Chapter Sixteen
“So you’re on the Hive home world, Commander Kyron?” Sylvan, projected onto the ship’s viewscreen, raised a dark blonde eyebrow at him.
Ky nodded.
“Yes, sir. After a little detour,” he said wryly. “I was captured and held prisoner on a small planet called Goshan Prime for a number of days before I managed to escape and get here.”
“Goshan Prime?” Commander Sylvan frowned. “I have never heard of it.”
“I hadn’t either but believe me it’s quite a place. I…” Ky cleared his throat. “I think I found my bride there.”
“Oh?” Sylvan said, sounding interested. “Well, that isn’t exactly what I sent you out to scout for but the Goddess does work in mysterious ways.”
“I have her with me now,” Ky said. “And I have much to report but I know how much energy these long-range transmissions take. So with your permission, I’ll make a full report once we get back to the Mother Ship.’
“Granted.” Sylvan nodded. “If you’re ready to fly I’ll have the fold in space ready for you within the solar hour.”
Ky thought regretfully of Dani, waiting for him in the bed, wanting her to change the color of her eyes. An hour wasn’t nearly enough for her first time—he wanted it to be special.
Well, there will be time for that later, he promised himself. I don’t want to rush things with her. And it’s better to be aboard the Mother Ship where bonding fruit is available before we try making love anyway.
“We’ll be ready,” he told his commanding officer. “Just give the word and we’ll be there.”
“Very good. But Commander Kyron, I do have one question of a rather delicate nature…”
“Yes, sir?” Kyron inclined his head. “What is it?”
“Well…” Sylvan cleared his throat. “You told me that you were held captive on this small planet but that you managed to escape. I don’t like to ask but since you are a Touch Kindred, how exactly—?”
“I didn’t use my Touch Sense as a weapon when I got away, Commander Sylvan,” Ky said immediately, understanding what the other male was asking. “Not that I wasn’t tempted at times,” he added dryly. “But I never broke my vow to you or the Goddess.” He lifted his chin. “You don’t have to be sorry you let me aboard the Mother Ship.”
“Of course I’m not sorry.” Sylvan sighed. “The vow would not have been necessary at all if some among the High Council were not…nervous about allowing Touch Kindred warriors to join our ranks here on the Mother Ship. They have heard too many stories about males who go out of control once they misuse their Goddess given abilities, even once… even in battle…”
“You’ll never have reason to regret persuading the Council to take the Touch Kindred,” Ky vowed. “I have iron control over my Touch Sense, sir. I use it only for the pleasure of my female.”
Sylvan’s ice blue eyes softened a bit.
“I look forward to meeting your new bride,” he said. “I’ll ask my own mate Sophia and her sister Olivia to come and greet her when you land.”
“Ask them to bring some clothing if you would, please, Commander,” Ky requested. “The, uh, Goshan standard of dress doesn’t exactly fit in with the Mother Ship’s idea of modesty.”
“Duly noted.” Sylvan nodded. “We will see you within the hour.”
“Yes, sir. Looking forward to it, sir.” Ky nodded back and signed off.
He sighed and sat back in his chair for a moment after the viewscreen went dark. Thank the Goddess he had never broken his vow and used his Touch sense in anger. He was especially glad now that he had resisted the temptation on Goshan Prime.
It was well known that once the barrier of the vow was broken, it was difficult if not impossible for a Touch Kindred to reign in his Touch sense and use it only for good. Such a warrior could lose control and become a danger to all those around him. That was one reason the Kindred High Council had been so reluctant to allow his kind to join the Mother Ship in the first place.
Well, he had better go and tell Dani that they were leaving soon. She would doubtless be disappointed but he was certain she would be willing to wait to make love until they were safely aboard the Mother Ship. That way he could take her back to his suite and take his time, stimulating her with his fingers and tongue and Touch sense until she was ready to open to him and allow him to give her the Deep Touch…
So thinking, he made his way down the narrow ship’s hallway all the way to the back where the bedchamber was located.
“Well, little girl,” he started but one look at Dani made him stop talking.
She was lying on her side, her slight shape tiny in the middle of the big Kindred sleeping platform. The coverlet was pulled up to her chin and her long black eyelashes lay against her cheeks like fans. Her slow, deep breathing let him know she was getting some much needed rest.
Ky felt a surge of affection for the small girl in the center of his bed.
“Poor little female—all tired out,” he murmured. Gods, she was beautiful! When he looked at her, he felt his heart swell with love. Though they hadn’t known each other long, he was certain the Goddess had put them together. He’d had to go through a little slice of hell on Goshan Prime between the beating and the thirst and starvation he’d endured but it was more than worth it to bring Dani home with him—a thousand times worth it.
Leaning over the bed, he stroked her rounded cheek gently with the backs of his fingers. She sighed and nuzzled against him, pressing into his touch. Even in sleep she was drawn to him.
Ky’s heart swelled again and he wanted to climb into bed with her and curl himself protectively around her small frame. He wanted to feel her lush, curvy body resting against his own and pillow her cheek on his chest while he breathed in her sweet, feminine scent.
No time for that right now, he told himself reluctantly. Have to change and get ready for lift off.
He placed a soft kiss on his sleeping bride-to-be’s cheek and changed quickly into a new pair of flight leathers and a fresh uniform shirt. He went to check the console but the signal from the Mother Ship, indicating that the fold in space was ready, hadn’t come through yet.
Well, looks like we’re stuck waiting for a few minutes. Might as well be sure I have everything I need.
Looking through the data his scans had collected on the Hive world, his thoughts drifted to his original idea of going to the mouth of the Hive’s lair and throwing in a scan ball. It was a self-propelled recording device which would take 3-D pictures of the lair from every angle, which could produce valuable information.
It would only take a minute, Ky told himself. Dani’s asleep and the Mother Ship hasn’t signaled yet. The mouth of the lair isn’t more than fifty standard yards away…
He decided to do it. Rising, he opened a sealed compartment and took out one of the scanner balls—it was a round silver sphere which fit in the palm of his hand, about the size of an Earth standard softball.
Taking the ball, he slipped quietly out of the ship and into the dim, gray light that pervaded the home world of the Hive.
It would only take a minute.
* * * * *
Dani woke suddenly with the feeling that something was wrong—something was missing. No, not something—someone.
Where’s Ky?
She sat bolt upright in bed. Where was he? And how long had she been sleeping? Were they at the Kindred Mother Ship yet?
Throwing back the soft, blue-green coverlet, she slipped out of bed. Still wearing only the too-large blue uniform shirt, she padded out into the narrow corridor which ran the length of the ship.
“Ky?” she called tentatively but got no answer. A trip through the ship revealed that he wasn’t in the living area or food prep area. He wasn’t in the cockpit either, though a glance at the viewscreen, which showed the exterior of the ship, proved they were still on the Hive home world.
Maybe he went outside for something?
Cautiously, Dani pressed the latch that opened the door and slipped out of the ship to stand on the sparse, gray vegetation which covered the rocky ground. In fact, everything about this world seemed to be gray—the ground, the sky, the dim illumination which filtered down from overhead… There were no trees or flowers or houses or buildings of any kind that she could see. There was nothing at all to break up the grayness except…
“Oh!” Dani put a hand to her mouth as she spied what was on the far side of the ship—a huge black hole, yawning like an open mouth.
The Hive—that must be where they lived. Ky had said they were an insectile race—it made sense for them to live in a hole in the ground rather than some kind of a building.
The entrance to their nest or lair or whatever you wanted to call it, wasn’t very far. For a moment Dani wondered if Ky had gone in there. But no—surely he wouldn’t. It looked much too dangerous—like a pit you might fall into and never get out of.
Suddenly she remembered that she hadn’t checked the little bathing room of the ship. The door had been shut as she went past it and she hadn’t thought to knock.
Of course, that’s where he is! Dani felt a surge of relief. Imagine her being silly enough to leave the ship and wander around half-dressed on a foreign planet when Ky was in the bathing chamber all along! Part of her brain must still be asleep. She—
A hard hand fell on her shoulder, cutting off her train of thought with horrible finality.
“There you are, Princess!”
Someone spun her around and she saw Councilor Tornk standing there, flanked by a pair of armed guards.
“What…who…how…?” Dani couldn’t get her questions out. It was like a bad dream—a nightmare you think you’ve escaped from once you wake up, only to find you’re not awake at all and the nightmare is still going on. “How did you find me?” she got out at last.
“I thought it might be useful to put a tracking device on the Kindred ship,” Tornk said, smiling nastily. “We were considering letting the Kindred go so we could track him and see where he led us. Of course, we never expected you would go with him, Princess.”
“Of course I went with him,” Dani exclaimed, beginning to regain some of her composure. “He offered me a life where females are equal to males—a life where I could choose my own destiny.”
“Your destiny was chosen for you from the moment of your birth,” Tornk snapped. “To be the wife of a worthy Goshan dignitary such as myself. And here you are—dressed in some obscene foreign get-up doing the Gods know what with an alien male! If the Monarch could see you now he would order you stoned at once, you little slut!”
“I will not be shamed by you!” Dani snapped. “I went with Kyron because I love him—because he doesn’t treat me like a pet or a piece of property. I don’t regret my actions one bit.”
Ignoring her completely, Tornk took her by the shoulders and stared into her face. Then he grunted and nodded his head in apparent satisfaction.
“At least your eyes are still unchanged. Lucky for you, Princess. You have a wedding to look forward to instead of a stoning.”
“I told you before, I’ll never marry you—I’d rather die.” Dani struggled but the two guards took her by the arms and dragged her, kicking and fighting, towards the squat, black Goshan craft.
“You might as well relax, Princess Dannella,” Tornk said with a nasty sneer as they shoved her into the ship and strapped her down. “You’re coming home with me and then we have our wedding to plan.”
“No…no! Let me out of here—let me go!”
But the guards had strapped her arms to her sides and there was no getting loose, no matter how she kicked and wiggled. She had to watch as the ship rose off the ground and listen to Councilor Tornk’s evil laughter from the seat ahead of hers as the sliver ship got smaller and smaller in the viewscreen.
“You old bastard,” Dani snapped, glaring at the back of his head. “You think you’ve won but you haven’t—Ky will come for me!”
“I don’t think so my dear. In fact, let’s just make certain he won’t, shall we?” Turning to the pilot, Tornk made a motion with one hand. “Blast the Kindred ship to pieces.”
“What?”
For a moment his words hardly registered—they were too awful, too final to be believed. Dani simply couldn’t wrap her head around the concept. But she saw the pilot flipping switches on his console and finally the idea of what Tornk had ordered crashed in on her.
“No!” she screamed as the pilot gripped his steering stick and positioned his thumb over a large, red button. “No, you can’t! He’s in there—you’ll kill him!”
“That’s the idea, Princess dear.” Tornk turned his head and smirked at her. “This way we don’t have to worry about ever seeing him again. We can’t have your Kindred lover ruining our wedding—now can we?” He nodded at the pilot. “Fire when ready.”
“No! N—” But her voice was cut off by a roaring sound from the engines. Suddenly, bright red beams of energy arrowed down and hit the silver Kindred ship.
For a moment, the silver glowed red—as though it was being heated like metal in a forge. Then it burst apart in a spectacular explosion of silver and black charred fragments. They blew into the air and rained down, covering the gray, featureless landscape in a blanket of twisted metal.
“No!” Dani tried to shout again but this time the sound was no more than a whisper. She could feel her throat closing with tears—tears of disbelief and horror. How could it have happened so quickly? How could her entire life be ruined and the male she loved killed in the blink of an eye?
I never even told him I loved him, she thought numbly. And now he’s gone forever.
“There—that should put any fantasies you might have of rescue to rest,” Tornk said briskly. “Now let’s go home, shall we?” He nodded to the pilot. “Mind you take the correct precautions before we go through the homeward wormhole.”
“You…” Dani finally found her voice and she spoke in a low tone filled with hatred. “Tornk, you’d better kill me,” she told him.
“Eh? What’s that?” He turned his head to see her again and frowned. “What did you say?”
“I said, you’d better kill me, not marry me.” Dani’s eyes blazed and she clenched her hands into fists at her sides. “Because if you give me even half a chance, I’m going to murder you…slowly.”
Tornk’s eyes widened for a moment, then he laughed dismissively and shook his head.
“Very funny, Princess. Always the jokester.”
“I’m not joking,” Dani said in that same, flat voice. “I’ll kill you and do you know what else, Tornk?”
“What?” he asked, frowning.
“I’m going to enjoy it,” Dani told him, glaring at him. “You got my mother killed and you murdered the only male I have ever loved. Oh yes, I’m going to really enjoy getting my revenge.”
For a moment Tornk looked at her uneasily. Then he laughed, a little too heartily, Dani thought.
“Threaten all you want, Princess. The fact is, you’ll be my wife by next week. We’ll see how ‘vengeful’ you feel after I chain you to my bed and change the color of your eyes.”
Dani didn’t pay any attention to his words or repeat her threat. Instead, she watched in the viewscreen as the blackened and fragmented Kindred ship slowly dwindled to nothing.
She felt as though her heart had dwindled with it.
* * * * *
Ky was deep inside the Hive’s lair when he heard the screaming. He’d been caught up in exploring the horrible place—led on by a kind of fascinated revulsion from chamber to chamber as he deployed the scanner-ball over and over, collecting images and data.
The ground underfoot was mushy and spongy and the scent in the air was an indescribable sweet stench—like rotting meat mixed with honey. He had only intended to use the scanner ball once and then call it back to him and go back to the ship. But the strange things it showed him when he called up the 3-D holo scan convinced him to go further and further in.
There was a stinking pit filled with rotting meat…walls lines with skulls…a chamber of horrors where ledges held the remains of the poor females who had been kidnapped and impregnated with the Hive’s grubs…
Somehow he made his way back to the far end of the huge complex. By the time he heard the screaming and ran all the way back to the entrance, it was too late to stop what was happening. Before he could so much as draw his blaster, Dani had disappeared into the blunt, snub-nosed Goshan ship and it had lifted away, into the dank gray atmosphere.
Dani—no! How in the seven hells did they find us and how did they get here? Thought that worm hole we went through was one-way!
Could it be that it was actually one of the rare two-way holes that worked in reverse to return a ship to its starting origin when it entered from the end-spout? Or was there another, homeward hole he'd missed somehow? Whatever the case, Ky intended to follow and get Dani back. And if that bastard Tornk, who must be the older male he’d seen shoving her into the ship, laid a single hand on her—
He started to leave the Hive’s lair but he paused for just a second to call the scanner ball. It was a good thing he did. The next moment, his ship exploded and the air was filled with deadly shrapnel.
Ky gasped and ducked as a sharp-edged piece of the silver hull, now blackened and twisted, flew at him. It barely missed his head and clanked against the stone walls of the Hive’s lair.
For a moment he scarcely knew what had happened. Then it came to him slowly but surely—Dani had been kidnapped and his only way to get her—hell, his only way home—had just gone up in a smoking fireball.
What in the Seven Hells was he going to do?