Nicole Krizek (14 page)

She heard twin yells as they both joined her, and then she collapsed on Kor’s chest, nestled between the two sweating and heaving bodies.

Her mind was barely functioning and when someone reached down to grab the blanket and cover her,
some time later, she hardly noticed.

Moments later she was gone. She was somewhere in the void of post-climatic sleep.
                  

Eight days later, Lacy stood beside her mates in Adastra’s Command Center looking down at Earth. Looking at her planet made her heart ache, but she had accepted her new life, and that included protecting her former home. She, along with the Arathians, would do everything in their power to protect the Earthers. She smiled at herself for calling them
Earthers
.

“What’s the
Lazools’ time to arrival?” Kor asked from her right.

Simdon
answered from his station, “Two minutes until they emerge from the wormhole, captain.”

“Put every station in high alert and make sure our new shields are at maximum.” Kor ordered while his fingers flew over a console.

“Yes sir.”

Kor and his mates had talked about the confrontation with the
Lazools and decided that they would all stay in the Command Center together. Ty would leave to tend to the wounded when the time came, but he had an excellent medical staff that could handle the injured until then.

Lacy had flat-out refused to stay in their quarters and be ‘left in the dark’, as she had put it. The Command Center was closer to the center of the ship than their quarters were, so Kor preferred having her there as well. It was less likely that the Command Center would be compromised in a battle.

He didn’t think that the battle with the Lazools would go smoothly. They had been trying, for a very long time, to get at Arath’s resources, and Kor knew that they wouldn’t let one science ship get in their way. The Adastra was no match for their battlecruisers, but he hoped that they could hold the Lazools off long enough for Arathian reinforcements to arrive.

“They’re about to come through,
captain.” Simdon said from his console.

Kor checked the sensors on his own console and watched as the
Lazool ship exited the wormhole and came into view. It was a massive ship with a cylindrical hull that had countless weapons mounted, in rings, around its circumference. He knew that those rings of weapons could move to track an enemy during battle, making it hard to get out of weapon range.

It also had forward and rear facing weapon ports along with a complement of about a hundred smaller fighter ships that could be launched during an attack. Kor admired the efficiency of the
Lazools’ design, and knew the Adastra was no match for it.

The most deadly part of the ship
were the large ports that would open in the front of the cylinder and launch large, bomb-like projectiles. They would release the bombs into a planet’s atmosphere, where the gravity would pull them down until they hit the surface.

The force of the impact would be enough to cause irrevocable damage to the planet, and kill all the inhabitants. If the
Lazools released several of those bombs over the planet, Earth wouldn’t stand a chance.

He heard Lacy’s gasp, and from the corner of his eye saw Ty put his arm around their mate’s shoulders. He didn’t know if his little Lacy would ever be able to recover if her planet was destroyed, so Kor would have to make sure that that didn’t happen.

“Incoming transmission.” Simdon said.

“On the monitor.”

The main vid-screen switched from showing the Lazool ship to showing its captain. Like the rest of his race, it had blue skin and a hairless, elongated head. It also had four arms, ending in three-fingered hands, and like the Arathians, they stood on two legs. They wore no clothes, showing instead an armored carapace.

The
Lazool captain was the first to speak. “I see you’ve beaten us here. Your ship must be fast, although… it is not surprising, given how small it is. What do you Arathians use it for? Urgent deliveries?” It said, wheezing out the Lazool equivalent of a chuckle.

The insult was meant to ignite Kor’s anger and to prompt a display of aggression that would start the battle, but Kor refused. He knew that the
Lazools were members of the Galactic Council and, as such, the laws said that he was not allowed to attack them first. The laws did allow him to defend himself, but the race to attack first would be the one at fault, and removed from the council.

He would not let that happen to Arath, but he was hoping that, after the conflict, the
Lazools would be found at fault and lose their status, leaving them highly vulnerable.

Since Earth had been denied membership, it was not protected as Arath was. It could be attacked and, from the council’s point of view, it didn’t matter. The Grays, however, added an interesting element to the entire situation, as they had laid claim to, and protected Earth, but it seemed like they weren’t even going to bother showing up to watch what happened to their planet.

“Yes, that’s exactly what this ship’s purpose is, and I have a message for you from the Arathian Council.” Kor moved around his console to be closer to the vid-screen. “Earth is hereby under the protection of Arath. Any aggressive acts will be seen as an act against Arath directly, and will be punished.” He said in a calm but deadly voice.

The
Lazool captain’s face turned purple, showing a rise in temper, but Kor continued. “Leave this sector now because we will defend this planet.”

The captain was so angry now that spittle was flying out of his mouth as he screeched, “How dare you, Arathian scum! We have already claimed his planet under
Lazool law, and we will do with it as we wish! We will not be stopped by some insignificant Arathian ship!”

With that, the captain ended transmission and the
vid-monitor once again showed the outside of the Lazool ship. There was a moment of calm before a beam lanced out from the battlecruiser, striking the Adastra and causing it to shudder.

Kor’s fingers flew over his console making sure there was no damage to the ship. The new shielding the Grays had given them was holding. He turned to check on his mates, and Ty already had Lacy strapped into one of the seats.

Kor focused entirely on the enemy.

He maneuvered the Adastra to face the
Lazool ship, head-on to present a smaller target, and fired back. The Lazools’ shields held.

The
Lazool continued to barrage the Adastra with hits while Kor did his best to evade, fire back, and issue commands. He tried to lead the Lazool on a chase away from Earth, but they caught on quickly and reversed course back to the planet. Kor knew that he needed to keep their attention for as long as possible so that they couldn’t get into a position to release their projectiles.

Kor quickly caught up and maneuvered the ship around to impede the
Lazools’ advance on the planet. Suddenly, the Adastra lurched hard to one side and all the crew not strapped to something were flung to the right side of the Command Center. Kor heard a female scream a moment before he struck something hard and the world went black.

*****

Ty’s chest hurt like hell, but a quick check showed nothing was severely injured or broken. He looked to Lacy’s chair and saw that the harnesses had held. She was still conscious and trying desperately to unhook herself from the restraints. Ty looked left and saw that Kor had hit the wall several feel away and was now lying on the floor, unmoving.

Ty quickly unhooked himself and scrambled to Kor’s side to check for a pulse. He put his fingers to Kor’s throat and after a moment of fumbling, found the steady beat.

Lacy was, a moment later, his side running her hands all over their mate’s body. She felt the other side of his head and her fingers came away covered in blood. She looked into Ty’s eyes and saw his growing panic mirrored in her own. 

“Captain!”
One of his crew yelled from his left. “Multiple departments reporting damage, including to the enhanced shielding.”

Ty looked up and said, “The captain is unconscious, you’re in charge now
Simdon.”

He turned back to Kor, but was still horrified at what he saw. Thankfully, years of medical training kicked in and he quickly checked Kor’s body, only to find that he was not breathing.

“Help me roll him over.” He told Lacy while reaching for one of the emergency first-aid kits from under the nearest console. He pulled out the derma-generator and set it down beside them. The solution would encourage skin to grow and close a wound in seconds, but Kor’s breathing was the real threat at the moment.  

“First we need to get him breathing.” Ty said to Lacy before placing his lips on Kor’s and blowing into his lungs.

Lacy sat at her mate’s side and watched Ty plug Kor’s nose and breath for him. She had never been as scared, in her entire life, than she was at that moment. She had finally found a piece of joy and she was afraid that it was slipping away. She sat still, letting Ty work and, for the first time in many years, she prayed.

She prayed for the life of the male she loved, she prayed for the lives of the crew, and she prayed for the souls of every Earther on the planet below, because without the Adastra helping to protect them, their lives would very shortly end.

She realized her eyes had shut when she heard the glorious sound of coughing, and sharp intakes of breath, coming from the ground in front of her. She looked down to see Kor struggling for air while he tried to sit up and her heart soared.

Ty quickly took the derma-generator and held it to Kor’s head to help stop the blood flow. Kor was demanding to sit up and get a damage report so Lacy had to force him back down, her hands on his chest, while Ty treated him.

After the wound was sealed, they helped Kor to his feet and got him over to his console.

“Report.”
He said while still coughing lightly.  

Simdon
answered, “The enhanced shielding took heavy damage. We’ve also lost all propulsion and weapons.”

The crew of the Command Center all turned to Kor and awaited his instructions.

Ty knew that they all understood that the Adastra wouldn’t be able to take another direct hit from the Lazools. Kor looked up at the vid-screen and they all saw the massive war ship maneuvering to face the Adastra head-on.

Kor feverishly looked over his controls and Ty could see him trying desperately to think of a brilliant plan to save them all, but as the seconds ticked by, and Kor’s hands stilled, Ty knew that they had no options left and that these would be the last moments he’d have with his mates. The
Lazools would fire one last round and the Adastra would break apart over Earth.

He looked to Lacy who stood at Kor’s other side, with tears at her eyes, while she put a hand on her stomach. He could guess that her thoughts were with their unborn baby and the life that she or he would never get to live.

He knew that would be his biggest regret in all of this. He would not being able to see their little miracle born, or the joy on his mates’ faces as they held their baby for the first time.

Ty looked at Kor, expecting to see his mate struggling to cope with the impending end, but was surprised when he saw Kor’s eyes, wide with shock, staring at the
vid-screen. A moment later, his fingers once again began flying over the console. Ty turned to look at the vid-screen as well and saw a very large, white ship.

That wasn’t there a second ago
, he thought.

Only a moment passed before the screen changed and the Grays’ commander came onscreen.

“Captain of Lazool ship,” the Grays’ captain said, “you’ve caused quite enough problems for us for one day. Earth does not belong to the Lazool, it’s ours, and we protect what is ours.”

With that simple statement the screen once again showed the Grays’ ship, hanging in space between the
Lazools and the Adastra. Kor, Ty, and Lacy looked at each other in confusion but then saw a small white beam of light that speared out from somewhere on the Grays’ ship.

For a second nothing happened, and then the screen lit up with a massive explosion.

After making sure that Lacy was alright, Ty looked up at the screen and saw that the Lazools’ ship had been reduced to little more than glittering dust, floating in space. The Grays had destroyed an entire Lazool battlecruiser with a single shot!

“What the hell?” Lacy muttered from Kor’s side.

“Indeed...” Kor said. A moment before a communication request was sent to the Adastra from the Grays’ captain.

“
Kor’ijak here.”

"Is your crew alright,
captain?" The captain asked.

"Yes, only minor injuries reported so far." Kor replied. “Thank you very much for your assistance. You saved the lives of my entire crew, my mates, and my child today. You have my eternal gratitude.” Kor said, bowing deeply.

Ty and the entire Command Center crew also bowed.

“You’re welcome.”
Was the captain’s reply.

It was Lacy that spoke next, asking the question that was on everyone’s minds, “Why did you end up helping us? The last time we spoke your people said that you didn’t want to get involved.”

“Earth is ours." The Grays’ captain stated simply. "We protect what is ours. When we saw the threat the Lazools posed, and saw that your ship would be unable to defend the planet, we decided to intervene to protect Earth.”