Page 32 of Relyn (Warriors of Etlon #6)

Grom went off on his new mission, and Relyn took the vial of liquid that Grom had given him. He opened it and poured it out into his hand. There was that familiar tingle as his form absorbed it, learned it and put it into his permanent memory.

Relyn focused for a moment and transformed into Captain Rutra. The kid had come through. Now it was time to cause even more chaos, especially if Rutra was down for the count.

Captain Relyn Rutra changed his clothes to something that was much more Rutra’s style and size and then exited his cabin.

He turned the first corner and nearly collided with Ketle.

Of course, Ketle, hearing that Rel was drunk, wanted to take advantage of that sloppiness and get some revenge.

Ketle pulled up short when he nearly ran into the captain.

“Ketle, you are just the person I’m looking for,” Relyn said.

“I am?”

“Rel vouched for you. He said you were the only one who couldn’t possibly be the traitor.”

“He did?”

“You’ve got a lot to thank him for.”

“I do?”

Relyn forced himself to keep still and not roll his eyes.

“I want you to do something for me. I want you to round up a few people, and bring them to the aft cargo room.” Relyn named off five random crew members.

The aft cargo room was on the opposite side of the ship as the hangar, which is where Relyn needed the least amount of people.

“Right,” Ketle said, and then stood there as if waiting for more orders.

“Now?”

Ketle lumbered off and Relyn headed back to the crew lounge.

It was empty, which was a good sign. It meant that the crew were now scrambling, plotting or laying low.

Relyn proceeded to Rutra’s quarters and punched in the code.

If there was some sort of DNA lock on it that Relyn hadn’t anticipated, it would be fooled by his form.

Relyn didn’t linger. He went straight to the crate and circled around it, checking for any obvious traps. Finding none, he activated the hover lift and punched in the command code that Rutra seemed to use for everything.

It wasn’t until he was nearly out the door with the crate that he noticed Rutra, standing stock still in the middle of the suite with a bottle in his hand.

“You’re drunk. Go to bed,” Relyn said using Rutra’s mouth. Rutra staggered a bit and then headed in the general direction of the sofa without another word. Hopefully he’d take that as a vague drunken delusion when he woke up and found the crate gone.

He made it to the hangar without delay, but found a group of crew members staring at the Adrastian ship, and apparently arguing amongst themselves.

“What the hell is going on here?” Relyn said loudly.

They all jumped and swiveled around.

“Nothing, Captain,” Xeron stated. “We were just doing some maintenance.”

“Right,” Relyn said. “Where’s Ketle?”

“He’s uh, I’m not sure. You want us to go find him?”

“Yes. Find him and bring him here.”

Xeron and Thred took off together, but the other three crew stood still.

“What are you waiting for? Or are you looking to steal from my nephew? Because you know what I like to do with thieves.”

Those words sent the three in different directions quickly enough. Relyn sent the crate into the hatch tunnel and once out of sight of any prying eyes, formed back into himself.

Bright was there at the other end to pull the crate into the ship and secure it. Relyn closed the hatch door and released the tunnel. Bright let momentum float them away and then the pair headed to the cockpit.

“That was easy,” Relyn said. Too easy, in his opinion, but hopefully they’d caused enough conflict and confusion to give them a head start on any response by Rutra.

Relyn watched Bright key in the coordinates to Alana’s rendezvous.

He’d come back and check later to make sure they were still going in the right direction, but first priority was to inspect the crate before they got too far away to make sure that Rutra hadn’t messed with it and then found a way to reforge the seal.

Relyn also didn’t want to deliver Alana anything that was going to be too dangerous. If it was, once Nora was safe, they’d have to go about getting it back.

He headed back to the cargo hold with Bright close on his heels. Wendy and Grom appeared as well.

“You did a good job, Grom,” Relyn said. “You were right. Rutra was drunk off his ass and didn’t notice a thing. He might have some trouble with his crew when he wakes up, but he seems to be able to handle himself.”

Grom seemed to enjoy the praise. Relyn scanned the crate, examining the seal code in great detail. As far as he could tell, it remained the same, and had yet to be opened.

“It might have a tamper proof mechanism,” Bright warned.

“I know. I’m just going to give it one more scan, and I think…

” Relyn said as he ran his fingers over the panel.

Very cautiously he focused and forced some of his essence into the thin crack of the case.

Inside, he explored around, and found the wires that powered it.

With a deft twist, he dislocated them and the box hissed its release clamps.

He pulled back his hand, incorporating himself back into form and opened the crate.

The front of it slid back into the adjoining sides, revealing three tall black cylinders.

“How’d you do that?” Bright asked.

“Talent,” he said, continuing to inspect the contents. They were cryostasis chambers that Relyn recognized as a Suhlik design. He ran his com over the control panel of the closest one.

“They are too small to contain people,” Bright said.

“What are they?” Wendy asked, peering around Bright.

“They are stasis pods, or storage. They can hold people or living tissue or specimens indefinitely. There is some loss, and coming out of stasis is a bitch but the Suhlik never worried much about the comfort of their experiments,” Bright said.

“I was crammed into something like this, and when I woke up, my planet and everything I had known was dead and lost.”

Relyn read the contents of the cylinders and then had to reread it again. Alana’s desire for it began to make sense.

“It’s Etlonian,” Relyn said. “At least this one is.” He scanned the second one.

Bright reached in and did her own scan. Her eyes got wider as she read, her face more intense.

“You said it was too small for a person. Is it a child?” Wendy asked.

“No,” Bright said. “It’s thousands of children. Embryos. Unaltered Etlonian embryos.” She was practically whispering. “With this we could bring back Etlon. The real Etlon.”

Relyn’s second scan revealed not just embryos, but sperm. He suspected the third would be eggs. “Somehow Alana got the leftovers from the Suhlik experiments.”

“What the hell is she going to do with them? It’s not like she can have a million babies herself,” Wendy said.

“I don’t think she’s thought that far ahead,” Bright said. “She’s got it, and she has enough resources to start a breeding program full of compatible women that she’s purchased through the right channels. That’s what all the women have been for.”

“You mean slaves? Breeding slaves?” Wendy said.

“We can’t let her have this,” Bright said. Relyn agreed. It was a precious resource that had to be carefully and wisely used to bring them back from the edge of extinction. It could not be given to a woman who would traitorously deal with Suhlik to get what she wanted. Relyn paused for a moment.

“Alana made the deal to get this from the Suhlik. She endangered many lives to do so, but this prize, this prize,” Relyn faltered.

“Honestly, if I had known, there would have been lines that I would have crossed too,” Bright said.

“We can’t give this to Alana,” Relyn said, knowing what that might mean for Nora. If they switched the package out, Alana was just spiteful enough to kill her and burn everything to the ground to get what she wanted.

Bright turned and went back to the cockpit. Relyn followed her, trying to tell himself it wasn’t from a lack of trust. She was opening up a com line.

“You should be out of com range by now,” a female voice came on the line.

“Jane,” Bright said in reply, “I must speak with Athen or Kave.”

“Athen is still on Etlon, but Kave is right here.”

“Kave is curious as to why Wendy is not out of com range. Bright promised to get her to Terra with all speed,” a male voice said. “I do not like to disappoint my mate.”

Bright sighed. “Something more important has come up.”

“More important than my mate’s happiness?”

Relyn rolled his eyes and sat down in the copilot chair.

“I am Relyn, son of Caldar,” he began. “My mate has been taken and is being held captive by Alana, an Etlonian female, in exchange for a crate of the most precious value.”

“Bright,” Jane said. “What did you do? You were supposed to go directly to Terra.”

“She did not,” Relyn interjected with enough side eye to Bright that they could probably hear it over the com.

“She boarded a ship looking for Alana, and in order to leave she made a deal with the captain to locate Alana, and then return with news. However, Alana waylaid us again and is now holding Nora hostage in return for the cargo that had been stolen from her.”

“Nora? When did Nora come into this? You’re telling me Nora is being held hostage with your mate?” Jane asked.

“Nora is his mate,” Bright said.

There was a collective “ohhh,” from the other end of the line.

“Kave, there are three Suhlik cryocylinders here with enough Etlonian genetic material to restart the entire species. They must be protected,” Bright said. This time there was silence. “We cannot let Alana have it.”

“What do you need us to do?”