Chapter 15
STRON
The attacker's hand closed in Adryel's hair, and Stron was already moving.
"Adryel, no!" Janae cried out and charged forward, and for one split second the blaster swung away from Adryel and toward Janae instead.
Stop. Every warrior instinct he had screamed at him to fire, but Janae was in the line — and then Adryel drove her fist into the attacker's leg, and the three of them went down together in a tangle of limbs.
He kept moving. Closing the distance.
Adryel rolled clear. Janae started to scramble away.
The attacker's hand shot out and caught her shoulder, and the blaster came up against her neck.
Janae screamed.
Everything narrowed.
He tracked the movement — Khalzin's weapon already spinning through the air, Adryel's hand closing around a decorative rock from the path, all of them converging on the same fraction of a second.
Stron fired.
The clatter of metal against metal rang out across the platform, and then the last of the attackers hit the ground and everything went still. Even the wind dropped. Even the animals fell silent.
Stron's eyes found Adryel.
She was standing. Hands shaking. Staring at the bodies on the ground with an expression he recognized — not fear, exactly. Something older than fear. Something that had been waiting for a moment like this to surface.
He didn't think. He just said her name.
"Little Dots."
Softly. Barely over the wind that was beginning to pick up again around them.
She turned.
And then she was running toward him, and he pulled her in, one arm wrapping around her and holding her close against his chest. He could feel the tremor in her hands even through his armor.
"Did they harm you?" he said against her hair.
"I'm fine." Her voice was steady. Her hands were not.
He held her tighter. She didn't pull away. For a moment he was aware of nothing except the fact that she was alive and upright and pressed against him, and something in his chest that had been locked down since the platform explosion loosened slightly.
It lasted exactly as long as it was allowed to.
"Khalzin! Khalzin!"
Janae's voice broke through everything. Stron released Adryel and moved.
Khalzin was already going limp. Janae was trying to hold him and losing the fight.
Stron got there first. "Friend." He grabbed him, got an arm underneath him, took his weight. Looked back over his shoulder at Janae. "We need to get out of here."
She nodded, face pale but focused. "Get him to the vessel. We'll get him to safety."
Stron loaded him in and climbed aboard. In the back, Janae settled against Khalzin as he moaned, her voice low and steady, holding him the way you hold someone when you don't know what else to do.
Stron kept his eyes forward. But he felt Adryel's presence beside him — the quiet, tightly-controlled worry she was radiating — and he thought that whatever this was on Kantenan, it had stopped being a simple threat a long time ago.
Khalzin laid out on his bed back at his apartment. A stark contrast to Stron’s residence. Khalzin’s was sleek and modern, very minimal.
It seemed generic, compared to his own home.
Of course, all the residences in this building had similar designs. Simple, stark, more about the view outside than the view inside.
Stron kept his arms crossed and stood near the door. His own wounds were superficial, and not to be bothered with. Any wounds Adryel had were equally as superficial. Janae seemed no worse, either.
Only Khalzin had taken a direct hit from one of the attackers. They were able to get him to care quickly, which was preventing him from falling to them.
The Kantenans healed relatively quickly from injuries, but medical care made a huge difference.
His gaze darted to Adryel, and he wondered if her and Janae healed as quickly from wounds. As small and delicate as they were, he doubted it.
Though calling them both delicate seemed demeaning—they both had fought back against the attackers. Something that led to their appeal.
Stron didn’t like weak females who cowered at everything.
Adryel stood next to Janae, holding her hand, while they watched the droid work to heal Khalzin’s wounds.
Stron’s mind kept racing. He knew that this wasn’t over. That attack was only the beginning of what was to come.
Yet his gaze kept focusing on Adryel.
He told himself it was because he was making sure she didn’t hide yet another injury that needed tending to.
The medical droid pulled away, and she stepped back as the droid moved.
Stron put his hand on her small shoulder.
She jerked, her body tense for a moment, until she saw him.
“What?” she whispered.
“Are you hurt?”
“I told you, I’m fine,” she said.
“You avoid medical care. I am making sure.”
Adryel waved her hand. “Go, do something official like file a report or some such.”
“Is that what you think I do?” Stron asked.
“I really don’t care what it is you do. I’m concerned about my friend.”
“As am I,” he replied.
She glared at him for a moment, then turned back to Janae.
Stron stepped away, because arguing with Adryel would not help Janae or Khalzin, regardless of how stubborn and obstinate that female was. Slipping around the corner back into the main part of the residence, he noticed the guard positioning.
One of the senior guards stood at the main comms station in the home, where Khalzin did much of his work. A hologram displayed a figure, and it wasn’t until Stron walked around the station to be near the guard did he realize it was Khalzin’s mother, the Priestess of Light.
“And now?”
“He is recovering,” the guard said to the hologram.
She nodded. “I’ll be arriving shortly.” Her gaze moved, and she noticed him standing there. “Stron.”
“Priestess,” he said just as the hologram went dark.
He glanced at the guard. “Be sure everything is in check for her.”
“Already preparing,” he replied, and started heading toward the other guards. A soft murmur spread between the protective detail as they adjusted their positions in preparation for the Priestess’s arrival.
Making sure both she and her child are secure remained of paramount importance after the attacks.
Though in the back of his mind, he had a feeling this wasn’t just about the off-worlders coming.
Stron pressed a few controls on the table, logging himself into the computer system. He brought up a list of messages he’d received, reports from news sources that he trusted.
And some that he didn’t. If only to see what the spin was.
The attack on Terra North hadn’t gained much attention thus far. The majority of the information remained on the explosion of the arriving ship. Much of the reports were the same—though none seemed to be fully aware of the true purpose of the arriving vessel.
However, it was important news, regardless. Kantenans didn’t get off-worlders landing in such formal capacity. Not so publicly, anyway.
Many were claiming it was some kind of ambassadorial mission, possibly for the citricite trades, since allegedly the citricite export was not doing well.
Allegedly, of course.
Stron sent messages to a few of his friends, looking to see if anyone had heard any important information about the attack on the Galactic Alliance ship, to also attack them on Terra North.
It was too coordinated to be a very small group. There had to be a good deal of Kantenans working together to organize this.
That also meant if there were, then they had access.
That’s what Stron needed to find out. Who they were, and how they were getting access. Because if they couldn’t find the leak, then they couldn’t stop it.
And he wanted to get these messages sent and be on his way before Khalzin’s mother arrived. While his mother and Khalzin’s had been friends for many years, Stron had never been close to her, and would prefer to stay out of her gaze as much as possible.
He finished what he was doing and headed back into the bedroom. Adryel glanced at him when he came back in, though she stayed close to Janae.
Janae seemed completely focused on Khalzin.
The droid instructed her on care and protocol while he healed, as it finished up.
“Are you going to be alright?” Adryel asked, touching Janae’s shoulder.
She nodded as she stood up, and looked around. “As long as the guards are here, I suppose I will be.”
“I will make sure there is an extra detail outside,” Stron said. “There is much that needs to be done.” Securing the safety of the off-worlders was paramount. He had to make sure they all were protected, for their own good.
Adryel nodded, and she turned to look at him. “How can I help?”
“By staying safe,” Stron said. “Back at your—”
Adryel waved her hand in the air again. “Don’t tell me to go back to my room and wait for someone to come kill me.”
Stron was about to say something, when Janae cut in.
“She needs to be taken care of as well,” she said.
Stron nodded. “I am working on it.”
“You’d better,” Adryel said. “Because I’m not sitting around and doing nothing.”
“Come on, let me get you back—”
“Don’t finish that sentence, big guy,” Adryel said.
He raised his eyebrow, and couldn’t help smirking as she put one hand on her hip, looking ready to fight.
“Listen,” she started.
He raised his hand. “One moment,” he said and turned to one of the senior guards.
“We need to increase the security on this entire building where the visitors are.” He was already two steps ahead, planning the next move in the plan of protecting not just Adryel but all the visitors, to keep them all secure before their rescue vessel arrived.
“Security has been raised to a more urgent level,” the guard replied.
“Regardless, I think this is bigger. It needs to be doubled and possibly tripled. Someone is out there, trying to kill these visitors. We are obligated to keep them safe until the Galactic Alliance arrives with a new transport and takes them away.”
Adryel’s expression hardened.
“I’ll get to it,” the guard replied.
“Now,” Stron said, turning back to her. He touched her arm, and started to escort her out of Khalzin’s apartment and back to the lifts, where he could return her to her residence.
“So that’s it. You’re just going to send us away now that we’re here?”
“Does it not seem the safest thing to do, to protect your people?”
“What about Janae? She’s already mated with Khalzin. You going to send her away too?”
“I don’t know. If keeping her here causes more problems, then she, like the rest of you, need to get off Kantenan as soon as possible.”
She stopped walking, pulling out of his arm as she did.
He got a full stride away before he turned back to her.
She glared at him and crossed her arms.
Why was she so stubborn?