Rosamund stared at her in alarm. Why was Dot-R disabled too? A chemical attack shouldn’t affect her.
Darfan followed her gaze, sneering.
“Your little robot friend mouthed off to us, so we shorted her circuits with a pulse gun. Maybe she’ll recover, maybe she won’t.”
White-hot rage flowed through Rosamund’s veins as she stalked up to Darfan. “Lukan is going to fucking kill all of you,” she said with a cold smile, glancing at Darfan’s men. They looked away, avoiding her gaze.
Darfan snorted. “With what Sekari is paying me, I can run far enough that he’ll never find me.” He glanced at his men. “Us,” he added quickly. “He’ll never find us.”
One of his men scowled at him. “We hope he won’t.”
“It’s not like the Federation will help him,” Darfan said in a wheedling tone. “They might even support us. We’re helping Sekari capture a traitor who collaborated with cyborgs.”
“Oh, bull-pucky,” Rosamund snapped. “He would never.”
Darfan raked Rosamund with his cold gaze. “What do you know about the physiology of cyborgs? Their flesh is not self-repairing, so when they’re injured, there are only two ways to replace it. One, strip the flesh from living beings. Or two, grow the flesh in a vat, using highly specialized equipment. When your big scaly lover came to Agora, he was using Starcrossed as a cover. He knew that he could get the equipment on the black market there, so he signed up with us as a client to give him an excuse to be on the planet.”
“No.” Rosamund felt faint. Could that possibly be true?
“Sir,” one of his men said.
“Not now, Temra,” Darfan said irritably. “You want to know why Sekari is after Kodran?” he sneered at Rosamund. “Because a couple of months ago Sekari sent Kodran to Mining Outpost R-375 to save a group of Draell who were being attacked by cyborgs. And instead of saving the Draell, Kodran killed all the miners and collaborated with the cyborgs. And he’s hiding them out here, and repairing them.”
Rosamund already knew that a bunch of the Draell-nar were alive and underground, so she knew that Darfan was lying. Or he had been lied to by Sekari.
She was starting to suspect that Kodran had rescued the Draell-nar and was hiding them for good reason.
“Sir, this is serious.” Temra’s tone was urgent.
“I said not now!” Darfan barked at him, and his face went hairy. Fangs shot from his gums.
“The Draell, sir! She’s awake – they should be awake too.” Temra pointed at Kodran and his clanmates.
A look of alarm crossed Darfan’s face, and his hand drifted to the laser pistol at his waist. “Maybe…maybe the knockout gas affected them differently because they’re a different species.”
“No. Their metabolism is faster than hers. So why aren’t they awake?”
“We are,” Kodran said, leaping to his feet. “We just wanted to see how much intel we could gather while you fools ran your mouths.”
All the other Draell scrambled to their feet as well.
Before they had time to shift, Temra pointed at the sky. “It’s Sekari!” he yelled.
Overhead were a couple of dozen Draell, flying through the sky.
Kodran grabbed Rosamund. “Run!” he shouted to his compatriots.
He ran straight for what appeared to be a solid wall of vines…which slid aside for him. The other Draell ran after him, one of them carrying Dot-R, right as their entire world turned to fire.
Chapter Sixteen
The Vulfans screamed in agony, and Rosamund smelled burning flesh. She retched as Kodran ran through the door. The air around them was roasting hot, and sweat poured down her face. She felt her hair explode into instant frizz.
Some of the Vulfans made it through the doorway behind them before it slammed shut.
“How did you…? I didn’t even see that door!” Rosamund gestured at the door.
“We designed it that way. It only opens for me and my men,” Kodran said, hurrying along down a sloping tunnel. The air cooled off as they went deeper.
“Unhand me! I can ambulate on my own!” Dot-R called out weakly, and Rosamund almost wept with relief. If Dot-R was bitching and complaining, that meant she was okay.
They wound down lower and lower, through sculpted tunnels that plunged into the earth. Small panels set into the tunnel walls glowed with an unearthly light.
Kodran didn’t stop until they’d reached a well-lit, perfectly round cavern. Several more tunnels led off from the back of the cavern.
The Draell who’d been carrying Dot-R put her down. She staggered over to one of the lighting panels and pushed her palm against it. “Wooo, I need to recharge,” she groaned. “That experience was sub-optimal.”
The Vulfans who’d followed them had suffered terrible burns. They were pale with shock and panting from pain and exertion.
“I can’t go any farther,” Temra groaned, and sank to the ground. The other Vulfans sank down onto the cavern floor as well, their pained breathing making a ragged chorus of gasps.
“Where is Darfan?” Rosamund asked, looking around.
“Dead,” Temra said, and leaned over and vomited. His entire right side was red and blistered, with some of the burns on his leg charred black.
“Sekari betrayed us,” one of the other Vulfans moaned.
“Geez, ya think?” Rosamund snapped. “You bastards tried to hand us over to him. Imagine what he would have done to us.”
“You are traitors to the Federation,” Temra protested weakly, shivering from the pain of his scorched arm. “He only wanted to bring all of you to justice. That is what he said. Why would he lie to us?”
Before she had time to argue, a squadron of Draell rushed into the cavern from one of the back tunnels. One of them Rosamund recognized as Florian, whom she’d met on the night of the ball. Several of the men were carrying medi-kits, and they opened them and pulled out cans of some kind of spray. As soon as they sprayed it on the Vulfans’ burns, they started healing before her eyes.
“We have alerted the guard,” Florian informed Kodran. “Your family is safe. Currently there is a Federation Battle Cruiser headed here, and it will arrive within two hours. Sekari called them; we intercepted the communication.”
“But…why did Sekari try to kill us?” Temra looked bewildered. “We did what he asked. We found the cyborgs so he could prove that Kodran is a traitor. He was going to wait until the Federation ship arrived and then turn you all in.”
“Let me guess,” Kodran said, his tone contemptuous. “He convinced you that my clan murdered a bunch of our own kind and sided with the cyborgs.”
“You did,” Temra said, staring grimly at Kodran. “We followed the human here by tracking her wrist-comm…”
“Oh God,” Rosamund said in dismay. “This is all my fault.”
“Mostly,” Dot-R called out, still leaning her hand against the lighting panel. “I told you this was a bad idea.”
“You most certainly did not,” Rosamund snorted.
“Well, I should have.”
Temra continued. “Once she got here, we scanned the area for cyborgs. And we found them. They are here, underneath us. There must be deeper caverns.”
Kodran exchanged a glance with Florian.
“Are the cyborgs sufficiently healed yet?” he asked Florian. “They need to be ready to travel.”
Rosamund gasped.
“What the hell, Kodran? There really are cyborgs here?” she said. “You were the one who told me that they were a bunch of sadistic robot sociopaths!”
Florian ignored her. “They’re mostly recovered,” he said to Kodran. “It will have to do. We are in the process of transporting them to their ship. They will be leaving the planet shortly.”
“You see?” Temra spat at Rosamund. “Your mate is a traitor!”
Kodran looked Temra in the eye. “Technically, I am. But you don’t know the whole story, and now I will have to tell it. Florian, bring the Draell-nar here, please.”
“No!” Prenzal protested. “We can’t!”
“It’s the only way to keep them safe.”
Florian nodded and left the cavern, heading down one of the tunnels. The medics continued ministering to the Vulfans’ burns, and the Vulfans slowly, painfully climbed to their feet. They stood apart from the Draell, glaring at them suspiciously.
Kodran turned his attention to Rosamund. “Are you hurt?” he asked, brushing her hair from her face and looking her up and down. “Did they injure you in any way?”
“No, I’m fine,” she assured him. “I’m sorry I snuck over here. I figured that if you couldn’t tell me what was happening, I’d just find out for myself. I didn’t want to have to leave you.”
“You didn’t?” A huge smile spread across his face. “I mean, of course you didn’t. And you won’t. You will stay here with me, forever.”
“If Sekari doesn’t burn us all to a crisp,” Prenzal said sourly.
“Can he get to us down here?” Rosamund looked around.
“No,” Kodran assured her. “They will have fled as soon as they saw that their attempt has failed. My family will be launching a counter- attack on them.”
Dozens of Draell-nar began filing into the room. They were all pale and thin, and the adolescents and adults had thick white burn scars on their faces.
Rosamund recognized the woman from the ship, who was carrying her little girl. The girl wriggled out of her arms and ran over to Prenzal, and the woman followed.
“Are you all right?” she asked Prenzal timidly. “I heard you were on the surface when an attack took place. I was so afraid for you.”
Prenzal nodded awkwardly. “Feodora. I am happy to see you again,” he said, then gathered her into his arms for a tight hug.
“His heart’s fire,” Kodran explained to Rosamund.
“Ah, I see. And the fact that he was separated from her was why he was acting like such a pissy little jerk?”
Prenzal turned to glare at her. “I have ears,” he informed her loftily.
“Good. Do you need me to speak louder?” Rosamund gave him a fake-polite smile.
“Hey!” Temra snapped. “I want the truth. Who are these people, and what does this have to do with you collaborating with cyborgs?”
“These are the survivors of the mining moon. They are the people we are accused of killing,” Kodran said. “Sekari lied when he told you that he was here to investigate me. He knew what really happened, and once you found the cyborgs for him, his plan was to kill us all so we could not tell the Galactic Federation the truth when their ship arrived. Then, I am sure, he would have made up some story about how we attacked him first and it was self-defense.”
“Damn it, Kodran, what is the truth?” Rosamund said impatiently.
“You know that Futuros made the cyborgs from psychotic prisoners on death row,” Kodran said, addressing both the Vulfans and Rosamund. “And you know that those cyborgs started malfunctioning. What Futuros kept hidden was that after the prisoner failure, they experimented on a squadron of soldiers. The soldiers were thought to have been lost in battle, but Futuros actually kidnapped them. The soldiers also overcame their programming. Because the Galactic Federation has a kill-on-sight order for all cyborgs, the soldier-cyborgs fled and went into hiding.”
“But what does this have to do with these people?” Temra gestured at the Draell-nar.
“The soldiers saved us,” one of the woman said. She was tall and had a regal bearing, and her face was thickly scarred. “I am Saran,” she added. “And these are what’s left of my people.” She indicated the Draell-nar with a sweeping gesture. “Half of us were wiped out by the rogue cyborgs.”
Kodran nodded, his face grim. “When the Draell-nar sent out their distress call, the soldier-cyborgs were the first ones to arrive. They were under heavy fire from the rogues, and they were out-gunned, but they risked their lives to load the Draell-nar onto their ship, and then they fled.”
“So why did you have to keep that hidden?” Rosamund asked.
“Sekari ordered me to blow up the soldier-cyborgs’ ship,” Kodran said. “But by then I had been contacted by the Draell-nar and I knew that these particular cyborgs were rescuing them, not carrying them off to kill them. I told Sekari. He insisted that I destroy the ship anyway. He said that there was no such thing as a good cyborg, and clearly it was a trick.”
Rosamund recoiled in horror. “Why would he order you to destroy a ship with women and children on board? His own people?”
“A number of reasons. He’d hidden the fact of the Draell-nar’s existence and his exploitation of them, and he didn’t want word getting out. And we have also heard that he was taking bribes from Futuros, who wanted to hide the fact that they had continued with their cyborg experiments.”
“But you disobeyed him.” Rosamund felt pride swelling inside her at his bravery.
Kodran flashed a sardonic grin. “Technically, no. I did blow up the soldier-cyborgs’ ship…after we moved the Draell-nar and the soldier-cyborgs onto our own vessel. After that, my clan quickly relocated and began building our new city. Sekari always suspected that we’d betrayed him, and he made several surprise visits here, which is why we had to keep the Draell and the soldier-cyborgs hidden.”
“The cyborgs were injured months ago,” Temra said. “Why did you wait until now to buy the cyborg repair equipment?”
“We tried to treat them here, but they were dying. We had no choice but to go to Agora to buy the right equipment to fix them.” Kodran smiled fondly at Rosamund. “That is why I signed up at Starcrossed, as a cover for my being on Agora. And I am so glad that I did.”
“This is where a human would say ‘barf’,” Dot-R observed. She was apparently done recharging and seemed to be back to her sassy self.
“Are you telling us this because you are planning on killing us?” Temra asked grimly.
Kodran shook his head. “No, I am telling you this because I need your help. When the Federation ship comes, I need you to help cover for me. We will tell them that Sekari made false claims against us because he wanted revenge on us for secession, which he viewed as treachery.”
“Do the cyborgs have to run?” Rosamund wondered. “It seems so unfair. They didn’t ask for this. If they stayed and explained their case to the Federation…”
Kodran nodded in agreement. “It is not fair, but that does not matter to the Federation representatives. The Federation might let them live, or they might decide it’s just too dangerous and decommission them. I left it up to them, and they decided to flee. We’ve had a ship on standby for them in case this occasion ever came up.”
Temra limped over to the other Vulfans, and they began conferring in low voices. Finally he looked up and nodded to Kodran. “We will support you when the Federation ship arrives.”
A huge explosion sounded from the direction from which they’d just come.
“If we live that long,” Prenzal said. “It looks like Sekari isn’t going to wait for the Federation to get here and find out the truth.”
Chapter Seventeen
“Run,” Kodran said to Rosamund. He glanced at Saran. “Take them deep into the caverns where they will be safe.”
“Kodran, no!” Rosamund protested, but the Draell-nar surrounded her and Dot-R and began hustling them through the caverns.
“Actually, my data analysis program shows that fleeing is the wisest course of action in this scenario,” Dot-R called out to her as they ran.
Fear clenched at Rosamund’s throat as they went deeper and deeper underground – fear for Kodran.
Had she finally found the love of her life…just to lose him?
She hated to leave him, but she knew she’d just be getting in the way if she stayed. Reluctantly, she let herself be herded through the tunnels, further and further away from her mate. The man she loved. The man she couldn’t live without.
* * * * *
Kodran pelted for the exit with his men at his heels. As s
oon as they were out of the caverns and in the open air, they shifted. Bones cracked, shifted and reformed. Skin became scales. Blasts of dragonfire arced into the sky, and Kodran roared his defiance as he took to the air. Sekari had tried to take his heart’s fire from him. That could not stand. It would not. Rosamund was down there now, in the caverns, with the Draell-nar who were under Kodran’s protection. He would not fail her, and he would not fail them.
Sekari would die for this.
Kodran soared into the sky above the jungle, wings thrashing furiously at the air. His men followed him, flying in battle formation. They were a well-disciplined team, and his men were strong and loyal. He had that on his side.
Working against him, he had six men. Sekari had two dozen. And Sekari’s warriors weren’t clanmates – they were soldiers he’d chosen for being big, and vicious, and brutal. They would fight dirty.
But a force was only as good as its commander.
As Sekari’s men ranked themselves across the sky in a ragged line, menacing the air with their teeth and talons, Kodran flung back his wings, hurtling towards them and signalling to his men to form into an arrowhead, with him as its lethal tip.
They smashed through Sekari’s defensive line, scattering the enemy Draell. That left each of Kodran’s men battling three or four vicious hired thugs, but they were disciplined and they held their own. Kodran blasted his opponent with white-hot flame, tearing an ugly gash in his wing membrane. The Draell screamed, billowing smoke, and struggled to stay aloft. At the same time, Kodran lashed out with his tail, whipping it at a Draell that was trying to attack from the flank and sending the beast spiralling toward the ground, bellowing furious gouts of flame.
Laser blasts criss-crossed the sky; shots from Kodran’s Vulfan allies in the jungle below. They were deadly marksmen, but Draell were tough. Their scales deflected the shots, and a lot of the damage was done by ricochets. One of Kodran’s men roared in agony as a shot took out his eye.
A shot from a laser pistol pierced an enemy Draell’s belly, igniting the potent mix of explosive gases brewing inside him to be ignited and released as dragonfire. The ball of flame rolled outward, the percussion knocking three of his companions from the sky. They tumbled screaming into the jungle below, branches cracking and snapping at they crashed through the canopy.
The Dragon Claims His Treasure (Starcrossed Dating Agency) Page 11