Chapter 33

THIRTY-THREE

At last, it was time.

Brimming with dark energy, suited up, and armed with his slender twin daggers, with the death-mask slung around his neck, Dragek waited in the docking bay as the cruiser's hatch unraveled. The ramp extended toward the floor, granting access to the dimly lit cabin.

He was alone. Ashrael had disappeared to do something or other, and the crew was busy preparing the ship for departure.

There wasn't just one vessel.

There were at least a dozen. There was the stealth cruiser that he and Ashrael were about to board. There was a medical transport—in anticipation of the human females and children they had to retrieve. There was a fleet of small, deadly-looking fighters—to guard the larger ships.

How surprising. He'd assumed this would be a stealth mission—just him and Ashrael and a well-trained pilot.

But it seemed Tarak had bigger plans.

All of these ships were being sent through the wormhole? Wasn't that too risky? What if one of them disappeared in the ether, or they got separated and spat out at different points in the Universe?

Whatever. He had to trust that Ashrael and Tarak knew what they were doing. He wasn't oblivious. He saw. He observed. The general always seemed to be several steps ahead of his enemies.

He would just have to trust in the plan. After all, the entire First Division still followed Tarak. Those guys weren't the sort that would blindly follow anyone. After the fall of the Empire, they could have done whatever they wanted. They could have committed mutiny.

Nine against one. As formidable as he was, even Tarak wouldn't have been able to hold them back if they wanted to go against him.

But the First Division warriors were still unflinchingly loyal to Tarak. Dragek sensed that nothing in the Universe could break their bond.

They were united for a reason. They were no fools.

So logic dictated that he blindly follow them into an infernal wormhole, halfway across the Nine Galaxies, to find a ship carrying a mad descendent of the imperial family and a group of helpless human females and children.

It was the only thing to do.

A wry puff escaped his lips.

How in the Nine Hells had he ended up in this position?

He closed his eyes and let himself drift a little, casting his awareness outwards. He searched for her just because he could. Because he needed some form of reassurance that what they'd shared was actually real and not a crazed fever dream.

He found her. It wasn't hard. Amongst all the others, she burned so brightly, like an all-consuming flame. He wanted to step into her warmth again. He wanted it to completely engulf him.

He felt so different when he was with her—like he'd been reborn.

She was still asleep. Still in his domain. He couldn't get through to her without slipping into the void again, which was impossible right now.

Never mind. Let her rest.

Trepidation was pointless. He would return. Even an interdimensional rift couldn't keep him from coming back to her.

A faint sensation prickled at the edge of his consciousness. A presence? How had they managed to sneak up on him like that?

He turned his head sharply, looking over his shoulder.

Ah . That made perfect sense.

There stood Tarak, arms folded, head slightly cocked, his expression as cryptic as ever. "You understand now, don't you?"

"I'm starting to."

"This isn't a suicide mission, Dragek. I have every intention of bringing my men back intact. If you know much about my reputation, then you know I don't consider any of my men to be expendable. That includes you."

"I'd heard you ran an efficient operation. That you were different from the other bosses. That in recent times, you'd grown more merciful. My old masters put it down to weakness. That you'd been influenced by the humans."

Tarak raised an eyebrow. "And what do you think?"

It occurred to Dragek that Tarak was clad in his battle-armor, a light-absorbing suit made from a hard but flexible layer of Callidum. A pair of menacing-looking Callidum swords were sheathed at his back. He was heavily armed, with plasma guns, incendiary devices, and daggers secured against his body.

Was he… coming with them?

He, the absolute authority, the high commander of this entire operation, intended to fight?

The corner of Dragek's mouth curled in amusement and astonishment. Such a thing was nearly unheard of. None of the Masters and Mistresses involved in The Program would have deigned to set foot on the battlefield. They'd been above that, supposedly.

Not Tarak.

"You're…" Dragek hesitated, trying to reconcile Tarak's fearsome reputation with the man standing before him. The general was known as a ruthless killer, one of the most elite warriors the Empire had ever produced. He'd survived the most brutal experiments in a program that had killed thousands.

He had Callidum-infused nanites in his bloodstream. His body regenerated at unnatural speed. He was almost impossible to destroy.

Dragek knew. He'd been briefed on the First Division and their leader dozens of times.

"You're not what I'd expected," he managed to say at last, not quite understanding why he was suddenly filled with this strange emotion.

It took him a while to even begin to identify it.

Because he'd never experienced it before.

No…

Surely, he wasn't feeling loyalty toward this man.

Tarak was the one who'd ordered the kill-switch to be implanted inside him. For all their lofty ideals, the Darkstar Mercenaries still played by Kordolian rules.

The general took a step toward him. "Do you think I'm weak, katach? " His voice turned cold. The threat was there, hidden beneath layers of icy control. Others might have missed it, but Dragek understood.

On this mission, there was no room for dissent. Not even a particle's width.

And Tarak al Akkadian was no less dangerous than before.

No. He was even more dangerous now that he had something to protect.

What a formidable aura.

"I think… contact with the humans has enlightened you, not made you weak," Dragek said carefully. "And in order to protect such a vulnerable race of beings, perhaps… one has to become immeasurably stronger."

Tarak nodded. "I wasn't wrong when I sensed you were redeemable." A strange note entered his voice, and Dragek sensed something of great significance was happening. But what exactly that was, he didn't know.

It was as if Tarak saw something that nobody else could.

For a brief moment, the pent-up fury of Dragek's Mating Fever was held at bay, tempered by the promise of change.

"I don't care about redemption," he said gruffly. "Freedom, a quiet existence, and to protect my mate from harm—that's all I want."

"Then you understand that we need to eliminate every last trace of dissent. None can be allowed to remain because, over time, dissent spreads and multiplies, and I will not tolerate any remnants of that poison in my Universe."

"Then why are you allowing the other Kazharan to live? If he's so important to our enemies, why not just let me kill him?"

"If he is indeed the real Amun, as we have almost certainly confirmed, then he is Xalikian's brother ," Tarak said matter-of-factly. "Remember that you, too, were once a grave enemy of mine. Despite what you might have heard, I don't wish to slaughter my own people indiscriminately. Our history has always been dark. The existence of the Empire was rooted in the subjugation and slavery of others. In some of our kind, there's a sickness of mind that will never be cured. But there are also those of us who have been forced to become monsters. I was one of them. So were you. It's no secret that I need Amun alive for strategic reasons, but if there is any possibility he can be turned, we would be foolish to squander it. Rest assured that if I decide he is beyond redemption, I will not hesitate to make sure he never sees the light of the stars again."

At that moment, Dragek understood. This was how they should be. Tender toward the ones they cherished. As hard and sharp as honed Callidum against the ones that would destroy everything that was theirs. And fluid like water with the ones that wavered.

Lost for words, he simply nodded his understanding.

In the background, he held onto a tendril of Jade's sweet, slumbering aura.

Suddenly, all the harshness flowed out of Tarak, replaced with the most shocking sense of familiarity. His expression changed. The corners of his eyes crinkled ever so slightly. One side of his mouth quirked as if he didn't have a care in the Universe. "So." He gestured toward the ship's dark opening. "Are you ready?"

"Yes," Dragek said simply, and this time, there wasn't even a shadow of doubt in his heart.