Series: Zandian Brides Series by Renee Rose
Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 57939 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 290(@200wpm)___ 232(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57939 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 290(@200wpm)___ 232(@250wpm)___ 193(@300wpm)
The attack stops. “Cease!” The second guard’s voice is taut, and there are sounds of a short scuffle. “The commander will roast us alive if we damage any of his Experimentals.” And then, “Alpha Two? What’s that?”
Thank stars I thought to say it. I’d laugh if I could–the assignment that’s brought me nothing but pain may now save my life. Miserable though it is, I still want it.
Curses and muttered voices war with the constant wind blowing over the tall yellow grass, the sound cold and empty on the barren planet. I’m freezing, dying, while the Ocretions argue in undertones. “In trouble…Should we…get rid of them and say that… or bring them… say an attack? For now…tie them up… store them…old hut.”
The words slowly cease to hold meaning. My body is hollowing out, I think, and the tortured wisp of my breath through the iron liquid in my mouth advances, until it’s all I can hear. Even the wind has gone silent against my own breath.
“Please,” I whisper…or think I do. At least I try. The Ocretions won’t care; they have no sentiment for their human slaves beyond the stein we’ll bring in a trade or the work we can do to improve abundance and utility. These particular two only care about whatever deal they’re doing and saving their own careers after taking slaves they shouldn’t.
Maybe I’m invoking all the near and distant universes, hoping against the odds that my cry resonates in a distant star. Or perhaps, I just want to verify that I’m still alive. But I clench my fists and send out any hopes I have, just in case it might do me any good. “Sweet Mother Earth, please.”
Daven
I dive into waist-high dried grass. “Get down!” I hiss. “Take cover. They’re looking this way.”
Axe, my second in command, grunts, swivels, and ducks. “I thought we got away undetected after retrieving the recording device.” His voice is so low I barely hear it.
“I did too, but they’re checking their perimeter.” I peer towards the Ocretion encampment.
My eyes have already adjusted to the inky night on Simak 14–a supposedly uninhabited foreign planet–using only starlight to see. The night vision on my eyepiece enhances the view.
A quarter-click from us, several stumpy Ocretions walk around in widening circles, holding light bars. And weapons. For us?
It’s a strange miracle of fate that we found their ship here in the first place–after we saw them unmask and land, we couldn’t resist the opportunity to spy, since we have a completely cloaked ship that could land without their notice. It’s not every planet rotation that we Zandians get a front row seat to see what the Ocretions are planning, and lately this kind of intel is more critical than ever before.
The sight of their warty, stinking bodies irritates me. Ocretions--the largest and most powerful species in the galaxy--offered our prince shelter after the Finn took our planet, but now that we’ve won it back and are working on repopulation, relations have become strained.
I whisper while I stare. “I don’t know why the Ocretions are meeting here with Karran tech craftsmen.” The Karran are tall, and their large translucent eyes gleam like neon in my night vision scope. They stand back behind the Ocs.
“Odd. They don’t usually do business together.” Axe puts a hand to his laser gun. “We need to avoid a fight.”
“I know. Stay low. I don’t think they see us.”
From here, we can’t hear the Ocretions’ conversation, but their bodies are tense. Alert. The Karran–I note that they aren’t carrying weapons–look jumpy, their long necks bending and ducking.
The group of them have a small encampment set up, and behind that, their aircraft, four big Oc carriers, and two smaller Karran transport ships. Uncloaked. Clearly, they did not expect visitors.
“We need to get back to our ship. Get the veck out of here and back to Zandia.”
About a quarter-mile away, there’s a run-down shanty of a building. It stands alone in this vast expanse of dried brush and desiccated grasses.
I nod at the distant shack. “It’s not on the direct path to our ship, but if we hide out there for a while, we can be sure no being is following us.”
“Agree.” Axe nods. “On your mark.”
“Go.” We get to our feet and race to the building, my lungs burning in the thinner atmosphere.
No shots sizzle past our skin or into our disguised bodies, thank veck, and in seconds we’re behind the structure, panting, peering around the sides of it, guns up. Watching–just in case.
I force myself to quiet my breathing, so I can hear.
There’s no sound at all beyond the constant low howl of the wind that sets the grass stirring constantly. This planet, although the atmosphere is a close enough match for our bodies, seems to be utterly vacant. Except, of course, for the Ocretions who nearly found us spying outside their encampment, taking long-range vid.