Intimidator (3 page)

At least human technology had advanced enough to allow use of some of their machinery. The many legs of Raska’s true body twitched where they were tucked, hundreds of yards deep into the surrounding soil. Exciting, this was.

One day soon, she might burrow upwards, emerge, and stride across the surface.

“I am. Functioning. Correctly.” The man blinked slower than a normal human but it was sufficient to moisturize his eyes. The brain had suffered during transformation.

For a micro-second, the factory queen, Raska, ran through the statistics and the predicted arcs of the events she planned. Nothing was certain. She had poor brain function for a queen and knew it. The fight damage from the ancient battle was irreparable.

Because of that, interstellar communication was impossible from the surface, let alone buried as she was. Her sister factory queen had been destroyed due to poor calculation of risk. She would be careful and slow and sure.

Soon, though,
soon, soon, soon
, she would call, she would succeed, and the rest of her family would arrive from space in a vast fleet of Bak-lal.

Until then, one human convert at a time. No multiple clones, not this time. That had somehow triggered an alert in the Preyfinder’s database. A small yet effective army was best.

This room inside her body was small compared to the others with assembly lines that stood idle, waiting to spit out soldiers. Frustrating, to have to be so simple.
Wait
, she whispered to herself.
Wait.
I am crippled.

“Can you return to your home now, Christopher One?”

“Yes.” He nodded.

“How?” The question would be a final test of the creature’s reasoning. Fail and he would be terminated like several before him.

“I will fly. I will go to the airport.” He shook his head and his speech became smoother. “I’ve still got the ticket I came here on. Return trip. Brisbane to Adelaide and back again.”

This one, Christopher, would be the first to go back, a vanguard in another city, the city where her factory queen sister had reigned until she died. Because there, somehow, the data Raska tasted insisted there were anomalies – there were human females whose parameters existed outside the norm.

She had gathered data from everywhere since her sister’s death, even tasted remnants of the brain of Jonathan Two that had been unearthed from the rubble by a brave rover. The rover had limped to her with that fragment of preserved brain.

The taste had been electric. The pieces had slotted in. A female bond-mated to an Igrakk warrior. A woman with a sparrow
familiar
. The fact had led to an avalanche of strange information.

Witches.
Myths
.
Lies?

Fact: An eruption of healing that had temporarily healed even the Jonathan clone. Exceptional data. Extraordinary. Paranormal, said the human sources she’d searched. Best of all, there were tantalizing hints and tastes of more, back there, in Brisbane, her sister’s city.

More, more, more.

If these witches existed, she would find them, take them for her own.

“Go find me witches,” she whispered to the man. “Make them mine. Use the nerve chewers in your case.”

“I will.”

The microscopic nerve chewers, when injected, would eat their way across the nerve networks of a human and into the brain, and take over most of the personality. Raska preened. This transportable method was her invention. This way, she could stay here safely, and send out her Bak-lal people to convert others.

As the Christopher cleaned off the blood, dressed in its suit, put on shoes, and combed its hair, Raska was already dipping her metal feelers into the internet data stream from which she drank daily. The things she found on there, the things humans said to each other.
Yumm.
She slurped up more data and settled. She twitched her gigantic legs where they extended hundreds of yards into the dirt, her mind plump with gigabytes and YouTube videos, dreaming of victory and of calling to her people.

With one awakened eye, she watched the human. Briefcase in hand, he went to the outer air-locked door and departed for the grueling climb that led to the surface.

Come. Come to me, my sisters and brothers, to Earth, for humans are plentiful and weak, and awaiting our glorious instruction.

The mission, such as it was, hadn’t begun well. Brask had taken him out through the tunnel connecting the ship and the house, then brought him here, to the jetty at the back. The lake was still. Pinpoint lights and chirping from the weed-clogged banks told of bugs exploring the night. Brask handed him what he remembered was called a fishing rod then Brask proceeded to fiddle with his own rod, put bait on a hook, and cast the line out across the dark water.

Stom frowned and stared at the rod and the line dipping into the lake. Frivolous. And it reminded him of home, as did the light of the fireflies and the trees, the sway of their branches and the murmur as wind ruffled through the leaves.

Difficult to believe that the Preyfinder’s massive ship was buried beneath these waters. He heaved out a sigh. Calmness had crept in, no matter how he resisted. This Earth was a world of peace. He bowed his head a little, watching from under his brow, remembering. The moonlight had found its way through leaves and left dapples on the skin of his forearms. The splashes of dark and light matched his Feya coloring – a camouflage pattern of black on paleness. In plain daylight he was as obvious as an Earth zebra on an open plain. Here, beneath trees, was where he belonged.

“I forgot what it was like to sit beneath trees and think of nothing much.” He said the words so quietly that maybe only a mouse would hear him.

“Better?” Brask asked.

He turned and cocked his head.

“You looked ready to crack into pieces back at the ship. I thought this might be good. You’re from Grearth? Correct?”

He bit back a terse response. The Preyfinders were just soldiers, men, like him, obeying orders. “Yes. I thought we were to start this mission? Catch a girl, try to make her a pet?”

Silence.

“I’ve been rewarded for valor.” He put aside his fishing rod. “I don’t want this. Let’s make it fast so I can get off this planet and back doing my job. What’s the minimum I can get away with without upsetting anyone?”

Brask chuckled. “You don’t want this?”

“I watched my planet burn, break up. I lost my offspring and my bond mate…” He paused, couldn’t say her name even now, not without pain. “I don’t want another to take her place, not even a pet.”

“I understand.” Brask began reeling in the line. “I know who you are. I respect you and what you’ve done. Still, you’re the only man who has ever wanted to refuse this, and if you did, you’d make someone higher up panic and pop an eyeball.”

“I know. Feya and Igrakk diplomacy is a nightmare.”

“The minimum would be this first stage. Studies showed you don’t have to have intercourse to transfer the first dose of the pet nano-chem. Kiss her. After that, I’ll fudge the figures.”

“I’ll be done? No hunt?”

“We’ll come out and pretend you tried for the second stage of the capture.” Brask turned to him. “I’m not making a hero of Grearth do anything he doesn’t want to, Stom.”

“I might need your team of Preyfinders to cover for me. I’m going to kiss her even if I have a few witnesses.”

“Sure.” He nodded then rose to his feet and held out his clenched fist. The moonlight reflecting off the lake water played on the blue of his cheek grooves and highlighted the spikes of his hair. “Just make sure it’s only a few. We can clean their memories with the
look
, but if you do it in front of too many, questions will be asked.”

Stom hauled himself to his feet and knocked his fist against Brask’s. “I will do that. And I thank you.”

As he collected the rods at their feet, Brask added, “Not that I wouldn’t leap at the chance to hunt here myself. In human words, damn, she’s hot. Not your girl, another one.”

He laughed. It felt surprisingly good and he realized it had been months since he’d even smiled. “Hot? You must show me her.”

“Can’t. She’s gone back to her home city. It’s only a dream. Preyfinders never get honors like this. Unless you’re lucky, like Jadd. I will survive. Good to see you’ve at least learned the local Australian language.”

“It was simple. Forced language acquisition is nothing compared to weapons training. Some words will come to me as I speak.”

“As long as you know ‘ass’, ‘hot’, ‘cunt’, ‘fuck’, ‘where’s the nearest toilet’, and ‘where will this bus take me to’, you’re good to go.”

Stom nodded, sure he was being taunted. “I see. I know those. Except the bus one.”

“Pussy? You know ‘pussy’? Not the cat variety. Jadd didn’t, so maybe the language misses that one?”

“I know it, soldier, but I won’t be going anywhere near one of those.”

He snorted, grinned. “Come. Let’s do this.” Then he turned and walked up toward the house, throwing back one last line. “Just don’t try to get acquainted by saying, ‘is your pussy glowing for me’. Jadd told me that don’t work!”

Stom smiled, shaking his head, but he stayed where he was for a while longer.

Was he being terrible by dismissing this reward so lightly? Perhaps. But the sorrow within had already returned. He had no room for anything but this cold grayness and the blood of battle. The light had left his world forever when Nasskia died.

The pub, as it was termed, was thriving with humans – at least twenty were in range. Stom folded his arms and glowered at a girl who ventured into their alcove looking for empty glasses. When they had arrived, despite their concealing long coats, his coloring and height had made several patrons turn and stare. But it seemed even he became a part of the scenery with time.

“They’ve forgotten me. I’m disappointed.” He shifted on the seat, stretched his legs out, and tried not to knock over the opposite chair, again. “Seems we are inconspicuous, even though I have striped skin.”

Brask’s lip twitched in a half-smile. “You’re cuter than most of these. Besides the male with his hair threaded with skulls, tattoos of flames down his neck, and the arsenal of pointy things shoved through lip, nose, and ear, is far scarier. Your black spotty skin is nothing.”

Spotty? He raised a skeptical eyebrow at Brask but refused to respond to the good-humored insult.

He and Brask sat at a table in the darkest corner, behind a flimsy screen of plants. The man mentioned was on the other side of the plants with another hulking male. That one had settled for the prettiness of tying his blond hair in a braid. He made mocking comments about every woman who passed nearby.

“This person I’m to kiss, where is sh –”

A woman entered from the left then detoured for the other woman serving customers at the bar. She leaned over, facing away from him, her little black shorts creeping up her bottom and showing off a glimpse of curve, a hint of places no man was allowed to see unless she allowed them.

For a second, he wanted to be one of those men. And if she didn’t allow him, he’d…

His throat tightened.

“There.” Brask straightened, standing slowly. “Target acquired, as the humans say in the movies.” Brask and his obsession with human movies. “She must have been serving at the other bar. I’ll leave you to it. Remember. Be inconspicuous. Don’t make any move unless you have six or less people in range. We can clean up that many. More is…human word.” He clicked his fingers. “…is a bitch. Yes. That.”

He was so busy staring at her, he almost missed Brask moving away. “Wait!”

“What? I can’t assist you from here on. This has to be your capture. Rules of the game. We just clean up the mess if you expose your alienness too much. And I don’t mean sticking your cock out and waving it about.”

Stom ignored the crudity. Obviously Brask had been on planet for too long. “This must be false. I thought she was about to die?”

Brask glanced over at the woman who was currently jumping up and down on one shoe heel and waggling her ass while she chatted and unloaded a tray on the counter. “Her? Willow? Yes.”

He sat forward and squinted, even though his vision was perfect. Stom waved his hand in Willow’s direction. “She’s healthy. Perfectly. And are those clothes legal?”

“What?” Brask stepped back to him and leaned over the table. “She’s got early Aids with an incurable variety that humans have no idea even exists. Hepatitis from a needle puncturing through her shoe on a run – she didn’t even know she did that one – and a local law breaker called Kasper is planning to murder her, possibly even torture her on the way to killing her. Is that good enough for you? It is on her file. We sample billions of medical reports, put them through an AI filter to find things human doctors miss. Then we do recon on the promising ones.” He smirked. “And yes, thank the gods, her clothes are legal here.”

Ice washed through Stom and cracked into pieces. His mind went blank for a few seconds. Slowly he sat back until the leather upholstery of the seat back squashed under him and creaked. “I didn’t read it. The report. I thought the picture must be old. She’s…” He couldn’t lie. “Beautiful.”

“Yes. It’s unfortunate but we can’t be curing every human of every disease they have. If you decided to win her, we cure her, we rescue her. Otherwise, no.”

He looked up and saw the worried expression on Brask’s face. The lines on his forehead deepened. He was disturbing this Igrakk warrior? He shouldn’t be. Flip-flopping at the first sign of something unexpected, that she was an attractive creature…one he could claim as his pet, that was not the sign of a man with moral boundaries.
She’s not mine.

“I understand.”

“Good. And good luck, even if you decide to follow through after all. Especially if you do.”

He sensed Brask moving away but couldn’t take his eyes off the woman. So sad. Was he going to let her die? No one would replace Nasskia. It would be sacrilege. There were millions upon millions of dying humans. One more meant nothing. Surely?

Over the next hour or two, he stayed where he was, obeying Brask’s instructions, watching her as she served drinks and cleaned tables on the other side of the room. It wasn’t until late, after the first girl left, that she came his way, and encountered the two men at the nearby table. The blond one chuckled when she picked up the glasses on their table then wiped the table down with a cloth.