Page 51 of Wrath

Although I didn’t like shooting females, I felt an almost malicious glee at firing on this one. The shot from my blaster, set to maximum damage, hit its mark right at the elbow of her cybernetic arm. Marcelle cried out in pain, her good hand flying to her upper arm as she stared in horror and disbelief at the mangled cybernetics dangling at an odd angle beneath the burnt skin around the wound. A slight foam formed around it as her flesh tried to grow back. But it fizzled and vanished.

“You’ve lost,” I said, my blaster trained on her while Dread landed. As I slowly advanced towards her, I waved a hand behind me in the general direction of the dying Jadozors. “These two are history. Three of your pets outside got spanked, and the two left aren’t going to last long.”

She shook her head in denial, slowly backing away as she stared at the creatures. Anger, fear, and confusion struggled for dominance on her features.

“It can’t be. They can’t die.Wecan never die. What did you do? What did you do?” she hissed.

Before I could answer, she blinked and shook her head like one did when their eyes were playing tricks on them. But her cybernetic eyes weren’t the issue. Her pretty face paled, and she suddenly looked nauseous.

“What did you do to me?” she whispered as blood began to trickle from her nose.

The virus!

“What didyoudo to yourself?” I asked, unable to silence the sliver of pity that rose inside of me.

Marcelle suddenly doubled over with a hacking sound. She slapped her hand on the doorframe to hold herself up. Spasms wracked her body, and the exposed flesh around the wound of her arm began to turn to ash.

“No… No…” she whispered, stumbling out in the hallway and supporting herself on the walls in a futile attempt to run away.

Although she had brought this on herself, it still saddened me to see her come to such an end. The virus wouldn’t have harmed Marcelle had her body not been suffused with zogesterone. Dread and I exchanged a look before following in her wake. In that instant, I wished we’d had Varnog with us. I didn’t know what else he might have read from her mind, considering how much she had blocked him the first time around. But we needed answers that she would soon no longer be able to give.

Marcelle made it as far as the main hallway before she collapsed onto the floor. A couple of minutes later, her remains began caving in on themselves, leaving a pile of ashen dust around her cybernetic implants. Without the reinforced scales of the Jadozors and the fact that she still breathed accelerated the human female’s demise.

“Osanu, the danger has passed. Unlock all the rooms on the vessel and reinstate life support,”I telepathically said to the Lenusian female.“Do not attempt to flee.”

“All right. Thank you, Warrior,”Osanu replied, her relief almost palpable through our link.

Dread and I did a quick survey of the ship, finding the mostly eaten corpses of two human males and one Tegorian. The Tegorian named Pallax was still alive. Once the vessel was secured, we called Varnog and Linette over to the Nomad. While waiting for them to arrive, we returned to our normal form and put our suits back on before taking Osanu and Pallax to one of the Nomad’s boardrooms. Myriam set up a vidcom which connected to the giant screen in the room so that she and the other two women aboard our vessel could see what would happen.

A smile stretched my lips as the delicate tingle of my mate’s consciousness brushed against mine. I sent her a psychic caress in response, impatient for this entire mess to be done so that I could get back to her.

When Linette and Varnog arrived at last, I directed her to take the helm of the Nomad while Kwan piloted the Defiance and to set a course for home. The Vanguard patrol that was scheduled to rendezvous with us in a couple of days as backup would take over the handling of the prisoners and their vessel.

The Tegorian sat a couple of seats over from Osanu on the opposite side from us at the massive table. Unlike the Defiance, which was a Vanguard vessel, the Nomad’s walls and furniture boasted mostly shades of white, light beige or grey. In this instance, off-white chairs surrounded the dark brown table in the rectangular room. Despite being in a highly comfortable chair, Pallax fidgeted, a haunted look in his lupine eyes. This recent event had severely traumatized him. I suspected he would keep permanent scars from this.

Osanu seemed oddly calm, although her features were drawn, and an air of sad resignation lingered on her face. She clasped her hands on the table, the white scales on her arms contrasting greatly with the dark grain of the furniture.

I settled in a chair across from them, Dread sitting beside me. But Varnog chose to remain standing by the wall next to us.

“As you can guess, we’re here for the both of you to tell us everything that happened, from the moment you took off on Narjin to the mess we just went through,” I said to Osanu and Pallax. “Considering your prior escape, which has almost cost my crew its life, you have forfeited the right to your mental privacy. Varnogwillread you and all your responses. Do not make your situation worse than it already is by lying or trying to deceive us.”

“We won’t,” Osanu said in a small voice. “Just so you know, we had no idea Marcelle had rigged the base. We knew what we were doing was questionable, but we were following our Division Leader’s orders to report to Marcelle and complete the mission.”

“Which was?” I insisted.

“To recover as much Kryptid research, samples, and technology as possible,” she said.

“Why?” Dread asked.

Osanu shifted on her seat. “They gave everyone who joined the rebellion a different reason?”

“Rebellion?” I asked.

The Lenusian pursed her thin, scaly lips, carefully choosing her words. “It’s not really the right word,” she amended. “A year ago, when the Vanguard allied with the Kryptid Workers to defeat General Khutu, we all knew they would either betray us, or things would radically change if the war did end. So, people began talking and making plans.”

She rubbed the scales along her jaw and cast a nervous look at Varnog. The Scelk tilted his head, but his face otherwise remained stoic as he continued to observe her. However, the psychic energy swirling around him confirmed he was reading her mind.

“Some were planning what they would do since they had nothing to go back home to,” Osanu continued. “Others weren’t okay with us lying in bed with the bugs after all the pain they had inflicted and were determined to make them pay. And then, there were those like me who worried about old conflicts resuming once the Coalition broke up. The hostilities between my people and the Straengi halted because of General Khutu. The Kryptid War ended not even two months ago, yet the Straengi are already knocking at our doors. The ‘rebels’ were offering us the means to protect ourselves.”

---