Page 106 of Bred by the Alien Prince

"Will do. Now I must hurry before Deuro discovers I'm gone, I kept him busy with some puzzle. A word of advice." he said before leaving. "The child should be handed over to the hegemony. He's mentioned some disturbing things concerning Caspian and the child, he believes in the primitive folktales of the Lucani."

"That whole cutting my baby out and it giving them powers?" I shuddered.

Zai nodded. "I tried to steer his head from that but I don't know how successful I've been."

"Noted," Lorvian said, his eyes darkened for a moment.

Connor approached from the back, his footsteps just about audible. "Welcome aboard. Cormac is awake and has been asking to see you."

"Good. He owes me for saving his ass." Lorvian said leading the way down the hall.

We entered the medbay, and Cormac was sitting up; one leg's impression under the sheets emphasized the lack of a limb on the other. His lips were thin and crusted, and licking them didn't help much. He looked like he had seen hell.

"How are you feeling?" I asked.

"All you gotta do is look at my leg to get that answer," he replied without malice, sadder than anything. He prided himself on being able to get himself out of trouble. Now... depending on how this little mini-interrogation went, he might have jumped out of the frying pan and straight into the fire.

"It's time to hold up your end of our bargain," Lorvian showed no mercy in his approach. Maybe that was for the best, but I knew I couldn't bring myself to kick Cormac off the ship or kill him. We came here together, snuck onboard the Ignis damn near together, and survived the attack. He helped me escape that cell though Lorvian caught me, he helped me escape that brothel... yeah, we've done a lot together. And he was the only person from Earth who didn't hate me. Or stared at me and treated me differently because I looked like this.

"Right, I guess I'm getting kicked off after, huh?" He sighed.

"Spit it out, Cormac," Lorvian said with a groan.

"Well, most of this might be irrelevant to you, but it's the best place I know to begin. Caspian and I got here because a company called Outer Worlds discovered the planet the human colony is on and wanted us to colonize it. Well, my mother was the head of that company."

"What? Seriously? Was she at the colony? Or..." I was not expecting that piece of news.

"My mother was a good woman who loved space and dreamed of colonizing distant planets. The AI and Gen Ten made it easier for her to see that dream through. I know she's coming across as shady with everything that's happened, but it isn't like that at all."

"It sure as hell is looking kind of shady to send us here after possibly knowing what would happen to us."

"My mother is dead, Caspian," his voice cracked, causing him to breathe deep to maintain his composure. "Someone had killed her long before launch day." He looked at Lorvian. "I knew she was in some trouble. I found this out by snooping in her business when she came home acting funny. I'm talking some seriously classified shit."

"And this has to do with my brother?" Lorvian looked from me to him.

"Erevan, that name… I saw it in the reports, the ones I hacked before they caught me. That person was the one running the company, or my mother took orders from him or something. I don't know." He shook his head, defeated. "Seems like the higher-ups in our government knew about this. That bastard was going by the name Mr. Evans, and he had his hands in damn near everything before I had to get the fuck off the planet."

"So, he crashes to Earth four years ago and starts running a whole company? Holy shit," I exclaimed.

"We Valisians can be very resourceful," Lorvian smiled as if he was almost proud to hear this story. "Seems like he was trapped on your planet and placed himself in a position of power among you. That's what I would have done. Let me guess, he promised your higher-ups immortality." Lorvian chuckled. "It's been done before."

"I don't know what the hell he promised," Cormac shrugged. "I can't see my mother giving up her company for something like that."

"You wouldn't believe what low-life-span creatures will give up not to die." Lorvian shrugged. "Why did you have to run?"

"In my search for the person who killed my mother, I got a lead which made me too aggressive in my search. I did something stupid. Outer Worlds was an umbrella corporation supporting several hidden ones. One was a lab that the bastard frequented often. I snuck inside, and saw all types of freaky experiments going on, some of the subjects looked like Caspian, some sort of cross-species. There were two doctors I came across. They were in a fierce argument. They seemed terrified to be there; one even wanted to take his family and run off. Before I could hear more, I got caught and had to escape. They burned all my hideouts and killed everyone who helped me. I made a fake ID and ran off to Iowa to get to that colony. I knew I still needed money, so I made fake IDs for pay."

"All that stuff you said about being a smuggler!" I said in disbelief.

"It's true to an extent. I knew I needed my own ship to get out of any situation I encountered. But yeah, I was mostly hiding. But here's the thing. When the Ignis was attacked, and they captured and took me to that planet we were on..."

"Yeah, I remember."

"It was a moon named Qzai. My brother Regis had a camp there."

"Yeah, they were conducting the same experiments I saw in that lab on Earth. They took Caspian's blood while he was knocked out, and even though I couldn't understand jack shit, they looked happy with whatever they found."

"All this secrecy for creating hybrids?" Lorvian chuckled and shrugged. "If they were turning humans into hybrids, then what's the big deal? It makes sense we would try as humans are the first alien species we've come across to resemble us more." He ran his fingers through his blonde locks. "At least we have confirmation that my brother was the one on Earth. And for Regis to know as much as he does, then he and Erevan have been in communication. This means the Ignis belonged to Erevan, so why have Regis attack his own ship? Unless he didn't." Lorvian sighed.

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