Page 13

Jaz

Yani and I spent the next two hours trying to figure out why Tazier Drakes were taking three members of the Raptor Clan to the Nirzks.

My friend kept examining me as though she was trying to read my mind. Which she likely was. I kinda wished she could, because maybe then she could enlighten me on a few crucial details.

Like why my green-eyed Drake was hanging from chains in my storage bay.

My Drake? See, this was why I needed her to read my mind. Where the hell had that come from?

They were the enemy. Who I need to run from .

After Sookie returned, we sent her out a second time so we could get more pictures. But none of them explained anything. They only confirmed what we’d already seen.

“If the Nirzks are really the Drakes’ nemesis, why are they delivering these three to them?” I wondered aloud.

Yani shook her head. “I’ve no idea. The two species hate each other. The virus that decimated the Drake females was reputed to be a Nirzk weapon. They’ve been enemies for generations. ”

“It was a virus that decimated the Drake females?” My eyes widened.

Her mouth straightened. “It happened a generation ago. They have very few of them left.”

“So why are Drakes taking their own to the Nirzks?”

Yani tugged her sweater a little closer around her.

“Much like the Drakes, the Nirzks conquer worlds whose resources might be useful to them. Only they enslave the populations they oversee. Humans might think they got a raw deal with the Earth occupation, but compared to what the Nirzks do, it is nothing.” She sighed.

“I do, however, have to wonder just how “official” this trip is, considering they are using us to transport them.”

I saw her point. If this was clan sanctioned, why wouldn’t they be using their own modern, sleek vessels for this project?

But if there was something underhanded going on—I traded looks with her. “They may not want witnesses to this.”

Her grim expression revealed that she was thinking along the same lines. “They don’t know we know what they are shipping, but we will know where they took it.”

“They didn’t give us the destination until we were in orbit.” I bit my lip.

“Exactly. They were reducing any possibility of that information getting out.” She sighed. “I think jumping ship in Givnia just became a survival strategy for an entirely different reason.”

I swallowed. We’d be hours in slipstream transit. And from where it spat us out, we were still a long flight from Givnia.

“We have some time to figure it out.” Yani’s voice remained calm, but her tail curled around her legs, something that indicated how nervous about this she really was.

I looked down at the pics. “Who are these guys?” It was almost a wail from my very soul. “They are Raptors, but why go to all this trouble to give them to the Nirzks?”

Yani shot me a look as she pulled one of the photos over to examine. “Look at the similarities in their features. Raptor Clan is known for having triplets—I’m betting they are brothers. Those ties remain strong into adulthood.”

Brothers. My heart twisted.

Yani pulled her hat a little lower over her ears and sighed. “I’d better get Sookie fed. I’ll be back after I’ve run the pre-slipstream check.”

After she left, I took the listening device out of its piano music jail and set it on the table. I’d let it listen to me breathe for a bit.

And maybe fart, if I could manage it.

As I lay back down on the bed, I realized I wasn’t quite as dizzy. I didn’t know whether I was recovering from the serum, or if the conundrum was helping to clear my head. Either way, being able to finally think was welcome.

If not exactly useful.

Yani had left me her datapad, and I thumbed through the images.

My gut twisted into a painful knot. It might be the same Drakes, but they’d gone through a lot since that meeting in the alley.

No Birkenstocks now. They’d been stripped naked, and all three were bruised and bloody.

The big Birkenstock guy had so many tatts that there was almost no bare skin showing, but great gashes had been torn straight through the art.

Yani had said the parallel slashes were dragon talon marks.

They were everywhere. Even though the Drakes were a mess, there was no disguising that there was a whole lot of gorgeous male hanging in that cage.

I hadn’t realized how similar to human they were in certain physical aspects—only— holy wowsers !

Did those really fit… my mind staggered, as much appalled as fascinated.

Rather too fascinated.

I blushed, feeling voyeuristic. Every time I ripped my eyes away, they gravitated right back again.

Despite differences in their hair color, their handsome features were remarkably alike. Brothers, Yani had said.

Three brothers .

My heart was doing odd gymnastics as I peered closer.

They’d been hung up like animals awaiting the slaughter.

The images contorted something deep inside me.

Why was I so bothered by chained Drakes hanging in a cage?

I didn’t know them. Didn’t want to. They were Drakes, and they’d shot a tracker into my butt.

Despite my resolve, their state did bother me. A lot.

I wanted to do something about it.

Which was totally crazy. I needed to be planning my own escape, which was rife with difficulty. Givnia was not a promising destination. Trying to escape into an enslaved city may not even be possible. We could be leaping out of the frying pan, into the fire.

The thought of jumping ship bothered me from another perspective—the Stardrifter was my home. Leaving it at all would be difficult.

What was the alternative? To fly off in the ship, we’d have to eliminate the Drakes. Kurt would never agree to help us. It would be Yani and me against four seasoned and lethal warriors. Four that we knew of, anyway. Who knows how many might actually be on board.

Wouldn’t like to calculate the odds on dealing with them.

We’d be lucky just to die. We had phasers on the ship, but there was a reason we were allowed those weapons—when they had their scales, Drakes just shrugged them off.

Unless you managed a lucky head shot. We were not permitted to carry anything more lethal.

I stared again at the images. The sheer amount of metal binding them was testament to one thing—fear. Fear of what would happen, if they got loose. Despite the injuries, and the cage. And the fact they had multiple Drakes guarding them.

Whoever these guys were, they were considered formidable.

I lay back on the bed, stared at the ceiling, and let my mind run wild.

Which did me precisely no good until Yani returned… and helped me pull it all together.

My pulse pounded as I lined Stardrifter up within the slipstream portal and hit the engage sequence.

Usually, Drake transports were given priority among the ships waiting for the portal closest to Earth, but our resident overlords didn’t insist on any kind of special attention.

Yani and I exchanged a look as I entered the destination coordinates.

Our passengers clearly didn’t wish to draw attention to themselves.

Looking through the windows, I scanned the ships.

A scattering of those about the same size as Stardrifter , and a few a little larger amid three mammoth freighters similar to Stonehenge.

All were no doubt loaded with resources stripped from Earth.

And then there were the slipstream transports, which were loaded with smaller ships that lacked their own drives.

Fortunately, we only waited a couple of hours for our chance to be hurled many lightyears away from Earth’s solar system. I spent the entire time on pins and needles. It helped that the Drakes didn’t appear on the bridge, but stayed down in the aft storage bay.

I didn’t want to know what they were doing in there. I thought of the talon marks on the captive Drakes, and my stomach churned.

From deep within the ship, the slipstream drive rumbled, and then growled. The stars and planets around us blurred and became lines, before vanishing altogether.

I took a deep breath. Hours from now, the portal would spit us out at our destination solar system. We had until then to enact our plan.

Yani said nothing as we stood and left the bridge. I wouldn’t need to pilot the Stardrifter until we were nearing the end of the portal. Which was good, because I had other things to be doing.

We headed for my quarters. On the way, we passed Kurt, who leaned against the wall. He grabbed his crotch. “Going to be a boring slipstream ride.”

“Hope you brought a long book,” I returned as we sailed past. “With lots of pictures.”

I sensed the hostility in his glare as we vanished into my quarters, and was glad Yani was with me. Kurt had never gone past rude comments and the occasional arm grab, but I didn’t doubt his inclination to cross the line, either.

I put the listening device back into piano music purgatory, and we sat down at my table. Pulling out a board game, I scattered the pieces around us as though we were playing.

Then we heard it.

Echoing through the air duct. Thuds, as if flesh were being impacted. And snarling.

I hadn’t noticed anything from the bridge. I guessed it was just far enough away not to carry. My stomach twisted at what it meant.

“Drakes are tough. And the Taziers haven’t gone to all this trouble to kill them now,” Yani told me. Her eyes reflected her own dismay. But she wasn’t wrong.

I tried not to imagine all the nasty ways in which they couldn’t be killed. And then I reminded myself that these were Drakes, and responsible for all kinds of human suffering, so why was I even worried about them?

But I was.

Forty minutes later, I was beginning to think it would be better to witness what was going on, rather than having my imagination supply the details.

“It won’t be long, now,” Yani added.