by Anna Carven
I cough again and again, turning away from Ami and Sera.
Ami stares up at me, her violet eyes shimmering, her rose-bud lips turned down. “Mamda, mamda,” she says softly.
The coughing fit dies down, leaving me drained.
“Mamda?” Ami has been gently bumping her fists against my chest. It’s almost as if she’s trying to beat the cough out of me.
“Abbey, are you okay?” Sera sets down her tea and rises to her feet, her morning sickness suddenly forgotten as she fetches water from the auto-dispenser. “Drink something.” She hands me a glass of ice-cold water and looks me up-and-down, her dark brown eyes narrowing. “You haven’t been sick lately, have you?”
“Me?” I shake my head in surprise. “Nope. Haven’t been sick for years.” Even before Tarak gave me his blood, which is seething with tiny cell-repairing nano-machines, I was as healthy as a horse.
“You’ve lost weight, haven’t you?”
“Huh?” I set Ami down in front of me and gratefully accept the water from Sera. Ami toddles around, clutching my knees for support as she gets used to being on her feet. She squeals in excitement and I melt all over again. “I haven’t noticed anything. Not that I’ve been specifically checking, but…”
“I can see it in your cheeks,” Sera’s gaze is razor-sharp. She doesn’t miss much, and she’s always asking questions. “You’ve definitely lost weight.”
“It isn’t as if I’ve been trying to cut the kilos. I’ve been eating more than ever.” My appetite’s been going crazy lately. I’ve been scoffing everything from Veronian sweets to smoked and cured lamperk meat. Actually, I’ve been craving meat a lot. “I just put it down to the fact that Ami’s making me run around a lot more these days.”
“You should go and get yourself checked out in the medical bay.”
I wave away Sera’s concern. “It’s just a little itch in my throat. Just a one-off. The air’s a bit dry in here, isn’t it? Maybe that’s the reason. I’m fine.”
Thanks to my alien husband, I heal like a monster and have enough energy to last me for days. There’s no way I could be getting sick… right?
“Googol babada.” Ami pivots on her heel and promptly falls on her ass. A yelp of outrage escapes her lips, and she starts to cry.
“Aw, sweetie.” I set aside my glass and slide down to the floor, spreading my arms wide. “Come here.”
Ami crawls into my lap, her cries of distress reducing in intensity and volume as I gently rub her back. She clambers all over me until she finds a comfortable position, whimpering softly.
“She might have big bad Kordolian blood running through her veins, but at the end of the day, she’s just a big ol’ sook like all the other kids, aren’t you, Ami-tsunami?”
“Daddy’s little girl,” Sera says dryly. “I’ve seen how Tarak is with her, and with you. The two of you have him curled around your little fingers.”
“I don’t know about that. Tarak does what he wants, when he wants.” He certainly bends over backwards for me, though. It’s a little bit mind-blowing that he set out to destroy the Kordolian Empire because they posed a threat to us.
Okay, there’s a lot more to it, but that’s how he explained it to me.
Damn his overbearing, overprotective, all-alpha, uber-arrogant ass. And damn me for finding those traits irresistible. My chest swells just thinking about him. A torrent of emotions surges through me; pride, love, more than a little bit of lust, and annoyingly, trepidation.
I hate it when he’s away.
He’s only been gone for a day, and yet I find myself missing his warm embrace and his quiet, unwavering intensity.
I miss him for Ami’s sake, too. He dotes on her like nobody’s business, and in turn, she adores him.
As I bend to kiss her soft, wispy hair, the urge to cough overwhelms me once again and I turn away from her, coughing into my hand.
Ami starts to cry.
Pain shoots through my chest. It feels as if something’s bursting in there, like hundreds of agonizing little bubbles popping all at once.
What the hell is happening?
I bring my hand away from my mouth and see red and black. Blood covers my palm. It’s dotted with tiny black clumps that move around like ants. Before my very eyes, they split into smaller and smaller particles, eventually disappearing as they dissolve into the red, gunky mess. Suddenly, intense pain rips through my hand, as if it’s being consumed by cold fire.
I freeze, staring at my hand in shock. Ami’s cries grow louder, and I want to comfort her, but at the same time I want to get well away from her and Sera, who is ten weeks pregnant.
I’m petrified. I don’t know what this is. It could be infectious. There are a million-and-one scary diseases out there in the Universe, and we probably haven’t discovered half of them yet.
“You’re getting your ass to the medical bay, now,” Sera snaps. She holds out a hand to help me to my feet, but I wave her away.
“I don’t want you to catch anything,” I say weakly. “I know where it is. I’ll go myself. Please, just look after Ami.”
Sera nods in understanding and reaches down to pick up my daughter, who’s still crying.
“Mommy will be back soon, sweetheart,” I say gently, closing my hand so she can’t see the blood. I disengage from her and rise to my feet. I want to hug her so badly, but I’m too scared to do that right now. I lock eyes with Sera. “Wait until I’ve been checked out before telling Ta—”
“No way.” She wags her finger at me. “I’m calling one of the First Division guys to come and get you. I don’t want anything happening on the walk over. You need an escort.” Sera bounces Ami up and down on her hip. Eventually, my daughter begins to settle, scrutinizing me with an intense gaze that reminds me of her father. “And there’s no way we’re keeping your husband out of the loop.” She makes a face, her expression half-amusement and half-terror. “That’s partly with my own self-preservation in mind. I’d rather not face the wrath of General Tarak al Akkadian, thank you very much.”
“But he’ll just—” I hesitate. After everything we’ve been through, Tarak has understandably become hypervigilant around Ami and I. If he suddenly finds out that I’m sick…
He’ll go nuts.
There’s a part of me that wants to handle this on my own. Tarak’s got enough on his plate. Surely this is as simple as going down to the med-bay, getting myself checked out, and trusting that the Kordolian medics are savvy enough to fix whatever this thing is.
But in our world, things like this rarely ever turn out to be straightforward. I have alien technology coursing through my veins. That’s not straightforward at all.
Maybe this is connected to the nanites in my bloodstream. That’s a scary thought.
“Abbey,” Sera says slowly, “sometimes it’s okay to let yourself be taken care of. You’re coughing up blood for Jupiter’s sake.”
I nod, unable to come up with a convincing argument against that. “Okay.” Slowly, I walk across to the other side of the room, separating myself from Sera and Ami.
Ami reaches out for me with her hand. “Mamda.” The word is followed by a string of babbling that rises and falls in pitch.
Her simple appeal tugs at my heart-strings. All I want to do is go to my baby and put my arms around her, but I can’t.
“It’s okay, sweetie. Auntie Sera’s going to play with you now. I shoot Sera a meaningful look. “Just make sure Ami gets checked out. You too,” I say, hiding my distress. “I want to be sure the two of you haven’t caught anything from me.” A dull ache has started in my chest. Every time I breathe in, it hurts. I’m scared. It terrifies me that whatever’s happening to me might also affect my child and my pregnant friend.
It terrifies me that Tarak’s going to learn about this. It will dig up old memories. Bad memories. Emotions that are still brittle and raw. He nearly lost me once. He never talks about it or reveals much of what he’s thinking, but I truly think that event changed something deep inside of him.
I do funny things to him, just as he does funny things to me. Good things. Powerful things. That’s how I have the strength to appear calmer than I feel, even as the pain spreads from my chest to my arms to my stomach. Even as I drop to my knees in agony. Ami’s crying again, and Sera’s yelling into her comm, demanding that someone get over here right now.
Damn, girl, this isn’t just some harmless little chest tickle you’ll get over in a few days.
This is serious. I can feel it in my bones, which are beginning to hurt like hell.
Chapter Six
Tarak
How does a traitor destroy an Empire? When the population is seething with resentment towards its masters, inciting rebellion is not so difficult.
It takes good intelligence networks, a generous amount of credits, and a little viciousness.
It takes a little planning, a bit of desperation, and a lot of risk.
It takes a disillusioned prince who is respected and loved by the people, a turncoat military force, and a silent assassin who has the ability to move between the fabric of space and time and strike at the very heart of the Empire.
Arm the slaves, servants, and commoners. Cut off supply lines. Empower subjugated populations on colonized planets. Force the enemy to stretch their defenses thin, bit by bit, so that by the time they finally realize their situation is perilous, it is too late.
Sow the seeds of chaos. Bury them in the ground. Let them lie dormant, just waiting to erupt.
Strike at the right time.
Revolutions only happen when the planets align. For every successful coup, there are a thousand failed ones, and the successful ones are never, ever clean.
The transfer of power happens over a knife’s edge. It can slip back over said edge very quickly. That is why we are here in the Pleasure Sector, dealing with a group of rebels who did not understand the message.
Did something get lost in fucking translation?
After a brief period of what I would refer to as minor fighting, the three of us have smashed our way through the poorly organized rebel forces and infiltrated their base.
For us, this kind of mission is child’s play.
Now I stare at their leader, looking down into his pale blue eyes. His hatred for me is obvious. It’s in his white pinpoint pupils, which could burn through me like tiny lasers—if I were susceptible to such things.
It’s easy to tell when a Soldar is angry. Just look at the eyes. The pupils always constrict.
“Let’s take a walk,” I say softly, nodding in the direction of stone garden. We are inside an abandoned pleasure house. The Soldar and his fighters have transformed the place into their stronghold, using the small, windowed office at the rear as a control room.
At first, he refuses to move. His dark grey scale-covered arms are crossed in front of him, and the sharp fins on his back are erect.
I say nothing further. I walk out the back door.
The chill wind caresses my face as my booted feet sink into fine black sand. Towers of polished grey stone rise out of the ground, reaching shoulder height. They have been carved into twisting, spiral-like sculptures that the Kordolians on Kythia consider aesthetically pleasing.
Ha. They know nothing of aesthetics. They have not visited Earth. They have not witnessed the incomparable beauty of that planet; beauty most Humans seem confoundingly oblivious to.
Bodies lie on the cold ground. A Soldar behind me, a Veronian to my left. There are more bodies lying in the convoluted passageways of the pleasure house. They are lying dead in the street, in the alley behind, and on the flat roof of the pleasure house. For the most part, they are the bodies of the rebels who tried to oppose us, but there are also Kordolians—both military and civilian—amongst the dead.
This stops, now.
There’s a soft crunch behind me as the Soldar’s footsteps betray his presence. He’s decided to follow me after all. Good for him.
“All of this was unnecessary,” I say, not bothering to turn around. “If only you had surrendered in the first instance, we would have spared them.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything less from a red-eyed devil.” He speaks perfect Kordolian, and his bitterness is like acid. “Go ahead and kill me. You won’t stop the revolution. There are billions upon billions of us and only millions of you.”
I stop and rub my temples, momentarily closing my eyes. An infernal headache has started to pound the back of my skull. It’s the kind of headache I used to get before I found Abbey.
Before she cured my mating fever.
It figures. It has been far too long since I’ve enjoyed her exquisite body.
“Soldar, you are wasting my time.” I suppress an aggravated sigh. I don’t want to be here. I want to be back on Silence with my wife and child. “I am only going to explain this to you once.”
As I turn to face him, the muffled sound of a discharging plasma gun reaches my ears. That would be Rykal or Kalan discouraging any foolish behavior from the remaining rebels.
The Soldar wants to kill me. It’s painfuly obvious. His ears are flat against his scaly grey skin, and his black lips are pressed together in a grim line. Anger and hatred pour off him like steam from a simmering volcano. He’s all the more enraged by the fact that he can’t.
Kill me, that is.
“Do you know me?” I pin him with a dark look. I do not like drawing attention to myself or my past deeds, but I need to get a certain concept into that thick skull of his. “Take a moment to think about it, Soldar.”
“I don’t know you,” he snarls. “You’re just another one of them. Why are you playing games with me, devil?”
I refuse to take the bait, contemplating him quietly, stretching the cold silence between us until it grows taut.
Finally, I speak. “Were you on Krunia when the capital fell?” I’m referring to his home planet, a humid, jungle-covered place where it is almost constantly raining. “Were you in the city-state of Dar-Kilun at the time?”
It’s most likely that he was. Most of the Soldar who are now on Kythia were stolen from Dar-Kilun, Krunia’s economic capital. We took many of their skilled ones as slaves.
The Soldar’s angry glare turns into one of poorly concealed suspicion.
Why is he asking me this? I can almost hear the thought forming inside his head.
“I was,” he says after a lengthy pause.
“Then you will remember what happened to Overlord Varkathus.”
“Y-yes.” His hairless brow creases, betraying his unease. “Kordolian savages murdered our leader before our very eyes. They have no honor. Varkathus did not deserve to die like that.”
I let his anger wash over me. It tugs at the sliver of remorse that exists inside me, pulling it to the surface. “Yes,” I agree, and the Soldar’s brow rises skywards in surprise. “The Overlord did not deserve to die in that manner, but do you understand what the true impact of his execution was?”
“Do not speak of our honorable leader as if he was some strategic piece in a game of makuvoth.” The Soldar is on the verge of violence. His long arms are shaking. His six-fingered hands are clenched into tight fists.
But we have taken his weapons away, and he has seen what we’re capable of, so he stays his hand.
“His death was a blow to the collective psyche of your people. As an instrument of subjugation, public execution is second-to-none.” My words are cold and dispassionate. They scrape the back of my throat. My headache is getting worse. It pounds in my temples and stabs behind my eyes.
Remorse gives way to regret, which paves the way for guilt.
These are such strange emotions. Human emotions. That is Abbey’s effect on me.
I remember standing over Varkathus’ limp body, my blade dripping with his cerulean blood. His head had rolled to a stop beside my boot. His eyes—the same vibrant blue color as his spilled blood—were staring up at me in sightless accusation.
What would my sweet Human mate think if she saw me in the m
idst of such a scene?
At the time, the wrongness of it all did not occur to me. I had the full might of the Kordolian Empire behind me. I was the Empire. I was invincible.
The Soldar takes a step back, his eyes widening in horrified recognition. “Y-you…”
I nod. “Now you know me.” He would have seen the footage that was broadcast across Dar-Kilun’s networks.
The hostility drains from him like a retreating tide. Fear replaces it. He can’t help it. After all, he is Soldar, and we have conditioned them to be afraid of us.
“The Universe is much bigger than you, General,” he says quietly, suddenly subdued. “You won’t control it forever. You can wipe us out on Kythia, but others will take our place.”
I take a slow, deep breath, trying to heed Abbey’s advice. “Try to be more reasonable and less… scary,” she has told me on more than one occasion. “You’ll be surprised at how receptive people can be when they aren’t terrified out of their wits.”
Apparently, I’m not very good at appearing reasonable.
It’s rather difficult when one’s head is being pounded by a fucking ice-pick and civilians lie dead in the streets. I should kill this upstart slave and all of his misguided followers. As the Humans say, an eye for an eye.
But I’m not going to do that, because it would defeat the purpose of what we’re trying to achieve here. Killing breeds hate, and hate leads to unending war.
I must break the cycle and show these slaves that things will be different in the new world order.
“I’m not going to kill you.” I turn away and begin to walk through the stone garden, motioning for the Soldar to follow.
I need to move. A dark tension is rising in me, and it takes all of my self-control to suppress it and appear calm. Movement helps release some of that tension.
The Soldar is sensible enough to follow, remaining a half-step behind me.
“I know everything about your waterlogged planet,” I say as we pass between two twisting stone sculptures. “I know that your people long to be free from servitude. My advice to you is this: leave Kythia.”