by Viki Storm
“No,” I say. “I reset their coordinates and sent them back to New Pallas, then reset their security code so they could not access the navigation coordinates.”
“They could still be tracking you,” Xalax says, “and dispatch another ship to intercept you.”
“Great minds think alike,” I say, “Because I thought of that too. I disabled their tracking radars.”
“How did you jam the signal?” Xalax asks. “How did you get into the radar software coding?” It is true that signal jamming is a high-level procedure, usually requiring advanced preparation of software code to be uploaded at the right time.
“I used the blunt end of my anankah and smashed the sensors,” I say, “and the display screens.”
“Simple, yet effective,” he says. “I don’t want you to come to the Capitol. I want you to go to the protein farm.”
“Why?” I ask. “Won’t you have sufficient reinforcements waiting to apprehend the rogues?” I haven’t told Xalax that I am traveling with a human female, let alone one that is Marked. I don’t want to bring her to a bloody battlefield.
“I am preparing to address the High Council,” Xalax says. “I am going to inform them of the plot with Noxu and the Kraxx—”
“Kraxx?” Aren shouts. I hope Xalax can’t hear her, but there’s no way that he didn’t; she practically screamed it into the comm microphone.
“What was that?” Xalax says. I haven’t told him about her, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to lie to him either.
“I have a human female captive,” I say. Aren winces as I say this, and my heart squeezes painfully in my chest. I must tell him. He’s the High King, and my oldest friend. “She is M…” But the words are choked in my throat.
“What’s that?” Xalax says. “Connection’s bad.”
“She is maltreated,” I say. I technically haven’t lied, but I feel the guilt settle in my heart nevertheless. My oldest friend, the High King, and I’m keeping secrets from him. And to what end? Do I really think I can keep her? Even if she wasn’t Marked, I can take no mate. The cruel fates, showing me a glimpse of happiness after I’ve already sworn my oath.
“I would imagine,” Xalax says, “if she was held by Ingzan. I’ll have the High Healer himself tend to her when you come to the capitol. But for now, I still want you to go to the protein farm. Your task will be stealth and swift and—if done correctly—will not require you to draw your weapon or spill a single drop of blood.”
Xalax tells me his plan, what he wants me to do. I listen, making notations on a scrap of paper when necessary, but it’s a struggle to focus.
Aren consumes most of my thoughts. I feel like I’ve betrayed her, when all I’ve ever tried to do was protect her. Should I have told Xalax that she was Marked? Telling him would have ensured she goes to the Auction House when we get to the capitol. It was pure selfishness that kept me from telling Xalax. I can’t have her. I can’t provide for her.
But I don’t want anyone else to have her either.
Going to the auction house is in her best interest. She’ll be able to live a comfortable life as the pampered mate of a well-positioned Zalaryn. She’s young. She’s a virgin. She’s beautiful. Most Zalaryn males have respect for their female mates—we understand that they’re valuable to our society and treat them well. It’s true that most males don’t bond with their breeding mates—that there’s no real tenderness or affection between them. But that doesn’t mean she’ll be abused. Aren will live a much better life on Zalaryx than on Yrdat, or Earth.
When I was young, my father gave me good advice: if you have to talk yourself into something, it’s probably the wrong choice.
I can’t shake the feeling that I’m making a mistake—but there’s nothing else I can do.
I end the transmission with Xalax, vowing to do what he asks of me. Xalax has a careful, clever plan—brilliant in its simplicity. I should be able to do my part perfectly. Much depends on it.
Noxu’s rebellion and treachery are not yet known to the rest of the Zalaryns. Xalax learned of the plot and kept it a secret, hoping that I’d be able to apprehend Noxu and stop the whole rebellion before it truly started.
I failed.
Now he has no choice but to reveal the dastardly plot to the High Council—and, in doing so, threaten his own reign as High King.
If I fail this new task he’s set for me, the price will be dear.
The stakes have never been higher. The entire monarchy is in jeopardy. Xalax himself could be hanged at the Magneto Spire for a traitor, with me alongside him.
But that’s only if I fail.
And I won’t.
Except, that’s what I said the last time.
Kraxx.
No one ever said anything about the Kraxx.
After Droka ends his communication with the High King (I still can’t believe that he’s the Captain of the Imperial Guard and best friend to the actual King) he explains everything.
I thought he was just part of a roving band of Zalaryns who decided to raid my little planet. That I just had the bad luck to be there—and the stupidity to leave my hiding space in the closet.
Then again, maybe it wasn’t so stupid to leave my hiding space. If a different warrior had searched my dwelling, perhaps he would have found me cowering in the closet. Maybe he wouldn’t have been so kind. Maybe he’d be the sort that would have taken me roughly and shared me with the rest of the regiment.
Maybe it wasn’t stupidity but fate that landed me into Droka’s arms. Some pull of the universe compelling me to leave my hiding place in the closet. Because Droka’s not just some raider, storming through the galaxy, leaving a wake of destruction and ash. He’s the Captain of the Imperial Guard, friend to the king—trying to stop a rebellion.
He told me why his chest turned purple. That’s what happens to males of his race when they start to bond with a female mate. It’s called rutting, and it causes a powerful urge to ‘exchange genetic material,’ as he calls it. He doesn’t say so, but I assume it took great willpower to resist taking my virginity. His body is flooded with bonding chemicals and hormones, all overwhelming his senses and compelling him to mate with me.
As we near his home planet, Droka explains the High King’s plan for apprehending the fiends at the protein farm.
Zalaryns synthesize protein in large-scale farms. That was the dense, oily bar I was eating back on Yrdat. He says that they can’t grow many crops on their planet, and I can fully sympathize with that.
Droka puts his hands on me, looks me right in the eyes. The intensity of his gaze is almost frightening. I’d be scared if I thought he would hurt me, but I know that he’d never do that.
As I stare at him, I start to throb between the legs. I can’t believe we acted so lustfully, so brazenly after our escape from the Screaming Talon. I think of what his cock looked like—hard and thick outside his breeches—and my cheeks flush.
Why is my body reacting like this? I’m like a cat in heat.
One touch, and my body betrays me. Hell, he doesn’t even have to touch me. I just have to think about it. It’s probably those bonding chemicals he was talking about.
“You must do your part in this plot exactly as I explain it,” he tells me. “It is of the utmost importance. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I say. I still want to obey him. I never would have imagined I’d be eager to help any Zalaryn do anything, except get on the next ship off-planet.
But I can tell that he’s a different sort than Captain Ingzan and Admiral Zuro. I would do whatever Droka said to make sure bastards like that don’t get control of their planet. Who knows what evil things they’d plan for the Marked females of Earth.
“When we land,” Droka says. He is speaking slowly, with earnest. “I need you to do one thing.”
“What?” I demand. I’m eager to learn my part in the plan. Eager to please him. Am I going to disable their radar? Will he have me act as a decoy, luring the invaders away from the prot
ein farm and into a waiting trap?
“You need to stay in the pod. No matter what. Stay. In. The. Pod.”
“No way,” I say. “I want to get those bastards just as bad as you do.”
He shakes his head, and I feel anger welling up.
“You probably want to get them more,” he admits. “But you must stay in the pod. Ayvinx and I will be able to do it. This is a stealth operation. We need to blend in—go unnoticed. What’s more likely to catch the eyes of a squad of rowdy warriors than a human female?”
I take his point.
I don’t like it, but I take his point.
“Fine,” I say. “But then what? We’ll go to the capitol, and you’re going to let me get auctioned off to the highest bidder, just like a cow?”
“What is a cow?” he asks. He smiles—trying to dodge my question with a joke, and that only makes me more upset.
“I’m serious,” I say. “What’s going to happen to me?”
“It’s custom for human females to be auctioned to the males with the most compatible DNA,” he says, but the smile is gone and he won’t meet my eyes. “Most females live comfortable lives. We respect the females who carry our offspring. Don’t let Ingzan’s crew stand for the rest of us.”
Most females. It doesn’t pass by unnoticed that he says most.
My heart starts to beat so fast in my chest. I’m afraid he can see the wild pulsing of the big vein in my neck, or sense something with those bumps on his tongue and his head.
I want to ask him something, but… it will cost me so much just to ask.
And will cost me even more if he gives me the answer I don’t want to hear.
“Would you have compatible DNA?” I ask, each word like lifting a huge sack of grain. A huge sack of grain that will crush me.
“I am the Captain of the Imperial Guard,” he says. It sounds to me like he’s having difficulty speaking his own words. “I have sworn an oath to take no mate, to produce no offspring.”
This is not the answer I feared, but it is somehow worse.
“An oath?” I ask, lamely, but I have no way to respond. “What about the whole thing you told me about turning purple? Bonding or whatever?”
“That’s merely a physiological response,” he says, and somehow his voice sounds colder. “It’s a bodily reaction. A warrior is expected to have control over their baser instincts.”
“Baser instincts?” I say. I’m livid. I thought he restrained himself because I was Marked, and he couldn’t take my virginity... yet. I thought there was a chance he could purchase me, especially since he’s well-positioned as Captain of the Imperial Guard.
But an oath to take no mate? I can’t believe this.
“Please, do not yell,” he says.
“I’m not yelling,” I yell. I don’t know why I’m so angry. “Maybe it’s just a base instinct that I should have control over.”
“You take me wrong,” he says. He reaches for my hand, but I snatch it away. “I’ve sworn an oath. There is nothing more sacred in our society than a male’s word. Law and order are built on our words. Our actions. Doing what we say and saying what we do. I have lived my entire life in service of law and order. Despite what I might feel for you,” he pauses and exhales loudly. Maybe it’s a trick of the pod’s lights, but I swear that his chest flushes an even deeper purple, almost as dark and filled with nothingness as the vast void in front of us. “Despite anything else, my first most sacred duty is to my vow—the Zalaryn clan, to law and order. By law, you are a fugitive. By law, I am unable to take a mate. It doesn’t matter what I feel. It doesn’t matter what I want.”
“Oh,” I say. I feel so stupid. I shouldn’t have asked about the DNA. I must have sounded like a needy little orphan, ready to latch on to the first person to come my way. But it’s not like that. Not at all. If it was, I would have gone away with Soryahn, the traveling merchant, the first time he propositioned me.
I thought I felt something with Droka—as improbable as that might be. Not just the excitement of being touched for the first time. Not the relief of escaping Captain Ingzan’s ship unharmed. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe it was just being in the middle of the pure nothingness of the void.
I don’t know what to think. And now when I have the opportunity to do something besides worry myself to death, Droka tells me to stay in the pod.
Time passes, but it’s hard to say how much. Nothing except blackness through the window glass. Then, I think I’m hallucinating, but I swear that I see something. A pinprick. Like there is a thick black drape across the sky and a tiny moth ate a tiny hole in the weave.
“Is that…?” I ask Droka. He nods without even looking.
“That’s our galaxy,” he says. “I’ll put the window coverings down. We’re going to approach it fast.”
“It looks so small,” I say.
“Everything looks small when you’re far away,” he says. “Our galaxy is relatively small, only about a billion stars.”
“A billion?” I interrupt. “That tiny speck is a billion stars?”
“Yes,” he says. “And mostly our stars are much bigger than the one that Yrdat orbits, the red one you would call your sun.”
“How much bigger?” I ask.
“Zalaryx orbits two small binary stars,” he says. “They’re much smaller and hotter than Yrdat’s sun.”
“Two suns sounds a little weird, but I’ve been cold for the last twelve years so I’ll take it,” I say, trying to lighten the mood after my stupid outburst. It was so stupid to ask him about the DNA.
“But many of the other stars in our galaxy are super-giants. Anywhere from one to three billion times the size of Earth’s sun.”
“You have stars a billion times bigger than Earth’s sun?” I say. I try to picture a billion suns fitting inside something, but I can’t. Even though I’ve seen the void and know how vast space truly is, I still can’t wrap my little pea-brain around it.
“Sure,” he says. “Earth’s sun isn’t particularly big. What’s the star-shape you call The Hunter?”
“Star shape?” I ask.
“I was never a good astronomy student,” he says.
“You know a lot more than I do,” I say, already quite impressed by his vast knowledge of the universe.
“Earth cultures see pictures in the stars, do they not?”
“Oh,” I say, understanding, “Constellations. The Hunter? Orion has a bow and arrow. That’s probably the hunter.”
“What’s a bow and arrow?” Droka asks and it’s my turn to laugh.
“You probably don’t want to know. It’s a weapon. Basically a flying, sharp stick.”
“Ah,” he says. “The Founders wrote of such primitive weaponry. Anyhow, your hunter, Orion, one of his stars—I think it’s his armpit—is a red super-giant star. It’s about one or two billion times the size of your sun.”
“A tiny star like that is a billion times bigger than the sun?” I say. “How do you know all this?”
“I don’t know half of what I should. That big star is close to Earth. Six or seven hundred light years.”
“That’s close?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says. “We’re at least two hundred and fifty thousand light years away from that.” He points at the pinprick of light. His home galaxy. The mass of billions of stars that are a billion times bigger than the Earth sun.
“This is making my head hurt,” I say truthfully.
“Mine too,” he says. “This is why I was never a good student.”
It seems like it takes forever for Ayvinx to find our ship. I suppose it’s my fault, as I engaged the cloaking device. It’s draining the power reserves faster than I’d like, but I don’t want any rebel scouts to see us.
I see Ayvinx trudging through the hard-pan dirt and a smile comes to my mouth. He looks so utterly miserable, I can’t help but be amused. Ayvinx is a mercenary—a fierce warrior to be sure, but a sly one. He chooses to hire his services rather than to honorably serve our race
on raiding parties. Mercenary work is for those who don’t have discipline and resolve. Those who prefer to spend their time in dank taverns and off-planet brothels. Those who have no more ambition in life than to win at podlk and sleep in late every morning.
His desire to avoid arduous tasks like hiking in the dusty dry heat with a heavy pack on his shoulders is precisely the reason Ayvinx has chosen the mercenary life.
“Stay in the pod,” I tell Aren again. I hate the idea of leaving her, even though she’ll be safe inside the pod. The cloaking device has several hours of runtime left, and if she stays inside, none of the rebel saboteurs will be able to see the pod unless they literally walk right into it—which isn’t likely.
It’s her staying inside that I’m worried about.
She’s got a touch of the Zalaryn spirit, that much is clear. She is a fighter and a survivor, not a sitter and waiter. I would not want to be stashed away in the escape pod while someone else was out fighting my enemies—and neither does Aren.
“I know,” she says. She looks sufficiently dejected that I believe she’s resolved to stay put. I just hope nothing comes along and changes her mind.
“Once the rebels land,” I tell her, “our work will be fast. Don’t leave the pod.”
“I said I wouldn’t,” she says irritably, but I don’t care. That’s the first thing you learn when you train new warriors—make them repeat their instructions over and over.
“And what will you do if you see that we’ve failed? If I am slain, or captured?” It doesn’t usually bother me to talk of my own death. I’ve stared death in the eye so many times, we’re practically old friends. But when I see the fear on Aren’s face when I mention it, a twinge of nervous fire heats my stomach.
I never want to die in any of the raids or battles I fight—but I accept my potential death as a natural part of a warrior’s life. Many of us fall on the battlefield, but our spirit lives on, orbiting the planet and burning with the light of our suns.
But for the first time in… twenty years? Since my first raid as a young lad, I actually fear and dread my own demise.
You are responsible for someone, I think. That’s why it’s different this time.