Chapter 8 | Hazel

Chapter 8

Hazel

––––––––

"Do you think he's dead?" the youngest outlaw asked. When we were boarding, I saw he had the same kind of markings the shol trader had.

"Unlikely," the unGor who had helped me before replied, Genbi was his name. "From what the lizard said, Lord Zorn was alone when he attempted to handle business himself. Lord Zorn is never alone. It's likely he had the whole den at his disposal, and there were insurances in place should something not go according to plan. This is probably a lesson he has planned for you, Vareo."

Genbi helped me escape before, but from what I was hearing, I wasn't sure if he'd do the same for a second time. There was a kind of respect to his tone when he discussed Lord Zorn. If Lord Zorn is never alone, then someone would have recovered his body, and if they were loyal, then they'd be making efforts towards healing him. He may not be dead after all, I thought with a shiver that made my limbs ache.

"Like the incident back on Sumtraliaq?" Vareo cursed under his breath. I continued to lie strapped to the cot in the opened room next to them. There was no door to this room, only a curtain that swayed with the air vent below it. I had a feeling this wasn't always a room outfitted with bedding. The cushion between my body and the hard metal slab was thin, and the straps appeared more for cargo than for transporting a lifeform.

I stayed quiet to see what else they had to say when they believed we were both unconscious. Yueril was slumped half on the cot and half off, with his head resting on my stomach and his tail wrapped protectively around my leg. He stopped talking in the middle of a sentence, and I couldn't even feel his chest move with his inhale of breath. He was cold to the touch, and I would have thought he was dead, if it weren't for the way his tail periodically pulsed around my calf. The conversation echoed through the vent.

"I wouldn't doubt it," Genbi agreed.

"Sumtraliaq was a blood bath. He sent unprepared slaves with no warrior training to a planet with barely any land surface. They were eaten alive, and the ship was lost!" Vareo grew more agitated with every word. There was no love lost from him towards the Lord Zorn. That was my only comfort, that I might be able to trust them long enough to get back home.

"And what did he say to you after?" Genbi prompted.

"It was an investment in the future," he scoffed. "To have the ship send back information about the resources and species there, but also to monitor when the species is capable of using the ship to their own advantage to communicate with the galaxy. He sacrificed all of them."

"Now that planet is under Lord Zorn's jurisdiction. Anyone who trades goods to or from that planet has to pay their dues. It is Lord Zorn's right to do so after paying the fee in blood and lost goods."

"The bastard is not right in the head."

"He doesn't take from the planet; he takes from those that wish to use the planet. That is one of the lessons. The lengths he goes to strike fear into those that would oppose him is but a method of controlling how much is taken. When you're older, you'll understand that the slaves that follow him don't stay because of any fear they have of him, but an understanding of what he is building."

"Okay, fucker. What am I supposed to learn from this, then? That we sacrifice some slaves for the lives of others? And when am I going to be the next sacrifice? What then, Genbi? What then? I'm nobody's sacrifice! And what right did Lord Zorn have to decide on who gets used and who doesn't?"

I felt a twinge of familiarity with his words. Was I nothing more than another sacrifice?

"Vareo," Genbi said with a chuckle. "Why would he teach any lessons to someone he plans to sacrifice?"

My lip curled up in distaste as Genbi's image in my mind warped from savior, from a life as a slave, to that of a male that couldn't be trusted even temporarily. Whatever kindness he showed me was to meet his own ends, and I might simply be another lesson for someone he did care about. I tried to reach the release button on the straps that held me down, but it was near my feet, and the metal latches were facing the opposite direction that required more of a push than a pull action, even if I touched it.

"Plans change, Genbi," Vareo said with a growl.

They certainly did, I thought, while smiling fondly at Yueril. He was in this mess because of me, and I'd find a way to get us both out of it. Somehow. I tried to melt the metal at my feet, my teeth gnashing at the pain of even trying to use my loh when my largest ones were torn from my flesh. It was no use. I whimpered as I felt moisture drip down my heels from fresh blood where my wounds were reopened from my efforts. It hurt, but it was tolerable with the numbing oil from Yueril's tail wrapped around my leg, seeping into my skin. I had to wonder if he knew I'd need it, and that's why he curled his tail around me before his eyes closed. I closed my eyes and groaned at the way my consciousness was fading to join him. We would be at the mercy of two outlaws that were at odds about their opinions towards Lord Zorn, and inevitably towards whether they would risk their lives for ours if it came down to it.

"Then what's your plan?" Genbi sighed. "It won't take long for the crew to know something happened to Lord Zorn. Now's your chance to escape this life, if that's what you're looking to do."

"You won't come with me." Vareo understood what he didn't say.

"No one truly leaves Lord Zorn. The experience buries itself inside your very en . One cannot live in the light without a bit of darkness."

"My en died the rising my planet was destroyed."

But if he was shol, then he wasn't alone. There was a whole colony of shol beneath the surface of Delta Fal. His planet may be gone, but his clan was not. I'd tell him as much, but I couldn't be sure of his loyalties. I wouldn't be responsible for exposing the last of a species to the largest outlaw organization in the system. The tincture oil from Yueril was no longer being burned off by my radiation, and I felt the numbness travel up my limbs.

The intercom across the small ship crackled to life. A woman spoke, "Vareo, I know it's you. You're the only bastard stupid enough to take a ship for a joyride the moment Lord Zorn is busy."

"You going to tell Lord Zorn?" Vareo snarked back.

"No need," the woman replied flippantly. "He already knew you would. Why do you think it was so easy for you to leave?" She waited a heartbeat before haughtily continuing, "What? You thought he didn't notice when a ship was decommissioned after being repaired? Why he favors you, I don't know, but now that you're back and the hangar is closed, I'll connect you with his comm. Like he requested."

I struggled to stay awake to hear what was happening, when the last words I heard were, "Vareo, my son, did you recover my lost moon flea?"

Lord Zorn...

* * *

Tapping rang through my ears, waking me with a startled gasp that I choked on through a mask forcing air into my lungs.

"There she is," Lord Zorn's voice was muffled, but distinctly his. "Did you know that fleas aren't that much different from any other species? They survive off of another's life force, the blood of another."

I struggled at the sound of his voice, but found my shoulders bumped into warm metal and it felt like I was floating. With a blow of air out my nose, there was something suctioned around my face, but I couldn't open my eyes yet.

"Oh, don't get me wrong, little moon flea. Being as we are the same species, being a flea doesn't have to mean you spread disease wherever you go, like those that follow the one you call Almder. Fleas may not be able to fly, but they can jump one-hundred and fifty times their own height. To their fellow grounded fleas, they are gods that soar the skies. They also have an endurance stronger than many others, able to sustain activity for thousands of jumps without rest, if they tried. Are you a disease or a god, little moon flea?"

My voice was garbled behind the mask, but it was there as I replied hoarsely, "You're the only one spreading disease across the universe."

He chuckled like I was being cute. "A disease, or freedom? Depends on who you ask. I was prepared to pluck your flesh while you slept, but my son told me something curious enough to change my mind."

His son, that was the second time he said that, and the last time he was referring to Vareo. Was the young shol part estreld?

"You see, the healing pod you're in was designed for me, and only me. My DNA. And seeing as you are now awake, and healing nicely, we both know the implications of such a thing."

"How are you still alive?" I changed the subject before he tried to say something ridiculous, like he was my spawn maker. My mother told me that we lived separated from the clan because of her love for my father, and wanting to raise me herself instead of with the clan caretakers. Lord Zorn was a god of myth that hadn't been seen in the clan for many rotations before I could have possibly been spawned. It was logistically impossible with him running his slave empire to have visited Estreldez during that time.

"Now, or back when my mate betrayed me?"

I didn't have the words to respond, so he continued without them. "We'll start from the beginning, my progeny. You see how your color is so pale compared to the vibrant colors of your peers? I didn't think much of it before, but when I was a youngling, I too had such a pale complexion. It fades more as you age, until your hair is white, and your green skin is no better off. The blue of your oxygenated blood will seep through the layers and become a blue-yellow tinge until you look like the ice of the southern mountain range, farthest from the moon's rays. Your mother's green eyes will stay, though. My eyes were always golden."

My mother didn't have green eyes...

"You don't know what you're talking about," I gritted through clenched teeth as I struggled within what I now realized was some kind of gel liquid.

He tsked with his tongue. "Your mother lost many offspring. Not a one of them lived for longer than a few risings. But what many forget, my precious jewel, is that she wasn't the only one with loss. They were mine too. My offspring torn from my grasp as they burned too hot too soon, falling to moon fever before their loh were developed enough to survive. I had enough. Every offspring, she would harm herself further by removing a loh from her flesh. Try again, another loh would be removed, but bigger, more brutal of a sacrifice for each subsequent loss. I was losing more than an offspring each time. I was losing my mate slowly. Any further damage and she may have soon found herself unable to take in the moon's rays at all."

He paused then, and I barely pried my eyes open to see him watching me through thick gel and a viewing window to the healing pod I was in. His loh were still shattered, blue blood was still dripping down his flesh as he slumped in a chair, hooked up to tubes and a soft glowing light. I had injured him more than his voice betrayed. Lord Zorn appeared exhausted and near death while he spoke of the death of his offspring, and the woman who was obviously not my mother. My mother had all of her loh intact.

An intrusive voice in the back of my mind reminded me of the stories of the Almder herself, and how her very crown was made of tarnpul and her own flesh. It was adorned with several loh that much of the clan believed were from her offspring as a reminder of her loss, and perhaps the smaller ones were, but the larger ones would have been impossible to have come from a new offspring. As much as I hated to admit it, his story fit with what I knew of the Almder, the leader of Estreldez.

Lord Zorn continued, "I met with the medical staff to discuss ways of preventing any further offspring, and that was the rising she betrayed me. She had the medic subdue me as she removed my mating loh. I woke up on a ship, in the middle of nowhere, as I was being sold on the blue market to an outlaw on Sholonus that planned to gore out my loh to save her clan. She was under the impression that the radiation in my skin would burn out the disease in her mate. Her mate didn't last long enough for her to return. I considered killing her when I woke, but she wasn't alone. Vareo was with her, and I strangely could not leave him. He was mine. Everything in me said he was mine.

"Mine to protect, just as his is yours to protect as well."

I didn't understand what he was rambling on about. Mine to protect? After losing so many offspring, he must have snapped.

"As my daughter, you must carry on my legacy and protect the future of Estreldez through the shol. They are the key. The markings on their skin, they aren't fleas like us. They are the moon, not a parasite of it. It will take centuries to build up their population, but we must find another female shol to bond him with. When their numbers are stronger, we will integrate them with estrelds and the offspring will be cured. Future estrelds will rise from fleas to the gods. No longer beholden to the moons. Just being near a shol is like being near the moon's rays."

"I'm not your daughter," I said while struggling within the medical pod.

"Your mother knew I wouldn't let her continue to try for more offspring when she was destroying herself in the process. I thought she was punishing me for betraying her need for progeny, but she was taking what she needed and removing the obstacle towards her goals... me. Your mother's stubbornness is what I loved about her, because it meant she stopped at nothing to achieve great things."

"My mother had blue eyes," I objected.

He didn't even acknowledge what I was saying as he continued, "Don't get me wrong, I still have every intention of destroying her for what she did to me, but I have to admit that without her betrayal, we may never have found the solution to the moon sickness, or the increasing amount of estrelds with smaller, and decreasing number of loh. The clan relies on the Almder to help them absorb the moon's rays and mate. She uses this as her way of staying in power, but she knows that without offspring as strong as her, she will be the death of the clan. Reliance makes us weak. With the shol that will all be in the past.

"It's up to us, my jewel, to make sure Estreldez has a future. With you, and the power you showed at the Den, you can lead the clan to a better future. We must diversify our offspring to ween away from the dependency of our moons. The moon sickness will become a greater threat in the coming centuries. Our entire clan could become extinct if they cannot survive the darkness as the moons pull farther away. The moon's rays will become hotter and the dark side will become colder. Smaller loh could mean death for our clan. The tarnpul can only do so much. And we have bigger problems approaching our sector that may destroy our very planet, just as Sholonus was destroyed."

It was a lot to take in. You'd think I wasn't talking to the most notorious outlaw in the sector as he spoke of saving planets and preventing extinction.

His voice was ragged, exhausted as he said, "I don't tell many people this. I can't, because my reputation depends on not having reasons for what I do besides protecting my profits... my business. Revenge is the only thing I allow the universe to see. The darkness I must commit is all I allow them to see. Like your mother, I am a stubborn flea, unwilling to stand by and watch as my clan unravels. Sacrifices must be made, and I'll do whatever it takes to make sure there is a future... even if that means I must be the darkness that allows the light to be seen.

"Rest now, my jewel. There is much to do before you take over as Lord Zorn."

Take over?

"You've lost your mind," I choked out. The mask over my mouth and nose filled with a thick scent that smelled of burning metal and my eyes grew heavy as my muscles twitched.

"Genbi," he called out. "Prepare the airlock with the trill. We'll let my daughter do the honors of ending him after she wakes."

My heart sped up, thundering in my ears, but all that did was speed up whatever drug I was inhaling, and my mind was filled with nightmares of Yueril's body freezing before it explodes as I watched. Space was an unforgiving place, and I'd seen the same happen to a slave that launched himself out the airlock rather than being sent off to who knew where. He didn't have the same help that I did in escaping. I'll never forget the horror of that moment when I realized every slave died... it was just a matter of how.

I wouldn't let Yueril's story end in such a horrific way.