We all gave a mental “ok” to the connection between pods, armor, and ourselves. As scion, I limited this “ok” period to ten seconds. If anyone was getting cold feet or chickening out, they had ten seconds to get their balls back where they belonged. My squad was good though, because it only took three seconds for everyone to ready up.
I felt the pod launch as one brief moment of zero gravity. My stomach just barely had time to drop before the pod engines went into full burn. A human male would have choked on his own tongue within the first few moments of burn, and if he somehow managed not to, he’d have a stroke within ten seconds of such a hard burn.
For me—even with the armor helping—it was pure agony. The armor just was enough to keep me from fucking dying, but all that meant is that I’d get to suffer without blacking out or dying.
I gritted my teeth. We had a higher pain threshold than human men, but it didn’t mean that we felt pain any less, simply that we weren’t such huge pussies about it. I kept my mind on the prize as the pod rocketed me up toward 3, 4, then finally to 5 percent of the speed of light. I saw Airlock Eve in my mind’s eye. I was doing this to get her.
Khetar were incapable of forced breeding, but kidnapping was perfectly acceptable. Once I’d kidnapped her, it might take me a few days, but I was certain she’d willingly breed with me. That’s when I’d tell Thuliak what I’d done.
I would have smiled, but smiling was a very bad idea under such extreme acceleration.
I checked the telemetry for an updated picture on where all the ships were. I saw it in my mind’s eye, through the Hivemind. Since Thuliak and Eriok thought I was on my way to Eden—and that we were all working together to stop the pirates—they hadn’t masked their positions in the Hivemind. We had perfect information—or nearly perfect. I had to assume that Thuliak and Eriok both were hidingsomething. If they weren’t, neither deserved to be First or Second over me. Our progeny couldn’t be a bunch of gullible, overly trusting cunts. I simply wouldn’t have it.
“We’ve got about twenty minutes,” I said wordlessly through the squad comms, “to get in and out before Eriok is in range.”
Tralfak laughed. “So that just leaves the thousands of teal fucks onWrathto stand in our way?”
“I didn’t say it was going to be a…”
“A what?” someone asked.
I pinged the Hivemind, because my speech processing seemed fucked. I couldn’t get the word out.
“Cakewalk” was the only phrase that felt appropriate, the Hivemind said,but you requested not to use any words or phrases that could make you sound “like a pussy.”
“It won’t be easy,” I said, rolling my eyes, “but we can do this. Just stick to the plan. Buy me just enough time, and not a second more. Then we all get the hell out.”
“Yes, Scion,” they all said in unison.