn’t like having extra cores onboard. They made the ships faster, but they were also very dangerous. New ones made with the Dino bones are estimated to last more than fifty years.”
Kahla got up and walked over to one of the data units. “I’m contacting the Artanes.”
“Why?” Matt frowned. “As we are so far from Earth right now, it’s going to take days for a message to reach them. Besides, I have the elites looking on Vexar already.”
“This is a Dragon Warrior ship, and—” Kahla used both of her hands to gesture at Amari, “We have a Dragon Warrior sitting right there.”
“Your vid call will reach Earth,” Amari promised.
“Thanks.” Kahla smiled at Amari before saying, “If Quilla is on that planet, the Artanes can help us find her. I know them, and if they have a manufacturing plant to protect there, they will defiantly have the tech to search the planet for us. And…I want some answers from them.”