Ryock

The hole in Isla’s chest reminds me of one of those sickening tests the Crima loved to put my body through during their research. It’s big and black and the gore flowing out it is staining the new clothing Lexi gave her to wear. She was so damn happy to be clean and in new clothing. It was like her sense of self-worth rose as she applied each annoying layer of fabric.

“Maul!” Marketh screeches. “Isla has been mortally wounded! We need to go!”

Where, I wonder is my rage? Where is the emotional storm of loss and anger?

Why do I kneel beside my broken mate as the melee of battle surrounds me? Should I not be up, fighting? Fighting to protect everyone else?

My child is inside of my bonded, so small and so fragile. No chance of surviving now outside of her.

A hand slaps stingingly across my face as a feminine voice yells at me. Who could want to yell at me?

Don’t they see my world has ended? My worst fear is coming true.

Another hand is yanking me up now, pulling me by my shoulder. I want to stay kneeling, to hold on to Isla’s hand, but I don’t have the will do to anything.

Facing the blue-skinned Rathturian, I watch as his mouth moves. It’s all muffled to me. Nothing he says makes sense.

Looking from him to the body of my beloved, I start to sink back down.

I’m willing to die now. Nothing here is holding me back from oblivion.

Unable to fall, I look again at the male as he shakes me hard. Then in a swift turnabout, he tugs me enough so that I’m able to see our surroundings.

All around me, Rathturians, Crima, and my own kind are fighting for survival.

The Crima are shooting at everyone except themselves. They could care less that they are killing the Argmarath. They are sending them in for the slaughter. Nothing matters now to them except that all of us die. If we Argmarath, Humans, and Rathturians die, they win. No one will be able to tell the tale of what we’ve seen. What the Crima have done.

But who cares? I certainly have no stake in the games they play anymore. Not as I taste oblivion.

The blue-skinned Rathturian yells in my face again. But why? What does it matter?

Pushing me towards the Crima, he shouts again in my ear, “Kill them all! They destroyed your star!”

It’s a start, I suppose. Not that it matters one way or another.

Perhaps I can die quicker if they shoot at me.

My feet stumble for the first few steps, but as I get closer and closer to them my body moves with a purpose.

Even if my mind is slowly shattering to the cosmos, my body knows its final role in this life. It’s destiny.

Something snaps inside of me as I look to where my feet carry me. The walking is quickly shedding the numbness that filled my body. Getting my blood pumping.

Flashes of memory pour through my mind of the first time I smelled her scent on the Crima research vessel. The way it called to me, the way it moved my soul. The sounds of her breath as she quietly slept in my arms. The way she tasted the first time I groomed her body. The way, when we became intimate, she held nothing back.

Her very being opened up for my body.

The earlier rages were uncontrollable ones, the type that I couldn’t stop. Unharnessed.

This one is unstoppable, but it doesn’t burn inside of me.

No, this one is cold and dark.

As black as the oblivion slowly consuming my soul.

It freezes the world around me. It gives me the time I need to spot a dead Rathturian body.

In front of it are two Argmaraths.

They’re not facing me and that is their deadly mistake.

I’ve never desired to kill one of my own kind like I do now. Not even during the worst of my trials and tribulations had I wanted to kill someone like I do now. These two truly don’t matter in the grand scheme of things, but they’ll die brutally because knowingly or unknowingly they stand in my way.

Running to the closest Argmarath, I slam a fist into a closing wound on his back. The wound didn’t start out large, but by the time my hand digs into the hole it is.

I can feel ribs.

The guy roars in agony as I shove my fingers into the gaps of the ribs and begin to crush them between my hand.

Reaching around with my free hand, I pull his head back and smash my mouth down on his thick throat. It’s tough work ripping first the throat muscles out, then the veins that connect to his heart. Biting through it all, I feel the hot, salty fluid rush into my mouth. He’s not mortally wounded though until I twist his head around.

Now the fucker won’t be getting back up.

The second Argmarath looks at me in terror as I toss the dead body aside.

“Run,” I roar over the shooting of blasters and screams of the dying.

He’s too stunned to move though, so I walk up to his ugly coward face. I put a fist to his stomach and then I grab his throat. Turning him around, I snap his neck the same way I did the first one.

A deathblow for any race. Argmarath or not.

The rage isn’t abated though. It screams deathly howls through my veins as it spots the Crima once again.

Lifting the dead Rathturian body in front of my own, I use it as a shield. The body armor it wears stops the blaster shots from piercing through the body to hit me.

The smell of burnt flesh fills my nose as the body is hit with a rapid succession of blaster fire.

With a growl, I heave the body away from me and feel a small sense of satisfaction as it barrels over three of the Crima. They’re trying to keep an organized front as the tide of the battle is quickly turning in their favor. It matters little that the carnage is mostly their own army, they just want us all dead.

It’s a surprise though when I suddenly hear a loud whining noise followed by huffs of static.

I know that sound, and it’s terrifying to ever hear it. The only time you hear that spewing huff of white noise is when a warship is on the surface of a planet, shooting its particle cannon array at something.

Even in my raging mind, I know that sound means to duck down and hide. Perhaps it’s the years of training so ingrained inside of me that makes me hide behind the closest object, curling into an almost fetal position as I hear the cannon spew eight bolts out.

When I stick my head above the partially destroyed hovercar, I look around to find the Crima that were shooting at me.

A gigantic black smoking hole is all that remains of the spot they were standing on.

Holy fuck.

Looking around myself, I see all sorts of chaos. Everyone, except for Maul, is ducking down to save themselves from what could have been instant death.

“Marketh! Find Commander Drizt!”

In all the chaos that surrounds us, the name sends a sharp pang of rage through my very core.

It was he who attacked us. He who set his bugs after my star.

I stand up to begin my own search, but I feel confounded by the bond that has held me so dearly to her. She is dying, I can feel it through the bond. Her soul is fading fast. The oblivion of the universe is taking her.

Search for her destroyer or fall to her side?

I want to be the one who she sees last. Who whispers his devotions and prayers to her heart. To beg it to keep beating in her fragile frame, not only for me, but for our child who needs her so desperately.

Marketh yells, “I guess I failed in unleashing hell on the bastards because the fucker is right here!”

Both Maul and I charge over to the Crima bug who is hidden under a couple of half melted bodies.

He’s groans loudly as Marketh continues to circle around him, shooting little zaps of electricity at his head.

A roar of defiance breaks through my ears as I turn around to see three standing Rathturians. They’ve got an Argmarath on his knees. He’s the last of the war party to be resisting. No others are on their feet.

The blue Rathturian from earlier walks up to the large, raging male and calmly places his barrel against its forehead. I would try to stop him, try to explain the Argmarath doesn’t know of any other way than what he was told. But I can’t, not now, not ever. There’s just too much happening for me to process my own internal battle.

Turning away from them all, I walk back to Isla, my dear fading star.

Kneeling again beside her, I take her cold hand in mine. She’s gone so pale now. So very pale.

Lexi looks up to me in fury as she spits out, “You should have protected her. She’s your bonded!”

Gasping quietly at the sounds around her, Isla clenches my fingers tightly. “No.”

I look to Lexi in submission, she’s right. It was my failing that has caused this.

“Maul, we must do something!” Lexi yells to her bonded as he heads over to us.

Marketh races past him and begins scanning Isla’s body. “We need to get into the Citadel. She’s fading too fast for us to do anything out here. She’s lost far more blood than she can…”

Lifting her up into my arms, I would weep if the tears would come to me. They stay inside of my heart where I feel like a black hole is slowly opening, sucking in everything that was a part of me.

She’s so light, as if her dying is removing the weight inside her tiny frame. It was never a struggle to lift or carry my star, but now it’s as if I have lifted a feather.

The blue Rathturian charges over to us. “Let me take point, First Tiered!”

“No, Byland. Secure the surviving Crima. Take any of the survivors to the Rathturian prison. Do not speak to anyone else of this, nor allow any Tribunal member to see them. They are ours. Make sure the one my symbiote marked is kept away from the others, and make sure he doesn’t end his own life,” Maul tells him in a rush as we begin to jog towards the Citadels main doors.

“By your command,” Byland says before racing back to the mass of bodies. He begins to bark orders at the surviving Rathturians.

“Marketh, send word to father,” Lexi chokes out through her tears as she holds Thorn tightly to her chest.

“I have already,” Marketh says from the spot he has taken on Isla’s shoulder.

Her body is slowly shaking now, and as I watch her lips turn a light shade of blue, I prepare for her death rattle.

For the black hole that will surely engulf my universe when she dies.

We rush through the doors at a fast pace, each of us trying to keep a grasp on the world as we make our way through men and women of all kinds. Bodies surge out of our way at the shouting of Maul.

“How far to the medical wards?” I ask Marketh.

“Too far for it to matter,” he says as his voice cracks.

My feet slow at his words. If it is too far to matter than at least I can try to give her dignity in her final moments.

Kneeling down on the floor, I pay no heed to those around me.

“What’s going on?! Why did you stop?” Lexi screams at me.

“To say goodbye,” I look up to her, my words coming out in a whisper.

“No!” she shrieks out as she turns into Maul’s body, his arms wrapping around her tightly.

Bending over Isla, I place my lips as gently as I can with my stupid body. I, the mighty Ryock, unable to save a delicate human.

Lightly kissing her lips, I whisper, “I love you, my star.”

There is nothing but silence around us as my vision slowly begins to fade in and out. She’s dying now. There is no doubt of that.

Her final breath comes to me.

I start to purr, trying to give her comfort in her last moment.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Marketh barks with laughter.

“Marketh,” Maul and Lexi shout in horror.

His cackle can’t be contained as he says, “Big fucking guy here knocked her up!”

Lifting my eyes to little evil ball of silver, I have no words for him. My mouth falls open in anger.

“Look down you, big oaf! Look at her fucking wound!”

Lexi and Maul are instantly by our side.

I rip the shirt away from her chest, more than likely exposing far more flesh than she would have ever liked.

And there, for all of the world to see, her flesh is slowly crawling back together. The internal organs that were black and burnt are shedding the dead flesh away and slowly turning pink.

A shallow breath goes through her nose and then another. Each one deeper than the last.

“He knocked her up and she got some extra genetic material thrown in the mix,” Marketh cheers as he zips around us. “We still need to get to the medical bay, but there’s no rush now. She’s going to make it.”