Prenzal nodded as if he did not believe him, and walked away without a word.
Saran, the matriarch of the Draell-nar, approached him. When she smiled in greeting, only the left half of her mouth lifted. Her face was more thickly scarred than the others; from what he had been told, she always volunteered to take other people’s shifts when they were too sick to work, and she had received more exposure to radiation than most.
It had been a brutal life they lived, mining precious minerals for Sekari on moons that were so dangerous that most Draell refused to go near them. However, since the Draell-nar were a clan who could not shift, Sekari considered them inferior, and for generations his family had banned them from Duscoria and consigned them to a hellish existence
That was until the brutal cyborg attack they’d suffered a few months ago, which had wiped half of them out. Kodran and his fleet had been in the vicinity at the time, so Sekari had sent them to deal with it, but he hadn’t liked what Kodran had found. That was when Kodran had been forced to make some hard decisions, and to move his clan to a new world.
The Draell-nar had been hiding in the bowels of the Sky Reign clan’s massive star-cruiser for months now, while Kodran’s family prepared the caverns for them to hide in.
“Saran, how are you doing?” he asked.
He hated to leave them down here, and he had no idea when, or even if, it would be safe for them to come out. His family had prepared the caverns as best they could, with lighting, and de-humidifiers, and temperature control, but still…it was not like enjoying the open air.
“Quite well, for a dead woman,” she said. All of the Draell-nar were dead now – as far as the rest of the galaxy knew. They’d been wiped out in a cyborg attack months ago.
“You look most healthy for a dead woman,” he agreed.
“Is there any word, my liege?”
He managed a smile. He would not take out his foul mood on her; she’d suffered enough. It still burned him inside to know that Sekari had kept the Draell-nar’s existence hidden from the other Draell for all those years. Kodran would have done something to intervene, if only he’d known.
“I am your friend, not your liege, and you would have done the same for my people if our positions were reversed. And I’m afraid I don’t have any answers yet. We have contacts within the federation. Apparently, Sekari has reported his version of events to them, and they are launching an investigation. I expect to hear from their delegates soon. We will decide what to do when the delegates arrive. Depending on how the conversation goes, we may reveal the truth to them.”
Saran looked at him with alarm. “Won’t that put you at risk?”
She was still thinking of others, even after all the danger her people had faced and everything they’d been through.
“We will be fine,” he said firmly. “And I will not force you to live in hiding for the rest of your lives.”
“And…our saviors?”
He nodded. “I am going to visit them next, but my understanding is that the medical treatments are working.”
He could see the relief on her face as he took his leave. It lightened his mood a little, and he wanted to rush to tell Rosamund about his visit here and share everything with her – but he couldn’t. And just like that, everything felt dark and gloomy again.
He emerged from the caverns, blinking in the sun, but without the promise of Rosamund being by his side, he could barely feel the warmth.
Chapter Fourteen
Late that morning, while Kodran was leaving the caverns, Rosamund and Dot-R were strolling through the gardens behind Kodran’s mansion. The serv-bot chaperone was hovering by the edge of grove, watching. If Rosamund left, she’d be by Dot-R’s side in seconds. She apparently took her job as a chaperone very seriously, although all she seemed to be able to say was, “Does not compute.” Dot-R couldn’t stand her.
The garden was a riot of color. It had been laid out formally, with beds dug in maze-like patterns through which visitors could wander, but the flowers and foliage of this world were too exuberant to be contained like that. They spilled over the edges of the borders and tangled together in mad multi-colored chaos. Insects buzzed and whirred and clicked among the flowers. Plants with vivid, trumpet-shaped blossoms turned their heads to follow their body-heat as they passed.
“It is aesthetically pleasing,” Dot-R observed, looking around.
“Yeah, sure,” Rosamund said glumly. “If you say so. I’m not really in the mood to appreciate it right now.”
“I believe your mood is about to get worse,” Dot-R said, peering around a row of hedges.
“Not possible.”
“Human female!” an arrogant voice bellowed from behind the hedges. It was Sekari.
Argh. Dot-R was so annoying when she was right. Why had Mar-ee and Far-ex built a “smirk” function into her programming?
It was incredibly annoying that Sekari and his men were still there, but apparently he’d landed his ship near the Draell’s new city and was staying there for the time being. According to Lina, Kodran had not yet kicked them off the planet because it would cause a diplomatic incident.
“Here to tell more lies?” she snapped as Sekari stalked up to her and blocked her path. As usual, his retinue trailed behind him.
He frowned in displeasure. “No, I am here with a proposal.”
“The answer is no.”
“You haven’t heard my proposal,” he said icily.
“Still no.”
“We are not interested,” Dot-R added.
He gave her a look of scornful dismissal. “My proposal wasn’t directed at you.”
“Don’t insult my robot friend.” Rosamund glared at him.
“Yes, I am quite dangerous when angered,” Dot-R said. “Laser fingers. Don’t make me point them at you.”
He ignored her, focusing his attention on Rosamund. “You are not yet formally wedded to Kodran. I need a mate who can bear my children, and your physical appearance indicates that you are quite fertile.”
Oh joy. Just what every woman wanted to hear – “You’ve got childbearing hips, all right.”
Sekari droned on.
“I am far wealthier than Kodran, and furthermore, Kodran will soon be in prison facing death penalty charges. You do not wish to associate with him.”
She went cold at the thought of anything happening to Kodran.
“Or perhaps, if you leave with me right now and agree to be my mate, I will not pursue charges against Kodran. I have a lot of influence in the Galactic Federation.”
“Charges for what?”
“That is none of your affair.” He reached out to touch her arm.
When his fingers brushed her skin, she felt a wave of revulsion, and jumped back.
“Don’t touch me!” she spat at him.
His eyes blazed with fury at the insult. “You ungrateful cow,” he hissed. “I will make you regret this.”
She turned and hurried off, with Dot-R hurrying behind her. The thought of being with any man besides Kodran made her physically ill.
“Dot-R, I have been a fool,” she told her robot companion.
Dot-R shrugged. “Well, you are human, so that seems like a foregone conclusion.”
“Kodran and I are meant to be together, right?”
Dot-R looked at her askance. “Well, I—”
“So,” Rosamund continued, “I can’t just give up. When you choose to be with someone, it’s for better or for worse. If we have problems, I shouldn’t just run off and abandon him, right? I need to figure this out on my own.”
“Actually, I—”
“Thanks, Dot-R, you’ve been incredibly helpful!” she said cheerfully.
“I have?” Dot-R stared at her. “I mean, of course I have. You would be lost without me. Remember to tell my parental units that.”
“Actually, speaking of being lost without you, do you have a local map function? Because I need you to guide me somewhere. And we can’t tell anyone.”
“Are we going to do something forbidden?” Dot-R asked hopefully. “I have not misbehaved in days, ever since you forced that awful chaperone on me.”
“Whatever. We can take her with us. We just can’t tell Kodran.” Rosamund was cheering up enormously now. She had a plan. What could possibly go wrong?
* * * * *
“I’ve never hijacked a ship before,” Dot-R said excitedly as they landed.
She was maybe enjoying this a little too much.
Rosamund, on the other hand, was wondering if she’d made a mistake.
It was only a little ship, one of the skimmers, and really they had only borrowed it. And nobody had said they couldn’t, Rosamund reminded herself as they climbed out of the ship. Of course, they hadn’t asked if it was okay to take it, and that was because Kodran would of course have said no, but she was going to take it right back.
She’d asked Dot-R to access her memory banks and take them back to the place where Kodran’s star cruiser had first landed.
Now they were standing in a thickly forested valley, and she wasn’t sure what they were looking for.
There was a massive area of vegetation that had been flattened and scorched when the ship had landed, so she knew Dot-R had brought them to the right place.
She had assumed that she would have seen some buildings. A medical center or hospital, some houses, warehouses, something…but there was no sign of life here. There were tall trees in strange shapes and colors, draped in vines or giant snakes or possibly both. She listened carefully. All she heard was the screech and caw of alien beasts.
“I’m sure he dropped the medical equipment off here,” she said. “He must have. He bought medical equipment, he made the first landing, wouldn’t let me out of the room so I wouldn’t see what he was doing, and the second time he landed, he let me out right away. I would have seen if he’d unloaded the equipment near the Draell colony.”
“That makes sense,” Dot-R said.
“But then where is it?” She shaded her eyes with her hand. She saw purple monkey-looking creatures swinging from tree to tree, and enormous butterflies flapping through the sky. She even saw a few Feerbas hanging from tree branches, and she waved at them. They waved back.
“They have braids in their hair,” she said in surprise. “We’re nowhere near the group of Feerbas I taught how to braid hair. They even braided in flowers like I showed those other Feerbas.”
“Yes, they have kind of a hive mind,” Dot-R said. “They’re small and weak and they can’t fight back against big predators, so they developed these psychic abilities, like communicating with other Feerbas all across the planet. Once a Feerba learns a new skill, they broadcast it to all the other Feerbas. I learned about it from the Draell’s computer. I’ve been studying every day.”
“On purpose?” Rosamund said in surprise.
Dot-R scowled. “I got bored. Since I’m not allowed to get into any trouble or hang out with boys.” Then she stamped her foot. “This doesn’t mean my parental units were right. I don’t miss them at all.”
“I didn’t say you did.”
“And I’m not going back home. Ever.”
Rosamund shrugged. “Hey, you’ve got laser pointer fingers, it’s not as if I could force you. So I guess you’ll just stay here. With a chaperone for a few more years. Then you can do whatever you want. Travel to another galaxy, even.”
“Another galaxy?” Dot-R looked at her in alarm. “I wonder if my parental units would be safe with me so far away.”
“Who knows? Who cares? The important thing is that you’d be totally independent and you’d never even have to see them again. Right?”
“Yes,” Dot-R replied uncertainly. “That is the important thing. I think.”
Rosamund stifled a secret smile.
She began pacing around the flattened-out area where the ship had landed, but she found no clues. Finally, she found a felled tree and sat down on it. “I don’t know what to do,” she said. “I thought if I found out the truth on my own, I could reassure myself that Kodran wasn’t really collaborating with cyborgs. Then Kodran wouldn’t have broken whatever vow of secrecy he made, and I could stay here.”
“What will you do now?” Dot-R asked.
“Good question.”
“If only you had asked me to scan the area for sentient life forms, we might have solved this mystery,” Dot-R said, sitting down next to her.
“You can do that?” Rosamund said in surprise.
“Of course. I assumed you knew.”
“Can you scan the area now, then?”
Dot-R gave her an annoyed look. “Yes. I just told you I can.”
Rosamund stifled the urge to groan in frustration. “Dot-R, scan the area for sentient life forms,” she ordered her.
“Good heavens. I thought you would never ask,” Dot-R said, shaking her head in bemusement at the foolishness of humans.
Dot-R stood up, and her eyes began to glow. After about thirty seconds, she nodded.
“There are sentient life forms underground. They appear to be Draell, although I sense some kind of genetic anomaly. Since I have been stuck here with that stupid chaperone, I have accessed the Draell’s computers and I have been studying the species. I believe the genetic signature indicates they are an offshoot of the Draell called the Draell-nar, believed to be inferior by the Draell leaders because they cannot shift. Accessing my data banks… A report on the Galactic News Network reported that the Draell-nar were believed to be extinct, but then it was discovered that there was a group of them living on a mining moon. It was only discovered after they sent a signal for help several months ago, right before they were all wiped out by a cyborg attack.”
A thought occurred to Rosamund. “What color scales do they have?”
“Blue scales.”
Aha. The woman and child on the ship must have been Draell-nar, then.
“They appear to be in some kind of tunnel system underground,” Dot-R said. “There are seventy-six of them.”
“The more answers I’m getting, the more questions I have,” Rosamund said, exasperated. So…there was a whole group of Draell-nar, hiding underground. Why did they have to hide? They hadn’t done anything wrong, from what Dot-R was saying.
And what did this have to do with cyborg-repairing equipment?
“You could ask Kodran,” Dot-R said. “He is about to land.”
“What?” Rosamund cried. She leaped to her feet.
Damn those silent skimmers. Dot-R was right. One of them was settling into the vegetation nearby, and she hadn’t even heard it.
A door opened in the side of the skimmer, and Kodran, Prenzal, and several other Draell came running over. Kodran looked worried and Prenzal looked furious.
They ran over to Rosamund and Dot-R.
“You should not have come here!” Prenzal yelled, his face red with anger. Smoke streamed from his nostrils, and his pupils turned into vertical slits.
Before Rosamund could answer him, there was a whistling sound.
“Incoming!” Kodran shouted, and hurled himself on top of Rosamund, covering her with his body.
Something exploded near them. “Dot-R!” Rosamund cried.
The air smelled funny. It tasted funny. Waves of dizziness rolled over her, and Rosamund felt Kodran go limp on top of her, right before everything winked out and went dark.
Chapter Fifteen
Consciousness returned slowly. Rosamund was lying face down on soft, mossy ground. Her head felt fuzzy and there was a weird metallic taste in her mouth. She swallowed hard, several times, and forced herself to stay as still as possible while she assessed the situation.
Whoever had done this to them had used some kind of chemical weapon, from a distance. They could have killed them, but had instead chosen to immobilize them.
How long had they been there? Would Kodran’s clan come looking for them soon? Did they even know where Kodran was?
She couldn’t afford to panic. She took
slow, steady breaths, and tried to think of reasons to be hopeful.
The skimmers could all be tracked, which was probably how Kodran had found her and Dot-R. So the clan could find them…assuming they were still in the same place…but would it be in time?
And were Kodran and Dot-R still alive?
She concentrated hard, opening her mind the same way she had when she’d first put her hand on Kodran’s broad, strong chest. Faintly, she felt him. He was near, and he was alive. Relief flooded through her. Her heart’s fire was still alive.
It was amazing how naturally the thought came to her. He was hers. She was his. If they survived this, she would not leave him.
Then she began to worry again. Where was Dot-R? Shouldn’t she be yelling and cursing and threatening?
There were men speaking. As the fog in her head lifted, their voices became clearer.
"Sekari better hurry the hell up. Kodran’s family’s going to be looking for him soon. I want to blast off,” Darfan said. "And I still say we should have killed him and his men while we had the chance. They’re dangerous.”
So Sekari was behind this. She didn't know what he had against Kodran, but she hoped to survive long enough to see him burn for it
“Not worth it,” one of the other men grunted. “If it were ever found out that we killed them without due process and without a proper death challenge, the entire Draell race would declare war on us. If Sekari wants them dead, he can kill them when he gets here.”
As Rosamund lay there, she heard someone’s boots crunching through the leaves as he walked towards her, and then she felt a hard kick in the leg. She stifled a cry of pain. “That’s for kicking me in the balls, you bitch.”
She climbed to her feet and glared at Darfan.
He had fifteen men with him. They were all armed to the teeth and scanning the grove with suspicious looks on their faces.
The Draell were scattered around on the ground, unconscious. Kodran was lying face down. Prenzal. Six other members of Kodran’s clan. And Dot-R, who lay flat on her back, arms by her sides. Dot-R wasn’t moving.
The Dragon Claims His Treasure (Starcrossed Dating Agency) Page 10