Chapter 17

Arccoo

“We have a signal!” Elena exclaimed. Arccoo joined her at her computer monitor, studying the coordinates over her shoulder. His treacherous brother seemed to be in the middle of a desert. If there was a massive spike from the relic’s energy signature, that meant he was probably testing the parantaa’s capabilities as a weapon.

He patted Elena’s shoulder. “Good work. May I?”

She scooted her chair aside. “Be my guest.”

Punching the coordinates into the nearest satellite, he pulled up the image from below…and immediately wished he hadn’t. The Grel Desert was largely uninhabited. The high temperatures and lack of water made it hostile to just about every form of life. But now, nothing could live there.

He must have fired the parantaa from above, because the blast radius was perfectly circular and about a mile wide. The whole area had been reduced to nothing but shards of sand melted into glass.

“Holy shit,” Elena breathed.

“Well, at least we know it works.” He began cross-referencing the coordinates with the nearest military forts.

One immediately stood out. It had been used to store some of the planet’s deadliest weapons but had been abandoned almost a century ago in favor of more modern technology. If he had to guess, Rocco was hiding out there.

He punched in the coordinates and smiled. There had been a rise in energy signatures over the past week or so, something unusual for an abandoned fort in the middle of a desert. “Found you.”

He brusquely walked out of the room, Elena jogging to keep up. “What do we do next?” she asked.

He stopped short, and with a yelp, Elena ran into him. Turning around, he caught her by the shoulders before she fell. “You’re going to do nothing. You, Carmen, and Sofia will stay here and out of danger.”

Her features darkened. “I think I speak for myself and my sisters when I say fuck that. We’re coming with you.”

For a moment, amusement pounded through him. This is why he started to fall for her in the first place.

But he couldn’t risk her getting hurt.

He shook his head. “No, you’re not. This is too big for me to be distracted worrying about you. I can’t have you, any of you, getting hurt. If it all goes wrong, Carmen would never forgive me, and I’d never forgive myself.”

“And she’d never forgive you for leaving her out.” Elena sighed. “I’m not the most experienced when it comes to relationships, but from what I understand, the strongest ones are the ones where you and your partner are equals. Carmen, Sofia, and I are adults. We can make our own decisions and don’t appreciate being treated like things to be protected.”

“I’ll take that into consideration.” He knew she had a point. If Carmen and her sisters were determined enough to repair a spaceship and fly all the way to his home planet, they would find a way to join him on the mission. “Meet me in the training room in two hours. Tell your sisters to do the same.”

Elena’s face lit up, and she scurried down the hall.

Carmen arrived earlier than her sisters, likely to have some alone time with Arccoo. “Elena told me you found him.”

“I did,” Arccoo replied. He tossed her a blaster staff. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you three to come on this mission, but I also know you. If I say no, you’ll come anyway, so I want to make sure you’re at least a little prepared for a confrontation.”

“Seems reasonable enough.” Her fingers grazed a button on the staff. “I’m guessing this is the trigger. Is it on?”

“I didn’t want you to accidentally hurt yourself or someone else, so no.”

“So it’s like a regular bo staff,” she replied, spinning it. With surprising grace, she began a martial art form he didn’t recognize. It must have been an Earth fighting style. She grinned when she finished. “I still got it.”

Arccoo gaped. Would this woman ever cease to surprise him? “I didn’t realize you already had combat experience.”

She shook her head. “My parents wanted us to learn how to defend ourselves, so they made us sign up for Taekwondo classes. We learned martial arts in a controlled setting, which you and I both know is not the same as facing a combat situation.”

Sofia and Elena arrived a few minutes later, and after a couple lessons in sparring, he gave them a tutorial on how to work the blaster portion of the staff and how to use the smaller blasters they would keep at their hips.

They weren’t soldiers, but for a few human women, their skills were impressive. The fact that they had different fighting styles could work to their benefit. Many who are trained in a specific martial art become rigid if they only study that fighting style. They don’t know what to do if a trained opponent fights differently than they do, making it easier for even a less skilled enemy to beat them.

After about an hour, he ended the session. “Rest and eat. If you want to come with me tomorrow, be at the air dock five hours after moonpeak.”

Sofia slung an arm around Elena’s shoulder. “Whew! I haven’t worked out like that in a while.”

“Clearly,” the youngest replied, ducking under her sister’s grip. “So please don’t force my nose so close to your armpit.”

“Like you’re much better.”

Carmen lingered behind as her sisters bickered their way out the door. She took both his hands. “You doing okay?”

“I’m fine.” He couldn’t meet her brown eyes. If he did, he might spill everything.

“It’s okay if you’re not. I wouldn’t be fine if one of my sisters went to the dark side.”

He shook his head. “I don’t think you understand. I have to be fine. If he sees any weakness tomorrow, I’ll have already lost.”

“But your brother isn’t here right now. It’s just the two of us. You don’t have to pretend around me.” She guided him to sit against the wall and then curled underneath his arm. “Whatever you’re feeling, I won’t judge.”

He sighed, tightening his grip around her shoulders. How did he end up with someone so gentle and understanding? “I keep going back to our childhood. I used to admire him so much. He was my brave, strong, big brother. Now, I’m wondering if the signs were always there and I was simply too blind to see it.”

She shook her head. “No one likes to see the worst in others, especially their family. But the people you admire most are just human at the end of the day…er, in a manner of speaking.”

“I’ll admit that I’m a little envious of the bond that you and your sisters have. It feels foolish, but…”

“But you wish your relationship was more like ours?” she guessed.

He grunted affirmatively.

She picked up her head, her brown eyes meeting his violet ones. “It wasn’t always easy. After my parents died, I was left in charge of them. They resented it, feeling like I was somehow trying to replace Mom and Dad. I hadn’t intended it to be like that at all, but we were all in too much pain to realize that the others were hurting, too.”

“What changed?”

She shrugged. “Time and maturity, I think. We all grew up and realized that if we didn’t stop fighting, we’d have no family left. Maybe your brother will have that realization.”

Arccoo sighed. “I doubt it. Once Rocco has set his mind to something, it’s impossible to change it.”

“Do you think…” she began but then cut herself off. “No, never mind.”

Arccoo smiled in spite of himself. “Don’t just leave me waiting.”

“I was going to ask if you think you’ll have to kill him, but that’s not fair.”

His face fell. It was a good question, one he did not have the answer to. “I will do whatever I must in order to keep my people and planet safe.”

“A kingly answer. But I hope you don’t actually have to face that decision. I don’t know what I’d do in your place.”

He sighed, unable to meet her gaze. “I truly hope so, too.”

The next morning, he met with his troops and the Flores sisters at sunrise. Their best bet was the element of surprise. They would get in, get the parantaa, arrest his brother, and then get out.

Carmen stood at his side, taking his hand as they boarded the ship. He checked her invisibility device, making sure it was fully operational with Elena’s modifications. “It’s not too late to turn back now,” he murmured in her ear.

She shook her head. “It’s my fault he has the parantaa in the first place.”

“It’s not—” he began but was cut off by a warning look from her.

“I know I didn’t mean to, but even if you lose the nuclear codes by accident, you’re still responsible for what happens after the wrong person gets their hands on them.”

He wanted to protest further, but the ship rumbled and took off. It took three hours to get to the old fort, and Arccoo spent the whole time feeling slightly queasy. He hadn’t lied when he told Carmen that he would do what he must for the greater good of his people, but he still hated the thought of hurting his brother, no matter how badly he’d betrayed them.

The ship, which had cloaked itself on the approach, hovered above the fort. Carmen gave his hand an anxious squeeze, and he squeezed it back. The side doors opened, and everyone engaged their hover boots. They jumped out in pairs, Elena and Sofia going together while he went with Carmen.

They landed quietly, the rest of his cloaked troops following close behind. With a few hand signals, he gestured for them to fan out and secure the area. The Flores sisters were to stay close to him as they headed to the vault where they likely kept the parantaa.

When they reached it, he stopped short. The sisters nearly bumped into him. The door was open and the parantaa was just sitting there with no one guarding it.

“If that isn’t the most obvious trap I’ve ever seen, I don’t know what is,” Elena muttered.

“Agreed,” Arccoo said.

“This place has been eerily empty,” Carmen whispered. “Almost as if we were expected.”

“Give me a second.” Elena stuck a small EMP device to the wall and pressed a button. For a moment, all the electronics in the area went haywire. The cloaks of the soldiers hidden in the vault flickered out, and Arccoo didn’t hesitate to open fire on them.

With no other way out, the soldiers guarding the parantaa were easily picked off.

“Well done,” Rocco said from behind. Arccoo turned around, only to realize they were cornered and surrounded on all sides. Their only retreat would be the vault, and Arccoo had just proved how useless that would be.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Carmen discreetly press the distress button attached to her blaster staff. It would alert all their troops to their location. Now, Arccoo just had to buy time until backup arrived.

“Rocco, why? We need the parantaa to take care of our people. Would you really abandon them in favor of war?”

His brother laughed. “Funny. I’m not the one who shacked up with the thieves responsible for the plague in the first place. At least I care enough about my people to protect them from all invaders.”

Arccoo’s jaw clenched in fury, but Carmen gave his shoulder a squeeze.

“No, you just care enough to get them all killed in a pointless war,” she said. “Earth has plenty of men like you, and they always make the worst leaders.”

That got under his skin. “Kill them.”

Rocco’s soldiers opened fire, but Elena’s modifications to the invisibility cloaks worked. The rays from the blasters bounced off them like light off a mirror.

Carmen pulled Sofia close and whispered something in her ear before charging Rocco’s soldiers. He watched the fastest of the sisters sprint into the vault and, realizing what she was doing, charged Rocco in the hopes of distracting him.

“You and me,” he said, slicing at his brother with his plasma sword. Rocco easily dodged the blow and returned with one of his own. Arccoo heard the sound of distant gunfire and hoped his backup would be arriving soon. He and his brother locked plasma swords. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You always were weak like that.” Rocco pushed him back, sending him stumbling. “It’s why you would never be a great king.”

Arccoo let out a surprised laugh as he parried his brother’s blow. “You think I want to be king? You truly have lost it.”

“No, I am a student of history,” Rocco retorted, kicking Arccoo’s knee. He fell with a choked cry. “Do you have any idea how many firstborns have died at the hands of their younger brothers? I’m simply taking preemptive action.” Rocco held the blade to his brother’s throat and prepared for the killing blow.

“Get the hell away from him!” Carmen shouted, striking Rocco on the back of the head with her blaster staff.

Rocco crumpled to the ground like clothes dropped from a dryer line. Carmen’s brown eyes, usually so gentle, were fierce. When they met his, though, they softened into worry.

“Are you okay?” she asked, helping him to his feet. He sensed more than he saw the soldier taking aim at her. In a fluid motion, he swung her aside and threw his sword at the shooter, hitting him square in the chest.

“I’m fine,” he replied, running a hand across a wound sluggishly forming a red streak down her forehead. “You?”

“I’m—Behind you!” She grabbed her blaster and shot someone trying to sneak up on them. Shaking her head, she let out a weak laugh. “I’m fine. But let’s save this conversation for later.”

“Agreed.”

“Hey, guys, I got the thing,” Sofia said, bounding over to them alongside Elena. “How about you grab your brother and we all skedaddle?”

“Sounds like a plan.” He stooped over to cuff Rocco’s hands and feet together before lifting him in a fireman’s carry. Pressing his comms, he made a report. “Mission objectives complete. Return to the ship.”

With Carmen and her sisters at his side and the taste of victory on his lips, they fought their way to the waiting ship and headed home.