Vareo smiled. "They are on the same gears. When I close this one, the other will screw back in place without any help from someone else. Only needs one person to close it."
I saw him wearing the glove that had an extra thumb. Vareo looked down at my own hand to see I was not wearing one and his grin widened, but he wisely chose not to speak of it.
"Let's get out of here before the camera cycles through this area," he said before tossing me a crew uniform.
"I hardly think that will hide being the only trill on this ship."
He laughed, doubling over. "That's priceless. You think Lord Zorn hasn't recruited trill over the star rotations? He's a collector. Sure, there are only three on this ship, and Lord Zorn doesn't trust them enough to do anything important, but I doubt he's the one monitoring the cameras right now. He'll be on damage control." He adjusted the ring in his nose, an air synthesizer. "Here." He tossed one at me that I caught in the air. I attached mine and nodded that I'd follow his lead.
The uniform was tight, but everything felt tight with my scales damaged, and my tincture oil dried out.
An eerie feeling crept up my scales at how easy it was that we were reaching the shuttle bay with no incident or even passing another crew member. Vareo could feel the unease in the air, and slowed down as we got closer to his ship.
"I trust you've thought things through, but I've never seen a ship this silent."
"Fuck, no, you're right," Vareo groaned and pulled at his hair before he paced in a circle. "This is too much like the first time I ran away, and Lord Zorn was waiting at the docks with Genbi looking all guilty next to him."
A slow clap echoed along the large hangar space.
"You're growing up, my son." Lord Zorn's voice made my scales flex up to prepare for spraying the area. I knew that would also include Vareo, and I carefully calmed myself to relax my scales back in place. "Where do you think you're going with what is clearly my property?"
I flashed my teeth at that comment. He did not own me. Lord Zorn merely grinned at me and tapped his inside bicep. I found myself turning my arm over and glancing at my own to see the brand where my scales didn't regrow. A black bird stared at me, and I paled at the audacity to brand something he thought was dead. Or maybe he knew I wasn't, if he had other trill here?
"Don't bother trying to remove the mark," Lord Zorn dismissed my growing agitation clear on my features. "I don't use ancient branding techniques when someone joins the birds. Vareo can tell you."
Vareo snarled, but said nothing.
"No?" Lord Zorn shrugged and picked a piece of dead skin flaking from his shoulder around one of his cracked loh. He was worse off than I might have expected from a male that re-emerged from the clutches of death's grip more than once. He shouldn't be alive at all, but if he were as invincible as others claimed, then still being clearly injured was encouraging for the upcoming confrontation. The ship was within reach, and the only being between us was a male that may have been standing, but I could see the way his limbs shook. My poison was clearly still in his system.
My grin returned as I gave my own shrug of ambivalence towards my new mark.
"Even if you cut your skin and muscle off, the mark will return. It’s ingrained in your very DNA. I guess... if you were desperate enough, you could chop off your arm, but I believe your species regrows such things, and it would still be there," Zorn explained.
It didn't make my smile falter, because it would simply be a reminder of the male I conquered and freed my mate from. I was already enjoying the idea of keeping this mark for a very, very long time to come.
I wasn't the one dying today.
"You think I wouldn't notice the lack of resources depleting from incinerating a whole sector? Triggering the sensors was smart, I admit." Lord Zorn smiled at Vareo fondly before continuing. "I'm proud of you, son. You simply didn't take into account temporarily adjusting the sensors for our supplies, or even the drop in oxygen that should have happened if the sector was on fire. Next time, I'm sure you'll plan more carefully."
It was like he was excited for Vareo to one day best him, and think enough steps ahead to outsmart his master. They weren't the same species, so Lord Zorn couldn't be his genetic spawn maker, but there was a twisted fondness there that I couldn't deny.
"Fuck you!" Vareo lashed out, and his fangs were on full display, while an eerie blue glow emanated from the young shol.
Lord Zorn's eyes widened with awed excitement. I stared at the youth, and my second lids slid over my eyes to watch the way his energy grew. Shocked and horrified, I watched as the blueish heat was being sucked along a current—rushing towards Lord Zorn in waves. My eyes retracted back to normal. With his arms extended wide, Zorn’s maniacal laughter filled the air. Instinctively, I took a step back. The longer he was in contact with the energy coming off of Vareo’s fury, the more the cracks in his loh were healing.
I couldn't believe what I was witnessing, but I suspected that Vareo was the reason Lord Zorn was surviving my poison and the overload of radiation from Hazel. Did he know what he was doing? The anger appeared much too raw to be that of a male who was trying to help heal someone. This was why Lord Zorn kept the youth so close. It had to be.
The male was fast as they clashed together. Vareo rushed Lord Zorn, fangs and claws out with a battle roar echoing the shuttle bay.
Lord Zorn's laughter haunted me as I tried to keep up with them. My species was not that fast. We utilized our oils and spray to disable our prey, slow them down, and knock them out.
I thought of spraying Lord Zorn to help the shol warrior, but I'd only hurt both of them. There wasn't a way to use my spray and only harm one. Or was there?
I quickly removed my borrowed uniform shirt and wrapped it around my head like a hat, closing up any gaps that I could. My scales lifted and sprayed the fabric, soaking in.
There was little time that the poison would be most potent before it would neutralize in the air without a host. Unwrapping the shirt, I re-wrapped it, using the arms to tie it around my tail. My barbs extended from my tail to secure it further.
Lord Zorn didn't even view me as a threat in this battle, merely an observer in his fight with his son. It was just a game he was enjoying torturing Vareo with before he would return me to captivity, and resume his task of burning down his slaves.
