Taken to Voraxia

by Elizabeth Stephens

  I notice that the spikes growing out of his back aren’t as long or as thick as some of the others. The king’s looked particularly violent. I don't know why, but that comforts me. I can take him. Maybe. If I have to. “No.”

  He bares his teeth and lunges.

  “Nondah,” the other Niahhorru growls, voice dripping in warning. “Stay back from the females until Rhorkanterannu issues his command.”

  The young one — Nondah — spins and there is something feral in his eyes, “We are Niahhorru! We live by the code of life and right now there is one breedable female at our disposal for the shekurr, and we aren’t doing anything. We should take her now. We don’t know what other tricks she has up her sleeve.”

  “You can’t! She’s the Rakukanna,” I shout.

  He juts up against the edge of the platform and when he lifts his fist, I’m confident he’s going to level a punch to my face that will knock me out cold.

  Svera, still trying to staunch her wounds, shouts weakly, but it’s one of the other Niahhorru who intervenes. No. Not one. All of them.

  Eight hands or sixteen or forty reach around me and tackle Nondah before he can surge up onto the table. The young one is easily subdued.

  A bigger Niahhorru — one with thick, dark grey spikes about the length of my forearm at their longest, tackles the young one to the ground. He grabs Nondah’s topmost spike and snaps the thing off. Nondah screams. Straightening, the big one tosses the spike aside and approaches me.

  “You will not be harmed.” The skein over his eyes swirls like molten rock. He tilts his head forward ever so slightly and lifts one arm over his breast. “Rhorkanterannu forbids it.”

  “Until you rape us…”

  The man starts, his expression almost comical in its exaggeration. Mouth falling open, skein peeling back, hands lifting. “Rape? Does my translator fail me? You think we will force ourselves to breed with you?”

  “Of course. What else? We would never agree.”

  He seems equally stunned by this revelation and balks, “But the shekurr is an honor. Any female selected to partake becomes feenah of her korrth.”

  What in the what? I’m about to ask only to realize, it doesn’t matter. “We were stolen. You can’t…”

  But then a shout draws my attention past the Niahhorru confronting me, and down.

  “The female has fallen,” a deep voice says, full of sorrow.

  I jerk my way forward, scrambling to the edge of the platform. It can’t be. She can’t be… My hairline is damp and my lips taste like salt. Between the bodies shifting between us, I see Svera lying backwards on the ground, a Niahhorru’s big hand behind her neck, the only thing keeping her upright.

  “Svera,” I say and in the same instant, her hologenerator shorts. “Comets, she’s bleeding so much.”

  I think about jumping down from the table, but the moment I move my foot, it sears with a pain that surprises me. Slippery and sliding over my fingers, my blood flows a duller copper than Svera’s red, which against her pale skin looks even more shocking. And she’s covered in it.

  Her neck, her arms, her hands, her cheeks most of all. Her green cloth dress is stained purple… I swore she’d survive this. To myself more than to her. I swore she’d see her family again. She shouldn’t be here. But she is. For me, she is. And I did this…

  A shadow falls over me and I glance up to see the same Niahhorru who’d been shocked that I wouldn’t want to be raped in the shekurr arches over my ankle and hisses, “You were caught by the lower hiannru. They are sharper than the upper talons. And your Rakukanna, or your…species mate was hit hard by Yourandena. You are more delicate than our kind. She seems to be bleeding at a great rate. Should we compress the wound?”

  “Is she breathing? Does she have a pulse?”

  We both look to the Niahhorru closest to her and wait for his assessment. I exhale in one enormous, shaky breath when he nods. “Her pulse is faint.”

  “Do you have anything sterile?” I fire back.

  He just tilts his giant square head and stares down at me, his eyes utterly unblinking. In fact, I haven’t seen any of them blink short of when the skein lowers to shield the orbs of their eyes in battle. “What is that?”

  “Sterile?”

  “The word does not translate.”

  “Comets help me,” I say and I start to amble off of the table, slowly edging over one side. The moment my foot hits the floor, my ankle sings. I curse and look to the Niahhorru still crowded in the room, noting now that every single one of them has their silver eyes trained on me. “Lie her down flat on her back and prop up her feet if you can. Does anyone here have a clean…”

  There’s a huge rattle and blast somewhere deep within the ship, far from where we are. But still, it is significant enough to threaten my attention. I glance to Svera. See her eyes open and looking at me. Thank the universe…

  The Niahhorru standing before me shouts a flurry of names and a dozen Niahhorru in the room suddenly break towards the door.

  “Find Rhorkanterannu. Determine how quickly we can disembark and return to the ship. We need to return to Kor before they begin pursuit.”

  “They won’t have found us already. We’re on the outer edge of the Quadrant. Undetectable by long range sensors. That’s why we chose this decrepit ship, remember? No alpha frequencies coming in or out. We are pure hardware. Ancient gear. And we disrupted their docks besides. They can’t get to us.”

  The Niahhorru on the floor beside Svera speaks at the same time that he gently lifts her legs and places them on a blackened metal block.

  She blinks rapidly, and of course, Svera would be the one to whisper, “Thank you. That’s very kind.” The Niahhorru nods, and then freezes when Svera says, “But you’re wrong. They could have found you.” She lifts her arm and slides her opposite palm across it. Flickering green flutters for a moment before fading.

  “You got your life drive?” I say, curious as to why that would matter. Life drives don’t contain trackers. I should know, I helped Lemoria tinker with the technology that would allow life drives to adapt to human and hybrid anatomies. I didn’t know they were ready yet. They aren’t ready yet. Why would Svera have one?

  Svera nods. Another rumble throttles the space and the doors through which the Niahhorru just disappeared closes. “I did. And it has coordinates to my location,” she says, totally contradicting everything I thought. I might have even been concerned if it wasn’t the thing that might save our necks.

  She coughs, “You had better all go, because it will take all of you to defend this place, if that is your intention. And I hope it isn’t. You seem like a…noble people. Desperation has driven you to this, but don’t let it own you.”

  “You know nothing of our desperation!” Nondah shouts from the floor. Black blood pours from the open wound in his back and makes me wince. It looks painful.

  He rises, but the Niahhorru who defended me before shoves him back. He issues another order. “The human females were not supposed to be marked. This one clearly is of some importance. We can perform shekurr with neither. We must either take the Rakukanna now as leverage, or leave them both and abandon ship.”

  “We cannot leave them!”

  “Do you challenge me?” The Niahhorru male flexes his four arms.

  Nondah lowers into a vicious crouch. “Ontte, I do.”

  The attack happens all at once and is blistering in its speed and its violence. Across the room, I hear Svera scream, echoing the sound that ripples through my whole body. I cower back, away from the fight and drop to the ground despite the fire that chews through my ankle and halfway up my leg. Standing on one leg, I keep the metal plank between me and the fighters.

  I glance at the door, noting the unusually large Niahhorru-sized shape of the handle. I could get to it but how long would it take me to pull it down? And even if I could get out while the others are distracted, what would that do? Where would I go? How would I get Svera out with me? And suddenly I’m ou
t of time for questions. The fight is coming to an end.

  Nondah’s loss is imminent. He’s already taken too many hits to the face and stomach. The Niahhorru seem to favor their sides and the bigger one cuts for Nondah’s every opportunity he gets. He levels another strike — this one a kick — at Nondah’s thigh and Nondah bends at the knee. He falls. His opponent advances and just as he reaches out with two of his great big hands to Nondah’s face, looking like he’s hell bent on tearing the skin right off his skull, the ship lurches beneath my feet.

  I gasp as my stomach sails up into my throat. Svera gasps. The Niahhorru near her wraps his arms around her middle and punches his hands into the floor, latching onto it with his claws. I only understand what he’s doing too late. Because a moment later, the ship tilts off its axis and everyone standing goes airborne.

  I fly, time slows, and when I blink see the Niahhorru who’d just been about to kill Nondah tilt too far back. His arms flail, exposing his chest and Nondah doesn’t hesitate. Midair, he strikes.

  His fist plunges into the male’s chest, his hard claws burrowing beneath plates and ripping them free. I scream as he impales the Niahhorru warrior but even that sound is drowned out by a deep, dark rattling and metal tearing metal and bone crunching against the grated floor.

  I want to call to Svera, but my lungs are in my throat and my stomach is tearing in the opposite direction. My stomach, oh comets, my stomach…

  I bowl over, forming a tight ball, body closing in around the baby. My baby. Xoran’s baby. My arms come to cover my head. Time punches forward and I hit something a second later. My head cracks against it. The world fades to the smell of smoke and Svera screaming my name.

  20

  Xoran

  The docks were left in ruin. Rhorkanterannu. The name hits me like a dagger to the belly each time I look at the mess he’s made. And to what end? Something is wrong. Why tamper with the docks?

  “He has ruined his only chance for escape.” Xa’Raku growls the thought that crosses my mind. She kicks aside a fallen piece of werro. The tree had lasted for a thousand years but now pieces of it lay scattered over the forest floor.

  Rhorkanterannu’s pirates set the tree alight and when Ixria attempted to stop them, they fired on her and her xub’Ixria. Lemoria has her suspended in a tank of merillian, Ku’Rohru fast at her side. He watches with baited breath, a mirror to the Va’Raku who watches his Va’Rakukanna still.

  They are also Xiveri mated and one cannot live without the other and if one does, one will not want to. The Xanaxana demands a union and today, Xana guides Ixria and Ku’Rohru. But I know that Ixria’s Xaneru is strong. She will live.

  For what he has done on this solar, Rhorkanterannu will not.

  Xa’Raku turns to me and her eyes shift right, towards the troop of three xcleranx that approaches. Leading them is Tur’Roth. He inclines his head. “Our search uncovered a disturbance in the flatlands just south of Illyria. We think that Rhorkanterannu and his Niahhorru might have fled in this direction.”

  “Lead us,” I say and air fires into my lungs that smells sweet and spicy. The werro bark giving up its last breaths. The tree will not recover and at first light, once Rhorkanterannu is apprehended, we will need to move all of the transporters lodged within it. We will then honor it and the gift that it has provided generations of Voraxians before we spread its ashes and its seeds so that new werro trees make be borne of its sacrifice.

  My xub’Raku fold in around me while the xcleranx fold in around them. We form a diamond as we tear through the city like a knife.

  Everyone is indoors, quarantined to their homes, but for the warriors. Pe’ixal remains under arrest. Voraxia is quiet. It is all sand and the dimming light of the xamxin river and the thick trunks of our trees shooting out of the ground like the spears of some great and ancient being.

  My pulse is steady and even. I am calm, knowing that Rhorkanterannu will be soon apprehended. He cannot have a fighting force on this planet, and he cannot have a means of escape. And even if he does, there is no chance that he will be able to access what it is that I think he means to access. Or rather, who.

  My Rakukanna is safe.

  I know this because I know that there is no single being that would be able to break through the defenses that surround her, through Krisxox. Not even me, if this is what she commanded of Krisxox. His savage fighting style is unparalleled, so unless Rhorkanterannu attacked Krisxox with the full strength of his fleet, then there is no way that anything would ever be able to get to her…

  A slight rustling, a sudden hush. I lift a fist and the entire contingent comes to a swift and silent halt. The wind shifts, carving a path between the werros. On its breath I taste a foreign scent.

  “My Raku, do you hear that?” Xa’Raku asks, and as she does, I do.

  The skin on the back of my neck prickles and the plates on my thighs and chest harden. My breath thickens as I inhale deeper. And deeper. I wait and then I hear it again. Nox. It can’t be.

  The Xanaxana punctures my lungs like shards of glass, that wicked shrapnel. I pivot as the wind whips across my face, warm, even while my insides turn to ice. Bullets. And then a faraway explosion.

  “Nox!” I break formation as the word flings out of me and rides on the heels of a hundred of the foulest curses I can think of, and a thousand more pleas. I hold the Xanaxana high in my heart as the xub’Raku and the xcleranx fall in behind me.

  We plunge through the fading light, our boots sinking into the sands. I don’t mind. I grew up here. My body is adapted to this planet. I know every inch of its surface and I know that there is no way Rhorkanterannu could escape this city without my knowing so if he thinks even for an instant that he will take my Rakukanna with him, then he has no sense at all. Or he knows something I do not.

  A dagger of uncertainty spears the wall of my confidence. Slowly I feel it begin to crumble. Rhorkanterannu is no fool. No being that operates the madness of Kor could be. He has built himself an empire from space rubble. And now he has come for her. And I fell perfectly into the palm of his hand allowing this distraction at the docks to separate us.

  My mouth dries as I storm forward, the sound of weapons firing growing louder. Another explosion shakes the foundation of the trees surrounding us. From a great distance, I hear the sound of branches splintering.

  “Hold!” One of the xcleranx shouts. He raises a fist and a werro branch cascades to the sandy floor in front of our contingent. It’s barely settled before I start forward again.

  “Look out!” A xcleranx tackles me from behind and several more issue distant shouts. A thunderous cracking explodes just where I’d been standing and when I rise, I see several xcleranx bodies trapped beneath the wood. I react towards them, but then a roar of pain tears my attention around. A Voraxian roar. One that I recognize.

  “Go! That will be Krisxox. The xcleranx will rescue their fallen. I am right behind you, my Raku.” Xa’Raku leaps over the branches, issues terse orders and sprints after me.

  Another branch falls. I duck under it and leap over the next. My mind is a haze of need. I need to see her. Need to have her in my arms. But the pounding in my head and the mad switching of the Xanaxana in my chest only becomes my hysterical and more frenzied and the ion fire in the distance only increases in volume until all at once, it dies.

  Nox. Nox nox nox. Krisxox will have won. He will have kept the females safe. Our xcleranx fighters will have dismantled Rhorkanterannu. But when I arrive, circling the next bend, my thoughts of salvation are lost.

  Xa’Raku gasps beside me but neither of us speak. There is no time for words. There is only the guest werro where my Rakukanna set up her laboratory, split up its sturdy center. It too battled for her. Just as the bodies of my xcleranx did. They appear lifeless now where they lay.

  Xa’Raku and the other xcleranx immediately begin the process of triage while I follow the path that was cleared through them into the lab.

  It looks almost just as she left i
t.

  Except for the boot prints. Large, heavy boots and so many of them. Too many. How did so many descend on world? Rhorkanterannu’s ship was inspected on arrival and it was built for only four passengers. There are dozens of boots on the ground here. It’s just not possible. And more importantly, where have they gone?

  I crouch, feeling the cracks in the moss floor with my hands. Dry and damaged and betraying evidence of smaller feet. Two sets. Yet neither female is here. And where is…

  “Krisxox! My Raku, Krisxox!” One of the xcleranx shouts and I exit through the fractured and charred hole in the werro to see Krisxox’s mutilated form emerging from the treeline. He is pure gore, pure violence. Evidence that he did not give his life in his attempt to save the females, but tried, covers his form.

  He wears a collar ringed in metal that is not of a Voraxian make, and holds one arm stiffly against his chest. Burn wounds cover his entire right side and when he staggers, I catch sight of the blood smeared across his face, down his neck and across his shoulder blades. I surge forward and catch him as he falls.

  “Krisxox.”

  He attempts to bow to me but I keep him upright. “I know where they are. I know how they got there, but I do not understand the technology that powers it.” He looks hardly able to stand, but he still manages to form coherent words. “I followed them. Her.”

  “The Rakukanna.”

  “Nox. Svera. I put a tracker in her life drive.” This shocks me. We do not track our people. Krisxox must see the yellow rise in my ridges, disrupting some of the black. I make no attempt to hide such colors now. There is nothing left of my control. There is only my exposed heart bleeding.

  What is he doing to her? Is he performing shekurr? Allowing each of his Niahhorru to rut my Xiveri mate? She is my mate. Mine. And my own hubris got in the way. So determined to flush him out, I was not there to protect her.

  “She is a prisoner. I thought it best, in case she tried to escape.”