Red Planet: The Slave Queen (Tamarians Book 1)

by Jessica Snow

  “He wanted to turn the entire population into mindless drones,” Audra whispers in horror. “But... that's terrible.”

  “Especially since this version was more potent than even what most use on their slaves,” Mogar grunts, slamming his fists on the table as he looks at a computer readout. “Stars above! I need more time!”

  “What's wrong?” I ask. “You're trying to counter it?”

  Mogar nods, sighing. “I need more time. The drug, it's different than the one that he'd used before, changed slightly. Years ago I developed a counteragent to the older hypnotics, but I just got my hands on the new drug tonight. I don't have enough time to develop the counteragent, not without an already existing counter.”

  “What about me?” Audra asks suddenly, chewing her lip. “I'm immune to the agent.”

  Mogar shakes his head, giving Audra a half grin. “Nice try, but I already tried that using a blood sample from Jensen. I isolated the genetic difference that allows Jensen to be immune to the old drug, but Neyton's new drug, it uses an element from his libido enhancer that makes Jensen just as vulnerable as anyone else. It's how Neyton made it effective against both humans and Tamarians.”

  Audra smiles, and turns her arm over, thrusting it towards Mogar. “Then you have a sample. Neyton tried to rape me just before he died, he shot me up with both a hypnotic and a libido enhancer, and he said that the hypnotic was a 'new batch' if my memory is right. I'm immune to both.”

  Mogar blinks, surprised. “You're fully immune? Can I... may I get a genetic scan and sample?”

  “Of course,” Audra says. “How?”

  Mogar goes over and takes out a device that looks like a standard field medical scanner, except that it has a cable connection to one of his computers. “I developed this for use in hospitals, it's the size of a hand scanner but as good as a hospital big unit,” he says, starting a scan. “It'll get your DNA sequence and start.... you're pregnant.”

  Audra laughs, nodding. “Yeah, I am.”

  Mogar looks up, confused. “Uh, how?”

  It's my turn to laugh, patting my teacher on the shoulder. “Mogar, while you're not married, I figured you knew what the process of making a baby is.”

  Mogar's eyes widen as he looks at me, the realization dawning on him. “You mean....”

  “I'm going to be a father, if we survive this,” I reply before urging Mogar to complete his scans. Mogar gets his scans and a DNA sample, and feeds the information into his computers. We wait nearly silently until the computer beeps, and Mogar's hands clap together in glee. “Success?”

  “Success. I'll set my equipment here to start making an antidote right away. I need a test subject... Tauren, would you? I know that Tauria used hypnotics on you recently, and she probably used Neyton's newest batch, if you're having the troubles you explained to me before.”

  “This is not normal medical procedure,” I joke as I roll up my sleeve, and Mogar produces a syringe. “Has this been run through the proper authorities and tested?”

  Mogar sticks the syringe into my shoulder muscle, smiling. “It has now. How do you feel?”

  I look over at Audra, and pull her close, kissing her. Her lips are just as soft as I remember, and when her tongue traces my lips, I open to her, pulling her tighter as our kiss grows deeper, passion and desire filling me until Jensen coughs uncomfortably. “I think it works, Mogar.”

  Audra and I let go of each other, both of us flushed with the desire and with a little bit of embarrassment. Not letting go of my hand, she shrugs and smiles. “Sorry, Jensen. Uh, that was our first public kiss.”

  I nod, squeezing her hand, and look at Mogar. “Works perfectly. How long will it take you to manufacture enough for the entire city?”

  “At least two hours,” Mogar says. “Distribution will be the hard part.”

  “Well, how was Neyton's idea going to be distributed?” I ask. “I mean, that's a lot of aerosol to be distributed quickly.”

  “Neyton's plan was to use shuttles, to spray from an elevation of two thousand meters,” Mogar says. “Later, sprayers would be built into the emergency speaker system, they're in almost every building and street in the city.”

  “Then let's do the same thing,” I reply.

  “We don't have the shuttle power,” Mogar groans. “Even if I use every shuttle at the estate, we don't have the capacity to get it out fast enough.”

  “Then use drones,” Kelbara says, speaking up for the first time. “My father has a fleet of them at his base, a hundred and fifty of them. They can be outfitted for aerosol dispersal, he used them for catching slaves that way. He'd spray an area with general knockout gas.”

  “I'm immune to that too,” Audra comments under her breath, and it's my turn to be surprised. “Yeah, going to the doctor sucks. I'm not looking forward to giving birth if I need assistance.”

  Mogar ignores Audra and I, focusing on Kelbara. “Can you get those drones here in the next two hours?”

  “I can get them here in the next thirty minutes,” Kelbara says. “Just give me a computer terminal, I know the remote access codes.”

  “We'll try to stall the King for time,” Jensen says, looking at the two of us. “Mogar, if this doesn't work?”

  “Tauren's immune for another month,” Mogar says. He pauses, then injects himself, Kelbara, and Jensen in the shoulder, before giving Audra an injection too. “Just in case.”

  “Thank you,” Audra replies, kissing him on the cheek. “You're a good man, games master.”

  For the first time in my life I see Mogar blush, and Audra steps back, taking my hand. “Come on, let's go meet your parents.”

  “You know, this isn't how I ever imagined bringing a woman home to meet them,” I joke lightly as we leave the lab. It takes me a moment to realize that Kelbara isn't with us, and I stop, turning around. “Kelbara?”

  “Sorry sire, I'll need to stay here and help with the drones. Um, if that's okay?”

  She's so young, capable but nowhere near as tough as she pretends, and I can see that she wants to help, but doesn't quite know how. She's doing all she can, so I nod. “Okay. Jensen, stay here with Kelbara and Mogar, I feel better if they're safe under your protection.”

  Jensen nods. “While they're getting the drones and shuttles ready to spray, I'll get in contact with Rebbie, see if we can get the Resistance cells in the capital to start getting things organized. We can't have riots going all night.”

  “Good idea,” I reply, when suddenly Audra stumbles, putting her hand on the wall. I take her in my arms, worried. “Audra, what is it?”

  “Sorry.... Neyilla had me locked up, then I only had a single ration bar before Mathias set off his bomb. Guess I'm kinda hungry,” she says, chuckling. “Pregnant women, we're like this I've heard.”

  “Then we go to the kitchen first before we go to the palace,” I reassure her. “Jensen?”

  “You just take care of my sister,” Jensen says, giving Audra a quick hug. “We'll be there as soon as we can.”

  I lead Audra to the kitchen, where she sits while I start digging through the food available after getting her a drink. “Heaven and stars, I'm worthless.”

  “What?” she asks, sipping at a glass of water.

  “This pantry is full of food, and I don't know how to cook any of it,” I grumble, looking at the rack of chops. “Remind me, I'm going to learn how to at least cook the basics.”

  “We'll fit that in after we figure out about our baby,” Audra says, smiling. “What about vegetables? Some milk maybe, or some cheese?”

  I turn and root around in the refrigerator, finding milk and a block of cheese along with some fruit. I slice up the cheese while Audra sips the milk, delivering it to her bashfully. “Sorry, really.”

  “I love you,” Audra says simply, smiling. “That makes up for the lack of cooking skill. Although I think my pregnancy might have some other side effects.”

  “What's that?” I ask, sitting down and taking a piece of cheese off of
her plate and chewing it carefully. It is good, and it has been hours since I've eaten too. “Yummy.”

  “Maybe it's the hormones, maybe the counteragent is triggering some libido effects in me, but... right now, more than public safety, more than worrying about the riots.... right now the main thought on my mind is taking you to a bedroom and making love with you,” Audra purrs, taking my hand. “It's been a long, lonely week without you.”

  I kiss her hand, nodding. “I know what you mean. But Audra.... before, I was willing to abandon my crown for you. Now, as beautiful as you are and as much as I love you, I feel like taking up my crown is more important than ever. For you, for our baby, I have to get Father to stand down from this madness. I have to confront him, and to do that I need to be the Crown Prince. Do you understand?”

  Audra nods, and gets out of her chair, taking a knee in front of me. “I shall always serve you, sire.”

  I get out of my chair and kneel next to her, pulling her into my arms. “You shall serve nobody. You shall be next to me for the rest of my life, I promise you that.”

  I kiss Audra gently, both of us moaning with desire until she pushes me away shakily. “If you don't stop, I'm never going to finish my food, and we're never going to get to the palace.”

  I smile and get up, walking stiffly over to the kitchen counter where I cut myself some more cheese. “A snack. Then we can go.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Audra

  It feels strange gearing up again, pulling on the utilitarian underwear that I find in Kelbara's room. “Who'd think that a girl so much shorter than me would be the same size?”

  “She's short, but she's built powerfully,” Tauren notes. “Actually, I owe her my life. She stood in front of the Lancers that came for me and Jensen, and revealed what her father'd done. She's got guts.”

  “She was still a slaver,” I note, tugging my panties up. After going a week without them, they feel strange, or maybe it's just that Kelbara likes to wear a more boyish cut than I do. I would have assumed that, even as a minor noble, she'd wear nicer things than she has, but her underwear at least looks like it came straight from Central Supply for an army unit. “Do you trust her?”

  “I think we need to reach out to those who might have been our enemies,” Tauren says. “If not, our visit is just going to divide the planet more. I'm already worried that Mathias' actions could plunge the planet into general rebellion.”

  “I believe in you,” I reassure him, tugging on an undershirt that stops a whole hand's width from my waist. “Okay, she's short.”

  “We'll outfit you with what's in the shuttle,” Tauren reassures me. “They had gear for Jensen, and I saw some things a bit shorter, too. I'm sure we'll find something.”

  The back of the shuttle is filled with gear, and Tauren's right, we find clothes that fit me, although the boots are slightly too big. “Double socks it is,” I reply good naturedly, for some reason feeling reassured. “There, that'll do.”

  “Then let's get going,” Tauren says, getting in the pilot's seat. He chuckles and punches the power up button, humming happily to himself. “Hopefully there won't be anti-shuttle fire while you're getting changed.”

  I can hear the laughter in his voice, and I look at him in wonder. “You're enjoying this, aren't you?”

  Tauren pauses, then nods slowly. “There's a part of me that does, I think. The logical side of me, the part that knows that right now, people are dying and that if we can't get our asses in gear more people are going to follow, it's horrified by what is going on, and hates it. But there's another side of me, the part that was so exhausted by the endless subtlety and games, the smiling to someone's face while wondering if they were trying to stab me in the back or how I could stab them in the back, the endless... well, the endless nobility of it all. That part of me is enjoying this. For the first time in my life, even more than when we were running around the mountains in the Resistance, I'm living life on my terms. I have my woman, my friends, my guts, my brain, and my strength. And we're taking on a challenge that's got overwhelming odds, where the outcome if we fail is disaster. That part of me, it's happy for the challenge, for the chance to prove myself. To show that I am the superior man I know I can be.”

  I pull on the tunic that I find and go up, kissing him hard. “That is seriously the sexiest thing I've ever heard you say. Especially since you want me by your side.”

  “In armor,” Tauren quips, hooking a thumb behind us. “And whatever weapons we can find.”

  Tauren finishes his liftoff while I find upper body armor for both of us, and I strap on dual powerlances, sighing at what I find. “I swear, when this is finished I want my officer's models back. I liked those.”

  “I understand,” Tauren says, taking the powerlance I offer him and sliding it into the leg holster he's wearing. He refuses the second, shaking his head. “I'm not going to get in kicking ass and taking names. We need to look strong, but if this leaves the holster.... then we've probably already lost.”

  “What about fighting the challenge?” I ask, and Tauren smiles tightly.

  “You of all people should know that the hardest fights aren't done with guns, but with heart and spirit. Even if it does feel good to throw someone off a balcony every once in a while.”

  I laugh, and pull on my chest armor. It's not the police armor, but lighter, more flexible, designed for slavers who want to subdue barely armed humans and not taking on Royal Lancers. Still, it helps. “I only throw people off balconies when they deserve it. So what approach are you going to take to the royal palace? Drop right down like Tower Plaza?”

  “Only if you want to get shot down before getting within a kilometer, the palace has fully automated and very high powered air defense systems,” Tauren says, swinging us around. “Anything the size of this shuttle will be flaming wreckage within seconds. No, we're going to have to walk some.”

  We set down in a public park close to the royal palace, the whole area eerily quiet as we get out. “Where the hell is everyone?”

  “The Lancers are around the palace, and nobody's fucking around here, too many upper class Tamarians who have their slaves under strict control,” Tauren says. Suddenly, a whine fills the air, and I clap my hands over my ears, trying to figure out what it is. Tauren looks up, his fingers in his ears as he tries to point with his elbow. “Look, up there!”

  Three white streaks are in our vision, a greyish mist evident from the light reflecting off of them as they fly overhead. Suddenly, Tauren nods in understanding and the streaks shoot high into the sky before two of them peel off, one of them heading straight over the palace grounds before hovering for a moment. A ball of plasma shoots up and hits the streak, causing it to explode, cutting off the noise. “What was that?”

  “The drones, they were too small for the automated systems so it had to be taken down manually,” Tauren says, tugging at his right ear. I feel it too, there's a lingering buzz in my ears like a small insect is flying around nearby. “I'm guessing that Kelbara and Mogar left the sonic weapons on to try and prevent them from being shot down while they distributed their aerosol. Give it a minute, let's see what happens before we approach the palace.”

  The mist floats down like soft fog, and when it reaches ground level I inhale deeply, intrigued. “Mint and honey, nice.”

  Tauren nods, shaking his head. “That's Mogar, he never misses a trick. Knowing him, he made the counter-agent smell that way so that people would inhale more of it. The more you inhale....”

  A scream pierces the air nearby, and we look at one of the tall houses nearby. The houses surrounding the royal palace are inhabited by rich people who use the tiny spaces as a city-based residence of social status while they have expansive estates in the countryside and mountains a hundred kilometers or further out. A woman comes running out of one of the buildings, panic in her eyes as she's chased by a group of slaves, all of whom have murder in their eyes. “No, no, no, no, no!” the woman screams, trying to avoi
d her suddenly freed slaves. “No, it can't be! Stop!”

  Tauren steps towards them, but I grab his arm, shaking my head. “The slaves are revolting, Tauren. We knew this could happen, but there's no way that you can stop all of what's happening in these buildings. We need to move.”

  The woman trips, her slaves falling on her like a pack of angry animals, kicking and beating her with their bare fists. It turns my stomach, but I was being honest with Tauren, and we start moving, ignoring the chaos that's breaking out around us. Tauren reaches into his pocket, pulling out a communication device. “Mogar, it's Tauren, are you there? Jensen?”

  “Mogar's busy, Tauren,” Jensen replies in a moment. “What's your situation?”

  “We're surrounded by insanity, and I just watched a woman get beat to death I think,” Tauren says, his voice quivery. “What the hell's going on?”

  “The counter-agent,” Jensen says simply. “We've covered a third of the city already, I sent the drones to your area first. Tauren, human slaves have been filled with that hypnotic and abused for decades. There's a lot of angry, aware humans who just woke up, the drug-based shackles off of them now.”

  “Still....” Tauren says, the two of us ducking as an explosion rips apart one of the high rise penthouses. “This city's going to burn even worse if we can't do anything!”

  “I'm heading towards you now along with all Resistance cell members,” Jensen says. “We're going to organize this, try to keep the peace. But Tauren, it's not just humans who are rebelling, according to what Mogar's seeing.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask, pulling both my powerlances and looking around.

  “I mean that thousands of Tamarians have been drugged the same way, according to Mogar. Some of them took it as a recreational drug, kind of self-hypnotizing themselves to escape. The others were.... dissidents.”

  Tauren growls, looking to the palace. “Madness. This is madness!”