ACROSS STARS AND BLOOD (The Malaki Series Book 1)

by L. A. MARIE

  Enach, Thane’s father.

  I still couldn’t believe Thane was related to our leader. Enach had been kind to our country, helping the humans through a very difficult time, helping us rebuild our world. How could Thane hate his father so much? Why was he such an awful person? It made no sense.

  They locked me up in a set of cells that were in a cellar of sorts, beneath the Elder House. I had no idea why there were cells down here. What sort of prisoners did they keep here? The cells were normal, though. Nothing high tech and fancy like what I’d been in on the ship. The cell had regular metal bars with a cot in the corner and a steel toilet that I sure as shit wasn’t going to use when a guard could come in at any moment and look at me.

  I walked to the cot and sat down, waiting. I had no idea what was going to happen next.

  Before long, the doors opened again and a tall, stately Malakus came in, wearing a suit. He had pulled back his dark hair in a braid that didn’t look feminine at all, what with the Malakus being as muscular as he was.

  For a moment, the Malakus looked so much like Thane, I thought I was seeing things. But he was older, his face a little thinner and more distinguished.

  It was Enach himself. Seeing him in person was very different from seeing him on television, which I had about a million times.

  Why was he here to see me?

  “Hello,” he said. “I’m Enach, Elder of the House of Dacoi.”

  I nodded. “I know who you are.”

  Enach smiled gently at me and nodded. “Of course, you do. I don’t know who you are.”

  “Emori,” I said.

  “Emori,” Enach said, rolling my name in his mouth. “Such an interesting name. But you humans all have interesting names.”

  I didn’t answer him. I didn’t know what to say.

  “If I understand correctly, you were with Thane,” Enach said.

  I nodded slowly.

  “Where was he going?”

  I frowned. “What?”

  “Thane,” Enach said calmly, although he had a tick in his jaw, and his eyes had become hard. “What did he tell you about the device?”

  “He gave the device I took to the guards,” I said. Even though I knew that Enach wasn’t talking about the device I had taken.

  Enach blinked at me for a moment before he shook his head. “I’m not talking about that device. I’m talking about the Noether.”

  “Isn’t that what it’s called?” I was acting dumb. I didn’t know why I was doing this, why I was trying to protect Thane. He sure as hell didn’t deserve it. But I didn’t want to tell Enach where Thane was and what he was doing, that he still had the Noether he had taken from his dad. Although I had a feeling Enach already knew, or he wouldn’t have been down here, talking to me. I didn’t get the idea that the cells were a place that Enach willingly visited on a daily basis.

  “Now, Emori, lets not toy with each other,” he said. Enach’s voice was still calm, but it had a sharp quality to it. “If you give me what I need, I’ll let you go.”

  I wanted to go home. And he knew that. But that meant turning Thane over. Exactly how he had done to me.

  He deserved that I hand him over to his father. And I needed to see my sister. But no matter how much I could justify it in my mind, I couldn’t convince myself to turn him in. What the actual fuck?

  While I had been deliberating, I hadn’t said anything. I didn’t know why I was protecting Thane. I didn’t know why I cared at all. I shouldn’t have. But despite what he did to me, I couldn’t find it in myself to rat him out to his father.

  “I don’t know what you need to know,” I finally said. “This has nothing to do with me. Please, just let me go home. I need to take care of my ill sister.” I didn’t even care if they were going to send me home without a way to cure Naira. I just needed to see her again.

  Enach shook his head and turned away from me.

  “Such a pity, Emori. I really hoped you could help me. But you’re like the rest of them. The humans, all just a waste of precious space and resources.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Enach was always so positive about the humans, and about us working together with the Malaki to change the world into something better, to save it from what had happened to it before. How could he say something like that, now?

  “Guard,” Enach called and a guard appeared right away. “Take her away. Let her join the other slaves. I have no use for her.”

  “What?” I cried out, rushing toward the bars and grabbing onto them. “You’re not going to send me home?”

  Enach looked over his shoulder. “If I don’t get what I want, why should you?”

  He walked away and my heart sank. He wasn’t the kind, humble ruler he had made himself out to be from the start. It had been such a small glimpse, but I suddenly realized what Thane saw in his father. For a moment, it was almost as if I saw Enach through Thane’s very eyes. And a hatred brewed in my gut so powerful it nearly knocked me down.

  It was only for a moment. When it subsided again, I wondered if the emotion had belonged to me at all.

  But to who else would it have belonged?

  I walked back to my cot to sit down, but the guard came to the cell and unlocked it.

  “Come, slave,” he commanded. “We’ll put you somewhere more useful.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Thane

  Being back on Nolmilea was strangely bittersweet. I had lost my mom here years ago and being back hurt like a bitch. But at the same time, it was good to be home.

  Since my mother passed away, my father had been a monster. The son of a bitch had been an asshole to me from the get-go.

  On Earth, that was all I knew. Pain and suffering and anger – no – rage.

  At least, here, there were good memories, too. Memories made before my mother had passed away, memories that weren’t yet tainted my father’s inability to be a decent man. On Earth, there was only the bad, but here, there was some good, too.

  And that was what I was going to hold onto. Besides, being away from my father was a pretty good start. As long as I didn’t need to be around that asshole for the rest of my life, maybe I could make some kind of life for myself that was worth living.

  Yeah, well, let’s fucking hope.

  I was still me; I was still the same person. I was still Thane, the murderer, the thief. The guy who had been sentenced to a life in prison, thrown into a box, and they had thrown away the key. Because everyone had decided I wasn’t worth going back into society.

  And by “everyone” I really meant my father. He was the one who had been behind it all.

  Yeah, here on Nolmilea, without him, I had a shot at something. Maybe not happiness, exactly. But something positive.

  I walked through the city and stared in awe. I knew what the place looked like – I had grown up here – but it had been years since I had been here and it felt like I had forgotten what it really meant to be a Malaki. Everything we were was defined by the way we did things, and the way we created our cities and towns was only another product of just that.

  Nolmilea was an old planet, so old that the very dirt beneath my feet had seen countless millennia pass by. The ground itself, having withstood the test of time, showed wear and tear. After all these years, of course there would be signs of decay.

  The planet had all but rusted over. The red quality was a sign of old age.

  And I liked to think that wisdom had come along with it.

  The planet might have been old, but the buildings the Malakus created were modern, powerful, beautiful. Clumps of tall buildings scattered across the layout, with smaller buildings and high-end homes squeezed in between. The buildings were all smooth, glistening under the light of the two suns that lit up the planets in the Almar Stretch. I walked along the smooth streets, clean and bright. The streets were for pedestrians who needed to cover short distances. There were no vehicles on the ground, as there were on Earth. Here, the sky buzzed with space crafts that move
d overhead, taking passengers back and forth between their destinations.

  Yes, it was definitely good to be back. In the years I had spent on Earth, I had learned how to survive there. You go somewhere new, you adapt and make a new life. But it felt different to be home, comfortable. Almost like taking off a pair of uncomfortable office shoes you had been squashed in all day, and stepping into a pair of weathered old slippers that shaped to your foot and you could sink into comfort.

  Being back home was like that. I could breathe easier. I could relax a little.

  I couldn’t relax too much, though. I still had to do something about my circumstances. My father was still after me. At least, he would be back on my trail the moment he realized the Noether I had sent home with Emori hadn’t been the real deal. The guards had been too fucking stupid to know the difference.

  But my father would know right away.

  And he would set out to find me again, for this damn device in my chest, if I didn’t get rid of it soon. He would track the device, and they would still be able to find me no matter where I went.

  Giving up the power that came with the device felt like a sacrifice of sorts. After all, I had power beyond what I could imagine. My skill had been developed during my military training, but the device allowed me more than what I would ever be able to achieve without it.

  Not that I needed any of that. I planned on living a peaceful life here, nothing violent, nothing out of line. I wanted to be the good guy for a change. I wanted to keep my slate clean.

  Which meant that I didn’t need to be a super soldier.

  Getting rid of this device was going to change my life, and in a good way.

  I hadn’t been around for a while, but I knew of a scientist that had lived just off the edge of the market. I didn’t know if Brakzet still lived there, or if the old Malaki was still alive for that matter. But it sure as shit was worth it to find out.

  The market was busy. I liked feeling the bustle of the Malakus around me, haggling for prices, calling out their demands or their offers over each other. The stalls had interesting objects for sale. After getting rid of the device, I might come back.

  As I moved through the stalls, heading toward Brakzet’s house – or what should be his house if he was still living there, if he was still alive – I became aware of Malakus that didn’t look like the others. They wore armor, clearly not here to bicker back and forth about the price of the wares on display.

  While I walked along, I noticed that they were following me. They weren’t very discreet about it – I would have done a better job.

  They were from my father, I knew that. They had already found me. So fast? How was that possible?

  No matter, I had to handle it.

  I didn’t want to fight in the middle of the unsuspecting Malakus. I wasn’t suddenly going soft or anything – I hated my kind too, on Earth. But I wanted to start over here and if I wanted to live here, these were soon going to be my people.

  I left the market, casually walking into a quieter part of town. It wasn’t the best part of town, the tall buildings created narrow alleys that looked dangerous to hang around on your own. Chirifs – rodents almost like the rats on Earth – scurried over my feet, their thick round bodies wiggling from side to side as their six clawed paws scraped on the cobbles that paved the road.

  The guards followed me into the alleyway.

  Good. I just needed them to follow me a little further, and then all hell was going to break loose.

  As soon as we were far enough from the crowds, I turned and faced the guards who had followed me.

  “You didn’t bring nearly enough men to overthrow me,” I said in the Malaki tongue.

  “If you come without a fight, you won’t get the death sentence,” the leader said.

  I laughed. “It’s funny,” I said, “because you think that you’re going to be able to win this thing and take the Noether back to Earth.”

  The guard lunged for me and the conversation was over. I had nothing else to say anyway.

  It was easy to get rid of the first guy. His neck snapped like a twig in my hands and his body slumped to the ground. The others paused for a moment, stunned at what they’d seen. But like the puppets they were, they didn’t think for themselves. They did as they were told and attacked.

  I fought one after the other. I could feel the power pulsating through my body from where the Noether pumped it into my heart, and I was on fire. My skin was hot, and my mind was bright and clear. I anticipated their moves before the guards made them.

  I lifted one of the guards with my telekinetic power and threw him against the wall. It could have been the hard knock that killed him. Or the fall back down to the ground after I had lifted him four, maybe five stories up into the air before slamming him into the wall in the first place.

  The next guards were more wary, teaming up instead of being idiots and trying to take me one-on-one.

  I would have said they should have done it from the start, but it wouldn’t have made a difference. I was so much stronger than they were, so much more powerful thanks to the Noether in my chest, and I took care of them easily.

  After ripping one of their heads off, I started wondering what I was going to do about the blood, the slaughter all around me. I had to take care of it somehow.

  Or get the hell out of here after they were all dead, so they couldn’t trace me back to all this death and destruction.

  There was only one guard left, and I saw fear in his eyes. He started running and I ran after him, catching up easily. My thighs pumped powerfully, pushing my legs into the ground and I covered the distance between us in no time. The poor guy didn’t stand a chance.

  “No, please!” he cried out when I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. “I was just following orders!”

  “I know,” I said. I slammed him against the wall, but not hard enough to kill him right away. He gasped for air and clutched and clawed at the hand around his neck. I gripped him tightly enough to keep him in the air, but not so tightly that he couldn’t breathe.

  He knew this was the end, though. If he couldn’t feel the resolution in the way I was holding him, he could see it in my eyes.

  Because I was sick and tired of this bullshit.

  “How many more of you are here?” I demanded.

  “It was just us,” he gasped. He kicked his legs and tried to get away. His face was riddled with fear.

  “You’re lying to me.”

  “No, I swear. Enach sent two ships to come after you, and that was it.”

  I frowned. “My father knows what this device can do. Why does he believe that two ships are enough?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t know,” the guard wailed. “Please, just let me go.”

  I shook my head. He was lying to me, I knew it. My father would never just send two ships after me. Hell, the number of guards I had just killed was smaller than what he’d put on rotation when he grounded me as a kid.

  And that was before the Noether.

  I closed my hand, easily crushing the guard’s windpipe. He made a gurgling sound, his hands curling around my wrist one more time before his body went slack and I dropped him to the floor.

  When I had taken care of that, I walked away. I made sure no one was watching before I slipped out of the alley and walked to the house where I hoped Brakzet still lived.

  I knocked on the door. It only took a moment before it opened, and I recognized the old man standing in front of me.

  He was much older than when I had seen him last, all his hair gray now, and his tall Malakus body bent over.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “I have something to sell you,” I said.

  “I don’t buy things anymore.”

  “You’re going to want this,” I said.

  Brakzet started shaking his head, but I lifted my shirt. When his eyes fell on the Neother, he gasped, narrowed his eyes, leaned in a little closer.

  “You better come inside,” he sa
id.

  The transaction was quick. Brakzet hadn’t ever seen the tech – my dad had developed it, so it was new – but he knew what it was capable of just by looking at it. Right away, he’d offered me more money than I’d thought I could fetch with it, and it was done. I took it out of my chest, he wired the money to me, and that was it.

  I left his house ten minutes later, glad that it was finished. I had finally bought back my freedom. All that remained now was for me to find somewhere to live – cozy, quaint, and out of the way. And then my life would be complete.

  There were going to be more guards though, and soon. They were tracking that thing; had been until the moment I’d pulled it off my chest. It was off now, but they knew where I had last been.

  I needed to get away from here as soon as possible.

  I hurried through the marketplace. I was going to get away soon.

  Suddenly, guards surrounded me. I didn’t know where they’d come from, but they were here for me.

  “I don’t have it anymore,” I said, pulling up my shirt to reveal a circle of dotted wounds, the only evidence that I had worn the Noether at all.

  The guards didn’t respond, they didn’t say anything. They didn’t hurry away looking for it either. They attacked. All of them at once.

  I was strong, I was skilled, but I was just a Malaki like them. Especially without the Noether. I did my best to fight them off, to do what I could to get away from them. But there were far too many. I couldn’t fight them all off at the same time. I couldn’t get rid of them. I just wasn’t strong enough.

  They overpowered me, wrestling me to the floor. They twisted my arms behind my back, cuffing them in place. A foot stepped on my head, pushing my face into the dirt. I tasted it on my teeth. I gritted out profanities, swearing at the guards around me, throwing curse words at them as my last, pathetic attempt to fight them.

  “That’s enough out of you,” one of the guards said. A blow to my head made the world go black around me. The last thing I heard was the sneering laughter of the guards.