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Because our goal was to breed, I could get the whole pack to agree to negotiate rather than fight, because as much as my men wanted to fight, they wanted to fuck even more.
I had to hope that Tschenkar and his pack felt the same way.
“Captain, their Grasp Drive is active,” someone said, “Weapons ready?”
“Prepare warning shots,” I ordered.
“What is a Grasp Drive?” Airlock asked me.
I wanted to tell her not to talk, if only because every time she opened those full lips and exposed that soft, wet tongue of hers, my entire bridge crew stopped what they were doing and stared at her mouth.
“It’s how we move across the galaxy. A Khetar Grasp Drive distorts the fabric of reality, all to move a single packship from point A, to point B. No other species can use Grasp Drives. It’s impossible. While you humans spend centuries moving from world to world, we cross the galaxy in a day.”
“It sounds to good to be true.”
And it was. If too many Grasp Drives pulled at the same part of space too often, it could rip space and create a black hole. There were plenty of black holes out there, but if every species had Grasp Drives and used them whenever they wanted, it would rip the universe apart.
The Hivemind rationed out use of Grasp Drives, preventing their operation if it felt the likelihood of a tear was too high. Tschenkar would be able to Grasp right into orbit around Eden, but later packships would need to Grasp further and further out to avoid creating a tear, the they’d have to use slow thrust engines to creep the rest of the way toward Eden. If too many of my enemies Grasped in, my allies would be further away and take longer to come support me.
I needed to keep Tschenkar from declaring war and calling for help.
The way the Grasp Drive worked, the moment Tschenkar disabled it, space would snap back the way it was meant to be. For now, the drive was holding these two very far points of space together, butHarbingerwas still on the other side. If it disengaged its drive right now, it would snap right back to where it came from, thousands of light-years away. Tschenkar had to turn on the normal engines and move a few hundred thousand kilometers across the distance, and then he could kill the Grasp Drive. Everything would snap right back, butHarbingerwould still be just outside Eden’s orbit.
I opened a comms link, and I spoke to Tschenkar scion to scion.
Tschenkar, Scion ofHarbingerand Eldest Living Heir of the Tscheniosnak Triumvirate, you have entered the space of a planet under my protection. State your intentions. We have weapons lock. If you activate your engines, we will fire.
I spoke it through the hivemind, and the hivemind put my voice right into Tschenkar’s head. He responded the same way.
Thuliak! Scion ofWrathand Eldest of the…he squinted, and made a big show of hesitating, like he couldn’t fucking remember my lineage.
I growled.
State your intentions!I growled.
Tschenkar’s face came up on a big screen in the bridge. He spoke now to my entire crew rather than to just me alone. Turning what should be a discussion between scions into a public conversation was what the human Lexikon—at least on worlds with human men on them—would call a “bitch move.”
Where my skin was a dark teal, his was a purple so deep that it was black where the shadows fell. He was the same height as me, and strong too. If the two of us agreed to a trial by combat, I truly didn’t know which of us would survive, I only knew I’d fight so long as I had two fingers left to grasp my dagger.
“This should be between scions,” I said.
Tschenkar laughed, and I caught him eyeing Airlock. “I’d love to open ‘er up and see what she looks like inside.”
Rage consumed me, and I almost considered cutting off the screen, but then my crew would think I was weak.
“State your intentions,” I said, “or we fire.”
I wasn’t bluffing. As much as I wanted to breed, the need to fight was primal and raw, and Tschenkar had almost goaded me into it.
“Your pack isn’t large enough for this planet, you cheeky cunt,” Tshenkar said. “You’ll have to form a Breeding Swarm, and it will take a few decades I reckon. As the second packship to arrive in system, I demand, for me and mine, breeding rights as Second.”
He’d calibrated his speech to some other accent from another world, or possibly even from another time. When we intended to breed with a world, we had the Hivemind rewire our brains to speak the native language. I’d calibrated my speech patterns to the way an Emperor of Earth in 2122 had spoken. Tschenkar sounded like…like he’d just come out of a street brawl covered in blood.
“Youdemand?” I snarled. “It would be presumptuous for you todemandthat I not blow your ship to pieces. But to demand breeding rights?” I laughed in his face. It was through the screen, but it was still most definitely in his face.
“So? I’m the second one here,” Tschenkar says, “willing to offer my pack full of the finest male stock to the Breeding Swarm, and you act like I’m here to kick you right in the bollocks? Mate, I just want tobreed! It’s the primal fucking urge that drives us, Thuliak, and I want it bad. My balls are as blue as Rigel, they’reaching, Thuliak, and I need a fertile hole to spill my strong, scion seed right into.” He licked his lips, and his eyes fell onto Airlock.
I ground my teeth together and snarled at him. “And I amFirst!You defer to me! You take what you are given!” I moved to stand in front of Airlock, blocking her from his view. “And how, Tschenkar, did you come here so fast? How long were you following me?”
