Chapter Two

Spinning around, Dolon shoved his laser pistol under the henchman’s chin. “Take my sister to the ship and lock her up, or die.”

“Yes, my lord.” The henchman took a hasty step back, grabbed Mami, and practically ran from our spacecraft. Amazingly, he managed to get the hatch open on the first try.

Drekk. Mami wasn’t wearing a biosuit. Then again, a short exposure shouldn’t hurt her.

My uncle turned his attention back to Papa and smiled. “They say the Berserker has never been defeated in battle. But here you are, at my feet and conquered.”

Once my father regained control of his body, Dolon would meet the Berserker for real and it wouldn’t be pretty.

Dolon quickly cuffed Papa’s hands. “How far away is the treasure?”

“Not far,” I answered.

“Can you override the biometric locks on this ship?”

I did my best terminally stupid impression. “Me? No. I’m not permitted to touch the command thingamajigs. Only Papa knows how.”

“Thingamajigs?”

“You know, a doohickey?”

“Doohickey?”

“I know. I know. A whatchamacallit!”

“How are you your mother’s child?”

I frowned in confusion. “Papa says that a lot. I’m not sure why.”

My uncle stared at me for a long moment. “You can’t be this stupid.”

Balock’s balls. He wasn’t buying my act. “Mami says I’m very good at cleaning, and Papa taught me to fly a flitter.”

“His mistake. If I can override the command protocols, I can gain control of the ship.” Dolon went into the control room and started messing with the computers.

Good luck with that. Muscle tremors still shook my father’s massive frame. I needed to get close enough to Papa to use the portable med unit. As soon as Dolon holstered his laser pistol, I threw myself on top of my father and cried hysterically, “Don’t die, Papa! Don’t die! Please don’t die!” I triggered the med unit until he stopped shaking.

Papa opened his rage-filled eyes. “Protect your mother.”

“I will.”

Dolon kicked the console in frustration and let loose with some very vulgar curses.

“Please, please, please don’t die,” I wailed, sliding a lockpick into Papa’s hand.

My uncle stormed over to me. “Quit your weeping.” He pulled me away from my father and shoved me toward the door. “Treasure. Now. Or Papa dies.”

“Yes, my lord.” Shooting him a terrified look, I scurried over to the hatch and opened it. A blistering sun hung in Qeeturah’s pale red sky. Shimmering mirages danced across the shifting mountains of scarlet sand.

A short distance from our ship, gigantic monoliths of vermillion stone stood like sentinels, guarding the last remnants of a once great civilization. The Nabateans had carved magnificent buildings, temples, and tombs from the rocks.

The only creatures that had survived the solar radiation were orange iplo lizards and zillions of spiny black var bugs. The bugs liked the taste of our blood, and their bite triggered horrible itching fits. Mami had made up a repellant that kept them at bay. We slathered it on every day. Too bad Dolon and the henchman were unprotected. As my Earth friends like to say, Paybacks are a bitch.

I tapped my communications bracelet, triggering the safety protocols for my biosuit. A protective helmet formed around my head.

My uncle eyed me in alarm. “Why are you wearing protection?”

“Papa insists on it. The sand gets in my lungs and causes a fever,” I lied.

“Females are so drekking fragile.” He dragged me over to our sleek black flitter.

A swarm of var bugs popped from the sand, making a rattling click noise. The louder the click, the hungrier they were. They were always hungry.

I mentally rubbed my hands together in glee. Welcome to Qeeturah and all its nasty little critters.

The henchman jogged up. “Your sister is in the holding cell, my lord.”

“Good. Go keep an eye on Lysis.”

“Yes, my lord.” The henchman swatted at the bugs scurrying up his legs. By the time he reached our ship, he was scratching like a madman. Once the bugs fed, they would drop off the henchman, leaving him with dozens of oozing, itchy sores. The henchman placed his hand on the scanner pad, but nothing happened. He shot a worried look at my uncle and tried again.

I hid a smile. The moron didn’t realize it was an eye scanner. Even better, they had locked themselves out of our ship. What a shame.

I typed the entry code into the keypad, and the flitter door slid open. Before I could sit in the pilot’s seat, Dolon shoved me out of the way. “No female pilots a ship I’m riding in.”

This should be interesting. The flitter was equipped with biometric locks too. I took the copilot’s chair and waited for Dolan to realize that.

When the flitter wouldn’t start, Dolon hammered the console with his fist. “Turn it on or I’m going to slit your father’s throat.”

If I didn’t do what he wanted, he would soon discover they were locked out of our ship. I knew without a doubt he would turn his rage on Mami. I couldn’t allow that to happen. Papa also needed time to recover from being stunned multiple times. I placed my hand on the sensor pad, and the engine started.

Dolon looked around. “Which way?”

“That way.” I pointed at the towering rocks.

The ship bucked violently, throwing me against the console. Evidently, Dolon didn’t know how to fly a flitter.

“What the drekk?” My uncle pushed the throttle forward. The engine whined in protest, and the flitter shuddered violently.

“You might want to release the docking brake.”

Dolon shot me a murderous glare. “Shut up. When I want your advice, I’ll ask for it.”

I rolled my eyes. Males and their fragile egos. I would have warned him about the powerful solar flares creating freak weather conditions, but he didn’t want my advice. Too bad. Because one minute it could be eerily calm, and the next, a hurricane-force wind was knocking you down.

He released the docking brake, and the craft shot toward the rocks.

I quickly fastened my harness. Dolon was going way too fast, and there were boulders hidden in the sand. Since my uncle hadn’t buckled up, I hoped we would hit something. Hard. He needed to die.

The flitter zoomed up a sand dune and went airborne for twenty feet before banging down hard on the other side.

My teeth snapped together. Why was Dolon so desperate for the treasure? Gambling debts or something else?

Papa’s angry voice filled my head, “Is he even looking at the heads-up display?”

“No, if he did, he’d notice the crosswinds are approaching gale force.” Through our link I could hear banging. “What’s that noise?”

“Dolon’s thug wants in. The bugs find him tasty.”

“You don’t have time to do a proper interrogation, but I bet he knows what Dolon is planning.”

“I will ask.” The banging stopped abruptly. I felt my father’s rage and disgust. The henchman had wet himself.

I grinned. Papa in his berserker mode was beyond scary.

Dolon demanded, “What’s so funny?”

Before I could answer, a deadly crosswind struck the ship. My uncle wrenched the flitter to the portside, overcompensated, and lost control.

Over and over and over we rolled. The windshield cracked. A piece of the fuselage broke away, leaving a ragged hole with twisted metal and ripped cabling. A mini sandstorm swirled through the torn hull.

Dolon bounced off the ceiling and walls. Our spine-shattering ride came to an abrupt halt when the ship slammed into a chaotic mass of tumbled stones.

The harness bit painfully into my chest, and my helmet bounced off a protruding piece of metal. “Ooof!”

My uncle smashed face-first into the command console and fell back against the pilot’s chair.

Papa’s mind brushed over mine in alarm. “Are you injured?”

My jaw hurt, and my chest felt like someone had kicked me. “A few bruises.” I unfastened my harness and looked around. “But the flitter is a total loss.”

“Dolon?”

My uncle wiped at the blood gushing from his nose.

“He survived the crash.”

“His luck is about to run out,” Papa growled.

Dolon’s communications bracelet began to beep. He smiled smugly. “The rest of my crew is here.”

Balock’s balls. “Dolon called in reinforcements, Papa.”

“I’m tracking them. The laser cannons have been recalibrated. Go to our bolt-hole in the city and wait for me.”

“What about Mami?”

“I’ll get her.”

The wind stopped blowing. The sand literally fell from the sky, leaving weird piles stacked everywhere.

My uncle forced the door open and gaped at an enormous pit filled with thousands upon thousands of skeletal remains. Entangled with the bones were stone figurines, small metal chests, and musical devices that resembled flutes. “The treasure!”

“No, the Nabateans’ personal belongings.” It had taken us three months to suction out the sand. All that hard work was about to be destroyed.

“They’re dead and don’t need their gold anymore. I do,” Dolon countered, handcuffing me to the seat.

Thousands of var bugs suddenly burst from the sand. They created a chorus of rattling clicks that would rival the sound of a thousand Earth rattlesnakes. My uncle’s blood was drawing them like a beacon.

Dolon frowned. “What’s that noise?”

“What noise?” How could the idiot not see them?

“That clicking.”

I tilted my head to one side and listened. “I don’t hear anything. Maybe you’re getting sand fever. You should go back to the ship.”

“Do you think me a fool?”

Was that a rhetorical question? “Sand fever can kill you.”

“Your pathetic attempt to trick me won’t work. The treasure is mine,” Dolon growled.

I watched the var bugs swarm toward the flitter. “Yes, my lord.” My uncle was about to get the surprise of his life.

Dolon squeezed out the door and ran to the pit.

The bugs were right behind him, clicking loud enough to raise the dead. The idiot never even noticed.

I watched as he climbed down into the pit. His face a mask of delighted greed, my uncle grabbed a chest and opened it. It held sand and the petrified remains of who knew what.

“Drekk.” He dropped the chest and grabbed another. Nothing but sand.

I pulled out a lockpick, unlocked the cuffs, and crawled out of the hole in the fuselage. The bugs veered around me. Mami’s brew was potent.

My uncle’s bellow echoed off the rocks. “Where’s the drekking treasure?”

Not here. The Nabateans had taken it with them.

The bugs crawled into the pit.

Dolon shouted in horror. “Get away! Get away! Get away!” Drawing his laser pistol, he started firing. He vaporized most of the bugs, along with hundreds of corpses and burial chests.

A cold rage filled me. Our pristine find was rapidly being destroyed by the careless fool. I smiled as more bugs poured into the pit. They should keep Dolon busy for a while. I scrambled down a narrow crevice and entered a cavernous passageway that led into the stone buildings.

The ancient city was built to align with the sun and illuminate the Nabatean’s sacred places. The empty chambers had inscriptions carved into the walls. Were they warnings? Directions to the new world? Or something else? Mami was still trying to interpret them.

The floors were paved with multicolored stones. Two black obelisks guarded an ornate facade painted with a grotesque blue dwarf glaring defiantly at a swarm of var bugs. Even back then, the bugs were a pest.

The earth shook, and pieces of the ceiling pelted me. I quickly checked the tracking scanner on my bracelet. Two ships were battling overhead, exchanging laser fire.

“Pirates, Papa?”

“No. Jeebito and Tabaw are fighting over who gets to claim the city.”

Jeebito and Tabaw were the bane of legitimate relic hunters. The murdering grave robbers had destroyed over eight hundred historical finds. “How did they find Qeeturah?”

“Your uncle gave them the coordinates.”

Horror knotted my stomach. “They’re his crew?”

“Yes.”

“But, everyone knows Jeebito put a death bounty on Tabaw. They hate each other.”

Papa’s anger filled my mind. “The henchman said Dolon was drunk when he first hired Jeebito, and an hour later he engaged Tabaw’s services.”

“Once they discover there is no treasure, they’ll cut Dolon’s throat.”

“They won’t live that long.”

The loud crack of cannon fire filled the air. Multiple energy bolts hit the area, and the ground shuddered beneath me.

“If they don’t stop, there won’t be anything to claim.” To lose Qeeturah and the artifacts would destroy Mami.

“This is the last site they raid,” Papa said and unleashed the laser cannons.

I sprinted over to the remains of a window and peered out. Trailing fire, a ship fell from the sky. It barely missed the graveyard and crashed into the sand. It was Tabaw’s ship. Kablooey! The ship exploded, sending shards of metal flying in every direction.

A rain of laser fire brought down Jeebito’s vessel. It hit the ground hard, and flames belched from the ruptured hull.

Out of nowhere, a bombardment of missiles struck our ship. Kaboom! A huge explosion turned our spacecraft into a blazing inferno.

“Papa!” For what seemed like an eternity, I watched the ship burn. Every nerve in my body twanged with shock and denial. Had Papa gotten out in time? Of course, he had. Papa’s psychic senses would have alerted him to the danger. I reached out mentally, “Papa? Are you okay? Papa?”

Silence was my only answer. I hunted for his familiar mental patterns. A cold snake of dread curled in my stomach. Why couldn’t I find them? “Papa! Please! You’re scaring me. Talk to me, Papa.” I chewed my lower lip. Maybe he was unconscious or had a head injury that kept him from answering.

Summoning all my psychic power, I searched for my father and found nothing. Our link was gone. It was as if he no longer existed. No. It wasn’t possible. Papa couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t. Mind-twisting panic swept over me followed quickly by a blinding rage. If they had harmed one hair on my father’s head, there would be no mercy. I would hunt them down and cut them into little pieces.

I flashed back to my training and remembered Papa’s sage advice, “Control is essential when confronting your enemies. Panic or blind rage will get you killed. Your opponent will see a fragile female, not the warrior you are. Use that illusion to your advantage.”

I clung to that memory. I was fifteen when the Tai-Kok attacked a space station we had docked at. I still remembered the horrific screams, the gutted bodies and the gore. When I saw a Tai-Kok eating a woman alive, I totally lost it. I killed it and every monster I came across with my hunting knife.

My father took one look at my blood-covered form and knew I carried his berserker gene. He immediately began my training, which included throwing me into hostile environments and seeing how I reacted. Some members of my mother’s family thought he was too harsh with me. They didn’t understand Papa was teaching me how to control the rage. How to use it to my advantage and not let it rule me. I hadn’t burned down a city since I was sixteen.

I took a deep breath, then another and another until the rage clouding my mind was gone. Papa wasn’t dead. My synapses were still fried from being stunned. That was why I couldn’t find him.

Drekk! Mami. What was I going tell her when he didn’t show up? Relax. He’s only injured?

A laser beam streaked by my head. I darted behind a broken statue.

Dolon’s menacing voice echoed down the passageway, “I’m going to kill you, Xenia. You knew about the bugs. You knew!” Dolon stopped and frantically rubbed his back against the wall. “You knew! Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You said when you wanted my advice, you would ask for it. You never asked.”

“What?” my uncle shrieked.

“For Goddess’s sake, grow a pair.” I had been bitten too. Unpleasant? Yes. My bracelet beeped a warning. A large spacecraft was landing. I switched to my scanner. It was a freighter retrofitted with military-grade armament. A relic hunter or more grave robbers? I looked at the information scrolling on my screen. Wait a minute. That ship belonged to the Federation of Archaeological Studies. I’d bet my last credit Nilus, my mother’s rival and enemy, was at the helm. He thought females weren’t suited to be relic hunters and was determined to ruin her. Personally, I thought Nilus was jealous of her abilities.

Energy bolts flashed dangerously close.

“After I kill you, I’m letting the bugs have a go at your mother.” My uncle’s gait was a funny wiggling jig. He was like some character in an Earth cartoon. Shoot. Stop. Scratch wildly. Shoot. Stop. Scratch wildly.

Why hadn’t Nilus destroyed Dolon’s ship too? Did he need Mami’s expertise? Or did he want to kill her himself? She had embarrassed him at the last Federation meeting. He’d been furious when Mami shredded his thesis on the Wadjets’ religious beliefs.

I needed to get to my mother before Nilus got his hands on her. Once Mami was safe, I would look for Papa.

“You’re dead. Do you hear me?” My uncle picked up a rock and dug at his groin. The entire time he whimpered like a youngling.

If he kept that up, he was going to rub his himself raw down there. I waited until he was grinding himself against the wall and dashed down a narrow passageway that led to our shielded bolt-hole. Papa had stocked it with weapons of every kind, food, surveillance equipment, and a communications console.

“You think you can run from me? I’m a hunter. I will find you.” Dolon’s voice echoed down the passageway.

A hunter? Please. I slid my hand behind a protruding rock and placed it against the hidden sensor pad. A door opened in the wall. I stepped inside, and the door closed silently behind me. “I doubt you could find your own cock.”