by Mary Auclair
Never again.
* * *
Khal
Silence filled the empty control room with a thick dread as Khal waited for the image to appear on the screen in front of him. It had been three years. Three years since he had last seen the Mantrilla matriarch, three years since he took over from his brother Arlen after almost losing him to an attack launched on Aveyn by the former Trade Minister of the Ring, Knut.
It was never over. Knut will never give up his quest for power.
Finally, the large screen filling most of the back wall of the control room buzzed to life, first with a flashing sprinkling of black dots over white, then the image of Prime Councilor Aav appeared.
The Mantrilla matriarch was as imposing as ever with her deep, almost blue, green scales and all black, almond-shaped eyes over a triangular head. Mandibles clicked at her mouth and a long, clawed finger tapped the surface of a pristinely empty desk.
This creature was the most powerful in the entire Ring. Aav had clawed her way to the highest seat in the vast agglomeration of planets that constituted the civilized part of the universe, and had held on to it for decades. Now she had requested a meeting with him. A meeting he had been instructed to keep entirely secret.
“Commander Khal.” Her metallic voice, neutral and controlled, traveled through the immensity of space and reached him through the communication system.
“Prime Councilor Aav.”
Khal locked gazes with the Mantrilla for long seconds as the last time they had seen each other haunted the silence between them. His brother, Arlen, had been dying, his body broken, stretched out on a gurney, blood pouring out of a gaping wound at his side.
Prime Councilor Aav was as imposing as ever, but not quite the same. A patch of bare, raw skin showed on her abdomen, crisscrossed with bloody scratch marks, and her body hung slightly looser in her exo-skeletal frame. Something had been eating at her, gnawing at the edges of her mind and leeching into her body.
This alone made Khal wary. Wary and suspicious.
“I trust you followed my instructions precisely.” Her mandibles clicked and that grinding voice ended with a high-pitched, whining noise. “No one can know of this meeting.”
“My communications officers are off duty at night,” Khal confirmed, not bothering to hide his irritation. He might be the youngest Commander the Eok forces had ever seen, but he was no longer a careless youth. Arlen’s injuries and his successive retirement from active army duties had made sure of that. “You may speak freely.”
Aav’s mandibles clicked and her all-black eyes darted to each side of the room, assessing the veracity of his words. “Eoks and Mantrilla are old allies, Commander Khal.” Prime Councilor Aav inched closer to the camera, her tone getting lower and lower. “Our fate becomes your fate, should my nation fall.”
Khal stared as the dreadful quiet seeped into his mind. A chill trapped his spine as the words of the Mantrilla trickled down in his mind. “Please, speak plainly.”
“I have a mission for you. A mission that could send the entire Ring into anarchy and chaos if it becomes known. A mission that could cause billions of pointless deaths if you fail.”
A long clawed finger reached for a pristine green scale on her abdomen and scratched in an absent-minded gesture, hard enough to break it, revealing the rawness underneath. Khal’s eyes latched onto the ever-growing patch of broken scales as a terrible understanding made its way into his mind.
Prime Councilor Aav was afraid. She was afraid, and had been for a long, long time.
Khal swallowed. Because he knew. Somehow, he had always known. The threat whose name was enough to send warriors cowering into the night, to set worlds ablaze and civilizations into chaos. It was back.
“You never recovered the negative particle bomb that day,” he said.
Her mandibles clicked at his words, furiously fast. Frightened. “You have a perceptive mind.”
“You kept it secret all this time.” As his mind flooded with the consequences of such a secret, Khal shook his head. This was worse than anything the Eok nation had ever faced. Worse than anything the Ring had faced since the civil war that had defaced the universe centuries ago. “What changed? Why reveal this to me now?”
“I want you to retrieve the bomb and capture Knut; bring them both back to me.”
Khal stared at the screen for a long time then, when his lungs protested in earnest, he inhaled sharply. “No one knows where Knut is. He’s far beyond the Frontier of the Ring, in savage land.”
“Knut is on in the Third Quadrant beyond the Ring, along with the bomb.”
Khal blinked, the information refusing to take hold in his brain. The Third Quadrant was the farthest known, deep beyond the Frontier. “How long have you known?”
“A year, give or take.” Prime Councilor Aav looked to the side, then back at him. Those black eyes gleamed without expression, but the clicking of her mandibles gave her away. Fast, frantic. She wasn’t just frightened. She was terrified.
“And you are just telling us now? What good is the alliance between Eoks and Mantrilla if you won’t share your knowledge with us?”
“It is not easy, extracting information from some people.” Her mandibles clicked louder, angrier and less scared. More irritated.
Khal shivered internally just thinking of the Mantrilla’s ways of extracting information. Even Eoks would never go as far as they did.
“My former Trade Minister has been a most cunning adversary, changing his location often, evading my most expert spies. I have lost many assets in order to find him.” Prime Councilor Aav stopped speaking and another green scale fell, a trickle of dark green, almost black blood pearling in its space.
“Now, for some reason, Knut has stopped moving. A good spy lost his life to provide me with this information.” Another pause. Another scale. “I contacted your brother, Chief Arlen, as soon as I confirmed the information. He’s the one who authorized me to task you with this mission.”
Arlen? If Arlen had authorized Prime Councilor Aav to task him with a mission, then why had he not communicated with Khal directly?
“Secrecy is of the utmost importance.” Like she had read his mind, the Mantrilla continued talking. “So far, only Chief Arlen, you and I know for sure that Knut possesses a negative particle bomb and that he’s hiding in the Third Quadrant. It has to remain that way.”
Khal considered the Mantrilla’s statement, then shook his head. “Knowledge has a way of spilling.”
“Not my knowledge.” Her mandibles clicked and the metallic tone in the Mantrilla’s voice grew dangerous.
The implication was that Prime Councilor Aav had disposed of any others who had come across the knowledge—all those she had tasked to find things for her, verify information in her stead. They had been silenced, and Khal had an inkling they had lost their lives in the process. Mantrilla weren’t known for their benevolence, after all, but to his Eok heart, such betrayal was abhorrent.
Abhorrent, but extremely efficient. After all, the dead spilled no secrets.
“With the amount of the reward already on Knut’s head, you have half the Bounty Hunters in the Ring out looking for him.” Khal paced in front of the screen. “It won’t be easy to hide this mission.”
“That is why I chose you.” Mandibles clicked and a claw scratched at another scale, widening the bare patch on the Mantrilla’s abdomen in her ever-growing nervousness. “You earned your marks as one of the best warriors of your generation. You are the only one I trust with this.”
Khal paused, blinking. A solo mission? Locating Knut in the Third Quadrant, striking fast and furious, then retreating before anyone could react?
Yes, it could work. It was the only way it could work. The only thing Knut would not already suspect.
“I’ll need to add a tracker to my team.” Khal nodded as he prepared mentally for the task ahead. “There are hundreds of planets in the Third Quadrant. Searching them all would take a lifetime.”
&
nbsp; “I have a tracker for you. He’s already on his way.” Prime Councilor Aav bent sharply over the empty desk. “And, Commander Khal, know this. You will be responsible for the billions of lives lost should you fail.”
Then the image of the Mantrilla matriarch was cut and she was gone.
Khal glared at the screen as he realized he might not come back from this mission alive.
Chapter 2
Hazel
Hazel’s eyes shot open and her mind jolted to awareness with the brutality borne of shock. The sound of footsteps got closer and she froze inside the liquid darkness.
Shit. I’m still in the container.
She must have fallen asleep, waiting for the Eoks to go away. Hazel cursed internally but didn’t move. Her brain worked on overdrive as she rapidly sorted through her options. None was good, but the worst was still to have to move back to the Tower.
She stayed quiet as the world filled with sounds in her darkness, voices around her, speaking fast and preoccupied, muffled by the thick metal.
“This one, too,” a deep voice said; male and definitively not human. She had no idea what species the alien was, but the chances were it was either an Eok or a Relany. Both were big and strong enough that she would stand no chance in a fight. “Commander Khal won’t be back for rations for a long time.”
“Aren’t you just a tad concerned that we don’t even know why the Commander is leaving, what his mission is?” another male voice answered, this one filled with doubt, higher pitched. Human. “We don’t even know who’s going to replace him.”
“Chief Arlen will choose a replacement soon enough,” that alien, even voice replied in a cool tone, full of some deep, unshakable trust. An Eok, then. No others were as loyal as those blue assholes. “The Commander leaves within the hour. This needed to be done last night.”
The human answered with something Hazel couldn’t make out, as everything was swallowed by the sound of blood pulsing in her jugular. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears as a stunned blank filled her mind.
They’re loading the container with me in it!
The world inside the pure blackness of the container moved, shifting the contents as she braced herself as best as she could. Thoughts blazed through her mind, too fast for her to focus on. She blinked furiously as tiny pieces of whatever was in that metal box flew into her eyes.
Shitshitshitshit.
She was trapped, and the only way out meant she would be going back where she started. In the Tower. With Bobbie and his friends looming around like dogs sniffing a female in heat.
She wasn’t going back for anything in the world. She was going to get to Earth and to Sally if it killed her.
But how? Hazel stayed silent in the container as it moved, possibilities pushing themselves inside her brain as fear immobilized her body. The darkness moved and rocked until it settled with a mighty bang, then there were more banging sounds of metal on metal. Voices rang all around, human and alien mixed together. Orders were shouted and followed, then the ruckus lowered and got more distant.
The sound of footsteps got farther away, then stopped altogether. Silence filtered through the metal walls of the container and into the enclosed space until all she could do to stop herself from screaming was bite the inside of her cheek until blood covered her tongue.
Time passed—how long, she had no idea. Terror froze her senses as the vague sensation of movement began anew.
Some ungodly pressure pushed her body against the contents of the container and Hazel shut her eyes despite the all-encompassing darkness. She knew what this meant. This meant the Myrador had shot up at a high speed, far away into the atmosphere like some majestic metallic bird. She wasn’t on Aveyn anymore. She was somewhere out there, in the aseptic infinity of space.
And it terrified her more than she could think.
Now what?
Hazel let time pass and flow by until her limbs screamed in agony. She had gone too long without moving and now every inch of her body hurt.
That, and she needed to empty her bladder or it would explode.
Pure, sheer terror still held each of her limbs captive, but Hazel moved inside the steel body of the container, coming to a crouch over the piles and piles of what felt like plastic bags filled with liquid.
What if it’s locked? I’ll die in here, alone.
Her fingers trembled as she pushed on the lid. When it didn’t move, panic fluttered in her gut and she pushed up with all her strength. The heavy lid finally moved and a ray of light entered the enclosed space. It was harsh and flat white, industrial in strength, and Hazel’s eyes instinctively closed. She had been confined to darkness for so long, she had to blink furiously before her sensitive pupils adapted to the light. A quick glance down confirmed what she had suspected: she had been asleep on piles and piles of water rations.
How long is Commander Khal going away for?
And where to?
Her throat closed up and terror threatened to push inside her brain again but she shoved it aside. It was done. She couldn’t go back now, all she could do was figure out what to do next.
The story of her life, really.
Hazel cautiously pushed the heavy metal lid out of the way and stared at the storage room she was in. It wasn’t big by any standards, just two rows of large metal containers, each five feet tall by five feet wide on each side of the metal walls. Thirty of them, by a quick count. The walkway between the rows of containers was lit by linear, fluorescent lighting on the ceiling, casting the entire room in a flat, lusterless glow.
She did her best to jump down without a sound, then walked quickly to the ladder leading up to the upper levels. Hazel hesitated at the bottom, but not for long.
She had no choice. So why fuss?
Hazel climbed the ladder, holding her breath at the top, then pushed the trap door separating the storage level from the rest of the Myrador open by an inch. A long corridor lit by the same lighting as the storage room stretched out in front of her. It was empty, so she grabbed her chance and climbed, still holding her breath as the sound of metal closing on metal traveled through the air.
When no one came crashing down upon her with ionic guns and death threats, she moved. Scurrying along the walls like a mouse, Hazel made her way up the long, deserted corridor, following blindly until she came to an intersection. Having no reason to choose one direction over the other, she turned right and continued until the first door appeared in the blank smoothness of the wall.
Her hands flattened on the door then slid down to the handle. Her heart beat hard and fast as she twisted it then let out a sigh of relief.
It wasn’t locked.
Hazel pushed the door open a smidge and cast a look inside. It was a bedroom, spartan looking and bare except for a long, large bed and a series of drawers embedded into the wall. As she stepped inside, she ran her fingers along the surface of the wall. It wasn’t industrial and cold like the hallways, but smooth and surprisingly warm, and of a soft pale gray color that was soothing to the eyes.
She walked inside, closing the door behind her.
I can hide here for a while.
The panic lessened inside her as she approached the bed. The wall was smooth on this side—smooth and white, flawless. Hazel reached for its surface, intrigued by the texture.
The whiteness dissolved, revealing a scene that brought her to her knees. She could barely comprehend what had happened as the vastness of space spread out in front of her eyes. Black, endless infinity covered the world, lit by stars so numerous the view numbed her mind.
Hazel felt like her soul was being sucked into the void of deep space as she stared, time passing and flowing, fading into the background, along with reality.
She heard a door open behind her but she was too entranced by the vision of space to turn around. Her mind was absorbed by the endless void, soothing and calling for her.
“Who are you?”
Hazel cried out as she jumped to her feet and twisted aroun
d. And then she screamed as she came face to face with a tall, broad, Prussian blue alien.
A naked Prussian blue alien.
* * *
Khal
Khal stopped dead in his tracks, his mind momentarily blank as shock took hold. Standing in his room was a human female, her body turned toward the endless void of space that made up the view on the back wall of his personal quarters. That wall was the one luxury he had allowed himself when ordering the expensive long-range spaceship called the Myrador—a spaceship that could travel fast and long distances while evading detection from any other vessels or nearby planets.
A spaceship he was now using for the most dangerous mission of his life.
And a spaceship whose apparent defenses had been foiled by a single human female.
Khal stared at her while she was absorbed by the sea of blackness on the other side of the thick wall. She was a small thing, all softness and curves that were wrapped in thick synthetic leather, molded to her body like a second skin. Short, pale-as-moonlight hair fell like fine silken straw to just above her graceful nape. The arched, luscious curve of her back highlighted deliciously rounded hips and a full ass.
“Who are you?”
The female started, turning around to face him with a small cry of surprise—a small cry of surprise that soon became an all-out scream as her pale green eyes widened in the middle of a dainty, fine-featured face. The roundest mouth he had ever seen hung slightly open. She had high cheekbones and a delicate, shapely jaw.
She looked like the idea of a female made flesh, all daintiness and curves, appealing in her brazen fragility. Her round, ample bosom heaved deep and fast as she breathed, and the full shape of her hips and thighs pulled his eyes lower down her body.
