Egon

The door to my shuttle opens with a hiss. I ball my fists, for I have no idea what to expect. It could still be a trap.

The unfamiliar face of a ice-blue Zoran appears in the doorway.

“Brother,” he says, grabbing my hand and shaking it strongly. “You are safe.”

He leads me into his ship, and what I see there makes me freeze dead in my tracks. A decorative banner with “Welcome Home” on it is hanging over a table with a cake on it, with three Zoran/human children sitting there, impatiently banging their cutlery on the table.

Surrounding them are four human females, several of them pregnant. They smile and wave at me.

“What is this?” I say.

“We are the Resistance,” a voice from the left growls. Three other Zorans stride into the room: One red, one purple, one gold.

“I am Daruk. This is Dost and Turnon, and you’ve met Kazim.”

The blue Zoran salutes me.

“These are our wives and our children.”

He runs of their names quickly; Sarah and her child Jacob, Ava, Aria and her daughter Grace, and Lilith and her baby Eli. I can barely keep track.

“Welcome,” the females say in unison.

“And you are Egon,” Daruk says. “Now, introductions have been made, let’s eat!”

The children cry out in joy as the gold Zoran grabs a knife and cuts the cake.

“Wait your turn, Eli,” he says to a child who tries to snatch the cake from his hands. “Guests come firsts.” The child has his golden glow, but a human build.

“Is that…”

“My child? Yes.”

I wonder what our baby would look like, Miah and I, and the thought tugs at my heartstrings.

Daruk hands me the cake, and I eat it in silence, the sensory overload of a room filled with children and women shutting down all my systems. It’s sugary, but not unpleasant.

“We’re so glad you’ve found us,” a dark-haired female with a round belly says. “I’m Ava Payne.”

I nod as I shake her hand. I’m still dumbfounded. How can this people be so kind to me? I’m the reason why they’re all here. I’m the reason why they have to run…

“Our ship was damaged when that idiot tried to ram us,” she complains. “If they had just handed you over like we asked, all of this could have been avoided.”

“Hudson,” I growl. “He paid the price.”

“Good,” she says. “Either way, it all worked out in the end. You’re here and that’s all that matters!”

“Not quite,” I mutter under my breath.

“What’s that?”

I can’t do this.

I can’t pretend to be happy.

I throw the rest of my cake down on the table. My fork bounces off and falls on the floor, and the room falls silent. All eyes are on me.

“How can you sit here and celebrate?” I growl. “We’ve lost. And it’s my fault.”

Dost wraps an arm around my shoulder. “Not yet, my friend. Let’s go for a walk.”

The four Zorans usher me out of the room, leaving the children, who look thoroughly confused, to enjoy the party. As we walk through the ship, I see the walls are decorated with children’s drawings, and toys are strewn all about.

It all just makes me feel worse. If it wasn’t for Pazar, these people might still live in peace on Earth. My mistakes have ripped entire families apart…

“When the order of exile came, most followed it,” Kazim says.

“And I don’t blame them,” Daruk adds.

“Yet we couldn’t, as you can see. We’re mated with human females. Our children are mixed. Our lives and those of the humans are intertwined. That bond can’t and will not be broken, no matter what the Federation wants,” Kazim continues.

“We decided to fight,” Turnon growls. “Strike back. For the future of our children.”

“I don’t understand,” I say. “Why are you helping me? This is all my fault. You should hate me.”

“What do you mean?” Dost says.

“I killed the humans at Pazar,” I say, my voice flat. “The exile — it’s my fault.”

Their eyes widen. “You don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“That it’s not your fault?” Dost says.

“What do you mean?”

“The serum?”

I shake my head. What damn serum?

Kazim slaps my shoulder. “Brother! You were poisoned! It was a false flag attack!”

“What?” is all I manage to stammer.

“Sit down,” Daruk says solemnly. “You’re going to want to sit down for this.”

I take a seat, and my four Zoran brothers do the same. They lay it all out for me, and I am shocked to my very core.

Kazim explains to me how secret documents have been leaked — communications between Siya and Basil Onyx — that prove that they used a rage-inducing serum that drove us four to madness. Torin, Kane, Marcas and myself. We suffered for nothing.

The rage that took a hold of me and my pack that day in Pazar, in the waiting room of the Onyx’s headquarters, wasn’t me. It hadn’t been my feral nature that rose to the surface, like the human judges told me. It’s been repeated back to me so many times even I had started to believe it!

“They wanted to bury the story on Deasun II that you were there to discuss. They flipped the script. They turned you, the accusers, into the perpetrators,” Dost says.

“As if committing genocide on the Impas wasn’t enough,” I growl, bile rising in my throat, the anger gripping my heart tightly.

That’s how it all started. My pack went to Deasun II to train our sneaking skills — the swamps there are perfect for that — only to find the planet’s surface covered in black soot, the air now poisonous, and the dead bodies of the intelligent natives, the Impas, strewn all over the place. We learned that the Onyx Corporation were drilling straight to the planet’s core, and they didn’t care they had to kill an entire planet to get there.

We traveled to the space station of Pazar that day to confront their leadership about their crimes, but they were one step ahead of us.

And they turned us four into monsters.

I have lost so much because of them. Not only my freedom, but also…

“Miah,” I whisper.

“Hm?”

“I… there was a human that survived the crash as well. We…”

The Zorans exchange knowing glances, as if they already know where this story is going. My crushed look must say it all.

“I pushed her away because I was… ashamed. And afraid,” I growl. “That she’d hate me for what I’d done, hate me like I hated myself. And now I learn it’s another Onyx ruse?! I had everything I ever wanted in the palm of my hands and I…”

“Let it slip away?” a singsong voice from behind says.

I crane my neck. A blonde human female, holding a baby in her hand, looks at me with a defiant streak in her eyes. I believe her name was Sarah, and the blue-colored babe is Jaboc.

“Not on my watch you don’t! We’re getting your girl back. Isn’t that right, Jacob?”

The baby glances up at his mother, a smile on his lips.

“That’s right. We’re bringing Auntie Miah home, aren’t we?”

Auntie?

Kazim grabs my shoulder.

“We’re family here, Egon. We have to stick together. We’ll get your mate back. This I promise.”