18. Thoren

Chapter eighteen

Thoren

(We should call this strategy "Weaponized Cuteness")

I touch Dec's shoulder and teleport us to the tinkral ship. It takes a moment, but then I hit a ward around the ship hard enough to crack my stone. It dazes me, but I immediately teleport back to the command center.

"Where's Dec?" Reeves demands as he jumps to his feet.

It takes me too long to realize my Dec isn't in my hand. A chance glance at a screen tells me I've been gone for fifteen minutes already, which means I was hanging out in space longer than I expected after I hit the ward.

Dread pools in my stomach, and I teleport back to the spot where I hit. In my stone form, the vacuum of space doesn't affect me, but it would have killed Dec if he was knocked out of my hands when I hit the ward. It didn't feel like I lost him, but it didn't feel like I was knocked out either.

There's no sign of him outside the ship, but I don't let myself hope until I've scoured the entire area. As soon as I'm reasonably sure that he isn't a floating corpse in the vacuum of space, I start punching the ward around the ship. If he's not out here, and he's not back at the command center, he's inside, and there's no magic strong enough to keep me away from him. I believed the cards when they said he would successfully get the tinkral to leave, but I should have paid better attention to the fact that it was going to be a struggle.

I reach into my pouch and grab a card, slapping it against the ward and imbuing it with my magic. Snakes of red magic slither out from between my palm and the Two of Cups, hissing as they expand outward over the hull of the ship. The magical snakes grow until they circle the entire ship, meeting directly opposite of me. As soon as the circle is formed, I flex my power and the snakes squeeze, putting pressure on the ward. I punch with all my might against the ward, a physical blow and a magical one, and it shudders beneath the power of my magic.

A moment later, all six of my brothers arrive. Each of them slaps a card imbued with their magic against the ward, bolstering my strength with theirs. Spidery cracks break the ward with each hit from our collective force until it shatters. As soon as it's down, I feel Dec's presence and teleport straight to him.

Well, as close as I can get, anyway.

Dec is surrounded by tinkral. I can't see him, but I can smell the saline of human tears. The noise of my rage fills the bridge of this ship, the sound of rock grinding stone to dust under the force of pressure. My body turns to stone as I prepare to pulverize these tinkral savages for daring to hurt my Dec.

All at once, the tinkral turn, giving me a view of my precious person, who's crying into a pocket square, begging the tinkral to "Find my Thoren. What if he's out there in the dark? What if he's frozen to death in space? Find him, please! How could you do this to me? I thought you liked me!" His voice sounds completely broken and pitiful, and he has the tinkral wavering between various shades of blue that tell us they're heartbroken for the little human. A few of them even have scales turning the fiery orange of distress.

As soon as Dec sees me, his expression clears up and he launches himself at me. "Where the fuck have you been?" he demands as I catch him and wrap him in my wings, turning them to stone to protect him from anything the tinkral might do, though I have a feeling they're not planning to do anything he doesn't like.

"I was breaking the ward. My brothers are working on the wards on the other ships. What happened?" I ask, watching the blues and oranges on the tinkral around us become greens and reds again.

"I need to turn around to talk to them," Dec mutters, trying to wiggle.

I reluctantly return my wings to flesh and let him turn, but I wrap him up again as soon as he's settled and let my wings become stone to protect him.

Dec leans into me, looking up at the tinkral around us. "I can't believe you created wards specifically to keep teleporters out. How are the guardians of Earth meant to greet you when you ward against their magic? I could have died, and then how would you feel? Bad, probably. Your scales would turn blue permanently. You'd be pretty but morose because you killed a human. That's just no way to live."

The tinkral mission leader, identifiable by an emblem branded into a scale on his shoulder, and the captain of the ship, identifiable by a different brand on his shoulder, both step forward. They're still green and red, but some of the red is purple and some of the green is blue. The captain taps their claws together, blinking a few times before addressing me. "You're one of the guardians this human speaks of?"

"I am," I agree as a communication alert appears on their command display. It's an urgent alert and the mission leader hits the display.

On screen, a tinkral sits pinned down by five of the little gargoyles and speaks directly to the mission leader. "Our FTL drives are toast. I don't think we can get into the engine room to check them for at least a month. These little chrylich have taken the command crew hostage and locked down the wake-up protocols for the invasion force. We're grounded."

Another alert comes in, and the captain hits the display for that one. The sight in that video is almost a mirror of the other, and the captain of that ship reports a destabilized FTL engine and the lockdown of the ship's crew in their living spaces.

The captain turns back to Dec. "Did you do this?"

Dec thinks about it for a moment, then nods his affirmative. "I guess I did."

It was his idea to enlist the little gargoyles.

The captain looks back to me. "Are they all like him?"

"Like what?" I ask, curious what they mean. I've met a lot of humans, and Dec is the only one like him I've ever met.

"Cute."

"Dangerous."

"Emotional."

"Violent."

That adjective comes out of the mouth of a tinkral holding a bloody cloth to his mangled lips.

"Something happen?" I ask, hoping it was Dec who did that.

Dec tenses. "They grabbed my ass."

The alert that the engines of this ship have failed shows up as I narrow my focus on the tinkral with the audacity to touch what's mine. "Humans are as varied as any species, but as a whole, they are cute, violent, emotional and dangerous, and this one is mine. You don't touch my Dec without permission, and I'm never going to give you permission."

"It's my body," Dec deadpans, and it's a threat.

"It is your body, but until such time as you retract your consent, I get a say in who touches you, and the only people whose hands belong on your ass are yours and mine."

Dec gives me a moment to stew in the possibility that he disagrees before he hums in agreement. "Yes, that works for me. Please keep the pervs at bay."

The captain and the mission leader exchange a look before they both turn to us. "We now understand why your ambassador has failed to bring the humans in line with the galactic senate. We formally withdraw our intention to claim stewardship over Earth."

"We appreciate that, but may I ask why?" Dec asks, back in stuffy butler mode. It's impressive how quickly he can turn that persona on.

The mission leader replies, "The tears of humans seem to have a psychoactive effect on civilized species. We don't think that an invasion force would be able to withstand human suffering based on your ability to call up tears when you're separated from the people who are important to you. The plan for stewardship will have to be re-evaluated to take into account the bonding agent in your tears that triggers the need to comfort you and forces us to experience your sadness far too empathetically to succeed in gaining compliance to our stewardship."

Is that the load of basalt they're dumping on this invasion? Humans aren't taking care of their planet, so they've decided to do it for them? They're delusional if they believe their own rhetoric. Tinkral invasions of inhabited planets are brutal and devastating. They're not the worst expansionist species, but targeting Earth is...

Honestly, it's stupid. The senate won't interfere in their invasion of worlds not part of the Alliance of Species except for the ones protected under the Abron accords. Any invasion of Sol would be considered an act of war against the Alliance of Species and would result in heavy fines against the tinkral. Their membership in the alliance might even be revoked.

Against my dire thoughts, Dec's scent fills with the happiness I associate with amusement in humans. "I see. Unfortunately, you seem to have come to this conclusion too late. Like I said, it will be a month before anyone can come tow you out, but it looks like the little gargoyles have left your life support active, so it's not a complete tragedy."

A growl erupts from me. Dec might be amused, but something is happening with the tinkral if they thought invading Earth was their best strategy. "When the Alliance comes for you, make sure you never return to Sol. Do you remember what the Trustworthy did to the In'ai?"

Any civilized species would know what we did to that species a hundred years ago, and the tinkral captain's scales shift to orange when he hears me and finally sees me for what I am. "Of course."

"The Trustworthy protect humans and Earth, and we allow you to mine at the edge of Sol because you've never turned an eye to Earth before. Your welcome is rescinded. Henceforth any tinkral ship entering the orbital range of Sol will be destroyed without warning. We will assume the tinkral mean to invade Earth again and will act accordingly."

As soon as the mission leader and captain both acknowledge that, I teleport my Dec back home. I don't think the tinkral will return anytime soon, especially given their weakness to human tears and the reputation of the Trustworthy among the space-faring species who know of us, and I'm done with having Dec anywhere near them.