If this old charlatan doesn’t stop talking, I’m going to charge my anankah and kill someone. Probably myself.
“We must not cower from the threat of war,” the High Weaponsmith pontificates. “War will come to us regardless.”
We’re all gathered in the throne room. An open council meeting has been called to decide what to do about the rebel alliance with the Kraxx.
Xalax has only recently revealed that one of the High Council members is plotting to overthrow the crown. That is how I ended up on the Screaming Talon, trying to find Noxu to bring him back for trial and execution.
However, the fates had other plans for me. Placing me on the wrong ship. Raiding Yrdat.
Finding my mate and bonding with her.
Watching as she is dragged away to the Auction House, kicking and cursing my name.
When the peacekeepers came to my room this morning, I was surprised and ill-prepared. I was a fool to bring her to the Capitol, but no one knew of her existence.
Yet, still the peacekeepers came.
“Conflict is the natural state of the planet. The galaxy. The universe. It’s the only consistent, ever-present state of nature, found in every society, every planet, every race…” he goes on.
Xalax has summoned me to give my testimony. To tell everything I have learned during my undercover stint on Captain Ingzan’s ship, and to give a reporting of our success protecting the protein farm.
These old bastards will pin another meaningless medal onto my guardsman regalia, clap me on the back, and retire to their chambers to their mates. Their warm and willing females. Their offspring.
I cannot begrudge any male for his mate and offspring. I know that, but I can’t help my feelings of resentment. I willingly took the vow of Imperial Guardsman, knowing it meant I could never claim a mate nor reproduce.
Still, I’m ashamed at my behavior this morning when the peacekeepers took Aren from my chambers. First I fought them, which was irrational and pointless. After I was beaten and restrained, I sat bleeding and silent, watching as they draped a rough-spun robe over her body and bound her hands behind her back.
What warrior am I, watching as another male ties the wrists of my mate? I try to tell myself it’s the only reasonable thing to do. That whatever cruel trick of the fates, my destiny is with the Imperial Guard and my vows. Her destiny is to be matched with a suitable male with compatible DNA, so they might do their civic duty and repopulate the Zalaryn race.
Both of our paths were carved out long ago.
The irony is not lost on me. My vows prevent me from claiming her. Yet the sort of male who would let his mate be taken away is not fit for service in the Imperial Guard. Not fit for anything.
A male like that is no true Zalaryn.
I thought breaking my vow was dishonorable. This is true dishonor.
“What one of us shall stand up to the Kraxx Warlord?” the High Weaponsmith says. I’m not really paying attention to his speech, but it’s clear enough by the tone of his voice that he’s asking a rhetorical question. He doesn’t expect anyone to answer.
“I will,” I say, standing up—my voice booming loud, reverberating off the tall stone walls of the throne room.
“Captain Droka,” Xalax says, his voice bereft of its typical kingly authority. He sounds like my old friend. Sounds like me, when I’m trying to give him sound advice. Advice I know he won’t take.
How the tables have turned. I was always the reasonable one, giving him practical and often unwanted counsel. Now he is the High King, and I’m the one getting scolded for my poor decisions.
“I shall do this task,” I say. “The Kraxx Warlord is going to New Pallas to meet with Noxu? I shall slit his throat.” Or die from the effort, I don’t add. “I failed to apprehend the traitor before. I will not fail this time.”
“You served us well,” Xalax says. “If not for your efforts at the protein farm—”
“I shall do this task,” I interrupt. The rest of the delegates are shocked into stunned silence—I just interrupted the High King in Open Council after all.
“So be it,” Xalax says. “Ready a ship.”
The rest of the councilors erupt into murmurs of disagreement, calling this nonsense—but I don’t listen. I walk from the great hall and prepare for a voyage.
I need to do this. I need to reclaim my honor. As it is now, I’m not fit to be anyone’s mate. How could I look Aren in the eye after my behavior this morning? How could I ask her to trust me to provide for her? To protect her?
Perhaps after I slay the leader of the most ruthless and bloodthirsty race in the known universe, I might be worthy of the gift of her bond.
Perhaps after I slay the Kraxx warlord, I can have the strength to set aside my vows. Who’d dare call me oath-breaker when it is I who slew the most feared creature in the universe?
After I wipe the thick, black Kraxxoid ichor from my anankah, then I will go straight to the auction house. I don’t possess the coin needed to purchase her, but no one will deny me my mate.
She will wear no collar. Serve no master. The only bonds that will bind her will be the bond that we forged last night in my bed: the bond of the flesh and the spirit.
The bond that I am not worthy of.
Yet.
- - -
I don’t fear much, but the sight of all the Kraxx walking around freely on New Pallas puts a chill in my bones. They’re not brawling, not honing the long, electrified scimitars that they carry, not chanting their prayers to their gods of death and plague.
They’re eating protein bricks, telling jokes and playing games of blackstone with Zalaryn soldiers.
It is their ordinariness that I find chilling. These evil creatures use the latrine and hum while they lace their boots just like the rest of us—and that’s more frightening than sword-sharpening.
The Kraxx and Zalaryn regiments have made camp together. Image files of my face have been distributed to every comm-panel on New Pallas. Rogue spy, they call me. Loyalist and saboteur. Orders are to kill me on sight.
I’ve got my own orders, from the High King himself. Assassinate the Kraxx warlord before he meets with High Merchant Noxu.
And the secret orders of my heart. To redeem myself. To make myself into a proper mate for Aren. If she’ll have me. And, if the rest of my race call me oath-breaker, then Aren and I will go off-planet. There are many settlements in this quadrant where you can escape your past. We can start over.
But not until I atone.
My right hand is still swollen from the blow I struck the peacekeeper. Something grinds when I move my fingers and I’m sure the bones are broken. I need a healer, but that will have to wait.
Everything will have to wait. Because she’s in the auction house right now, and it can be a rowdy, despicable place. Especially for a female who has relinquished her virginity.
Or has had it stolen by a selfish, old warrior who could not restrain himself.
It doesn’t take me long to find the pavilion where Noxu has set up camp. He has all the flourishes and luxuries of traveling royalty—as if he’s already gotten used to the idea of being the High King.
And, as such, he has sentries posted around the entire camp. And they all know my face. They all have their orders to kill me on sight.
I land far outside their camp, in a stealth ship with encrypted signals. They have flight detectors around the camp perimeter, and sentries posted at all hours, but they do not patrol the outer edges of the planet.
I sneak in with a group of Zalaryns returning from a raid. I’m astonished at the goods they’ve brought back. Jewels like ruby and sapphire that have no industrial use. Metal trinkets like aluminum that are poor conductors of electricity. Wooden baubles. Slippery fabrics made out of molting insectoids. One lad even has a bright blue avioid in a cage. It has a large beak, and mimics the last word he says. What are the use of these vanities? These fripperies? They’re frivolous luxuries—nothing that a real warrior would have bothered to take. A real warrior uses his strength to provide for his mate and his offspring, to ensure the prosperity of his race. Weaker, vainer races concern themselves with such trinkets as these.
As we march through the gates, one of the males whispers to his comrade that they have plenty of goods, but no coin and nothing to eat. I’m glad to hear it. There is discontent among the rebels. They could be easily brought back to our side, if only their leader is taken out. That’s the problem with recruiting sullen, disenfranchised warriors for your cause—they soon become sullen and disenfranchised by you.
All I need to do is assassinate Noxu and the Kraxx warlord.
It would be easy enough. Storm into their pavilion and detonate an explosive device. Problem solved. But I’m not interested in a suicide mission.
I swore to protect Aren, and I must get back to her. Once I have atoned and made myself a fit and proper mate, then I will claim her and damn the rest.
But I need to be alive at the end of this.
I set down my travel pack and keep my head down. But I look. I listen. And soon enough there is a hush over the camp as their leader stands tall at the front of his pavilion.
Noxu is going to speak.
“Fine warriors,” he says, and there is not so much as a stray whisper or cough as he addresses the crowd. “We have raided well. We have enriched ourselves and the Zalaryn race.” Cheers erupt as the rebels hold their plunder over their heads, as if needing to prove to themselves that it’s true. “But we are far from done. The Great Raid was only the first step. And, I regret to inform you, our biggest mission has failed.”
There are shocked and angry cries from the rebels. Good. More discontent.
“We struck at the heart of the weak and corrupt Zalaryn power structure, fully prepared to take the protein reserves that rightfully belong to us. But they were waiting for us. A traitor among us sold our secrets to the enemy. They were aware of our plans and ambushed the invading ship. We lost ninety brave warriors. They were captured, tortured and hung upside-down from the Magneto Spire this very morning.”
Cries of indignation ripple through the rebels. Oh, what sweet lies Noxu is spinning. There were perhaps fifty raiders on the protein farm and, while they are being held in the dungeons below the fortress, they are being treated fairly.
A real Zalaryn warrior knows that it is not how you treat your friends that is the measure of a race. It’s how you treat your enemies.
“We have riches, but no coin. No protein. No mates. All these things are being denied to you by the corrupt, greedy king and his cronies. They hold the seat of Zalaryn power. So I say…”
No one dares exhale for fear of missing his next words.
“…Let them have Zalaryx. We will colonize the rest of the quadrant. And when Xalax begs us for protein, when he barters for qizo minerals, we will remember what he has done to our brave brothers this morning at the Magneto Spire.”
Spittle is sprayed everywhere as the rebels shout their agreement.
“Our first destination, then, is going to be Fenda. Those fat oafs have sat around long enough, manipulating us, extorting us, collaring us and making us beg and do tricks in order to get the minerals. But no longer. We do not ask. We take. And once we have free and open access to the qizo mines, our allied Kraxx brothers will be able to fuel their own spacecraft at-will. They’ll no longer have to be miserly with their own precious stores of minerals. Kraxx and Zalaryns will fly to every quadrant. Every galaxy. Every planet.”
The rebels are stirred up into a frenzy. Their nervous energy and desperate hope is overwhelming.
“We will sow our seed in the wombs of all species of female,” Noxu shouts. “We will burn their towns and build new Zalaryn and Kraxx settlements. The leaders who resist us will donate their heads to decorate the spikes atop our new fortresses. First Fenda, then the quadrant, then beyond.”
“First Fenda, then beyond!” the lads chant, apoplectic in their devotion to Noxu and his cause.
I chant along with them—of course I do. I don’t want to draw attention to myself. But the words taste like bitter ashes in my mouth.
Is Noxu out of his mind? The only thing that has reined in the Kraxx and their brutal destruction over the centuries is their lack of access to qizo minerals. And this mad bastard is going to just give the Kraxx the keys to the Fendan mines?
Dear void. The destruction. The death. The subjugation. The Kraxx breed as fast as insectoids. They have long proboscis-like phalluses—not like the cocks that Zalaryn and many other male species have. They are at least two feet long, and are barbed with thick, curved scales. They insert into the female species birth canal, deposit their pulsing, hideous egg-sacks, and withdraw, those barbs scraping and tearing as they do so. It’s an evolutionary tactic as brutal as the Kraxx themselves—tear and injure a female’s birth canal after depositing the eggs, so that she won’t be in any condition to take another mate, ensuring that it’s your genetic material she carries.
Kraxx DNA is not compatible with many species, but they have another hideous survival mechanism. If they gather female genetic material elsewhere, a male Kraxx can store it for months until it is ready to be deposited in an appropriate host. He can deposit an egg sac of several hundred into one female birth canal. When the eggs hatch, the offspring will feast upon the female host, devouring her from the inside out.
If given free access to minerals, the Kraxx will decimate entire populations— overtake and overpopulate every quadrant in the known universe within a few generations.
And all these rebels are clapping at the idea.
To keep from screaming, I look off into the distance and see a familiar sight. The Screaming Talon.
And I have an idea.