The Monitor started to flash orange and red. Exasperated, Arin ripped off the monitoring cap before her thoughts could betray her any further.
The warden of the chambers stepped up to the stand, giving Arin a strange look. “Happens all the time,” he said flatly. “Red and orange are just colors. Emotions. It’s the pattern that counts. You ain’t lying unless the machine’s neuranalysis says so.” He pressed a button, releasing the sliding gate. “Take a break, Sergeant. Go smoke aJuvi-stickor something. Relax. You ain’t off the hook yet. They’ll all want to put the hard talk on you. Trick is to stay calm and figure out what they want. They’ve all got their own agendas. Use that to your advantage.”
“Huh.” Arin stepped out of the booth, grateful for the chance to stretch her legs. The warden was right. She wouldbe back in the stand after the recess, and she needed to regain her composure.
She had to try and keep her thoughts away from Rykal.
Focus, Varga, you idiot.
Somehow, she had to convince these civilians that humankind’s only hope of defeating the Xargek lay in co-operating with the Kordolians.
But what happened when every last Xargek was dead and the Kordolian general returned to retrieve his men?
Would Rykal act so friendly then, or would he once again become the cold, brutal warrior who hadn’t hesitated to hold a knife to her throat?
CHAPTER TWO
Rykal missed hisashika. He secretly called her that because she reminded him of one.Ashika. Iceblade.Sharp, direct, and effective. Without her level-headed guidance, the humans were starting to become panicky again.
Anashikawas a special type of blade. The Aikun used them to hack through the thick ice sheets of the Vaal, creating portals to the frigid ocean below so they could hunt the eyeless creatures in the depths.
Rykal wasn’t really sure how he knew that, but he did. Fragments of stolen memories surfaced every now and then, vivid and baffling and intense. It happened to all of them, but for some reason, Rykal experienced flashbacks more frequently than the others.
He munched on a bar of protein mix as he surveyed the cargo hold. The craft they’d escaped on was a large, bulky thing the humans referred to as asuperfreighter, and it had been their ticket off the doomed mining station.
Rykal went still, extending his senses. Except for the ever-present background hum of the ship’s engine, all was silent. He listened carefully for the telltale skittering of Xargek larvae, but there was nothing. He peered into the darkness,scanning rows of empty cargo containers. Before they’d escaped Fortuna Tau, the containers had been full of crudely processed Armium metal. They’d ordered the humans to dump as much of the payload as possible. Less weight equaled greater speed.
Rykal’s hand rested lightly on the hilt of his sword. In close quarters, stealth and speed were king. The best way to clear out a Xargek nest was to stalk, stab, impale, and sever. In silence. In darkness. That was what they did best, and it was why they were feared throughout the Nine Galaxies.
Most of the time, their enemies died before they knew what had hit them.
As Rykal crept forward, soft sounds tickled his sensitive hearing.
Whispered words reached his ears, uttered in indecipherable human-speak.
Then, footsteps. Rustling fabric. The scrape of clumsy limbs against hard armor. Minute metallic creaks as unsteady fingers clutched ungainly weapons.
An ironic smile twisted Rykal’s lips. Someone was trying tohunthim.
Humans. They were eternally optimistic.
He moved silently down the aisle, drawing his dagger. He could smell them now. Humans gave off a distinct scent, especially when they were afraid. The coarse rasp of his breathing betrayed the first human, who was just around the corner from him.
Rykal waited in the darkness.
The human shuffled into his line of vision, his bolt-gun raised. He wore a pair of goggles with glowing green lenses. He looked around, snapping his head left and right. His breathing was labored, and a faint sheen of moisture coated his cheeks.
He had no idea that Rykal was behind him. Rykal took a step forward, placing the tip of his dagger against the back ofthe human’s neck, ensuring he applied just enough pressure to make his intent clear. “What are you doing, human?” His voice was low and soft, and threaded with a dangerous undercurrent. He spoke Universal, the language developed and spread by the Empire. Like all societies that aspired to trade throughout the Nine Galaxies, humans had adopted Universal, molding it to suit their strange, lilting accents.
“You’re outnumbered,alien,” the human hissed. “Drop your weapons and we might let you live.”
“Are you dense, man?” Rykal shook his head. “Don’t be foolish.” It wasn’t his habit to give the enemy a friendly warning, but he’d grown strangely fond of these funny soft-bodied creatures called humans. They were irrational and sentimental, and they allowed their actions to be guided by their emotions. It was somehow endearing.
“Don’t get too full of yourself, alien,” hissed the human. “There’s only one of you, and there are many of us. Too many for you to take down on your own.”
“You really think so?” Rykal inclined his head in the darkness before he froze, listening. “Shh,” he whispered, digging the tip of the dagger into the human’s skin with dangerous precision, just a little more, just deep enough to draw a spot of blood. The human hissed in pain. If human anatomy was anything like his own, the man’s spinal cord would be easily accessible through gaps between his bony vertebrae.
In many ways, humans looked quite similar to Kordolians. As he tracked the tiny noises echoing around the hold, Rykal’s thoughts once again drifted toher. Arin. His favorite human. Exactlyhowsimilar was their anatomy?
