by Abel, Regine
“From the liveship after that mess on Jaylon?” Chaos asked.
“Yes,” Tabitha answered. “The one who saved Ayana’s life, and mine.”
My jaw dropped as I looked at the hybrids with new eyes. Things definitely weren’t what they seemed.
Chapter 14
Raven
I’d heard of Bane from Ayana after the unfortunate mess on Jaylon that had resulted in the death of Xenon and, if not for her Portal power, Chaos and I would have also died. I’d never seen Bane before, but I recognized the hybrid next to him from a video the General had sent us where Khutu taunted us as he murdered a young Warrior and his Soulcatcher. Hybrids were the results of forced breeding on Soulcatchers captured by the Kryptids during raids. Such occurrences were few and far between nowadays, but in the early days of humans joining the Vanguard, too many of them had been lost due to a lack of proper training and questionable protocol. From what little we knew, the General genetically modified the Soulcatchers with both Kryptid and Gomenzi Dragon DNA in order for them to bear his offspring. He’d intended for them to grow to be his personal version of Xian Warriors who would be loyal to him.
Like the other two hybrids, Bane mainly took after his mother with a human body and a mostly human face. Black scales similar to our golden ones covered his chest and back. Blond, wavy hair hung down to his shoulders, split in the middle by a V-shaped protective shell that blended into the base of his nose bridge. A smaller version of the Kryptids’ rhinoceros beetle horn decorated the top of that protective shell. His multifaceted eyes roamed over the females in the room, five of which had been liberated from the organic membrane’s bonds. The small mandibles framing his human lips parted as he grimaced in annoyance.
“We need to move faster. If the Kryptids try to contact those two idiots,” Bane said, gesturing with his head at the guards’ corpses, “they’ll come rushing in here before we’re gone. As soon as you’ve freed our remaining seven females, get on the ship and go.”
One of the Scelks responded in his clicking language, which Bane seemed to understand. The elder in Hepon’s village had been right; there would be no freeing their hosts. The bug had quite literally fused with the spine of the Janaurian. The scorpion tail now extended past the lower-back, into a long, lethal weapon. The bulging brain of the Scelk, covering the length of its scorpion body, had deflated by half as it probably no longer—or barely—used it anymore, having a much bigger one in his new Janaurian body. The shell covering the original Scelk’s brain and body had thickened and hardened, looking like plate armor. Black, chitin scales fanned out along the Janaurian Scelks spines, shoulders, over their bald heads, and around part of their faces. Their golden eyes were now pitch black, devoid of any white.
“Torment, be on the lookout for incoming Kryptids. The guards are dead. We have hybrids and Scelks here that we may need to fight,” Chaos said.
I immediately felt uneasy about the prospect of attacking any of the three hybrids. While we still didn’t know whether they were friend or foe, a couple of incidents had shown them to be potential allies, or at least having no allegiance to the General. But above all, standing in their presence, I felt the same instinctive bond as with any of my Xian brothers. Like us, the hybrids possessed Gomenzi Dragon blood, inherited from their mothers. The main trait of those magnificent creatures was their undying loyalty to those they considered their people. Unless one of them harmed one of our women or another Xian Warrior, I didn’t think I’d be able to strike against them. My Gomenzi instincts would forbid it.
The Scelks, though, were entirely fair game.
“I don’t know if I can,” Steele said. “The hybrids…”
“I feel it, too,” Chaos said when Steele’s voice trailed off. “Hopefully, it won’t come to that.”
“What… what if we want to stay with our sisters?” one of the freed Janaurian females asked.
Bane turned towards her, his face, alien yet so similar to ours, taking on a surprisingly soft expression. He cupped her cheeks in his hands, utterly human but for some black scales on their backs and around the wrists.
“Sumin, you are no longer Janaurian,” Bane said in a gentle voice. He carefully traced some of the chitin plates that now graced the side of her neck and part of her chest. “If you stay here, all that see you will be reminded of what happened, and that you are now part Scelk. You will be an outcast. We will not take you against your wishes, but you are one of us now; a survivor of the General’s experiments. The galaxy will hate and fear you for it. With us, you will be fully accepted as you are now.”
“But accepted for what?” another transformed Janaurian female asked. “To mate with them?” she added, pointing a finger with obvious repulsion and anger at the Scelks.
The Scelks flinched and even appeared hurt by her words.
“No one will force you to do anything, least of all molest you,” Bane said forcefully. “The General had you modified to become their mates and breed the first naturally born sentient Scelk. If you allow it, they will want to woo you to earn your favors. But if you want to be left alone, they will obey your wishes or face my wrath.”
I exchanged a confused look with Chaos. I’d assumed he was recovering these females for his father. But General Khutu wouldn’t give his creations a choice. I was starting to think Ayana had been right with her assumption that, instead of the formidable army he believed he was creating, the General was building the resistance to his own reign within his ranks.
Liena’s hand slipped into mine. “He’s not the monster I imagined.”
“I guess not,” I said, giving her a psychic caress.
Bane’s head jerked in our direction, and his multifaceted eyes narrowed.
“What is it, brother?”
Bane’s gaze roamed over our location, unable to see us through our camouflage. But he no doubt was starting to feel the weight of so many eyes observing him.
He shook his head, but I could see suspicion had taken root and wouldn’t leave him now.
“Get our sisters to the ship,” Bane said to his hybrid brother. “Those who choose to come with us,” he added, looking at the modified females. “Go, now.”
“Orders?” Steele asked Chaos.
“I say let them go with the modified females,” I said. “His arguments are valid.”
“Agreed. But he’s not taking the others,” Chaos replied.
Bane and his crew quickly released the Scelk-modified females and herded them towards the elevator while two of the Scelks dragged the Kryptid corpses out of the cabin. The elevator flew up carrying the females, one Scelk and one hybrid. As soon as it left, Bane spoke to the four remaining Scelks and the other hybrid in their clicking tongue. We still hadn’t managed to decipher it, an even more complex language than Navajo. We had limited recordings of it and obviously no dictionary or grammar book.
They all suddenly armed their weapons and turned towards us.
“Shields up!” Chaos ordered. “Weapons set to highest stun.”
I pushed Liena behind me and raised my fist before my chest, the rectangular energy shield forming in front of me. With Chaos and Steele by my side, our shields touching formed a protective wall. The women at our backs had their own shields up and their blasters trained on Bane’s crew.
“Show yourselves,” Bane commanded.
“Camouflage dropping,” Chaos warned.
Continuing to hide would serve no further purpose. It would simply antagonize them. And right now, our dragon blood didn’t agree with us harming the hybrids.
The Scelks hissed upon seeing us. When my companions blinked and shook their heads, I realized the Scelks were blasting us with their dream walk. I activated my psychic disruptor at the same time Bane raised his hand in a stopping gesture for his unit. He spoke his clicking tongue to them, his eyes still locked on us. Despite his effort to keep a neutral expression, I didn’t miss his shock upon seeing the women.
One of the Scelks clicked angrily at Bane, poi
nting at us with a head gesture. Bane’s gaze ran over us, then dropped to my weapon’s belt. An amused smile stretched his lips.
“Clever little Warriors,” he said in a mocking tone. “You can disable it. They will not mess with your pretty heads.”
“Call it insurance,” I said.
“Insurance? When it would prevent your Soulcatchers from rescuing you, should the need arise?” he challenged. “It would be a shame to permanently lose the first trueborn Warrior.”
How the fuck did he know that?
“Is that a threat?” I asked.
“Merely curiosity,” he deadpanned. “Drop your shields; you are not our targets today.”
“Drop your weapons, and we might,” Chaos countered.
To our collective shock, Bane spoke the Kryptid language to his team and returned his blaster to its holster. The Scelks stared at him in shock, but nevertheless complied with a confused look on their faces. Not surprisingly, the other hybrid appeared as relieved as we all felt that, at least for now, no battle would take place between us.
Bane clasped his hands behind his back and lifted his chin defiantly. Chaos dropped his shield and holstered his blaster. The rest of us followed suit. The hybrid leader had displayed a great deal of trust—although some might call it recklessness.
“We have no quarrel with you,” Bane said. “Our business here is done, and we need to depart immediately before we’re discovered. We’ll leave the rescue of these females to your good care,” he concluded, waving at the remaining Janaurians.
“Kind of you,” Chaos said, “but we can’t let these Scelks go. They are too big a threat.”
Bane’s expression hardened, losing any of its taunting edge. “To the Kryptids, yes. You have nothing to fear from them.”
“Their hosts and the parents who have lost their children would disagree with that assertion,” I said.
“Unfortunate collateral damage,” Bane said. “It cannot be undone, but it will not occur again.”
“How do we know that?” I challenged.
“You have wiped out all the fledglings, and the mature Scelks have destroyed the crates containing the enhanced larvae,” he answered. “There will be no more parasites. If any other Scelk enters this world, it will be through natural birth following a consensual mating with one of the modified females.”
“Good to hear, but it doesn’t change their nature,” I countered. “Even now, they’re itching to fight us. They are intrinsically evil.”
“Evil?” Bane snapped, taking one menacing step towards me. “What is evil? And who are you to judge? For six years the General has been torturing and experimenting on the Janaurians. You knew, and yet you did nothing. Where the fuck were you?”
“We’re here now,” Chaos snapped back.
Bane snorted. “You are indeed, a few days before the arrival of the most massive Coalition fleet assembled since the battle for Earth. Such fire power for such a primitive, underpopulated planet doesn’t say rescue to me, but rather annihilation. Tell me I’m wrong?”
Shame burned in my guts, his words echoing those I’d been torturing myself with for months. “We are here to prevent it.”
“You could have prevented it sooner.” His voice cracked like a whip. I felt like a child getting chastised by my father. “And yet, you allowed it for years because the Janaurians were of no value to your precious Coalition. You’re all so high and mighty in your self-righteous belief that anyone not part of your elite club is either bad or worthless. The Scelks didn’t ask to be created any more than any of us did. But they are here, and like every living creature, they will fight for their survival. They are my people now, and we will protect them.”
“Your people or the General’s?” Chaos asked.
“Do you think the General would approve this?” Bane asked sarcastically, indicating the the Kryptid corpses with his chin. “Or what is happening topside? We are—”
Bane froze, his multifaceted eyes making it impossible to guess what was going through his mind.
“Chaos! You’ve got a lot of incoming,” Wrath said. “Drones and Soldiers.”
“Torment,” Chaos said, “remain hidden and out of their paths. You’re too few.”
“Acknowledged.”
Bane snapped out of his daze and immediately launched into barking orders in the Kryptids’ clicking language. He then turned to his hybrid brother. “Dread, inject the females. Xians, there’s a Swarm coming. Disable that fucking disruptor.”
The Scelks and Dread rushed to free the females from the liveship membranes holding them captive.
“What is that?” one of the Janaurians asked, eyeing with fear a hypodermic syringe Dread and one of the Scelks held in their hands as they approached them.
“The Kryptids have started modifying you. It’s early enough in the process that this will revert it,” Dread said, waving the syringe. “You might have some mild fever and stomach ache over the next couple of days, but nothing significant.”
“And then we’ll be able to return to our normal lives again?” another female asked.
“Yes,” Dread said, starting to inject them then touching the membrane holding them in a specific pattern to release the females. “For now, go stand in the back. There are Kryptids coming. No matter what happens, stay behind the shield I’ll set up in a minute.
We assumed our battle forms, and I disabled the disruptor.
“Send your females to the back with the others,” Bane said to us although he stared at Tabitha.
“We fight,” Tabitha said with her usual hard tone and activated her shield. “Liena, go with the others.”
Bane’s eyes shifted to Liena. “What is she?”
“That’s none of your business,” I snapped.
Liena caressed my arm, careful not to cut herself on my spikes, then moved to join the Janaurian females at the back. Bane smirked and began shifting. Like us, his scales thickened and broadened, spreading over his chest and shoulders, and covering his head like a helmet. Vicious-looking spikes protruded around his forehead. Unlike us, Bane didn’t grow a scythed-limb above his forearm, but a pair of obsidian spears. Instead of our frilled membranes in the back, he grew a pair of bug wings that looked deceptively fragile and semi-translucent, but that I suspected were in fact razor-sharp blades. By their length, I assumed they also allowed him to fly. His scorpion tails were positioned higher up on his shoulder blades to accommodate his wings. The tips of his scorpion tails differed from ours. Although as threateningly sharp, they appeared hollow, like something could come out of it.
“A Kryptid is sending down the Swarm. There’s a shit ton of them,” Torment said.
“Acknowledged,” Chaos said.
Dread threw a small, silver sphere on the ground which erected an energy field in front of the females. I had heard of those shield generators, but the schematics to create them had been lost decades ago during the raid that had led to Dr. Xi’s death. We had tried to recreate them but had only succeeded with a lesser version which quickly depleted whenever they took damage.
“How the fuck does he have that technology?” Chaos asked.
None of us ever had a chance to answer the question as the elevator chimed and its doors parted, vomiting the infernal horde of a Drone Swarm. They descended upon us with a rabid fury, their thick, hairy, spider legs climbing over each other to get at us. Our women and the Scelks fired their blasters at the creatures. I couldn’t tell if the Scelks were attempting to mind fuck the Drones. But if they were, it didn’t seem to work. With Chaos and Steele on my left, and Bane and Dread on my right, we formed a wall, pushing the Drones back by bashing them with our shields. We hacked away at them with our scythed-limbs and the hybrids’ arm-spears. Our throats worked endlessly, firing poisoned darts, piercing through their chitin armors. Our scorpion tails stabbed and slashed.
But for every Drone we downed, three more came at us. Our shields were depleting much too fast. Steele’s shield collapsed first. Bane threw do
wn a shield sphere, erecting a similar defensive wall before us as Dread had for the Janaurian females. With so many Drones battering it, the shield collapsed within seconds, but it had been enough for our women to toss us their shields.
“Two dozen Kryptids have entered the building,” Wrath said. “Torment’s unit is helping us take them out. The Scelks are also fighting the Kryptids. Hang in there. We’ll come help you soon.”
Except, we probably wouldn’t last long enough.
Dread and Bane’s shields had collapsed, but they had no Soulcatcher to get a second one from. Breaking away from us, the hybrid brothers stabbed savagely at the Drones with their spears. Between blows, they spun on themselves, wings spread wide. They sliced through the bugs like the sharpest of blades, but at a great cost to themselves. Blood trickled all over them from countless cuts. I used my shield to bash the face of one of the Drones attempting to backstab Dread, then severed two of its front legs with my scythed-limbs while it recoiled from the blow. But even as it recovered, the bug thrust its spear at my face. It never reached me as Chaos beheaded the creature before turning to another target.
For a moment, I believed the tide had turned in our favor, and then all our shields dropped. Steele was the first to die. Diane caught his soul and continued to fire away at the fifty plus remaining Drones. I should have died second but Chaos shoved me out of the way, getting himself critically stabbed in the side by the spear that had been aimed at me. Although he didn’t die—yet—it would likely only be a matter of minutes. It was one of the Scelks who ended up dying second, caught by a Drone that dragged him into the midst of the Swarm that proceeded to decimate him.
Bane, Dread, and I were doing our best to keep the Drones from finishing Chaos when the chime of the elevator resounded. The door parted on the blessed sight of Torment, Wrath, their units, and a handful of Scelks. Surrounded, the bugs didn’t stand a chance. That didn’t stop them from fighting with the same unleashed fury, enhanced by desperation. As we were taking down the last few Drones, one of them leapt over the corpses of its kin. I cut it in half with my scythed-limb. The momentum carried it forward, its severed torso jerking with the erratic twitch of its death throes.