“It is,” Kora snapped right back.
Aelanna hid a smirk. These two were combative when under pressure, but who could blame them?
The first week of the journey fell into routine. Aelanna looked forward to mealtimes in the diner and showed Kora and Nayli the viewing gallery. The brothers had been friendly, though they took care never to get too close, and Darren had even given her an ivory dress, which he said showed off her hair.
Aelanna and her friends were in the viewing gallery, wonderstruck at the streams of stars in the black sky, when a flare blinded them. The flash of light hit them a second before they heard a loud bang. The ship jolted, hard enough to throw them to the floor, then it shuddered, a shock wave reverberating through it.
They were under attack.
Chapter 18
The Drek
Darren was on the bridge when it happened. It was late, and the night-cycle had commenced hours ago. Blayze was guarding their three females in the observation gallery and Lero was in the corridor outside the cabins where the other girls were. They kept in touch by their wrist comms.
The first hit took the bridge by surprise. A plasma bolt impact jarred the ship, knocked it off course, and then it shuddered ominously. Somehow an enemy had sneaked up on them.
The crew leaped into action.
“Eternal oblivion!” Joel swore. “Christoff, take charge of the weapons, fire at will. Ymbert, get us out of this mess.” He stabbed a button on the comms console. “Chief Engineer, damage report.”
While he was barking orders, Joel tried to ping the battle frigates with no success. “The sons of lizards must be asleep,” he muttered. Darren shot off the bridge, slid down a ladder to the next level and ran along the corridor to the observation gallery.
The Pioneer was escorted by two Ohirin frigates, though nobody expected an attack, but Crukugs had insisted, saying that the Quk were a permanent threat. The ship was going to Drypso and traversing the Oculus Galaxy, and the Quk roamed it like predators, because they wanted to exploit the rich resources of the planets.
The local commander on Drypso relied on this shipmentof females to get through. The empire couldn’t afford to lose the planet; morale must be maintained. Crukugs had said as much during a rare briefing to the crews of the three ships in the convoy. It was more of a pep talk than a briefing to remind them how valuable the cargo was.
Darren hated Aelanna being addressed as ‘cargo’; she was so much more than that. Even Joel had used that term. Presumably, his brothers felt the same way about theirs.
But there was no time. On Level four, he heard screams and scuffles. The clashes of hand-to-hand combat. Reaching the branching corridor, he drew his sword and turned the corner.
Lizards.
Drek.
They were the enemy. How had they boarded that quickly? Why had the warships not responded?
Two Drek warriors came at him with short, stubby swords. He chopped the head off the first one. The second one put up more resistance and their swords clashed but being bigger and stronger, Darren drove his blade into the lizard’s chest and skewered him. He pulled his sword out, dripping with green blood. Leaping over the corpses, he rushed toward the gallery, but he only got as far as the entrance
There were so many of them.
Blayze lay dead on the floor and his heart lurched.
Drek were hustling the struggling girls out.
“No, you don’t,” he muttered, swinging his sword and downing a few, but they just kept coming. He stood in the doorway and fought, preventing them taking the girls out. He found his rhythm, the dance with the sword, and stabbed two of them.
“Behind you!” Aelanna called. He spun and had to fight off six Drek trying to enter from the corridor. He wanted to grieve for his brother, but he had the rest of his life to do that — if he survived. A sharp pain in his sword-arm and he loweredhis weapon but didn’t drop it. He glanced down at his arm. He’d been cut, a long deep slash, dripping red blood.
He finally entered the gallery only to face—
“Give up now, Dheltan. Concede the battle.” He confronted a Drek officer, presumably the platoon leader, pointing a stun gun at him. In blue, green and yellow patches, he was more garish than the others, who were mostly leaf green. They had stocky round bodies, encased in two pieces of fitted armor. Their four limbs were uncovered, and their tails curved into a neat spiral. They were covered in scales — you had to know where to stab, but they were normally peaceful allies, and it shouldn’t be necessary to fight them.
Darren stood there panting, wondering what had goaded the Drek to attack like this. The officer kept one eye on Darren and one eye on the squirming girls, each one sandwiched between two Drek, who held them in an iron grip.
In his peripheral vision, Darren saw Blayze twitch, then move. He wasn’t dead; he was coming round. Darren’s heart soared, but he hid his reaction for Blayze’s sake.
He had to engage the officer to keep his attention off Blayze, who lay behind him. Drek could move their eyes independently, which meant they didn’t miss a trick.
