by David Beers
“Here? Like this?” he asked.
“No. I’ll let you walk with me. I have much to do, and I need to work while we talk.”
“I’ll speak to you as long as you let my friends come with me.”
She shrugged. “That doesn’t matter. You all must know that if one of you makes a move to hurt me or anyone in this ship, you’ll die immediately.” Her eyes fell on Nero. “Gigante, do you understand that?”
“I do.”
She looked at Obs next. “A drathe? I saw one when I was young but haven’t since. It understands what I’m saying, right? If it tries to attack me, it will die immediately.” Her eyes found Alistair again. “You can control it?”
“He’ll obey me.”
She took in a deep breath and nodded, then walked across the floor and touched Alistair’s ankle bracelet. It straightened and fell to the floor. He immediately felt his body sag; the slabs were attached to the bracelets somehow. She touched the one on his wrists next, and he dropped to the floor.
Alistair let himself squat, stretching his muscles while she removed the restraints from Nero and Obs.
The drathe hit the ground awkwardly, bounced up, and trotted to where Alistair was squatting.
Nero stood, rubbing his wrists.
“My name is Cristin,” the woman said from the last slab. “I’m known as the Ice Queen, though that moniker comes more from my home than anything sinister.”
I doubt that, Alistair thought but didn’t say.
She pointed at the door. “The drathe and the gigante will walk in front of us. As we walk, you’ll see a blue line on the floor. Just follow that, and we’ll get to where I need to be.”
Nero was quiet, though he patted his leg for Obs to come. The drathe looked up at Alistair, and he gave a small nod.
Nero started to walk, and Obs followed. The Ice Queen stepped over to Alistair, who stood up. “Let’s go. There’s much to be done, and if the people I came here with knew I was wasting time speaking to you, I’d get an earful about it.”
There wasn’t any fear or deference in the woman when she spoke of the other warlords, only a slight sense of annoyance.
The group exited the room, and Alistair saw the blue line. Nero and Obs walked five meters in front of them, with the drathe glancing over his shoulder every thirty seconds.
“How close are you to the capital?” Alistair asked.
“Distance or time?”
“Time.”
“We should be there within an hour.”
Alistair’s timeline had been right, and he now knew how long he had to do something. He just didn’t know what. His position could be worse, though. She wanted to talk, and in doing so, he’d learn about her too. He hadn’t had the chance to know his enemy before, not truly. “Why do you want to talk to me? If you’re going to kill me and everyone I know, what does it matter what I have to say?”
They turned right into another hall. The pace was an easy one, which showed how confident she felt.
“I’ve never met a man like you,” she said. “At least, I don’t think I have, though you might prove me wrong. I’m curious about why you conquered that planet, only to turn around and free its most valuable resource.”
“You don’t understand why someone would want to free slaves?”
She shook her head but didn’t look at him. “If there’s one truth in the universe, it’s that it doesn’t care about us. Stars explode and consume entire civilizations. Meteors wreck planets with abandon. They don’t care who they kill. I’d venture to say the universe is malevolent. It may be trying to kill us.”
Another turn and the blue line ended. She stopped. “Go through the door on your right.”
Nero and Obs did as they were told, and Cristin started walking again.
“Nature,” she continued, “seems to have followed the universe’s lead. Every creature must consume to live. They kill each other, and then we evolved, and we kill each other. So no, it doesn’t make much sense that someone would risk their lives for people that aren’t family, especially if they don’t plan to profit off them.”
They turned into the room as she finished speaking. They’d reached the bridge, a massive one, full of movement. Alistair’s mind quickly counted the number of people—a hundred. It was the largest bridge he’d ever seen, and he couldn’t imagine what all these people were doing.
The Ice Queen walked over to the leader’s chair. It was raised above the floor. She sat and pointed to the wall. “Gigante and drathe, you stand over there, and remember my warning.”
Nero’s eyes were wide, shock and wonder on his face as he took in the bridge. “This is marvelous,” he said as he meandered to the wall she’d pointed at. Obs sniffed the deck, his eyes following people suspiciously. After a moment, he followed the giant.
Alistair remained standing next to the woman’s chair, staring at the movement in front of him. Large screens showed the world’s destruction, with the middle one focused on the capital. No soldiers or ships had breached it yet, but he could see how close they were. The fires weren’t far off.
Cristin pulled up a holovid-like control screen in front of her and began typing on it as she spoke. “So, why’d you do it?”
“It was the right thing to do.” Alistair didn’t know what answer she wanted. To him, it was self-evident.
“It was stupid, perhaps the dumbest thing you could do. Did you have any plan after you freed them?”
“I’m not sure I did, and I guess that means I didn’t. I’d hoped some of them would join me, but they all ended up wanting to be my slaves.”
She paused what she was doing and turned to look at him. “That’s the way of the universe. The weak bow to the strong. You refused them?”
Alistair felt like he might lose his mind. He was standing here discussing the past while Thoreaux was about to lose his life. His voice remained calm, though. “In a way. We were in the process of teaching them when you all decided to show up.”
The Ice Queen shook her head in disbelief and turned back to her panel. “You would teach them to be free and hope they followed you. It makes no sense. You see that, don’t you?”
Alistair said nothing.
“What was your end goal when you freed these slaves and taught them to love you?”
His eyes narrowed, and he gazed at her. “Why does it matter?”
“You’re a very different man. I’d like to know you some. We’ve been over this. Now, what’s your end goal? Would you have come to my planet and tried to free my Lukos?”
“Are those the hybrid creatures that brought us here?”
“Yes,” Cristin said. “They’re bred like the gigantes, only a much better product. You’ve opened the door for me to expand that business, and for that, I’m grateful. Were you coming to my planet next?”
Alistair chuckled. “I didn’t even know you existed. Had I known, no, I wouldn’t have come. I went to the gigantes because I met one, and he’s one of the noblest creatures I’ve ever encountered. If I could free a species like him, I had to do it.”
“Ah.” The Ice Queen nodded. “Is it the gigante against the wall?”
“No. He’s in the city you’re about to destroy.”
“But you consider him family? This noble giant?”
Alistair opened his mouth, then paused. When this began, he’d joined a group he despised because it was the only way to get back to Luna. Then he’d decided to lead them because their goal made sense. Then he risked his life for his second in command because…
Because I love him like a brother.
Yet, he’d never thought of those people as family. He’d freed an entire planet because he’d started to love one of their kind.
Now he knew the truth.
“Yes, he’s my brother.”
Cristin moved the holovid screen with a flick of her wrist, and another one popped up in its place. “That I understand. It leads me to another question, though. First, what is your name?”
&n
bsp; “Alistair Kane.”
“Alistair,” the Ice Queen continued as if she were discussing a recipe, “what have you done to your brother? You’ve sacrificed him, as well as the rest of your family down there. You’re a perfect specimen of humanity, if modified. You could have done anything you wanted, yet you chose a path that will leave your family dead. Do you think you were the right one to lead them, given what’s about to happen?”
Alistair’s jaw twitched. He’d dealt with his guilt about his decisions, but to hear this bitch talk about it…
In his mind, Alistair felt Prometheus bang on the door, wanting to be let out of the room he was kept in.
His voice changed as he spoke, unable to keep emotion out of it. “No one else in this universe could do what I did. You talk about them monopolizing a market when your product is better, but you did nothing. You sat on whatever planet you’re from and watched as stronger people took from you. Was I the right one to lead? I’m the only one to lead them.”
The Ice Queen stopped what she was doing and turned her gaze on him. It was as cold as whatever planet she came from. She was quiet as she stared, but Alistair did not look away. Whatever hardships this warlord had endured, whatever strength lay in her, Alistair didn’t care.
She eventually looked away. There was silence for a minute or two, painful minutes because Alistair understood they only had about thirty until the battle began.
When Cristin next spoke, her voice was hard and her hands rapidly flipped through commands on the panel. “I understand family. That’s why I’m here. I will kill your family if it means mine will be better off. Perhaps you’re right, Alistair Kane; you were the one to lead them. That’s the difference between us, though. Your heart is too kind, and mine is cold to everything but family. My family will thrive while yours dies.”
Alistair glanced to his right, looking at Obs against the wall. The drathe was staring at him and had heard everything they’d said.
When Alistair thought back to that moment, he could never be sure if he saw what he thought he had, and Obs wasn’t capable of speaking.
Yet at that moment, he thought he saw Obs nod.
The drathe was giving him permission.
The banging on the door inside his head stopped because Alistair opened it and Prometheus stepped out.
Chapter Fifteen
To say that Thoreaux was out of his element would be like saying a fish flying through the air was in the wrong place.
He’d watched his leader, his best friend, do perhaps the dumbest thing the man had ever done.
Then he’d watched the man die.
Then he’d scrambled to try to defend a city that would surely burn.
As if that wasn’t enough, his spiritual leader had been thrown against a wall, apparently by his dead best friend, who wasn’t dead.
There hadn’t been time to consider what that meant. Hearing the AllMother’s message, I’m here. I’m still fighting, had been more than enough to get Thoreaux moving.
Yet, life hadn’t thrown enough at the Plutonian. He then watched ships take his best friend to a dreadnought that was on its way to kill them all.
The ships were close, hovering just outside the city’s walls and slowly moving over the buildings. They remained outside the atmosphere, so there wasn’t any way to attack them. Thoreaux could only watch as they came closer.
Now, as he stared at the holovid that showed the enemy coming closer, it looked as if they’d stopped moving.
Jeeves spoke from the ceiling’s speakers. “I can confirm the dreadnoughts have stopped moving. Most of the other fleet has stopped moving or is slowing.”
Thoreaux, surrounded by Pro’s council, leaned on the table, staring at the holovid. “Does anyone know what is happening? Does anyone have a clue?”
No one answered since they were as lost as he was.
“Jeeves, they can attack from where they are, right?” Thoreaux asked.
“Yes, though their death toll will increase by about twenty percent,” the AI responded. “There’s no logical reason for them not to hang directly over the city.”
Caesar had been standing to the side, but when the AI finished speaking, he started moving toward the door.
Thoreaux snapped his attention to the giant. “Where are you going?”
Caesar stopped but didn’t turn around, just looked over his shoulder. “To battle. Alistair is up there fighting for us right now. I’m going to fight for him here.”
The giant left the room.
Thoreaux looked at Servia. His sister-in-arms had one eyebrow raised and a devilish smirk on her lips. “He’s right. It’s the only thing that makes any sense. That dumb bastard is up there doing something. We’ve all been wanting him to do something this whole time, and now he finally is.”
Thoreaux turned to his lover Faitrin next. She was leaning back in her chair. “You remember how scared I was for the enemy a few months ago if Pro turned you loose?”
He nodded.
“I think you need to put me in a corvette and follow that giant outside. I’m not scared for them anymore. Bring me back some scalps, love.”
Thoreaux straightened up.
Relm stood on the other side of the table. “Your woman’s a savage, broth, but right now, I think we all have to turn into savages. I’ll be damned if that giant is the only one who gets any glory in this.”
He started walking toward the door. The bastard already had a MechPulse strapped to his back.
“Jeeves,” Thoreaux said, “get a corvette over here and put the pilot in it. Servia, you try to keep us organized. My woman wants scalps, and I don’t mean to disappoint her.”
Just like that, the attitude shifted. Thoreaux would follow Prometheus to fight the gods if that was what the man demanded.
Right now, he just wanted to fight some warlords, and after all he’d given this group, what were a few more dead bodies?
Relm was outside the room and walking down the hall when they heard his shout.
“Ave, Prometheus!”
Alistair was a reckless man. He rushed into things without forethought, and that was perhaps his greatest fault. He relied on his physical and mental abilities to get him out of every situation, trusting them as if they would never falter.
They had faltered, though, when he was shot out of the sky a few hours before.
Yet, his greatness was somehow tied to the recklessness. He could never have achieved any of what he’d done had he not trusted himself.
A double-edged sword, but one that seemed to cut the enemy worse than him.
Cristin de Monaham had thought she could come to know this man in a brief conversation or at least know him better. As he’d described his reasoning to her, she came to think him a fool—someone who had sacrificed his family for a higher good that didn’t exist.
The Ice Queen thought she understood the man.
Until the moment she was thrust out of her chair without anyone touching her and tossed across her bridge above her pilots to slam into the opposite wall.
Then she realized she understood little about this human.
Slightly before she was tossed, Alistair grew reckless again and leaned into his superhuman abilities.
Prometheus had looked to the left and simply willed it.
The woman who was known as the Ice Queen rose into the air and was thrown with as much force as his mind could muster.
The hybrids seemed to appear from nowhere, twenty of them. Some stared at their queen as she sped through the air while the rest went to kill the only man who was close to her.
They got within three meters, then once again, Prometheus simply willed it.
They flew backward, bending the metal walls when they slammed into them.
Obs grabbed one out of the air by his foot, tossing the creature to the ground before diving at his throat.
Nero stepped away from the wall and looked at Prometheus. “Most of that was in the dream.”
Prometheus could
feel his Whip. The connection between the two of them couldn’t be broken; it was built into the weapon. He needed it, and he had to rely on that wind the AllMother had talked about to make that happen.
“Obs,” he snapped. “To me!”
The animal looked up, blood on his maw. He bounded to his master in two easy leaps.
Pro squatted so he was at eye level with the beast. “My Whip. If we’re gonna live, I have to have it. Can you find it?”
The animal’s eyes narrowed, containing a freakish wisdom compared to the blood and guts covering his fur.
A moment passed, and the beast fled from the room.
Obstinate, known to his loved ones as “Obs,” had waited his entire life to find the person he would soul-bond with. Measuring the animal’s intelligence was impossible due to the nature of his mind. Many across the galaxy doubted the soul-bond, calling it a myth.
That had never mattered to Obs, who hadn’t even had a name until meeting his soul-bond. The bond was hard for any human to understand, so as the animal rushes from the room to do his master’s bidding, it might be valuable to take a few moments to describe its effects.
When he was a pup, it was an ache. No one had to tell him what he searched for; he innately understood it, the same as he had to drink milk from his mother after he was born. As he grew older, the ache changed, probably because pain like that couldn’t be dealt with for too long. It changed into a trusting search. As a gift from whatever gods had made them, the drathe were meant to meet one master. It was, as the AllSeer might say, their fate. Obs had trusted that one day he would meet the person he was meant for, but he’d also kept a keen eye out for him.
The animal hadn’t understood how powerful the bond would be, and he didn’t want to accidentally miss the human if they came near him.
The drathe dreamed of his master in a way Alistair would have found eerily similar to his own dreams. He saw his face, his red eyes, his perfect form. Years before he met Alistair, the drathe saw him when he slept.
When the shaman gave Obs to Linc, transferring him across trillions of light-years, Obs had known he was heading in the right direction. He could feel it. Linc, the new keeper, wasn’t his soul-bond, but he was bringing the animal closer.
