I Married Amreth (Prime Mating Agency)

Chapter 2

Ciara

T wo of the five Obosian guards inside the room rushed to Elias Jacobs. Two more headed outside, while the last one opened a hidden compartment in the wall, revealing an impressive arsenal of weapons—mostly shields, swords, and staves. Although I understood their reluctance to have accessible range weapons, it distressed me that they only had a handful of blasters, all of them appearing to be basic stun guns.

To my dismay, the first set of two guards escorted Dr. Jacobs out of the room through a secret passage. Judging by the look on his face, this wasn’t a surprise to him.

“Jacobs expected this,” Kayog said in a frosty voice, as if he had read the thoughts crossing my mind.

The hard glint in his eyes took me aback. Gone was the jovial and mischievous older male he often portrayed himself as.

“Stay with my Linsea,” he commanded.

I gave him a stiff nod, while trying to quell the panic wanting to take root deep within. He caressed his wife’s cheek then walked briskly towards the hidden compartment with the weapons. Linsea squeezed my shoulder in a reassuring fashion although she kept her eyes glued to her husband, her back tense.

I glanced back towards the direction Jacobs fled. The ornate paneling of the walls that had parted to let him through were now closed again. Had I not seen it open for him to escape, I never would have suspected its existence. He had planned for this probability.

What the heck is going on?

Kayog grabbed an impressive battle staff before making his way back to us. Moments before he could reach our side, another series of explosions rocked the ship. This time, people gave in to panic. The yellow lights turning orange did nothing to calm things down. A couple of people rushing for the doors sufficed to start a stampede.

The single Obosian remaining in the hall flew towards the entrance, his silver-blue eyes glowing. It took me a moment to realize what he was doing when he started circling over the masses. The frantic push that threatened to crush the people in front against the sealed doors ebbed. He was using his calming aura called bakaan on the guests. But there were too many. With the ongoing explosions, it would only be a matter of time before their fear overwhelmed his ability to appease them.

Kayog slipping a protective arm around my shoulders startled me. Linsea held onto his other arm, in which he kept the staff firmly gripped in his hand. With a determined expression, he carefully led us closer to the doors, but out of the main crush.

The sound of the alarm took on a shriller pitch moments before the voice of the A.I. resonated again.

“The ship has been breached. All passengers, please stay calm and head in an orderly fashion to the nearest escape vessels. I repeat, the ship has been breached. All passengers, please stay calm and head in an orderly fashion to the nearest escape vessels.”

Her words opened the floodgates that even the Obosian’s appeasing powers could not stem. For one dreadful moment, I feared that the people closest to the doors would be crushed against them. Thankfully, the automatic locks opened, and the massive doors parted, allowing people to rush out. It didn’t prevent some of the ones in front from being knocked onto the ground.

Before they could get trampled, using both his calming aura and the stunning abilities of his Lumiak, the Obosian forced the fleeing crowd away from the fallen right before he swooped in to pick them up and get them back on their feet so they could escape. Under different circumstances, I would have marveled at witnessing first hand an Obosian using his powers in a non-lethal fashion.

Among other things, they could invoke their Lumiak, which was essentially lightning. Its luminous tendrils writhed around his hands and shot out from his fingertips. At a low level, they would simply give you a small jolt. At mid-level, they acted like a Taser. But at maximum intensity, they could literally reduce their target into ashes.

A startled yelp escaped me when Kayog’s arm slipped down around my waist, and he effortlessly picked me up. I barely had time to cling onto his shoulders before he flapped his wings and flew over the panicked crowd pouring out onto the promenade. Over his shoulder, I watched Linsea pick up a frail older woman in a similar fashion and take flight with her, following in our wake. We emerged into the promenade where complete mayhem greeted us.

A sea of people invaded the space. They were recklessly pushing and shoving each other. The majority were attempting to reach the elevators while others were rushing up and down the stairs. Sadly, people traveling in opposite directions made circulation harder. The only reasonably controlled areas were the upper floors as most guests were with us on the main floor.

Although escape vessels were available on every level, everyone was attempting to reach the larger ones, creating bottlenecks that further fanned the flames of panic. With the elevators being slow, people were elbowing each other to try and get inside every time the lifts returned. The A.I. probably should have locked their access.

Half a dozen Obosians were flying in the massive gap between the promenade, blasting their appeasing aura and intervening where people appeared on the verge of getting crushed against the railing or tumbling over.

I took in this apocalyptic scene in the seconds it took Kayog to fly me to the highest floor where the smallest crowd had gathered to access one of the escape vessels. He set me down on my feet, his face tense, as his mate landed moments later with the elderly woman.

“Get on the vessel and leave immediately,” Kayog ordered.

“What about you?” I asked, worry audible in my voice as I glanced in turn at him and his wife.

“We must help get the most vulnerable out of this madness. We will follow shortly. Go,” he said in a tone that brooked no argument.

Throat constricted, I gave him a stiff nod. “Thank you!”

He smiled, turned around, and took flight with his mate. A part of me felt guilty about escaping instead of also staying to help. But from experience, I knew very well how people filled with good intentions often ended up creating a lot more problems for the first responders by getting in the way instead of following instructions to evacuate when asked. I wouldn’t be one of those people.

The elderly lady Linsea had brought was already standing with the crowd making its way through the vaulted doors to the fourth floor’s northeast escape vessel. I joined them, grateful that people here were still mostly civilized, in no small part thanks to the line steadily moving forward.

With about five meters to go before I could enter the hallway leading to the escape vessel, another violent explosion rocked the ship. I fleetingly found the absence of bellowing smoke in the promenade or of any sign of apparent fires rather strange.

My jaw dropped when the Obosians suddenly stopped their crowd control efforts and all converged towards the northwest corner of the promenade on the main level, three below the one I was standing on. Where they previously cast weak Lumiak on the panicked passengers to snap them out of their problematic behaviors, this time they were blasting something that seemed lethal at targets I couldn’t see from my location.

It could only mean the pirates had boarded us.

How was that even possible when this vessel possessed the most advanced defense technology in this sector of the galaxy?

But it was what followed that took my breath away. Within seconds of the Obosians going on the offensive, they suddenly stopped casting their lightning, half of them blinking while the others flat out held their heads with both hands as if in reaction to a massive headache or shaking their heads to clear their minds. Their flight patterns became erratic, forcing most of them to make an emergency landing on the closest level of the promenade.

The invaders had to be using some kind of psionic attack on them.

To my shock, Kayog suddenly swooped in, his right palm raised in the direction the Obosians had been casting their lightning as his silver eyes glowed. Within seconds, the Obosians closest to him appeared to recover from whatever had been affecting them, and they charged forward again to fight back the invaders. Too many questions fired off in my mind. Was he using some kind of kinetic ability or did he have some sort of psychic disrupting skill?

I knew Kayog possessed special powers that were extremely rare to his people, but this defied anything I’d ever heard about a Temern’s abilities.

Another passenger bumping into me with a bit too much force reminded me to get a move on. Forcing my eyes away from the spectacle unfolding, I took a few more steps forward only to hear a shrill scream to my right, moments before I was to enter the hallway to the vessel.

My blood turned to ice upon seeing a Darwandir female dangling from the railing. Someone must have accidentally bumped into her in their haste to come to the exit, knocking her over the rail. To my dismay half a dozen people ran past her, ignoring her cries for help as she struggled for purchase.

Cursing under my breath, I pushed past the people behind me, many glaring or yelling at me for blocking their way out. Ignoring them, I forced my way out until I could run to the woman. I reached for her overly long and skinny arms. As soon as I closed my hands around her wrists and started pulling, something appeared to snap inside the older female. She screeched like a banshee, the sound painful to my ears as she frantically tried to climb on top of me.

In a moment of pure dread, I realized she’d become too terrified, her survival instincts overshadowing any rational thought in her desperate efforts to save herself. I cried out as she sank her claws into me.

“STOP!” I shouted. “I’m trying to help you. You’re hurting me!”

But she was too far gone. She kept screeching, clawing at me as blood began trickling down my arms. I tried pulling away from the railing, hoping as I fell backward it would draw her with me in the process. Once she was safe, she would stop lacerating me. But my movement only freaked her out more. She tried to jump, pushing herself upward with her feet at the bottom edge of the railing, and digging her claws into my shoulders.

As she hadn’t given herself a strong enough swing, she fell back down, jerking me forward in the process with such force, I found myself folded in two over the railing. I shouted in pain and fear as I blindly reached for the railing to hang onto it and keep myself from falling to my death—and hers. But more terrified than ever, the Darwandir female went berserk in her desperate attempts to use me as a ladder to safety.

My head spun as pressure on my chest made it difficult for my lungs to expand and allow me to breathe. My screams as she continued to lacerate me to shreds didn’t help. I could feel my hands tingling and going numb as her claws dug in my flesh on each side of my spine. A choked sound escaped me when she rested her knee on the back of my head as she continued to climb over me.

I vaguely remembered thinking I would likely die any minute now from a broken neck or spine. Then something—probably someone running past us—violently struck my left hip. It destabilized the crazed female, sending her falling backward. She screeched in terror, further digging into the back of my thighs to propel herself forward but only achieved to throw us both over the edge.

My scream mingled with hers as we plummeted to our deaths.

In the brief seconds it lasted, a million thoughts and regrets flashed through my mind. I should have just gotten on that escape vessel. Or at least, I should have observed the safety measures when rescuing a panicked person. I should have asked for help. I should have…

I should have had a chance to meet Amreth.

Just as that thought popped into my head, and despite the haze of agony from my countless cuts and lacerations, I realized my descent had slowed, as if a force field was dampening it. I came to a full stop mid-air, then started gliding sideways, to the safety of one of the lower floors of the promenade. I couldn’t say which one as I struggled to remain conscious.

“Hush,” a female said, her voice soft although affected by the strangest vibration.

For a split second, I thought she was talking to me. I didn’t believe I was making any sound, aside from maybe moaning in pain. But the dreadful noise assaulting my ears that suddenly stopped made me realize it had been the Darwandir female still screeching.

Through blurred vision, I stared at a male from a species I’d never seen before. He had soft brown fur and ape-like features, although he appeared to stand upright like a human. Next to him, a female—also of a species I’d never seen before but different from his—observed me with an unreadable expression. Her pale, whitish-gray skin was adorned with dark veiny streaks.

Despite the excruciating pain threatening to overwhelm me, it was fear that tore a whimper out of me when the male leaned forward to run a strange device over my face. I suddenly realized it was some sort of scanner.

“She’s one of them,” he said to the female.

“But not Elias. The coward fled,” she replied in a clipped tone.

“We expected as much,” the male said dismissively although anger lingered in his voice. “No matter. This female will do.”

“I… I’ll do what?” I stuttered, another wave of fear sweeping through me.

He bared his fangs at me and hissed angrily. Simultaneously, a powerful energy blast emanated from him. It didn’t hit me physically, and yet it felt as if my brain had been bitchslapped. A veil of darkness descended before my eyes, and oblivion claimed me.