Chapter 9
Mara
I am beginning to become accustomed to being kidnapped every few minutes, I think.
The Lizard King seems enchanted by me. He has taken me to a lizard dinner table, and he is offering me fruits and vegetables and meat. He watches me eat with cold interest.
“Special little thing,” he says. “Caught between worlds. Treated like an animal by a creature driven mad by its own power. He is mad, you know. Quite insane.”
“Did you make him that way when you were torturing him?”
“We were not torturing him. We were paying him back.”
“For what?”
“For the deaths of our comrades. Psyons are dangerous. The one who calls you pet is the most dangerous of all. He is corrupt.”
“Oh?” I look around the table. I’m wondering if there will be ice cream. “Corrupt in what way?”
“Nothing you need to worry about. You are an animal, more or less. Humans have sentience, but only barely. Most of what you do is follow instincts, instructions given by your amygdala.”
“Whereas you consider every option to its fullest extent and then decide to steal a pet from an evil, corrupt Psyon who can manipulate space and time and will probably step out of your closet and stab you in the chest next time you change clothes.”
He chuckles. “We have technology to repel them. Psyons are not magic. They have a very specific kind of relationship with quantum mechanics. They are not so different from any other mechanics.”
“What will you do with me?”
“If you follow at my heels and do my bidding, nothing bad. Having you is the point. Hurting you would be pointless. And if you enjoyed my company, and liked being in my world, well…”
He gives a little shrug, and I know that he means that would twist the dagger in Freak’s heart all the more. To steal a pet, and then to claim it for his own would be the ultimate revenge.
I know then that he won’t lay a finger on me, probably.
“If you disobey me, I will punish you,” he says. “We have a cane here made of the skin of our species. It has an especially painful bite, and you will not enjoy it if it is applied to you. This is a warning. The first and last of its kind. I expect you to do as you are told.”
Guess I was wrong about that, then.
I don’t know how much braver I can be. When I traveled with my father, I was always kept safe.
I saw many things, and I thought that coming to the stars, to stations, and to other places of their kind would be easy.
I thought it would be like when I was younger, and we sold our wares and experienced the world at large.
Instead, I was almost drowned and then I was taken as a pet, and now a captive. I have found little kindness in these stars, and much in the way of twisted evil. I don’t know if Freak is good or not. I doubt it, somehow.
I doubt this creature is any better.
I want to find my father.
I have to escape.
* * *
Freak
I have tried to retrieve my pet, but every approach is met with fire power, and I cannot destroy enough ships.
Their shielding is holding even with my various attempts to cycle around it.
I have chased them as far as we could go, which is not far enough because they skip through space at faster than the speed of light at times, displaying even more mechanical prowess than I realized they had.
“How the fuck are they doing this?”
Fidas, Drak, and Aric all exchange looks. “They have repeaters, we think,” Drak says. “There are travel networks here that their ships can use and we cannot. Wormholes make them untraceable. We should stop, Captain. We are deep in enemy space.”
They are right, but the notion of not following them all the way to the bitter end to reclaim my pet does not sit well with me.
I cannot believe that she was taken so easily.
Right behind my back, even as I thought I was defending her, I was losing her.
The regret and guilt are terrible, and the memories of my captivity are coming back even stronger in her absence.
I notice now, for the first time, that my brothers are uncomfortable, and have been for some time. They have been making noises about supporting me, but I can tell that they would rather we stopped engaging this enemy so directly. Drak is the bravest of them to say what he has already said.
“It might be time to let her go,” Drak says. “It’s our job to monitor the universe. We have many missions to attend to beside the Datari Composite.”
“She is mine. My pet. My mate.”
There is a crackle as the communications come to life. They should not be able to function. The wires are still torn and askew, ripped through by my bloody clawed hands. There is only one entity capable of speaking through an unplugged set of speakers.
“Tasin, please report to the home realm with your crew.” Alara’s voice comes through. “It is a matter of urgency. I expect you immediately.”
The others show immediate signs of relief.
I suppose I do not blame them. They are right that we are on the verge of being captured.
If all four of us are taken, the DC will be able to take even more torturous measures.
They will take us captive and they will take us apart, and they will perform travesties.
Drak and the others have already stepped back to our realm. I am alone on the ship for the moment. I know I won’t be coming back to this place. There is still blood on the floor from the slaughter of the invaders, wiped up hastily but not completely.
When I took my pet here, I thought I would be showing her the universe. I thought I could keep her safe at all and any costs. I was almost certain she would be forever safe. I’ve failed her so completely I can barely begin to contemplate it.
“Tasin.” Alara’s voice comes through the disembodied speakers again. “Home. Now.”
I draw in a deep breath, and I step through the veil. The home realm asserts itself around me. I find myself there bloodied and exhausted, standing before Alara. She is on her throne, and we are alone in the royal room.
She has made herself very much appealing. Her dress is made entirely of jewels that tinkle softly when they move. Her skin is quite visible through much of those beads and things, but I suppose it is decent enough. She could be entirely naked and I would not particularly care.
“Tasin, I know you have suffered, but behaving erratically by diving deep into enemy space with three of your brethren is not like you,” she says, running her fingers through her long locks in an indulgent way.
“Alara, they’ve taken my pet.”
“Oh, have they?” She twirls a lock of hair, then focuses her attention on me directly. “That’s fortunate. She was slowing you down, Tasin. She was a distraction, too. I have decided to issue an edict that no pets are to be allowed on warships.”
“I need your help to retrieve her.”
Alara frowns slightly at me, and as she replies, every sentence sounds more frustrated than the one before it.
“You know very well that this was ordained, Tasin. This is the way of things unfolding as it should. This is why we do not forge bonds with typical mortal species. This is why we do not have pets. She was always disposable. She is human. There is no purpose to her short, pathetic little life other than the losing of it.”
I don’t want the lecture, and holding my rage in as I suffer it does my constitution no good at all. When I respond, it is terse as well.
“We have been uniquely useless in this fight. We have allowed the Datari Composite to gain ground, and soon they may even have access to this realm. Is that what you want? To find yourself awash in brutal lizards? Because that is what will happen next. Today, we allow my pet to be taken from me. Tomorrow, they are here. Not at our door, but inside our homes. They are running roughshod through the most sacred places in the universe. They are destroying us, and replacing us.”
Alara laughs, and I catch a flash of something in her mind.
It is only brief, and it’s possible I imagined it, but I see her in a vivid tryst with the king of the Datari.
His flickering lizard tongue working between her thighs, her back arched in ecstasy.
The scene happens on the very throne she is sitting on now, and I realize that his scent is in this room.
I thought it was the lizard blood on my boots that makes me smell it constantly.
But it’s not blood. It’s an entirely different substance that is assaulting my nose.
I close my mind immediately and pull back. It takes great effort not to immediately begin to blurt out all I have seen.
We have been betrayed by our own leader; the one of us tasked with looking after all of us has been seduced by the Lizard King.
No wonder she did nothing to rescue me. No wonder the DC have made such quick strides.
She has been helping them. No wonder we have made ineffective moves that have done little to nothing.
This is what she wants, a new world in which her consort is alien.
The future is laid out, a twisted version of destiny tainted by what they want to have happen.
He’s using her, but she can’t see it. She’s too caught up in the rough passion he inflicts on her.
I cannot believe she has done this. To lecture me about what is ordained by fate, then perform this series of sabotages. The nerve she has is only eclipsed by her blindness. She is fuck drunk and she is a danger to us all.
Her eyes narrow, and I know she has sensed my disturbance. She is many things, but she is absolutely not stupid.
In a matter of seconds, I realize there is no way to hide my knowing from her. She already knows that I know something.
To hell with it.
“Will you bear live young?” I ask the question.
“What did you just ask me, you little shit?” Her patience was waning, and is now entirely gone. She wants to be able to rest on the laurels of her office and remain unquestionable. I have no intention of allowing that.
“I was captured,” I growl. “I was tortured. And you allowed it because it was what your lover wanted. How long have you been fucking him? When did he get to you?”