The Genesis Sequence Books 6-10

by Mackenzie Morris

  Krisharn hissed at him. "You don't have horns either."

  "But I have power. Limitless power. You could have this kind of power too, if you only wanted to work for it."

  "Are you calling me lazy, human?" The warbringer's fists tightened by his hips and the muscles in his neck bulged.

  "Prove that you're not."

  "What do you want me to do?"

  "Take the throne out from under your nephew. Take back what is rightfully yours. Think about it, friend. Aveni doesn't even go by his true name. He has taken the human name of Vance Trainor."

  "So?" The warbringer's stance relaxed momentarily. "He was living as a human in a human colony."

  "He married a man. Doesn't that make you enraged? Your empire has no queen for your warlord. Instead, it has a boy and his glorified concubine. Doesn't that bother you? The idea of two men ruling Azimandia?"

  Krisharn chuckled deeply and tapped his claws against his chest. "You humans have no idea of my culture, do you? Do you know what our warbringers do with rejected boys? Open a history book sometime in your life. If Aveni marrying a man makes you this uncomfortable, you'll be scared shitless at what you find about warbringers. On top of that, we are a very male-dominated society. I would rather have two competent males ruling the empire than one man and a woman who only slows him down and makes him question his judgments. Women are for breeding, not leading."

  At that, the women in the room began shouting their distaste in his comments, but Jonathan silenced their complaints with the hammering of his heavy gavel on the pulpit. "Enough. If we are wanting to extend a hand of friendship to Krisharn, then we must be tolerant of his cultural beliefs even if we do not support them. Please forgive their outburst, Krisharn."

  The warbringer only snorted.

  "Anyway, back to what I was saying. You are in a pristine position to seize Azimandia for yourself. If you want, I can permanently remove Aveni and Benjamin from your long list of issues that need to be dealt with. I kill the warlord of Azimandia and let you become the new warlord. In return, you work with me to bring an end to this war. No reparations. No punishments for your troops or your commanders. No territory loss. We call it quits where we are right now. Any disputed lands like Darkshot are divided equally. Any prisoners taken on both sides will be immediately released and transferred back to their prospective galaxies."

  "You sound desperate."

  "Not as desperate as Azimandia is." Jonathan laced his fingers together on his stomach. "My spies have informed me that someone disabled Tirlmayn's stockpile of weapons. The Azimandian Underground is filled with traitors who are doing all they can to kill you. And now your entire empire has fallen into the incapable hands of Vance Trainor, a half breed moron whose brain has been fried from years of drug addiction. If that's not desperation, I don't what is."

  "Typical human response."

  "I'm not sure what you mean by that, but I believe that this plan benefits both sides equally. We face a much bigger threat in this universe. We still have Olonictu to deal with. The Hive Queen is unpredictable and dangerous."

  Krisharn's ebony horns glinted in the light as he tilted his head to the side. "The Hive Queen? You are not allied with the Hive Queen?"

  "Not in the slightest. She has been sending her hive warriors to ravage my outposts, killing guards and slaughtering innocent citizens. I cannot stand for that."

  "I thought for sure that Elysia was working with Olonictu. Olonictu was once one of your human colonies."

  "That is true, but we were not aware that the planet itself was the Hive Queen."

  "I see." He nodded his head. "This is certainly a mutually-beneficial proposal. I am surprised. Most humans I have dealt with have been inherently greedy. I will agree to this cease-fire and peace treaty under one condition."

  "I'm listening."

  "I want to kill my nephew myself. I have a score to settle with Aveni. First, I will make him watch as I brutalize and torture his husband. Then I will slowly rip Benjamin's limbs from his body and bathe in his blood before turning on Aveni. I will have my revenge. And I will do it in private."

  "I think we can all agree to those terms. When do you want to do this?" Jonathan asked, scribbling down something on a notebook.

  "As soon as possible. Inside the prison is fine."

  "Wonderful. I'm looking forward to a new and peaceful era between Azimandia and Elysia."

  * * *

  Vance wrung his hands together as he paced around the small concrete cell. A few tense minutes dragged by before the sound of the first hit of the leather strap slapped against Ben in the room outside the steel door. He jumped with each impact as if he was the one being whipped. After five lashes, he heard the pained yelp of the voice he knew so well. Vance clenched his eyes closed and focused on counting. The hits came faster, drawing tiny gasps and mewling sounds from Ben.

  After the twentieth hit, everything quieted down outside the cell. It was that silence that worried Vance more than anything. Had Ben fallen unconscious from the beating? Was he actually terribly injured? Had something gone wrong? Ben was not hardened to torture like Vance was. Mixed with the abuse Ben had gone through at the hands of his father and the man who owned him as a slave, there was a possibility that he could have had a flashback. Vance's flood of thoughts and fears was interrupted when the cell door slid open then shut again.

  He turned around to see Ben standing there with his head bowed and his hands by his sides. His skin was glistening with sweat, the front of his jumpsuit was spotted with tears, and pink had grown around his wrists from where he had been restrained for the flogging.

  Ben shuffled forward, his shoulders slumped in defeat, to the back wall where he knelt down in the corner and held his arms around himself. He did not say a word, only held his face in one hand as the other moved behind him to rub his lower back.

  "Ben, are you okay?"

  "Just . . . give me a minute."

  "How bad was it?" Vance asked, rushing over to him. "Stand up and show me. Show me what they did to you."

  "My uncle didn't have me flogged just to hurt me. Something else happened out there."

  "Dear space, no! What did they do? Ben, what did they do to you? Tell me! I'll kill them. I'll kill them all."

  Ben held up his hand to silence him. "Stop. I'm fine. Nothing like that."

  "Show me what they did."

  Ben stood back up on his shaking legs to unbutton his jumpsuit and pull it down to reveal the marks from the flogging. "It's not bad."

  Vance stepped forward to gently touch his fingertips to the light pink welts. "This isn't near as bad as I feared. They didn't break the skin. Honestly, I can barely tell anything happened. Did it hurt?"

  "Yeah, but I think it was more for show than anything else. I think my uncle asked for mercy." Ben fixed his jumpsuit, but not before pulling something out from inside and holding it in his closed hand. "After it was over, my uncle came over and gave me something."

  "What did he give you?"

  "This." Ben opened his hand where a dimly glowing purple flower sat on his palm. "I think he had me flogged just so he could get close enough to me to give me this and tell me something."

  "That's a gravity flower! What did he say?"

  "One word. Dovei. What does that mean? Is it Latin?"

  "It's Azimandian. You're sure that's what he said to you?"

  Ben nodded his head.

  Vance took his husband's arm and pulled him close so he could whisper to him in case there was anyone close enough to the cell to hear them talking. "Dovei is the greeting of the Azimandian Underground. The agents of the Red Sand Rebels have adopted it as a code word to announce themselves as allies. Your uncle is on our side. What does your uncle do?"

  "I don't know. I've only met him once before. He was nice to me back then, but I was only seven or so. He got in an argument about religion with my father, gave me a turban and told me to wear it because he wanted me to grow up to be great like a warrior, then le
ft. I never saw him again. He's a half uncle. I think he's Arab, but he's from AX-97 like me. His mother was different than my father's. I think he works in finance or something like that. His name is Tamir."

  "Do you know anything else about Tamir?" Vance asked.

  "I know he hated my father."

  "Well, sounds like this Tamir is a great guy. But I'm not ready to blindly trust him. Keep that gravity flower hidden. I can use the nectar to activate my warbringer state again and help us get out of here if we get the chance. Where did Tamir get one, though? Those things don't just grow in prisons or out in the fields somewhere."

  "I don't know. Here. You take it." Ben handed him the flower then slid down to the floor, but grimaced from the welts. "Just leave me alone, please. I have a lot to think about. I don't want to do this anymore. I can't take another flogging."

  "You have four more to go. This wasn't bad at all."

  "But it's still humiliating and it does hurt. You wouldn't want to go through it either."

  "Think of it this way. You will get another chance for Tamir to tell you more. He could have other things to smuggle to you, things that could help us escape. I need you to be strong, Ben. I know you can be strong. You act like you're weak, like you're too delicate to deal with things, but I know you are more than that deep down. I need you now. I'm relying on you to help us get out of here. Our lives are in your hands, in your capability to withstand four more floggings. That's it. If your uncle made it such a point to put you through this, then I'm sure he has more things for you. He wants to help, so you have to do this. You don't have another choice, anyway. Either you go kicking and screaming, making it worse for yourself, or you face it like a man and do what needs to be done. I know you can do this. I can't believe I'm going to say this. What would your bible do?"

  Ben looked up at him with confusion written across his face. "What?"

  "That's what they say, right? That old Earth saying?"

  "It's 'What would Jesus do?'" Ben laughed and wiped away his tears on the backs of his hands. "You're an idiot, but a lovable idiot. In a strange way, you're right, though. My faith has gotten me through a lot worse than this"

  Heavy boots thudded against the concrete as the cell door scraped noisily along the dusty floor. Vance glanced back over his shoulder then nearly fainted from the sight. "K-Krisharn? What are you doing here?"

  The massive warbringer with the black horns slammed the door shut behind him and drew a two-feet-long machete from his back. "Securing the Azimandian Empire for its rightful warlord. Prepare yourself, Aveni. Bring Benjamin to me on his knees. He's first."

  Chapter 9

  The altered silver and black exosuit's hum was the only sound on the blue moon's chalky surface as Lucas's boots hit the edge of the abandoned parking lot. He removed the helmet that had been carved to look like it was made of feathers, then threw his head back to breathe in the oxygen-rich atmosphere and let the strong winds blow through his faded blue hair that had grown past his ears.

  With weary eyes, he stared off through the relatively short distance from the moon to the frozen planet of ZZ-90. Even from this far away, he could see the crevasses and icy cliffs over pools of glittering mercury where steam rose from the obvious volcanic activity.

  Lucas rested his gauntlet-clad hands on his hips and closed his eyes as he became lost in the expansiveness of space around him. He listened to his own heartbeat pounding against his ears, still racing from the run he had just taken around the entirety of the tiny moon. If he was to get back into fighting shape, he could not stop training. The army had ingrained that in him, even if he did fail every physical test they threw at him. If he could not get on their level, he would at least be the best version of himself he could be. He owed that to the people who counted on him. As the only person in the Red Sand Rebels with an exosuit, he knew they would be calling on him to do the jobs that no one else could do. He had to be prepared.

  Footsteps behind him on the pavement drew his attention to the eight-feet-tall blue-skinned Biromian in the black jumpsuit with the red cowboy hat. "Hey, Dallis."

  "Whatcha doing out here all alone, pet? You have to be cold."

  "Not really. The exosuit helps."

  "You should come inside with me. Neon, Derek, Sandra, and Slayven are facing off against Sawyer, Visht, Jezzien, and Kalimis in an epic game of eight-person renegade shuffle. You should really come check it out. I'm sure they could make room for us."

  "No, thanks. I'm fine out here."

  "Come on, pet. You can't stay out here forever." Dallis sighed, his four golden eyes softening as he put his arm around the back of Lucas's exosuit. "Look at yourself. You're not wearing your lip ring, you haven't re-dyed your hair so your roots are showing, and you look like you've lost another twenty pounds that you really did not have to lose in the first place. What's got you so down? All that stuff that happened to you back on Star-World Zero Alpha?"

  Lucas simply shook his head. There were no words he could speak that could explain the way he felt. After a few seconds of silence, a list of words did come to mind. Exhausted. Defeated. Hopeless. None of them were what Dallis wanted to hear, so he kept his mouth shut.

  "Listen to me, Lucas. Nothing they did to you back there matters. What does matter is that you lived through it. You came out on the other side. I'm not gonna give you some sappy speech about how you're better for going through it, that you're stronger or that it taught you some kind of feel-good life lesson. That's nilfu crap. You and I both know that they broke you. And the truth is? You're a lot worse than you were before. We all are. I wanted to give up. I probably should have given up. Hell, anyone in their right mind would have given up and faced their death at their own hands with dignity. But I didn't do that. Still don't know why I haven't killed myself. I'm sure you're feeling about the same way."

  "You have no idea."

  "Actually, yeah." Dallis removed his cowboy hat and rubbed his short black hair. "Yeah, I do. I think I of all of us here have the right to say I do know how you feel. I lost over fifty children. My home planet is gone. My race has been reduced to a handful of individuals scattered across the galaxies. So, yes, I do know what it feels like to be so downtrodden like you are now."

  "I didn't mean it that way."

  "I know, pet. I know. Don't worry. I'm too pissed off to get angry."

  "What does that even mean?"

  "No idea."

  Lucas managed a small snicker. "You're crazy."

  "That's not the first time I've heard that. Now, talk to me. What's really on your mind? Ruth? Your lost child? Your legs that don't work now? Losing Euro?"

  "All of the above. Plus, I'm just thinking about the future."

  "That's a dangerous line of thinking, pet." The Biromian replaced his hat on his head then crossed his arms. He looked up to watch the meteor shower streaking across the thin atmosphere above them. "I've found that it's pointless to think about the future when you don't even know what's gonna happen in the next minute. It's all one big gamble, you know? If you make plans to live another day, you could roll snake eyes and death comes to take you away before you even make it to breakfast. You gotta live for right now. You can't plan for the future and you can't change the past. The present is the only thing you can do anything about. So, what do you say? Wanna go steal Rav's Galaxy Glider and head out somewhere?"

  "Are you serious?" Lucas asked. "He would kill us."

  "Eh, I'm not scared of Rav. Plus, I have it on good authority that Sandra plans to stay here on this moon for a few days to save on fuel until she gets a plan together about where to go next. They won't miss us. I'm pretty sure no one would even notice we're gone. I can get Neon to fly the thing. Where do you wanna go? There should be enough fuel in there to get us to the next fueling station in any direction. We can head to a metropolis planet and enjoy the nightlife, we can go mountain climbing above a fault line that reaches down into a planet's core, or we can go dodge some asteroids. Your call."

  "
I honestly don't want to do anything. I need some time to go over my thoughts."

  "What did I just say about all that? At least come inside where I can know you're safe and not freezing to death or flying off through space. I'll make you some hot buttered rum. It's my specialty."

  Lucas sighed and smiled as he let Dallis guide him back towards the ship. "I guess a warm drink does sound good."

  "That's right, it does. You just relax and let this old Biromian take care of you."

  * * *

  Vance's fingers nearly crushed the delicate purple gravity flower in his hand as he watched Ben crawl on his hands and knees towards Krisharn. With the machete in the warbringer's hand and him being unarmed and starving from not having eaten in nearly two days, Vance was in no shape to go one-on-one against a massive warrior like Krisharn . . . even with the gravity flower nectar. He had to wait until the prime opportunity to strike. He hoped that the chance came before anything happened to Ben.

  Krisharn's nostrils flared and his fangs showed between his lips once Ben was kneeling at his feet. He ran his claws across Ben's newly-shaved head as a guttural growl boiled in his chest. "So timid. So scared. You truly are a feminine being, aren't you? Don't be insulted. There's nothing wrong with that. You are technically Azimandia's queen, after all. There is no title for the married male consort of the warlord."

  "Don't hurt him, Krisharn. I'm warning you."

  "Warning me? Warning me of what? That your weak little human body is going to be able to take me on? Don't make me laugh. Seriously, though. I don't like laughing unless it's sarcastic."

  "Are you here to kill us?" Vance asked.

  "What do you think, dearest little half breed nephew?"

  "Ben isn't a part of this. Let him go. If you're going to kill someone, kill me. Just assassinate me here and you get the throne. I'll let you." Vance held out his arms in surrender. "Go ahead. Just don't hurt Ben."

  "Oh, I'm going to hurt him, all right. He's getting the Queen's Eyes."