Krac's Firebrand (23 page)

Krac’s lips twitched when she bent and slapped her thighs and stuck her tongue out as far as she could. She had dark lines drawn on her face and her hair stood out like wild flames silhouetting her face. She started chanting in a strange language as she moved. Her eyes bulged and she moved back and forth, her arms stiff and her fists clenched around a long wooden pole. Unease washed through him as she moved closer. A faint memory tickling him as she continued her bizarre dance. The memory hit him a moment before she did. The end of the wooden pole connected with his jaw before the breath hissed out of him when she swung forward.

He fell backwards out of his chair and hit the floor at the same time as she made another loud screech. He winced when the end of the pole connected with Seal’s crotch as he was rising out of his seat before it came up and caught him under the jaw, knocking him back against the wall.

Krac almost felt sorry for the younger male as he turned a very pale silver and slid down the floor clutching his groin while a thin stream of blood ran down his chin. He ducked and rolled when the pole flashed past his head again. This time, he was able to grab the slender leg as it stomped down next to him. He reached up and grabbed the waistband of Skeeter’s pants and yanked her off-balance.

His arms caught her as she fell and he rolled, pinning her under him. He quickly grabbed her flailing arms and laid one of his thick thighs over her legs to prevent her from kneeing him. It took several long seconds before the wild look cleared from her eyes. He watched as she blinked rapidly before relaxing back against the floor.

“Hi. I missed you,” she said breathlessly.

“I can tell,” he chuckled, looking down at her with a critical eye. “What in the hell was that and what have you done to your face?”

“I was doing a Haka War Dance. I thought I could scare the other guy away. It was used by the Maori on old Earth to intimidate their enemy,” she explained, tilting her head to look at where the other male sat against the wall with his eyes closed. “See, it worked!”

A low chuckle started behind them and drew her attention. Her eyes widened and a huge smile spread across her face as a very familiar red-skinned face appeared over Krac’s left shoulder. The amused face of her father stared down at her.

“Hi daddy,” Skeeter said. “I’m getting better at the maiming.”

A low moan from the wall drew her attention again. This time her eyes focused on his face. Her lips parted before her eyes rolled back in her head as the male smeared the blood running from his mouth across his jaw in disgust.

Bulldog shook his head in amusement. “Yes, my sunshine. You have mastered the maiming but you still can’t handle the blood.”

Krac sighed as he slowly released Skeeter’s limp arms. He rose up, picking her up as he did. He glanced first at her before looking at where Seal still sat on the floor.

“She will be out for at least twenty minutes,” he said. “When she wakes, you have a lot of explaining to do.”

“Will she do this every time she wakes up?” Seal asked, slowly rising off the floor. “I thought she was human. Her DNA scan said she was.”

“She is,” Krac retorted. “Get cleaned up. She faints at the sight of blood.”

Seal rubbed the front of his pants gingerly before glaring at Bulldog who had returned to his seat at the table and was watching him with amusement. He bent and picked up the two fallen chairs before walking over to the galley sink and washing his mouth out.

He glared at Bulldog again as he sank painfully down into the chair. There were some pain sensors in his body that even he had trouble turning off. He sent a command for the nanobots in his body to repair the bruised tissue. It was taking longer since he was still trying to repair the damage from earlier.

“Can you tell me what in the hell just happened?” He asked, pulling the cup of liquor Bulldog had pushed toward him closer. “Is she always like that?”

“Of course,” Bulldog replied with a proud smile. “She is my daughter.”

“Great. This mission is totally fucked,” Seal muttered, closing his eyes and lowering his head as fatigue from the repairs to his body and his mission pulled on him. “Totally, absolutely fucked.”

Chapter 29

“So you are saying you believe there is information on the navigation module that Skeeter took from the part’s shop on Pryus that could possibly destroy the Confederation,” Krac said.

“I believe so,” Seal said. “I was sent to retrieve it at all cost. The Leader of the New Order himself instructed me to return with it to Earth. I am to give it directly to him. I plan on killing him when I do,” he added coldly.

“Why do you want to kill the Leader?” Krac asked skeptically. “You have been working for him.”

Seal looked away before turning back to stare at Krac with a blank face. “My reasons are my own. The Leader believes he still has control of me. What he doesn’t know is that I was able to disable the implant the scientist embedded in my brain.”

“How?” Bulldog asked, leaning forward. “It stands to reason that the scientists would have created a precaution against you being able to do that.”

Seal’s lips tightened into a straight line. “I had help. It has been disabled. I have to return with the module, but I want to know what is on it first.”

“I know,” Skeeter spoke up excitedly.

Three pairs of eyes turned to her in surprise. “Froget mentioned it and Manny did too. I was going to get daddy’s maintenance crew to take a look at it.”

“What is on it?” Krac asked, reaching for her hand as it fluttered.

“Star charts. Ones that Manny has never seen. He said it was strange as he had never seen any of them in the eighty years he was a freighter captain. He said there were strange symbols, possibly a language that the translator couldn’t translate.”

I don’t like this.

Krac’s head jerked toward Seal who was staring at him silently. He gave a slight nod to his head to show he heard him. His lips tightened at the other male’s shared thoughts.

“I think it best if Seal and I take a look at the module. Bulldog, we may need to take the module out of your starship and modify it for the
Lulu Belle
so we can get it back to Sallas. Can you bring it up to the bridge?” Krac asked.

Bulldog’s eyes glittered with suspicion, but he nodded. “Of course.”

“Skeeter,” Krac started to say.

“Is going to the bridge to see what you two discover,” she finished for him. “Daddy has tried the distraction thing too many times. I figured it out a long time ago.”

Bulldog sighed in relief. “Good enough for me. I’ll get the module after we find out what is going on.”

Krac bit back a curse while Seal looked at him with a cynical smirk. “This whole mission hasn’t gone the way I planned so who am I to argue. Besides, your female might go all Maori on my ass again if I tell her no.”

“Let’s find out what is on the module,” Krac said in exasperation.

*.*.*

Can you understand this?

Krac gave a sharp nod. He could understand it and what he was seeing wasn’t good. His eyes scanned the symbols, the translation running through his mind as if he had spoken the language every day of his life. What concerned him was this was the first time he had ever seen it.

Ordinances, positions, directives.

This is a plan for a full assault. There are hundreds of motherships. If they all came at the same time, it would overwhelm the Confederations defenses. Even the combined forces of all the planets would not be enough to defeat the number of fighters held in half that many ships.

The council needs to know.

“Okay, what is going on? You two are doing the frown and stare thing again,” Skeeter said in exasperation. “Daddy, do you recognize any of this?”

Bulldog was silent for several long moments. His eyes locked on the star charts showing on the console. He trembled when he felt Skeeter’s slender hand slide into one of his hands.

“Yes,” Bulldog said hoarsely. “I’ve seen it. I’ve been to it. A long time ago. A very, very long time ago.”

Both Krac and Seal focused on Bulldog’s face. “How? What happened?”

Bulldog sighed and tore his gaze from the screen to look at the two males. “I’m older than you think. The Triterians can live for hundreds of years. All Triterians are required to serve fifty years in the military. I was part of an elite scouting team. Our job was to go where no others could or wanted to go. During my tenth year, we were at war with the Octoply. They had attacked several of the outer colonies hoping to take over some of the most profitable mining operations that we were running. It took a while before we figured out the damn creatures could regrow their limbs if we blew them off. Anyway, I watched a squadron of them come out of nowhere but they weren’t alone. Other fighters, unlike anything I had ever seen, were following them. It was a short fight. The coordination of the other squadron was unbelievable. I had never seen anything like it. It was as if they acted as one. What shocked me was when they turned and disappeared just as quickly as they appeared.”

“What did you do?” Seal asked.

“I followed them. There is an anomaly in that section, almost like a rip in space. There was no light, nothing. When my fighter went through, it was as if time and space had folded in on itself. The next thing I knew, I was in a star system that I had never seen. None of the readings made sense. I began recording the information. It was what I was trained to do. I was into my second day when a large signal lit up my sensors. Something told me I needed to go silent. The scout fighters were designed with a special metal that helps hide our presence. That is probably the only thing that saved my hide,” Bulldog reflected in a solemn voice.

“What did you see?” Skeeter asked, squeezing her dad’s hand again when it trembled.

“I saw a planet built of metal and thousands of warships unlike anything I had seen before in different phases of construction. I withdrew and returned to my squadron. I reported my findings, but nothing was ever done as far as I could tell and I never saw those fighters again until...” His voice faded as he stared at Krac. “…until the attacks on the mining facilities a couple years ago. I heard about the Earth woman named Jones and the rumors about her. I was curious and did some research of my own. The Earth has done a good job with maintaining their archives of the events of the attack on their planet. What I saw was the same ships, only larger and more of them.”

“You didn’t perchance keep a copy of the information you recorded, including where this anomaly is, would you?” Krac asked in a quiet voice.

Bulldog’s lips curved up in a grim smile. “Of course, I did. Not only do I have both, I have something a little better,” he responded.

“What?” Seal asked, sitting up straight at the sound of satisfaction in Bulldog’s voice.

“I visited that area on my own once more after I got out of the military. I caught one of the little bastards alone. They aren’t as good a fighter one-on-one. I killed the bastard and brought his fighter home. Where do you think I got some of the technology I’ve developed over the years?” Bulldog said. “It has made me a very rich man.”

*.*.*

Several hours later, Skeeter waited for Krac and her father to return to the bridge. They had contacted Kordon Jefe and Bran Markus, the Zion Grand Admiral. Seal was resistant at first to others knowing about him and their findings, but Krac assured him that the men could be trusted to keep the information to themselves until additional information was known.

“Kordon’s mate, Gracie, understands the language as well as we do. She has also had direct contact with them. This may be why the leader wants her. To translate the information,” Krac explained quietly. “There is no way for the Leader to know that you and I can also understand it. While the Confederation scientists are learning, they still have a long way to go before they can understand it to the extent that Gracie can.”

“This is serious, Krac,” Gracie had said. “From the little I’ve been able to read, there are embedded directives within the star charts. The directives appear to be instructions for mapping our planet location and testing resistance. The first Mothership was deployed to scout the area, determine the defense capabilities of the region and report usable resources. We destroyed it before it could return with the information.”

“Why would the Leader of the New Order want this information?” Kordon asked, looking suspiciously at Seal.

“Maybe they want it for the same reason daddy did,” Skeeter said.

A loud curse escaped Kordon as he turned his cold gaze on Bulldog. “The shields you developed! I recognize the similarities now.”

Bulldog shrugged. “A little modification and I was able to make a decent profit off of it.”

“Or maybe something more,” Seal interrupted quietly. His fists clenched until his knuckles shown white.

“Like what?” Bran demanded.

“An implant was embedded inside me,” Seal spoke slowly, remembering the pain and overwhelming feeling of being out of control of his own body. “I was taken from the research facilities the day before it was raided. I don’t remember much as I was heavily sedated. I do remember when they implanted the device inside my skull. I was unable to shut down the pain sensors. Afterwards… afterwards, it was as if I had lost all control of my body and at times, my mind. Commands were sent and there was nothing I could do to resist. If I tried… if I tried the pain was overwhelming.”

“The Alluthans are controlled by a hive mentality,” Gracie reflected softly. “If you control the leader, you control the workers.”

“Or soldiers in this case,” Bran murmured.

“You have a massive army at your beck and call,” Kordon finished. “One that outnumbers the Confederation a thousand to one.”

“You said you were able to disable the implant,” Skeeter reminded Seal. “Couldn’t it just be disabled if this Leader tries to use it?”

“That could be just as devastating,” Bulldog reminded her. “Then you have the leader of the Alluthans back in control of its massive fleet in Confederation space.”