by Mel Todd
Ash didn’t know whether to laugh in pleasure or scream in agony.
His planet, his home, so long ago. They had been one of the first advanced enough to fight the Elentrin. And oh, the price they had paid. The price Earth would pay unless their miracle happened. A miracle he'd been trying to arrange for so very long.
With a soft growl Ash turned away from the view port. The blue, white, and green planet hanging in that window.
“Stupid Kaylid. You’ve done what you can,” he muttered in the quiet of the room, the image of the planet still in his thoughts.
[Can we do more?]
As always, he stiffened at the voice of the AI in his head. Even though it had come over to his side centuries ago, he could never accept of even trust it. Always waiting for the betrayal. How did a program break its programming?
~Unless there is information that has not be shared, I’ve done what I can. Is there more information?~
[Someday you will believe that the destruction of the Elentrin is also my goal, Ash. What more do you need to convince you?]
~Them lying dead at my feet and my world back.~ The response rote by this point, he couldn’t even remember his world anymore. What color had the sky been? Blue? Green?
[Which isn’t possible. If betraying you had been an option, do you not think that would have happened well before this planet came into range?]
Ash shrugged and collapsed the small desk back into the wall. Turning he expanded the bed on the other side. The room was cramped, but precious because he didn't share it with anyone.
~I don’t know what drives you or what your ultimate goal is. I simply go along with your suggestions because my death is not a great loss to me. When you betray me, I am, in many ways, free.~
An aggravated sigh from a program with no lungs still managed to amuse him. For half a second at least.
~Go away. I need to sleep and see what the morrow brings.~
[Hope. There is hope on this strange planet.]
The lack of ziglet like behavior had given him hope, but he had learned long ago to never hope, it hurt when it was crushed into a fine powder. Ash ignored the AI and sought sleep with a soldier like diligence. Something he craved and feared, because in sleep his brain slipped the chains he’d constructed so carefully over the terans. In sleep he found peace, occasionally.
~I thought my planet had hope. I was wrong.~
[You know I could not have prevented that. My programming took years to subvert. and even so, if you had not been selected, you would have died with the rest.]
~Is that supposed to make me feel better? Instead I watched all of them die, my world die, then woke up hundreds of terans later, my world but a destroyed husk? I don’t even know if animals survived what they did to it.~
Anger, old and well-seasoned started to rise in his chest, but he tamped it down with long practice. Letting it out would achieve nothing and might cost him everything.
~Let me sleep, maybe the morrow will give use a reason to hope.~
[As you wish.]
Ash closed his eyes again, avoiding the view from the port and sought sleep before his masters could need him again or the AI in his head crack the wall he needed so desperately. The wall between his heart and his mind.
~*~
Pain, agony, panic, rippled through his mind as he saw through the eyes of an animal. Somehow he knew he was a sletik, a big predator that mostly lived in the wilds of their more inhospitable continent and in zoos.
Oh, by the stars, it is has happened to me. Let me out.
He clawed desperately trying to talk to speak, trying to stop the animal self that lashed out at his siblings, his parents.
They were screaming so loud and blood filled the air, coating his tongue. He wanted to gag, to spit it out, to scream. But nothing he did changed anything; he was locked inside the monster just like so many others.
The whine of a repulsor weapon came as a relief and he welcomed the pain as light blossomed across his brain then dragged him down into darkness.
Awareness came back to him slowly. Cold floor beneath him and pale light above him told him nothing about his location.
But words, those he could hear. And breathing. There were others around him. The other poor unfortunates who had also been afflicted.
Where are we? What is going on?
He wanted to sit up, to struggle to his feet, but his body felt heavy, awkward, sluggish. Almost like the time he’d drank too much of the Azuil but he didn’t have the warm fuzzy of the drinking, just the heavy sluggishness of the next morning.
The voices he’d been hearing started to resolve.
“This is the first group, my lieges. they are all ones that killed their families, maybe it is best that they go with you. You will be coming down for the others? Is there anything else we can give you or do for you?”
The words he recognized, but the tone didn’t make sense. He’d never heard anyone talk like that, as if they worshiped someone.
“Yes. This will do for a first load. Carry them into the ship.” This voice sounded like no accent he’d ever heard, and he struggled to place it. Even as he tried to understand the floor shifted under him.
We are in a box? A crate? Are they moving us? What? No?
The only thing working correctly was his ears. He put all his energy into listening and trying to figure out what was going on.
The container moved into another space that echoed and felt different though he didn’t know what senses told him that it felt different. The voices changed into different words, words he couldn’t understand, but the tone didn’t make him feel good.
The crate settled on the floor and another odd rumble filled the air. He could hear the radio like what they talked to each other across the air. It started out as simple and almost worshipful, then something happened.
“Halt! Wait what did you make us do? Bring back out people. Change them back. We want our people back.” Rage and fear laced the words.
The being sighed and spoke rapidly as the ship rose into the air.
More words, words demanding their people back, in all the languages he knew. All the languages of his world, overlapping, screaming, begging. The five languages made a sweet sound of hope to his ears. A whine filled the area, and the other creatures took it up, and he realized it had started with him.
They’ll come get us, they’ll bring us home.
The memory of what they had said slammed into him. His parents, dead. His siblings, dead. He deserved to be here, a prisoner, for what he did.
For the deaths he had caused.
He closed his eyes and sobbed, the blood in his mouth telling him the truth of that statement.
Lost in grief he didn’t notice anything until they were dumped out on a floor, with hundreds if not thousands of other animals. Vaguely it dawned on him they were not attacking and snarling the way they had when first changed.
“Look out the viewscreen and see. Your world has resisted us, they shoot at us. They deny us that which we need to fight the abominations. Resistance takes time we will not waste. We understand all too well how revenge can drive a race. We will not risk your people becoming us. Watch and see the fate of your planet, so it will always be burned into you minds. Let it sink deep inside so when we use you on other planets to get what we need, you will understand that we will go to any lengths to acquire our tools. What we will take by any means necessary.”
He pushed himself to his feet, wobbling on four unsteady legs and gazed out at a green and yellow sphere hanging through a clear window. His planet, Alran, surrounded by the wreath of stars they called Alara.
My world, I remember the pictures from the satellites we launched. It is so pretty.
He watched as little ships started to move around, ships he recognized from footage of the visitors that were landing. Their first visitors from space, something that had the world excited, if not for the strange plague that had struck their planet. Turning people into animals, vicious animals. Se
eing friends and family warped and attacking their loved ones.
Those same little ships grabbed asteroids from the nearby belt. The one they had planned on mining for resources in the next few teran. They zipped around and hurled the large, small, medium asteroids towards the globe. He couldn’t move watching as they impacted on land, on water, earth and water billowing up from each impact. Even from this height, this orbit, he could see the fires billowing, the water rising, flowing over land where it had not been before.
My world, they are destroying my world.
Another sound emerged from his throat. This time it was a howl of pain and loss. Around him the hold reverberated with other howls, cries, whines as the remnants of his world joined him in grief.
They stood and watched, all of them shoulder to shoulder, as their world was systematically destroyed. By the time the small silvery black ships stopped, the color of his world had changed to a dull brown. Fires flickered here and there, and he didn't want to think of how huge they must be to be seen from this distance. There was no more blue to be seen, though he hoped that was due to the dirt in the air and not that they had cracked the core of his world.
"Now you have seen what the price is for any world that is too difficult or takes too many resources. We have no need of partners or friends. You are our tools now."
The alien speaking stepped into view and all heads whipped towards him and they began to bow and crawl.
A wave of love, almost a need to serve and make this one happy washed through him, making his limbs tremble. The remains of his world hung in the corner of his vision and he stopped his reaction, shoving the rage, grief, terror, and hatred at that need to serve and it shattered against that wall.
Slow steps approached him, and he looked up to see a male, short hair the color of the light of the sun reflecting off the ocean.
A color I shall never see again.
His lips lifted in an involuntary snarl, but he didn't move. Couldn't move. His body held, locked in place and he had no energy left to struggle.
"Excellent. The AI is settling in nicely." The male's lashes matched his hair, something that looked odd to him as all his people's lashes were white. "This Kaylid will make and excellent seneschal for us. It will take another few hours for the AI to finish maturing and then start the education. Since the AI is implanted, we won't be able to do the standard wipe, but the AI should take care of any issues that the host might have."
Those eyes, the color of his mothers, peered at him. "Turn him back to his bipedal form, I have questions for him."
Without any control over his body or desire to shift, he felt his body shift and twist back into his normal form. He lay there panting for a second, his eyes locked on the feet of the being, even as he tried to attack, but nothing would move.
"Ah, excellent. You will be assigned to me and become my interface with these other Kaylid." A sneer in voice implied just how little was thought of the Kaylid.
Kaylid, is that what they call us? Is that what we are?
He managed to push himself back to sit on his butt, looking up at the man, the colors bright and arresting.
"What are you called? It is easier to have a name to associate with a servant."
Servant? Me? A servant? Me son of the clan of –
His mental thought broke as the world, brown and ugly hung there. The need to answer bubbled up in him, his name on the back of his tongue. With a surge of will, fueled by the ball he had shoved deep down into his being, still aware of the planet hanging at the corner of his vision.
"Ash. You can call me Ash." The name broke something in him, the old him, the son, the friend, the sibling, curled up and died. From that broken body something dark, angry, and resolute looked out of his eyes and met the invaders smile.
"Good enough. Short, easy to say. Ash, you will be mine to serve. When the AI finishes implanting you will be a perfect servant. It is a new variety of AI so I have great hopes for how it will mold you to my wishes. Come." He turned and strode away.
Without conscious choice Ash found himself rising and following. Every step leading him further into the ship and away from the image of his ruined world.
Someday I will destroy all of you. I will be the key to ruin. I will do anything, pay any price, sacrifice anyone to see this happen.
~*~
Ash woke, silent from slumber to wide awake, a skill he had never lost. The ugly solid hull lay above him. The memories bright in his mind from the dream. Reminders of something he had lost terans ago. Immortality had many prices, but it gave you time to plan. Too bad he hadn't been able to forget. The AI had been a new type, one that made him even more isolated. All those taken with him were gone, dead. Like his home.
The AI had taken him almost a hundred teran to subvert. Even now he didn't fully trust the AI, but he had come to rely on it. He had no choice, and his own life was a small price to pay. And if the AI was tricking him, well not like he had anything to lose.
Lifting a hand to rub his face, he froze, shocked. A furless hand, two thumbs and four fingers hung in the air in front of his eyes.
"I shifted back." His voice hoarse and shocked as he looked at his naked skin.
[Yes, you shifted while you slept. Your dream was different than normal.]
Ash sighed. The last time he'd been in his birth form had been that day. That day the AI had shifted him into warrior form and he'd never changed back. In all the years. He'd almost forgotten what he looked like.
With his breath held he rose and walked towards the hygiene area. "Reflector." The door shivered and a reflective surface appeared. He gazed at the form reflected back to him. Dark brown hair, eyes the color of Drakyn blood, white lashes and body hair. It hurt. He hadn't realized how much he looked like his father, as that was who seemed to stare back at him. Ash closed his eyes and brought back the other form, the warrior form. The shift flowed over his body as the nanobots, under his control for terans, obeyed his commands seamlessly.
When he looked at his reflection again his eyes were once again black. It felt normal to be like this and he knew this last attempt had to work. It was time for him to let go before he became as much of a monster as the creatures he tried to destroy.
~Any update?~
[Rarz said he made contact, but nothing more.]
~It is enough. Let us see how else we can give these strange people time. They call themselves Earthlings?~
[Yes.]
~Then we shall help the Earthlings destroy us.~ His mouth pulled open in a grin that revealed his predators' teeth. ~And maybe I will have that death that means they will all die with me.~
Authors Note:
I hope you have enjoyed this ride and this special bundled set.
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Do you want to know what happens next?
New Games is available now!
Commander is available now!
Home Alone is available now!
Decisions is available now!
Incoming is available now!
Trust is available now!
Allies is available now!
Family is coming soon!
Happy reading!
Mel Todd
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mel Todd has three cats, none of which can turn into a form with opposable thumbs, which is good. If they could they wouldn't need her anymore. Writing and trying to start her empire, she decided creating her own worlds was less work than ruling this one. You can find her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram by looking for badashbooks See you there!
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