Chapter 9 | Yueril

Chapter 9

Yueril

"Leave him," I heard a voice say as my scales itched from being overly dry. It was typical for that aching feeling when hibernating in a place not in ideal humid conditions. Memories of where I last had consciousness were in the hands of outlaws and the hope that they were able to finish what I could not. Keeping my mate alive.

"The virus doesn't breed in the dead. No need to bother moving it to the incinerator. Grab the emergency oxygen converter and prepare for the decontamination sequences for this sector."

"There aren't enough hazard suits for everyone in this sector..."

"Then they better hope they don't touch anything contaminated until the medics come to clear us."

"You're right," they replied with uncertainty.

My tail twitched as the feeling returned to my limbs. I wasn't fully healed. I could tell by the way I felt more heavy than like the refreshed feeling I got from recently shedding my scales. That was the last stage of recovery— completely reforming new scales and the dead scales molting away. My skin felt tight, too tight. I was waking early, which was rare.

Ancient warriors used to die in the wilderness if their tribe didn't protect them during hibernation. It was risky allowing us to become so injured that we risked this deep state of unconsciousness. What would have triggered waking me early?

My heart beat faster than normal, speeding up the recovery of my consciousness and the ability to move my claw tips.

"What was the first sign to watch for again?" One of the strangers asked with a shaky voice that pitched up at the end, nearly missed if you weren't hyper focused on only a voice.

"The medics said the virus heats up someone's insides and makes them itch until they either pass out or tear their own hides off, like they are trying to extract the virus externally."

"Right," his voice quaked. "Itching."

"You aren't feeling anything, are you?"

"N-no. You know I get anxious about these things. Just thinking about someone else itching makes my talons ache."

"Get out of your head and let's move to the next room so we can get scanned sooner than later."

"Has anyone survived the virus?"

The other male didn't reply, knowing once the virus latched on, there was no one who lived long after. By the time anyone noticed the virus was around, it would have been breeding long enough to be very near the end of the incubation period. If they were talking about the Solungors, then the only hope would be a direct injection of nanobots and hope it wasn't too little too late. The countervirus I was in charge of unleashing on Delta Fal was more of a pre-emptive measure that was untested, and if we were on Lord Zorn's ship, like I suspected, then their ship wasn't exposed to the nanobots yet, at least not in enough concentration to help.

Where was my treasure?

The Solungors were here. Did my team arrive in time? Only myself and Belder were directly injected with the Ganpan-Fal. The rest of the crew were exposed to it at the same time as the rest of the planet. Would it be enough when the virus was already here?

Great goddess... we might be too late. My skin was tight. Too tight. The dryness of my scales was acutely annoying and begged for my claws to dig into them. That was normal, I assured myself. It was natural to want to molt old scales, but my new ones wouldn't be ready to protect myself if they didn't come off on their own.

Screams echoed outside the room from the hall. I groaned and forced myself to move. The whole playing dead during hibernation wasn't going to save me if the Ganpan-Fal didn't block the replication of the virus. This was my job. This was my purpose. I had to make sure I was in contact with the virus to truly know if the nanobots worked.

Stumbling to the door, through what looked like a storage room of waste product they'd dispose of on the planet. It was a myth that anyone actually polluted space regularly. Tossing things out of the airlock is a last resort. Waste is best properly disposed of on-planet for recycling and decomposing. Or sometimes, an incinerator, but even that costs valuable resources best utilized elsewhere on a ship. It wasn't uncommon for species unfamiliar with the trill to be unable to detect our life signs while hibernating.

I moved my tail back and forth to help get feeling back, and felt like I was back in the deserts of Trillume with nothing but my wits and skills to keep me alive. My robes were gone, my pants were melted into my scales in areas from the radiation damage of dueling Lord Zorn.

I could sense the heat signatures in the hall, and when the door wheezed open, I could hear the other male's sobs. "I had no choice. I couldn't let you die like that. Forgive me..."

"Th-thank you," the other wheezed. I now saw he was a rare species from a planet under the control of Lord Zorn. He had light green skin like some trill, but unlike our own scales, his seemed so delicate and he had long braided blue hair and fleshy flaps on his arms that flared and fluttered. There wasn't much known about the planet other than they were too primitive to have reached space without interference, and there was very little land, making it extremely inhospitable for most species to invade.

Blue blood dribbled from his neck gills. Ah, that made sense. It would be more difficult to keep air-borne viruses out if his gills never sealed up outside of water. A bulge grew on his neck and pulsed. The other male didn't seem to notice as he held him in grief. I knew making myself known would only distract him further from what was happening. The host was dying too late. If he was already feeling itchy, the Solungor was already formed enough to be released.

The other male might have been informed enough to know of the threat, but not enough to realize he needed to incinerate the victim at this stage. Killing him would only release the creature early. The head was always the last thing to form. It was also a Solungor's weakness when they came out. Too freshly made to be hardened yet.

I had to approach them both slowly, yet not wait too long for it to infect his friend. They were the most volatile after first consciousness.

The male continued to sob, and the bulge in the dead pushed the other head to the side more. This one was foolish to linger. I was close enough now to spray them both. It should stall the Solungor as well as prevent the other male from accidentally helping the thing escape from its host. I sprayed at the same time the male retreated enough to see the bulge in his friend and scramble back. I was dehydrated and didn't have any tincture oil on my scales to help incapacitate either of them. The male bumped into my shins and I wrapped my tail around his neck to stop him from fighting too hard against my poison.

I could always give him an antidote before he dies, but the first side-effect of my poison taking hold was nerve damage, enough to help freeze up his muscles. I squeezed on his throat and then shoved the tip of my tail into his mouth to speed up the process. He gagged, scratching at my scales with his talons for me to release my hold. I moaned at the relief of a few scales tearing away. It felt good having the pressure ease up where he thrashed.

"Once I secure the Solungor, I'll check to make sure you aren't infected and then give you an antidote."

His body went limp, and I dragged him back before releasing him to address the threat in the room. Chopping off the head while it was growing would only delay the Solungor. You have to wait until the head is completed and the growth activation is over; I reminded myself. It was tempting to claw at the head as it pulsed all vulnerable, but the body was fully formed underneath, and the head would simply grow back if you cut it off too early.

I'll give it to the other male that killed his friend. At least with the host dead, the Solungor is required to grow a new head, instead of using the one already provided.

"What should I do with you?" I asked out loud.

"Leave him," a voice over the intercom said. "The whole sector is compromised. If you touch him, I won't tell you where to go to be scanned for the virus. Lord Zorn ordered the whole sector to be burned. We both know you'd survive that, and I'd rather make sure you don't escape without making sure you aren't carrying one of those fuckers."

"You have scans capable of finding it before it reaches this stage?"

"We keep the exposed isolated for a rotation. That's long enough to see the formation of the extra nerve endings that start to grow and attach to the brain. The medic said the virus creates a new nervous system first, one that allows the host to control the newly formed parts until it's ready to control them itself. But don't think I didn't overhear your little chat with Hazel. I know everything that happens on my ship, and you're going to come with me to go get your little anti-viral bots from your ship and save my crew before Lord Zorn destroys them, or I'm going to make sure something happens to the medpod when I kill Lord Zorn and take over the ship."

The young Sholus was full of fire and determination. I didn't doubt he would throw himself against any threat if he thought it would help his situation. He was reckless, but if he stayed alive long enough, he would surely be a great leader with such passion to keep his crew safe.

He was already better than me. My whole leadership was designed to sacrifice myself and my crew for the sake of saving future crews from this very situation.

"Lead the way, small fire starter."

"I'll light your tail on fire as I cut it from your ass if you fuck us over," Vareo threatened.

"Your original threat was enough motivation," I deadpanned, thinking of my treasure still recovering in a medtank.

"Make your way to the West entrance, towards sector Pal. There is a utility hatch in the guard station that only opens when both sides are unlocked. You'll open it on your end, and if you pass the scan from the guard station, then I'll let you out."

"I haven't been exposed for as long as the rest of the crew in this sector," I pointed out the fact that the scan would mean nothing.

"Even if you're fucked, if the scan can't detect it, then we have enough time to get what we need and return. If you care about your mate, then you'll help me, and come back to be scanned again."

I nodded. "True enough." He's already heard my conversations with My Treasure to know I've bonded, and his species had a strong mate bond that his youth would sway his logic enough to believe others held the same connection with their own mates. I would have to remedy that belief after we retrieved the reserve stores of the Ganpan-Fal. He wasn't wrong about what I would do for my mate, but there were plenty of my species that would not do the same.

I reached the guard station relatively easily with the help of the young Shol that redirected his crew that held respect for him over the intercom ahead of my arrival.

"If you don't mind my curiosity, how are you doing this without Lord Zorn's interference?"

"He disabled his own access to this sector the moment he considered it lost. He may be ruthless, but he doesn't want to watch his crew die, even if he was the one to order it. He'll simply monitor the sensors as they go dark from being incinerated. Lucky for you, one of our best security commanders was on his rounds and got stuck in that sector. He doesn't want to be incinerated, and he believes I can do what I said I could."

"What exactly did you promise him?"

"That I've seen a beast with the sickness be cured with the supplies from the trill ship in port, and I'm the best bandit around. No one will approach the sector to verify beyond the sensors for at least a full red-star, and until then, Klaundis will systematically trigger the sensors and then disable them. We'll have the time to get your cure and allow it time to work before evacuating the sector onto shuttles for them to disappear. Then we'll burn the whole sector and no one will be the wiser."

"For a spawn, you have thought this through."

"Fuck you," he lashed out, knowing that I had not expected him to be so prepared. "I may not be mating age, but my species takes over a hundred cycles to mate because we only bond once in a lifetime. Since my species was destroyed, my ability to mate is a useless marker of my maturity. I'm probably older than you, lizard."

"Ah, are you already fifty cycles?"

"Fuck you," he spat again, making me grin. That was a 'no'.

The scan in the guard's room beeped and flashed red. I sighed in relief. Red was good.

"You're clear," he grumbled. "Go open the hatch. It's hidden behind the wall panel. Just lean into it until it clicks."

Following his instruction, I was able to locate the manual seal he spoke of. It required me to release a pressure sensor deadlock. It was not designed for creatures with only three fingers. With a sigh, I angled myself to use both my hands to place pressure in the grooves, attempting to move the locking mechanism. Due to the separation of my thumb from my other two fingers, I had to apply both my hands and then even my tail had to wrap around the grooves to prove I had full intention of opening the hatch.

Who designed this ship? Who had that many fingers?

"Good, you found the glove. It's moving on my side," Vareo grunted.

The glove? I refused to admit to this spawn that I hadn't looked for a device to help other species open the hatch. I was willing to break this vessel through brute force.

"This hatch is fucking thick," he said with a strain that I felt myself as my arms flexed to move the weight of the wheel.

The next forced tug on the hatch finally moved the gears enough to hear the wheeze of released air pressure between the sectors. The force of it swung the hatch open, and I realized that it wasn't merely thicker. The crawl space was surrounded by a volatile compound that, if it combined with a certain rock, was highly corrosive.

Vareo was on the other side, watching me stare at the inside of the hatch.

"Lord Zorn doesn't mess around. If you try to break free of the sector without help from the other side, it would burn you alive and destroy the hatch in the same action. Some have used their strength to tear through hatches before. They didn't make it to rip open the other side."

The force of the pressure releasing made the hatch swing out. My face was covered in the spray of the jelly inside. If we activated the trigger for the rock dust that made this jelly turn to acid, then I'd have been liquified on contact.

I quickly made my way through and quickly closed the hatch before asking, "What about the hatch on the other side?"

Vareo smiled. "They are on the same gears. When I close this one, the other will screw back in place without any help from someone else. Only needs one person to close it."

I saw him wearing the glove that had an extra thumb. Vareo looked down at my own hand to see I was not wearing one and his grin widened, but he wisely chose not to speak of it.

"Let's get out of here before the camera cycles through this area," he said before tossing me a crew uniform.

"I hardly think that will hide being the only trill on this ship."

He laughed, doubling over. "That's priceless. You think Lord Zorn hasn't recruited trill over the star rotations? He's a collector. Sure, there are only three on this ship, and Lord Zorn doesn't trust them enough to do anything important, but I doubt he's the one monitoring the cameras right now. He'll be on damage control." He adjusted the ring in his nose, an air synthesizer. "Here." He tossed one at me that I caught in the air. I attached mine and nodded that I'd follow his lead.

The uniform was tight, but everything felt tight with my scales damaged, and my tincture oil dried out.

An eerie feeling crept up my scales at how easy it was that we were reaching the shuttle bay with no incident or even passing another crew member. Vareo could feel the unease in the air, and slowed down as we got closer to his ship.

"I trust you've thought things through, but I've never seen a ship this silent."

"Fuck, no, you're right," Vareo groaned and pulled at his hair before he paced in a circle. "This is too much like the first time I ran away, and Lord Zorn was waiting at the docks with Genbi looking all guilty next to him."

A slow clap echoed along the large hangar space.

"You're growing up, my son." Lord Zorn's voice made my scales flex up to prepare for spraying the area. I knew that would also include Vareo, and I carefully calmed myself to relax my scales back in place. "Where do you think you're going with what is clearly my property?"

I flashed my teeth at that comment. He did not own me. Lord Zorn merely grinned at me and tapped his inside bicep. I found myself turning my arm over and glancing at my own to see the brand where my scales didn't regrow. A black bird stared at me, and I paled at the audacity to brand something he thought was dead. Or maybe he knew I wasn't, if he had other trill here?

"Don't bother trying to remove the mark," Lord Zorn dismissed my growing agitation clear on my features. "I don't use ancient branding techniques when someone joins the birds. Vareo can tell you."

Vareo snarled, but said nothing.

"No?" Lord Zorn shrugged and picked a piece of dead skin flaking from his shoulder around one of his cracked loh. He was worse off than I might have expected from a male that re-emerged from the clutches of death's grip more than once. He shouldn't be alive at all, but if he were as invincible as others claimed, then still being clearly injured was encouraging for the upcoming confrontation. The ship was within reach, and the only being between us was a male that may have been standing, but I could see the way his limbs shook. My poison was clearly still in his system.

My grin returned as I gave my own shrug of ambivalence towards my new mark.

"Even if you cut your skin and muscle off, the mark will return. It’s ingrained in your very DNA. I guess... if you were desperate enough, you could chop off your arm, but I believe your species regrows such things, and it would still be there," Zorn explained.

It didn't make my smile falter, because it would simply be a reminder of the male I conquered and freed my mate from. I was already enjoying the idea of keeping this mark for a very, very long time to come.

I wasn't the one dying today.

"You think I wouldn't notice the lack of resources depleting from incinerating a whole sector? Triggering the sensors was smart, I admit." Lord Zorn smiled at Vareo fondly before continuing. "I'm proud of you, son. You simply didn't take into account temporarily adjusting the sensors for our supplies, or even the drop in oxygen that should have happened if the sector was on fire. Next time, I'm sure you'll plan more carefully."

It was like he was excited for Vareo to one day best him, and think enough steps ahead to outsmart his master. They weren't the same species, so Lord Zorn couldn't be his genetic spawn maker, but there was a twisted fondness there that I couldn't deny.

"Fuck you!" Vareo lashed out, and his fangs were on full display, while an eerie blue glow emanated from the young shol.

Lord Zorn's eyes widened with awed excitement. I stared at the youth, and my second lids slid over my eyes to watch the way his energy grew. Shocked and horrified, I watched as the blueish heat was being sucked along a current—rushing towards Lord Zorn in waves. My eyes retracted back to normal. With his arms extended wide, Zorn’s maniacal laughter filled the air. Instinctively, I took a step back. The longer he was in contact with the energy coming off of Vareo’s fury, the more the cracks in his loh were healing.

I couldn't believe what I was witnessing, but I suspected that Vareo was the reason Lord Zorn was surviving my poison and the overload of radiation from Hazel. Did he know what he was doing? The anger appeared much too raw to be that of a male who was trying to help heal someone. This was why Lord Zorn kept the youth so close. It had to be.

The male was fast as they clashed together. Vareo rushed Lord Zorn, fangs and claws out with a battle roar echoing the shuttle bay.

Lord Zorn's laughter haunted me as I tried to keep up with them. My species was not that fast. We utilized our oils and spray to disable our prey, slow them down, and knock them out.

I thought of spraying Lord Zorn to help the shol warrior, but I'd only hurt both of them. There wasn't a way to use my spray and only harm one. Or was there?

I quickly removed my borrowed uniform shirt and wrapped it around my head like a hat, closing up any gaps that I could. My scales lifted and sprayed the fabric, soaking in.

There was little time that the poison would be most potent before it would neutralize in the air without a host. Unwrapping the shirt, I re-wrapped it, using the arms to tie it around my tail. My barbs extended from my tail to secure it further.

Lord Zorn didn't even view me as a threat in this battle, merely an observer in his fight with his son. It was just a game he was enjoying torturing Vareo with before he would return me to captivity, and resume his task of burning down his slaves.

Vareo had his claws dug deep into the estreld's gut while laughter reminded the youth that for every injury done to Lord Zorn, his own strange heat was healing him. They were both distracted with themselves to notice me come up behind. Vareo was glaring into his master's eyes. Lord Zorn was chiding with an amused tongue cluck. Neither of their exceptional hearing would hear my approach among their own loud heartbeats and raging tempers. I slowed my own blood to less than what most species would deem alive.

"Why?" Vareo demanded.

"We can't afford to risk the spread of the virus, you know this. The birds know of the risks, and the consequences of not following protocol when returning to the ship."

"No," Vareo gritted back. "You can wait. There's a cure."

"My poor son, it isn't just about saving them from their mistakes. You know this. They've grown complacent. That's why good birds are already dead. You think they should live after being responsible for ignoring my rules? For putting the entire crew at risk? They failed and the rest of the birds will learn how costly disobedience is."

Vareo saw me hovering with my tail slowly readying to strike. A slow smile lifted his lips and his eyes turned black as he allowed his anger to simmer enough for his blue, glowing runes along his arms to fade.

"Whoever was responsible is likely dead already. What you're doing is murder, not justice, and not even revenge. You, Lord, are no longer a bird of Zorn. You've flown too high to be one of us anymore," Vareo said with venom, and gave me a nod.

I wrapped my tail around the Lord's throat and shoved the shirt at his mouth to let the poison soak in. Vareo growled as he lunged his weight into his claws to dig farther into Lord Zorn's gut.

Voices over the intercom chanted from what I assumed were birds from across the ship. "One of us. One of us."

Blood dribbled from Lord Zorn's loh as his body shook and convulsed. We both stood there until the last twitch faded from his cooling body.

"Perhaps this time, we should make sure he doesn't pray for more blessings from the goddess," I suggested.

Vareo forced a chuckle. "I hear the incinerator is great for unwanted viruses."

I found myself releasing the tension in my shoulders with a laugh before I redirected back to the mission, "If you have access to this ship's command, it would be quicker to connect with my ship and have them bring it here."

Vareo nodded, an uncomfortably tight line replaced his smile. He tapped his comm and commanded, "Genbi, connect with the lizard's ship."

"One of us," the intercom continued to chant.

Genbi's voice was heard from Vareo's personal comm, "As you command, the voice of one will be honored."

"Fuck off," Vareo snapped, but there was a small smile barely imperceptible.

The sooner we got this infected sector injected with the Ganpan-fal, the sooner I'd know whether it worked, and ask my treasure if she'd join me in retrieving Belder, and deciding where our final payload of the nanobots would best be distributed.