1: Jorusk
Instead of a mate, I got three years of war. It has changed me. I know it. But I don’t know how to fix it, or that I even want to. The anger I carry inside is justified.
Talhuskins, Denarso, and Nebs deserve to die.
“Jorusk, I need your hands to fix our launcher,” Sidius’ voice calls over my ear com. We take heavy fire from Talhuskin ships that are in orbit above our colony. They don’t like that we escaped their prison cliffs and hate us even more because I killed a prince.
“Can you handle it?” I turn back to Osiris, who’s repositioning our tracking relay that helps us maintain com signals and monitor Talhuskin ships. We are a capable species with a solid Pyraforce, but we have lost many soldiers and have limited supplies on this world.
“Yes, go!” my pale brother says, his wings tucked tightly against his back to avoid being shredded by the gunfire that pelts us from above.
I take a personal shield, ignite the red bubble, attach it to my armor, and spot Sidius’ downed rig across the obliterated farm fields of yet another failed settlement. Bullets punch holes in the dust in clusters that spray out in wild patterns with little concern for targets.
The Talhuskins grow weary of the battle we refuse to lose. They’re throwing everything they have at us.
This is going to hurt.
After a deep breath, I bolt out into the open. Bullets slam into my shield with bruising force. My wings cramp up as I strain to keep them inside the shield that’s low on power. “Vryskas and Rykarn, report!”
“Getting civilians underground,” Vryskas says. “Almost done.”
“I want you two back with Osiris the moment you can. Sidius’ crew has broken down…” A bullet bashes hard into my shield, knocking me off balance as I cross the field littered with bodies of Pyraforce brothers and sisters. “Again!”
My Inferno growls inside me, wanting to be free. But I cannot show him now, or it will paint a bright target on my back for Talhuskins to fire at. The shield sparks, fizzles, and fades.
Frustration and heartbreak are the only emotions I know now. I think back to being on Aura’s crew when he met Jovie at the Alien Bride Race and the hope I’d had back then for my future. Aura knows happiness. I’m jealous. But the destruction of my people and our new homeworld is my fault. I need to be here, where I belong, fighting for my kind.
Sidius, red eyes blazing with desperation, shouts at me when my shield dies. He waves frantically and extends a hand from where he hangs off his missile launcher. I sprint through the deadly lead rain as fast as I can, my tool bag banging against my side.
He snags my hand and slings me inside the shield right as a cluster of bullets pelts the ground, leaving a massive hole that sprays dirt into the air.
Now, I fear whatever mate I was destined for is gone forever, all because I killed the wrong Talhuskin.
He deserved what he got.
Catching my breath, I climb over the rig, following Sidius to the broken slingshot ignition system. It’s burned up, so I squeeze down into the chamber beside Fenom.
“They’re burning up faster than before,” Fenom says, adjusting his helmet.
Bokson snickers inside and fist bumps their driver, Kallus. “Because we’re slinging a lot of vengeance.”
I tear through my bag and grab the tools I need. Folding my wings to the side, I lean over into the compartment and repair the igniter while Fenom and Bokson fire a handheld rocket up at the long, brown, talon-shaped ships that rake across our sky, the sky that held so much hope just a decade ago. Now that blue sky bleeds like my brothers.
There must be something more I can do than this.I repair equipment. I operate guns, fly fighters, go on recon missions, and even set traps when we have the opportunity. None of it is ever enough.
I will never regret ripping off the prince’s talons one by one and then ending his life with the last, even as I hunker inside the shelter of an opened panel on our starbound missile launcher to hotwire the damaged guidance system that’s also fried.
“Oh, hellfire.” Sidius lugs Fenom and Bokson back inside the launcher as hail showers the shield. “Kallus, get us out of here! They’ve turned on the poison guns!”
Shouts erupt from the far side of the battlefield outside Ignatious, a colony bordering the city of Mictlan. Frigid green bullets the size and shape of Talhuskin talons rain from the sky, burying our forces like tidal waves. They punch into the ground, smash into equipment, and seize up anything that moves, like the launcher I finally manage to repair.
Ice sprays through the shield. Sidius shields me with his body as the frozen fragments shower the racks of missiles.
My Inferno writhes within me like scorching lava. Even my body shudders under the heat, making me wonder how much longer I can contain it. Every day that passes that I survive and many do not because of a war I started makes me feel like I am sinking deeper into the depths of Magmium. I fear I may never recover, and the monster at my core will consume the soldier of my people that I have worked so hard to become.
I stay hot despite the chill because of my rage, not just with the universe but with myself. We will never be free from our masters. Not while we live.
An explosion of ice bashes into my assigned squad’s tracking relay. The boom jolts me upright. When I see the rig in pieces, desperation tears through me. “Osiris!”
