Page 27 of The Commander
Every human heartbeat went into overdrive as the delicate six legs of a showy bird class shuttle touched down in the middle of the old road. To them, it looked like a spider, minus a couple legs. To him, it mimicked the beauty of a sacred Sarrian avian, down to the four sets of shimmering landing wings.
At home, this type of transport perched on the balconies and rooftops of the wealthiest of houses. Made specifically for the feminine elite so they didn’t have to muck about with the lower classes, it didn’t belong on Earth. Fitting it with an overconfident set of battle-class antimatter guns and a decent shield system had not turned the fancy thing into a weapon.
Only one person would use it. The doors opened, and twelve perfectly brushed and uniformed red hats marched out in three rows, their noses twitching.
Behind them, the crimson and purple robes of the self-proclaimed goddess’s daughter. This preening, self-absorbed woman was responsible for thousands of deaths. He didn’t see her bodyguard, though she wouldn’t travel unprotected. He was here.
Somewhere. Waiting for her call. Bastian could smell the battler’s oiled skin.
“Do you have a spark yet, Kitten?” Bastian asked without looking behind him.
“I’m not sure these ones work,” she called back.
“Cara, what’s going on? Are you going to help me? What are you doing?” Brenda yelled out from Andy’s side. The other humans said nothing.
Bastian ignored that female. He’d kill her just to silence her if he didn’t think it would bother his mate.
“Keep trying. Be ready. Get the spark. Connect the margin cell, then get in the truck,” Bastian instructed. Kitten was his weakness and therefore would be his people’s target. His muscles twitched with a need to get her to safety.
Instead, he walked to the back of the truck and opened his arms wide, drawing the newcomers’ attention to himself.
“To what do we owe this honor, holy one? Why do you grace these pigs with the sight of your brilliance?” His voice boomed, making the humans watching shuffle in discomfort. None of them knew what to do.
“We wished to see this situation for ourselves.” Debtrocid Nectuis Eld slid forward as if riding the waves of a babbling brook, her hover plate tuned to make gentle liquid sounds.
Four house badges followed her. Three of them were stunted battlers, house males without balls or their full potential. Clip board toting butt pimples. They met Bastian in height but not build, with exoskeletons as easily crushable as human bones.
The fourth was a short Sarrian gray-skin, his brain implant doubling the size of his little cement-colored head. Connected to the ship in space, Eld could order the gray-skin to shoot a blast of power that would crater where Bastian and Kitten stood.
“There is no situation here. What are you talking about? Things are fine and dandy here. Copesetic. It is a marvelous day,” Bastian announced, loud and rude.
“Copesetic? Such strange words.”
“The product of too much television, I’m afraid.” Bastian bowed to her.
She didn’t flinch, but the putrid meat scent of old hate rolled off her in waves, all towards him. He’d thwarted many of her plans. Her presence felt like confirmation of all his suspicions. She’d used his own men against him, manipulating from her throne in space all along. “This situation is unstable. The taxes are threatened. You are being recalled. You and your mate.”
“Who told you the situation was unstable?”
“I will not litigate the case against a Sarrian Commander in front of them.” She pointed in the general direction of the humans.
He didn’t know why not. She was conveniently speaking a language he knew they all understood. “I should be told what evidence has been collected against me, Arch Prima. Does it have anything to do with this?” He grabbed the lost name day blade from the back of the truck and threw it between the grunts towards her feet.
The grunts scattered, lifting weapons at him. The three badges drew theirs as well. “He was one of your house battlers, a relative maybe?” Bastian asked pointedly.
“That tiresome animal.” Her gaze shifted down to the blade and away with a sneer on her lips.
“He didn’t go back to the breeding maze when you told him to, eh?”
“We do not understand why all of you have not learned to stay in your proper place.” The sun caught the light of her silver, clawed fingernails when she jabbed a pointed finger at him, admitting nothing and everything at the same time.
Given the current political climate, a priestess who lost control of her own household risked losing her position as prima. There was a good chance the blade’s missing owner came from her house. Bastian would bet that she’d tried to cover it up rather than provoke negative attention and hunt the rogue prime battler and his new mate down.
“You don’t understand, do you, Eld? That’s because you never were very smart.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kitten bend over the power cells.
“You will come with us. You have failed in your post. Failed as Commander. It is time to return to the ship with your mate. We’re so eager to meet her and find a place in our house for her.”
Bastian sensed a prime approaching on his far right at the same time six of the red hats split toward his mate, circling but not closing in.
“Don’t touch my pet,” he warned. It would be the only warning anyone would get.
Anything, anyone that got near her would die.
“She is your blessed mate,” the priestess corrected.
“She’s mine,” he snapped his teeth at Eld. How dare she assume he didn’t value his Kitten?
“You’ve learned nothing. We shall return to the ship, and we shall make it our personal mission to teach you your place.” Her hover disc lifted off the ground as she pointed at him.
“I think I got it, Bastian!” Kitten’s shout sounded like triumph.
There was a soft snick in his head. A click that shouldn’t be there. Behind him, he heard the grunts in the mayor’s building bark. They heard it too.
The humans moved as one, turning to gawk at the reds behind them, sandwiched between alien threats. Whining on the ground next to the two dead men, Brenda tried to climb up the platform to get closer to her people. “Mayor Danov. What’s happening?”
Humans had fed the grunts small amounts of their blood—making friends with them—using them to cow the town. Turning them into full-fledged blood addicts. As the electrical tracking and download chips in Bastian’s head went dead, the same devices deactivated in the grunts. All of them instantly free of their leash in the invisible burst of an EMP pulse.
“Reds! What are you doing?” the priestess asked imperiously.
The engineer next to her tilted his head, his big eyes narrowing. Uncertain if the EMP pulse disconnected the gray-skin, Bastian fired his weapon before leaping to protect Kitten. The male turned to dust in a swirling cloud next to the priestess.
“How dare you!” Eld screamed as dust stained her robes.
The soft bone badges circled, trying to draw her back toward the shuttle. Her red hat guard hesitated. Their head chips had burst by the EMP pulse along with all the others.
Bastian stole a sniff of Kitten’s head as he shoved her into the truck. That scent reminded him of how fucking precious she was. Worth his life. Worth everything.
She shouted his name as he got her in but didn’t fight him this time.
On the platform, the humans screamed, red hats succumbing to the frenzy. Claws raked across the soft meat of throat and gut. Copper and salt saturated the air. Bastian wanted to open his lower chin and allow his proboscis to suck in the chaos.
One of the priestess’s domesticated badges shouted about detaining the target.
Another demanded they protect the priestess. Seconds ticked by as her reds ignored orders. Heads raised, as one, they inhaled the scent of human blood like a meal prepared for them by their brothers.
When one lowered its head and relaxed its shoulders, leaning in the direction of the platform, it acted as a signal. The others melted under the pressure of the frenzy. Breaking ranks, they attacked.
Kitten was in the truck. A grunt rushed Bastian while he shoved the margin cell inside the black case—not something he could afford to leave behind—and swept it into the back of the truck.
Reaching for a hairy, bearded throat, he slammed it against the truck as he had slammed Mackie, not holding back. Once. Twice. Three times before he felt bones crumble under his hand, and he could toss the carcass away.
Three uniformed backsides had noticed the open driver’s side door and jammed together trying to get to Kitten. She fought them, screaming her defiance. Yanking one out, blood sprayed across Bastian’s face.
Quickly, he grasped the other two, their belts as a handhold. When they didn’t budge with the first pull, he changed tactics. Hands thrust forward, the extra joint at the ends of his long fingers acted as claws. He punched through flesh, grabbing at spinal cords for his handholds.
One had Kitten’s arm in its grasp. It finally let go as its strength disappeared. He heard her get free with a thump against the door. Shoving himself inside, closing them in, he activated the truck and backed out.
The shuttle sat behind him, blocking a direct exit. The priestess trapped outside between her own frenzied red hats, hovering as high off the ground as possible. The prime battler guard she’d brought to save her stood off to the side, a curious expression on his face as if he’d decided to wait out the results of the carnage.
Gathering as much force as he could, Bastian rammed into two of the legs of the shuttle. As the legs of a device were not meant for hard work, they crumpled inward at a lower joint. It was enough. Turning the truck, he drove them out of the town.