by Carven, Anna
As they launched themselves into the air, Ikriss and Kail raised their guns, firing furiously at the ship’s cockpit.
From above, the Mhyndin’s plasma cannon roared, spearing through the enemy ship’s hull.
But it was too late to stop the onslaught of pure energy that slammed into Ikriss’s body, turning his exo-armor into a personal incinerator. The heat burned right through his skin, dousing him in agony. He’d never experienced this level of pain ever before.
His vision flared white.
He couldn’t see…
Couldn’t hear…
All he knew was white-hot pain all over his body, but it was worst in his temples, where it drilled right through into his skull. His guns clattered to the ground. His hands rose to the sides of his helm in a futile attempt to quell the agony.
He was going mad.
Surely this was the end…
But then he felt a presence beside him.
“Easy,” a familiar voice rasped, and although they were taut with pain, Kail’s words were somehow perfectly controlled. “You’re okay, brother. Plasma’s gone now. Enemy’s done a dive into the ground. You might feel dead, but your body’s regenerating as we speak.”
Ikriss’s throat burned like crazy. He felt like he’d swallowed a cupful of acid followed by a thousand shards of glass.
He still couldn’t see the outline of Kail’s helm. Perhaps this cursed heat had burned through his sclera.
He blinked.
A shadow appeared in the white of his vision…
A big, imposing shadow, crouching on his haunches beside Ikriss, raising his fist in solidarity. “Always hurts like a bitch when the nanites kick in. You’ll be whole again in a siv.” Kail rose to his feet, extending a hand. “Get up, my brother. There’s still work to be done.”
“You know about the nanites?”
“I am your support on this mission. It is my job to know. And I am no stranger to black nanites, although yours are different to mine. They only know how to heal. Better, perhaps.”
Ikriss took Kail’s armor-gloved hand and allowed the big warrior to help him to his feet. With each agonizing breath, his vision grew clearer.
“The humans,” he rasped, glancing sharply at Kail.
“All alive. That’s all you need to know. They aren’t our priority right now. They will take her to the Mhyndin… to Zyara.”
Relief surged through Ikriss, along with searing anger. They had dared to attack what was his?
It didn’t make any sense, but he didn’t care.
He just wanted to find the ones that were responsible for this and tear their beating black hearts out of their chests.
Before Kail could say another word, Ikriss made one, two, three steps and launched himself off the edge of the roof.
He plummeted a dozen stories, following the plume of smoke left by a burning wreckage.
As he dropped through the air, he could feel his skin healing. The terrible pain reduced to an electric tingle. His vision sharpened. His acute hearing returned.
Thud.
He landed on his feet and drew his sword, wasting not even a single breath as he stalked toward the wreckage. It had embedded itself into the soft soil of a small cultivated garden. Fire licked across its body, and in several places the hull was molten red from where his and Kail’s plasma bolts had struck it.
Smoke poured into the air. Three armored humans emerged from the rear exit, sprinting toward the tower.
The grey metal on the body and wings of the craft had melted off in places, revealing patches of pure obsidian.
That was no human ship.
It was a Kordolian Imperial Military vessel. How many of these were strewn across the Nine Galaxies, waiting to be commandeered by their enemies?
Someone fired plasma at him. Fueled by pure fury, he dodged the blast and began to run.
Kail was on his heels, as swift and silent as ever. “I will take them. You secure the ship, boss.”
Ikriss didn’t question Kail. He just nodded in agreement and ran for the ship, because Kail’s thinking was clear and logical. The former First Division warrior was one of the very few that could give him orders like that—as an equal.
He charged through the billowing black smoke and entered the ship. There was a faint prickle at the back of his neck as the Sylth acknowledged his presence, leaving no doubt as to the craft’s origins.
Three black-armored humans remained inside; at least two of them appeared to be injured. One hobbled toward him, dual guns raised.
They were the very same guns used by Ikriss and his men.
He snarled in disgust and reached for his weapon, only to remember that he’d dropped his guns on the roof when he’d been hit by the plasma cannon.
No matter.
The human’s reaction time was slow.
He feinted to one side as plasma roared through the cabin, slamming into the opposite wall. The human soldier stumbled backward, struggling with the plasma recoil.
Tch. Foolish human. It took many revolutions to be able to develop the skill to handle plasma recoil.
Ikriss danced inside the human’s range and separated his head from his neck.
It hit the floor with a thud. He spun and sank his blade into the second human’s side.
The third human was on his ass, shuffling back into the corner. Ikriss calmly walked across and ground his boot into the fool’s chest. With a sharp flick of his wrist, he cleared the blood from his blade and slid it back into its sheath.
His horn-buds throbbed like crazy. In irritation, he snapped back his helm, meeting the human’s terrified eyes.
In the corner of his vision, the Kordolian pilot started to get up out of his seat.
“Don’t move,” Ikriss said softly.
The pilot froze, making a soft whimpering sound in the back of his throat.
Slowly, his sword still pointed at the human’s neck, Ikriss leaned in and yanked the protective armor-helm from the human’s head. The creature that stared back at him had pale grey eyes and weathered features and a closely cropped growth of black-and-white hair covering his lower face. He looked like a typical hardened mercenary of the human variety; the kind of creature that might normally be a hard, self-serving bastard, but right now Ikriss could taste his fear as it mingled with the stale stench of his bodily secretions.
Ikriss bared his fangs. “They didn’t tell you about us, did they?”
The human blinked, as if surprised that Ikriss was actually talking to him instead of killing him. “Wh-who the fuck are you?” His Universal was thickly accented.
“The very last person you should have fucked with,” Ikriss said calmly. “Although I will acknowledge that you may have been fed misinformation about exactly who and what you were dealing with. If you tell me who sent you, I might consider sparing your life.”
“Shit,” the human snarled in English, before switching back to his clumsy Universal. “Maybe you’re gonna kill me, maybe not. Doesn’t matter, because I can’t say shit. I work for the Syndicate. That’s all you’re gonna know about me.”
Ikriss ground his boot in. “Are you sure about that?”
He felt a few ribs crack.
The human screamed. “I-I can’t tell you shit!”
“You can. What do you fear more than death?”
A complicated mixture of emotions danced across the man’s face. Fear. Hatred. Anger. Dread. Regret. Hope.
Only a human could look like that.
Ikriss eased the pressure of his boot just a fraction. “Think carefully about what you should be most afraid of. It isn’t them.”
The human’s resistance melted a little. “S-syndicate knows where my family are. My wife and my daughter. She’s only five.” Suddenly, the human’s fear melted away and his eyes became fierce. “Just get it over with, Kordolian. Kill me already. You’re not going to get anything out of me.”
“If you tell me what I want to know, I will personally guarantee safety for
your family. The Syndicate will cease to be a problem for you.”
“You don’t understand shit, alien. You can’t beat the Syndicate. They’re everywhere.”
“No. We are everywhere. And you have one last chance before I grow tired of this. Since you failed in this mission, your precious ones will be in danger anyway, won’t they?”
The human shook his head and let out a string of vicious English curses. “Fucking aliens,” he spat. “You better be telling the truth.”
“Believe it or not, I do tend to keep my word.” Abruptly, Ikriss released the human. “But I am running out of patience. I will ask only one more time. Decide. Who are you working for, and why did you attack my people? They were defenseless.”
The man gasped and wheezed, clutching the side of his chest. “Fuck you. You’re anything but defenseless.”
“Those women are my people too.”
“Unghh…” The human let out a dismayed groan, as if realizing he’d just made a very big mistake. His shoulders slumped. The fight went out of his eyes. “We were hired by The Praetorian. Word is that they’ve been contracted by some big money players from the old Kordolian Empire to provide merc support to the Syndicate.”
“The Praetorian?” Ikriss arched an eyebrow. “What is that?”
“You don’t know? You must be new around here.” The man’s lips twisted into a bitter smile. “They’re just the biggest black ops mercenary outfit on the planet.”
“How did you manage to obtain Kordolian tech?”
“Praetorian sent it to us. They got it from the Kordolians. The market’s been flooded with contract work lately. You get one of the juicy contracts, you might get plasma guns as part of the payment. Everyone’s going for the high-risk stuff, because they want the guns. I was just following orders, man. They told us to get on this alien ship and retrieve the women. They didn’t say nothing about no fucking ambush.”
Fool. Ikriss stared down at the human, contemplating whether or not to kill him. You would sell out your own kind even though you have a mate and daughter?
The screams of their enemies filtered through from outside. Clearly, Kail had the situation under control.
Ikriss turned on his heel, leaving the human groaning on the floor. “Do not move, do not say a word,” he said quietly. “Unless you are in a hurry to join your companions in the otherworld.”
He focused his attention on the Kordolian pilot, who sat stiffly in his seat, staring straight ahead at the array of holos.
Most of them showed critical damage.
“C-commander,” the pilot whimpered in Kordolian, dropping his head in a half-bow, half-flinch. “I was just following the orders of my House Lord. T-they sent me…”
“On a suicide mission,” Ikriss said flatly. “You fired upon my people.”
“I was just following orders.” The pilot avoided Ikriss’s gaze. His shoulders slumped in defeat. For a Kordolian, he was unusually paunchy, his belly and fleshy arms threatening to burst the seams of his armor-suit. He had sallow skin and closely shorn hair that was turning black at the temples. Ornate jeweled earrings hung from both ears, and his left ear was adorned all the way up to the tip with small glittering metal piercings.
These were the fashions of the nobility.
He was not military; of that Ikriss was certain.
Ikriss did not waste any time. He hooked his fingers beneath the neck of the pilot’s suit and dragged him out of his seat and out of the cabin, which was filling with acrid smoke. He threw him out of the hatch and onto the hard stone outside, slowly walking forward as the pilot stumbled over himself; wide-eyed, panting, frantically scrambling backward on his hands and feet.
He was terrified, because he knew.
He knew Commander Ikriss Peturic of the Second Division.
Of course he did.
Ikriss’s reputation was legend throughout the Empire, and self-serving idiots like this pilot would have once worshipped the very ground that he walked on.
Now the idiot’s eyes were full of fear—and hatred.
“Explain,” Ikriss said softly. “Everything.”
“W-what do you mean—”
Ikriss lost patience and whipped his sword from its sheath. He stalked toward the pilot and stabbed the blade into the hard pavement just a finger’s breadth from the pilot’s left eye. “How did you come to be here on Earth, and who are your masters?”
He was tired of their cowardly deceptions; of their shadowy threats and duplicitous attacks.
He wasn’t used to fighting this way.
It was utterly maddening.
Faced with the threat of imminent death, the pilot’s resolve crumpled. “M-my name is Virchal Agelus. I am the ninth-in-line to the Seat of House Agelus, and Warden on the planet called Eio. It’s in the Eighth. They sent me because I was closest. That is the only reason, I swear. I-I was promised a reward if I pulled off this mission. A seat at the rightful emperor’s new High Council. But when we realized you bastards were already here—that we had no hope of getting these females out—my orders changed. I was told to destroy them.”
Ikriss’s fingers twitched. He almost put his blade through the asshole’s eye right then and there. “Well, it looks like you won’t be getting that seat, Virchal. Who is this so-called emperor you speak of?”
“I do not know his name. We aren’t allowed to see his face. All I know is that he is the Vordokar, and his right to claim the throne is even more legitimate than the Mad Prince Xalikian’s.”
Ikriss lifted the tip of his blade and impaled it just beside Virchal’s ear, shearing one of his glittering earrings in half. “You are wrong. There is no legitimate heir, because there is no throne.”
A soft whimper escaped the pilot’s throat, but then he managed to summon some deeply buried shred of Kordolian arrogance. He bared his fangs, which were stained yellow. “Do not be so sure of yourself, traitor. My cousin Lord Sturmbruk Agelus is about to address Earth.”
Sturmbruk? Ikriss recognized the name. He vaguely remembered the High Lord of Agelus; a dour-faced, pompous asshole who had never cracked even a ghost of a smile in his miserable life. “Address Earth? Do not think you can trick the humans into believing your nonexistent empire will suddenly become their salvation.” Ikriss was so caught up in his anger that he barely noticed the quiet hum of Mhyndin’s suppressed engines behind him as the ship landed in the courtyard. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the humans emerge from the glass tower, guided by Lukin and the rest of the Second. Zyara appeared to greet them, and Ikriss was grateful for her presence, for she was far less intimidating than he and his men. Quickly, gently, they guided the women into the ship.
His eyes flicked back to Virchal, whose expression wavered between pure terror and pure arrogance.
Only a Kordolian could do that.
The noble met Ikriss’s eyes and laughed weakly. “I suppose I’m a dead man.”
“No,” Ikriss snapped. “Death would be far too light a punishment for you.”
He fought to contain his anger, which was raw and wild. Virchal’s complete disregard for the lives of the human females was typically Kordolian. Did he not understand that these women were to be protected?
Did he not understand a fucking thing?
Virchal laughed. “You’ve gone soft, Commander. All this time spent amongst humans has made you weak.”
“Oh?” Ikriss simply flicked his blade up and brought it down—into Virchal’s left eyeball. The warden screamed as black blood ran down his cheek.
Ikriss watched him dispassionately as he sheathed his sword. You think I am so indisciplined that your pathetic taunts will earn you an easy death? “Now you have half-sight. You will never fly again. Instead, you will work for me.”
Virchal put a hand to his bleeding eye and groaned in dismay.
Ikriss closed his eyes and fought to regain control, searching for the cold void of nothingness that had saved him so many times before.
He remembered sittin
g on the bottom of Earth’s ocean floor, surrounded by silence and darkness as tiny fish darted around him.
He wanted to burn everything to the fucking ground—the Syndicate, Virchal, the cursed human mercs…
This Praetorian…
And then Kail was beside him, the embodiment of the cold void itself. “Easy, brother. He’s not going anywhere. Look up there.”
The big warrior extended his arm, plasma gun pointed at something in the sky.
Ikriss caught a glimpse of a small human-made drone. A tiny red light blinked insolently.
Kail fired.
The drone disintegrated.
Virchal half-wheezed, half-chuckled. “N-now they can see you for what you truly are. Fucking pretenders.”
“Shut up.” Ikriss kicked him in the ribs. The noble’s laughter turned to howls of pain.
“Come, Ikriss.” There was a note of deep understanding in Kail’s voice. “We have them now. The females are safe. The one you specifically sought… this Eva. She is alive, but she has sustained plasma burns to her face and arms. Zyara is treating her in the Mhyndin. They will take her to our base near Teluria. You need to go to your mate and make her understand.”
“She is hurt?” Ikriss looked up sharply. “How badly?”
“She will survive, but she is in great pain. She will need almost constant sedation. I do not know if she will achieve full recovery. Zyara will brief us when she is stabilized.”
Ikriss cursed viciously in Aikun. He had sworn to keep Sienna’s people safe, and now this had happened.
“She is alive, and she is with us,” Kail reminded him. “Your mate will be relieved to know that she is not in the hands of our enemies. For that alone, our mission was a success.”
Ikriss shook his head, trying to clear the fog of rage that had enveloped him. He’d always been known as a cool-headed, rational commander, even in the most fraught situations, so why did he now have this intense urge to slowly and painfully kill every single creature that had played a role in the capture and torture of his mate?
It wasn’t logical.
It wasn’t like him.
Kail studied Ikriss, featureless and completely unreadable behind his dark helm. “I know the feeling,” he said dryly. “It’s the mating fever, brother. It takes a while for it to abate, and even then, it will never truly leave you. I find it helpful to think of my mate. A paradox for sure, but it is for their sake that we must harness our savage impulses. Do not fight it. Become it. It is part of you now.” The temanjin chuckled softly. “And you will never be the same again.”
