“Something to say now?” he asks in English.
He is going to die at the hands of General Kaslok when the Neb finds out they have none of what he listed. But I’m going to let him dig his own grave.
The guards tug on my chains, straining my arms and my wings. My skin screams. My wings bend until the sharp pains of fractures begin.
“What is your plan?” the leader demands from his throne. “What are you protecting? Tell me where it is, or I will have them break you.”
“Do it. I don’t care. We are everywhere.Itis everywhere.”
He gets up, snarls, and smashes a fist into my face. Pressure explodes in my cheek. I soak in the pain and withdraw inside myself like I used to as a hatchling when the Talhuskins had a little too much to drink.
A maniacal laugh escapes me.
“What the fuck are you?” he demands.
I sway from the misery as I look up at him. The room tips and spins. “Whatever I need to be.”
He grabs my face and looks me over like he can’t quite figure me out.
Join the club.
Then he shoves me away and steps back. “Get him out of my sight.”
“We’re docking in five,” someone says from the doorway.
The guards use the chains to pull me over and drag me through the room. My wings catch on the doorway. I try to pullthem in against my back, but the guards tug hard and rip me through the doorway, snapping one of my wings.
The surge of agony makes me writhe and choke back a groan. Every movement of it sends inundating pangs through my back that crawl around my sides with fiery fingers. But the guards don’t stop. They haul my body through corridor after corridor, over bulkhead doors, down a ramp, and into a long passageway of cells. Faces look down at me with pity from behind bars and sealscreens: humans, Thorians, Amphirans, Alustri, Ferrim, and so many more.
So many of my own kind.
Whispers circulate. They know me.
The guards drag me for what feels like hours before they dump me outside of a cell at the end of the hallway.
“You want to take him up now?” One of the guards asks.
“No,” a deep, full-bodied male voice booms out. I peer up at the large Neb. He clicks a pattern that suggests he’s pissed. But the Denarsoans don’t seem to pick up on it.
“Fine. Whatever. He’s your problem now.” They turn and walk off.
The beastly Neb glowers down at me. He picks me up by a handful of chains and eyes my broken wing. His eyes are pale blue-white, his fur dull and matted in patches with blood. He clicks again, and I think he’s disappointed.
The male lowers me to the floor a little too quickly, and my body hits with a painful thud. He opens the cell door and adjusts his grip on my chains when someone else yells at him.
They click back and forth, communicating in a language I don’t understand. But the male that’s joined us motions for him to follow.
My prison guard picks me up by a fistful of chain, drags me around a bend, and hauls me up a steep, spiraling ramp. We get off of it several floors later to weave between many Nebs.They are all dressed in full-body armor, rocket boots, and badges bearing the symbol ofMesannokthat I saw in Aura’s briefing. They rap their knuckles on the armor plates on their chests, filling the hall with a droning rattle that muddles my thoughts.
The floor beneath me switches from metal to glass. Below, I see gray Nebs working at guns, loading ammo belts, and missiles. A shell casing withTerran-30milstamped on the side hits me in the head. Then another smashes into my shoulder. The Nebs turn me into a target for their rage.
My body is pummeled by spent ammo casings of all kinds as I’m lugged through the blanket of clinking shells on the floor. The brutish Neb hauls me in front of a different throne. This one is taller, made of chrome, and smokes.
I’m propped on my knees. My chains are clipped to links in the floor, stretching out my arms and my wings. The jarring motion tugs at my broken wing and sends a pang through my spine that makes me nauseous and my heart skip a beat.
I dare to look up at the male who scowls down at me. He’s slumped sideways in his chair and surrounded by twenty guards, all covered in weapons with pale blue-white eyes like his. He wears Thorian-style furs with black chrome body armor and sets aside a stick of something woody that smokes. The Neb puffs out a breath of that same smoke.
I have to assume he is General Kaslok, like the Denarsoan said.
