CHAPTER TEN
COMMANDER ZOQ KANE
The time came. It was time for me to make my move. It was time for me to escape. It was the middle of the night, and I knew the routine of the mothership. The captain would be asleep by now. There would only be two warriors on the flight deck keeping an eye out for any human interference. There was no one watching the inside of the ship. We didn't have to. If there was going to be any sort of enemy activity, it would come from the outside. I had planned this all out well, but now that I was putting it into action, my adrenaline was pumping. I moved over to the floorboard of the cell and pried off a tile from the floor. Underneath it was a bag full of supplies. It was everything I would need for the escape as well as being in space on a long journey. I pulled out a device. I pulled out a glass vial. I loaded the device with the liquid from the vial. Then I shoved it into my boot. I pulled the bag onto my back. I opened the wall panel and once again got the door open. hallway was empty. I walked quietly toward the living quarters of the captain. I walked in. He was sleeping. I pushed the device into his skin. It was a painless needle. I counted to 5. I saw his body go limp. I put my hand on his chest and shook him awake. His eyes opened in shock. Then they narrowed in anger. He tried to get up but he couldn't.
“There is no use. I have pumped you full of the sedative. You will be falling into a very deep sleep in 60 seconds, for several hours,” I said. I could tell he was struggling to open his mouth to talk. But it was a powerful sedative that made your body go completely numb before putting you into a very deep sleep.
“Why am I here? You must be thinking that. It is to tell you one thing: you were right. Your suspicions were right. I am a spy. I am not with the opposition. I work for King Hydros. He knew last year that the opposition was on to something bigger than the normal conflicts. So he asked me to infiltrate and wait. Of course, he was right. Here you are, doing something out of the ordinary, visiting Earth and telling the humans about us.”
The captain's eyes began to close sleepily. He was struggling to keep them open.
“But since he knew that the opposition was going to do it anyway. He needed someone on the inside to know exactly what the opposition would tell the humans. So that he could have all the information he needed in order to create a plan to deal with this new reality of the humans knowing about the Draqua. That was my sole purpose in being here. To observe and gather the information. Now I'm going to take it back to the King. There is nothing you can do to stop me,” I said.
Then his eyes closed. I grabbed the keys to the ship off the wall and then walked out, closing his door behind him. I made my way to the cargo bay and chose a long range transport. I stocked it with food and water. Then I used the captain’s keys to manually override the detection systems that would alert the flight deck that a transport was taking off and the cargo door would be opening. They would not know that I was gone until the captain regained consciousness. It was all part of the careful plan that I had laid out for months now. If I had not thought through every single detail, then I would never get away.
I took the transport and flew out of the mothership undetected and used the invisibility shield. I was in a lot of danger and should have jetted straight for space. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t leave without seeing her. I couldn’t leave without giving her the option to come with me. I had to at least say goodbye. So when I landed and told Heather that I was leaving, I was happy and grateful that she came with me. She now sat at my side in shock after leaving her planet on a whim.
But there was much to talk about. I had to tell her the truth, but I knew that I risked her love by doing so. I was not opposition. I was in the Draqua that stole women from Earth. Just because she was enjoying sex with me did not mean she would condone the act that we had been doing for decades. I knew that it would anger her to know that I was one of the Draqua that she was helping to prepare the leaders of Earth to fight. It was a mess, but she had to .
“About that… I have not told you the truth about who I really am,” I said to her as she sat next to me on the ship. Her eyes grew wide, and she shifted in her seat.
“What do you mean, Zoq?” she asked quietly.
“I will explain everything. Let me set the coordinates here and get the ship on auto pilot,” I said as I typed in our destination coordinates. I set the computer for auto pilot, and double checked it. I checked the radar to make sure we were not being followed. The radar was empty. I unbuckled my belt and stood up. She did the same and followed me to the middle of the ship where there were long sleeping benches and a food area.
“You’re scaring me, Zoq,” she whispered. “Where are we going? What coordinates are you setting?”
“I set the course for my home planet, Kelon,” I said.
“Kelon! But we can’t go there! You are opposition! You will be imprisoned.”
“I am not opposition,” I said.
“What? What do you mean?” she said shocked.
“I am not opposition. I am a spy for the Draqua. I work for my King. I am against the opposition, always have been. But I had to act like I was opposition in order to infiltrate. I am working undercover,” I explained to her.
Her blue eyes grew wide. Her mouth fell open. “So you are with those that have been stealing human females from Earth for decades?”
“Yes, I am. I always have been. I do not oppose it. I did not lie about what I told you previously, that I am sick of the war between the Draqua, but I am not opposition. But I will do whatever it takes to stop this war. So that is why I joined Captain Blace on the mission. I was gathering information for my King.”
She was quiet for a long time. I could tell that she was thinking over what I had told her. I did not want her to be angry with me, but I understood why she would be. She was against my race taking humans from Earth, and I had just told her that I was part of the group that was for it.
“So I have spent time with you and the captain making friends with the opposition. I have spent time making sure that the Earth was on friendly terms with the opposition also that we could fight against the real Draqua that would take human females. Now you are telling me that you are the enemy of the opposition. You are the enemy that we have been working so hard to fight against in the future,” she said in disbelief.
“Yes, it is true. I hope you can forgive me. But as you see I could not tell you what I was up to. If the Captain had not caught us together, I would still be undercover. But after he found us, he took me and put me in a prison cell. He was going to try me as a traitor upon returning to the opposition base. I could not let that happen. But if he had not caught us together, I would still be working to gather information for my King. But I have gathered enough,” I said.
She narrowed her eyes. “Yes, you have. You have gathered a lot of data, including that of the Earth space agency that will be fighting against you. The very leaders that will be trying to stop you from taking human females. Is that why you seduced me? I was part of it, wasn't I? I was part of you getting an inside look into the space agency and those that you would have to get around the next time the Draqua wanted to take human females.”
“The next time won’t be for a long time now. Not after this last trip that the Draqua made. I have been told that as many as one hundred females were taken,” I said.
“What! When? When was this?” she said in anger.
I was quiet. I knew she was going to be very angry.
“Zoq! Answer me!” she shouted.
“It was during the first day that we landed. The first day that our ship came into your city. There were several Draqua ships working around several areas of the Earth. Each ship took 10 to 20 human females,” I said.
“What? I cannot believe it. You used the opposition entering the Earth and making contact with us as a diversion. How could you?”
“It wasn't my plan. It was the plan of the King. But I was key in making sure that it pulled off successfully. I was in constant contact with the leader of that project to make sure that all eyes were on Captain Blace and I. With everyone paying attention to us, no one was paying attention to the invisible ships in the desolate areas of your planet, taking human females. It was the perfect cover up.”
“But it is wrong! Those women have families! They must be brought back. Where are they now?” She yelled at me.
“They are on Kelon already. The mission was very swift. It was in and out of Earth in 24 hours. They are long gone. Perhaps they are already matched to a dragon shifter. There is nothing that can be done. It is what we have to do, Heather. Our race will die without the humans,” I said as I put her hands in mine. She jerked her hands away from me.
“Don't touch me! You lied to me! You were such a cool liar. Don't you have any remorse?” she said.
“You lied too! You lied to your employers. You kept a secret from them, the secret about us being together. You did so out of necessity. I lied to you out of necessity. I never meant for you to get mixed up in all of this.”
“Yes, you did! I was part of your plan all along. You singled me out and seduced me in order to distract me. You seduced me in order to get as much information as you could. You are the enemy! You work for the enemy!” she cried.
“No, it is not like that. I promise, you were not part of any plan. I did not use you!” I said.
“Why should I believe you now? You lied to me before. How can I possibly tell when you are not lying now? You could be lying about all of it. I can never believe you,” she said as she moved away from me to the back of the ship.
“Those poor women,” she whispered. “They were taken, and it is my fault. I am a communications specialist. If I had not been so distracted, perhaps I would have picked up on some sort of signal all the ships were creating all over the Earth. I would have studied it harder.”
“No, do not blame yourself. There was nothing that you could do. The Draqua technology is far more advanced than what you have on Earth. We would have gone undetected as we have been all these years,” I said to her, stepping toward her. She looked so sad and fragile. I wanted to pull her into my arms and console her. But I was the cause of her pain, and it bothered me beyond belief.
“But you have gone undetected because we were not aware that you existed. Perhaps now with the knowledge that we know you exist, there might be something that would tell us when you arrive. I could have found that if I was working. But I turned my back on my work because I was distracted by your seduction,” she said in anger.
“I was not distracting you on purpose. I was simply following what I felt. I was very attracted to you; I still am. I acted on my instincts. I hope that one day you will believe me. That you will believe that all of this is the truth, the final truth.”
She said nothing. She stared out the small window in the back of the transport. She wiped a few tears off of her cheek. I knew that she needed time. I was going to give her as much time and space as I could.
“I'm going to check on the flight path. I'm going to make sure that we are still on course,” I said as I walked back to the front of the ship. I felt heavy with guilt, even though I did not do any of the things that she was accusing me of. But it did feel wrong that I had kept the information from her. But I had no other choice. The mission to use Captain Blace’s arrival on Earth as a distraction while we took human females in great numbers was how the King was dealing with the fact that the opposition was letting Earth know about us. It was a good plan. It was one that would buy us some time. With this group of human females, we could continue to procreate. It would give us many years before we had to return to Earth for more human females. But I understood why Heather was angry about it. She had every right to be. I understood why she thought I was using her. There was a lot of deception going on between the opposition, Earth, and the Draqua. It made sense that she did not trust me after all the deception.
I gave her space to think. But as she sat on one of these sleeping benches, I could hear her soft sobbing. It hurt me to hear her. I was this great skilled Draqua dragon shifter. I was a warrior that was willing to put it all on the line and go undercover with the opposition. Yet, one human female’s sobbing brought me to my knees.
A few minutes later, the sobbing stopped. I looked behind me to see that she had fallen asleep. It was good. I had taken her in the middle of the night. She had been through a lot in the last 48 hours. First, she had been caught by the captain with me, and did not know what would happen to her because of it. Then I came to her and made her make a quick decision to leave her planet. Then I told her the truth about everything; it was a lot to take in. It would make anyone exhausted. stood up from the pilot seat and moved to the back. She was soft and delicate as she slept. I pushed her long hair away from her face. I grabbed a long cloth from a compartment next to the bench and covered her with it. It was a slim muslin fabric from Kelon, but it kept heat in. I watched her for a few minutes. I was very glad that she had come with me, but I was upset that she was angry with me. I hoped that she would eventually forgive me, especially after we arrived on my planet. a human female with me was not part of the plan, especially one that was so involved in the mission with Captain Blace. The King would probably be very angry that I had done this. If she did not forgive me and wanted nothing to do with me, then she would be able to choose another lover, a Draqua lover, in time. I could not stand the idea of her being with another. But all of this was a possibility, and I had to prepare myself for it. I would have to prepare her for what was to be expected when she landed on Kelon with me. She would not be pleased to hear that the King could possibly punish me for taking her. It would not make sense to her since I had just told her that we had taken hundreds of human females. It would make sense that the King would be happy that I had a mate. But he would not be happy that I had taken a human female that was so involved in everything that had happened. Her disappearance would be noted by her employers, and it would create a bigger problem.