A Clash of Aliens (The Human Chronicles Book 13) (12 page)

Lila sat up, placing her arms behind her for support, allowing the blanket to slip from her bare breasts. Both Riyad and Benefis gasped—even Sherri inhaled sharply. Seeing their reaction to her daughter’s naked body, Arieel lifted the blanket and draped it over her shoulders.

“I can do that,” Lila said without hesitation, “as long as he still maintains a minimum of brain activity.” She swung her legs around and stood up, the blanket falling to the deck. She strode off, her perfectly-shaped behind dancing with each step, heading instinctively for where the bridge would be located.

All eyes turned to Arieel. Then Sherri spoke: “I don’t think I have anything that would fit her.”

“Not to worry,” Arieel said, staring hard at her embarrassed companions. “I will loan her some of my clothing.”

Chapter 11

To Riyad’s immeasurable relief, four hours later the purple body of Panur lay on the same workbench in the cargo hold, though his naked body didn’t nearly evoke the same reaction as Lila’s had. The young Formilian had since dressed in a blue satin jumpsuit that fit her perfectly. It had to; it had once been worn by her mother. Since Arieel had boarded the
Najmah Fayd
without any preparation, she came with the clothing she’d had on at the time. So Arieel was now clad only in a white wrap around her breasts and a pair of nearly shear panties.

Riyad shook his head.
Six of one, half a dozen of another
, he thought. Either a naked Lila or a nearly-naked Arieel. Both were having the same effect on him.

“Do you have a gas flame tool of some kind aboard?” Lila asked.

“Like a blowtorch?”

“Something similar, possibly smaller—handheld.”

“I think so. Let me check.”

Riyad returned a few moments later carrying a small propane torch. Lila took the offered igniter and lit the flame, running it slowly over Panur’s frozen body.

“Are you sure that won’t hurt him?” Sherri asked.

“I am sure. It will hasten the thaw. I may need more gas canisters.”

It took forty-five minutes before Lila had reached the point where her flame was causing the flesh to char with each pass. However, by the time she returned to the starting point, the flesh was back to the same pasty white as Riyad remembered it to be.

Eventually, Panur’s chest began moving as he resumed breathing—which Riyad found to be a superfluous act but comforting nonetheless. When Panur opened his eyes, he locked them on Lila.

“You have brought me back. I thank you.”

“I had help.” She stepped back so Panur could scan the room.

“Seeing this gathering, I somehow feel my awakening is just the beginning of another great adventure.”

********

 “You obviously have not gone through this much trouble out of the goodness of your hearts. You want something from me. What is it?”

Panur had dressed in an oversized man’s shirt, with a belt around his waist to hold it in place. The team was on the bridge of the
Najmah Fayd
, the moment of truth now upon them.

“We need you to help us rescue Adam Cain.”

“Adam? He is being held captive somewhere?” Panur narrowed his eyes. “I can only conclude this has something to do with the Sol-Kor.”

“That’s right. He’s being held prisoner on Kor.”

“You returned to Sol-Kor space?”

“Yes, we did. And Admiral Tobias destroyed the master portal array for the Milky Way galaxy. By the way, why didn’t you tell us there was only one main array?”

Panur smiled. “What fun would it be if I revealed everything I know? I find it more entertaining to watch you figure things out on your own.”

Benefis spoke for the first time: “At the cost of trillions of lives?”

“A Juirean…in the company of Humans. Now that I find interesting.”

“You know you are insane, do you not?”

“Insanity is a relative term, Juirean.” Panur turned his attention to Riyad. “With the master portal destroyed and the personal units under the control of the Sol-Kor at the array locations you have yet to destroy, you need access to my universe.”

“That’s right. We still have the portal you built for Adam. We need you to make whatever improvements to it so it can link with other universes.”

“Why go through such effort?” He waved his hand in a circle. “Does this ship not employ the hybrid drive I developed for the
Pegasus II
?”

“Yeah, it does. What does that have to do with anything?”

Panur smiled. “The system is a combination dimensional portal and gravity drive, allowing you to jump short distances within your universe before reappearing at a new point in space. I have been thinking that the next generation would allow transit between universes, not just within one.”

“You mean this ship could become its own TD-portal?”

“Precisely.”

Riyad stood up, his face animated. “Then that’s it! We turn the
Najmah Fayd
into a universe-hopping starship and then jump over to get Adam away from the new queen.”

“Hold on a minute, Riyad,” Sherri said.

“How soon can you make the upgrades?”

“No…wait!” Sherri stood up. “Do you realize what you’re saying?”

“What? What’s the problem?”

“Just think for a minute. Right now the galaxy is safe from the Sol-Kor because they don’t have a master portal to send their starships through. If Panur is right—and I have no doubt that he is—then there’s a way for the Sol-Kor to turn each of their individual ships into a portal—”

“At which point they can enter the galaxy when and where they wish, and without the need for a matching portal,” the Juirean finished for her.

“That’s only if they get the technology. We just have to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“But what if they do?” Sherri asked. “Look, I want to save Adam as much as any of us, but this is too big of a risk. Maybe just modify the smaller portal and let us go in that way.” She looked to Panur for support.

The alien seemed to be lost in his own thoughts and not listening to the back and forth between her and Riyad. After a moment, he turned his unblinking gaze upon Riyad.

“You used the term
new
queen a moment ago. Please explain.”

Riyad swallowed hard. Realizing his blunder, he knew that with Panur’s infallible memory there was no going back. This was the moment he feared most.

“Adam and I…well, we kinda killed the Eternal Queen.”

Even though the mutant’s mind could work at an accelerated pace as compared to Humans, he still took his time to react. “I was not aware there was a way to
kinda
kill a mortal creature. You do realize she was my mother?”

“You have to understand, she had begun a campaign of indiscriminate sterilization of entire planets, regardless of a harvest or not. It was a personal vendetta against the Milky Way. We had no choice.”

“If you recall, I stopped you once before from killing the Queen. Yet you again journeyed to Kor and ended her life, a life that had continued for five thousand years. Do you realize what a loss that is?” His black eyes continued to bore into Riyad. “I see that
you
made it back, yet Adam Cain did not. Now you wish to remedy that situation—with my help. Now he is being held by one of the Zygotes who has assumed the title of Q—”

“No…we killed all the Zygotes, too.”

Again a pause. “If you killed the Royal Zygotes, then who…
J’nae!
”

“You know of her?” Riyad was taken aback. “She’s something…different. She’s the size of male Sol-Kor, but with distinctly female features. We didn’t know anything like her existed.”

“She didn’t…until I created her. J’nae is my daughter.”

Sherri fell back into a chair and slapped the console next to her. “Well fuck me,” she said. “This just gets better all the time.”

“She is your daughter?” Lila repeated, emotion thick in her voice.

“She is, yet not in the traditional manner. She is the product of my DNA and that of the Eternal Queen.”

“How…why?” Riyad asked.

“It began as an experiment—and as a contingency plan. Apparently the proper conditions have materialized that called for her ascension.”

“I don’t understand,” said Lila.

Panur glared at Riyad as if to say
Now look what you’ve done!

The mutant turned his attention to the young Formilian. “For a long time, I had speculated upon a series of events that would leave the Sol-Kor without a traditional queen. So I engineered a new type of Sol-Kor female, one more along the lines of other species such as Humans and Formilians—even Juireans—yet with…improvements.”

“But only one, like an Eve character for the Sol-Kor? That’s…messed up,” Sherri said.

“She is able to reproduce at an accelerated pace, as well as determine the sex of her offspring. The plan was for her to produce an initial population of females who would then give birth to even more females and so forth. Eventually, the genders would reach parity once population stability was reached.”

“So there’s no more mass production of hungry, flesh-eating monsters?” Sherri asked. “At least that’s something positive.”

“On the contrary, Sherri, it is now much worse.”

“What do you mean?”

“Initially, you are correct. There will be a lull in Sol-Kor population growth. Yet in a very short time there could be a million females born each day, with the population growing exponentially as a result. I created a new strain of Sol-Kor that can reach sexual maturity in as little as six standard years. Once the initial threshold is met, the population will grow even faster than was possible through the efforts of the one Eternal Queen.”

“Why would you do such a thing?”

“As I said, it began as a thought experiment, and then it was completed because…well, because I could.”

“Not everything you think of should be created.”

“You’re wrong. Under the proper conditions, they should.”

“I’m not going to argue with you—”

“It would be a losing effort—”

“Stop it!” Riyad commanded. “This isn’t helping us get Adam back.” He took a step closer to Panur. “Sorry about your mother, but she was kind of a bitch. So the question remains: Will you help us or not? We’re running out of time.”

“Indeed, you are.” The mutant surveyed the faces in the room. All of them looked anxious, while Lila’s displayed an expression of pain. Panur snickered, which was not what Riyad and Sherri had been expecting.

“You think this is funny?” Sherri scolded.

Panur smiled back at her. “No, I do not. This is even more serious and dangerous than you can imagine. May I take a seat?”

“Please do. Make yourself comfortable. Do you want me to get you a pillow for your weary head, perhaps a brandy to warm your insides?”

“No, I’m fine, thank you anyway.” Panur settled into the command chair, while Sherri and Riyad sat down as well. Studying Panur’s demeanor, Riyad was pretty sure he wasn’t going to seek revenge against him for killing his mother. That was one hurdle crossed. There were more to come.