Chapter 4
Battle after bloody battle we swept through the corridors of the Emperor’s ship working our way to the frontal section. Behind us lay the massacred corpses of DC Marines who thought they could best an Imperial army they had never faced before.
Near the forward blade of our ship, where we’d punched through the DC vessel, the Cat Techs found a hole the DC had cut into the hull of the Emperor’s ship and tested the air on both sides of a temporary airlock membrane. The air pressure and oxygen levels were sufficient – the DC must have sealed off the hull breach surrounding the Emperor’s flagship.
The scanners showed two squads awaited our entry. Shields ready, The Emperor and his Warriors cautiously passed through the membrane, and the jagged, burnt edges of the hull. The first wave of shielded Cats stepped down into the interior of the DC Command Destroyer, ready to conquer the enemy ship.
Plasma flared off their shields and the Emperor and his Warriors pressed forward, shoulder to shoulder, slicing and dicing the nearest soldiers. Bold and fearless, they cleared a path for the rest of us to emerge into the DC ship. The narrow entryway was the most vulnerable, but shields held off the worst of the plasma fire. The Warriors used their shields linked together like Roman legions, an overlapping wall that formed an impenetrable web of protection.
Honor be damned, we’d all have been toasted if not for the wonder of the Imperial Shields.
Yowling screams of a Cat in agony sent me whirling to the back of our company. Then the sound of a man screaming in pain sent my heart into a freefall. One Cat was down and Chancy had been burned along his left leg, but he still fought on his feet.
“Use your fucking shield!” I screamed at the fool.
The idiot was limping around, cursing up a storm, and swinging his gauntlet blade at soldiers. He missed half of his targets – damn lucky his face hadn’t been burnt off yet. I abandoned my position in the forward press and raced to the back, dashing between and around Cats. I hit Chancy at a full run and knocked him aside as plasma flared off my shield, right where the Irishman had been standing. Moving on instinct, I cut through the shooter’s rifle and torso. Threat eliminated.
Three more plasma bursts bounced off my shield from different directions – an entire squadron of soldiers had fanned out across our backside. They were pinching us off, forcing us to fight in two directions. Rifles sighted in on me from three sides and I knew at least one of them would fry my ass. I backpedaled rapidly and bounced off the Cats behind me. I was pinned, nowhere to go. Plasma fire erupted in my direction and I braced myself to get scorched. Suddenly a pale-skinned scruffy pirate slipped in at my right side, covering me with his shield.
“You need a little help?” Cesar grinned from behind his shield, doing his best to protect us both.
I loved him so much, my pirate lover.
Then Rollick landed at my left, his warm fur pressed against my side. We created a perfect crescent of overlapping shields, a protective wall the rifle-blasting DC Marines couldn’t penetrate. The black-clad soldiers advanced, closing the distance – their first mistake. Plasma rifles held the advantage at distance, but in striking range we outmatched them. DC Marines relied too heavily on their rifles and gimpy stun batons. They had poor defense for the flesh-rending brutality of gladiator combat.
DC troops five meters out, I called to Cesar, “Now!”
Cesar and I leapt forward and cut through rifles and limbs simultaneously. Rollick didn’t speak a lick of English, but he matched our advance and cleared a radius of several meters to my left. With his formidable strength and reach he moved through the soldiers carving a swath of mayhem.
I dashed and slashed – a diving, spinning turbine of death. I fought to clear the men off Cesar’s backside while keeping an eye on my Prince. Rollick had reached Chancy who was hiding beneath his shield and sniping shots at the soldiers with one of their own plasma rifles. Chancy took out three Marines before Rollick snatched him off the floor one-handed and dragged him back towards our position. Though Chancy did his best to blast the Marines crowding Rollick’s retreat, far too many black suited soldiers were focused on the two of them. Without his constant barrage of attack, the Prince was vulnerable, and he’d used his shield hand to grab Chancy.
As he dragged our injured man out of the fight, three rifles bore down on Rollick’s backside. I screamed to get his attention, but knew it would be too late. Fear drove at my heels and I leapt into the line of fire. My shield deflected several shots and I cut through one of the soldiers in my path. I rolled off the ground to come up in the midst of an entire squad of black-suited thugs.
Rollick made his escape with Chancy while the squad focused on me. Rifle butts aimed for my face and shock batons flew my way. Shield and gauntlet blazing I spun hard, bashing, slashing and screaming at the top of my lungs. Then he was there, my Cesar, and behind him, Azad. They shielded me from two sides as I flashed through the enemy with my flickering hot blade.
Like a moving blockade, Cesar and Azad matched me step for step while I cut down anyone stupid enough to stand within reach. We found a balance of defense and offense, and the bastard Marines couldn’t touch us.
Moments later I was surrounded by howling, furious striped Cats. The Warriors poured around us and devastated the remainder of the black-suited Marines. I stood panting, leaning against Cesar’s shoulder, praying to the universe that my lover and all the men and Cats I cared for could make it through this day. I looked back to Chancy who sat out of the way against the wall. His teeth gritted in agony and steely determination, Chancy fired off potshots at the few remaining Marines with his plasma rifle slung over the top of his shield. A good plasma scorching taught him the harsh lesson to better protect himself.
If he ever walked again, he’d be limping all the way. What the fuck were we supposed to do with him?
An idea occurred to me. I reached down to the dead Marine at my feet and rifled through his pockets and found a small nanomed field kit. The kit had a painpatch, some nanosutures, and the thing I was looking for, a syringe. I squeezed out the useless liquid, emptying the chamber and slipped the needle into my vein through the gap in the armor on my left arm. Slowly I pulled back the plunger and filled the syringe with my blood.
Cesar and Azad watched me with dual looks of suspicion. I handed them the field kit with my best innocent grin. “Give him the pain meds and seal his wound.” They did as I told them, my entourage, but kept glancing back at me, wondering what the hell I was up to.
I slipped up beside Cesar and watched as the men cleaned and sealed the nasty looking burn on Chancy’s thigh. A painpatch on his shoulder, Chancy’s eyes glazed over as the strong drugs took effect. Cesar stepped back from Chancy and I slipped in before the men could stop me. I jabbed my syringe into the Irishman’s leg, a centimeter away from his wound, and shoved the plunger down.
Cesar laid a hand on my shoulder and pulled me back. “Would you like to tell me what the fuck you just did?”
Azad pulled his dark hair out of his eyes and surveyed me with a twinkle of mischief on his face. “Chancy’s crazy enough. He doesn’t need your brand of insanity added to the mix.”
The drugged Irishman slurred. “She’s goin’ ta kill me with her feckin’ cooties multiplying in my veins.” He tried to stand up, but his weak leg gave out and he slid back onto his ass.
Cesar’s hard face didn’t smile or twitch. He stood waiting for my answer. His silence grew more severe by the second.
“I’m type O, compatible with anyone. My blood might heal him. Same as I do. Fast. We need him moving, now. We can’t wait hours or days for nanomeds to kick in.”
Cesar stepped into my face. “Next time you feel the need to run experiments with your blood, find someone else to fuck with. We have no idea what your blood might do to him.”
Blood splattered and supremely pissed off, Cesar’s dominant, threatening stance flipped my switches. I wanted to punch him and fuck him at the same time. Desire won the co
ntest of my emotions and I learned something about myself – killing made me horny.
I could feel my pussy wetting for my ferocious pirate. I wished he’d take me now, up against the wall, hard and fast. I hated his words, the distrust, the implications, but I loved this visceral, dark side of my lover – all his alpha showing.
“Do you know how sexy you are when you’re angry?” I smiled at him and licked my lips.
He looked away with a snicker. “There’s no figuring you out, Angel. God I hope you didn’t kill him with whatever’s inside you.”
Though I wanted to strip him down and fuck him, if he kept flinging his shitty attitude in my face, he’d soon catch an armored fist in the balls. I breathed in and out, trying to get past the adrenaline shakes and find a sliver of calm. “Plasma burns bone deep, Cesar. If you want Chancy to walk on that leg again, he needs something more than a shot of nanos. He needs to regenerate charred tissues – right now. We don’t have that kind of nanotech here. All we have is me.”
He watched me with an intense searching look, and then dropped his eyes with a sigh of acceptance. When he looked up I glimpsed the turmoil he’d been suppressing, his fears for Chancy. “I know.” He shook his head. “You’re a uniquely gifted woman. I pray you’re right.” I could see his insolence came from his concern for Chancy – for that I almost forgave him.
“If I’m right, you owe me an apology. And it better be damned good.” He’d be apologizing to me all night long, over and over, with his hands, tongue, and every inch of his hard body.
* * * *
Chapter 5
With our help, Chancy was back on his feet, one arm draped over Azad’s shoulders. Their two shields were up, indefinitely, and they both carried Marine plasma rifles with extra charge cartridges. Azad agreed to skip out on the gladiator guts and glory to ensure Chancy stayed mobile.
Rollick and Cesar to either side of me, we followed the Emperor and his Warriors, hacking through the DC soldiers a squadron at a time. I had long since abandoned civility for the carnal rush of burying my gauntlet in warm, hot flesh. Cutting and hacking through Marines with a permagrin on my face, war came naturally to me, as though I’d been made for it.
The three of us watched each other’s backs and kept the scorching plasma burns on the outside of our combined shields. By attrition, the Emperor’s brave Warriors fell, one here, one there. Some Warriors bore Imperial Shields, too many did not. The plasma rifles didn’t care. They burned through any unshielded flesh, regardless of ridiculous Catty notions of honorable combat.
Corridor by corridor, we seared a path of death and destruction towards the command room to take on this war machine at its source. The Tech’s scanners scouted our route and prepared us for each encounter of troops awaiting our arrival. By the time we reached the bridge, few Marines remained to challenge us. A handful of soldiers surrounded the commanding officers trapped in position. We moved in and took out the outer guards, picking them off at our leisure. A Cat with a shield and gauntlet was a fucking juggernaut. I slipped in so fast – a blur to the eye – they couldn’t see me coming until my blade was halfway through their chests.
DC Marines were sorely outmatched in brute force combat.
At the far side of the bridge, several high-ranking commanders were pinned down behind the last of the Marines. The Emperor suddenly stopped his advance and signaled his Warriors to hold position. Then he looked to me. “If we allow the Warriors to finish the fight, we learn nothing. I would stand back and let you speak. We must know why they violated the treaty. What is their intent? Did they believe the Gran would fall so easily? Is there more to this madness?”
I watched the Emperor, unsure how to proceed. “What concessions do you offer? Would they be taken prisoner if they answer your questions? Would they go free?”
The Emperor glanced at his growling, twitching horde of Warriors ready to continue their bloody massacre, and I could see the wheels turning in his head. He nodded once. “Though I do not promise their safety, I would consider taking prisoners, if they speak true. Find the truth, Princess. If not for them, for the sake of all humans.”
I’d never heard the Emperor speak like this, threatening the entire human race. But then, humans had never attacked the Gran, laying waste to their colonies. The gravity of this war, of this moment, settled in my guts and washed away my adrenaline, leaving me exhausted.
I shut down my gauntlet and stepped past the protective wall of the Imperial shields. “I am coming forward to speak. Do not fire on me if you wish to live.”
Moving in, I watched the sweaty, fearful faces of soldiers with their rifles pointed my way. Unless I could get my shield up in time, I’d be toast the moment they pulled the trigger. I felt great sadness for all the Marines who paid the ultimate price for their DC commanders’ recklessness. Amidst the commanding officers I recognized two figures – Admiral Michael Benjamin of the Outer Rim Fleet, and his sidekick Captain Secora. Our last exchange had been under very different circumstances.
I nodded to them both. “Admiral, Captain, there are questions to be answered if you want to survive the next five minutes.”
The Admiral, a stocky man with tightly cropped salt and pepper hair and a keen eye, took a single step towards me, then stopped as the hungry Cats at my back bristled with his movement. “Angel, if I recall correctly. I never imagined I’d see a human betray their own to these alien beasts. If humanity cannot adhere to a basic tenet of loyalty to our species, I fear for our future.”
I looked over my shoulder to the Prince, a male I trusted more than any other creature I’d ever known. Human or not, he had earned my unquestioning loyalty. I looked to the woman Secora in hopes she might see reason where this pigheaded Admiral could not. “My mate, the Prince of the Allied Federation of the Gran, will eventually carry the mantle of Emperor. I owe him both my life and my loyalty. Without him, I would be dead.”
I looked back at Cesar, almost hidden in the jungle of striped Cats. “My lover calls himself a pirate of the asteroid belts.” I smiled at the Admiral and his second. “The same pirate you chased across the galaxy. It seems you found him, but he’s not yours to pursue. Now he’s mine.”
Both officers squinted at my arrogance, confused by my words.
“My unnatural feet have never touched the planetary soil of Earthside or felt its gravity. Secora, did your Admiral explain how I came from Nugene? Born of the clone birthing tanks? Do you understand how very different I am from the humans you assume I owe loyalty?”
The Captain’s face showed confusion, and when she glanced at her Admiral, I caught the suspicion in her eyes.
The Admiral cleared his throat. “Enough theatrics. You’re a traitor to humanity, a monster, a genetic aberration. You should never have been born.”
I kept talking, right over the top of him, speaking to his second. “I was not made for Earthside, nor would it seem for humanity. As the Admiral said so eloquently, I am not really human, not exactly, a genetic aberration. An experiment gone wrong. Humanity has shown me far less kindness than the Gran you tried to exterminate. Your shitty ideals of loyalty mean nothing to me. I am loyal to those I love, those who prove worthy. The human species, as a whole, is very disappointing.”
The Admiral and his handful of guards tensed as if my words struck them physically. He pointed his righteous Admiral finger at me. “In the scheme of things, your story is meaningless, Angel. What matters is the message I bring. The Gran’s slave labor demands upon humanity are at an end. Nugene no longer serves their filthy slave treaty.”
“The Gran despise me. Most humans, if they understood the truth of my birth, would probably mimic your lovely words and call me all those wonderful names. Yet here I am, trapped in the middle of this fucked up war, forced to answer to both sides. I have no place in either society, but here and now, it has become my burden to do what I must to save humanity and the Gran … even from themselves.”
I flashed forward and landed two feet from the
Admiral’s face with my white-hot gauntlet sizzling the hairs off the back of his neck, ready to cut through him. “You will answer my questions, or I’ll carve every inch off your body, piece by piece. Then I’ll move on to the next officer until I find one who speaks true, or run out of warm bodies. I don’t care what species you are. I only care about stopping this war. Admiral, in this moment, I am all that matters to you.”
He swallowed hard and sweat ran down the sides of his temples. I could hear the breakneck pace of his heart thudding rampant as the Admiral realized I prepared to take off his head. The knowledge of his fate reflected in his eyes, he started to open his mouth, but Captain Secora interrupted him.
“Our orders were to leave an indelible mark on the Gran, to teach a lesson. Now they know we will never again suffer their attacks. The treaty is over, and a new era of respect begins. Or war, if that’s what it comes to.” Her words tumbled out fast as she tried to save the Admiral’s life.
I started laughing, a hard mocking sound. My eyes flicked back and forth from the Admiral to the ignorant bitch who presumed she knew what the DC intended.
“Idiot. The treaty was the only thing protecting humanity from enslavement by the Gran. I don’t know what lies you’ve swallowed from Earthside media and the scheming bureaucrats of the DC, but the truth is simple – the treaty gave the Gran what they wanted, worker slaves. That’s the only reason they stopped short of taking every man, woman and child for forced labor on a deep space mining asteroid. In what universe did humanity hold any balance of power in the treaty you violated?”
Secora looked to the Admiral, who seemed to have lost the ability to speak. After a few moments of intense eye contact, he nodded to his second. Her person shrank as the confidence of rank fell away beneath the weight of truth.
I burned the collar of the Admiral’s jacket with my gauntlet blade as I made my point clear. “All you had to do was keep pumping out cloned slaves and collect your minerals and tech payments from the Gran. Instead, you crossed the entire galaxy to threaten everyone I love. Now you face death with nothing but ridiculous threats and lies.”