by C. M. Kane
She felt a sudden internal jolt, black dots swam before her eyes, and for a moment she thought she was going to pass out as her legs weakened and she almost buckled. She staggered sideways, away from the group and bent her knee to the ground while she breathed deeply, trying to bring the world back into focus. Slowly the feeling passed and she was able to regain her feet. Well, I guess that was the nanites, she thought. She was surprised it hadn’t happened earlier in the day. But that gives me extra time, she thought gratefully.
She looked around, several of the crowd had watched her little performance but had not approached her, yet she still felt eyes on her. She turned back to the warriors. A couple of them had their zap guns trained on her and she raised her eyebrows at them, looking at their guns then back at their faces with a what the hell’s that for kind of look. One of them grinned and lowered his weapon slightly; the other simply smiled and kept his gun aimed directly at her head. It was then she realised that she could now see the other warriors on the ground for the first time. She gazed over at them curiously, and found herself looking straight into the eyes of Jaden.
To say that Cadmium Red should never be touched by a Thalien would be an understatement. His skin had turned a fluorescent orange while his ear bones were the colour of blood, they now looked more like horns supporting his ears. He still wore his hair swept back from his high forehead but it, too, was bright red and exposed even more of the orange skin. Worst of all, he must have worn weird oversized eye covers, because he had huge patches of white skin around his eyes. The patches went up and over the middle of his now multicoloured eyebrows to form diamond points on all four sides. Did he wear large squares and turn them on end or something? She thought vaguely as she continued to look at him in shock. He looked something akin to a large orange be-horned clown.
Tae couldn’t help it. With all the built up tension and fear of the day, and then to see this. She burst out laughing, and the more she tried to stop the worse she became. Every time she looked up she could see his outraged, violet clown eyes glaring at her from his luminous orange face. He started stalking toward her and she noticed people moving away from her quickly. Still, she couldn’t stop. By the time he reached her, tears were streaming from her eyes. She held up her hand and pursed her lips in a last ditch attempt to calm herself and stop, but she still kept making snorting noises. Jaden reached out an orange hand to grab her by the throat but Tae saw it coming and sat herself firmly on the ground, her legs out in front of her.
‘Get up.’
Tae took a deep breath, finally coming to her senses, her tears of mirth drying. ‘No way,’ she said.
‘Get the hell up. Now,’ he repeated, louder this time.
‘No.’ Tae said as she stared up at him defiantly. ‘Not until you calm your arse down.’
Jaden pulled his head back, frowning. ‘You dare to laugh at me then tell me to be calm? I said get the hell up, or I’ll drag you up you little bitch.’
Tae immediately flattened onto her back as he bent over and reached for her arm again. By this time everyone had stopped to watch the little byplay, probably wondering if the silly laughing girl would survive long enough to even enter the Island, or if the totally enraged orange Thalien would just kill her now.
From the vantage point she had on her back, Tae was the first to see it, just as Jaden reached down for her with murderous intent she gasped aloud, looking straight past him, her eyes widening in shock. Jaden frowned and looked around, then straightened. He froze for a moment before heading straight back to the guards where he started speaking in hushed tones to them. One of the guards nodded and then started talking into his com-watch. Suddenly everyone was staring upward, watching as a massive warship, the biggest of all the gods’ ships, descended slowly above the WLE Headquarters.
‘By the gods, it’s the Olympus. I never thought I’d live to see her.’ Tae vaguely heard one of the guards muttering in awe.
Zeus had come to watch the proceedings.
A small jumper detached itself from the main body of the ship which, despite its enormous size, still hovered gracefully some two or three kilometres above them. The jumper headed straight toward the assembly point.
The giant warship continued to hover there, it was so big it blotted out the sun. Tae continued lying where she was staring up at it in awe. It was shaped like a giant pie wedge with a piece cut off of the front. From where she lay she could see through the golden glow of the force field to the massive pulse cannons both fore and aft, as well as the smaller particle gun arrays on its light grey Hull. She noticed large areas of communication and sensor arrays were also located over the bottom of the massive ship. It looked like a giant grey and gold flying weapon which, Tae supposed, was exactly what it was.
Damn, now that’s power! No wonder the Ancestors got creamed, she thought absently.
The ship itself seemed to emit a humming noise, more a vibration really, she could feel it moving throughout her body, pushing her gently into the ground. She lay there for a moment longer, watching as the ship slowly started to rise until it finally disappeared from her sight, and she came back to reality with a thud.
Remembering where she was she quickly got to her feet, thankful for her reprieve. Surely this is a coincidence. Zeus? He hadn’t been to the Island in living memory. No, she rationalised, my imagination is running riot. This can’t be because of the conversation I had with a statue, in Jaxburg of all places. Apart from the fact that he couldn’t have heard what I said, a god, especially the top dog, wouldn’t be bothered to listen to me. No, it’s just a coincidence. She thought castigating herself, she felt herself calm down at her rationalisation. It might have been a coincidence, but it was definitely a lucky one judging from the look that had been on Jaden’s face. A look which had seemed to indicate he was going to impart a bit more than a slap on the wrist to her.
The small jumper swung in to land directly beside the troop jumpers that would be transporting the prisoners. She glanced over as three officers came rushing out of the large building to the jumper, whose sole occupant had just alighted.
Tae gasped in shock at a sudden sharp pain in her mouth, as, for the first time, her fangs ran out from her gums. Hunger fired in every nerve ending of her body and moisture pooled between her legs. She was looking at the most beautiful wolven male she had ever seen. No, make that the most beautiful male, full stop. He was well over six feet, like all wolven. Soft, brown eyes looked out of an angel’s face, surrounded by thick, dark brown hair. His body was a sublime masterpiece. A heavily muscled chest and arms - Tae’s nails fell away to be replaced by short curved claws - a narrow waist and long, muscular legs, all encased in what appeared to be black leather. She had not seen leather much but knew it was still used a lot. And apparently used to extremely good advantage.
Tae’s instant reaction was want, and she wanted now. She had absently taken a step toward him when she saw his body stiffen suddenly, he began looking around, his nostrils flaring and head up, just as the other wolven guards started to do the same.
Oh by the gods, no! Tae finally realised what was happening, turning off her nanites had tipped her into full sexual maturity in a rush.
Closing her eyes she reached for the safety of her training and stamped down on her every feeling, ridding herself of the pheromones as Valaria had taught her. She closed her mouth, because her new fangs refused to retract. I’ll work on them later she thought desperately, as she scuttled into the middle of the crowd again.
She thanked the gods Valaria had told her of her own experience or she would probably be over there, trying to latch onto a vein, or worse! Her teeth ached, and she realised with equal amounts of horror, embarrassment and curiosity, that they weren’t the only things aching. Damn it!
She closed her eyes, focusing on the memories of Jaden’s bright orange clown face. That soon brought her raging emotions back under control and her small claws and teeth slowly retracted. The wolven and the Thalien present were still lo
oking around at everyone, the wolven’s noses still scenting the air. Mr Delicious, or Mr D as Tae had quickly nicknamed the newcomer, was frowning and looking over to where she had just been. She stayed behind a couple of women and watched as Mr D turned his attention to the approaching commander, only to do a double-take and stare at him open-mouthed.
CHAPTER 18
Vesh wasn’t happy. He activated a personal vid-ball so Zeus and Tannan could see and hear everything he did through their com-screen from the safety of either the Olympus or the Pavilion of the Gods. He didn’t want to be on this world or on its island, he’d rather be back training with his men, but Zeus had commanded him to come here, to keep safe a human female against all those bar the criminals to be dropped off with her.
Why? He neither knew nor asked at the time. It was not his place to question a god or, to be more precise, Elite Commander Tannan, Zeus’ second. He’d simply raised a questioning eyebrow at the vampire.
‘There may be more to this girl than meets the eye,’ Tannan had said. He told him he would know more after the agents he’d dispatched had returned. In the meantime, Tannan had shown him the recording of the girl’s prayer to Zeus on the pretext of giving him information on what she looked like, along with her motives. Vesh thought it was far more likely he just wanted to show it to another person. Tannan did have a remarkably well developed sense of humour for a Vampire, and Vesh counted him as one of his few close friends. After he had finished viewing the vid, Vesh could definitely see her motives, they were obviously a quick and inglorious death, at the hands of an enraged god.
He pushed his musings aside and began looking around the compound he was now in, just as he was hit in the nose with what felt like a sledgehammer of vampire attraction pheromones. What in Hades name! His whole body stiffened in response as he automatically lifted his head to scent where it was coming from, in doing so he noticed the other males nearby were doing the same. By the time he had found the spot of their origination there was no evidence of anyone having been there, and the scent was already drifting away on the slight breeze.
He shook his head to clear it as he heard someone approaching and turned, totally unprepared for the sight that greeted him. A large, bright red Elven male, in full dress uniform, was bearing down on him. At the first site of him all thoughts of scents, and anything else for that matter, fled his mind.
‘What in all of Tartarise happened to you?’ Vesh burst out before he even thought to greet the commander. Commander Shivon halted in front of Vesh and saluted. Vesh returned the salute quickly. ‘My sincere apologies sir, I am Commander Alaxshan Vesh, reporting under orders from the god Zeus, I am to present myself as a hunter for the Island.’
‘No apologies necessary,’ Shivon cut in quickly. ‘We just received instructions directly from the Olympus ourselves. We are honoured to have the mighty Zeus and his representatives visit our humble facility.’ He peered up at the vid-ball before adding. ‘Please forgive our appearance, Commander. If this is hard on your eyes, imagine the embarrassment it has caused us. It appears someone – a soon to be severely punished someone - hacked into the robotics system of our Drav showers and the sword dying systems and swapped the chemicals around. They got part of a shift as they were coming off work, me included.’ He waved a hand at himself.
Vesh peered at him closely, he thought the man might be blushing under all that dye, not that he could really tell, he certainly looked embarrassed though. ‘How many?’ he asked curiously.
‘Thirty-five all together, three satyrs that serve as secretarial aides, eight wolven, four Elven, nine Thalien and of course me.’ He began laughing. ‘If you think I look bad you should see what the stuff does to a Thalien.’ He turned and called a tall thalien over to them.
Vesh barely stopped himself from laughing as the man approached, as it was he snorted loudly and couldn’t stop grinning, no matter what he tried. He thought Tannan would be having a right old laugh round about now if he were watching this. The thalien saluted, refusing to look at Vesh. ‘Yes sir?’
Shivon motioned toward Vesh. ‘I’d like to introduce you to Commander Vesh of the Olympus. I have just had confirmation that he has been assigned by Lord Zeus to act as a hunter for the Island. Commander Vesh this is Lieutenant Jaden Ardaan, another hunter who I’m sure will show you where everything is.’
Jaden turned to Vesh, saluting him. ‘Commander Vesh,’ he said, but no more. He looked at Vesh with poorly concealed anger. Vesh in turn simply grinned at him, watching closely as Jaden’s eyes became even more enraged. Vesh saw he was holding eye contact at all times though, so the man obviously had guts, but public humiliation certainly wasn’t agreeing with him.
‘Shall we start then?’ said Shivon slapping his hands together then pointing to the side. ‘The hunters are stationed over there.’ Jaden and Vesh walked over and stood with the others as another warrior begun shouting instructions for everyone to queue up into three, equal lines. After several minutes of shuffling around by the group three basically even lines were formed.
Vesh noticed the girl straight away; she was looking up and down each of the lines before she placed herself at the very end of the middle one, closest to him. He felt the thalien, Jaden, stiffen and after a quick glance he saw that he was watching her too.
Shivon began to speak. ‘All of you know the history of the Gods’ War. The Island was put here at the initiative of the great fallen god, Loki. It is meant to stop the anarchy that existed on this planet from ever happening again. You are here because you thought you were beyond the laws the gods set down. It’s simple, obey the laws and you will live full and productive lives. Break them and there is only one punishment. The Island. You all knew this, no matter which continent you hail from, every single one of you were aware.’ Anger now started creeping into his tone. ‘And yet you still chose to break one of the laws that govern your society, you still decided that you knew better than the Gods, and that you were untouchable. Now you are here to pay the price for that error of judgement.’
Vesh watched the Commander as he addressed the criminals, he didn’t know if this little speech was for Zeus’s benefit or whether it was a regular occurrence. After a quick look at his fellow Warriors he came down on the side of regular occurrence, judging by the glazed look some of them had in their eyes. Someone started crying snapping his mind back to the present.
The commander continued. ‘The rules for the Island are simple. Each of you has brought with you or has been given a knife and basic sustenance. You will also be issued a vid-ball. Please remain still while it scans you.’
A multitude of vid-balls, each one slightly larger than a baseball flew out of the building behind the prisoners, the small black balls quickly divided up, each one flying to an individual prisoner or hunter, bar Vesh, who already had one hovering over him. When the rest stopped at an individual they slowly started circling them, emitting a blue light that travelled up and down their bodies. Once the subject’s details were scanned into its memory it stationed itself a few feet above the person’s head, they then started turning as each individual they were assigned to turned.
The commander nodded in satisfaction. ‘Good, now back to the rules. They are very simple: you will notice that each of your vid-balls is emitting a green light. While the green light is on, you are safe. If anyone attacks someone with a green light, they will immediately be targeted by a hunter for extermination.’ He gestured to the stationary hunters, who just stood there looking intimidating. ‘The lights will stay green for six hours upon landing. After that they will turn red and you will then have eighteen hours to make a kill before the light turns blue and you are targeted by the hunters. After your first kill your light will reset to green and you won’t have to kill again for another forty-eight hours before it returns to red. From then on you will have forty-eight hours between kill times, if you should fail to kill within the time period then once again you will be targeted by the hunters. The only time the light will remai
n green is when you are the only one left on the Island in your zone, then you must await the next batch of criminals. If you wish to increase your kill rate you may also kill anyone if they are red or blue and you are green. If any of you manage to make it to one hundred kills you will be picked up by a jumper and escorted back here where you will assessed and found a new job more commensurate with your skills.’ He glanced over at Vesh then back to the crowd again. ‘Are there any questions?’
A blonde, well-dressed woman stepped forward. ‘Please, there’s been a mistake. Someone talk to my parents, they’re Damian and Janet Stanton. They have credits, they can pay a fine. This is just so stupid. Someone’s going to be in serious trouble if you don’t listen to me, don’t you know how important my family is?’
Shivon looked her up and down with contempt and glanced at the display emitted above his watch. ‘You knocked over and seriously injured a man in your darter because you were drunk. The findings stand.’
‘No!’ She yelled, and took a step toward him.
Shivon swung his fist, knocking her backward into a fat balding man sending them both crashing to the ground. ‘Let’s get one thing straight,’ he said, looking up and down the lines of scared people. ‘You are going to the Island because you are little more than filth, scum that thinks they are above the law. This world will be well rid of honourless, pathetic dregs like you. Now, any more questions?’
Vesh felt his anger at the prisoners treatment grow, although the spoilt idiot of a woman deserved a good dressing down, he didn’t like petty bullies, which was what the commander was. Vesh was wise enough to know that those that ended up on the Island were usually there for a variety of reasons, none of which he cared to judge them for. They had made their choices and were now about to face the consequences for those actions. It wasn’t up to Shivon to give them a beating before they even got there.
