35 Zorin
We ride our stealth transport into orbit, Ignus and Esrynne at the helm.
“We are cloaked, right?” Azrim calls up to Ignus.
“Yes, sir.”
He turns to me. “How could Tessi see us? She watched us leave.”
I shrug. “Must have something to do with her Isonian skills.”
He checks his weapons and ammo as he paces the cargo area of the ship in his starsuit like he always does before an infiltration mission. But something is different in the way he strains his neck and shakes his head like he and his Shifter are disagreeing on something.
I was trying to borrow a ship to search for them when he had arrived with Tessi and Rhysan. Azrim had slipped right back into his old role with Tessi, caring for her like she was his. I saw it in his eyes. He wanted to believe it.
Now he looks like he’s beating himself up over everything all over again.
I lean against the wall, grab a handrail as the ship tilts, and call to him.
Azrim fumes when he looks over at me.
“Do not tell me you hated it,” I say.
He walks to a window, rests his arms above it, and stares down at our blue world. “You should not be here.”
“Brother…”
Azrim wheels around and thrusts a clawed finger at me. “You know why! Do not, for one second, think that this is going to end well. It isn’t! It’s who we are to suffer and fight and lose!”
His anger speaks louder than his words. Azrim has always hidden beneath it when he is scared.
Marne gets his team ready, along with Spike, who has volunteered to help with this mission, despite not being assigned to it. The wariness in Marne’s eyes makes me think he doesn’t trust Azrim to pull himself together before we crack the first hull.
I hug my elbows and ignore the itch of my armor rubbing over my recently healed injuries.
“I don’t like it either. But we can’t keep waiting for the enemy to show up on Mindor and hope we’re not caught with our pants down.
We need to be proactive. Isonians need our skills. They have protected Tessi. Onidus has.”
“She’s not safe,” Azrim reasserts.
“She’s in the safest place she can be.”
He huffs and stalks to the back as Marne walks up to me.
“Carnas and Corzin are all that’s left of their shredder team. I’m sending them both with you.” When Marne’s eyes dart to Azrim and back to me, I know it’s because he doesn’t trust my brother. Right now, I can’t blame him.
“Our normal allies, Amphirans and Drathious, are still out of the system. It is just us against Nebs and the Denarso, but it sounds like Viriden has handled most of the spotted toads.”
I wish the Lunas would wake the fuck up and see that their denial of our situation is only making things worse. We need their help to fight off these invaders. “So we’re mostly down to the three Neb warships and their fleet of fighters?”
“A-firm.”
And here we are again, sticking our necks out for the ungrateful. “If we survive this, I’ve been thinking about asking Viriden for his help getting us assembled in space and building our own fleet.”
“Leaving this world?” Marne asks.
“Yeah. I don’t have a plan, but the idea is growing on me.”
Red lights flash in the cabin and Ignus’ voice comes over the shipcom. “Approaching drop zone. Team One please proceed to your ship.”
I hold up a fist to Marne. “Claws out, brother.”
He taps it with his.
“Team two…” I rap a clawed fist to my chest.
Esrynne, Ignus, Marne, and Rorsar respond in like fashion. The sound of claws hitting armor always gets me in the zone.
Davarok and Kren bring the ship online in the lower hangar. Corzin and Carnas meet me on the ramp of our Incision, packed with gear and weapons. They each give me a clawed salute, then hike up into the seats.
I’m about to turn back and hunt for Azrim when he rounds the rear of the ship and stalks up the ramp.
Okay. I nod to myself, glad he’s pulling his shit together. Finally.
I belt in across the aisle from Azrim, who is extra quiet and bounces a knee.
“Got any more of that jerky?” Carnas asks Davarok as we wait for Ignus’ countdown.
Davarok tosses him a piece as we’re kicked out the back of the Bloodmoon and drop into the void.
“So what’s the deal with Esrynne?” Carnas asks as he rips off a piece. “She got a thorn in her ass or what?”
“Usually,” Davarok chuckles. “Why are you thinking about her ass?”
Carnas stills. “I… I wasn’t. She’s just so…short tempered, and you’re so chill. It’s hard to believe you two are related.”
Corzin turns to him. “You can drool over her later. But there won’t be a later if you don’t get your head in the game now.”
Carnas holds up his hands, grins, and chews on the jerky stick still sticking out of his mouth. “Sorry for wanting something to distract me from the stress of infiltrating. I usually come in after you guys.”
I cover my face with my hands and try to clear my head of worries about Tessi, the Lunas, Rhysan, and Viriden’s orders.
Thelisoria, give us strength. We are so tired of fighting and losing.
“Earcom check,” I call out. The team taps their coms and says their names.
“Davarok, copy.”
“Kren, copy.”
Carnas and Corzin also join in. I look over at my brother.
Azrim inhales deeply, taps his com, and replies. “Azrim, copy.”
“Approaching Neb warship. Shields holding,” Kren says.
“Incision, Bloodmoon, we are locked in. Infiltrating now.”
Davarok and Kren fly us in close and attach us to the Neb’s smoking hull. A light bump shakes the ship.
“Bloodmoon, Incision, we copy. Locked in. Infiltrating now,” Kren replies.
“Bloodm—n, M-F Comm-nd, com— in.”
“Command, Bloodmoon, you’re broken up. Please repeat,” Ignus replies.
“Myn— on base. Took…” Static breaks up the com feed. “Aegeris —si. Do y— read?”
“Portals affect the signal,” Ignus tells us. “Going dark. Claws out.”
“Claws out,” we all reply. But deep in my gut I know something is wrong.
Azrim gives me a worried look as we climb into the airlock in our starsuits and wait for the depressurization to complete, then hike down the ramp to the nearest hatch on the Neb’s ship.
The smoke from their hull conceals our vessel.
“Ready?” I ask our team. Azrim nods and motions the others through the hatch first. As we drop in, we go silent over coms and will remain that way until someone decides the risk is worth breaking it or until our mission is complete.
Davarok enters first, followed by Kren, Carnas, and Corzin. I drop in behind them, silence my com, then wait for Azrim.
But Azrim doesn’t show.
I jump up, catch the hatch’s ledge, and pull myself up to see him touching his earcom and running back onto our ship. I switch my com back on and try to call him.
“Gold, Silver, do you copy?”
But all I get is static. The ramp closes, and I think he’s been called with a different problem.
I reluctantly drop below again, pull the hatch shut, and follow the others through the sealscreen of the thruster chamber and inside pressurized space again.
Davarok lifts his hands. Where is he?
I shrug and motion to my earcom then signal that he took the ship.
Kren slumps, mouthing great.
Corzin is the only one who survived the last mission. He motions with his fingers, telling us how many combatants he saw when they entered. He suggests we change our attack plan. We were supposed to have three teams of two, but I am alone. Again.
I motion for them to take their planned routes. Carnas disagrees and suggests I come with them.
But I shake my head. Their teams are supposed to clear the port and starboard sides.
We don’t want to blow their ship to the abyss because there are undoubtedly innocent prisoners aboard, the ones they’ve been collecting from Mindor and other worlds.
We need to clear combatants and free the innocents.
Then we need to find away to ensure the Nebs never come back.
My teams reluctantly leave to clear their areas.
I blow out a breath and calm my surging pulse.
Slipping into the officer’s quarters isn’t easy. Extending my claws, I rake open the controls and the door auto locks, just the way I expect.
I crawl up and into the maintenance access and drop down on the other side of the door. I silently peek into each room, take out the officers as quietly as I can. Then I move to the next.
I leave the residences in a bloody pool. When I enter the royal chamber, I find it eerily empty. The deeper I ease into it, the more I feel like I’m walking into a trap.
A thump behind me makes me turn around.
The tall, shoulder-heavy Myndrous stalks toward me with a red augmented eye and metal hands from the elbow down. He stops when another lands behind me.
“There’s no point in fighting,” someone says.
I turn around to see a Nebulous commander standing in light gray armor with a cloak down his back.
“You have not won because you are up against the Vulturous faction of our empire. We are far more skilled, more augmented, and powerful than you can imagine.”
I covertly aim my gun in his direction and fire. His body collapses. “Now it’s just you two and me.”
Two more Myndrous step out from behind the black pillars in the room.
“Okay, four.” I shrug.
The Myndrous I face clenches his fists, making claws protrude from his augmented knuckles.
I fire him. He’s fast and darts away, but my gun is faster, and knocks him over a table, stealing his last breath.
Another charges and smashes into me. I slam into a wall, bounce off, and catch myself on my feet.
Another Myndrous bounds toward me. I throw myself aside and fire back at him as he crashes through my recent position.
Two down, two to go. But when the second careens into me again, I’m ready. I pull light from the room, and let it out a blast wave that throws him off of me.
I smash through a stack of empty crates, slide to a stop, and force myself to get to my feet. More Myndrous stalk into the room. There are far more than I can fight alone.
I gasp, trying to catch my breath and stay calm.
Shit…
A hand grabs my shoulder. I slap a hand to his, fling him over me, and fracture his chest with a single pressure pulse.
A faint blur of light smashes into me. A hulking Myndrous lumbers up to me as my body is bound in light.
“Maybe it’s him,” he says in Nebulous.
“I am nothing.”
“And yet you use light to make bombs and fracture bone. Take him to Helarina.”