Unbound

by Evangeline Anderson

  As if in answer to his words, a scent came floating through the ship. The worker lifted his antennae, tasting the new flavor in the air and looked at X'izith excitedly.

  “My Sovereign, your Breeding Queen’s ship has been sighted. They are preparing to enter the Blind!”

  X'izith clicked his mandibles together in anticipation.

  “After them,” he buzzed. “They must not escape! If they enter the Blind it will be difficult to find them.”

  “There is a squadron of flight drones ahead of us already in pursuit,” the worker relayed after tasting the messages being sent from the control sector of the ship again. “Shall we pursue as well?”

  “Yes! We must get to them—I must have my Breeding Queen. My barb aches to thrust between her thighs,” X'izith proclaimed. “Inform the flight drones to surround the ship but not to damage it—grappling hooks only. We must capture her alive.”

  “It shall be done.” The worker scurried off to relay his orders while X'izith admired his breeding barb once more. “Soon, my Queen,” he murmured in his high, buzzing voice. “Soon you will be mine. I cannot wait to implant you with my grubs…”

  Chapter Thirty

  “We’ve got company.” Varin’s deep voice was grim as he surveyed the viewscreen in front of him, which showed a 360 degree view around the spaceship.

  “What? What do you mean?” Brynn put down the strange First Meal patty she’d been chewing—it was as tough as leather and almost as tasteless—and ran over to where he was sitting in the control area.

  “Look.” Varin pointed to the screen. Coming up fast from behind and both sides were a phalanx of strange looking ships. They looked more like they had been grown organically rather than built but there was no doubt they could move. “What do you want to bet those are Hive ships?” he growled.

  “Goddess above—how did they find us? Do…do you think it was my dreams?” Brynn put a hand to her throat guiltily. “Do you think Sovereign X'izith was able to zero in on me and track us that way?”

  “Doesn’t matter how they found us, only that they found us,” Varin said shortly.

  “But what can we do? Where can we go?” Brynn asked frantically.

  “We’re going to go where we were heading in the first place—the Blind.” He pointed to the viewscreen again. Directly ahead of their little ship was a vast towering wall of nothingness. There were no stars, no moons or planets or anything else that Brynn could see. Just blank blackness.

  Brynn’s heart seemed to catch in her throat at the sight of so much nothing.

  “Will…will we be all right in there?” she whispered.

  “If the coordinates the Tempath gave me are correct—” He stopped abruptly and made a choking noise.

  “Varin?” Brynn looked away from the viewscreen and saw that his entire big body had suddenly gone rigid. “Varin!” she gasped, grabbing him by the shoulder. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

  “I…my…chip…” He was barely able to get the words out. It reminded Brynn horribly of the way he had spoken when her mother had frozen him with the pain collar.

  “Varin, no! No, you have to be all right!” Pushing him forward, Brynn looked down at his bare lower back where she knew the slave chip was implanted. There was something there she had never seen before.

  Raised letters had appeared in Standard on the olive skin of his back. They looked a little like the ones on his chest that spelled her name but these were glowing red.

  “Chip Failure Imminent,” Brynn whispered to herself, reading in a choked voice. “Immediate Chip Replacement Recommended.” And below the words were a set of numbers. After a moment, Brynn realized they were running backwards.

  It was a countdown and Varin had less than one solar hour to live.

  “Goddess above,” she whispered. “No…oh, no.”

  A sudden metallic thumping sound intruded on her panic.

  “What…what was that?” she looked around wildly and saw the viewscreen was showing a different picture now. One of the lumpy, organic-looking ships had shot out some kind of line with a metal hook attached to it. A hook with claws that opened and shut, as though grasping for a hold. The hook had bounced off the side of their little ship—this time—but there were so many ships and if all of them had similar equipment, how long could it be before they were taken?

  “Grappling…hooks.” Varin’s voice was choked. “Trying…to drag…us back.”

  “They can’t!” Brynn slid between his legs and took the controls. “We’ll take evasive maneuvers!”

  “No…time,” Varin choked out. “Turbo…boost. Fly straight…into…the Blind.”

  “Turbo boost? But won’t that use up all the rest of our fuel?” Brynn looked for the control he was talking about—a small red button at the top of the control panel. Varin had told her never to touch it—it would give the little ship an immense burst of speed but at the cost of their entire reserve fuel tank. They wouldn’t even have enough power left over to use their stealth mode—which meant they would be very fast but also very visible.

  “Can’t…help that. Push it,” Varin ordered. As he spoke, there was another clanging sound as a second Hive ship tried to catch them with its grappling hook.

  They aren’t quite in range yet, Brynn realized, staring with wide, terrified eyes at the viewscreen. But they will be soon. And when they catch us…

  The viewscreen flickered and showed something new again—the bulbous insectile head with its wide, black, soulless eyes was horribly familiar.

  “Come back to me, Brynn,” hissed the high, evil voice of Sovereign X'izith. “Come back—you are a princess no more. I will make you my Queen. Come back to me and feel the sweet sting of my breeding barb between your thighs. You know you want to—nothing but a deep breeding will satisfy your need…”

  Brynn felt like she was going crazy. In the space of a few seconds, everything had gone wrong! Varin was dying and the Hive had suddenly appeared out of nowhere like the culmination of some dark magic trick. She couldn’t even be sure if what she was seeing on the viewscreen was real or not. Was the alien leader really patching into their signal and projecting himself onto their little ship’s screen…or had he somehow invaded her mind and was making her think she saw him on the screen?

  Deep in her body she felt an awful urge to answer the Sovereign’s hissing voice, to turn the ship and go back to him. Her body wanted her to—the empty ache inside her which Varin’s seed had only been able to partially sooth was growing again—crying out that she needed that sharp, horrible barb between her thighs…breeding her…filling her completely at last…

  No! No, I have to fight these thoughts—these feelings!

  Brynn shook her head fiercely, pushing away the alien urges that tried to rise within her. But she still didn’t know what to do. Behind them was the Hive. Before them, the Blind rose up, vast and blank and terrifying. They might be lost forever inside it. They might die.

  I’d rather die with Varin than live to let myself be filled with those hideous grubs! she told herself grimly.

  On the screen, X'izith hissed again.

  “My Queen…come to me, my Queen…only a deep breeding can satisfy your burning need…”

  Reaching forward, Brynn slapped the Boost button as hard as she could. The little ship shot forward into the Blind and the image on the viewscreen flickered to be replaced with black nothingness.

  The Hive ships disappeared and she breathed a sigh of relief. They were safe now…weren’t they?

  And then the viewscreen showed them again—the lumpy organic ships, now far distant, just specks on the horizon but still on their tail.

  The Hive was still following them, even into the Blind. And how long would it be before they caught up?

  “Goddess above,” Brynn whispered through numb lips. “What are we going to do?”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  “Hold on—something’s coming through.”

  Commander Baird, the Master of Sh
ips and head military commander of the Kindred Mother Ship’s armed forces, stared hard at his viewscreen. He’d been dispatched by the Kindred High Council with a battalion of ships to monitor the area of the Blind where Commander Terex had flown through on his last mission. It was the Council’s belief that the strange ships that had been invading Earth’s solar system and attacking Kindred ships were coming from the blank impenetrable wall of the Blind. Or rather, from the other side of the Blind.

  Baird wasn’t sure if the alien invaders were coming from the Blind or not but he damn sure wasn’t going to let anything get past to attack Earth or the Mother Ship on his watch.

  He kept his eyes on his viewscreen. The MO was always the same—the strange, alien ship would initiate contact and ask, “Are you Kindred?” If the pilot it queried answered in the affirmative, it attacked without hesitation and with a single-minded ferocity that was terrifying to behold. The insectile aliens seemed to care nothing for their own safety or survival—they sought only to do as much damage as possible before their strange ships were shot into so much space junk.

  “I’ve got it on viewscreen,” one of the ships closest to the Blind announced. “It’s coming out now.”

  Suddenly, the new ship popped up on Baird’s viewscreen too. Flying so fast out of the Blind, it was nothing but a blur—he could barely make out the details. Then the speaker crackled and a frantic voice asked,

  “Are you the Kindred?”

  “It’s hailing us—asking if we’re Kindred,” one of the pilots under his command shouted. “Commander Baird—should we shoot it down?”

  Baird almost said yes. But there was something about the voice he’d heard through his comlink. It didn’t sound insectile or buzzing. It sounded…desperate. Female.

  “Hold,” he said, speaking to the entire battalion. “Hold your fire.”

  “But Commander, it’s coming right for us!” one of his pilots protested. “If it gets through—”

  “I said hold your fucking fire!” Baird roared into his comlink. “All of you—stand down while I hail it.” He opened a channel and hailed the alien vehicle. “Alien vessel, this is Commander Baird of the Kindred Mother Ship. State your name and intention or be blown from the sky.”

  “I’m Princess Brynnalla of Galen Prime,” came the reply. “And please—we need your help! My guard…the male I love…he’s Kindred too! But he’s dying! His slave chip is expiring in less than thirty solar minutes. And the Hive is right behind us. Please, please help us!”

  There was a soft, desperate sob in the voice that seemed to catch at Barid’s heart. It was the sound of a female desperate to save the male she loved. But he still needed to be cautious.

  “Show yourself,” he ordered.

  “All right—I’m sending you a visual,” the female promised.

  Baird flicked to visual on his viewscreen and saw a tear-streaked face framed in long black hair with wide gray eyes staring back at him.

  “Look,” she said and moved so that he could see behind her. There was a male—unmistakably Kindred from his size and build—who appeared to be frozen in place in the chair behind her. His eyes were a shade of bronze Baird had never seen before but they weren’t that different from his own golden eyes—the trait of a Beast Kindred.

  “What kind of Kindred is he?” he asked the girl on the screen.

  “I don’t know—he’s never met any of his people. He was a slave all his life. He’s free now—but he’s dying because his slave chip is expiring. He’s got less than thirty minutes left.” She was talking in Standard—the universal language that most sentient races in the universe had at least a smattering of—but speaking so fast the words were coming out like bullets in her haste to explain. “Please, can’t you help us?” she begged. “Varin’s going to die if you don’t. And he can’t die—I love him!”

  Baird made a decision.

  “Fall in behind me,” he told the girl. “I’ll guide you to the fold in space that leads back to the Mother Ship.”

  “But do you have slave chips there?” the girl asked frantically. “We need a replacement chip!”

  Baird had never heard of “slave chips” in his life and had no fucking clue what they were but he wanted to ease her distress.

  “Don’t worry—I’ll call ahead and have a doctor waiting,” he promised the little female. “Just follow me.” Then he tuned to a different channel and barked orders, putting his second in command in charge. “Watch the Blind,” he ordered. “The pilot of the ship I’m escorting said the “Hive” is after her, whatever the fuck that is. Don’t let anything else through.”

  “Affirmative, Commander Baird,” his second, a Blood Kindred by the name of Yarron sent back. “We’re on it.”

  “Good.” Baird switched comlink channels yet again, and asked to speak to his brother. “Sylvan, we’re gonna need your help. Have you ever heard of a ‘slave chip?’ Because the Kindred I’m bringing in to the Mother Ship needs a new one, whatever the Seven Hells it is…”

  * * * * *

  The Kindred ship led Brynn through a strange red gash in space and when she came out the other end, there was a massive, white ship towering in front of her.

  “That’s the Kindred Mother Ship,” the Kindred warrior who had led her through explained. He had golden eyes and a voice that was gruff but kindly. “My brother Sylvan and another surgeon are waiting in the docking bay with a hover stretcher.”

  “All right, thank you—I see it,” Brynn said. There was a vast area of the enormous ship where she could see right inside it—as though someone had peeled its smooth white skin away to show the inner workings. In the immense space she saw what looked like thousands of ships as well as a big empty area which she hoped was for landing.

  “Just follow me in through the atmosphere bubble,” her savior said. “Smooth sailing from here—we’ll get your male fixed up in no time.”

  Brynn gripped the steering mechanism so tightly her knuckles turned white. “All right,” she said. “But please tell everyone to stand out of the way. “I’ve only been taking piloting lessons for a little over three solar weeks and I’ve never done a landing before.”

  * * * * *

  “Who is this female you’re bringing us, Brother?” Sylvan asked as Baird jumped out of his ship and ran over to him.

  “Don’t know—Princess somebody or other,” Baird growled. “But the male with her has got to be Kindred—either that or Havok but she says Kindred, so…” He shrugged, his shoulder rolling under his scarlet uniform shirt. “Look—here she comes now. Better stand back—she’s a new pilot and she’s not too sure about the landing procedure.”

  Sylvan watched as the alien ship that had followed Baird in began a rather shaky descent into the docking bay. It was a sleek, silver thing as round as a coin and like nothing he had seen before.

  “What was that you said about ‘slave chips’?” he asked his brother. “I wasn’t sure what you were talking about.”

  “Beats the hell outta me too,” Baird growled. “All I know is she said his slave chip is expiring and he’s about to die because of it.”

  “Slave chips are something I know about—yes I do, yes I do!” Yipper, the Tolleg surgeon came bounding up, his furry ears flapping. With his long face and big, liquid eyes, some humans said he looked like a cross between two Earth animals—a monkey and a dog. Regardless of how he looked, Yipper was one of the finest surgeons Sylvan had ever met and he was always glad to work with the little Tolleg.

  “You know about slave chips?” Sylvan frowned down at him. “Were they something the Dark Kindred used?”

  “Not the Dark Kindred, no. But some other races use them—yes they do, yes they do,” Yipper said. “They can be set to last a certain amount of time—from days to months to years. When they expire, the chip implant in the spine shuts down all biological functions—yes it does, yes it does.” He nodded gravely, his furry ears flapping again.

  “Shuts down all biological functions?” Baird
growled. “Is that a fancy way of saying it fuckin’ kills them?”

  “I’m afraid it is, Commander Baird. Yes it is, yes it is.” Yipper’s long, furry face was grave.

  “What can be done about it?” Sylvan asked as the silver ship finally touched down. “According to Baird, this male has less than thirty standard minutes to live if we can’t help him.”

  “We need to replace the chip,” Yipper said. “Yes we do, yes we do. But…” His face grew sad—an expression that manifested most in his huge, liquid eyes—“puppy dog eyes,” Sylvan’s mate Sophia called them. “But I am afraid I do not have any slave chips. They were not part of the equipment I brought with me when I came to the Mother Ship. No they weren’t, no they weren’t.”

  “Then…what are we gonna do? Baird demanded. “This poor bastard’s about to die and his little female is cryin’ her eyes out.”

  “You feel for her, don’t you, Brother?” Sylvan put a hand on his brother’s shoulder.

  Baird shrugged. “Just don’t like to see a female in pain—that’s all. Besides, Olivia would skin my hide if I didn’t do everything I could to help a lady in distress.”

  Sylvan permitted himself a smile. He knew his brother well enough to know his mate’s urging wasn’t the only thing that drove Baird to help. Like all Kindred he worshiped the Goddess and revered all things female.

  “We will see what we can do,” he said, looking significantly at both Baird and Yipper as the door of the silver alien craft opened. “And with the Goddess’s help, we’ll save this male, whoever he is. Even though he’s a stranger, if he’s Kindred, he’s our brother and we will treat him as such.”