And even though Kroga had at first been horrified at the thought of two of these creatures roaming the halls of their facility, he now loved them almost more than she did. Cats were addictive that way.
A vid screen on her console blinked to life. “Melachine? How you doing, guuuuurl?” Megan said with a bright tone.
Melachine grinned. She loved this human’s attention-grabbing language. It turned out human-speak was already downloaded into Melachine’s brain so it was easy for her to understand Megan, they didn’t have to use a universal translator. It was surprising to find out that prior to her amnesia she must’ve been in proximity to other humans enough to require knowing their language. Interesting. In fact, she found Megan’s specific dialect of human-speak very easy to understand, and delightful. They both thought this meant that Melachine had known humans from the original planet prior to her arrival at the Swirl. Melachine couldn’t remember, and she’d asked Kroga about it and he’d said…shoot she couldn’t remember what he’d said. She shook her head.
“I’m fine, how are you? How’s Amani?”
“Oh, she’s having a great time playing with her breakfast, look at her,” Megan lifted her baby up so Melachine could see the girl’s perfect little face, covered in food. “She’s a mess.”
Melachine barked out a laugh.
Amani looked even cuter than normal, her mouth open with food stuck everywhere, even in her hair. The infant had a lovely skin tone that was darker than Megan’s unfortunate colorless aberration, and a shock of hair that was dark as ancient night.
Megan was trying to clean up her child while also navigating around her own large, pregnant belly. Her second offspring was due any day. Apparently, Megan’s sister-in-law Trish, who lived on section thirteen, was also pregnant with her second offspring. There were babies everywhere in the Swirl, except on section five.
Melachine gazed at the child longingly. She loved offspring. She did know that about herself. She liked the idea of family, of having a line close. Why didn’t she have offspring? It was so confusing. Nothing about her life made sense. She was beginning to think this life, while it was good, didn’t particularly align with what she was learning about her personality. Living in isolation wasn’t what she wanted for herself. How had it come to this?
“Your daughter has beautiful Margol pigment and hair dark as ancient night,” she commented. “The food doesn’t matter, she’s still darling.”
“Oh,” Megan laughed, “thank you.” She turned the baby toward the screen and lifted her little hand to wave back at Melachine. “Amani says thank you too. Right, Amani?”
The baby gurgled.
“Now if only Amani had some Xylan ridges to complete that smooth forehead of hers…” Melachine joked.
Megan chuckled. “Right? With silver threaded through like her cousin.”
“Hmm?” Melachine asked, confused about this reference. “Who here has ridges with silver?”
“Oh, Tryxen does, Trish’s son.” Megan explained absently as she continued to clean her infant’s hands and face.
“Your sister-in-law’s son has ridges on her forehead? Is she a Xylan Cyborg?”
“No,” Megan laughed. “She’s a human Cyborg, but remember, her husbands are Xylan.”
Melachine sat up straighter. “Xylan? There are other Xylan out here in the Swirl?”
“Yeah, you know about them. Remember how at first it seemed like you wanted to remain private, and then I wanted to confirm with them that it was okay for me to tell you about them, but then I explained their living situation to you. Privacy is highly important here in the Swirl. Everyone who comes here left the four sectors for a reason. I make sure I remain confidential and respect everyone’s wishes to remain private.”
Melachine nodded, pleased at Megan’s diplomacy. This was exactly why she liked this female. She trusted her and felt safe around her. “I’m sorry, I had a relapse recently and I’m sort of reset to no memories, which means I don’t remember any of this. Could you please retell me about these Xylan?”
Her claw hovered over the comm system. Should she call for Kroga so they could hear this information together, at the same time? Then she remembered he was outside, in his suit, in the corner of their section cutting a particularly difficult piece of space junk. It would take him an eternity to return to the facility if she called now. And, if she tried to include him in the convo from his location, he might not want to talk at that moment and want to wait. And she felt agitated and wanted to hear what Megan had to say right now. She’d just tell him later… He probably knew all of this already anyways. She was the one who’d forgotten. “Who are they?” she asked, wondering if just hearing their names might jog her memory and help her brain to fully heal and bridge that last fifteen percent gap.
“Oh no, you had a relapse?” Megan stared at the screen with concern in her eyes. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. Don’t worry, I’m fine. The good news is that now my brain is eighty-five percent healed.”
“Oh, that’s progress.”
“It is.”
Megan finished wiping up her child and handed the baby a bottle. “Okay, so the three Xylan you were asking about. Their names are Wyric of Fifty-Three, Bex of Thirty-Seven, and Zaxon of Forty-Eight. They were all three originally of the Xylan mafia.”
“The Xylan mafia?” she gasped.
“Don’t worry, they aren’t part of the mafia anymore. Oh shoot, maybe I wasn’t supposed to mention that part? I can’t always keep track in my head of all the intricacies of Xylan etiquette. I’m so sorry. But Kroga was here in our section before so I thought it was okay to speak to you about the fact that they were in the mafia. Wait, it is okay, I’m remembering now that I told you that part last time.” She blew a hair away from her face and grinned. “Now I feel better.”
Her hearts started racing and her skin heated. “There are three Xylan males on section thirteen and Kroga has met with these warriors?”
“Yes.”
Melachine gasped as a sharp pain hit her head. Dim memories began to resurface. Suddenly she remembered everything Megan had ever told her about those three warriors. And she began to remember so much more.
“Melachine? Melachine? Are you alright are—?”
Melachine reached out a shaky hand and cut off the vid call and stood up, swaying as images flooded her mind. She gasped at the onslaught, sickened by what she was discovering.
4
Kroga went through the work steps he’d performed each day during the last three moon cycles. He enjoyed the view out here of dark space and the satisfaction of knowing he was doing a small part in cleaning up this mess and reclaiming raw materials. The monotony of the work was comforting, keeping his mind off the worries over his female’s recovery. She’d just regained consciousness after yet another relapse, sleeping under that coma-shield, her life on the line. But this time her brain had progressed to eighty-five percent healed and for the first time since they’d arrived, he finally saw a light at the end of the tunnel.
Melachine was going to survive and regain all of her memories. He was certain.
He’d left her alone in the bridge, as she liked, letting her work. She was good at what she did, and he knew the sense of satisfaction in a job well done was good for her well-being. He understood the devastation of memory loss and how debilitating it could be.
Kroga was still recovering from his time under Hurlian mind control—having lost over a decade to those lazhuls. He was never able to understand why he had been chosen as their target. They’d stolen his mind, used his body, and ruined the lives of his immediate line—and he had no idea why he’d been subjected to this humiliation and horror.
They’d been trying to find the perfect mark—a Xylan to capture and use as a spy. They’d taken him, unbeknownst to anyone else. Even to himself. They had him for a full diurnal and implanted their mind control device in his brain and then returned him to his normal life, no one the wiser. He was a ticking time bomb
, ready to be activated. Then one day they’d flipped their switch and Kroga had become essentially an organic Cyborg under their control. He wasn’t in charge of himself anymore.
He was still sickened at the thought of the short amount of time he must’ve initially spent with his Bride and sons, under Hurlian control. What had he done to them? What had he said? He had no way of knowing. In fact, he had no memories of those times. A whole decade of his life, lost. He was older now, his hair turning gray and lines on his face with no memory of time passing. He’d been placed deep undercover, to do the Hurlians’ bidding and dirty work in many key positions across the four sectors, to cause chaos and death.
He was appalled, thinking of what they’d done with his mind and body, harming other beings, blaming it on him—as if he’d had the free will to do these violent actions himself. No one had known it was the Hurlians controlling him. They all thought Kroga had turned into a criminal mastermind.
He had not. He was as much a captive of the Hurlians as anyone else. He was their toy, stuck in their mind prison. And sometimes, in between missions, he was left to languish in an actual Hurlian prison. He’d been lucid while locked in prison and able to agonize over the loss of his mate and offspring. Finally, they’d decide his next placement and he’d go undercover again, time lost to their manipulations.
But now he was overexposed. The Hurlians had used him to commit so many high profile, unspeakable crimes he was now too recognizable for them to use. He was wanted by the High Command, by the Bounty Hunters, by the Creekans… He was the most notorious being in the entire four sectors, at the top of all the most-wanted lists.
The Hurlians didn’t want him now; their mind control had begun to crack. Over time the control they’d had over his brain had begun to degrade and they weren’t able to govern his mind as perfectly as they had before. He’d discovered the Hurlians had been about to terminate him, and his Bride too. Kroga and Melachine had a mental bond that crossed sectors and time. The Hurlians were concerned that classified information would leak over to Melachine. They considered her a weak link and if they killed his Bride too, they were assured that all evidence of their treachery was perfectly extinguished. When he’d discovered their plan to murder not only him but his Bride too—that was the last crack in their mental prison. He’d escaped from his position as the Warden of Detention Center: Zeta 149, and had kidnapped Melachine with him to hide here, in the Swirl—the only place where they couldn’t be found.
They’d taken over this empty section. He’d spent an entire week in the med bay, recovering from brain surgery required to have the Hurlian implant removed. He and his Bride had both lain side-by-side in the med bay, on beds next to each other. Melachine’s injury had been a result of the difficult journey past the four black holes. They’d almost died on that trip. The ship they’d arrived in had been severely damaged.
“Wyric of Fifty-Three messaging,” the computer intoned inside his helmet.
Kroga turned off his laser. Wyric? Heh. This was surprising.
Wyric was the warrior he’d met when he’d transported over to oversee an honor battle on section thirteen between Wyric and his cousin. Wyric had expertly killed Oaxan of Eighty-Seven, the head of the Xylan mafia. It had been a glorious battle and Kroga considered Wyric to be an honorable male. “Give me audio here, live,” he ordered the computer.
“Affirmed.”
“Kroga?” a deep voice questioned.
A smile tugged at the corner of Kroga’s lips. It was nice to hear the rough voice of a royal pigment peer. How many years had he been apart from his own species? “I am here, Wyric. What do you require?”
“Greetings, Kroga. I am contacting you because Megan, the human female of my extended line, arrived in my section, upset, saying she’s concerned for your mate.”
Kroga immediately disconnected his safety line from the space junk he’d been cutting and began jetting back to the facility. “My mate? Tell me what she thinks is wrong. Melachine is on the bridge on our section. How would a human living on the other side of the Swirl know about the whereabouts of my Bride?”
“Megan and your Bride have become friends. They were speaking together a few minutes ago.”
“They were?” Ugh. Of course, those two were friends. Megan had given Melachine the kittens. He should’ve assumed those females would continue communicating and his Bride would consider this so normal, she wouldn’t think to tell him. She’d always loved chatting with other beings. Melachine made friends easily. It was her superpower.
“Wyric,” a female voice cried out in the background, “Tell Kroga I’m sorry.” And then a heavily pregnant, colorless human female appeared on the screen next to Wyric. “Kroga,” she gasped, sounding out of breath. “I’m so sorry. I love Melachine. I didn’t mean to…”
His jaw clenched and his stomach soured. “What happened to my Bride?” He slammed his palm against the mechanism to open the outboard tunnel, eager to check on his mate.
“Wyric said he should be the one to call you because of stupid Xylan formalities, but Kroga, I need you to go check on Melachine right now. She and I were talking earlier and then she suddenly grabbed her head and I swear it looked like she was about to pass out. And then the vid cut out. And she’s not answering my calls. I need to know if she’s okay.”
“Computer, contact Melachine,” he clipped.
There was a moment of quiet. “No response,” the computer answered.
Kroga cursed as he entered the tunnel and waited impatiently for the unit to close and pressurize. “She’s not responding. I’m moving as fast as I can.”
“Hurry,” Megan urged. “I was talking to her, retelling her about how there were other Xylan here in the Swirl. I was just trying to be a good friend. I had no idea that anything I said could cause her memories to come back and cause her pain.”
He began stripping off his equipment and tossing down his tools. “You know of her amnesia?”
“Yes, yes of course I do, she told me all about it. That’s why I gave her the kittens, to comfort her. It must be terrible to live like that, not remembering your past and the people you care about. That’s what I’m worried happened, that her memories have returned because I started to talk about my three Xylan brothers-in-law. She stood and put her hands to her head and looked like she was in pain. And she wouldn’t answer me, and then the vid went out. She cut me off. I don’t know what that means. Maybe she’s fine and it was an accident, but maybe she’s hurt. Can you please go check and call me back to let me know what you found?”
Red lights confirmed the tunnel’s pressurizing cycle was complete. He cut off the vid to section thirteen and raced to the bridge on his own section.
Melachine wasn’t in pain anymore, but she was overwhelmed by the flood of information. It was all there now, easily accessible and overwhelming. She sat heavily in the chair, tears streaming down her face.
Kroga had betrayed her.
Kroga…was an evil, treasonous criminal mastermind?
Holy gods.
She stood, feeling sick, and blindly stumbled across the room and slammed her claw on the panel for the door to the bridge. Just this once she was going to break the rules because she needed her kittens, desperately. The door opened and she sprinted for the mess hall. Jasper and Abby were asleep in their cat beds. She scooped the two sleeping kittens up, one in each arm, and ran back with them to the bridge. She closed and locked the door behind her and sank back into her seat, with the kittens in her lap, crying into their fur.
The two cats licked at her claws, comforting her as she cried.
The console continued to blink with a message alert; Megan was trying to reach her, but Melachine couldn’t respond. All she could do was cry.
The enormity of Kroga’s betrayal was too much.
She hadn’t seen him for fourteen years, her best friend, her mate, the love of her life, the father of her children.
She remembered how it had all started, the day she’d
been stunned as Imperial soldiers had stormed into their quarters on the space station in order to arrest him for treason.
She’d fiercely stood by him, originally horrified at this conspiracy to frame Kroga with a crime he obviously hadn’t committed. There was no way Kroga would commit treason, she was certain of his innocence. She knew this male inside and out; they were bonded. He wouldn’t betray her or their offspring, or their species. He was a male of honor. Kroga continued to deny the allegations and claimed he had no idea what was happening or why. And she’d believed every word he said.
But then proof had materialized. A holo vid with a truth lock seal showing Kroga meeting with the Hurlians and selling state secrets to the enemy had surfaced and then she’d discovered along with everyone else that her mate really was a traitor. He’d given information to the Hurlians that sparked the Cordovian War, the costliest war in this era. So many brave Xylan had needlessly died in that battle and it was all Kroga’s fault. Without his insider information the Xylan would’ve easily won, but because of Kroga’s intelligence the Hurlians were able to overwhelm their fleet.
All Xylan hated Kroga with a fiery passion for his part in causing them to lose honor in front of the Hurlians. Xylan were known for decisively winning battles, not barely winning and losing half of their fleet in the process. School children were taught that Kroga of Seventy-Five was the traitor who incited the Cordovian War and caused the massive death count.
It had been the worst day of her life. Everything had shattered. Kroga had begun behaving differently by then, as if he were a changed warrior. The male she’d known was gone and in his place was a curt, robotic male. What had happened to her mate? The male she had honored and admired? The male who was the father of her offspring.
After Kroga’s sentencing, her whole line had been banished. She and Rayzor and Kayzon were treated as if they were also traitors, even though they’d had no idea of Kroga’s treachery. But according to the Xylan honor code, the immediate line was always responsible for the dishonor of their warriors, so Melachine and her offspring were sentenced along with Kroga, receiving the most severe punishment allowed by the Scales of Xylan Law: lifetime disbursement and banishment from Chronos.
Kroga's Redemption Page 3