Theron Destiny (Brides of Theron) (15 page)

Finally they walked into a large hall that could probably hold hundreds of people. Columns, six foot in diameter, held up the massive glass dome that rose one hundred feet over their heads. The walls held elaborate portraits of the former rulers of Drylon. Gold and red flowers adorned vases that were scattered throughout the hallway and emitted a flowery perfume smell. At the end of the long hall sat an impressive chair made out of pure gold and sapphires.  On that chair, sat the Emperor of the Drylons, dressed in full military uniform.

It was then Lars, Hano, and the guards all approached the emperor and came to a halt ten feet from where he was sitting.

“Your Grace.  These are the Therons that wished to meet with you.” One guard spoke.  He then stepped back and walked around the two Theron warriors.

Emperor Gatton was the first to speak, “What do you want, Theron? You have wasted enough of my time and that of my men.”

Lars took another step forward, “I come here seeking information about my mother.”

“What makes you think your mother was here? We do not usually allow Therons to come to our planet. But, I was curious to find out what your reasons were. So tell me.” Gatton leaned forward in his chair with his hands spread out on his thighs.

“I would like for you to tell me about the woman in this picture.” Looking for permission to approach the Emperor.  Gatton nodded and Lars moved further forward so that he could hold up the picture right in front of Gatton’s eyes. Gatton shifted closer off the edge of his throne to see the picture more clearly, squinting to adjust his focus. Recognition spread over his face as he continued to study it.

Gatton pushed himself back into the chair and looked at Lars, “How do you know of this woman?”

“She is my mother.” Lars stated clearly.

Lars could see the color start to rise in the man’s face as he said, “How do you know that is your mother? It could be anyone’s mother?”

Lars was starting to lose patience with the old fool, “I know that she is my mother since that is my father standing right next to her. Also, I am absolutely certain that the child in the picture is me.” Gatton was rather surprised with Lars’ revelation. He was also hesitant to reveal any information about the woman, even though he knew who she was.

“What do you have to offer in exchange for the knowledge you seek?”

Lars smiled at Gatton when he said, “You will have my loyalty.”

Gatton started to laugh at Lars, “Your loyalty? What good would that do for me? I need something better than that.”

Lars thought for a moment, “I could give you information about the Therons. Anything you want to know. I have no loyalty to the Therons anymore. I am half Theron and half Drylon. I would so like to see what the Drylon side of my heritage may have to offer.”

“I will agree to your terms. I will give you the information that you seek. Agreed?” Gatton stood and came to stand face to face with Lars and waited for his reply.

A smile spread across Lars’ face, “Agreed.”

From that moment on, Lars no longer considered himself a Theron.  At that moment he became a Drylon. He would like nothing better than to see the Therons destroyed.  His father most especially. The Drylons would see just how loyal he could be and hopefully he would be able to move up in rank quickly. But for the time being he was still going to have to play the part of a loyal Theron warrior.

Gatton continued to study Lars, to see if he could get a feeling for the half breed. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary with him.  He did not sense anything dangerous or odd coming from him. “Come and have a drink with me and I will tell you about your mother.” Lars bowed his head in respect for his new leader and fallowed into step behind him leaving Hano outside with the guards.

They entered a room that must act as some kind of office. There were shelves filled with books, a desk that sat in the middle of the room, and off to the side was a large assortment of drinks. Gatton went and made them both a drink.  He later learned that it was the traditional drink Drylons prepared when an agreement was formed.

He handed the glass to Lars. Lars looked at it then sniffed it. It had a strange smell to it.  A smell that he could not place. “What is in this? There is something in it that I am not familiar with.” He took a sip, licked his lips then took a larger swallow. It had a slight burning feeling as it went down but it was nothing he couldn’t handle.

“You taste the juice from the nale tree. It only grows here on Drylon underneath the dome. It would not survive if it was planted out in the open air. It is what gives the drink the burn sensation you should have felt as it went down your throat.”

Lars took another gulp, “I like it.”

“Good, I am happy that you do like it. We drink it here on Drylon to seal an agreement. Let’s sit over here.” Both sank down into to two over stuffed red chairs. Gatton began talking, “Your mother was the daughter of one of my most trusted friends. Her name was Popala. She was sent to study on the planet Kawn. It is where we send our upper class females when they reach the age of nineteen. It is to prepare them for marriage. It was there that your mother met your father. Kawn at the time was a big trading post.  Many other planets went to Kawn to trade, so of course, it was an open planet. We believe, from what we were told from her friend at school, she met your father one day at the bazaar. They continued to see each other in secret against their better judgment and cultural prejudices.  Her friend was the only one to know about their relationship and would cover for them often. Well, to make a long story short, months went by and their relationship had developed into something that it should not have. The couple developed a plan for Popala to sneak out of the dorms and meet your father at his ship. That night Kwan had a big storm. This was an excellent cover for her to sneak out. No one in their right mind would be out in a storm since the storms on Kawn are known for the lightening that they bring. Anyhow, your mother managed to escape unnoticed and made her way to your father’s ship. She was far gone before anyone even noticed she was gone. After that, no one knew where they had gone or heard from them. Until about three years later, a ship approached Drylon and asked for permission to land. At first, the ship was denied access and was told to look elsewhere to trade. They informed us that they were not seeking to trade. They had something important that they had been asked to deliver. They were granted permission to send in a small shuttle with the delivery.” Gatton stopped for a moment to refill their glasses then continued.

“When the shuttle landed, I was the first one to go accept the delivery. The pilot of the shuttle said he was asked to deliver a body to her home so that she could have a proper burial. I asked if he knew who it was but he said he had no idea. There was a letter attached to the outside of the coffin. I immediately opened it and read it. It was from your father explaining what had transpired over the last three years and that Popala had died in childbirth. He did not say whether the child lived or died.  Your father just wanted her returned to her people so that she would be laid to rest with family.” Gatton drew a quiet breath. He sat there swirling the liquid in his goblet around and around.

Lars’ broke the silence that seemed to go on forever, “Do you still have that letter?”

Gatton brought a finger to his lip, thought for a second and then stood, “You know, I believe I do still have it here somewhere.” He went over to his desk and began to rummage around in the drawers. Papers were dropped on the floor and scattered onto the desk until he came upon the item he was looking for. “Ah, here it is.” He announced and walked back over to where Lars was waiting quietly. “You can have the letter. I actually don’t know why I saved it.” Lars rose as Gatton gave him the letter. He lightly ran his fingers over the yellow, worn envelope that contained the last words his father wrote about his mother.

Lars returned his gaze to Gatton, “Thank you. You have been the first person to ever tell me about my mother.” He looked back down at the letter, staring at it as if his mother was going to somehow appear before him. “I need to return to base or they might soon discover what I have been up to and that would endanger our plans. Take this.” Lars handed Gatton a small piece of paper. “That is a transmission frequency that you can use to contact me. I have blocked out all other access to that frequency as well as added a complicated encryption code.  I have included the cypher on that note that will allow us able to communicate securely and not have our plans intercepted.”

Gatton placed his large hand on the shoulder of the younger man, “Good, good, this is excellent. We will soon be in touch to make plans to destroy the Therons. You are now dismissed.  I look forward to acting on our agreement. Know this warrior, if you do not hold up your end of the bargain, I will find you.” He slapped Lars on the back and started to escort him to the door of the room they had been in. Outside the door stood the two guards that had originally escorted him and Hano from their ship.  He interrupted Hano, who was busy comparing weapons with another guard, and let him know it was time to return to the space craft.

“My guards will escort you and your friend back to your ship.  They will see you safely off Drylon. Until we meet again my long lost Drylon warrior.” Gatton gave a slight bow of the head then returned to his office.

On the way back to the ship the men were again in the middle of the guards.  Lars waited until he was safely on his ship and then became much more talkative. He excitedly told Hano everything that had transpired behind the closed doors. He even showed him the aged envelope that Gatton had given him.

“My friend this is the beginning of a whole new life for us. The Therons can take their planet and ships and stick them straight up their asses.”

Hano, who had been quiet for most of the time on the Drylon planet, spoke, “I hope so but we need to make a quick exit. We have been gone and out of contact for a long time. I am sure by now command is trying to locate us.”

“Don’t worry. I had already taken care of all that. The malfunction affected much more of the ship than we realized and communications had to be cut in order to make the repair. I have even doctored the ships log to account for all the time we have been gone.  Don’t worry so much and leave it all to me.”

Back in the ship, Lars steered the ship back the way they had come and then up and out of the Drylon atmosphere. Lars pushed the ship as hard as he could so that they could get back into range of the Therons’ transmissions. It wasn’t long after arriving back into the transmission zone, that a transmission started to come through from their Commander.

“Are you there? Lars can you hear me?” Commander Zeb’s voice sounded a bit strained as he kept repeating the same words. “Lars, can you hear me?”

Lars switched on the response button, “Yes sir, I can hear you now. Man, I thought we were goners there for a while.”

“What the hell happened? We haven’t heard from you in hours.  Your ship went off the grid.”

“I am not quite sure exactly what happened. We were pulling our duty orbit further out when something on the ship malfunctioned and everything shut down. We were drifting further and further out. It ended up being a glitch in the electrical system that caused the entire ship to lose power.  After manipulating several of the systems, I was able to get it to boot up again and it seems to be working. For a while there, Hano and I were scared shitless at the thought of drifting through space forever.”

“Bring your ship in now and perform a complete diagnostic test and see if you can find the root to the problem. I don’t want that to happen again. The Drylons are out there and could easily pick off a distressed Theron ship. Report to me when you find the problem.”

Lars and Hano looked at each and smiled, “Yes sir, will do. Over and out.”

“I told you I had everything covered.” Lars and Hano high fived each other then said, “We are going to celebrate when we get off duty. These stupid fools won’t know what hit them once all hell breaks loose. The time to get even with my father has finally arrived!”

Chapter 15

Avery’s days were filled with nothing but boredom. Since she fought with Zeb about her leaving their quarters without an escort. Zeb had been distant.  He would leave for his shift early and not come back until after she was already in bed. She would lay in bed awake listening for his return, and then cowardly pretend that she was asleep when he would come into the room. She spent several sleepless nights, awake until the wee hours of the morning until Zeb left for work. Then she would fall into a fitful exhausted sleep only have it be interrupted by terrible nightmares. This scenario repeated itself daily for about week. She was now at her breaking point. They were at an impasse and either one or both of them needed to concede. They needed to talk, but she didn’t know how to go about discussing her feelings with him.  She had never been in a relationship like this before.

That night, as usual, she was in bed when he home. She was lying on her side facing the window she loved to look out of. Knox, her little rewa, was curled up against her stomach peacefully sleeping. She had made up her mind earlier to talk to him when he came to the bed.  She was terrified to open up to him like she planned to do this night.  She went over in her head again and again what she wanted to say. She tried to anticipate his responses, and come up with suitable answers to what she thought would be his responses.  It was getting up the nerve to be the first to break the silence that really bothered her.

As the hours ticked by, there was no sign of Zeb. Where was he? This was the first time he was this late coming home. She was starting to get real sleepy now.  She wasn’t sure if she would be able to stay awake until he finally came home. She thought she would just close her eyes for a moment and still be able to listen for Zeb, but the next thing she knew she was screaming out in terror.