The Neb sits forward and clicks his tongue with his mouth closed. Another walks up to him and sets a tablet on the armrest, then returns to his place along the perimeter.
General Kaslok speaks to the device in his percussive language. It translates. “You killed my only son.”
Well, shit.I’m in big trouble.
Good.
He gets up, walks to me, shows me one of the ships I just detonated, then grabs my good wing with both of his hands. Dread stirs weakly in my gut.
He breaks my wing over his knee.
I grit my teeth as agony surges through my spine and up my neck. Stinging fingers shoot up and down my shoulder and side. An urge to cry out strains in my lungs. But I have seen the damage his kind has done to innocent worlds like Vinym, to ours, and so many others. They’re allied with Talhuskins and Denarso. So I will give him nothing to savor and fight the instinct to curl forward. I snarl up at him instead.
He lands a fist to my face. Then another and another, until I lose myself in the pounding waves of his hatred.
I don’t blame him. He is a father grieving the loss of his son. I would be furious, too.
Somewhere in the pummeling waves, I find myself wondering if my father ever grieved sending me away.
When he stops, my head lolls back as the poison and the beatings finally drop me into a state of bare awareness.
I’m still here.
“Why are you here?” he roars.
The chains hold me upright, but I’m slumped backward, staring at the hallway where I entered. My blood streaks the floor. “Why…are you?”
He growls and paces, then stalks toward me, grabs me by my broken wings, and lifts me up to his face. “Why do you stop us now? What do Mindor and Alpha Prime have?”
I blink my swollen eyes to pull him into focus. “Friends.”
He roars at me. “What ore do they have? What food? What medicine? What are you protecting?”
I laugh, and it’s pathetic. I’m a drooling, choking mess, struggling to breathe through the blood and the bruises everywhere. “Allies. Something you know nothing about.”
He shoves me to the floor, paces away, frees a gun from his belt, and walks back to me, pointing the barrel at my head.
This is my end. I’m too weak to free myself. With all the other Nebs in the room, there would be no escape even if I could pull free of my chains.
I’m sorry, Brynna. My beautiful mate. Forgive me.
24: Jorusk
“Last chance.” The tablet relays the general’s communication. “What is in this system that we can use? You are protecting something.”
I slump forward and tip sideways from the weakness in my body. “We protect each other. Life. This system is low in ore, medicine, food. There is not extra. Talhuskins destroyed our planet. Drathious are now dependent here. So it is useless to fight for it.”
“Not useless if we kill all of you,” he replies.
He confirms what we all feared. They kill so stealing is easier.
I strain to catch my breath so I can speak. It’s the only thing I can do to delay my end. And I just want a few more moments to remember Brynna’s love, her soft touch, and the heat of her holding metightly. “Denarso have wrecked Lasyrella in the next system with scavengers. There is nothing left there. No one to fight… Nothing to take. You will have to travel…outside of our galaxy…to find things to steal without a fight.”
“We have many more colonies.”
“Eleven.” I fight to lift my heavy head and glare up at him as best as I can.
He squints at me like he didn’t anticipate me knowing. “Who is your source?”
