by Bertina Mars
They had terrorized the galaxy for centuries until finally being driven to extinction by the outbreak of the Reptile Plague. He saw his own people on course for destruction too, consumed by the dark energy of the Blood God. But maybe there might be a flicker of hope in the darkness?
He vaguely remembered an ancient legend that an Earth woman had become queen of the North Moon warriors and had established a golden age of peace and prosperity before their final collapse. Could Raja-kell be redeemed in the same way? Could he?
No longer wanting to dwell on it, he turned away and prepared to go back into the palace.
It was time to confront this situation with Maya. As he started walking across the courtyard though, the House Matron, carrying an electro-lantern was hurrying towards him, her silver eyes wide with alarm.
“Vron! Thank the Blood God I’ve found you,” she said breathlessly as she reached him. “You have to come inside quickly!”
“What’s he done now?” Vron asked in a tired voice. “Can’t I not have just a moment’s peace?”
“It’s not what he’d done you should be worried about, it what he intends to do!” the House Matron said urgently. “You must come, Vron. He means to sacrifice the Earth woman you bought today.”
Vron’s heart missed a beat. “What? He can’t!” Remembering himself, he quickly suppressed the outburst and his expression became neutral again.
“Why should that bother me?” he asked in his usual heavy drawl, trying to push down the rising tide of panic. He couldn’t kill Maya! Not before he’d gotten a chance to know her, but if that was the Blood God’s will then maybe it was better this way.
“Don’t pretend you don’t care, Vron,” the House Matron snapped. “I saw the way you look at her. You haven’t looked at a woman like that since Seema died. Are you really going to stand by and lose this woman as well?”
Vron’s barriers broke down. “I don’t even know if she is mine to keep,” he said, his voice raw with pain. “Why does he want to sacrifice her anyway?”
“He had some vision that she was going to kill him,” replied the old woman. “He’s scared out of his wits and has vowed she won’t see sunrise.
He sent two of the guards to take her to the sacrifice chamber, but I told them you and her were in the viper gardens on the other side of the palace. Hopefully, it should buy you enough time to make your escape.”
Vron blinked at her. “Escape?”
“Yes, escape you idiot!” the House Matron retorted.
“I know you’ve been planning to do it for a long time, through the secret passage that leads into the mushroom caverns underneath the palace. You have your cache of supplies all ready, so there’s nothing stopping you. I shall deactivate the security grid so the cyber-wolves don’t come after you. Now go!”
Vron stared at the old woman in shocked gratitude. He felt that he should hug her, but his own reserved manner and ingrained sense of decorum still held strong, even in the midst of a crisis. Instead, he offered her a watery half-smile. “I won’t forget this.”
“There won’t be anything to forget if you don’t get a move on!”
Vron nodded and stalked across the courtyard. He suddenly paused and turned back to the House Matron. “You could come with us,” he offered.
Holding up her lantern, the House Matron gave him a weary smile. She suddenly looked very old and tired beneath her heavy make up.
“I served the Prince Consort’s predecessor and the Peacock Feathered Emperor before him. I’ve lived in the palace since I was a child. I can’t survive out there the way you can. This is the only life I know.”
Her words settled on him like a lead weight, and he knew there and then he couldn’t turn back. If he did he would share her fate. He wanted to be free at all costs now and he wanted Maya at his side. Hurrying inside, he prayed that he was not too late.
*
Maya was woken by someone banging hard on the door. Opening her eyes, she looked around groggily. An electro-lantern cast a feeble light over Vron’s Spartan quarters and with a heavy groan she realised that this wasn’t some kind of insane dream.
She really was trapped on an alien planet and she really had had an orgasm in the presence of a virtual stranger.
The banging on the door became more insistent, and gathering her wits she tried to figure out what was going on. Still in her flimsy outfit, she slipped off the bed and hovered anxiously in the middle of the room, not sure what to do.
“Lord Vron, please open up!” a rough voice called through the door. “We have orders from the Prince Consort to collect the slave. Open up now, or we will have to break the door down.”
Fear sliced through Maya. What did that freak want with her? And where the hell was Vron anyway?
“Lord Vron, this is your last warning,” called the guard. “We’re coming in!”
Something heavy banged against the door, making Maya jump. Wood splintered and the door was thrown open. Two guards entered the room warily. When they saw Maya was on her own they marched forward and grabbed her.
“Get off me!” she yelled. “What are you doing?”
“Silence!” snapped one of the guards. “You will come with us.”
Shoving her out of the room, they marched her down the corridor. After what she’d done to the slaver captain that morning, they were not taking any chances and held her tightly. They had gotten part way down the corridor when a figure in grey stepped out in front of them.
“Let her go,” Vron said in a soft voice.
“Lord Vron, we have orders to take her to the sacrifice chamber,” one of the guards said nervously. “We have no choice.”
Vron nodded. “Neither do I.”
Moving in a blur Vron hit the guard square in the stomach, making him keel over. His companion released Maya just in time to receive an upper-cut to his chin. As he went down Vron grabbed Maya’s hand.
“Run,” he said flatly.
She didn’t need telling twice. Clinging to his hand tightly she bolted with him down the rest of the corridor and round the corner. Vron took her to an alcove behind a statue of a coiled serpent.
He reached out and pressed a stone slab on the wall. Maya stared in shock as a secret passage opened in the alcove.
“Quickly! Down the passage before more soldiers come,” Vron urged.
He let go of her hand and urged her down the passage. She plunged into darkness and Vron followed. He snatched up a lantern that was waiting next to the entrance and switched it on. He pressed a switch on the other side of the secret opening and the door sealed shot. Vron’s handsome face was a stoic mask in the light of the lantern. “Come on, we have to get out of the palace as soon as we can.”
He took the lead and Maya followed, utterly clueless at what was going on but with no other choice. They hurried down a roughly hewn passage for several kilometres, and Maya’s feet started to hurt under the hard stone.
With the lantern raised, Vron took her downwards until they came to a cave mouth that opened into a vast cavern complex where the ground was soft soil. Some crude low level lighting had been set up along the cavern walls and Maya saw thousands of conical shaped purple mushrooms growing out of the soil.
Vron led her to a small cave off from the main cavern they were walking through, and came to a halt.
“Here,” he said softly, pulling out a large rucksack from a hidden cranny and opening it. “Put this on.”
He pulled out a dark robe of a scratchy feeling fabric and a pair of walking boots that looked a couple of sizes too large for her. Maya grimaced at the clothing but slipped the robe over her current clothing, ignoring the discomfort the robe had on her bare skin.
“You want to tell me what this is all about?” she asked as she pulled on the boots. “What’s with all the macho hero stuff?”
Vron frowned at her, looking completely baffled.
“Why are you beating up your own men and running off in the dead of night?” Maya clarified. “Not that I�
�m not grateful to be out of that place, but it’s all very confusing.”
“The Prince Consort has received a vision,” Vron said, checking through the rucksack before closing it up and strapping it to his broad back. “He has seen you kill him, so he has ordered that you be sacrificed. I am rescuing you.”
“That’s very good of you,” Maya drawled, “but I’m guessing you’ve just pissed the Prince Consort off now, so you’re going to get sacrificed too I shouldn’t wonder.”
Vron secured the pack and heading back into the main cavern space. “That doesn’t matter now. Keep close and don’t wander off.”
Exasperated, Maya went after him. It didn’t look like he was going to answer her questions properly, and she wasn’t exactly sure she could trust him, but right now he was her only friend on this planet.
Vron sharked through the caverns coming to another opening into a passage that climbed upwards. Signalling Maya to stay quiet, they headed up the passage for what seemed like forever, until they came to another cavern mouth at the other end.
The musty air and claustrophobia of the subterranean world abruptly gave way to cool fresh air and the vast expanse of star studded darkness. Vron stopped and his large hand took her smaller one. She found it a warm, comforting presence.
“This way,” he whispered, pointing to the dark swell of the jungle rising up before them. “Stay silent and we might just survive.”
Maya didn’t like the words ‘might just’, but it was better than nothing and being with Vron was better than being alone. In fact, being with him was the best feeling in the world right now, if she ignored the abject fear she was experiencing.
At least, she couldn’t say life was boring since she’d met him. Squeezing his hand tightly, they slipped into the undergrowth together and went to meet their fate.
Chapter 5: A Secret Shrine
The celestial rays of the morning sun reached out across the sky and bathed the rainforest in fresh new light and blazing glory. Maya gazed out onto grandiose, green clad mountains, breathing in the myriad scents of multicoloured jungle flowers. Birdsong drifted lazily into the hazy air and a cool morning breeze lapped over her skin and through her hair.
Maya smiled to herself, enjoying this moment of exquisite respite from the frantic escape of the night before. After wading through the undergrowth in the dark for several hours, with her feet aching and her body pushed past the point of exhaustion, they finally climbed up a steep ridge overlooking a wide valley and rested in a dilapidated wooden building that had once been a hunter’s cabin.
Maya had snatched a couple of hours fitful sleep until Vron woke her up and brusquely announced he was going down to a nearby village to get some more supplies to see them through for the next part of the journey.
He emphatically ordered her to stay inside the stinking hovel he’d brought her to and then left. Maya waited until he was gone and went outside to watch the sun go up.
She knew it was a risk as the Prince Consort’s men could have found her, but she’d had enough of being ordered around and tossed about in this maelstrom of chaos. She was a pawn in a much bigger game and she hated it.
She heard someone tramping through the long grass and turned round in alarm, only relaxing when she saw it was Vron, returning with the supplies he’d gone to fetch. After they had reached the cabin a few hours earlier, he had changed out of his uniform and now wore a kind of toga outfit of olive green.
The short, sleeveless outfit gave her a perfect view of the muscles of his broad arms and his strong nice looking legs. Rope sandals showed off his sleek, narrow feet and long toes. His smooth tanned skin glistened with sweat.
“I told you to stay in the cabin,” he said without much enthusiasm when he reached her. His silver eyes flicked over her and she was painfully aware that she was still wearing the horrid robe he’d given her and looked like a sack of potatoes.
“I’m sorry,” she said, giving him a weak smile. “I know what you said, but it was really disgusting in there. I didn’t mean to be difficult.”
“It doesn’t really matter,” he said sitting down next to her. His closeness sent a tingle through her. “We will be gone soon, and few people know this place.”
“It’s very beautiful here,” Maya remarked, looking out at the valley again.
“You sound surprised. Raja-kell might have ugly people, but its scenery is breathtaking, or so I’m told.”
“You’re not ugly,” Maya said without thinking. She suddenly remembered what had happened to her when Vron had tended to her wound and blushed furiously. “I mean, you’re no worse or better than how Earthlings look,” she added, not sure whether that sounded any better.
“That’s very charitable of you Maya,” Vron said sardonically, and Maya swore she saw him smirk a little. Since leaving the palace something had changed about him. He was still all business-like and serious, but there was a lighter side to him she hadn’t picked up on when they’d first met. It appeared to her to be relief.
“I wasn’t referring to our physical appearances, I meant inside. We have ugly souls, if we do have souls. We are cold and empty inside.”
“You’re not like that,” Maya retorted hotly.
Vron raised his eyebrows. “You seem extremely certain about that,” he said in an amused voice, “considering we barely know each other.”
Maya couldn’t deny the truth of that, but for some real reason, she felt like she’d known Vron all her life. “Um, well you can’t be all bad,” she replied, now put on the spot.
“If you were, you wouldn’t have let me be sacrificed. You have run away from your life at the palace because of me after we’d only known each other a few hours. That takes real courage and it’s damned decent, though still baffling.”
“Don’t be eager to heap accolades on me just yet,” he replied. “I’ve been planning to escape for years. Your arrival was just the catalyst that finally made me act. I hated my life in the service of the Prince Consort.”
“That explains why you were all ready to go,” Maya said musingly, “and your pragmatism is refreshing. I was starting to think men might not be as lousy as I know they truly are.”
Vron barked a laugh and she saw a real smile on his face. It was strange but rather nice. “I’m glad I have lived up to your expectations.”
“Still, it took guts,” Maya replied, gazing at the curve of his neck, “especially for someone like you.”
Vron raised his eyebrows. “Someone like me? What do you mean by that?”
“Decent,” Maya said flatly.
He didn’t answer straight away, and kept his gaze on his feet. “What makes you think I’m decent?”
“Because you’re like my dad,” Maya found herself saying, though she hadn’t meant to reveal something that private she felt like her words were coming straight from her heart.
“He was a decent man, and you’re a lot like him. It must be so painful for you to have to serve a creep like the Prince Consort.”
“My duty is to the royal household and the Blood Sharks,” Vron said stiffly, the muscles round his jaw bunched and Maya realised she was entering dangerous territory.
“I took an oath to serve and uphold the security of my planet’s chosen leader. You cannot understand the significance of that or my transgression by saving you.”
“I understand,” replied Maya. “My dad was a soldier.”
Vron cocked his head and his beautiful, dangerous eyes looked at her face for the first time. “That makes sense now.”
“It does?”
“You have that sense of discipline and presence about you,” Vron explained.
“Also, the way you took down that filthy hog of a slave trader at the auction yesterday. That took real skill. Did your dad teach you martial arts?”
Maya nodded. “When I was five years old. It was a pretty useful deterrent for keeping pimply boys from reaching down my top when I was in high school.”
Vron chuckled softly. “I can
well imagine, and judging by what I know of you, your father is a decent man too.”
“Was,” Maya corrected, and the old familiar of grief spiked in her chest. “He died when I was fourteen years old.”
Vron knitted his brows together. “I am sorry to hear that,” he said in a tone of genuine sympathy.
“Thanks,” she said, sighing heavily. “He was killed in action, during the Third Martian War. He saved his platoon from an enemy ambush and posthumously got the Crusading Star of Honour. It’s Earth’s highest military honour.”
“He is worthy of such an accolade,” Vron said, nodding his head slowly.
“I’d rather have him alive than stuck in a cemetery asteroid with nothing but a chunk of metal for his trouble,” Maya replied unable to contain her bitterness. “He missed me growing up, and every single day I wish he was still with me.”
Her words fell like iron weights on the air, silencing the conversation. Vron looked out at the valley, seemingly deep in thought. “Did you become a warrior like him?” he asked at length. “Did you join Earth’s military?”
“I tried, but they didn’t want me,” Maya replied miserably.
“I find that hard to imagine,” Vron said. “What happened?”
“Well, it’s kind of the reason I ended up on this planet in the first place,” Maya said, not sure if she wanted him knowing this part of her past but at the same time feeling the need to show him the real her.
“After he died, I made a vow that I’d uphold the legacy he’d left behind and carry on the good fight as it were. As soon as I was eighteen I volunteered for the Space Marine Corp, like he’d done and because I was his daughter I got accepted into the induction programme straight away.
Mom wasn’t happy though and we fought like cat and dog about it. She was scared of losing me the same way she lost dad, but I was too pigheaded to see that. I wanted to be a soldier and nothing else mattered. Now I wish I’d listened to her.”
“What went wrong?” Vron asked, engrossed by her story.
“My commanding officer at the training facility took a liking to me, and the feeling definitely wasn’t mutual. Apparently, it was a requirement that any woman he wanted had to sleep with him if they were to have any chance of passing the selection process. I made it clear I wasn’t interested, and one night when I was alone in the shower block he tried to force me to have sex with him.”
