“
Fyet
,” he cursed. When the wall com beeped again, he slammed off the spray, and stepped out. Hitting the flashing button, he glared at the image of the guardsman standing in the hallway.
The man on the screen flinched, his wings tucked closer to his body.
“You’re early,” Roden barked.
“Apologies, Commander.” Wync stood stiffly at attention outside the door to Roden’s quarters. “You asked to see me.”
“And so I did.” He sighed. “Come in.” He clicked off the screen before reaching for the kilt he’d worn earlier. Fastening it at his hips, he stepped barefoot out of the small bathroom, uncaring that water still dripped from his wings and hair. His troops had seen him in far worse condition before. Once seated, he hit a switch on his desk and the door opened.
The guardsman stepped warily inside. “My lord?”
Roden crossed his arms in front of his chest and watched a nervous Wync, looking like he was about to wet himself, making it clear he knew why his commander wanted to see him. Wync was loyal and strong, but also young and stupid. Nalea never would’ve escaped her cell if Laze or Talla were here. But they were likely dead already, and so he’d had to make do with what limited resources remained under his command.
There were too few Draeken left breathing after the Sephians tried to obliterate his race. Earth was their last chance at survival. Roden couldn’t afford mistakes that could cost more Draeken lives. Rubbing the back of his neck, he narrowed his eyes on the man standing before his desk. “I’m disappointed in you, Wync.”
The guardsman flinched before lifting his chin. “I followed all protocols with the slave, but — ”
Roden tsked. “The Sephians are no longer slaves. If we don’t adapt and quickly, those
slaves
will end us. They’ve already aligned with this planet’s inhabitants and are filling the humans’ heads with lies as we speak. Do you understand how dire our situation is?”
Sweat had formed on the guardsman’s forehead. He swallowed before giving a tight nod.
Roden leaned back in his chair and rubbed his temples. “We’ll use up the last of our power cells on the Earthside bases in only three cycles. The core ships can maintain life support and orbit, but little else. There are barely enough of us left to continue. Our race is dying, Wync. Without human mercy, we’re doomed.” He gave the other man a hard look. “Your ineptness grinds on my nerves. As a guardsman, you must be perfect. No mistakes. Three lashes should provide a sufficient reminder on how to do your job.”
Wync’s mouth dropped open, but he — wisely — clamped it shut. Lashings were a brutal punishment to a Draeken with their sensitive wings, which made them all the more valuable as a disciplinary tool. After a moment, Wync tilted his head and spoke. “As you command, my lord.”
Roden glanced down at a random document on his desk. An inventory list. Every day the lists grew shorter. His life had grown dull with never-ending hours of paperwork, babysitting and politics. Would he ever get a good night’s sleep again? Knowing Wync still stood at attention before him, he gave a distracted wave of his hand. “See Elng in the morning for your lashes. Now, go get some sleep.”
Roden never looked up, simply waited until the door opened, then closed again. He punched the lock button, alone in silence once again. He desired no eavesdropping for his next meeting. The technology and security at this Earthside base were mediocre at best.
When the tides turned against them in the Noble war, they’d been forced to flee Sephia with barely the wings on their backs. It was a miracle they’d escaped with four of their massive core ships. If anything had gone wrong the night of their grand escape, the proud Draeken race — of which only two decades ago numbered in the millions — would have been wiped from the universe.
As it was, their race numbered in the mere thousands now. Not an optimistic sign, especially since the Sephians followed them to this small planet with every intention to finish the job they started over twenty years earlier.
And now he led one of two Earthside bases for his people to study the humans and engage at the right time. A time Roden thought had passed, but Grand Lord Hillas continued to delay.
Roden would much rather play with his feral prisoner than endure this current banal existence of running a base a hundredth the size of his last one on Sephia. Nalea had been beginning to stir when he laid her on her cot and bolted her cell door, this time making sure the lock was secure. She wouldn’t get out of her cell again — not without his permission.
Frowning, he punched in the code that only one other man knew to open a secure link with the most restricted office in another Earthside camp hidden deep in the Canadian wilderness. The link attempted to connect for twelve and a half tediously long minutes. He suspected the old man made him wait intentionally as a way to show Roden who was the superior man, uncaring that his Second had better things to do than sit on his ass listening to electronic noise. He despised the games.
Just as he went to stand, a face appeared on the screen. Not a hair out of place. Impeccably dressed as ever. Their race might be dying, but Hillas Puftan always wore a good public face. Roden bit his tongue to keep from sneering at the Grand Lord’s pride. “Majesty,” he said before Hillas could address him, finding some grain of pleasure in speaking first to a man too deeply ingrained with protocol and traditions.
Hillas pursed his lips, looked Roden up and down with clear distaste, but didn’t scold. He held no love for Roden but he desperately needed him, and they both knew it. Roden followed the Grand Lord’s commands, more or less. Their stalemate worked for now. A time would come when a precipice would be reached. And Roden suspected that time was dangerously near.
Draeken numbers were far too few to take any unnecessary chances. If something
unfortunate
were to befall Hillas, suspicion would immediately fall on Roden as second in line to rule. The Draeken held strong to tradition, and Hillas had been Grand Lord for decades, the Puftan family for centuries. Roden would have to be careful, but his plan was infallible. The number of days Hillas breathed grew short.
“The humans are behaving exactly as I predicted,” Hillas said, his hands clasped before him. “Their so-called alliance with the Sephians has confined the gold-skins to human military bases. Their movements are already harshly restricted. Before long, the Sephians will be nothing more than test subjects in labs. When that time comes, there will no longer be any threat against us.”
He speaks as though a race numbering in the billions is no threat.
Roden leaned back a little more. “Consider this,” he said carefully. “Every moment the Sephians are with the humans, they have an opportunity to fill their heads with lies about us. What’s to keep the humans from coming after us, like they did last summer? We lost several good Draeken men as well as their human consorts, including children not yet born.”
Hillas raised a hand. “Bah! A minor setback. We are still strong.”
Roden raised a brow. He knew the name of every Draeken still breathing, and the loss of eight Draeken families was
minor
?
“Let the humans think what they want,” Hillas continued. “Human technology is a thousand years behind ours. Even if the Sephians share the technology they stole from us, the humans could never replicate enough weapons for a mass assault before we crushed them.”
Roden’s lips tightened. “They outnumber us millions to one. Their weapons may be archaic, but they’re still weapons and as brutal and deadly as any Sephian weapon. The sheer numbers alone could — ”
“You’re missing one critical point. Humans cannot work together. Throughout their history, there is not a single day recorded where their entire world was united. They
need
us to lead them. I’m not worried.”
You should be.
“They’ve never had a world-wide cause to unite against before,” he said instead.
Hillas laughed. “Let them unite. We are in a different time now. We cannot afford the compassion that our forefathers showed on Sephia. The time for mercy is over. If they do not wish us here, we could wipe humanity from this world with the firepower we have on just a single core ship. This world could become the new Draeka. We will rebuild and prosper.”
“With only four core ships with drained power cells? None of them have power to support weapons usage.”
Hillas gave a knowing smile. “Yes.”
“And you’re forgetting one important thing,” Roden said.
Hillas cocked his head, then smiled. “Ah, yes, you believe that we are too few to rebuild our race without humans.”
“And you don’t?”
“I believe we take what we need,” Hillas said, his tone matter-of-fact. “Human DNA, while close to ours, is inferior; they cannot take flight. So we splice the genes of those with favorable characteristics, keep the rest for a controllable-sized serf pool, and rebuild the Draeken bloodlines.”
Roden gritted his teeth. It was as he suspected. Hillas had no desire for peace. The Grand Lord had changed much over the years. He used to be a man of great vision. Now, if the Grand Lord had his way, it would be Sephia all over again. A new dynasty of chaos and terror. Their home world, Draeka, had been a planet of peace and wisdom. Then a supernova changed everything. He often wondered if Draeka’s conscience died with that star so long ago.
When his people came to Sephia seeking a new home, millennia before Roden’s time, they’d had the strength to win the war the Sephians had forced upon them. Now Hillas, for some reason, wanted to do the same on Earth. Only now, that way of thinking wouldn’t work. They couldn’t afford a drawn-out war. Whatever was to be done must be done with minimal casualties, or else there’d be no Draeken remaining to continue their race.
That precipice was upon them. Roden watched Hillas closely. “Gene splicing has had mixed results. There’s no guarantee that it will be successful on a large scale.”
“That was because we tried it with Sephian genes. But human DNA is a closer fit to us. If it weren’t for their lack of wings, they could be considered our brethren.”
Roden fought to retain his calm. “Now is our chance to reclaim the glory of Draeka. War is not the answer. Slavery is a Sephian legacy; it was never ours. It was only a nasty habit we picked up from the Sephians, and it’s time we let it go.”
Hillas’s eyes narrowed. “If you were Grand Lord, the humans would breed Draeka right out of us. In mere generations, our people could lose their power to take flight.”
“Or they will gain the power to take flight.”
“Bah.” Hillas waved a hand. “You would surrender too much for our people’s survival. And that’s why you’ll never lead our people.”
That hurts.
But Hillas had a point for once. Roden would surrender much, including his own life — and most definitely the Grand Lord’s life — for his people’s survival. He sighed. “Regardless, there’s nothing we can do without power cells. Our core ships are essentially disabled. They can’t enter Earth’s orbit without stealth control, let alone land. What would you have me do?”
“The time for action will come, Commander. Preparations are already underway.”
“Preparations?” he asked, a feeling of dread weighing him down.
Hillas ran his fingers over his bejeweled hand. “Nothing that concerns you. Not yet, anyway. I will contact you when the time is ripe. In the meantime, continue to search for the spy in your camp.”
Roden paused. Apprehension shot through him and he forced a relaxed expression. “There have been no signs of espionage since the Club Mayhem incident. I believe the spy, whoever he was, likely was killed or taken at the club.”
Hillas pounded a fist on the desk, and the image on the screen warbled. His face reddened, as though he were about to boil. “I don’t care! Our people need to feel safe. That means I need a traitor found and soon. I want an execution that is very public and very painful. Consider finding the traitor your top priority.”
The Grand Lord didn’t care
who
Roden brought to him, as long as it was someone to appease his sense of justice. Hillas had done that sort of thing before, but now Roden suspected the activity was to give the Draeken a sense of comfort or to keep his Second busy.
Sleight of hand.
The thought prickled at Roden’s nerves. Why was Hillas trying to distract the only lord with the power to usurp his plans with an impractical order? What was Hillas up to that didn’t involve his Second? It was then Roden realized that the precipice he feared had been reached and passed. He could wait no longer. He gave a slight nod. “Majesty. I will find your traitor. Will that be all?”
Hillas smiled, seemingly content with Roden’s response. “One more thing,” the old man said. “Is it true you have a Sephian female currently in your cells?”
Roden inhaled deeply to maintain an aura of nonchalance. “There is a Sephian on my base. I did not realize I needed to apprise you of every minute detail that takes place within my ranks.”
“Nalea Homs is a member of a trinity and therefore my business,” Hillas said. “Bring her to me. No need for fanfare. You alone bring her directly to my Earthside quarters. I expect to see you on the eve of two day’s hence.”
Roden forced a tight nod. “Of course, Majesty.”
“That will be all.”
Roden punched the disconnect button and scowled. The Grand Lord had shown little interest in any prisoner before. Quite the opposite, in fact. The old man preferred the chase and bored quickly once his prey was conquered. Hillas clearly held suspicions about Nalea. But he didn’t yet know the truth. If he had, he would’ve sent an assassin to finish her long ago. Hillas simply could not have the risk she posed hanging over his head.
Roden had been biding his time with Nalea, counting on the fact that Hillas knew nothing when it came to this particular Sephian. Regardless, between Hillas’s suspicions and his other “preparations,” it meant that Roden could wait no longer. Unfortunately, that meant he could no longer toy with his prisoner.
As for Hillas’s other order, Roden had no intent to hunt for a traitor. Oh, he’d no doubt that the traitor still lived, but it wouldn’t matter much longer. Everything was about to change. He’d go through the motions to keep Hillas off his back, at least long enough so that the Grand Lord wouldn’t discover Roden’s plans.