That time, Trazen must have believed him.
Jet saw some of the tension leave Richter’s face as he continued to stare in Trazen’s direction. Richter didn’t take the gun off Jet’s head, though.
“Now everyone just calm the hell down!” Richter said, exhaling in annoyance as he used his free hand to push the hair out of his face. “I came here to talk. Just to talk, damn it! We’re all on the same side… whether you want to admit it to yourselves or not!”
This last part felt aimed at Jet.
She let out a strangled laugh, still kneeling on the wood as she glared up at him, her hand pressed against her sternum. Her breathing was slowly returning to normal, even though each breath still cut at her lungs.
“Get up,” he snapped. He motioned with the gun towards the other side of the table. “Go to your boyfriend, Jet. Before he does something stupid and I have to shoot you both.”
Jet frowned, but glanced back over her shoulder that time.
Trazen stood there, his tail up in an open threat, his dark eyes with their gold flecks bright from the venom. She saw fury on his face, more genuine anger than she’d ever seen on him. The muscles in his arms were tensed, pressing against the fabric of his shirt, as were the muscles in his chest and neck. He looked frightening… animalistic… but she couldn’t help thinking there was something absolutely magnificent about that fury.
Watching Trazen stare at her, that predatory glare still flashing in his eyes as he lashed his tail, she pulled herself stiffly to her feet.
She knew Richter was right.
Trazen really might do something stupid.
Both of them might. The venom made that almost a certainty.
She walked back to where he stood, without taking her hand off the sore spot in the center of her chest, and without taking her eyes off Richter and his gun.
When she got near enough to Trazen, he wrapped his tail around her, pulling her flush with his body, without looking away from Richter’s face. He growled at the human male, the sound an open threat, and loud enough to make Jet jump.
“Calm down,” Richter said, his voice more impatient now than afraid.
He looked between the two of them, shaking his head.
“Jesus. I thought Laks had it bad. What the hell do you do to these lizard-skins, Jet? And how many times did you sting her, Ringmaster? The two of you look more like you’re ready to get a room than fight me for the damned gun.”
Anger touched his words that time.
Jet looked at Richter incredulously, rubbing her jaw where he’d hit her with the hand that wasn’t coiled around Trazen’s tail. She’d touched the Nirreth more in reflex than conscious thought, barely noticing she’d done it until she glanced down.
Now she found herself stroking the silky skin there, exuding reassurance with each touch, even as she felt a shiver of reaction off him.
Okay, so Richter wasn’t exactly wrong.
Even so, Jet was bewildered that he could pretend the idea offended him at this point, like he really gave a damn about her, or about her being with any Nirreth for any reason, given that he’d put her in this position in the first place.
“What do you care, Richter?” she said, mirroring her thoughts.
He didn’t look at her.
When he spoke, his anger remained directed at Trazen.
“Didn’t you promise Laks you wouldn’t violate his precious girl, Ringmaster?” he said. “Don’t you lizards have any self control at all?”
Trazen’s aggression intensified. “That’s none of your business––”
“Isn’t it?” Richter snorted a laugh, his eyes cold. “I would say it is, given everything. Moreover, it hardly makes you trustworthy, does it, Trazen? Screwing the girlfriend of your supposed ‘ally’ after explicitly promising you wouldn’t? Or did you think Laksri wouldn’t notice?”
Jet made a disbelieving sound, but Trazen spoke before she could.
“That is between me and him,” he said coldly.
Richter rolled his eyes. “You Nirreth. Such drama queens when it comes to sex. You’re worse than adolescent humans, do you know that?”
It seemed a rhetorical question, since he didn’t wait for an answer.
“Fine. Whatever. I’ll stay out of it. Hell, what do I care if two Nirreth want to draw blood over one human girl? I should get a finder’s fee from the winner though,” he said, giving Jet an openly leering wink. “After all, I’m the one who brought her in range of your stingers in the first place. Or had you forgotten?”
Jet felt another surge of anger hit her, but couldn’t tell how much of it was hers and how much of it Trazen’s. It didn’t really matter, she supposed; she knew Richter mostly said it to piss them off. Although why he’d want to anger Trazen right now, she had no idea.
He’s trying to unbalance me, Trazen told her through the venom. He wants me to feel cornered, like he’s going to tell Laksri what I’m doing with you.
You aren’t doing anything with me, she reminded him in a mental mutter.
He tightened his tail around her waist. No. Not yet.
Not yet?
Trazen didn’t answer.
He didn’t even look at her at first, but continued to stare at Richter’s face.
Jet had already returned her own stare to Richter and the gun when Trazen surprised her, speaking in her mind with softer thoughts.
Did you mean what you said to Laksri, Jet?
Jet’s brow crinkled in puzzlement. She looked at him. Which thing?
Trazen’s tail tightened perceptibly around her waist.
When you told him that all agreements between he and I were void. The agreements we had about you. He looked at her, and the gold flecks in his eyes shocked her, causing her to stare. You knew what you were saying that night, didn’t you? You knew how both he and I would take what you said? Or was that only for his benefit?
Jet continued to stare up at him, bewildered.
Then, as she turned over his words, she felt her face grow hot. Shrugging, she told him the truth, knowing he’d probably feel it through the venom anyway.
Yes. Well. I knew how Laks would take it. I knew how I meant it, and I knew he’d understand what I meant.
And me? Trazen thought at her. How was I supposed to take it?
She didn’t look up that time, despite the prodding of his mind.
Trazen, I don’t know. I honestly thought you didn’t see me that way. I didn’t let myself think about how you took it.
He pushed at her mind again. Did you mean it?
Her fingers tightened on his tail. Trazen, this isn’t really the time––
Richter laughed, breaking into her thoughts.
“What are you saying to her, Ringmaster? Our beloved Samurai of the Rings is turning bright red. Are you trying to seduce her, even now?”
Jet felt the heat in her face worsen, but at least some of it was anger now.
She glanced at Tyra and caught a smirk on the other woman’s face above where her muscular arms crossed her chest. The other female Rings fighter was still sitting at the bench across from them, leaning into Anslom’s side, listening and watching the interaction with them and Richter with a shrewd look on her high-cheekboned face.
Instead of addressing Richter, Jet spoke to Tyra.
“You worked for him this whole time? Richter? Since I met you?”
She nodded. “He recruited me right out of the pits, Jet. Same as you.”
“Is that what they call it?” Jet said, giving Richter a hard look. “Recruitment? They used to call it something else.”
Tyra laughed. “Well, it happened a little differently for me, it’s true.”
Jet didn’t really care about that story though. Not now.
She glared at Richter. “What about Laksri? Are you still holding his leash?” She gave Trazen a bare glance. “Was that whole thing at the warehouse in Santa Fe just for show? Another performance to try and convince me how you and him and Anaze really didn’
t mean to leave me on Astet, to get half-killed in that prison?”
Richter folded his own arms.
He glanced at Anslom and Tyra before he gave a single shake to his head.
“No. Trazen asked for that meet in Santa Fe.”
“But you were there, right?” she said, her words colder. “I saw someone slinking around in the shadows that night. I’m thinking now that must have been you.”
Trazen gave her a surprised look, one Jet didn’t bother to answer.
She felt his surprise through the venom though, as well as his attempt to see what she saw in the restaurant that night. Without looking away from Richter’s face, Jet showed him her memories, her glimpses of a familiar-seeming shadow in the main dining area and again while they were in that firelit room.
Looking at those memories again, she couldn’t be sure.
Richter only held up his hands, smiling at her. “And what if I was there?”
“Did Laksri know?” Jet’s jaw hardened more. “Or is Anaze still the one pulling strings for you these days? Manipulating Laksri from behind the scenes?”
Richter shook his head, rubbing his stubbled jaw with one hand.
“Neither, kitten.” He smirked at her, meeting her gaze. “Much as I’d love to take credit for being the mastermind you seem to think me to be… my son still harbors delusions of rebellion and grandeur of his own. If I’m not mistaken, him and Laks are trying to rescue your mother and brother from my people even as we speak.”
Jet flinched, her body growing tense.
Next to her, Trazen held her tighter, as if warning her not to do anything.
Weirdly though, Richter’s words gave her an irrational surge of hope.
Maybe Laksri hadn’t been lying after all.
Maybe him and Anaze really would help her get her family away from Richter’s people.
Richter must have seen that hope because his light-brown eyes hardened to stone.
“Don’t get too excited, kitten,” he warned. “They won’t succeed. Not in the way you’re hoping. You still don’t seem to understand how many people I have working for me. Watching things, keeping an eye on what’s going on. I’m sorry to say, I’ve known what Anaze and Laks were up to for months. And I can’t risk Isreti finding out about your family… or getting hold of them for their own reasons.”
His frown turned closer to a scowl.
“Truthfully, I thought I raised the boy better than that. But his mother was always a pain in my ass, too. Hopefully I can make him see reason when I pick him and his friends up tonight. Hopefully I can convince him, and Laks… and you, Jet… and your new playmate, Trazen… that we all need to work together if we want to come out of this thing with Isreti alive.”
His eyes looked almost sincere when he added,
“We need one another, pet. We need one another. No matter how pissed off you are at me, you can’t be totally blind to what’s happening. Isreti is a fanatic. He’d wipe us all out, given any excuse at all.”
Richter turned, giving Trazen a direct look, his eyes unflinching.
“He’ll happily wipe out a good chunk of his own people, too, if that’s what it takes. Isn’t that right, Ringmaster? You know exactly what kind of fantasies Isreti and his ‘followers’ like to entertain. The kind of world they envision for themselves.”
Trazen didn’t speak, but Jet felt the Ringmaster agreeing with him.
Richter looked back at Jet, his voice growing more urgent.
“All this work to pull together a human rebellion, to find common ground with the Nirreth who just want to live in peace… it would have been for nothing, Jet.”
He motioned broadly over the grounds, his jaw hard.
“All of this. Trazen’s orphans. The few enclaves where humans are still safe, still living semi-decent lives… it could all be gone, Jet. It could all be gone in the blink of an eye. You, me, Anaze, your family, Tyra here. We’d all be dead. Shot as traitors, or ‘recalcitrants.’”
His voice turned even more grim.
“More to the point, our people will have nothing, Jet. No second front. No future. No hope of an eventual easing of tensions with the Nirreth. There would be no rebellion. No Green Zone compromise. Only slaves. Cattle. And eventually, there likely wouldn’t even be that. We’d either be bred out of existence as we mutated into a new race… or they’ll simply wipe us out, given enough time and political will.”
Jet felt her teeth clench, but she didn’t speak.
Watching her, Richter let his scowl deepen, even as he rubbed his jaw with a free hand.
“Jet, for God’s sake! This can’t be about personal crap. Not now! If you’d put your grudge with me aside and just think for a minute, instead of throwing punches and yelling, I know you’d agree with me. We don’t have the luxury to fight amongst ourselves. Not now. Maybe after all this, you can punch me again.”
Jet found herself turning over his words, in spite of himself.
She also found herself reminded of how he ended up the leader of this rebellion, the human side of it, at least.
Richter still might turn out to be a sociopath, but he was damned good with words.
He paused, still studying her face.
He didn’t look at Trazen at all now, only her. He seemed to think their cooperation hinged on her. Or maybe he really did think he needed her, even more than he needed Trazen.
His eyes held an added meaning when he said,
“We’re alike in this, Jet. Remember? We are, as much as you hate it… as much as you’ll deny it up and down and swear at anyone who points it out. You and I are alike, kitten. Practical. Practical to the damned bone. It’s why you never outed me in that Palace. It’s why you went along with things when you first got culled.”
His brown eyes glittered harder in the path lights that shone into the pagoda.
“It’s why you’ll work with me now,” he added, his voice deeper. “As much as you hate me, you need me, too, Jet. You know you do.”
Jet frowned.
Just like he’d said, she felt some part of her recoil at Richter’s words.
She hated the idea that anything about the two of them could be alike, but she couldn’t really disagree with him, either. In truth, Richter’s words almost exactly mirrored thoughts Jet had about the two of them herself.
Clearly Richter had picked up on the same thing.
They were alike, she and him.
In this one area at least, they had a similar… tendency.
Ability maybe. Maybe even curse.
Jet, like Richter, could strip her personal feelings out of the equation almost entirely, if the situation required it. She could remove her own anger, fear, hurt, grief, despair. She could remove herself from the equation totally, if her emotions interfered with the task at hand, especially when that task meant helping the people she loved.
She wasn’t indifferent to means, not at all.
Means mattered to her, a lot, no matter what the ends. But in an odd way, she was indifferent to herself, to what she thought of as the smaller issues pertaining to Jet as a person.
Apparently, that included what happened to her on Astet.
Like she had with being kidnapped, with being enslaved, with being forced to run in the Rings and being manipulated and lied to, again and again…
Jet could move it aside, at least for now, until the task was complete.
Maybe that made her an ideologue of some kind, like Richter.
Maybe it made her something else.
Either way, like Richter, she was what she was.
She also wanted what she wanted. She wanted her mom safe. She wanted her brother safe. She wanted her brother to grow up to a better, less soul-crushing world. She wanted the human race to do more than simply survive. She wanted her uncle and aunt to do more than die slowly in the skag pits or be forced to live as slaves, or be eaten.
She wanted her people to be free again. Really free.
Not living in the shadows like
cockroaches, feeding off the poisoned scraps left by psychotic Nirreth like Isreti.
She wanted the human race to remember who they were, who they used to be, who they could be again.
She wanted them to be something better this time, maybe.
She was willing, as Richter termed it, to be “practical” towards those ends.
Even if that meant making a deal with the devil himself.
13
The Domino
Jet leaned over the high-tech sharpening stone, pressing the edge of her sword to the crystal-white material. Sparks flew from the edge, but didn’t wear down or damage the blade.
She watched, eyes narrow, but didn’t have most of her attention focused there.
Sharpening the blade in here was really just for show.
All part of the spectacle––which is why the Nirreth media stood around her now, snapping images of Jet in her sense-suit while Black spat off a cascade of bright orange sparks.
Dark make-up surrounded her almond-shaped eyes, making them lighter-looking, she’d been told. Making her look more feral, more animal-like.
Light gold thread wove into the dark patterns of the sense-suit.
Trazen’s colors, but also designed to make her look more deadly.
Something in the gold thread and the way it ran up her legs and arms made her look almost machine-like on the big monitors, she’d been told. They’d learned to capitalize on Jet’s assets, including an ability to look dangerous, despite her small size.
Only her hair hung down in more of a feminine style, long and black and curled by the stylists who oversaw how she looked in the Rings.
This match was special.
Her first challenge match.
The first challenge match ever against two female human opponents, although Jet strongly suspected the “human” designation should probably be in quotes in relation to Bukka.
Regardless, Bukka tested human enough for the Rings Board to qualify her.
That, or someone paid a heck of a lot of money to make sure she did.
Jet fought to keep everything else out of her head.
She knew they might scan her mind in here, especially since Isreti had come out as one of Bukka’s major sponsors. As a result, not only did he have a lot of money vested in the match’s outcome, but he also had a big hand in designing the spectacle itself.
The Complete Alien Apocalypse Series (Parts I-IV Plus Bonus Novella): An Apocalyptic, Romantic, Science Fiction, Alien Invasion Adventure Page 81
