by Liz Paffel
Axxeon Prince’s Prize
Liz Paffel
Axxeon Prince’s Prize Copyright © 20 Liz Paffel
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews.
This is a work of fiction. References to real people, places, organizations, events, and products are intended to provide a sense of authenticity and are used fictitiously. All characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and not to be construed as real. All tradenames and brands belong to their respective owners.
Chapter One
“It could be our lost crew.”
Hahn, Prince of Axxeon observed the incoming transmission populating on the interva screen. His middle tensed with relentless hope as the bright green line wavered up and down. The signal was faint, and the resulting on-screen signature was weak. But it was there, and that was enough for him to believe.
They’d received the unstable transmission two days in row and the only thing intel could determine from it was that it was sent from well beyond their current galaxy in the same direction the crew of the Zeph had been heading when they’d left on their planet discovery mission.
His brother King Tryllin, didn’t look overtly convinced, but a small muscle in the left side of his cheek jumped. It was a sign that he was mulling over the possibility, weighing the odds. He clasped his hands behind his back and spoke to the technician at the interva controls. “Anything audible that can be deciphered? Voices, distinct sounds or vibrations?”
“Nothing, my King. Just as yesterday.”
Hahn moved closer to his brother and mimicked his stance. Tryllin gave him an unmoved look, but the glimmer of interest was there. “What makes you think it could be them, Hahn?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “The crystal ball I acquired on Earth. What else?”
One corner of Tryllin’s lips pulled up at the sarcasm. “I’ll admit that the direction from which the signal is coming intrigues me. The Zeph planned to jump along that same path to search our fellow galaxy for planetary accessibility. Other than that, we have nothing to go on, brother.”
Tryllin trapped his chin with his first finger and thumb. The lines creating the hexagon pattern over his reddish green skin began to light up, yet another sign that he was interested in the possibility of finding their lost men. “It has been countless rotations since we last heard from them, Hahn. In human terms, it has been four years. We lost them. If not for the war—”
“We would have searched.”
“We would have searched hard.”
The signal grew in intensity, grabbing Hahn’s full attention as it populated faster and robust on the screen. Grabbing a headset, he inserted the earpiece and focused his superior hearing for any sound. His chest squeezed as he anticipated a distress call, a voice, a call sign, something. But as quickly as the strength had increased, it receded until the green line went completely flat before fizzling out.
Hahn ripped the earpiece out and threw it on the console. The five-man crew of the discovery cruiser Zeph had disappeared without a trace. No comms. No transmissions. No signal detectability. It was as if the ship and her crew had never existed. He’d desired to be among the crew, but Tryllin wouldn’t allow it. As usual, he’d feared the mission might be too dangerous and Hahn could now admit that his brother had been right.
But only this once.
It had always bothered him that he’d been denied a place in that mission, and later, that his people had been unable to send a search crew after them. It was an open and festering wound that refused to be ignored. The Zeph had been on a mission to find their people a suitable unclaimed planet to become their new home. After the death of their females from a virus, and their planet from a deep freeze, the Axxeon were near the end of what they could survive. The Zeph gave them hope for a stable future.
While Hahn, Tryllin and a full crew of warriors had gone to Earth to gather supplies and females, the Zeph had disappeared. They’d become embroiled in war on Earth with a rival alien species and their ability to search was tied.
Until now. Hahn couldn’t explain it, but he knew this odd transmission meant something. They were settled on a reconstructed base station now, their people all reunited inside the massive craft. All, but the crew of the Zeph.
Hahn crossed his massive arms. “My crystal ball also says we will send out a search party.”
Tryllin shook his head. “We already have a full crew on another discovery mission. We can’t spare further personnel on a blind mission.”
“This doesn’t sound like you, brother. Leaving men behind.”
Tryllin’s eyes narrowed. “It sounds as if you are challenging your King.”
“No. I’m challenging my older brother. The one who wants to search as much as I do. I can’t let it alone. Since I first saw the signal; I can’t let it go.”
Tryllin grasped his shoulder and gave a hard squeeze. It was a warning sign that this conversation was over.
“Perhaps your mind is finding something else to focus on other than our father’s upcoming exile. It has been weighing heavily on you.”
Hahn took a step away from his brother. The topic made him bristle and he suspected Tryllin brought it up intentionally. “One of us must continue to care about what happens to him.”
“No. You choose to hang to your soft emotions for a man responsible for the genocide of our females. I choose to call that man a criminal who deserves his fate.”
What was the word his brother had learned so easily on Earth? Yes. Fuck. Fuck that. He wasn’t sure exactly what it meant aside from being an expression of extreme frustration. He’d like to give a fuck that to his brother’s indifference. There would be no closing the divide between them where their father, the denounced king was concerned.
“I feel things more deeply than you, my King. That does not make me soft.”
“You are correct. However, it does mean that your impulse control is questionable. You are an excellent warrior. The champion at hand-to-hand combat. The most skilled pilot in our fleet. But your heart leads you places it should not go.”
Ah, so his brother knew that he’d been visiting their father more than the allotted once every seven rotations. With his impending exile, Hahn couldn’t help but soak up as much time with the man as he could. It would be a point of contention between his brother and him, but his soft heart didn’t mind.
Tryllin tapped the comlet on his wrist and brought it a few inches from his mouth. “I need the navigation records from the Zeph’s preplanning session, and their last known course. Send it to my comm.”
A soft voice came over the comlet. “Populating now, my King… you should have them on your comlet.”
“Come with me, Hahn. Let us look at these maps over a meal.”
Hahn had a flicker of dread. They’d been cruising on course to reach a supply planet for several rotations now. The wasteland where his father would be dumped into exile was on their way. His plan to save his father’s life was not yet complete, but he’d figure it out, and soon.
It didn’t matter that he’d become a traitor himself if he went through with helping his father escape his fate. He struggled with the loss of their father. He hated what he’d done, but he couldn’t reconcile the father being the monster. Besides, it was him, Tryllin and their father. There was no further royal bloodline. His brother’s new human mate may one day give him a k
inder.
Until then, all they had was each other.
“Are you done?”
Hahn’s attention refocused at his brother’s words. “What?”
“You are staring straight through me. You have been mind-drifting often.” He arched a brow. “You must be thinking about a female.”
As the humans liked to say, that would be a cold day in hell. “No, not a female. I’ve no desire to be fussed after every moment of my life.”
“You are young. You will someday change your mind.”
Most of their warriors were now matched with a human woman, all of them settling into their new lives here on Axxeon 9. Tryllin had taken a mate, as had their Third Commander, Quixx, whose mate was about to give birth. Hahn hadn’t felt ready to take a mate before, and now, with his plan to help his father escape, it would be foolish. He wouldn’t subject a mate to the shame and upheaval his act of treason would bring. No female deserved the fallout that would follow.
“I am not interested in having a female.”
Tryllin gave him a curious look. “A male, then?”
“No, my King. I am not interested in affection from a male, either.”
“Then what does interest you? You’ve been in a low mood since we left Earth.”
Hahn spread his arms wide. “I am a warrior with nothing to do. These signals we’ve been receiving are worthy of a search team. I would like to be on it. In fact, I will lead it myself.”
And find the perfect planet to whisk his father off to while he was at it.
Hahn kept his face expressionless. Though he was a toughened warrior who’d seen his share of conflict and battle, he’d never quite mastered the art of masking his emotions from his brother. Any misstep, and he’d give himself away. Tryllin would see right through him.
“You do, in fact, have something to do. Something that is safer than an unchartered search mission. Admiral Jah of Galax Union Omni-X2 has accepted my offer to send you as part of their discovery team. He would like to know how soon you’ll be joining them?”
Hahn tempered a grimace. Tryllin had volunteered him to the Galax Union where he’d be the representative of the Axxeon people. The GU was a collaborative federation of planetary representatives tasked with encouraging and enforcing peace between participating planets. He’d spend months encouraging interspecies peace measures, using non-combative measures, of course. A delegated task GU task force was in place to deal with those who’d rather draw blood than be peaceful. Of course, his brother couldn’t get him an assignment with that group. Tryllin wanted him tucked away where he’d be safe and protected.
“I am a warrior, yet you have me assigned to a peace-keeping crew.”
“I want you to be safe. You know this.” Tryllin looked him straight in the eye. “You are all that I have left.”
Hahn’s nostrils flared. His usual humor was buried so deeply within him that he couldn’t find a lighthearted response to make his brother smile. He couldn’t find a joke or a sarcastic jab that would ground them with laughter. His heart was suddenly stone, struggling to beat as it threatened to fall to his feet.
“I know,” he managed to respond.
“Life is changing, brother, but our ways do not have to. I want you here, safe, to assist me in keeping the culture of the Axxeon alive. I need you to be my storyteller, my reciter of battles. You may not think of the GU assignment as one of honor, but it is. And it is safe.”
Honor.
Honor… our ways do not have to change.
Hahn pulled in a breath. The old ways offered an amendment to honor.
His skin prickled with excitement. “I will meet you soon to go over the maps. Something slipped my mind that I must take care of.”
He moved to walk past his brother but paused Tryllin called his name.
“How is Metetto?”
Frack. He hated that Tryllin had started calling their father by his name.
He didn’t turn around. “He’s in a bare cell. How do you think he is?”
“What do you talk about with him?”
Hahn shrugged. “I… tell him about Earth. He’s very interested in trying pepperoni pizza. I said perhaps I’d synthesize a slice for him before… you, know.”
“I never understood your obsession with pizza and craft beer.”
“You should bring your new mate to meet him. He is lonely. He knows his days are numbered.”
A heavy silence hung between them before Tryllin’s soft, yet firm voice broke it. “You know I cannot do that. Watch yourself with him.”
Hahn said nothing, those words of warning only driving his need to help their father more. No one might understand what he intended to do, and he’d pay for it.
But repercussions would not stop him.
With a curt nod, he exited the room and took a sharp left toward the hanger bay.
The plan had just come together in his mind. He needed to get his hands on the Zeph’s maps, and honor would take care of the rest. Resolved, he went to the belly of the base station and took a right into the damp, cold tunnel that lead to his father’s cell.
Chapter Two
“I was snowshoeing in the woods behind my house when they abducted me.”
Sasha Black slipped on a pair of what passed as medical gloves and lifted a sheet covering the knees of the alien female on the bed before her. She wasn’t sure what species the laboring woman was, but her third leg was in a very inconvenient place for giving birth.
“Whaaaaa—what is this snowshoeing?” The female grunted in static-filled words, her seven-fingered hands gripping the bed sheet. Sasha touched the translator implanted into the base of her skull and gave it a firm tap. The damn thing hadn’t worked right since the blob-creatures had abducted her and drilled it into her head.
“Some places on Earth get snow when it gets cold. Snow is a white, fluffy substance that falls from the sky and accumulates like sand. Humans need special shoes to walk on top of it, called snowshoes.”
The female said something, but it was unintelligible around an agonized moan. Sasha gingerly grabbed the woman’s third leg and urged it out of the way as much as possible, which wasn’t far.
“Ee-naa, how do women of your species give birth? I’m assuming by squatting?”
Lying on her back didn’t seem the most convenient way, considering her appendages were in the way. In her six years as a midwife, Sasha had seen her share of odd deliveries. Never did she imagine she’d be delivering alien babies on a sunless, nameless planet covered in metallic dust.
“Stand. Over birthing mat.”
“Let me just check you and then we’ll get you up.”
Adjusting the light next to her for a better view, Sasha peered between the female’s legs and quickly drew back. She blinked, regained her composure, and looked again. The female’s opening was multi-flapped, each piece spreading like flower petals in bloom. In the center, an imposing beak-like appendage peaked out. It yawned as if daring Sasha to do her thing. If she tried, she likely wouldn’t have fingers left.
No. No cervical check this time. She was going to have to trust that Ee-naa’s body knew what to do.
Ee-naa cried out again and curled into a half-sit. Sasha quickly assembled a mat on the floor with several thin blankets and a waterproof pad. She helped the woman off the bed and let her guide herself into a comfortable position. All three of her legs bent into a squat, supporting her lower body while she hung onto Sasha with her hands.
Time passed slowly as Ee-naa labored. It was time Sasha was well versed in. She knew how to comfort human women, how to read the signs of their labor, when to anticipate trouble. The women she cared for here were each different species; their birth patterns completely different from each other though the mechanism of birth was the same.
She’d delivered six mothers in her time here—time that had no short or long anymore and had completely gotten away from her. If Ee-naa delivered the same as the others, she needed to be prepared for a mess.
&nb
sp; Ee-naa gripped Sasha’s arm in a death grip, crying out as her body tightened, her legs beginning to shake.
“What is this coming out of me? It does not feel like it should.”
Never one to mince words, Sasha gave the alien a comforting rub on the arm. “Back on Earth, I was known as the nurse with a potty mouth. I sweat a little and I always tell the truth, even if the truth isn’t pleasant.” She paused as Ee-naa pushed through a contraction. “If you were implanted with the same thing as the other females, then you’re not delivering a baby. It’s… something else. And it’s going to hurt like hell when it comes.”
A string of harsh words spilled from alien’s lips too fast for Sasha’s crappy translator to keep up. She bore down on shaky legs. Sasha grabbed a chair and pulled it over for Ee-naa to grip, then got on her knees to see if the spawn was crowning. Just as she got into position, it appeared. With a gasp, she reached between two of the female’s legs and caught it with both hands. A rush of fluid followed by a fair amount of bleeding.
Damn.
Her stomach flipped when she looked at the spawn. Yep, exactly the same. She held it away from her body and gave it a once over. It was an almond-shaped pod, about the size of a human child, with a firm shell covered in abrasive little nubs. The underside of the pod was soft and vulnerable, a slit in the skin reminding her of a manta-ray’s gash for a mouth. The pod didn’t move. The thin umbilical cord pulsed, offering the only sign of life.
The pods she’d already delivered didn’t make sound or appear to need nutrition, though she didn’t get to spend much time with them. The douchecanoe aliens who’d brought her here whisked them and their mothers away almost immediately. She had no idea if the pods turned into something, or what they really were. The females who delivered them could only tell her that they’d been implanted but had no idea with what.
How fast would they take this one away? The aliens had been coming around far less than usual. In fact, they’d left her alone long enough that she’d been able to rummage up an old communications device from a dumpy storage room.
