by Stella Cassy
Options. She would have options. As would I.
“Do you miss Earth?”
She snorted and shook her head contemptuously.
“I know most people have a lot of fondness for their hometowns, home countries, home planets. Not me. Earth was never kind to me. You know, I never had parents, never had a mate, never…”
Her words trailed off as she sat back in the chair, staring up at the ceiling almost wistfully. Perhaps she did miss it just a little.
“I thought I heard from some of your crew that you had younglings on your planet. Two of them.”
Essie continued to stare up at the ceiling, unresponsive. “Esmerelda?” I finally asked to try and get her out of her fugue.
“I…” She paused again. “Moddoc, if I tell you something, can you keep it to yourself for the moment? From my crew, I mean?”
With a grave expression I nodded seriously. “I give you my word.”
“I lied to them. To… to everyone, to the universe, I guess. Not long after I was first kidnapped from Earth, I learned about how slaves are valued. For human females, our fertility is one of the most valuable traits. People want to use us for… breeding.”
“This is true. I have seen slave markets and they often emphasize the fertility of the younger female slaves. It drives up their price.”
“And it improves their treatment, too. Anyway, when I was first captured, I vowed to always look after myself the very best I could. One of the ways to do that was to make sure everyone knew I was super fertile. So I told them all that I had two children, back on Earth, and that I was very sad to have been taken from.”
“But you did not have two children?”
I stared at her, feeling perhaps for the first time what it must be like to be a slave. It was not something I had ever seriously considered, as it was not my role in the verse. The universe was always divided into two: masters and slaves, the strong and the weak, good and bad, men and women and on and on. I was never in the slave group and never would be, thus no need to consider it.
But Essie had lived both sides. This was rare. And it had affected her, clearly.
“I did not. Moddoc, I… I can’t.”
“Can’t?”
“I’m infertile. I can never have children. So, you know, if you and I… well, let’s just say, I couldn’t provide you with an heir.”
The regal space-queen had moisture forming in the corner of her eyes, I could see it even from across the table. I stood, walked around, and crouched beside her, putting an arm around her shoulders.
“An heir? A child? I, too, could never go through that again. It would be too painful. Every happy moment would be tempered with a bitter memory. No, my immediate family line ends with me.”
She turned her head to look at me. As gently as I could, I wiped away two tears, one from each of her eyes. She appeared surprised, and relieved, like a burden had been lifted.
“And Essie. You will never be a slave again. Never. So you do not need to keep up this pretense. If you wish to be honest with your crew, then you should. If you wish me to maintain your secret, I will lock it in my heart for eternity.”
“We know not what the future brings, Moddoc,” she said to me with a soft smile on her lips. “Perhaps I will be a slave again. Perhaps you will wake up with a burning urge to sire an heir.”
I clasped my palms around her face, cupping it.
“Listen. You will never be a slave. If anyone tries to capture you, I will tear them limb-from-limb and roast their corpses with dragon-fire. And I can assure you, I’ve made my peace with my line ending with me. That is not a decision I shall revisit. It is made, it is done, it is final. Do you understand?”
She laughed, a soft, relieved, tinkling laugh. “I never knew you could be so… optimistic,” she said. “What are your plans, for after the battle?”
“I…” This was a good question. Until recently my plan had been to perhaps wallow in misery until I finally died. But that no longer seemed like my path. “I don’t know. But I am coming to one realization rather rapidly.”
“Oh?” She put a hand on my thigh, squeezing it gently. “What’s that?”
“Whatever I do, I think I’d like to do it with you. Together.”
She bit her lip, slowly nodding at me. “I… I think I’d like that.”
“Good,” I said as if it was settled. As if there weren’t a million questions to be answered. Like, was I going to leave the Drakon to join her fleet? Would she come to Thirren? Would… Before I could muse further, she interrupted my train of thought.
“Now come on. There’s something I want to do with you right now.”
Her hand slid up my thigh, grasping me. Then she was off the chair, crouching beside me, lips pressed against mine.
There’d be time to figure everything else out later.
Right now, we had something more pressing to do.
23
Esmerelda
It was my first time.
I’d never done it before.
Girltalk, that is.
Thirren’s head of defense, Ranel, and Moddoc were having a meeting on the bridge about the ground-assault side of things, and Yvette, Ranel’s partner, had decided it would be a good time for us to hang out. If it had been up to me, it would have been a hell no, but she’d just appeared before I even had a chance to make any excuses.
We met in my war-room.
“Hey,” Yvette said, greeting me with a friendly smile. “No hard feelings?”
I wasn’t too pleased with the fact that her partner, Ranel, had been one of the people to order me locked up. Nor was I happy after hearing about Moddoc’s past with Ranel – apparently the older Drakon was the first to demand that Moddoc be exiled. But I’d play along. In my own way, anyway. I stood up and walked over to her as she entered the room.
“Yeah, sure, whatever,” I said giving her a nod of my head.
Then she attacked me.
Okay, not literally. What she did do, though, was go in for a hug. I hadn’t hugged a human woman since… I didn’t even remember when.
She wrapped her arms around me like some kind of spider clutching its prey before biting its head off. Awkwardly, I let her, and then after a couple of seconds, I realized I was supposed to reciprocate. I slapped my own arms around her back.
“Not much of a hugger, huh?” she said, stepping back with an amused look on her face.
I shrugged.
“Hey, we don’t all live an easy cotton-wool wrapped life, hun,” I said to her, trying to be self-deprecating and friendly.
Yvette’s eyebrows rose, and she crossed her arms in front of her. “Excuse me? You think I’ve had it easy?”
I put my palms face up, because, fucked if I knew. I doubted many had lived a life as tough as me though. “Easy enough for hugs.”
She slowly shook her head at me. “I was kidnapped—” weren’t we all “—I was enslaved,”—join the club— “I was on a planet that got freakin’ blown up by a crazy space pirate—”
I held up a hand. “Hold up. You were on a planet that got blown up?”
Yvette gave me a serious nod, like, I told you I had a rough life!
“That’s pretty wild. Have a seat.” I pointed to a chair next to the one at the head of the table. We both sat down. “Say, umm, what kind of planet?”
Yvette narrowed her eyes at me. “What do you mean what kind of planet?”
“Was it like… a little mining place? A Nortian outpost?”
Yvette smiled. “You heard about it? I tell you, I thought I was dead. It was one of the craziest things…”
“Sorry to change the topic, but you meant what you said earlier, ‘no hard feelings’?”
She gave me a confused look, annoyed that I’d interrupted her reminiscing about nearly being blown up. “Yes, of course I meant it.”
“Want to hear something funny?”
She looked more confused than ever now, the conversation apparently not making much s
ense from her perspective. But it made perfect sense from mine, and that was all I really cared about.
“Yes?” Her answer was tentative, questioning. As if perhaps we would have such different senses of humor that what I found funny would be quite the opposite to her. Turns out, she was right.
“It was me.”
“What was you? I don’t understand.”
I leaned back in my chair, put my boots up on the table, and grinned at her.
“The planet. Blowing up, I mean.”
She tilted her head, still not quite getting it. “The planet… blowing up?”
“I was drunk. I wanted to blow up a town. And, well, I got a bit carried away. Whole thing got blown to smithereens.” I leaned back in my chair, grinning at the memory. I put my hands together, then spread them outward, mimicking an explosion. “Boom!”
“I could have died!”
I shrugged. “Coulda, woulda, shoulda — Umm, I mean, you know, sorry about that. But these things happen, right? Anyway, no hard feelings?” I put my boots down, leaned over and held out my hand.
Yvette tentatively shook my hand, a look of wonder on her face.
“So,” I said, trying my best at some girl-talk. “That dragon cock, huh?”
Yvette’s eyebrows shot up her head again. I seemed to have that effect on her.
“What?”
“I dunno about Ranel, but Moddoc…” I held out my hands. “Woo-wee.”
Yvette’s cheeks flushed but then she leaned forward. “Amazing, aren’t they?”
The door to the room whooshed open, and Moddoc put his head through the door.
“Captain Black,” he said, addressing me formally in front of our guest. “the Olyit commune are requesting that they be placed in a rear-guard position.”
I snorted. “Yeah I was expecting that. Tell Oyna to let them know it’s fine.”
“Okay. What are you ladies talking about?”
Yvette and I exchanged amused glances.
“Girl stuff,” she said to him with a sweet smile.
“See you later.”
When he was gone, Yvette turned back to me, looking more relaxed and a lot less confused than she had earlier. “You know about him, right?” She raised her eyebrows just a little bit to indicate possibly secret knowledge.
I wasn’t going to let her think she knew more about my… boyfriend? mate? whatever-he-was. Not even for an instant.
“You mean his… past? His daughter and mate?”
Yvette nodded sadly. “It’s so sad, what happened. Ranel thought he’d never amount to much again. But he seems to have a bit of a spark about him, doesn’t he?”
That spark was me. At least I was pretty sure it was. And while I hadn’t been spark-less in my own life, there had been something missing, something that I hadn’t even realized wasn’t there. A hole that rapidly seemed to be filling.
“Yeah, he does. I mean, can you blame him, though? Losing his daughter, and then betraying his people to the Pax to get the cash to clone her…” I sighed sadly as I thought about all he’d been through.
Yvette slammed her palms down on the table. “Betraying his people to the Pax? What do you mean?”
Uh-oh.
What had I done? Was that part of what happened supposed to still be a secret? I thought that was the whole reason Moddoc was in the doghouse with the other Drakon in the first place.
Yvette leaned across the table at me, her eyes alight with anger on behalf of the Drakon.
“What did he do? We thought he was just incompetent. Was there more to it than that?”
We thought. Yep. She definitely thought she was part of them. But if they thought he was incompetent then they were clearly not all that bright. Moddoc was anything but incompetent. He may have been misguided, but it was with good reason.
“Nothing. I must have got the wrong end of the stick. Incompetent. Betrayal. It’s all the same to me. You know, when you’re a Captain of a fleet, like I am, you don’t worry too much about the specifics of why people fuck up, you focus on fixing the mess they caused. You get me?”
Yvette stared at me. “I think you just told me something you weren’t supposed to, and now you’re trying to cover it up.”
“Well you think too much. I barely know anything about what’s going on.”
“You’ve got over a hundred ships under your command. If you don’t know what’s going on, then I’m a walrus.”
I glared at her. “You do look a little—”
Yvette stood up with a jolt, smacking her hands on the table again as she did so.
“Stop treating me like an idiot, Captain Black.”
I just glared at her. I couldn’t think of any words that would help the situation, so I shut up.
“I left some things aboard that I want to get. I’ll see you later.”
Man, oh man, I thought when she was gone. Am I going to have some explaining to do to Moddoc.
When Yvette and Ranel were gone, I took Moddoc back into my war room, feeling guilty as hell. But not just guilty. Worried.
“Moddoc, I’ve got something to tell you…”
He stared at me with his big, intelligent, reptilian eyes. They were amused, like he thought there was nothing I could tell him that would be that bad. That he would be able to just gently console me, and everything would return to normal.
“What is it? But don’t concern yourself, whatever it is, I won’t be upset.”
“You promise?”
He put two heavy hands on my shoulders, giving them a reassuring squeeze. “Of course. I’m sure you could not have done anything that would bother me. You have brought a joy back into my life that I didn’t even know still existed in the verse. Whatever the trifling matter is—”
“It’s Tarion. When Thirren was attacked, and you were slow to give the warning… does he know about that?”
Moddoc’s face fell.
“He knows I was slow to give the warning… but not why. That is my own burden that I have shared only with you.”
“Crap.”
Moddoc’s mouth opened slowly, tentatively, as if not wanting to speak. “What happened?”
“I… I didn’t realize that part was still secret. I thought the Drakon knew of what you did, and that was why you were in trouble with them. I didn’t realize…”
Moddoc’s hands left my shoulders and crashed into his own head, clutching it. He took a step backward, staring at me, looking distraught.
“You told them?”
“I didn’t know!” I blurted. “I’m sorry! I thought they knew everything!”
He leaned back against the table and then slumped onto it.
“What am I going to do?”
The door swished open. It was Oyna. She’d left the bridge to come and deliver whatever message it was she had received. I was pretty sure I could guess what it was.
“Commander Tarion has just put through an urgent call. Captain Moddoc is to report to his ship. Immediately.”
24
Moddoc
A short time before I wouldn’t have felt anything at the news. I was broken and defeated and willing to accept whatever the verse threw at me.
But then she came.
My savior.
But now, perhaps, my destroyer. Wouldn’t that be ironic? The woman who saved me from desolation then, unwittingly, tossing me back into it.
I had promised not to be angry at her, and I wasn’t. It was my own fault. I should have told her that not all of what I had done had been revealed to the Drakon high command, but only a part of it. I didn’t know, then, didn’t even consider, what might happen in the future. This. My redemption, which now looked to be briefer than a fire-spark.
I beamed aboard Tarion’s ship and was unsurprised to find two security officers there to meet me. They did not embarrass me with chains or cuffs, thank the verse, serving merely as escorts. But they were escorts that acted as a reminder of what I had done. What penalties I might face.
One
security guard behind, one in front, we marched in lockstep across the ship to an office. When we arrived, the guards stopped outside the door.
“Enter,” said one of them, as he activated the control to make the door swoosh open. They positioned themselves on either side. Would they later be my executioners?
Head high, shoulders back, I took what may have been my final steps into the room. Tarion was facing away from me, staring out of a giant window or video screen — it was impossible to tell which — at the stars. As I took a step closer, I realized it was not just stars he was seeing. In the very far distance was a small red ball. Thirren. Our destination. Our stolen home.
The home that I had betrayed.
“You are here.” His voice was as cold as the space he was staring out at.
“I am.”
He turned to face me, his expression unreadable.
“I am a little surprised you came to see me. After what you did…”
“I will not run, Tarion. I am a Drakon. A Hielsrane. I will own what I did.”
“Sit.” He indicated a chair in front of a lava-stone desk that appeared to have been cut from a single, giant chunk of frozen magma. He sat down on a chair on the other side, staring at me.
“Explain, exactly, what you did. Leave nothing out.”
So, I told him what he needed to hear. How I had accepted a bribe from the Pax Alliance to look away, to delay my reporting of their incursion and subsequent invasion of our home world. My confession that I had done it all for selfish reasons — a desire to pay for cloning to see my deceased offspring again.
“You did this all for a child?” he asked when I was done. “To see your own — no, not your own, a copy of your own child — again? For that, you betrayed your people?”
My head hung low. I replied in the affirmative that it was true.
“I thought you were incompetent, Moddoc. That you failed because you were poor at your job. Then, I see some sign of success, working with the pirate girl. But now I find out that you weren’t useless. You were acting for our enemies. What should I do with you?”