Good job, Rema. Gotta look out for our General. He was entirely too trusting.
The portal opened, and Ohem pulled me into another long hallway. “We will be ready if the worst should happen.”
We had walked a long way down a hallway that ended in ornate, white double doors. The voices inside were loud.
“And what about the news of the Rijitera lurking in their halls? Are you sure we should even tell them what I am?”
Ohem shook his head and tightened his hand on mine. “They have been betrayed by their Councilor. I will not keep this secret from them, and I will not hide you away. No. Better to be forthcoming and honest from the start so that no one can accuse us of subterfuge later on when loyalties are tested. It will go well, Jack. Just be yourself and explain that you don’t have any plans to conquer the universe; only me and I have already been won,” he said, his Izi flashing with amusement.
He dropped my hand to push open the doors, and we walked into a large auditorium type room with raised seating with a stage at the bottom center of the room.
We made our way down the slanted middle aisle to the stage and Ohem turned to face the crowd. They had all risen to their feet when we entered and saluted silently. I looked at all the faces staring at us. There were fewer officers than I thought there would be on a spaceship this large, probably only three thousand. Maybe these were all really high ranked or something? They would all probably have meetings with their underlings who would then tell the majority of the foot soldiers and crew. At least, that’s how I’d read the military worked, but what did I know?
Ohem took a breath before speaking, his voice carried effortlessly across the cavernous room. “I won’t waste your time or mine by giving a long convoluted story of the events. You already know the parts pertaining to my capture and my rescue by the female prisoners. These were explained in the brief sent to you by Commander Rema. What I am here to tell you today can only come from me as it has to do with my own House.” He paused, making sure everyone was paying attention. “On the unnamed desert planet, my brother, Stellios Councilor Rakis At’ens, came to kill me.”
He held up a hand to quiet the shocked, uneasy murmurs that erupted around the room. “He confessed to arranging my ambush and imprisonment on the Vrax vessel intending to keep me trapped on a mining moon. My brother is either working for Vero or is the force behind the Councilor of Axsia.”
Stunned silence followed his words. Ohem sighed and bowed his head for a moment before continuing. “We know they are looking for, or have found, a Rijiteran artifact. A weapon. We have the coordinates of the planet that they were reported to be searching. Intel suggests they have left. We do not know with certainty if they found anything, so we will investigate the planet soon to find out if there are Rijiteran ruins left intact.”
He turned and reached his hand out to me, and I placed mine into his claws, letting him pull me closer. He turned me to stand in front of him and placed his hands on my shoulders. “I met my wife on that Vrax ship. My brother’s betrayal was not the only revelation during my time away from the Solus. I discovered a living Rijitera. My Mate,” he said and gave my shoulders a squeeze.
It was the scoff that drew my eye to a red alien seated in the front.
He gestured towards me and scoffed again. “Forgive me, General At’ens, but this female looks nothing like a Rijitera. They were monsters,” he said in Ohem’s language.
It must be the common tongue since most everyone spoke it. The sneer in his voice was hateful, and made a mental note to keep an eye on him. He was being disrespectful to Ohem, and that didn’t seem to align with Ohem’s thoughts on the loyalty of his people. Rema was right. People sucked. This was undoubtedly the officer that Ohem wanted to watch. The troublemaker.
There were looks of agreement and Ohem squeezed my shoulders and stepped back away from me.
Oh, so he wanted the dramatic reveal, huh?I have been preparing for this day my whole life.
I gave the red alien a nasty smile and shifted. There was no pain, the transition was smooth like it should be, thank god. I made a mental note to go back and thank Healer again.
The alien clothing stretched with my change to a point and then became tight, so I used my claws to tear it away from my body. I stood before the shocked officers in my full Rijitera glory. I gave them my loudest, most vicious War Howl. The sound that panics the enemy, making them run away from the battlefield in terror so we can hunt them down for the slaughter. All Rijiterans are born with it. We are taught how to hone it. Now I was thinking it’s probably an unknown relic from our evil universe conquering days. It sounded absolutely nothing like a wolf howl and completely like something that crawled straight out of hell and was here to eat you alive.
Even Ohem had taken a step back from me, his Izi flashing. The Howl faded, and I bared my teeth in a silent snarl at the aliens. There were screams, and a few stumbled over chairs behind them. When I was satisfied that they believed Ohem; I turned and calmly walked to his side.
Chapter 15
Okay, so I was a drama queen. Sue me.
When I didn’t snap and slaughter them, the panic subsided into a tense silence. Ohem stared at the red alien, with all his Izi dark and the feel from him ominous. The red alien shifted nervously in his seat, not able to hold Ohem’s gaze. Ohem finally looked away to look back at the room, and the red guy slumped in his seat in relief.
He still mustered enough courage to glare at my mate in what I’m sure he thought was a discrete way. I caught it, though. I’d been hunting for it.
I didn’t growl or call attention to him. I wanted to let it ride for a while, see what he did. I’d follow him around, see who he talked to, find out who his friends were. Then eat them for the offense paid to my mate. Make sure there were witnesses so others wouldn’t make the same mistakes this asshole was. Ohem’s voice rumbling out over the auditorium drew my eyes back to him.
“My wife is from a planet in the outer systems, far from the Unity’s reach. Some of her ancestors escaped the purge to flourish there. They did not conquer or rebuild their empire. She has put her friends and her mate ahead of her own wellbeing time and again. She risked herself for strangers during her escape from her cage on an alien ship to save them. She released an alien that was strange, something she feared. She could have left me imprisoned. She is honorable and not looking to repeat the actions of her ancestors.”
He paused and ran his hand over my furred head to cup under my jaw. I tilted my head to give him better access and leaned into his hand. He was staring at me with all his love highlighted over his body as his Izi burned star bright. “I love her. I trust her with my life and with yours. With my brother’s treachery in the open, he will come for me. He wants power and a war will give him that. I have long suspected that Vero was preparing to launch attacks on independent planets outside the Unity’s reach. I believe this is my brother’s goal and Vero is simply following orders.”
He looked away from me and addressed the officers, his hand still cupping under my muzzle. “I will stand against him. I will allow those who wish to leave the opportunity to do so.”
There were a lot of offended faces in the crowd. It was like he said, most of his people would stand with him and it appeared to irritate them that he had offered them a way out. So maybe Rema and I were a little too cynical. We’d still been partially right so far. There were shady people, the red alien the first to show it.
“I will fight with you,” I growled out at them. I left the part about murdering anyone who threatened Ohem unsaid, but a few of the smarter ones caught it. A few stared at the monster speaking with shock, but most smiled with a morbid glee. I was their great enemy. They had all the confidence in their General, but having something you thought of as indestructible on your side probably helped when you were about to be going against an army ten times your size. Maybe even a hundred times your size. I always loved a good brawl, and this one promised to be bloody. I was downright giddy about it.
Ohem nodded at me. “Together we will stop Rakis’s path of destruction. We can not let them use whatever weapon they have found. Those who wish to leave, notify Rema within the next two days. We will make a transitional jump to an unknown sector to plan our next move. You will need to board the transport ships before then if you want to go home.”
