The airlock at the end of the gangway suddenly cycled open to reveal four ISS guards in battle dress.

“Where’s the pres–” one of them began before seeing Borge’s mangled body and the three humanoids in Kreelan armor.

The ISS sergeant’s observation of the gory scene was cut short long before he or his men could raise their weapons. His eyes had just shifted from Borge’s body to Reza when Shera-Khan’s shrekka sheared his head cleanly from his torso. The head toppled to the deck like a bowling ball, the armored helmet clattering to a stop near one of the other guards’ feet. The now headless torso spasmed as if in surprise, and a fountain of blood from the severed carotid artery sprayed the lock’s ceiling before the corpse toppled backward into the airlock.

Nicole shot two of the others, while Braddock finished off the last.

“Let’s go,” Braddock said tightly, gesturing toward the waiting gangway into the smaller ship as he watched the blast doors down one of the other corridors start to cycle open. “More bad guys are on the way.”

His last sentence was punctuated by a sudden burst of rifle fire that filled the corridor with crimson and emerald beams of lethal energy as a score of ISS guards rushed through the doors.

“I will cover you!” Zhukovski shouted into Reza’s ear, and with his good hand he snatched up a pulse rifle from one of the fallen guards, training it with evident skill on the men advancing upon them. Zhukovski shot one, then another before he was forced back against the wall under a hail of return fire.

“Admiral, we can’t leave you!” Nicole shouted above the riot of gunfire that was becoming uncomfortably accurate, as she loosed her own barrage on their attackers.

“Get on that ship, Carre!” Zhukovski shouted furiously. “That is direct order!”

After a moment’s hesitation, everyone started toward the airlock, stumbling backward through the smoke and stench of ozone and scorched flesh as they sought the safety of the Pearl’s main airlock, all the while firing back at the approaching guards.

“You, too, Reza,” the old admiral said. “My work is done in this life. You have much yet to do. Good luck, my friend.” With a devilish grin, without fear or remorse, he turned his attention back to his chosen enemy.

Reza wanted to thank him in some way, but there were no words. He said a silent prayer to the Empress for this man whose courage would have been the envy of the peers, then turned to make his way to the Pearl.

As he passed Borge’s body, he noticed the black case that had been the focus of the dead usurper’s final moments. Wondering what the man could have considered so important, he picked it up by the bloodied handle before dashing up the textured metal ramp and into the airlock.

The armored door slid closed behind him as Zhukovski’s final battle raged toward its inevitable conclusion.

Fifty-Four

Reza immediately sensed that something was wrong; the aura of his surroundings had changed, darkened, as soon as he set foot inside the Golden Pearl and the airlock had cycled closed behind him.

Nicole, Tony, and Enya had already dashed for the cockpit, a muffled scuffle announcing that the Golden Pearl had just had a change in flight crew. Reza felt the Pearl lurch as she separated from the dying Warspite. In seconds, the sleek ship was accelerating toward the Empress moon as Reza had instructed, dodging through the web of energy fire and torpedoes from the massive battle raging around them.

“What is it, Father?” Shera-Khan asked in a whisper as Reza drew his sword. His own hand reached instinctively for one of the remaining shrekkas. He did not have his father’s special senses, but he could sense the change in him, even without hearing his Bloodsong, as he could sense that hot had turned to cold.

“I know not, my son,” he replied quietly as he set down the black case on a nearby table to leave his hands free for fighting. “Something is amiss; beware.”

Together, the two warriors warily advanced down the chandelier-bedecked hallway that led toward the library.

* * *

The first thing Jodi became aware of was an unfamiliar taste in her mouth. There was blood, to be sure. But there was also something different, something she had never tasted before, but from descriptions she had heard from other women, she had no doubt as to what it was. Semen.

Forcing back the nausea that rose in her throat, she feebly spat the sticky substance from her mouth, along with some blood and the debris from a broken tooth. The effort resulted in a red-hot lance of pain from her stomach and ribs, and it was all she could do to keep from moaning aloud. The mixture of blood, semen, and enamel bubbled from between her lips to ooze down the side of her face in a warm, coppery stream.

With what seemed a titanic effort, she managed to pry one eye open, the other resisting her will with the force of the swelling that had deformed the right side of her face. Beyond the panorama of the carpet, stained with her own blood, she saw the blurred image of a combat boot, then its mate as it slowly swam into focus. For now, the vision of the two boots on the bloody rug was the extent of her world.

“Shouldn’t Cerda have checked in with us?” a voice from somewhere above asked in a high, nasal voice. “Maybe we should go check on the president, or something.”

“Shut up,” said another, deeper voice, one familiar with being in charge of any situation. “If you want to brown nose, just butt snorkel with Cerda and keep away from Borge. Treak,” he called to a third, “go forward and see what the hell’s going on. Find out what we’re supposed to do with this trash.” A boot prodded Jodi’s buttocks, but she only felt a vague pressure, nothing more. She was numb below the waist, and a tentative command to curl one of her toes disappeared into darkness, unheeded. Her lower body was paralyzed.

“Sure, sarge,” someone answered casually, and she heard heavy soles clump toward an exit, a door slid open–

–and then all hell broke loose.

“Look out!” someone cried as a lion’s roar ripped through the room, followed by her captors screaming and shouting. A few shots thundered out, and Jodi could see a rush of booted feet running toward the door.

And there was another sound, one she recognized instantly as the lethal whisper of a shrekka whirling through the air. One man’s scream was cut off in mid-sentence, and Jodi heard two distinct thumps as his severed head and then his body hit the deck. She also heard the distinct rhythm of a blade scything through the air, armor, and flesh with equal ease.

The Kreelans have boarded, she thought, her hopes for rescue dying, replaced now by the hope that her torment would soon be ended.

Suddenly, the sounds of fighting were gone, and the only sign visible to Jodi that a battle had raged was the curling smoke that stung her single good eye.

A sandaled foot stepped into her view, and she closed her swelling eye, waiting for the final blow to come. If nothing else, she thought, the Kreelans had never sought to make humans suffer, as other humans did. Whatever their motives for war, it was to fight and die. To kill the enemy or be killed oneself. The desire for torture and suffering that Man inflicted upon others of his own kind was absent in the hearts and minds of the Kreelans. Death would come quickly, now, painlessly.

“Jodi?” she heard a hoarse whisper from lips she had once kissed.

“Reza?” she said, not willing to believe that her luck, perhaps, was finally turning, and for the better. “Is it you?” She tried to lift her head enough to see his face. The pain that was her reward left a moaning cry in her throat and a savage, flaming agony shooting up and down her spine.

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