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Smart of Ruze to jam the power grid with a Moktian tritus surge, but that also means the bliker stole one of the Moktian Galaxy Cruisers. Both were cloaked, though I know where they are docked.
At least I knew where they were docked.
The one I sold to the warden was at the main entrance to the prison. The other was just outside this exit corridor where I left it. The Nomadican was proving savvier than I gave him credit for. I would bet my left seed sack the bliker had stolen mine!
"Power is out, which means the guards will have to break down the door to get in here." I nod to the exit door and hike a thumb over my shoulder at the door leading outside. "It also means we will have to do the same to that door if we want to get to my ship."
The undeniable urge to get Cora to safety flexes my hands into fists. My sivot shifts through me, surging forth until the heat of power flows through my veins. The primal energy swells and ebbs like an incoming tide. My skin is alive, rippling with sensation as my muscles bulge, expanding and morphing into the beast.
My corium, the design which has adorned my right arm since birth, shifts and coalesces to encase my arm like a sheet of armor. I know from my Academy teachings that it can expand into a shield.
Cora scrambles away until her back hits the wall. Brave eyes now fill with terror. I can only imagine how frightening I must look as I transform before her eyes.
My boots strain to restrain my expanding feet as the seams of my pants split with a sharp rip, barely containing the unimaginable power that is swelling within me. The leather holster holding my Klaxis steel sword forged across my back grows tight, squeezing me like a rosquivan constrictor until it snaps and my blade clatters to the floor.
I lift unfamiliar hands to my face. Black claws extend from underneath my nail beds, razor sharp talons glint in the blue light from the weapon Cora holds in trembling hands. My head brushes the ceiling as I reach new heights of power and size, the magnitude of which I can scarcely comprehend.
My mind remains my own yet I'm aware of the sivot's presence.Ifeel indifferent toward the female's wellbeing, yet the sivot lives to keep her safe. It's a strange inner conflict as two parts of my consciousness battle for control.
With a roar I can hardly believe just came from my lips, I lunge forward and slam my fist into the door, stamping an impression of my knuckles into the metal slab. The door remains closed. I pause to study the claws jutting from my fingertips. Lethally sharp, I swipe my lengthy new blades across the handle and lock. The metal yields like churned zoleth would for a hot dagger.
Frozen air rushes inside when I slam my foot into the slab, throwing it open to the outside. The moon—Onis is nothing more than a chunk of ice orbiting the planet Xont—in the farthest reaches of the Ine Sector it's the perfect place to house criminals. Unless you have a long-range craft and enough fuel to fly back to civilization, there's no way off this inhospitable rock.
I whirl around and stalk over to Cora. She shuffles away, pressing her back into the wall, but there's no place to flee. The business end of the electro-rod is thrust out front, but I easily pluck it from her hands and toss it to the floor.
"Leave me alone, freak!" No begging for her life. No pleas for mercy from my female. Cora is a fierce little warrior to the marrow of her fragile human bones.
Her panting breaths are puffs of white clouds in the frozen air, And the pink of her full lips is already turning blue. She will freeze if she stays in this weather for long. I must get her someplace warm, and quickly.
"Time to go, starfire," I say in a voice so deep it can't possibly have come from me. "You are mine to protect."
Bliker!
Did that dribble just come out of my mouth? Stupid sivot will give the game away, then she'll be the one holdingmyleash.
Cora puts up a fight, her legs thrashing and fists futilely pounding against me. I scoop her up in my arms and cradle her against my monstrous chest. She stops fighting the moment I step outside and race across the frozen tundra toward the Moktian craft that's cloaked outside the main entrance.
I dodge and weave through the crowd of convicts running blindly across the icy tundra and attempting to find freedom in the cold. The guards follow close behind, shouting orders to halt. Blaster fire lights up the night sky, some hitting their marks while others whiz past their targets.
The prisoners lucky enough to commandeer the few docked ships, launch themselves off the moon before they're caught, leaving their fellow inmates behind to be recaptured.
Icy gusts of air howl all around us. The terrain is a frozen wasteland, blanketed in snow and ice. Patches of permafrost glitter in the low light, while jagged rocks dot the landscape like islands in an endless sea of white.
My fur cloak, having fallen off when I was blasted in the chest, remains in a heap on the corridor floor, but I'm strangely not bothered by the cold. My sivot's internal temperature keeping the worst of the chill at bay.
Cora curls into me, snuggling closer, and something inside me loosens. A warmth blooms in the center of my chest. I don't like where this is going. If it wasn't for my sivot, I would dump her on the ground and leave her on the moon's surface to freeze.
Attached to my waistband that’s squeezing me in two, is the Moktian imager that begins to bleep the closer I get to the hull of the cloaked spacecraft. With one arm easily holding Cora close, I tap the release on the imager and lower the ramp.
Racing up the ramp, I turn the corner toward the bridge and draw up short. I growl at the creature who dared board my craft, surfing the tide of protectiveness over the female shivering in my arms.
I go still at the revelation.
I’m facing off with my own reflection casting off the shiny metal of the interior walls. The snarling beast with fangs the length of daggers is me! Atop my head is a mass of stark white hair whipped wildly about my shoulders.
I lean in for a closer look, turning my face this way and that. The thing before me retains only the slightest likeness to who I used to be; now I am a monstrosity with bulging muscles, flashing white eyes, and skin that flows like liquid metal.
I take a long look at where the corium marking my right bicep is no longer a thick swirling design—a warning to all of the sivot lurking within my biology. It has completely morphed into the armored plate all Kaul males are taught is impenetrable even against blaster fire. With one arm, I easily hold the female, and shift to the side to examine my new armor that can expand into a shield.
