Striker (3 page)

The most deadly of all of the Mar'Sani, the Elite Monticore Honor Guard to the royal house, waited in the corridor. The three sons of Emperor Valdor Vondorian were injured and unconscious in the personal quarters of the unharmed captain of the Oethra 7. The situation was not good.

"I need Warlord Sohm'lan on the comlink."

Zeus waited through a couple of communication switches before the raspy voice of Sohm'lan greeted him. "Prince Zeus, how may I help you?"

"Could you please come to Dargon's quarters? An incident has occurred. Azaes, Mestor, and I have returned from the Waters of Poseidon injured. The medic is on her way here, but there are Monticore outside. If they smell the blood, they will react without question. I do not have the strength—"

Zeus heard hurried footsteps echo through the com as if Sohm'lan ran. "I am on my way."

Zeus sighed with relief. The Monticore were the only regiment allowed to guard the royal house of Atlainticia. Their loyalty to his family above question, they would move to protect him and the twins from any threat, actual or perceived, with lethal consequences. The weight of unconsciousness beckoned him to fall down its dark hole. He could not guarantee Dargon and Alpha's safety in his condition. The guards outside would assume Dargon to be the threat.

Zeus rubbed his eyes with the now-cool cloth. "Dargon, I need you to go to the lavatory and lock yourself inside until you hear from me."

Removing the fabric, he opened his eyes and blinked. Dargon's massive shape appeared as an unclear haze. He could not quite see the frown, but he knew it was there all the same.

"Please, I will not be able to keep the Monticore out. I am injured, as are Azaes and Mestor. Any orders I give will be superseded by the rigid laws the Monticore follow. I do not want you in the middle, where you or Alpha might be injured in their haste to protect us."

Dargon chuffed and Zeus accepted a quick, chaste kiss before Dargon retreated to the other room. Shortly after he heard the lavatory door lock, the hail came at the main cabin door. His vision continued to be fuzzy, but improved enough that he could make out details on the larger objects in the room.

Swinging his legs off the side of the sleeping platform, Zeus staggered around his brothers' prone figures to the door. Apprehension, worry, and possessive need to protect his mates warred within Zeus. He considered not opening the cabin door for Mayra or Sohm'lan. What would happen if he locked them out until he was better able to defend Dargon and Alpha? Even as he thought about it, he knew he could not deny his brothers medical treatment. How injured were they? He could not see well enough to tell. Zeus vehemently wished for another go at Nethus so that he could tear the barbed ears from the foul-tasting male.

He slapped the button and the door whooshed open. Mayra stood on the other side with a large duffle. As a Gaziniti, she stood a little over a meter tall and was covered in short, light brown fur. The fringe of longer hair around her face resembled a lion's mane. Even though her facial features appeared feline, with particularly large, curved ears and huge, brown eyes with slitted pupils, Gazinitis were herbivores, more closely related to primates.

Surprisingly, two Fal'Amorics, Athena and Altan, flanked Mayra. Both closely resembled Zeus with their alabaster skin, dark blue streaked hair, and nearly colorless irises. He was unaccustomed to seeing people so similar to himself in appearance, and even knowing they were biologically related to him, he found the likeness unsettling. Behind them milled a half-dozen restless guards. The Monticore prowled about as if they sensed something wrong. Zeus realized he did not know how long the twins had been in the cabin.

The Monticore came to attention when they sighted Zeus, the lashing of their dark scaled tails the only sign of agitation. Forked tongues tasted the air and when they hissed in warning, he knew they scented the blood in the cabin.

Ignoring Mayra and her two helpers, Zeus addressed the guards. "I have just returned from the Waters of Poseidon. Prince Azaes and Prince Mestor will be returning shortly. An altercation happened on the other side and all three of us are injured." Any Mar'Sani away from Atlainticia could visit the Waters of Poseidon in their sleep, anchored by relatives, returning to their bodies rejuvenated. It was unheard of for someone to return injured. "Not everyone can fit in the room while Mayra attends to their wounds. There is a mezzanine above, where you may watch from." From the corner of his eye, he saw Sohm'lan exit the lift. "Until Azaes resumes consciousness, Warlord Sohm'lan is in charge."

A wave of dizziness made him grasp the door frame for stability, but his knees buckled and his hand slipped. He heard Athena call his name, but everything sounded indistinct, as if the voices came from a distance. The gash in his thigh pulsed with each beat of his heart, dark blood coloring most of his leg and leaving a gruesome footprint on the floor. As Zeus toppled into Sohm'lan's outstretched arms, he noticed distractedly that he had answered the door in the nude.

*~*~*

Dargon pressed his ear against the cool metal door. As a Dar Massaga, he had exceptional hearing in both of his forms, and he needed to know whether Zeus was being treated yet.

"You know you will not hear anything. Prince Malek spared no expense when he commissioned this ship. The captain's quarters were designed for defense. No sound, short of an explosion, will greet your ears,"
Alpha chided.

The Galactic Crown Princes, Malek and Vipre, had put together the crew of the Oethra 7 to discover what lay behind the disappearance of the Fal'Amoric and their Bespoken. A scout ship had been retrofitted to appear as a merchant vessel. The reinforced captain's quarters could be locked down and used as a place for a last stand, the whole of the ship controlled from his room.

"How long have we been in here?" He did not have issues with small, enclosed spaces. Being separated from their Marked, he did mind.

"Not long at all."

Dargon inhaled a slow breath through his nose, hoping to catch some of Zeus’s scent not intermingled with blood. Were the Mar'Sani guards taking care of him? Would Mayra be able to help him? They should not be locked up in the laboratory. What if Zeus needed them? He understood Zeus’s desire to keep him and Alpha safe: he would have made the same call if the tables were turned.

"I hate this."

"I do, too, but Zeus is only thinking of the safety of the kit."

He stroked Alpha, attempting to soothe his symbiote as well as himself. Alpha sat in his normal torque shape against Dargon's collarbone. From the edge of his wide shoulders to the base of his neck, Alpha's dark green form was marbled with pink veins, draped across his upper chest and back. Alpha gently stroked Dargon’s lightly-furred skin.

"I have no weapon." He glanced down at his heavy hyde skirt. It was all the clothing he had been able to don before the twins stormed into his quarters.

"Zeus has fallen unconscious."
Alpha and Zeus were connected in the same way Alpha was linked with him. The three of them made up an Alpha Trine, one of the few spread across the galaxies.

He rested his forehead against the smooth door, struggling with his duty to their unborn kit and his duty to Zeus. "Has a Dar Massaga been in a situation like this before?"

"Not since the war that decimated the females on your planet. Once we and the Zetas had offered our partnership, the Dar Massaga congregated on the moon of Hedisa Gamai to breed and birth our young. The moon is neutral territory, a sanctuary of safety, and no kit has been conceived or born outside of its walls in over a Millennia,"
Alpha replied.

"Our young will be the first to be born in space? Your condition is fragile, Alpha, and we cannot chance an accidental strike. None other than Zeus are aware of your condition."

"And yet, sitting in here, hiding when our Marked is on the other side injured, goes against all that we are. Remember, Prince Azaes and Prince Mestor are hurt as well. The Monticore would do their duty with extreme prejudice and subdue any who they deem a threat."

"I am the only one sound of body. I would be suspect. I know."

"The safety of the kit comes first. Even if we prefer otherwise."

"I should not have called Zeus’s brothers for assistance." He had been berating himself ever since the two collapsed as they hovered over Zeus.

"I believe they would have been pulled into the Waters of Poseidon wherever they stood. Our ship, their ship, I doubt it mattered. One minute the twins were talking to each other, and the next, unconscious. Something went terribly wrong on the other side."

"Do you think Zeus’s distress pulled them in?"

"If not Zeus, then someone or something else did. We have much to learn about his people."

The door vibrated under Dargon's palms, barely perceptible, but still there if he concentrated. When they first entered the room, he had engaged the manual locks which secured and sealed the door from electronic manipulation. Glancing down at the control panel, the lack of light told him someone on the other side had cut power to the door mechanism. The door vibrated again and Dargon stepped back. They would not be able to come through with even a battering ram, as the internal metal frame had been extended and anchored to the ship's skeleton. However, in his short acquaintance with them, Atlainticians had struck him as a rather resourceful, determined race.

The vibrations seemed to stop. At the top right hand corner, the metal began to change colors, from gray to a bright white-yellow. He took another step back as molten steel rolled like teardrops, slowly drooling down the door until it cooled enough to solidify again.

He glanced around the small room, lips pressed into a determined line. He needed a weapon.

The smell woke Zeus. The scent spoke of something burning and for a moment he feared the ship to be on fire. He rolled over, rubbing his eyes, and groaned at the spike of pain in his thigh.

"Shhh, if you move too much, the sutures will tear." Zeus opened his eyes to see Athena leaning over him. "The wand did not work. It would not close your wounds, so Mayra had to use needle and thread on all of you."

Rumbling hisses drew his attention across the room to where four Monticore surrounded the door to the lavatory. A scorch line followed the edge of the door frame. Their exclamation of triumph shocked Zeus into understanding what they did. He shot into action as they lifted the metal door from the frame.

"No!" His bellow filled the room. He ignored the searing pain in his leg as he launched himself up out of the sleeping platform to grasp the overhead frame of the mezzanine. Using his arms, he swung like a jungle chimpanzee across the room, over the heads of the Honor Guard. His hissing vocalization of imminent danger caused the Monticore to pause in their work and drop to their knees.

He fell in a crouch between the Monticore and the lavatory, his scream as much one of rage, as of pain. "I will show no mercy to any who harm my Udens Mahte'lan!" He gave each guard a challenging glare until every one of them dropped their gaze to the floor.

Warlord Sohm'lan stood in the doorway that led to the corridor. "Prince Zeus, no one would dare to raise a hand to your pregnant mate. They … we did not know. Forgive us for this trespass. He has not been harmed. You have averted the danger to your family." Sohm'lan’s even soothing tone and the way he held his hands in a gesture of peace did help to calm Zeus somewhat. But not a lot.

The Honor Guard crawled backward, away from Zeus and those he guarded. Mar'Sani males protected their pregnant females to the point of death. The threat of danger turned them vicious and uncompromising. By custom, they gathered their family and sequestered them until the youngling was born. Breeding couples were honored among the Mar'Sani, the community helping to secure the nest, bringing them food and other amenities.

Zeus would not have the luxury of sequestering his mates. They were in space, far away from hearth and home. They would not return to Atlainticia in a reasonable time frame. Neither one of them could afford to drop their responsibilities to nest. They would have to adapt as best they could.

Dargon's large hands stroked his bare back. Leaning into the caresses, Zeus stepped backwards until he bumped into Dargon's legs. He could not help the spitting hisses, but being in contact with Dargon made him feel better, if only marginally.

"We are unharmed," Dargon soothed, wrapping his arms around Zeus’s chest and lifting him from his crouching position. "You, on the other hand, are not. Why have you not been healed?"

Mayra answered even as she leaned over Azaes. "Whatever happened, these three cannot be healed with technology. I have had to stitch the wounds closed as my people did in the old days. As long as their bodies heal normally, they will be fine. They will simply recover more slowly than they are accustomed to."

Nesting instincts prodded Zeus unmercifully at the sight, and scent, of all the people. There should only be Dargon's and Alpha's scent in their room, which would become his nest by necessity. Seeing Azaes and Mestor side by side on Dargon's sleeping platform, Zeus wrinkled his nose at the thought of all the trouble he would have removing his brothers' scent from his bedding.  Plus, to cleanse the room properly, he would need to scour it once everyone left.

Ignoring the warlord and the guards, he turned to examine Dargon and Alpha. Large, intense, and green, Dargon’s cat-like eyes stared down at him. Zeus ran his palms over Dargon's light golden fuzz, searching for cuts or bruising. The thick, metallic copper braid fell over one shoulder, the tip brushing the wide waistband of Dargon's hyde skirt. Zeus wrapped his fingers of one hand around the thick column of hair, while the other hand brushed the smooth sides of Dargon's scalp, following the single line of hair over a teardrop-shaped ear adorned with a line of dainty hoops, chains, and colorful studs.

He then trailed his fingertips along the edge of Alpha's dark green form. He thought the pink veins were thicker in appearance. The green of the Alpha's skin, usually so dark that the color he appeared almost black, now seemed lighter.