Page 3 of Venomous Lust
But as her eyes went to the underbelly of the ship, there was no point of entry for her to see. Only gleaming metal, seamless and solid.
I can’t get in.
The Eoks were walking over the open grass now, looking around with their heads held high like dogs sniffing a trail. Panic invaded each of her cells. She had to find somewhere, anywhere to hide.
Then she turned to the containers. They were tall and square, big enough to climb into. She followed blind instinct as she lifted the heavy lid, then explored the contents with her hand. It was almost full, but she had enough space to lie flat on top of whatever dry, grainy cargo was stocked in there. With one last crazed look at the figures of the Eoks out on the grass, Hazel hoisted herself inside the container. Her breath came hard and hot as she concentrated, with a death grip on her fingers to allow it to close without making a sound.
Then she was entombed in darkness.
Time passed and the sounds of heavy boots on wet ground came and went. Muffled words spoken fast reached her ears, but Hazel couldn’t make sense of them. She was safe there, if only for a few moments.
Time passed without leaving any trace. She had no idea how long, only that her head became heavy, her limbs felt like they were filling with sand. As strange as it was, an overwhelming desire to sleep overcame her. It had been years since she had been truly safe, safe from Knut and his greed, safe from the rebels, safe from the Eoks and their rule of steel.
Safe from Bobbie.
Hazel’s eyelids grew heavier and heavier, and soon, she drifted off. Just before she abandoned herself to the darkness, she saw the look on Bobbie’s face just before it had all turned bad. His eyes full of a sick enjoyment as she screamed and cried. His mouth spewing insults as his fists connected with her flesh.
Never again.
* * *
Khal
Silence filled the empty control room with a thick dread as Khal waited for the image to appear on the screen in front of him. It had been three years. Three years since he had last seen the Mantrilla matriarch, three years since he took over from his brother Arlen after almost losing him to an attack launched on Aveyn by the former Trade Minister of the Ring, Knut.
It was never over. Knut will never give up his quest for power.
Finally, the large screen filling most of the back wall of the control room buzzed to life, first with a flashing sprinkling of black dots over white, then the image of Prime Councilor Aav appeared.
The Mantrilla matriarch was as imposing as ever with her deep, almost blue, green scales and all black, almond-shaped eyes over a triangular head. Mandibles clicked at her mouth and a long, clawed finger tapped the surface of a pristinely empty desk.
This creature was the most powerful in the entire Ring. Aav had clawed her way to the highest seat in the vast agglomeration of planets that constituted the civilized part of the universe, and had held on to it for decades. Now she had requested a meeting with him. A meeting he had been instructed to keep entirely secret.
“Commander Khal.” Her metallic voice, neutral and controlled, traveled through the immensity of space and reached him through the communication system.
“Prime Councilor Aav.”
Khal locked gazes with the Mantrilla for long seconds as the last time they had seen each other haunted the silence between them. His brother, Arlen, had been dying, his body broken, stretched out on a gurney, blood pouring out of a gaping wound at his side.
Prime Councilor Aav was as imposing as ever, but not quite the same. A patch of bare, raw skin showed on her abdomen, crisscrossed with bloody scratch marks, and her body hung slightly looser in her exo-skeletal frame. Something had been eating at her, gnawing at the edges of her mind and leeching into her body.
This alone made Khal wary. Wary and suspicious.
“I trust you followed my instructions precisely.” Her mandibles clicked and that grinding voice ended with a high-pitched, whining noise. “No one can know of this meeting.”
“My communications officers are off duty at night,” Khal confirmed, not bothering to hide his irritation. He might be the youngest Commander the Eok forces had ever seen, but he was no longer a careless youth. Arlen’s injuries and his successive retirement from active army duties had made sure of that. “You may speak freely.”
Aav’s mandibles clicked and her all-black eyes darted to each side of the room, assessing the veracity of his words. “Eoks and Mantrilla are old allies, Commander Khal.” Prime Councilor Aav inched closer to the camera, her tone getting lower and lower. “Our fate becomes your fate, should my nation fall.”
Khal stared as the dreadful quiet seeped into his mind. A chill trapped his spine as the words of the Mantrilla trickled down in his mind. “Please, speak plainly.”
“I have a mission for you. A mission that could send the entire Ring into anarchy and chaos if it becomes known. A mission that could cause billions of pointless deaths if you fail.”
A long clawed finger reached for a pristine green scale on her abdomen and scratched in an absent-minded gesture, hard enough to break it, revealing the rawness underneath. Khal’s eyes latched onto the ever-growing patch of broken scales as a terrible understanding made its way into his mind.
Prime Councilor Aav was afraid. She was afraid, and had been for a long, long time.
Khal swallowed. Because he knew. Somehow, he had always known. The threat whose name was enough to send warriors cowering into the night, to set worlds ablaze and civilizations into chaos. It was back.
