Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

Siroc

" W arlord, our patrols have found a body at the East Tri-link Gate."

I couldn't imagine a less welcoming message. My morning meal would have to wait as I rose from my seat in the cavernous, rock gathering hall and faced my first guard. "What sort of body, Koloth?"

"A dead one, Warlord." He swallowed heavily, keeping his normally bombastic voice to a harsh whisper. Even so, sound carried in this space and so did news.

"I understand that," I said evenly. "Is it a Mitran who was found?"

"Oh, no." Koloth shook his head. "We aren't sure entirely, but…" He leaned in very close. "It appears to be human. A female." That last bit was barely audible, thankfully, since there were several hundred human females living in my Thrail.

I kept my patience in check and motioned for him to lead the way. "How are the guards not sure if the body is human, Koloth?" I asked. "Is it decomposed?"

My first guard's heavy brows lowered. "She is, ah, altered," he replied. "You may see for yourself."

I said nothing more as we strode through the curved stone corridors of my Thrail's underground city. Thousands lived here, under the jagged peaks and crushing weight of Mount Ha-rak'la. Our footfalls rang out on the rock floor that had long been worn smooth by millions of steps through the millennia. Through wars and upheavals, Thrail Praxan never fell to enemies. The mines and alloy processors provided metal to every Mitran Thrail and helped build our powerful spacefaring armada. It would not fall as long as I was warlord.

But this worried me. Dead bodies did not appear at our gates, of which there were many. Eight primary gates were more prominent and obvious than the hundreds of small ones. There had to be exit routes in case of emergencies. The Thrail had been evacuated once in its history, and that had been hundreds of years before my time. Obviously, one dead female was no reason for drastic measures, but that one other attack had begun in a similarly benign manner—a shipment of supplies had been loaded with a lethal gas that slowly leaked into the air ducts. Over two hundred Mitrans had died. Our enemies then, a species call Dessicans, had known Thrail Praxan's greatest vulnerability—we were enclosed. Trapped. During storms, even more so. The Dessicans were no longer our enemy, but perhaps there was a new one, and perhaps they knew this weakness, too.

My head worked through possibilities. If the body was a human female, and she had been "altered," whatever Koloth meant by that, we might have a security concern on our hands.

The East Tri-link Gate was open as we approached. The air chilled and bright, icy light from the outside flooded the entranceway with its cold glow.

Four guards stood around a figure spread out on the packed snow. I didn't like their stance. Each of them gripped their spear tightly. The warriors were not looking at the figure on the ground, but scanning the frigid mountainous landscape. They were braced for an attack.

"Report," I barked as I joined them. My gaze dropped to the individual sprawled on her back. My body tightened and my mind recoiled in a horror I was not accustomed to.

Oh, there was no doubt this was a female. And she definitely looked human, but altered was a mild word for what had happened to her. She was naked and completely hairless from head to toe. Her skin was unbelievably pale and her body was thin to the point of emaciation. Her bones protruded against almost transparent skin. Newly healed scars marked where surgical incisions had been made—without tissue regeneration—along with metal implants that looked like patches of shiny silver skin. These were visible on her chest, abdomen and head.

"Pal-Siroc," said Horvok, the high-ranking warrior guard present. He tapped the butt of his spear on the ground. "Two of my guards found her on their regular patrol. She was not touched or moved. We waited for you to arrive before we had the medic transfer her to the morgue for examination."

I nodded curtly and crouched down to get a closer view of her. It was possible she was a member of the female population of my Thrail. Something about her looked vaguely familiar, but it was hard to tell with all the changes that had been made to her. I suppressed a wince, thinking of the suffering this poor female must have endured before being dumped here. "Any theories on where she came from?"

"Not yet. And there are no signs that indicate where she came from or who brought her here." Horvok held a scanner in his free hand. "Also, no residual energy discharge that would indicate a ship or vehicle came here in the last day. Guards check every gate on routine rounds. She appeared here in the last six hours."

I crouched down and looked closer at her still features. "Could this be the female who went missing six standard galactic months ago?" I asked Koloth.

"Possibly," he replied. "It's hard to tell, but the medic will see if there's a match."

"Strange…" I murmured. She appeared to have a membrane-like film over her. I could see the thinnest of a plastoid -like, shiny covering, only noticeable very close-up. It stretched over her lips and eyes. It covered her nostrils as if it had been painted onto her and dried tight to her skin. I touched the skin of her shoulder and pinched that delicate membrane carefully between my fingers. It pulled slightly up from her skin with a wet sound. I released it, puzzled, and it was then that I saw the slight twitch of her eyelids. I leaned closer and there—a single, sluggish pulse moved in her neck.

I turned sharply to Koloth. "I want Urix here immediately."

"The high healer is on his way, Warlord."

As he said the words, two medics and the high healer ran down the corridor and joined us outside.

Urix was a tall, wiry male who was always harried and ran the infirmary with as much precision and discipline as Horvok did the warriors' schedules. He spared me barely a glance as he dropped to his knees beside the female and whipped out a handheld scanning device.

"She may be alive," I murmured to Urix, who turned on the device and swept its red glow over the female's head.

He looked up at me, eyes wide in shock. "There are life signs here, Warlord."

I locked eyes with the high healer. "Take her to the infirmary immediately. Find out what's going on and do everything you can to revive her."

Urix nodded and rose. "Biak, Crahat," he snapped. "Get her on the stretcher and to exam room three. Priority one."

The medics moved in, lifting the female and carefully placing her on the stretcher. She looked small and lifeless, but if there was still a spark in her, Urix would find it and revive her, and perhaps we could find out what had happened to her.

I watched the female being carried away and turned back to the guards standing there. They looked wary. Unsettled.

"How is it possible she is alive?" Horvok scratch his grizzled chin. "A human female without protective gear would not survive one hour in these conditions. Even we would fall to the cold, eventually. And we saw nothing on exterior scanners."

"She couldn't have just appeared here," I said. "She either got herself here or someone deposited her."

"If she got herself here," said Koloth, gazing at the spot where she had been lying, "she could have just opened the gate herself and come right in."

"Assuming she was one of ours," Horvok replied grimly. "If she is, that's not good."

I gazed off at the icy landscape. There was nothing but rock and snow and ice for as far as the eye could see. "I think she is one of ours," I said. "She looks familiar."

"The healer will let us know if she's the missing female," said Koloth. "But it was believed that she was attacked by a liskrat in the Sekral caves. Her things were found there—a bag, a shoe, and some blood. It was ultimately documented as a fatality."

"I want to know the instant Urix has an answer," I said coldly. "Prepare to revise that fatality documentation. This could be the missing human."

"Very well. What are your orders, Pal-Siroc?" Horvok wanted to know. He tucked away his scanner, raised his jaw and held his spear firmly.

"I want immediate accounting of all human females in the Thrail. Make sure none are missing," I said. "Double the monitoring of the gates and increase the scanning range to two hundred mitas . Cross-check every incoming ship, including those with scheduled arrivals. If this is a warning or a message, or even some sort of attack, we need to know."

"Yes, Warlord." Horvok nodded and left to carry out my orders, leaving the other guards outside to monitor the gate for further activity.

I went back inside with Koloth, touching the control pad. I let out a breath at the quiet slide of the thick metal door that sealed off the hostile outside world.

"What shall I tell the humans?" Koloth asked.

"The truth," I said, striding back to the main section of the caves. "We found someone in the snow. When we know more, we'll let them know."

Koloth opened his mouth, but then wisely shut it. I knew he wanted to tell the humans something more, to allay worries and offer some reassurance that this was nothing to fret about. I wasn't sure that was true.

I ducked through a low opening, angling my wide horns to fit through. "There will be enough conjecture, Koloth. We must not add to it."

"Yes, Pal-Siroc."

"Keep me updated. I want to know the instant anything changes. If she awakens or if she dies."

Koloth nodded with a bow and headed off. I returned to the gathering hall, where I would begin my duties for the day. Among them would be a full examination of our security measures. Naked, hairless human women with implants did not drop in at frigid mountain gates. My gut told me something was at work here. This female was a message and she was the key to deciphering it.