Chapter 13 #2
He was already better than me. My whole leadership was designed to sacrifice myself and my crew for the sake of saving future crews from this very situation.
"Lead the way, small fire starter."
"I'll light your tail on fire as I cut it from your ass if you fuck us over," Vareo threatened.
"Your original threat was enough motivation," I deadpanned, thinking of my treasure still recovering in a medtank.
"Make your way to the West entrance, towards sector Pal. There is a utility hatch in the guard station that only opens when both sides are unlocked. You'll open it on your end, and if you pass the scan from the guard station, then I'll let you out."
"I haven't been exposed for as long as the rest of the crew in this sector," I pointed out the fact that the scan would mean nothing.
"Even if you're fucked, if the scan can't detect it, then we have enough time to get what we need and return. If you care about your mate, then you'll help me, and come back to be scanned again."
I nodded. "True enough." He's already heard my conversations with My Treasure to know I've bonded, and his species had a strong mate bond that his youth would sway his logic enough to believe others held the same connection with their own mates.
I would have to remedy that belief after we retrieved the reserve stores of the Ganpan-Fal.
He wasn't wrong about what I would do for my mate, but there were plenty of my species that would not do the same.
I reached the guard station relatively easily with the help of the young Shol that redirected his crew that held respect for him over the intercom ahead of my arrival.
"If you don't mind my curiosity, how are you doing this without Lord Zorn's interference?"
"He disabled his own access to this sector the moment he considered it lost. He may be ruthless, but he doesn't want to watch his crew die, even if he was the one to order it.
He'll simply monitor the sensors as they go dark from being incinerated.
Lucky for you, one of our best security commanders was on his rounds and got stuck in that sector.
He doesn't want to be incinerated, and he believes I can do what I said I could. "
"What exactly did you promise him?"
"That I've seen a beast with the sickness be cured with the supplies from the trill ship in port, and I'm the best bandit around.
No one will approach the sector to verify beyond the sensors for at least a full red-star, and until then, Klaundis will systematically trigger the sensors and then disable them.
We'll have the time to get your cure and allow it time to work before evacuating the sector onto shuttles for them to disappear.
Then we'll burn the whole sector and no one will be the wiser. "
"For a spawn, you have thought this through."
"Fuck you," he lashed out, knowing that I had not expected him to be so prepared.
"I may not be mating age, but my species takes over a hundred cycles to mate because we only bond once in a lifetime.
Since my species was destroyed, my ability to mate is a useless marker of my maturity. I'm probably older than you, lizard."
"Ah, are you already fifty cycles?"
"Fuck you," he spat again, making me grin. That was a 'no'.
The scan in the guard's room beeped and flashed red. I sighed in relief. Red was good.
"You're clear," he grumbled. "Go open the hatch. It's hidden behind the wall panel. Just lean into it until it clicks."
Following his instruction, I was able to locate the manual seal he spoke of.
It required me to release a pressure sensor deadlock.
It was not designed for creatures with only three fingers.
With a sigh, I angled myself to use both my hands to place pressure in the grooves, attempting to move the locking mechanism.
Due to the separation of my thumb from my other two fingers, I had to apply both my hands and then even my tail had to wrap around the grooves to prove I had full intention of opening the hatch.
Who designed this ship? Who had that many fingers?
"Good, you found the glove. It's moving on my side," Vareo grunted.
The glove? I refused to admit to this spawn that I hadn't looked for a device to help other species open the hatch. I was willing to break this vessel through brute force.
"This hatch is fucking thick," he said with a strain that I felt myself as my arms flexed to move the weight of the wheel.
The next forced tug on the hatch finally moved the gears enough to hear the wheeze of released air pressure between the sectors.
The force of it swung the hatch open, and I realized that it wasn't merely thicker.
The crawl space was surrounded by a volatile compound that, if it combined with a certain rock, was highly corrosive.
Vareo was on the other side, watching me stare at the inside of the hatch.
"Lord Zorn doesn't mess around. If you try to break free of the sector without help from the other side, it would burn you alive and destroy the hatch in the same action. Some have used their strength to tear through hatches before. They didn't make it to rip open the other side."
The force of the pressure releasing made the hatch swing out. My face was covered in the spray of the jelly inside. If we activated the trigger for the rock dust that made this jelly turn to acid, then I'd have been liquified on contact.
I quickly made my way through and quickly closed the hatch before asking, "What about the hatch on the other side?"
Vareo smiled. "They are on the same gears. When I close this one, the other will screw back in place without any help from someone else. Only needs one person to close it."
I saw him wearing the glove that had an extra thumb. Vareo looked down at my own hand to see I was not wearing one and his grin widened, but he wisely chose not to speak of it.
"Let's get out of here before the camera cycles through this area," he said before tossing me a crew uniform.
"I hardly think that will hide being the only trill on this ship."
He laughed, doubling over. "That's priceless.
You think Lord Zorn hasn't recruited trill over the star rotations?
He's a collector. Sure, there are only three on this ship, and Lord Zorn doesn't trust them enough to do anything important, but I doubt he's the one monitoring the cameras right now.
He'll be on damage control." He adjusted the ring in his nose, an air synthesizer.
"Here." He tossed one at me that I caught in the air.
I attached mine and nodded that I'd follow his lead.
The uniform was tight, but everything felt tight with my scales damaged, and my tincture oil dried out.
An eerie feeling crept up my scales at how easy it was that we were reaching the shuttle bay with no incident or even passing another crew member. Vareo could feel the unease in the air, and slowed down as we got closer to his ship.
"I trust you've thought things through, but I've never seen a ship this silent."
"Fuck, no, you're right," Vareo groaned and pulled at his hair before he paced in a circle. "This is too much like the first time I ran away, and Lord Zorn was waiting at the docks with Genbi looking all guilty next to him."
A slow clap echoed along the large hangar space.
"You're growing up, my son." Lord Zorn's voice made my scales flex up to prepare for spraying the area. I knew that would also include Vareo, and I carefully calmed myself to relax my scales back in place. "Where do you think you're going with what is clearly my property?"
I flashed my teeth at that comment. He did not own me.
Lord Zorn merely grinned at me and tapped his inside bicep.
I found myself turning my arm over and glancing at my own to see the brand where my scales didn't regrow.
A black bird stared at me, and I paled at the audacity to brand something he thought was dead.
Or maybe he knew I wasn't, if he had other trill here?
"Don't bother trying to remove the mark," Lord Zorn dismissed my growing agitation clear on my features. "I don't use ancient branding techniques when someone joins the birds. Vareo can tell you."
Vareo snarled, but said nothing.
"No?" Lord Zorn shrugged and picked a piece of dead skin flaking from his shoulder around one of his cracked loh.
He was worse off than I might have expected from a male that re-emerged from the clutches of death's grip more than once.
He shouldn't be alive at all, but if he were as invincible as others claimed, then still being clearly injured was encouraging for the upcoming confrontation.
The ship was within reach, and the only being between us was a male that may have been standing, but I could see the way his limbs shook.
My poison was clearly still in his system.
My grin returned as I gave my own shrug of ambivalence towards my new mark.
"Even if you cut your skin and muscle off, the mark will return. It’s ingrained in your very DNA. I guess... if you were desperate enough, you could chop off your arm, but I believe your species regrows such things, and it would still be there," Zorn explained.
It didn't make my smile falter, because it would simply be a reminder of the male I conquered and freed my mate from. I was already enjoying the idea of keeping this mark for a very, very long time to come.
I wasn't the one dying today.
"You think I wouldn't notice the lack of resources depleting from incinerating a whole sector?
Triggering the sensors was smart, I admit.
" Lord Zorn smiled at Vareo fondly before continuing.
"I'm proud of you, son. You simply didn't take into account temporarily adjusting the sensors for our supplies, or even the drop in oxygen that should have happened if the sector was on fire.
Next time, I'm sure you'll plan more carefully. "