Page 13 of The First Omega Made (Scales and Tails of Fate #2)

Sarge

It didn’t make sense. For as long as I could remember, we weren’t supposed to infect a Naleucian. The very biology of them was said to be toxic to us… But that didn’t matter to Shafa, apparently.

It didn’t concern me that he’d not taken over a heart. That was the easiest target for a human, but we could nestle into pleural cavities, lungs, kidneys—you name it. Anything that had sufficient blood flow and access to the spinal cord. We weren’t picky.

“Merriel, can you give me access to Nirem and Raziel’s Naleucian history and anatomy files?” I took deep breaths and stilled myself.

“What for, man? Is it something bad? Like, I’ve got the heebie-jeebies over all this shit and I’m beginning to think Cap needs in on it.” It was nice to know Merriel’s loyalty was strong.

“I need to know how he’s infected a Naleucian and what I can do to make him go away.” I waited for the file tree to appear on a screen hovering before me and reluctantly, they did, fading in gray-scale to let me know they were locked.

“I’m giving you twenty-seven hours. Then I’m telling Noel and Cap. Sorry, dude, but I got a baby to protect, you know?”

“Honestly, that’s more than fair.” I sighed as the files unlocked, and I searched through them with tags like parasite and Colthraxian . Searching did nothing as I flipped through files, looking up Naleucian illnesses, and Merriel’s tentative voice spoke up.

“There’s a hidden file in here, man. It’s like, integrated into a photo. Want me to decrypt it?”

“Of course.” I waited as Merriel beeped and booped pointlessly and opened up an image of two regal-looking Naleucian males holding a pale and bright-eyed little hatchling—a baby Noel.

The first file was a small text document in an old word processor format.

I opened it, titled to our hatchling roughly in romanized character Naleucian.

Hatchling,

By the time you read this, we’ll have returned to Paradise.

And you’ve likely come to understand what you are.

Raziel and I were divided on the kinder thing to do, and he’s always given me what I wanted.

I wanted for you to live. You are a lifebringer and we couldn’t keep you hidden forever.

It was better we returned a failure. I hope you can understand, which is all I can ask of you as you owe us no love.

I filled the hole in my heart with you after our eggs were lost and left you behind.

I hope you grew up well. I wish you happiness and a large family.

Nirem

I frowned and burrowed through files filled with titles like truth .

And that truth? Paradise was dying. The war with the Colthraxians had left them stunted and few.

So many omegas had been lost—targeted by my kind.

Omegas were not some lesser thing as Raziel had made Noel think.

They were precious, protected, and so few.

And in Noel’s venom lay a key they wanted to harvest. Poison.

One that could kill a Colthraxian if injected into their flesh.

But the kicker was that the concentration was so low that until Noel was mated, he’d not produce enough to be effective.

Nirem and Raziel had toyed with mating him when he came of age and detested it.

Patrons were not supposed to donate genes.

They’d done so in hopes of eventually making a mate for Noel. And when they were certain that generation five had all the capabilities, they left, confident that Noel would return.

“Merriel, call Doc and Noel. Get an ampoule of his saliva. Load it in a syringe and explain everything.” I stood and straightened myself.

“On it, Sarge.” Merriel blipped out, and I centered myself. By the end of the day, I’d be dead or not welcome aboard the ship. Such was life—but it’d be worth it. Two less Colthraxians in the universe meant a lot.

Just in case, I continued reading and studying, hoping to find any more clues to how Shafa was inhabiting a Naleucian body. The fucking thing should have rejected him or spat him out like acid! But the way Nirem spoke of it in his documents, they were as susceptible as anyone.

Satisfied I’d done what I could, I pushed free of my room and wound the back way through the ship, determined to find Doc and Noel.

We had limited time, and I was thankful that most everyone that mattered was out scrounging valuables.

We’d be low on oxide tabs from all the trips after that, and Roan would be remiss if he wasn’t the first on our offers list to hawk anything.

I wound down the main hall and dipped into a maintenance hall that only a few of us had access to. It’d keep me out of scent and visual range of Shafa. His collar kept him on the other side of the ship, and he should have been out harvesting, but I wasn’t going to chance a thing.

As I got to the end of the hall, I typed in the code for the door and nothing happened. I typed again. Of all the times for Gorm to shirk his inspection duties! Or it was more malicious than that… “Merriel? Can you open this door for me?”

No response.

“Merriel?”

A spit of static had every hair on my body rising on end and my true form squirming beneath my skin. “Fuck.”

I retreated, exiting the maintenance hall with a brisk step.

No running. I couldn’t attract attention.

Thoughts of how I’d explain to Vil that I was a parasite that had taken over the body of one of his crewmates, but it was totally okay, the guy was a pervert!

Like, the bad kind, bad bad kind. That didn’t make it better.

I’d been lying to him for so long on top of the lies Serjio told.

He’d have to understand, and if he didn’t—a whimper caught my ear as I traversed the main corridor, drawing my gaze.

“Sarb!” Nexus’s little bleat made my skin go cold, and I ran for the noise.

“Coming, little buddy!” I knew it was a trap.

All logic said it was so, but if I let a single scale or hair on my captain’s child’s head suffer, I’d never forgive myself.

Before I knew it, I’d crossed the line to the crew’s side of the ship and down a supply hall, scrambling to a halt as I found Shafa on the floor, grinning, no little one in site.

“Like I’d be dumb enough to touch that walking deathtrap’s hatchling,” Shafa said, slowly standing to his full height as my human body pumped blood at an alarming rate through my weak, failing body. He grunted a laugh before tapping at a holoscreen, emitting a rather Nexus-like noise of distress.

“What the fuck?” My chest heaved as I stepped back.

“Why do you hide from me, Colthraxian? What has happened to our people?”

“The Leminiscate resolution…” I stepped back once more, head pounding. How I’d not sensed it on him… I was dumb. I’d trusted that there were so few of us. I’d—failed my crew, my family, the only person I’d ever really loved.

“The what?” He licked his lips and rolled his head, neck popping ominously. Drawing a single hand to his side, he bunched his fingers in a tight fist and relaxed them in a predatory gesture.

“All Colthraxians agreed to cease reproduction and to terminate at the end of our host’s cycle.” I’d violated that once already. I’d taken Serjio’s body… But I’d saved so many more lives. I’d done the morally correct thing, adhering to the spirit of the resolution.

“Coordinated extinction? Weak. It makes this so much easier to do, then.” He reached out to me with a lunge, large frame towering over me as his expansive hand wrapped around my neck and squeezed.

I thrashed and screamed, silencing when air ceased to enter my lungs.

“There’s plenty to infect here. And it suits me you do not wish to breed. I wouldn’t want to destroy this gorgeous vessel. It speeds up my plans, honestly.” Shafa made a guttural noise in his throat, like clearing it.

I’d seen it done before. I knew what he wanted to do.

I couldn’t stop what he wanted to do, only hinder him and pray to all creation that the measures I’d taken so long ago were effective. Even still.

Deprived of oxygen, my vision wavered, and I clawed at my chest, pawing open my shirt to rake nails across the thin flesh over my true body.

A few errant rakes had a glint of white amid the deep red exposed, but only a flash that I could see before he grabbed my other arm and twisted until it snapped.

Pain didn’t register like it would have. My true form stung, exposed to the elements. My body only registered damage like a ship would, blaring signals telling me I was broken.

His mouth unhinged, jaw open wide, descending over mine. The kiss of life and plenty. A Colthraxian’s greatest pleasure to experience. And it was.

Euphoria coursed through me as sweet liquid touched my lips. I couldn’t bear to imagine what it was or where it came from. I knew. He was attempting to reproduce.

I wouldn’t reciprocate, but my true body writhed in pure bliss, undulating in my chest as the wormlike carapace of what I truly was partially hung from my body and thrashed.

He bathed my insides in potential life, and when my oviducts didn’t contract or flood—I knew I’d succeeded. Still, my body reacted as if I were being flooded with his reproductive cells.

With a harsh jerk of his hand, my neck snapped, and he dropped me to the floor, staring at me with bright eyes full of color. What color it was, I couldn’t remember. I couldn’t even blink. Red maybe? I was looking at it, but nothing came to mind.

I wasn’t seeing with Sarge’s eyes. My connection had been severed, and the withered eyes of my true body peeking from Sarge’s chest watched in slow motion.

“Filthy fucking piece of shit that was my godsdamned husband, you fucklord!” Doc’s shrieking voice reached an octave and ferocity I’d never heard before. He was little more than a streak in my vision, followed close in tow by Noel, descending on him like a pack of lyrets on a palmetto bug.

Don’t ask me why cockroaches survived space travel. They did. And bedbugs.

Doc swung his fist, piercing needle in hand as he stabbed the syringe into Shafa’s chest and depressed the plunger. Noel grabbed the male by his head and slammed it into the metal wall so hard it left an indentation and a smear of magenta blood.

Magenta? Sarge’s eyes were working again. Shafa laughed and choked as his body shook and bile spilled over his lips.

“Too late. I bred him. Colthraxia noa!” Colthraxians eternal.

“I think he impregnated Sarge before we got here.” Noel stared down at my prone form.

I wanted to laugh, but my partially connected body only managed a wiggle. “I desexed myself.”

The words came from my true form’s lips, a whisper from a tubular mouth.

Doc fell to his knees. “Sarge. Progenitors’ sake… Sarge…”

And true to his promise, he slid his newly scaled hands into my—Sarge’s chest cavity, carefully separating his nerves and my connection points with the most delicate care.

His hands were softer than I ever imagined, so warm, firm.

If I was going to die, it was a great place to do so. Poetic, almost.

He lifted my pale, white body to his lips.

“Space leech.” Noel stared down at me, his endless eyes full of sadness.

“Ph—F-fuck you, s-space slut.” The words croaked from a mouth that was not meant to speak common tongue, or really speak at all. It was a skill I’d mastered out of boredom.

Noel laughed. I didn’t hear the noise from him often, but I triggered nerves along my body to stimulate a smile in the corpse I no longer inhabited.

Doc gave a cough of laughter too and brought me to his chest and sobbed.

“Clos-ser,” I choked out the word. I was close to death, but that didn’t mean I had lost my sense of playfulness.

Doc lifted me as I urged him to bring me to his ear. “Lis-sen.”

As his newly pointed scaled ear presented to me, I trembled with effort to say three words. “I love you.” Then I extended my proboscis and licked his ear in a long swipe, a familiar gesture I knew he hated, at least in my human form.

He flinched and pulled me away with a swear, and I couldn’t hear anymore after that. The breath left me. The cold hurt me. His hands—they were warm.

I’d gone to heaven.