“If you hadn’t thrown out those beacons so fast, I’d never have found you. Do you always blow your load early, Thuliak?”
I narrow my eyes at him. “What beacons?”
“You tried to signal Rhulgar and Eriok. Of course you encrypted the beacons, but I found a way around that.”
Impossible. Breaking encryption wasimpossible.
He sneered, because he’d read the look on my face and seen how off guard he’d gotten me. I tried not to look down at Airlock, because I’d brought her here to show her how I performed while in my element, but now she was seeing me flustered and off-balance. It wouldn’t do. I needed to show both Tschenkar and Airlock that I was strong.
“You must have followed me,” I said, wishing it hadn’t come out as uncertain sounding as it had.
Tschenkar reached a hand out of frame, then he tugged, and Rhulgar came into the frame. He was wrapped tight with dream fiber, but none of the strands touched above his neck, so his head was still moving. He looked around wildly, his pupils were pinpricks. They must have just taken the blindfold off his face.
“Thuliak!” he shouted, “Don’t—”
Tschenkar shoved Rhulgar, and he flew out of the frame. A second later I heard a loud crash.
“Rhulgar found your beacon,” he said, “but I was following Rhulgar. I managed to disable his packship while his Grasp Drive powered up, and I also was able to see where he was pointing. I knew it was probably worth following him, but I sure as fuck didn’t think I’d get a planet full of virgins, but sometimes you get lucky, huh?”
“We have a weapons lock,” I said, already very strongly considering attempting to blast him to pieces. The Hivemind was telling me I had about a 50% chance of disabling his ship before mine took any real damage. Still, 50% meant only a 50% chance that I’d get to breed with Airlock. That wasn’t good enough.
“And so do we,” he said.
“I have a 50% chance of disabling you with our opening salvo.”
“And?”
“And if I disable you, I’m fucking killing you. And your officers. I’ll spare the pack. At least the ones who bow down to me.”
Tschenkar laughed, and his big muscles bulged. He licked his gleaming white teeth, and his furious purple eyes locked with mine. “Check your priority packets.”
The Hivemind had been overloading me with information, but I’d not spared a second to look through it, because the “diplomacy” with Tschenkar was taking my full attention.
My entire crew started swearing and furiously hitting buttons. I saw it come up on the screens and holos on the bridge just as I let the packet process properly into my working memory.
Shit.Shit! Rhulgar’s ship had freeloaded in through the Grasp Tunnel. They’d brought it in dark and used a concealed engine blast to propel past us. They’d just now activated their engines again to enter orbit around Eden, and that engine blast is what told us they were there.
“I controlEviscerator,” Tschenkar said, grinning to something offscreen, “andEvisceratorhas a weapons lock on all of Eden’s most populated cities. Don’t think I’m bluffing, Thuliak, I don’t care how many women I kill, as long as there are 10,000 or so of them left to breed withmypack. You know, in ancient human history, sacrificing virgins was considered good luck. I bet if I nuke a few million of them, I’ll have the best luck in the galaxy.”
“You wouldn’t,” I growled.
“No?” he said, “I wouldprefernot to either. I’d prefer that you agreed to let my pack join the Breeding Swarm as Second, and that you give me all the according breeding rights and naming rights that entails.
Something touched my arm. I looked down and saw the white skin of Airlock’s hand sliding out of the baggy sleeve. Her hand grabbed tight to my forearm. All eyes on the bridge were on the little human’s hands. Most of the men’s jaws were on the floor. Only the hardest among my crew held it together enough to keep their mouths shut.
“Thuliak,” she whispered, “you promised…”
I looked at the screen. At Tschenkar. “My pack will deliberate. I will come back to you with an answer.”
“You have three minutes,” he said, and the screen cut off.
“Thuliak,” she said, jumping to her feet. “You promised you’d protect Eden! Did you hear what that monster said?”
Now all eyes were on me. I’d been granted three minutes to discuss with the pack, and I was using my precious time talking to a woman I hadn’t even bred with yet. That’s what my pack was seeing, at least.
“She speaks for the humans,” I said, and I put real force into my voice so that if anyone dared question that, they wouldn’t waste everyone’s time trying to argue with me about it right now. “And I promised I would defend this world.Evisceratormust not fire on Eden.”
“You’ll let them be Second?” Kantar asked. His voice was only slightly insubordinate.