Alien-Under-Cover (28 page)

“What better revenge on the people that killed his woman than to unleash us on them?”

Zurian thought about the information they collected after Zacar killed Murdoch. “Murdoch had a sister but we haven’t been able to find her.”

“I can you tell you who will find her--”

Azagor came to attention in the doorway. “More humans are coming to the town.”

“We need to contact the leader and update him,” Zacar said.

They’d sent short reports about the buildup of Raiders and soldiers. But since Julia had collapsed, they had purposely stayed away from the comms room situated in the deepest part of the mountain.

Only Zacar and Zurian were allowed entrance. He’d heard Julia and Natalie talk about this passage and feared it was just a matter of time before Julia’s inquisitive nature brought her trouble.

Chapter 22

Julia struggled upright. The pressure in her head had increased until it felt like her eyeballs would pop. “Why would they target No Name Town? That official didn’t give a location in the TC report.”

“Your cousin.”

“Jack,” she whispered, ashamed that her family would betray her like this. Didn’t they care what would happen to her?

“Yes.”

“The people in town are basically decent people who just want to live their lives in peace.”

He didn’t answer.

“What are you hiding from me?”

“Nothing, my breeder.”

“Please, Zurian, don’t lie to me now.” She tried to get more comfortable without letting them see how much any movement hurt.

He and Zacar exchanged a look and she saw the leader nod in that odd way they had.

Zurian turned back to her. “It is not only your implant that is malfunctioning. Your cousin could get through the block on your TC because our equipment is failing.”

“Oh.” It took a moment for the implications to hit her sore head. “Your weapons?”

“We will defend the mountain, but we will have to do it with only our swords, and the weapons Azagor managed to repair.”

Four of them against thousands?

“No, Zurian, please don’t. I don’t want you to be hurt. Just stay in the cave. Maybe we can help the townspeople get to safety.”

The fact that he didn’t get all puffed up about his abilities as a warrior brought home how serious the problem with her implant was.

“We have battled worse odds.”

“There’s only four of you. Please don’t get all offended again, but you simply cannot take on thousands of Raiders.”

“More warriors are coming from the ship.”

She groaned and lay down. “How many warriors could possibly be on the ship?”

“Forty six,” Zurian said and grunted at Zacar, who grunted back and walked out of the infirmary. He cupped the side of her face, his hand gentle. “I regret that your head hurts. That you have to go through the operation.”

If she’d had the strength, she would have ranted at him for putting their alien gadget in her head. “What about the doctor’s equipment? Won’t that malfunction as well?”

He hesitated and she closed her eyes. How much more could she take?

His hand caressed her chin with his thumb and lifted her face. “Look at me, my breeder.”

A day ago, she would’ve blown up at being called that. Remembering the reverent way he had said he would call her that, even if she were brain damaged forever, held her tongue.

She opened her eyes and he leaned down to speak against her lips, his breath, smelling of coffee, warm against her skin.

He stroked her hair. “The doctor will use only the equipment he can trust. It is enough to do the operation. Viglar is centuries ahead of any Earth doctor that might do such an operation.”

“Okay,” she whispered, seriously scared. But she wanted to show him humans had courage too.

He moved his lips over hers, softly, caressing, enticing. Would she feel this again? If she ended up damaged after the operation, would she be aware of him at all? Would some part of her know that he was with her? Would he sometimes kiss her in the hope that she was aware of him?

She had to believe that or she wouldn’t be able to face this operation. “Promise me something.”

“Anything, my breeder.”

“When I come out of the operation, please be there. Please kiss me like this. I would know you are close to me and I won’t be so scared.” The way her eyes blurred, and she sometimes couldn’t see at all, terrified her. She didn’t want to wake up to darkness alone.

“It is time to prepare,” the doctor said behind them.

She smiled up at Zurian. It probably looked as trembly as it felt. “May I quickly talk to Natalie alone. Just girl stuff, you know.”

Zurian nodded and walked out, but she could see him standing just outside the door, legs spread, arms crossed over his chest.

Natalie came in, her face white as paper. “What can I do, Julia?”

“I’m worried about Zurian. He doesn’t show it but I know he blames himself. I’m worried that if something goes wrong--”

Natalie blinked and wiped at her eyes. “No, Julia, I’m sure it will be all right.”

“If I don’t come out of this intact, promise me you will make him find another woman, after a while. I know his honor won’t let him leave me, but I don’t want him to be alone.” In spite of her brave words, the thought of Zurian with another woman sent shards of pain into her heart.

“I would promise that, Julia, if it gave you peace, but he would never consider it.” She smiled, tremulously, and pressed Julia’s hand. “They don’t shift focus. Let’s be positive. I believe you will be all right.”

“We have to start now,” the doctor said.

Zurian stood behind him, his hands clenched.

The doctor pressed something against her neck.

“He’s so alone,” she mumbled as her eyelids grew heavy.

***

“She will be unconscious soon, I will start the operation in a few minutes,” Viglar told Zurian.

Zurian walked out of the infirmary and beckoned for Viglar to follow him. He waited until Viglar focused on his scanner again and then grabbed him. He lifted him and held his knife against his throat. “You move, you die.”

“Yes.”

“She is not weak.”

“I never said she was,” Viglar said very carefully.

“You will not allow her to die. If you have received orders to let her die, you will not follow them.”

Viglar didn’t move and kept his claws where Zurian could see them. “I received no such orders.”

Zurian pressed the knife tighter against Viglar’s throat until a thin line of blood seeped out of his skin. “If you harm her through your actions or lack of action, I will find every blood of yours and wipe them out.”

“I am a healer.”

“You are a warrior, bred to protect the strength of our race and your instincts might tell you to allow my breeder to die.”

Viglar gave him a straight look--warrior to warrior. “I chose a name reflecting my healer status and not a warrior name.”

Zurian relaxed slightly, but not enough to allow the doctor freedom. Viglar might be a healer but he was from a warrior bloodline, much stronger than Zurian’s.

“Are you saying you will not harm her?”

Viglar was the only person on this cursed planet who could save Julia’s life. Did Zurian dare trust him?

“I am a healer first. I would never, through action or inaction, allow anyone to die from illness or wounds.”

They stared at each other. They’d been through much together and Zurian did not want to harm him but he would do whatever it took to protect Julia.

“Zurian,” Zacar said behind him.

Zurian stiffened and shifted slightly. Once he killed Viglar, he’d have to move fast. Zacar had the strongest bloodline among them. Taking him down would be near impossible.

“No one will harm your breeder,” Zacar assured him.

Zurian kept his eyes on Viglar, trying to gauge Zacar’s movements.

“I promise you on my blood that Viglar will heal her.” Zacar moved so that Zurian could see him. He held his hands away from his body. “She is the best friend of my breeder. Have you any idea what my Natalie would say if I ordered her death?”

“She is not weak.”

“No, she is not. She will be healed and will no doubt use her knowledge of human devices to try and figure out our equipment.”

Zurian slowly relaxed his grip and lowered Viglar. He turned to face his leader.

“She will survive.” Zacar said.

Zurian nodded and followed Viglar to the infirmary where Natalie still held Julia’s hand. He’d heard her words to Natalie earlier. Julia smiled at Zurian, a sad, drowsy smile and he missed her normal energetic one. What would he do if she came out of the operation and looked at him with empty eyes? If he never saw them flash at him again? If she never argued with him, tried to break into his equipment? “If she survives she could be weak, helpless,” he told Zacar. He turned to face him full on. “Still, I would care for her.”

Zacar nodded. “I will stand with you against any command to harm your breeder, should word of this get back to Zyrgin.”

Zurian knew the implication of Zacar’s offer. There was no place in any galaxy they could escape the supreme leader’s wrath if they defied him.

“You would do this for me?”

“Yes.”

Zurian had no words. When no other leader would accept him, Zacar had taken him on. Amidst debates about killing him or neutering him, Zacar had stood firm. Zurian had never understood why he would do that.

“I have to prepare her now. It is dangerous to wait any longer,” Viglar said.

“Wait.” Julia looked at Viglar. “Please, I need to talk to Zurian alone.”

The doctor nodded and left, grunting something at Zurian on the way out.

“I have to tell someone this. If I don’t--if I don’t make it, I want to tell at least one person.” She slurred the words, the drug already taking effect.

“You will make it.”

“They day I ran from the family, I saw my father beat a man. He died. Five years ago President Taylor disappeared before he could pass a new law. The man my father beat to death was President Taylor. I always feared they would send my father after me. I wasn’t sure if he would carry out the order.”

Zurian nodded, although he wasn’t sure why, and called Viglar back in.

The doctor pressed something against her neck and Zurian stared into her panicked eyes, tried to give her some of his strength. The strength he pretended to have for her sake. If she knew of his fear, she would despise him.

She’d tried to ensure that he would never be alone. Never did he think to find someone who would care for him that much. She even said she wanted his scarred face to be the first thing she saw when she came to. He couldn’t bear to have that at last, only to lose her.

“I have to shave her hair,” Viglar said.

“No, she would not like being without her hair. She spends a lot of time working on it every day.” Hadn’t they done enough to her already? Implanting her with their alien device that had turned on her. Now Viglar wanted to rob her of her beautiful hair. “Find a way to do it without shaving her head.”

“It will grow back.”

“It grows back?” He’d noticed it grew longer but he didn’t think it could grow back from being shaved.

“Yes.”

“This better not be more of your teasing. It doesn’t grow back I will beat you for every tear she sheds.”

He felt better for having issued the threat.

“Of course.”

Zurian forced himself to watch as the doctor shaved off Julia’s beautiful hair, leaving her as bald as a Sokra woman. Only much smaller and more frail looking than those warrior women. He stood with his fists clenched, convinced that seeing her lying on the sterile slab, looking so frail and vulnerable, would be the last time he saw her alive.

Chapter 23

Zurian paced up and down outside the infirmary. Viglar had constructed a see-through isolation booth to do the operation in, to protect her from infection.

Hours had passed and still Viglar worked on Julia. With her head shaved, lying on the slab with Viglar’s hulking figure working on her, she looked so tiny--weak, the instinct inside of him insisted.

Zacar walked up to Zurian in armored clothing with two swords and several knives strapped to his body. “The warriors have arrived.”

Zurian could hear their boots stomping on the cave floor. They’d been arriving for two hours now. Only one warrior was ordered to stay behind on the ship.

“I cannot leave her.”

Zacar clasped his shoulder for a moment. “You would not have honor if you could leave her, brother.”

Zurian nodded and saw Azagor checking each warrior’s equipment with his monitor. “Do we know why the equipment is malfunctioning?” Never in their great history of conquest have they had to deal with faulty equipment.

“It is mostly the power sources.”

“It will take three months for new supplies from the home world and every moment more Raiders are coming.”

Zacar slapped him on the other shoulder. Zurian appreciated the gesture but all he wanted to do was stand here and watch through the transparent wall while the doctor either saved Julia or condemned Zurian to misery for the rest of his.

“I cannot stay with you,” Zacar said.

Zurian nodded. “Of course, you are needed in battle.”

“I will leave several warriors here.”

“I will keep our breeders safe,” Zurian said.

His reason for living lay pale and vulnerable on the slab in front of him. A lifetime passed while the doctor operated on Julia. Zurian debated over Viglar’s fate while he watched his every move. He didn’t know if he could allow the doctor to live if Julia did not. Although, maybe he would let him live. It had been several hours and he still worked without seeming to tire. Even for a Zyrgin that was impressive.

Two hours later, one of the warriors left behind in the cave approached him. “Zacar needs us.”

“Lock down the security and join Zacar. I will keep the base safe.”

Azagor had ensured their alarms and defenses around the mountain were functioning. It was not ideal, but Zurian could defend the base alone if necessary.

This should never have happened. If the equipment malfunction had only affected the warriors, Zurian would’ve been glad for the opportunity to fight several thousand Raiders with mostly his sword. Endangering his breeder had ensured that whoever was responsible would face a charge of treason. It was said that it was better to be consumed by a female Eduki than to be charged with treason on Zyrgin.