“If that ain’t the definition of dangerous …” Chancy eyed my lit blade with trepidation. I’d never really got along with him. In our first meeting I nearly cut his head off with one of these blades. He wasn’t one to forgive and forget.
I released my fist and the blade energy dissipated. “I’ll make you a deal, Chancy. Stay out of my way and I’ll let you keep all your man parts.”
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Chapter 2
Rollick pulled me out into the corridor to talk in private while the Tech fitted my entourage with their custom made armor. Rollick’s eyes flashed up and down the hallway to ensure our privacy. “I need you at my side in this conflict.” He glanced back and forth once more. “The Traders Guild is displeased with our mating. We should expect retaliation.”
“I figured that might happen.”
Rollick rubbed his nose against mine in an intimate show of affection. This Cat and I had shared so many things … he was truly my mate, in the fullest sense of the word. Our relationship delved into something far deeper than friends. He whined, an expression of his frustrations and fears. “Together, I can protect you. Separated, you are vulnerable. The Guilds will use this war against us. We must guard ourselves, always.”
I stroked the soft fur along his jaw and breathed in his wonderful Cat musk. I had grown accustomed to his body, his scent, and being near him comforted me. Rollick felt like home. As strange as it seemed, the royal family had become my surrogate family. A clone born of illegal genetic experimentation on Nugene Station, I had no one apart from the pirates in the other room being prepped for war, and the royal family of the Gran.
I kissed Rollick on his nose. “I promise I will guard you, Prince. Do not fear.” I giggled as his eyes squinted in pleasure. “And when you fight, please quit that foolish spin move. That’s how Cronin got you. Never turn your back on your enemy.” I reached around his broad powerful shoulders and traced the hairless scar across the heavy muscles of his back. He’d been slashed open while fighting a challenge duel to the death – for me.
He nodded, quietly accepting my counsel. I wasn’t sure if he took me seriously, but I meant it.
A series of tones sounded and Rollick looked to his wristcom as the Emperor stepped out into the corridor. Father and son nodded to each other and Rollick followed the Emperor’s swift trot to the command center at the end of the hall. The Gran fleet had assembled and awaited the Emperor’s instructions.
Cesar stepped out into the hallway as he zipped up his jumpsuit. The right sleeve of his suit was rolled back to accommodate his gauntlet. My lover’s dark eyes assessed me. I wore nothing but my armor, which covered a lot more skin than the skimpy, see-through skirt-top combo of my Gran Princess outfit. Cesar’s eyes sparked with arousal, and his heart rate jumped as he licked his lips. He wanted me, even now, amidst imminent war and death.
A man who’d stop everything in the middle of war to make love was precisely the man I needed. I wetted myself thinking about him. Damn, I needed to figure out how to get this armor off quickly – at least my crotch.
Chancy stepped out into the corridor scratching at his ass. “He gave me an armored wedgy! The beasty did it on purpose.”
My moment with Cesar ended. He winked at me and I couldn’t help but laugh at his man, Chancy. Though we didn’t mesh well, I knew Chancy had Cesar’s back, and I appreciated his loyalty.
* * * *
Strapped into an acceleration couch in the control room of the Emperor’s flagship, I watched the Emperor shape his fleet of warships into formations of five, moving forward in a deadly swarm towards the last-known location of the DC Shadow Fleet.
The DC were flying burn and run routines along the concourse of Gran colonies orbiting Cleptus, a massive gas giant twice the size of Jupiter. As we screamed towards the DC fleet, accelerating at phenomenal speeds, visions of scorched Gran colonies passed the viewport. The DC had done a real number in their first attacks. Farther down the line, the massive floating cities showed only minimal damages.
“Why aren’t these colonies toasted like the others?” I quizzed Rollick who sat at my left side on the acceleration couch – unwilling to let me out of his sight.
“The colonies siphon energy from Cleptus.” He gestured towards the swirling colors of the flame red gas giant filling the viewport behind the floating colonial structures. “They draw enough power to form shields similar to your Imperial Shield.” He pointed to my left hand and then to the faintly visible shimmery energy wrapped around the hull of the nearby colony. The floating city had survived the DC plasma cannons with only a few black burnt scars to show for it. “The first colonies attacked were unprepared. The DC gave no warning. The colonies were unshielded.”
Rollick did not look happy. “Reports count the dead at many hundreds.” He looked to his father, the Emperor. I dreaded the day Rollick took on his father’s duties and carried the weight of such responsibility on his shoulders. My heart went out to the Emperor who would bear the burden of this war for the rest of his life.
“Our mines were attacked the same way – unshielded. Over twenty deep-space mining operations are devastated.” The DC had hit mine after mine on their way to the main colonies at Cleptus – in surprise attacks. Now the DC would have to contend with the Emperor, a Cat I hoped to never anger. A very intelligent and deadly warrior, the likes of which humanity had never faced before.
Cesar, sitting at my right side, squeezed my hand tighter as the Emperor’s fleet closed in on the DC. I kissed his cheek. “During the thirty year war, when the DC fought the Gran raiders who attacked Luna all those decades ago, they battled a handful of Traders looking for human slaves to work their mines. Now, the DC faces the Imperial fleet.”
Cesar nodded. “The fools have gone and kicked the hornet nest.” Cesar leaned in close and brushed his lips against my ear, almost whispering. “I never understood why the hell the Gran want human laborers? Why not stick with their own?”
I thought Cesar knew the basic history of the Gran, but my grasp of their society stemmed from my time among the royal family and my birth on Nugene. I was a rare insider privy to the dirty secrets of the DC Treaty with the Gran.
“Millennia past the Gran adapted the primates from their homeworld for hard labor. I’ve never seen them, but I’m told they’re like trained monkeys. When the Traders Guild first encountered human explorers on jumpship expeditions, they recognized an advanced race of primates – an advanced race of slaves for mining.”
The Emperor had made it clear he disagreed with the Traders Guild trafficking human slaves and wished it would end. It struck me then – the DC’s attack rendered the Emperor’s good intentions meaningless. Defense trumped all other issues.
In their blind drive to protect humanity, the DC had made a grave mistake. They broke the treaty and forced the Emperor to wear the mantle of a Warrior to defend his empire against the human threat. The fucking DC had turned their only ally among the Gran into their worst enemy.
Guiding the Gran Imperial fleet at a velocity no manmade ship could match, the Emperor stood strapped into a harness at the center of the control room amidst a holosensor array. His claws carved through the air as he commanded his entire fleet like an extension of his physical body. Each of his moves affected a corresponding position of the ships in his control. He arranged the fleet into formations of spear points, each Gran warship a jagged edge flowing behind the front-runner. The fleet now resembled a series of serrated blades poised to strike.
Holovid displays showed heat blips near a cluster of Gran colonies. The DC Shadow Cruisers were stealthy, but not entirely invisible when attacking. Plasma cannon fire betrayed their positions.
Suddenly the Emperor growled. “Brace for impact!” His hands chopped forward, as though slicing through the holovid image of the DC heat signatures. Massive G-forces squished me back into the couch as the entire Gran fleet shot straight into the ma
ss of DC ships. Fighting unconsciousness, I struggled to watch the holovid display of our attack formation. Something bright white lit up the front end of each ship, a brilliant concentration of energy.
Screeches of rending metal and explosive shudders rocked our ship as the Emperor’s fleet carved a path through the DC warships and out the other side. As we passed, leaving a wake of death and destruction hurtling into the vacuum of space, I realized what the Emperor was doing. He’d used his fleet like a massive battle gauntlet. The frontal sections of each Gran ship glowed with white-hot energy arcs, a blade that cut through anything in its path.
* * * *
Chapter 3
Suddenly, plasma fire lit up both sides of the Gran fleet from DC cannons. Our ship groaned with plasma bursts hitting our shields, searing through to scorch the hull.
The Emperor flung his hands wide, claws splayed out. The Gran Imperial fleet dispersed in all directions, driving their energy blades towards each source of plasma discharge. The Emperor focused on a nearby target and drove his hand forward once more to send us blazing into the plasma cannons of another DC Shadow cruiser.
We flew head-on into the cannon fire, pitting our frontal blade against DC plasma tech. As we cut through steel and exploded out the other side of the DC warship, the Emperor’s blade proved the superior weapon. The DC fleet rallied into new positions and fired on our backsides as the Emperor reassembled the Imperial fleet for another strike.
The Emperor growled low at his Tech. “Track their communications and give me a position on their Command ship.” His claws swept back and forth in an entrancing dance and the Emperor guided his fleet in a swirling arc, back into the DC swarm.
Once more this insane Warrior sent us blazing into the DC’s ranks, rending, tearing, and cutting through any ship with the unfortunate luck of being in our path. The Gran had become very efficient at targeting the plasma cannons and exploiting this weakness in the DC fleet’s stealth.
The Tech growled to his Emperor and thrust his claws at a cluster of heat signatures on a holovid display. “Command communications originate here. A well defended position, sire.”
The Emperor didn’t hesitate. He pulled together the entire fleet as one and thrust every ship straight for the plasma cannons clustered around the DC command ship. We converged under an explosive hammering rain of plasma hellfire. Ship after ship fell away, charred by plasma, blasted and disabled. By the time we reached the Command cluster, the Emperor’s forces had been whittled down by twenty percent.
Dauntless, the Emperor pushed straight into the cloud of plasma streaks and rammed the front of his ship into the center of the cloud. The impact snapped us all the way around, acceleration couches flipped in reverse to mitigate the crushing G’s of deceleration.
I blacked out for a time, and woke to smoke, sparks, the scent of burnt synthetics, and the green illumination of warning lights. Rollick unstrapped me and Cesar from our acceleration couches. Blood ran down my face, and Cesar’s nose bled too. Rollick had a trickle of blood coming from his right ear. Though the Gran used inertial dampeners and artificial G, the sudden deceleration could not be compensated for entirely.
Green warning lights pulsated off the walls, and arc-welding sparks spit from roasted electronic panels. A burnt ozone flavor settled on my tongue. The remaining holovid displays showed the frontal blade of the Emperor’s ship had been destroyed by plasma fire and we’d lodged into the center of the hulking DC command destroyer like a knife buried in the chest of its victim. Our two ships were so deeply enmeshed I doubted they’d ever be separated.
Several warning displays popped up indicating black-clad human soldiers entering the corridors of the Emperor’s ship from two sides. The air pressure inside the ship sucked and drew in strange wispy currents as the DC Marines pushed through some kind of airlock membranes. We were being boarded.
The Emperor unstrapped himself from his harness and wiped blood away from his nose. “We are taking control of their command ship. Any human who stands in our way will fall beneath the burning fury of the Gran.”
His Techs abandoned positions at their holovid consoles and joined the Emperor, falling in at his back. Every Cat in the room wore full armor with gauntlets. I wondered if this had been the Emperor’s plan all along. Stories of the thirty-year war with the Gran were replete with fierce battles of hand to hand combat. Cats loved a good brawl. Few Marine veterans survived to speak of it, but the old holovid records of the war showed vicious, relentless Cats hacking through anything in their path with their gauntlets blazing brightly. Unstoppable.
Rollick stepped up to join his father and looked to me expectantly. I turned to find Cesar had unstrapped his engineer, Azad, and was shaking Chancy to wake him.
I grabbed my pirate lover’s arm. “Whatever happens, stay with me. Your ass is mine, and I intend to keep you alive and well. I’ve lost too many lovers, Cesar. I won’t lose you.”
Wisely, he didn’t argue.
I followed the Royal family and their guard out into the corridor to find dozens of Warriors ready to join their Emperor in battle against the DC. They surrounded us, a caramel and black striped mob of Cats dressed in full battle gear.
Cesar and his men huddled in close to me.
* * * *
One of the Tech Cats tossed out several of those tiny metallic balls to float through the corridors ahead of us. Three balls jetted down the hallway running scans, while two balls floated in front of us with a holovid projection. The scanners reached a bend in the corridor several meters ahead to find an entire troop of black-clad soldiers, plasma rifles at the ready. The Emperor and Rollick snapped out their left hands to activate shields, and a handful of shielded Warriors joined them to form a solid protective wall of humming energy.
The Emperor’s bass growling roar echoed through the hall, a sound filled with the promise of great violence. The holovid display showed soldiers frozen in fear at the end of the corridor. Rollick followed his father and the Warriors into a mad dash for the squad of soldiers and left the rest of us behind.
“Oh no you don’t, not without me!”
Adrenaline poured through me and I jetted after my Prince and Emperor. The Cats outran me easily with their lanky strides. By the time I reached the cluster of soldiers, plasma rifle fire scorched every which way and the only noise heard above howls of raging Warriors were the shrill screams of dying men in agony.
Several soldiers were down, headless. Others had gaping, bloody gauntlet burns across their chests. Many men stared at missing limbs, seared off by burning gauntlets. The Cats had run straight through the Marines, hacking them to pieces, and spun for a second rush attack. The Emperor, Rollick and the shielded Warriors moved as one to the left, bearing down on the soldiers. The Cat’s shields lit up with plasma fire.
I dived to the right, aimed at several soldiers with rifles targeted on my Prince and Emperor. Time slowed to a crawl as adrenaline surged in my veins, heightening every sight, sound, and scent. Phenomenal strength flooded my limbs as my shield and gauntlet gouged through the center of five men who didn’t see me coming until it was too late.
Limbs were severed, rifles fired, and men screamed in my face as I sliced them apart with the full measure of my fury. Everyone I loved was at risk in this battle, everyone I cared about in the universe. I funneled all my fear and hatred into my attack and exploded in a whirlwind rage. I cut down any fool in my radius of death.
Within seconds I stood surrounded by bloodied, dead bodies and the sounds of my screams echoed above the growling Cat noises.
I looked up to find Cesar and his men jogging onto the scene, staring at me in shock. Breathing in gasps of plasma-scorched air and shaking with hot flashes of adrenaline-fueled aggression, I looked at the gore dripping off my armor, the evidence of my part in the slaughter.
I deactivated my gauntlet and slowed my breathing.
A warm growl sounded in my ear and Rollick encircled me in a strong, furry embrace. I stilled in
his arms and Cesar eyed me suspiciously. I knew Cesar suspected my relations with these Cats was something more than platonic.
I didn’t care what he thought. In this moment, it felt good to rest in Rollicks arms, to know he was alive and safe, to hear his growling chuckle. “My Princess, I pray I am never the target of your anger. You are a magnificent Warrior. Praise Goddess Lura that you fight for the Gran.”
He breathed hard and I smelled the blood of his victims on his fur as he rumbled with laughter. I hugged him back and rode out the shaking aftermath of my adrenaline rush. I separated from my Prince when the Emperor clicked at the holovid projection showing more troops headed our way farther down the corridor.
Still shaky, I made my way past the dead soldiers to Cesar. I grabbed his hand and pulled him along. He followed without a word, his eyes ever watchful.
He squeezed my hand. “If we make it out of this mess alive, we need to talk.”
I nodded. “If we make it out of this mess alive, I’ll tell you anything you want to know.” I lit my gauntlet in preparation and let go of Cesar’s hand. “Stay close, but not too close. When I get going, it’s hard to stop.”
Those shark eyes of his watched me and he nodded.
I could hear their boots on the floor, and feel my adrenaline spiking again. My hands began to shake once more and strength flooded me with new purpose.
The Emperor assembled his Cats in formation, lit his gauntlet and shield at the front, and growled at me. “See to your men, Angel. They need you more than I.”
Perhaps they did. But I needed Rollick too. Somehow I had to protect them both.
* * * *