by Liza Probz
Brook slapped her hands over her ears to block out the chaos. She expected to see Hareema agents attempting to quiet the creatures down. Instead, nothing happened. The rioting continued until the creatures expended their energy. The hairy one near her lasted the longest, but after a while he stopped howling and released his grip on the bars, falling back to the bottom of his cage and staying there.
The mood in the prison after the outburst was decidedly demoralized. She risked another glance at Ontarii. He was still staring at her, but his face was now a mask of rage. She could see his fists shaking at his sides. It scared her.
Brook laid down on the bars below her, putting her face in an opening between them and calling out to him. “Ontarii? Are you all right?”
His mouth curled up into a snarl. “All right? What about this situation do you believe is all right?”
He began to pace, even though his eyes never left hers. “We’re trapped in this prison, kept apart by these blasted bars, and I can’t do anything about it. I’m going to die here, able to see you, to hear you, to fucking smell you, but I can’t touch you.”
His eyes turned sad, and Brook’s heart felt as if it were being squeezed by cruel hands. “The worst part of it all is not that I will die. I would lay down my life a hundred times for you. It’s the fact that I don’t know what they will do to you after I’m gone.”
Brook swallowed. He has a point there.
She didn’t know what her Hareema captors might have in mind, but she was sure she wouldn’t like it. “Let’s not wait around to find out. Let’s figure a way out of this mess.”
Ontarii’s laugh was bitter. “My people have been researching the Hareema for centuries. We’ve known that the Hareema have taken prisoners, but never once has a prisoner been located after they’ve been taken. Not one has been recovered, and none have escaped.”
“So the odds are against us.” Brook gave him a cocky smile. “So what? The Hareema have never faced the team of Ontarii and Brook. They’ll rue the day they ever fucked with us.”
His smile was small and it soon faded. “I appreciate your attempt at levity, my dear, but I’m afraid I don’t share your optimism.”
Brook felt his sadness like a physical weight on her shoulders.
“We have to try,” she pleaded. “We can’t just give up.”
Ontarii continued to stare at her, saying nothing.
Brook felt a sudden overwhelming urge to cry. She hadn’t cried in years, since she’d been in flight school and was sure she’d never be good enough to be selected for an interstellar mission. But seeing the man she loved so broken filled her with such despair that she couldn’t help herself.
Her tears fell into the cell below her. She watched as one hit Ontarii’s shoulder. He peered up at her, his expression one of deep regret.
“I’m sorry, little one,” he murmured. “I never wanted this to happen.”
“I’m sorry too,” she said. “It seems so unfair. To meet you, to connect in this way I’ve never experienced, and now I have to watch you die and can’t do anything about it. I feel so helpless. So fucking frustrated and impotent.”
“Hush, baby.” One of her tears hit his cheek and he collected it with his fingertip. He examined his finger, a slight smile crossing his full lips. Then he popped the finger in his mouth.
The display moved her. It also made her cry harder.
“Ontarii,” she moaned, her voice breaking on his name.
“Jennifer, get ahold of yourself. I don’t want to see you this way. Not with the little time we have left together. I need you to be strong.”
“I’m tired of being strong,” she yelled. “I’ve been strong for so long!”
“And you’ll be strong for a little while longer. For me.”
His words were full of feeling.
She knew then that her love wasn’t one-sided. The outpouring of emotion washed over her, calming her. The tears that had been falling from her cell to his started to taper off.
Suddenly there was the sound of an alarm. It was a loud, high-pitched sound that had Brook covering her ears once again. She rose to her knees and scrambled to the side of her cell, looking out at the hubbub around her.
Chapter 28
Ontarii couldn’t take his eyes off his mate. He realized that things were happening outside of his cell, but they didn’t seem to matter. Jennifer had moved to the side of her cage and was looking out, watching whatever was going on, but Ontarii kept a watch over her, refusing to let her out of his sight.
A Zantharian male in the mating frenzy was incapable of focusing on much other than his mate. When in a high stakes situation like the one they were currently struggling under, the urge to protect one’s mate became paramount, until it was the only thought that existed in his brain. Protect Jennifer. Keep her safe.
Unfortunately, that was much easier thought than done. Being kept in a Hareema cage made things difficult, and their chosen punishment for him, to die of the frenzy while being mere feet from his mate, was ironic and effective. They couldn’t have chosen a better one if they tried.
Jennifer rose to her feet in the cell above him. He remembered from his walk into the chamber that it was full of cages, some stacked on others, each full of an alien life form. He was familiar with the races of some of his fellow prisoners, but not all. Still, the menagerie held no interest for him. His whole world was in the cell above his head.
He respected her desire to escape, her push to fight against the odds, but he knew better. His enemy had bested him. And it was only a matter of time before he expired from the frenzy, leaving Jennifer alone to face their wrath.
“Ontarii,” Jennifer said from above him. “Someone’s coming.”
He nodded. Likely they were.
Maybe they were passing out food and water. They’d have to find some means of keeping their prisoners alive. Drake, for instance, the Minister of Defense, had been missing for weeks and was still alive, if not well, in a cell somewhere in the maze. What did it matter, though? Eating would only prolong the inevitable. He was doomed no matter what.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” his mate said. “Look, Ontarii!”
Doesn’t she understand that nothing else matters but her?
Still, he took his gaze off of her for a moment to see what had her so excited. His eyes widened when he took in the show beyond the bars of his cage. They were delivery suppliers, their Hareema captors, but they weren’t in their original gelatinous forms. Instead, they resembled Zantharian dragonflies in a way. Each had a set of large, translucent wings that fluttered so fast they were a blur. The bodies were a hybrid of humanoid and insect. The creature had six legs, two that could support it while it walked around, while the other four served as arms.
They were much larger than Zantharian dragonflies, and much more evolved, but as they flitted around the chamber he remembered a game he and his friends had played when they were younger. They would lure dragonflies into glass jars and keep them there, watching them as they flew about, hitting the side of the glass over and over.
Now he was trapped, and the dragonflies were the ones on the outside watching him during his slow demise.
He watched carefully as one flew close to him. It shoved a sac of something into his cell, dropping it to the floor, before it flew upward to Jennifer’s cell. It tossed a sac to her as well and if she hadn’t caught it, it likely would have tumbled through the bars and fallen down into his cell.
Ontarii kicked at the sac on his cage floor. It was full of something that was between liquid and solid, shaking slightly as he pushed against it. There was a short stub sticking out of the top of the sac, likely a straw.
So this is what the Hareema serve their prisoners.
“Should we try it?” Jennifer asked from above. “I’m starving. It won’t hurt us, will it?”
Ontarii scanned the chamber. In the other cages, the inhabitants were sucking at the sacs, clearly unconcerned. It was likely the substan
ce was harmless, that it was just a sac of nutrients. Still…
“Wait,” he ordered, pulling the sac close and sniffing at its contents through the straw. It didn’t have much of an odor. If anything, it smelled faintly of fish. Putting his lips around the straw he took a draw.
The substance filled his mouth and he was amazed at how benign it tasted. Again, he was reminded of fish. It was like a stew his grandmother used to make from the finfish. He took another drink, starting to enjoy the flavor.
He experienced no ill effects from the drink. He squeezed the sac, forcing more of the contents into his mouth and then his belly.
“Well?” Jennifer asked impatiently. “Is it safe? I’m fricking starving up here!”
Ontarii swallowed the rest of the contents of the sac and licked his lips. “It’s safe, and it’s actually pretty good.”
Jennifer cocked a disbelieving eyebrow at him and put her lips on the straw. He watched as she drew some of the substance in. The look on her face made him want to laugh.
“It’s horrible!” she said.
He could tell she wanted to spit the stuff out but couldn’t find anywhere to do it where it wouldn’t drip down into his own cell. “How can you drink this?”
“I liked it,” he said.
“Then you can have it.” She went down on her knees again holding the sac through the bars. “I’ll drop it down to you.”
Ontarii shook his head. “You need that to keep your strength up. Come on, you can choke it down.”
“It’s gross. It has the consistency of a rotten marshmallow.”
“I don’t know what that is.” He surrendered to the urge to laugh. “Either way, it doesn’t matter. Drink up, Captain.”
Jennifer stuck her tongue out at him, and he laughed harder. She was truly adorable. Then a pang of regret hit him hard. This might be the last time he was able to tease her like this.
Jennifer took another drink, swallowing it but making a show of gagging afterwards.
Ontarii chastised her. “Come on, Captain. If you’re going to be an ambassador for Earthlings, making first contact with alien species, you’re going to have to do a lot of things you don’t like, the least of which is trying new foods.”
“I hope none of them taste like this. It’s like fish guts.” She took another draw on her straw and choked the substance down. At last she finished the concoction and then tossed the empty sac out of her cell and onto the chamber floor. “Yuck!”
The dragonflies still flitted here and there, their wings creating a whirring noise that was strangely soothing. Ontarii watched them, appreciating in that moment the skill the Hareema had at imitating other life forms. It was a fantastic skill, one that made them a formidable foe.
Suddenly one of the dragonflies veered off its path and hovered next to his cage. It looked in every direction, then pressed itself against the bars of his cell. One moment the overlarge dragonfly was there, the next second there was nothing.
Ontarii stood there stunned. Where had the creature gone? As far as Zantharian intelligence knew, the Hareema did not have the ability to vanish into thin air, nor become invisible.
The other dragonflies didn’t seem to notice. Before long they all made their way out of the chamber. Silence reigned as the prisoners enjoyed their meals. Ontarii’s eyes were glued to the spot where the Hareema had disappeared.
It seemed like an hour had passed, but perhaps it was only a few minutes. Ontarii’s senses were on high alert, which made time pass more slowly. Suddenly, as he watched, a shape grew out of the bars of the cage. Low down, next to the floor, a tiny creature appeared.
It emitted a few squeaks and crawled close to Ontarii. He wondered if he should crush it before it touched him. Then he realized the squeaks were actually words.
“Pick me up, but don’t let anyone see!”
Ontarii had to steel himself so that he showed no reaction. Should he trust this creature? It was obviously a Hareema. Why should he humor it?
Deciding that he had nothing to lose, Ontarii bent swiftly and scooped the thing up, closing it in his palm and bringing his hand casually up to his mouth. He made to blow into it, as if he were merely trying to heat up his hands.
The creature looked like a white puff of fur. It had tiny hands, tiny feet and a stubby white tail. It also had a little face that looked almost humanoid. It opened its mouth and started to talk.
“Major Ontarii, please listen carefully to what I say.”
Ontarii almost dropped the thing in surprise. Watching the mouth speak words he could understand in its creepy semi-humanoid face was jarring. Besides, this thing had to be a Hareema agent. The likelihood was that nothing good would come from the conversation.
He remembered the haunted look Drake had had in his cell. The Minister of Defense had thought that Ontarii was a Hareema trick. Not to mention that the enemy had taken the shape of the Supreme Regent of Zanthar and his mate when they’d taken Ontarii and Jennifer prisoner. This had to be some sort of ruse designed to aid in his downfall.
However, he was already locked in the cell, on his way to a painful death from the frenzy. The Hareema need do nothing but wait and watch. What would be the point of sending an agent to fuck with him? Maybe it was worth the risk to talk to it.
“What do you want, Hareema bastard? And remember, I could crush you with the clenching of my fist.”
The little mouth smiled, and Ontarii felt a wave of revulsion wash over him. “I know. I chose this shape purposefully. I have made myself vulnerable to you. You could squeeze the life from me easily, and I would do nothing to fight you. It is my hope to gain your trust.”
Ontarii barked out a quiet laugh. “Trust? A Hareema? You must have me mistaken for a fool.”
“I expected that reaction, but please, listen. We haven’t much time.”
“What are you doing down there?” Jennifer’s voice came down from the cell above him. She was peering at him curiously.
“Just stretching,” he said, extending his arm and pulling it back, angling it over his head so he looked to be stretching it while he held the white puffball close to his mouth.
“Tell me why I should trust you,” he whispered to the creature in his hand.
“Because, although I am Hareema, I am not a member of the C&C Party. I’m part of a secret alliance that is fighting the High Council’s evil expansionist plans.”
“C&C Party?”
The organization of the Hareema government had long puzzled the Zantharians. Because they were unable to get near the Hareema home world, and because the risk of taking Hareema prisoners was too great due to their ability to escape, virtually nothing was known about their enemy’s power structure.
“Command and Control. They took over the High Council almost a millennium ago with their agenda of expansion through the sector, then the quadrant. Their propaganda teaches that the Hareema are the manifestation of perfection, and it is their divine right to rule over and guide lesser beings. Pure manifest destiny drivel.”
Ontarii nodded. That sounds about right. “But you don’t agree with this policy? There are others like you who don’t want to rule over ‘lesser beings’?”
“Yes.” The little face surrounded by white fur made an expression that resembled a mixture of disgust and regret. “We don’t have the numbers to be in open rebellion against the council yet, but so far we’ve been able to get our agents into key positions. We’d hoped to further infiltrate the operation on Earth and on Zanthar before making our move, but the introduction of new technology has forced us to act.”
“New technology. You mean whatever it is that makes you guys immune to Zantharian bioelectricity?”
“Yes. It was an invention of an Earthling engineer, actually. One that he didn’t realize would be used to not only take over your planet, but to cause the eventual downfall of his own people.”
Ontarii’s brow furrowed. It was a lot to take in. Could the little creature be telling the truth? Were there some Hare
ema who didn’t like the way their compatriots were doing business in the universe? Could an internal rebellion be the key to his enemy’s defeat?
“Listen, I don’t have much more time if I’m going to make it out of this chamber alive. When we’re finished talking, you will set me on the bars of your cell, and I will unlock the lock. Then I’ll scramble up to your companion’s cage and free her as well. You two will stand at the entrance of your cages while I shift into something that will hide your escape.”
The little creature’s eyes narrowed. It looked like he doubted his own ability to get them out safely, but, as Ontarii saw it, they had no better chance than this.
“Once we make it out the exit and into the halls, I will shift again, but then I’ll have to leave you. It will be up to you and your human to convince the Hareema that you are one of them, taken the shape of the prisoners. You will make your way to the docking bay, and then onto the Zantharian shuttle you find parked there. They’ve managed to capture one of your smaller vessels. It makes sense that you take it, as you’ll already be familiar with the controls.”
Ontarii had a thousand questions. The plan seemed to hinge on his ability to bluff other shapeshifters. There were too many things that could go wrong.
“Wait, so you expect us to—”
“You’re a smart man,” the puffball interrupted. “And I’m afraid I don’t have time to repeat myself. We have to go now, while the guards in the surveillance booth are changing shifts. Follow the yellow line to the docking bay. Now, put me on the bars.”
Ontarii wanted to hesitate. The risks seemed almost insurmountable. He risked a glance upward at his mate. She was watching him with suspicious eyes.
“Be ready,” he told her, then set the creature on the bars.
The thing’s hands and feet had sticky pads on them that allowed it to climb up the bars without difficulty. It made its way to the lock and pointed its tail at the opening. Suddenly the tail became gelatinous, taking on the familiar red tint. The Hareema put a portion of itself into the lock and it clicked open.