Authors: Tracy St. John
“That might be preferable to wearing a
Bi’isil’s collar.”
“No argument there.”
The ship abruptly shuddered. Egilka
flailed, and Clajak grabbed him to keep the Imdiko from falling.
The Adrafs, sturdier on their three feet, buzzed as their tiny
hands flew over virtual controls. Claxons sounded, blazing through
the air at a deafening volume as purple lights flashed. The captain
added to the din by unleashing a long stream of loud buzzing.
Clajak assumed it was the Adraf equivalent of cursing.
“Now what?” Egilka cried as he regained
his balance.
Clajak stared into the Imdiko’s dear
face, his thoughts grim with what lay ahead for them. “That was
Ru’imbu’s answer. He’s attacking the ship.”
To Clajak’s surprise, the Adraf captain
did not surrender or offer the Kalquorians up to Ru’imbu. Instead,
he issued commands and the Adraf freighter returned
fire.
“This is an expensive shipment,” he
told the Kalquorians. “Plus you two are worth as much, if not more
than what’s in the hold. Maybe if we fight back, the little
puffed-up despot will decide it’s not worth the
trouble.”
Clajak would have liked to hope the
captain was right. Yet Ru’imbu had taken insult with a single
mindedness that told him the Bi’isil would continue to push the
issue. The gray bastard would not give up.
After swapping fire for a couple of
minutes, during which the freighter took the greatest damage, the
Adraf captain figured that out for himself. With much stamping of
his three hooves, he buzzed in disgust. He tossed his head and
glared at Clajak.
“This is coming out of your empire’s
treasury, my friend.”
He issued orders in his own language.
Metal plates descended from the ceiling, closing over the
glassed-in cubicles of the crew. Sealed into seamless capsules, the
cubicles lowered into the floor, disappearing from
sight.
The captain nodded to the two
Kalquorians as plating slid down to enclose his cubicle too. “Good
luck to you, boys. One of you can go with us. The last jettison pod
will respond to your voice commands. No offense Imdiko, but I hope
you will be generous and allow me to keep the Crown Prince. He’ll
fetch a better price.”
With that, the captain disappeared as
his command pod transformed into an escape pod. Then it too
descended, disappearing into the floor where a jettison tube would
drop it out of the ship.
One glassed cubicle remained. Clajak
eyed it with weary despair.
Egilka was still reeling from the
abrupt departure of the crew and captain. “Where did they
go?”
Clajak continued to stare at the
remaining cubicle. “They abandoned the ship. Ru’imbu won the fight,
and they’re running for their lives. Which leaves you, me, and one
lifeboat.”
Egilka gazed horror-stricken at the
remaining cubicle. He swallowed, his throat making a dry clicking
sound. “We can’t both fit in there, Clajak. Can we?”
The prince’s stomach somersaulted. Some
of the kloq he’d drunk burned a slow path up his throat. He forced
it back down. “No. Even if we could, it wouldn’t provide enough
oxygen for more than a couple of hours.”
He looked at Egilka and was not
surprised to see the Imdiko square his shoulders, a resolute
expression masking the fear on his pinched face. “You are the Crown
Prince of Kalquor, the sole heir to the throne. You must take the
lifepod.”
Clajak felt touched, but he rolled his
eyes and shook his head rather than let Egilka see the emotion. “I
knew you were going to say that. You are so predictable,
Egilka.”
The Imdiko’s voice was weak, but he
insisted, “There is no other choice.”
“You’re volunteering to go to Bi’is as
a slave? To walk away from your life on Kalquor and the research
that might save our species?”
Egilka’s temper rose, and his eyes
blazed at Clajak. “I can’t say I like it, but between the two of
us, I am the most expendable.”
It was Clajak’s temper’s turn to flare.
He had the urge to yank Egilka’s pants down and administer a proper
beating. Too bad he didn’t have the time for it. At any other
moment, he would have considered harsh discipline a
necessity.
He narrowed his eyes and snarled, “You
are not expendable, my Imdiko. Don’t you ever let me hear you say
such a thing again or you will not sit comfortably for a long
time.”
Egilka’s eyes widened at the threat,
but he was dogged in his determination to sacrifice himself for
Clajak. “My prince, this is the only way. You must take the
lifepod.”
“You think so?”
“Of course.”
Clajak laughed with brittle humor. “You
need to get out more, Imdiko. Especially if you’re going to be
clanned to me and eventual ruler of an empire. Sometimes
selfishness has surprising benefits.”
“Clajak, what the hell are you talking
about?”
Instead of answering, the prince walked
over to the remaining cubicle. He inspected it and the podium. He
picked up the visor wired to the podium and looked through it. As
he did so, the virtual screen flared to life.
“It does make more sense with one of
these on,” he said. Clajak tried to settle the visor more
comfortably on his head, but it had been made to fit an Adraf’s
larger, longer skull. It kept sliding down his nose. Looking
through the lens at the too-brightly colored display gave him an
instant headache.
“Display in Kalquorian,” he told the
system. It obeyed, and he typed a few commands into the interface.
Within seconds the cargo manifest appeared before him, along with
where the goods were located. Clajak figured out where the hold was
that he and Egilka had stowed away in. He asked for and got the
ship’s schematics that showed him its layout.
Last of all, Clajak checked on where
the Bi’isil hunter-killer was located. It had closed in on the
freighter. He nodded to himself and took the visor off.
Egilka was right behind him, crowding
halfway into the tight confines. “Did you find anything? Any
weapons? Another escape pod?”
Clajak gently pushed against him so
that the Imdiko would let him out. “No, unfortunately. Our friend
Ru’imbu is nearly ready to board the ship too. I bet he scanned the
jettisoned pods to make sure we weren’t on any of them. He knows
we’ve been left behind in here and will capture us.”
“A moment ago, you acted like you might
have a plan,” Egilka said. “Do you? What do we do?”
Clajak looked the Imdiko over. So tall.
So smart. So handsome. So perfect. What a shame that their present
circumstances had turned out this way. It was too bad the Dramok
had to do what he was about to do.
He gave Egilka a bright smile. “You’re
going to take a nap.”
The Imdiko looked at him as if he’d
gone mad. “A nap?” he repeated in a disbelieving voice.
Clajak nodded and stroked Egilka’s
cheek. The tender caress distracted his companion from the fact
that the prince raised his other hand in a fist ... a fist he
slammed hard into the Egilka’s temple, knocking him out cold. The
Imdiko crumpled onto the floor.
“Sweet dreams, lovely man,” Clajak
said.
Leaving Egilka where he’d fallen,
Clajak hurried off the bridge. He returned a few minutes later with
a rug-wrapped object.
The Dramok laid his filched prize next
to Egilka. Then he stepped into the cubicle and placed the visor
over his eyes once again.
Humming the tune the Isetacian on
Dantovon had hypnotized him with, Clajak ordered the pod to
jettison. He gave himself a one minute delay to fully prepare for
escape.
Ru’imbu stalked onto the Adraf
freighter’s bridge with six of his Tragoom slaves. Devoid of its
cubicles with their podiums and vid screens, the room was dark and
featureless.
Get me some light in
here
, he ordered one of the
Tragooms.
The portable flood the slave turned on
showed the bridge wasn’t empty after all. The tall black-haired
Kalquorian lay unconscious on the floor. His chest rose and fell,
indicating he was still alive. He’d soon rue that, Ru’imbu thought
with no small satisfaction. The Bi’isil’s tiny slit of a mouth
would have twisted up in a rare smile if it had been
capable.
He had both Kalquorians in his
possession now. The last lifepod to launch from the freighter had
shown a Kalquorian lifeform on board. Ru’imbu had plucked it out of
space before docking the hunter-killer with the freighter. He’d
placed it into stasis the moment it entered his ship’s
bay.
Ru’imbu had decided to secure the
second Kalquorian still on board the Adraf ship before checking on
his first prisoner. From the bruising on this new slave’s temple,
he’d fought with the Crown Prince over the final
lifepod.
The would-be Prince
Egilka
, the Bi’isil thought with
triumph.
He will make a fine house slave
for as long as he doesn’t make any mistakes.
Yet the real prize was in stasis and on
board Ru’imbu’s ship. When the Bi’isil thought of the many
demeaning torments and pain he could put that big steel-haired
beast through, he filled with pleasure. Crown Prince Clajak would
scream for a long time for his crimes against a prince of
Bi’is.
Ru’imbu shook with soundless laughter,
but his glee transmitted to the slaves. The Tragooms, four times
the Bi’isil’s size, cringed. That made him happier.
He pulled a flexible slave collar from
one Tragoom’s pouch. Still shaking with mirth, he approached the
senseless Egilka.
Two steps away from the unconscious
Kalquorian, Ru’imbu’s feet froze. It took him a moment to register
he could no longer move. He tried to jerk free, but the air held
him motionless. A chill of momentary fear rippled through his
body.
His large liquid jet eyes
took in the nearby Tragooms.
I have been
trapped in a localized stasis field. Find some way to free
me.
The smelly beasts rolled their tiny
eyes at him but remained in place. Frightened squeals rent the air.
Ru’imbu realized they had been caught too.
The Crown Prince had set a trap before
escaping the ship. That he’d been outsmarted by a spacehead of a
Kalquorian infuriated Ru’imbu. How dare that lower being defy him
in such a way!
Meanwhile, the Tragooms continued to
squall. The cacophony coupled with rage made Ru’imbu’s head ache.
He couldn’t think past the chaos.
Silence, you disgusting
idiots! Quiet and let me figure this out! Shut up or when I get
free of this, I’ll—
Ru’imbu’s frustrated commands stopped
as one of the doors to the bridge opened and a figure stepped into
the room to face him. The smug face of Dramok Clajak, Crown Prince
of Kalquor, sneered down at Ru’imbu.
The Bi’isil’s fury was swallowed in a
feeling he wasn’t used to – fear. He stared disbelieving at the man
he’d thought was double contained in stasis and a
lifepod.
How? The readings say there
is a Kalquorian in that pod we captured!
The hateful creature who had insulted
him in so many ways laughed. “There is a Kalquorian in there.
However, he is not alive. He never did live. He’s a clone, Prince
Ru’imbu. You caught my clone. And now I have caught
you.”
Clajak’s smile turned ugly. His fangs
descended. Ru’imbu stopped breathing. In the right quantities,
Kalquorian venom was toxic to Bi’isils.
What are you going to do to
me?
Clajak’s face grew darker as he glanced
at the unconscious Imdiko laying in a heap on the floor. His brutal
smile twisted into sheer savagery. “Ah, now there’s a question. I
don’t think you’re going to like the answer.”
Clajak stalked towards Ru’imbu, who
could only watch the snarling behemoth come for him.
* * * *
Egilka woke to the heart pounding sight
of Clajak’s face hovering over his. The prince’s smile made things
below the belt jerk. Egilka’s arms began to rise, readying to grab
the prince and pull him down for a kiss.
Then he noticed the rancid stink. It
wasn’t overpowering, but it was bad enough to quell ideas of
romance. Egilka’s nose wrinkled. “What smells like
shit?”
“Dead Tragooms.” Clajak made a face of
his own. “I shoved them out into space, so hopefully the stench
will dissipate.”
At the word ‘Tragooms’, Egilka sat up
fast, shoving Clajak back to keep their heads from colliding. He
looked around, but there was no sign of the foul
creatures.
The one lifepod that the Adrafs had
left them was missing as well. He and Clajak were alone on the
freighter’s empty bridge.
Slowly putting the pieces together,
Egilka glared at Clajak. “Did you sedate me?”
“Um, actually I knocked you out.”
Clajak made a fist to demonstrate. “Sorry about that.”
“You punched me? Are you insane?” the
Imdiko yelled.
“Just hard enough to put you under.
Does it hurt? You shouldn’t be in pain.” Clajak showed him the pain
inhibitor inhaler and a medical scanner. “The scan I ran shows I
did no real damage. You’re just bruised. Are you dizzy? Faint? Do
you feel all right?”