by Marie Dry
She sighed and made sure it was loud and put upon. “Fine, then let’s talk about why you’re handing out water bottles to warriors instead of practicing with them.”
He didn’t answer, took a step back from her.
She started talking fast. “I know you’re a proud Zyrgin and I respect that. Really, I do. But I cannot bear the thought of you being punished because of me.”
He tilted his head and regarded her with that unblinking gaze until she had to concentrate not to fidget. The remnants of Marcie in her wanted to go for his eyes.
“You do not understand Zyrgin honor.”
“Explain it to me. Explain how humiliating you is fair, when I’m the one who should be punished.”
“It is an honor for a Zyrgin to take the punishment for his breeder.”
“But they whipped you. It took months for the wounds to heal.”
“Are you saying I am too weak to be whipped? That I do not have the strength to honor you by taking your punishment?”
She threw her hands up in the air. His crazy Zyrgin way of thinking was going to drive her crazier than Parnell’s machine ever could. “No. I don’t understand the way you think. Sometimes you drive me crazy when I want a straight forward discussion and you say things that don’t make sense.”
“I think like a Zyrgin, a superior process.”
She stared at him, suspicious of his bland tone. “I can never figure out if you mean that or are making a joke.” He didn’t answer, merely stood there with his feet planted wide apart, like some conquering barbarian. “It’s just that I can’t stand the thought of you treated like that because of me,” she said softly.
“There is honor in work, in serving warriors.”
Not for a man whose every cell was created to be a warrior. “How long will this punishment last? Please tell me there will be an end to it soon.”
Again that intense gaze, while the air around them thickened. Did he do it on purpose? Was it an ability they had developed to intimidate their enemies with?
“One hundred years,” he said at last.
“One hundred years? Are those reptile-faced, bullet-proof idiots out of their minds? Who metes out punishment that lasts one hundred years?” She snapped her fingers. “Wait, I know, a mean-faced reptile with an over developed sense of his own power.”
“It was The Zyrgin who passed judgement, and he does not have a mean reptile face.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” she mumbled.
He cocked his head again. “I have looked at images of lizards and I do not see a resemblance.”
Margaret shook her head and covered her burning cheeks with her hands. “It’s just a figure of speech. To me, you’re beautiful.” In a vaguely lizard kind of way.
“You like our muscles,” he said in that serious voice he sometimes used to tell her the most amazing things.
“What happens now?” She was suddenly tired. So much had happened in one day she needed time to process it all.
“I will go and do my duties.”
She rushed into his arms and he held her tight. “Please tell me it’s not terrible for you.”
He might not be willing to discuss it, but she had this awful feeling he was forced to do all the menial tasks the other warriors thought beneath them. “It is merely duties, not terrible.”
Maybe Zyrgins simply weren’t capable of feeling the same emotions a human would feel being forced to do work perceived as inferior. She held onto him, reluctant to let him go away from her. Even for a short time. “Do you know what I wanted to do before Parnell got me?”
“What did you want to do, my breeder? When you are not enjoying the creation of...interesting...meals?”
She pulled a face at him. “I wanted to design cars. Specifically hover crafts.” She’d had files full of designs by the time Parnell appeared like a bad omen. All her dreams of starting her own design company, of taking the world by storm with her brilliance, were smashed by Parnell.
“I am sure you would have designed very good cars,” he said.
Chauvinism was alive and well and living among the Zyrgins. “Well, I’ve been thinking. Maybe I can design shuttles for you. I’ve noticed they seemed kind of boxy. I can improve on the design.” That would teach him to treat her like a child who needed a pat on the back. She waited for the storm to burst over her head.
Margaret never thought there’d be a day when she’d see panic clearly stamped on the face of a Zyrgin. Either that or he was getting ready to bite her again. She tried to step back, but he held her tight, stared at her as if he’d never seen her before.
“I have duties.” He briefly pressed his forehead against hers and ran out the door.
“Hmmm. Thank you for my Eduki,” she called after him.
CHAPTER 16
Larz walked to headquarters. Margaret worried that he had to do menial tasks, that the warriors didn’t treat him fairly. Today he didn’t plan to do any of the duties assigned to him as citizen Larz.
His sentence had been reduced by a hundred years. It improved the odds of him living through the challenges. With everyone giving him warrior training whenever they could, he’d probably survive all the challenges. On their home planet, in the mountains, there lived a warrior said to be a billion years old. Even if Larz managed to live that long, he’d still remember and appreciate the way the others stood by him during his punishment.
Today, he would avenge his breeder. He would teach that puny human never to hurt a female in his care. Parnell would suffer and beg and plead, and even then, his agony wouldn’t be over. For daring to harm his Margaret, Parnell would suffer.
Parnell was Larz’s to deal with. Even if Zacar had not agreed that the useless excuse for a woumber was his to deal with, Larz would’ve found a way to get to Parnell.
Marcie--no, Margaret--was too soft. She thought she wanted revenge, but she wouldn’t be able to do what needed to be done. Her heart would become soft after Parnell started to beg. This was a task for a Zyrgin, who would not be moved to pity by a human’s suffering and the inevitable pleading for mercy.
Larz could’ve taken the underground and more direct route to Zacar’s office, but since he’d started walking on the mountain with Margaret, he had a new appreciation for the landscape. Zyrgins didn’t go around walking aimlessly for hours on end. It was a human habit the Zyrgins all sneered at. He couldn’t imagine walking directionless and without a task to perform on his own. With Margaret at his side, he’d learned to view the sky and the trees and fresh air through her eyes. He’d taken more taunting from the other warriors over his daily walks than over his punishment.
Zyrgins built large parts of their cities underground. They could withstand sieges for centuries without running out of food and water. Zacar had insisted they build Natalie City with the same defensive capabilities. This galaxy had no other inhabited planets that could pose a threat, but if Zyrgins could make it to the Milky Way, so could others. The underground city beneath his feet was taking shape fast. Zyrgins didn’t need to break off and rest all the time like the puny humans. If humans had done the building, they’d have taken a century to get it done.
He shuddered, remembering his conversation with Margaret. Breeders designing shuttles. Instead of two hundred years’ punishment, The Zyrgin would condemn him to death in the fighting pits at the outer rims of the unclaimed galaxies. They’d make him fight pre-first-change-sized warriors to illustrate how useless a Zyrgin he was.
And the leader would send his breeder with him the first time he saw one of her drawings. Larz had come across it when he’d checked her TC, but had thought it was merely drawings she like to do while she waited for him to come home. Now that he knew she wanted to change the design of their shuttles, they appeared more sinister.
He shook off thoughts of his breeder’s peculiarities. He had a task ahead of him. One he’d been looking forward to for some time now.
He went to Zacar’s office but found it empty. “I have reports,” h
e said on Zacar’s private comm. It frequently amazed them that the humans never realized they communicated with each other via their system. Natalie and Margaret both claimed to only hear grunts when they heard Zyrgins speak. How he could stand right next to a human and have a long discussion without her realizing what he was doing still puzzled him. Viglar claimed it was their inferior human hearing that made them incapable of hearing certain pitches. Except for Zurian’s breeder. That unnatural human had managed to learn the old language and listened in on any conversation she could manage. Zurian told him she was learning Standard Galactic at an alarming pace.
“Remain in my office, I’m on my way,” Zacar said in his ear. He walked in a moment later and went to the wall. “Natalie wants you and Marcie to come to dinner on Friday. Be there.” Zacar grunted a command and Parnell’s image appeared.
“Yes, my leader.” Larz did not see the logic behind Natalie wanting to see him in her house once a week. She saw him every day. Still, she claimed she needed to know he was all right and eating enough. Why wouldn’t he eat enough? He always ensured he took in enough sustenance to ensure he could do his duties, as well as the added training he did with Zacar, Zurian, and Azagor.
“Viglar reports that your breeder will suffer no ill effects from the bomb. His concern is with the procedure that changed her appearance and personality,” Zacar said.
“She prefers to be called Margaret now. I have bitten her, which should deal with the problem from the machine.” If not, Viglar had assured him he’d be able to keep her functioning with regular treatments. “Her memories are mixed up, but she remembered almost everything. Viglar said he did not think she would remember more.” Larz reported everything Margaret told him. “She requested that we save as many of the women that we can when we go after Parnell.”
“The fact that they use women, young humans for warriors, explains why their race is on the brink of extinction and this planet damaged almost beyond repair,” Zacar said.
“Is it normal practice in the other countries?”
They had set up probes all over the world and found the same dismal situation everywhere but he didn’t know the details. Before he was stripped of his rank, he wasn’t tasked with dealing with the other continents, and had only a general knowledge of the customs practices.
“It used to be standard practice in their warrior forces to treat male and females the same. With the collapse of their societies, the strong are preying on the weak.”
“I can understand killing the weak to ensure the survival of their race. But the way they prey on each other is distasteful,” Larz said.
“Agreed. Save the women you can, help them get back to their homes. If any of them want to stay with us, bring them to the guest house. Take the ones who resist to a safe location and leave them there.”
“Yes, my leader.”
“I’m downloading all the information we have on Parnell to your personal file. How he managed to get their president killed and the raiders to grow to such numbers is not clear to me. He’s not a trained agent and has no background in fighting or anything useful.”
“Margaret said he trained her.”
“Review the training recordings we obtained. It is obvious he taught himself from some kind of manual and filled in the gaps with ill-advised moves.”
“Margaret exercise every morning. She said she learned the routine from a retired agent. Parnell killed him when he found out.”
“He couldn’t afford having anyone around who knew the business,” Zacar said. “Take Zanr, get the technology left over from their pathetic little golden age. It’s stored in a vault in the basement. Level that building and bring Parnell here. Alive.”
Larz nodded.
“I have authorised you to have access to weapons for this mission.”
Larz nodded again. A citizen had no need to carry weapons and was never issued any.
“We are hitting the raider camp in twenty-four Earth hours. They’ve been camped out there for more than six months now. I doubt more humans will come to join them. They think their weapons will be effective against us.”
“Their weapons are antiquated. They are not capable of producing new weapon designs.”
“When you get back, you will take over from Azagor and monitor the shield. Ensure the town stays safe from the fighting.”
“It will not be a glorious fight,” Larz said. “As soon as the humans realize they are outclassed by our warriors, they will run.”
“The humans need a show of force from us before our weapon is deployed,” Zacar said. “They will form a resistance and try to cling to their ways but, at the end of the day, I don’t expect much from them. We could have controlled them with only fifty warriors.”
“When will the new weapon be tested?” Larz would like to know what the new weapon was supposed to do. If it couldn’t kill the humans, he didn’t see how they would conquer Earth with it.
“Within the next twenty four hours. Be back in time to bring your breeder to the deployment of the weapon. The Zyrgin will also be present.”
“Yes, my leader.” Larz would’ve preferred that The Zyrgin ignored Margaret and eventually forgot about her existence. He looked at the Zyrgin who had given him life. “When Sarah gets to the home world, she will tell him everything. It would only take him one Earth second to appear in my dwelling and kill my breeder.”
“He understands that Margaret was forced into the machine and had no choice, but to do what it programmed her for. If she was a human male, he would’ve killed her.”
“What about Sarah?”
“I talked with her before she left. You have no concerns there. We won’t have to battle The Zyrgin.”
Larz nodded. Zacar would have a lot of trouble on his hands if they went against the Zyrgin.
“You may go.”
Larz saluted and walked to the door.
“Larz?”
He turned and faced the warrior who had made him. His blood. “You go in without cloaking the shuttle. You walk into that building as a Zyrgin. Show the humans what they are taking on if they ever decide to defy us.”
Larz stood taller, nodded, and left. From the moment they landed on Earth, Zacar had given strict instructions that any Zyrgin moving among the humans had to be in disguise. Their shuttles always flew cloaked.
At last, they would be able to walk openly on this planet that belonged to the Zyrgin Empire. He would be able to avenge his breeder for all to see. Delighted, he met Zanr at the shuttle.
“You’ve been briefed?” Zanr asked.
Larz nodded. “Yes, Zacar sent me the relevant files and I’ve reviewed them.”
Zanr was lucky with betting and with the stick game. No warrior betting against him walked away with money. Most of the time, the only thing they managed to get from Zanr was his guard duties. He’d learned poker from the humans, and he always won the poker games as well. His preferred winnings were Earth duties, but the other warriors were careful not to be drawn into games where he could win their Earth duties.
Zacar had given instructions that he could only bet ten days Earth duty at a time, to ensure the warriors playing against him didn’t end up doing continuous duty on the ship.
“Zacar briefed me.” Zanr said. “I doubt we will get a chance to fight. After your last challenge, I would like to fight at your side.”
Larz nodded. He had no words to give his appreciation at being treated with such honor.
They got into the shuttle and set the coordinates for the city. “We are to go uncloaked and will walk into that building as a Zyrgin citizen and warrior.”
Zanr nodded. “Care to place any bets on the chances of us getting a few humans wanting to fight the bad aliens.”
“Do I look like a pre-first-change warrior,” Larz asked him.
Zanr threw back his head and laughed. Larz just shook his head and tried to find a good spot to land. The breeders frequently said Zyrgins never laughed and didn’t show any emotion.
> Listening to Zanr, Larz could only wish that were true. “If you’re finished acting like a human, take a look at this.” He pointed to the building opposite the one they needed to destroy.
Zanr showed him a palm but focused on the map. He might be one of the strangest warriors Larz had ever met, almost humanlike in his habits, but he was also a brilliant tactician.
“Why don’t we land on this roof and jump over?” Zanr pointed to a building next to it, slightly closer than the one Larz had marked. “It would be easy to jump across the roofs.”
“I considered it, but I want to walk in the front door. I want to kick it in and knock down doors until I find that snivelling coward hiding behind his desk.”
Margaret deserved that. He wouldn’t give Parnell the honor of treating him like a warrior. He would drag him out of his own building the way human police used to do to criminals.
That set Zanr off again. What he found so funny in Larz’s need to walk in the front door wasn’t clear.
Larz sighed. “I will help you get the equipment out and then I’ll go for Parnell. He might make it interesting and run.” Larz punched in the coordinates for the building they wanted to land on. “You can make sure everyone is out and go through the building before you plant the devices.”
Zanr nodded. “A thousand credits says he’s hiding under his desk when you run him down.”
“Not a pre-first-change warrior flying this shuttle,” Larz told him. That unending laughter was bringing him a very good understanding of what Margaret meant when she said that he got on her last nerve. “What do we do if the females he trained want to fight?” he asked Zanr to stop that idiot laughing all the way to their destination.
“Stun them and restrain them. When the building is levelled, we take them where they want to go.”
Larz adjusted their altitude and nodded. “Agreed. Even if they had weapons capable of stopping us, I can’t face fighting females.”
His bloodline would never recover from the dishonor that would bring.
“They’d send us to the outer rims,” Zanr agreed.
