by Corin Cain
I watch twenty Sentinels turn and march away, clanking like haunted suits of armor.
There had been twenty additional Sentinels stationed behind the corner from the Aurelians? Enough to wipe them from existence five times over.
Then, I get it.
They were posted there just in case the Aurelians tried the very thing we’d been planning. My triad might have even been able to cut their way through the first five Sentinels at the doorway – but then, they’d have rounded that first corner and would have been cut down like grass the very second they turned the corner. Those twenty Sentinels might as well have been a firing squad.
My instinct saved their lives…
For now.
But I’m in an even worse situation than we were before. Now, I wade through the brackish water without my Aurelians to back me up.
I gaze around, perhaps noticing the sheer horror of this place for the first time, thanks to my heightened senses. The fleshy walls of the Toad mothership are crawling with maggots. The whole place almost seems alive. My stomach churns, and I throw up – watching with disgust as tadpoles swarm between my feet to gobble up the protein.
The Sentinels don’t pause for me. They march relentlessly forward, and as they pass, one grabs me roughly by the shoulder, forcing me to match their pace.
They lead me back to the room I’d shared with Tessa and throw me inside. As the doors close, I watch the Sentinels turn and stride away.
Thank the Gods, Lord Oblog apparently still doesn’t think I’m enough of a threat to post guards at my door.
But am I enough of a threat?
My only chance now is to do what the Aurelians had planned to – to cut my way through the door and rush to the hanger bay. If I sprint and get lucky, perhaps there’s a slim chance I could make it there by myself. At least Marcel’s detailed map of the ship’s layout is burned into my memory, overlain with the mental map I’d constructed using the techniques Ling taught me.
But who am I kidding?
All alone, I know I don’t stand a chance. If – if – I even make it to the hanger bay, I’ll then have to face down a bay full of Toad pilots and mechanics while I try to make it to the Reaver, or steal a ship.
I’m not even the best pilot. Ling taught me well enough to fly, but even with the slim possibility that I actually manage to steal a ship, I’ve then still got to get away from the Mothership with its barrage of las-cannons and missile launchers locked onto me.
The never-give-up confidence Ling had hardened inside me crumbles. I realize I’ve been doomed since the moment I set foot on this Toad mothership.
No, before – ever since I first booked passage on the Elnor.
I just didn’t know it at the time.
Despair wells up inside me. I ache desperately for the silent reassurance of my men – their auras in my mind.
But they’re being forced to do Oblog’s bidding, at the threat of my life. Now, they’ve been forced to leave me all alone, trapped in a cell – waiting for death.
And then I remember what Marcel and Lucius had told me.
Our one chance is this Captain Aelon.
I don’t know who he is, or what relation he is to my triad, but I know the price my triad would pay for Captain Aelon’s aid is everything.
Everything they’ve ever worked for. What all those shipments made for Lord Oblog had funded. All that money they’d earned by risking everything, and damning themselves in the eyes of the Empire they were still loyal to.
All traded to a man I’ve never even heard of…
…and all to save me.
Just like I’d picked up residual memories of how to speak Toad, and how to operate an Orb-Knife, I search my mind for what details the Aurelians shared about this Captain Aelon.
I gasp. He is like us – one of a triad of Aurelian warriors Bonded to a human female.
But what were the odds that an Aurelian Captain, happily Bonded to his Fated Mate, would risk a galactic war just to save me?
The tears stream down my face. I realize a grim truth.
In the end, I’m just as weak as Tessa.
In the end, I was never strong – not like Ling.
I’m just another statistic – one more on the number of stolen, enslaved, murdered human females. The charts that had inspired Ling and I to embark on our mission to liberate enslaved women.
This last hope – this starship captain called Aleon – is like poison in my mind. He will not save me. My triad can’t save me.
I can’t even save myself.
But what’s worse?
I cannot save the rooted seed now buried deep within my womb. Barely a whisper of conception - but inside a seed that could one day grow to become a powerful warrior with brilliantly colored eyes.
Knowing I will have a son inside me makes the pain of defeat even worse.
15
Misery.
Helpless, futile misery.
Each second that ticks by, as I’m trapped in my lonely room, brings me closer to my death.
The Bond extended my natural life – but Lord Oblog is going to snip it short.
I toss and turn in bed. I can’t find the solace of sleep. Even being tortured by nightmares of my best friend dying at the hands of that brutal Bullfrog – the nightmares that used to keep me awake at night – would be better than this reality.
Lord Oblog hasn’t said as much, but I might as well be a prisoner on Death Row.
There’s nothing I can do. I’m cut off from my triad, mentally and physically. I can’t plan with them, or share vital information with them. I can’t even embrace the reassurance of their presence in my mind.
I can’t figure a way out. I can’t even let them feel my aura for one last time – to give them my location, so they could launch a last-ditch effort to Orb-Shift in – to try and wade through an entire mothership of Toads and Bullfrogs to reach me.
I flop down on the bed. The bright, artificial lights burn my eyes. My stomach rumbles, and I realize I’ve barely eaten anything since they first put me in here.
I’ve lost.
I went up against a Finger of the Toad King and I lost.
Now, I’ll be waiting here in virtual purgatory – until either my triad convinces some random, Aurelian starship captain to save me…
…or Oblog executes me.
I close my eyes. I just want to sleep forever.
Then, the doors of my chamber open.
Sleep leaves. I sit up, and freeze like a deer.
A Bullfrog steps through the doorway, invading my only safe space on this ship.
And not just any Bullfrog.
My misery instantly evaporates – replaced by fresh terror.
My eyes fixate on that brutal scar across his chest. A scar I put there – when I pulled down on the trigger of that blaster while on-mission with Ling.
I’d aimed for center mass, but the Bullfrog had turned at the last minute – turning a killing blast into a wounding one.
But I’d left this towering, grotesque Bullfrog with a reminder of how I’d bested him – one he is forced to look at each and every day. It’s a reminder that a human female bested him.
The ten-foot tall beast stares at me. Gab’nah has me trapped in the room, blocking the only exit with his crushing bulk – not that I can open it from the inside.
Gab’nah wears only a loin-cloth. His frog legs are tree-trunk thick, covered in ugly warts and dripping with slime. His huge, webbed feet are planted firmly on the ground. The hilt of his Orb-Axe dangles at his waist.
But Gab’nah doesn’t activate his weapon. Instead, he stretches open his huge hands, wriggling his long, slimy fingers, eager to have them wrapped around my throat.
I gulp – and then slip my hand down beneath the covers, struggling to pull out my tiny Orb-Knife.
I’ve seen the blade, and it seems so small compared to this monster. The room feels so tiny as he takes a huge, lumbering step forward, the doors hissing shut behind him.
<
br /> I gulp. I’m trapped here with this creature – the one I’ve feared, dreaded, and had nightmares of ever since Ling died.
Then, my nightmares deepen. The loin-cloth Gab’nah wears moves – tenting outward with his sadistic arousal. He intends to rape me, fuck me to ribbons, then break and torture me; and finally devour me…
I take one last effort. I raise my hand.
“Stop! Lord Oblog’s going to kill you for this!”
Perhaps, in some twist of luck, Gab’nah is trespassing here – he couldn’t resist the urge to destroy the human female who’d so emasculated him.
But, no such luck.
Gab’nah takes another step forward.
“He’s not going to kill me, female. He gave you to me.”
The Bullfrog savors the words, gurgling them as they leave his massive mouth.
This is the end.
Lord Oblog doesn’t need me anymore.
As long as the Aurelians think I’m alive, they’ll finish that last shipment – then return to their death.
This is it.
When Gab’nah’s lips move, I see rows of razor sharp teeth behind them.
“I’m going to fuck you…”
He takes another step closer. His legs flex beneath his bulk. He’s moving slowly – as if I’m in a nightmare. But there’s no waking up from this.
This monster has been looking forward to this moment ever since I first marked him with my blaster. He intends on savoring it.
“Then, I’m going to eat you.”
His stomach rumbles.
That’s when I break. I scream, pushing myself back in the bed as he charges toward me.
I try to run, tangled up in the blankets, but there’s nowhere for me to go. I scramble free of the sheets only when his warty, left hand grabs my left arm.
Even with my Bond-enhanced strength, I’m no match for him. Gab’nah tosses me back into the bed, and I’m hit hard as I land on the flat surface.
The gigantic, disgusting Bullfrog crawls onto the bed, dripping his slime on me as he looms above.
Activate.
I utter the word with my mind, and three inches of Orb-Blade extend from the hilt clutched in my fist.
I plunge the blade upward, into the one soft spot I can think of – the wriggling, pressing thing that’s tenting out his loincloth.
The blade descends, and hot liquid splashes across my hands, burning me.
Blood. Hot, acidic blood.
Gab’nah bellows in agony and loses his wet grip on my arm. I slither out from beneath him and run – but the doors to my room are closed in front of me.
Yet, at my movement, they open.
Thank the Gods, they open! They’d been unlocked by the Bullfrog, and he hadn’t secured them after – not wanting to rely on anybody else to open them from the outside.
I burst through them and run down the hallway. Then, I hear the doors hissing from behind me again.
He’s behind me – Gab’nah, screaming out in rage and agony.
Even as his blood splatters into the water beneath him, he’s faster than me.
I’m running in panic, not knowing where I’m going – my feet directed by memory alone.
I rely on Ling’s training. I know the hanger bay is too far to reach before Gab’nah closes the distance between us.
I splash on through the fetid water, but I can hear the waves of his feet churning behind me, louder and louder. His grunts and heavy breathing terrorize me. They’re grunts of pain and rage.
I’ve damaged him.
I’d triggered this confrontation by making him feel emasculated – defeated by a mere female.
Now, I’ve literally emasculated him – driving that Orb-Knife deep into his rancid cock.
But I didn’t kill him, even if I hurt him badly.
If I hadn’t, Gab’nah would have caught me by now – pressing me down into the brackish water, choking me in the fetid filth as he ripped chunks from my body with his razor-sharp teeth.
I splash around another corner – and then despair wells up as my heart sinks.
I’ve run full circle. I’m now face to face with the huge doors of Lord Oblog’s throne room – and the two Bullfrog guards standing sentry.
I freeze just ten feet in front of them.
I’d run this way by instinct – to the place I’d been most often on this ship.
It’ll be the death of me.
The two Bullfrog guards look down at me without pity - their eyes dead, like a shark.
I turn…
…and Gab’nah, the scarred Bullfrog, is standing there.
He’s breathing heavy, one webbed hand slapped between his frog legs. His huge chest puffs up and down, panting in agony. Green-black bile drips from between his legs. His blood hisses as it falls into the water.
I’m trapped between two huge guards and a crippled monster that wants to torture me to death.
In front of me, Gab’nah licks his lips. At that moment, I feel more alone than I ever have done in my life – all those decades not knowing what true loneliness was until I’d had that triad alive in my mind; and were then robbed of them.
Fear wells up inside me, and I freeze…
And then, I move.
I bring the blade of the Orb-Knife down, and feel a brief spark of agony.
The Bond-Disruptor splashes into the water – along with the finger it was wrapped around.
The auras of my three Aurelians instantly blossom in my mind.
Marcel, Quint, and Lucius instantly feel my panic. They match it. They lock in on me, their auras flooding into my mind.
I squeeze shut my eyes.
At least I will not die alone. At least I’ll feel Marcel, Lucius, and Quint one, last time.
When I open my eyes again, I see the scarred Bullfrog staring at me in confusion – shocked at my casual act of self-mutilation.
Then, he lumbers towards me – stretching open his jaw to show off row after row of his sharp, dagger-like teeth. He’s finished with the idea of fucking me – not that he could, now I’ve ruined his disgusting cock.
Now, Gab’nah wants to rip my fucking head off with his powerful jaws.
But at that instant, a crash echoes from behind me. A wave of sound and fury rolls like thunder, and the entire Toad mothership is suddenly rocked from side to side.
Alarms blare out, red lights flashing. They confuse my vision – but not nearly as much as the sudden realization that the three auras of my men are no longer light years away, but here – on this ship, and not far away from where I’m standing right now.
They’re here.
I turn, just in time to see the doors of the throne room open. The Bullfrog guards rush through, summoned by Oblog, and I sprint after them.
As I stumble into the throne room, my eyes widen.
I see the Aurelian’s Reaver – embedded in the very bulkheads of the throne room, hanging twenty feet above us.
The vessel is warped and tangled, black smoke billowing from the ruined engines. Likewise, the bulkheads are cracked – groaning and creaking under the strain of the Reaver penetrating them.
Up above, the side door of the Reaver opens and my Aurelians descend – launching themselves twenty feet into the water, their Orb-Blades active and read.
When they splash down, they’re ready for war.
The moment I sheared that finger from my hand, my triad had used my aura to take a one-in-a-million chance, and Orb-Shift inside Lord Oblog’s ship itself.
“Kill them! Kill them!”
Lord Oblog shrieks from his throne. Bullfrog guards rush in from all the sides, while the mechanical Sentinels fire, shots thundering across the room.
There’s chaos – abject chaos, and within it, I understand why Toads have never dominated the Aurelian Empire. While fearsome in their strength and numbers, Toads and Bullfrogs have none of the discipline or stoicism of Aurelian warriors.
All around me, Toads and Bullfrogs are ripped apart, and tumbl
e from the friendly fire. Between them, the Aurelians dart and duck – so outnumbered and surrounded that the Sentinels are hitting Oblog’s own men in the confusion.
Marcel, Quint, and Lucius dance. They spin and weave, in a spectacle of deadly beauty. When I say Aurelians are made for fucking and fighting, I’d only truly witnessed the first of those.
Now, I see three Aurelian warriors, Bond-enhanced, doing what they were born to do.
With shards of wood, they’d killed a dozen Bullfrogs.
With Orb-Blades in their hands, they’re angels of death.
I stand there, and a Bullfrog head flies over my shoulder, landing wetly in front of me. I stare in horror as the creature’s bulbous eyes blink twice – and then go blank.
That momentary pause nearly killed me, though. A huge arm suddenly grabs me – and from the cold, slimy grasp of it, I know it doesn’t belong to an Aurelian.
I’m spun around, and stare into the face of death.
Gab’nah has limped into the fray, hunting me for his revenge.
Row after row of yellow teeth descend toward me, accompanied by the stink of rotten meat. The stench floods my nostrils as I scramble backward.
The scarred Bullfrog opens his jaw as wide as they can stretch – obscenely wide, more than enough to engulf my entire head.
Instinct takes over – and I lift my Orb-Knife and I stab.
I stab over and over, not looking where I plunge the blade, and then not seeing as the Bullfrog’s mouth engulfs me, and his teeth clench down on my skull.
The light of the world disappears. Pain stabs through me as his huge teeth rake and crush…
Then, foul, black blood spews up from Gab’nah’s throat.
His jaw opens and he stumbles backward, freeing me.
I stumble back, watching the obscene beast teetering in front of me.
Blood gushes from a dozen wounds across his chest – each three inches deep. That’s as far as I could plunge the blade of my Orb-Knife.
But then, I struck true – and slit his throat wide open.
As I stand there and watch, the Bullfrog who skewered my best friend stumbles backward…
…and this time, I don’t hesitate. I don’t freeze.
