“I am looking for a Terran.” Daegan growled into the face of the beady-eyed capo. “And the planet they’re from is Earth.”
2
Daegan
Celestia saveme from these crexing idiots.I was tired, so damn tired of searching the cosmos. I had no idea how many rotations I’d traipsed the galaxies on a solo voyage for the Terrans, but I’d had enough. We needed to find the missing females if we ever wanted to negotiate a treaty with Earth for the chance to bond with their kind and save our race from extinction. But I wasn’t meant to be apart from my Rhonar brathers for so long. Others of my kind craved isolation as they gave into our biological phase—the void. But I hadn’t reached the emptiness yet. The hunger, the phase before it, claimed me still. And although nothing but my mate could fill it completely, the all consuming need abated slightly around my brathers.
“Damn fools,” I muttered under my breath. The blade of my axe ached to taste Mangox blood. The disgusting creatures had claimed a chunk of the Meta Sector. Lawlessness abounded, yet their brand of it was particularly foul. Everything from weapons running to species trafficking was part of their operations. So when the chance arose to sabotage a Mangox slave ship that was rumored to have the Earth females we were looking forandput me on a mission with my fellow Rhonar, I jumped at the opportunity. Even now, my brathers breached the engine room, ready to take control and free the ship’s occupants, but we had to know one thing first.
“Do you have Terrans or not?” My patience ran on the edge of a knife—or an axe.
The Mangox capo beamed daggers at me. “If you wouldn’t mind removing your weapon.” One beefy fist rested on the underside of my blade as if he could push it aside.
He couldn’t. And if he tried, he’d get a hand full of spikes for his troubles.
“I’d be happy to,” I smiled at him without any amusement in the expression, “once you tell me what I need to know.” Maybe threatening their leader wasn’t the wisest course of action, but the draving Rhonar hunger gnawed at me. And I’d sworn I’d sensed something just beyond that strange planet in the corner that had set it off. I fought not to turn my head in that direction again, but my nostrils flared.
Something was there.
“Daegan, did you say it was?” He sneered as if my name gave him cause for amusement. “This is not how we do business.” The capo snapped his fingers, and the two Mangox lackeys who had been unmoving until now, stalked toward me.
I huffed my frustration. Taking out three Mangox in the narrow hall wouldn’t be a huge task, but it wasn’t worth the effort. I laid my axe at my back once more. “Fine. Then, would you hurry it up?”
Without the blade at his neck, the capo waved at his subordinates. They stilled. “Allow me to check.” He lifted the holo-pad between his fists. “It seems we have only one Terran aboard, but you’re in luck, it’s a female.”
A low wail permeated the space, faint and undetectable to most, but not to me. The sound traveled along my spine like an electric shock. I struggled not to pivot toward the noise as it came in the same direction of that large plant a few yaunas away.
The Mangox didn’t appear to notice, and the capo continued, “We’d love to accommodate you further, Rhonar, but it seems you’ve been lying to us.”
An inching sensation crept along my skin. All Rhonar trained in the art of war, and each had an ability unique to them. Mine gave me a coveted talent amongst my kind—battle prowess. I could always sense when a fight was about to erupt or if danger lurked, my skin tingling and my focus narrowing. When a weapon came at me, I could see the trajectory before it ever struck. Some said it made me unstoppable. I didn’t quite agree, but I did use the skills to my advantage.
Like now.
The capo dropped the holo-pad to reach for his molecular blaster. It was a coward’s weapon, designed to decimate the atomic structure of whatever it hit. Too bad for him I’d already sensed his move. I drew my axe, using the first strike to slice the arm that reached for the blaster, and the second strike to hold steady against his throat again. “You’ve made a critical mistake.” I spoke into the com unit on my wrist while the Mangox capo wailed his rage—and pain. His hand rested several yaunas from his body, and his subordinates, upon seeing my strike, took off down the hall. Too bad his kind weren’t loyal to him. Not like the Rhonar. “Raiker, the Mangox are onto us. Take control of the ship.”
A scratchy signal broke through the com, “Daegan…abor…” Shuffling from the direction of that damn plant had my ears perking toward it, but I tried to concentrate on my brather’s voice. “Too late.”
“What?” I held the com closer to my mouth. “Raiker, you’re breaking up. Repeat.”
“Get off…” More static cut into the call. “Unsealed the cells…” A squeaking noise strained my hearing. “Freed those enslaved…safety…ship set…destruct.”
I had no more time to decipher the message as alarms wailed and the hallway lights flickered an ominous red. The Mangox capo laughed despite cradling his injured arm to his chest. “You see, Rhonar scum. We knew there were more of you.” He spit at my boots. “We’ll destroy this ship before we let you ghaul worms have it.”
I believed him. Knocking him unconscious with the handle of my axe, I left him. If he wanted to go down with his ship, so be it. I took off toward that plant. Knocking the burgundy fronds aside, the pot teetered over and cracked on the hard flooring. What it revealed stole the air from my lungs.
“Terran,” I wheezed. The female I’d been searching for—at least one of them—knelt beside a blue-skinned female I recognized as a survivor of the Craxion rebellion. It was the same planet where we’d first discovered the Terrans. “What in all the void is going on here?”
“No time to talk,” the blue one jumped up and pulled the Terran to her feet. “We’ve got to go.”
I didn’t disagree with her, but something in the Terran’s gaze made me pause. Standing a finger length higher than her friend, she would almost reach my shoulder. The thought pleased me for a reason I couldn’t ascertain. But from all the Terrans I’d seen before, which granted were only in freeze-frame holo-vids, she appeared taller than most. Her lush body had ample curves covered by mere strands of diaphanous fabric. A single layer banded over her breasts while others hung from her waist, all in a rich purple hue. It looked lovely against her creamy golden skin. But it was her eyes that held me transfixed.
“By Celestia’s grace.” Deep as the valleys of Anor, her gaze would pull in any male as if the goddess herself stared through them.
An invisible tethered bound us together in that span of heartbeats as neither she nor I looked away. It was only a pair of blue fingers snapping before me that broke the spell. “Hello, big warrior, we need to move.” The blue female’s voice did not entrance me as the Terran’s eyes alone had done. But it did the job of distracting me. She tugged at the Terran’s arm. “Ogle each other later. Run now!”
The blue female took off in the direction the Mangox had arrived. The Terran hesitated a beat longer as she stared at me, then she shook her head as if clearing it, and ran after her friend. I needed no further prompting. Wherever the Terran went, I would follow. Even to the depths of the void, if the female willed it, I’d go without hesitation.
And although the stirrings echoed in me, hinting at the truth of the matter, I refused to yet acknowledge it for fear it would prove untrue. But somehow, some way, fate had granted me my greatest desire, if I had but the strength to make it so.
