Alien Knight Teddy Bear Troubles Read online

  They’d spent years preparing. Cultivating trade partners. Some legitimate. Some black market. They would do whatever was necessary to take down their enemies. Unfortunately, this vessel was full of innocents. Of terrified people. And Ion.

  Ion should have been safe on Mora Five while he and his teams were on a mission. He’d left good Knights behind. Strong. Capable. Fierce in battle. Now they were most likely gone. Agony, fresh and raw, tore through him until he ruthlessly pushed it down. He had to focus. He couldn’t afford to make a mistake.

  The boy was important. To Ion’s people, to Taeger, the boy represented hope for the future. Survival. He’d waited nearly two thousand years to bring the young king out of cryo-sleep. Waited until he thought it was safe enough to do so; waited until he simply couldn’t wait anymore.

  To the Dark Ones, Ion was one more piece of meat to be butchered and consumed. Worthless, unless someone had tipped them off to Ion’s existence. Guilt rode him hard. Had they slipped? Had the A’Nua Na-KI discovered one of their secrets? Discovered that the royals had been smuggled off of Lumeria just before the planet had imploded? Had they sent the Dark Ones to Mora Five looking for Ion? Taeger and the others had vowed to protect the young royal, would sacrifice everything to make sure he survived. Everything. They’d accepted their fate the moment they received the distress call from Mora Five and realized Ion had been taken.

  The Dark Ones existed to kill. Feast. Nothing else. They were terrifying beyond reason, shifting instantly between one dimension and the next, making it nearly impossible to injure or kill them. Their razor sharp claws, on the other hand, could slice through nearly anything. Dark Ones could tear. Rip. Crush. Or worse, eat them alive.

  Taeger’s free hand fisted around a white ring attached to the sling that hung from his shoulder. A Sword of Ohm-Ra. He carried as many as he could, as many as their people had been able to acquire. The Swords of Ohm-Ra were their only hope of victory.

  Greig, his second in command on this mission, looked around grimly, gripping his weapon tighter as he murmured, “You sure we can’t blow this place to all hell?”

  Taeger answered without glancing back. “There are too many people on board. We do not kill innocents.”

  “They may prefer death.” Greig’s response was grim, but true.

  “We’ll do what we can,” Taeger replied as he looked around, knowing the likelihood of any of them surviving, let alone other prisoners, was unlikely.

  At their backs the walls were like carved stone, the markings on the black surface uniform and repeated. Every eight paces an inset appeared, the sliding doors set back just a few inches from the main walls of the corridor.

  Those were the holding cells, one after another. Dozens of them.

  Greig lifted his weapon, mounted on his forearm, and aimed at something farther down the corridor. “Incoming!”

  “Damned thing’s fast, and I think it can see us,” another warrior added, his calm demeanor never faltering.

  The deep, steady voice came from behind Taeger and to his left. Seth. A good man. A fierce fighter.

  “Fire!” Taeger ordered, lifting his weapon, blasting the creature as quickly as he could. On either side of him, Seth and Greig did the same. Their job was to slow the Dark Ones down so the warriors behind them could move into position and strike with the Swords of Ohm-Ra, bury the curved blades in the Dark One’s flesh, temporarily anchoring the enemy to this dimension. Only then could they be destroyed.

  “It’s not slowing down!” Greig shouted.

  “Keep firing,” Taeger ordered grimly as the others fanned out to the sides, ready to close in.

  And there were more. Somewhere. Taeger felt the stirring of their minds like dark shadows on his soul.

  This one was smiling. Or whatever passed as a smile on its inhuman face. With skin stretched tight, black as the walls but dull, its body absorbed all light and reflected none. The eyes were sunken into a matte black face, its expression unreadable. Bottomless. Predators’ eyes. Rounded pieces of bone protruded from the skin in a vertical arched pattern where eyebrows should have been, the pieces stark white and shocking in the dark. Similar pieces of bone erupted from flesh along the cheeks and around the mouth, down its chest in a macabre display meant to inspire terror.

  The creature leaped through the air ahead of them, disappearing, only to reappear a split second later, falling upon them from the other direction. Taeger twisted around, weapon firing repeatedly, but the direct energy was instantly absorbed by some sort of shield wrapped around the Dark One’s body.

  One clawed hand, with fingers twice the length of Taeger’s and razor sharp, slashed through the armor of the warrior behind Greig like the suit was made of tissue paper. Lyari’s scream was cut short as the Dark One slashed his throat.

  Greig bellowed with rage, firing rapidly at the Dark One. Evil eyes turned toward him as it fed on the downed warrior’s spraying blood, completely unaffected by their weapons as it dragged Lyari’s body back down the corridor. Unaffected. Amused.

  Taeger couldn’t allow himself time to grieve the loss of his friend, or he would lose the rest of them. He grabbed Greig and dragged him back, his voice rough with emotion. “Look. Lyari’s already gone. We need to regroup. Figure out how to get through those shields long enough to use the Swords of Ohm-Ra.”

  Taeger motioned to his men to gather closer, never taking his eyes from the gruesome creature jealously guarding its kill, Lyari’s lifeless body already unrecognizable. “Our weapons barely slow them down.”

  Seth interjected, “Where is the boy?”

  “Lower level. Right under us,” Taeger nodded, glancing at the energy signature readout. “He’s not alone.”

  “So, as far as possible from our current position,” Greig shouted as he blasted the creature with what should have been a mortal blow.

  What Greig said was true. The ship was long and narrow with two levels of holding cells. There was a primitive ladder on the far end, opposite their position, that would allow them access to the lower level holding cells.

  “Two incoming!” Seth warned.

  Taeger lifted his head as a blur moved toward them.

  “Not fucking happening!” Greig roared, launching himself at the first creature as Seth held off the second with his weapon placed directly against the second attacker’s chest. He fired over and over, straight into the chest. The Dark Ones screamed as the Lumerians swarmed, driving their Swords of Ohm-Ra into the adversaries’ bodies. The shoulder. The arm. The leg.

  The creatures, each stabbed with at least half a dozen of the white rings, made sounds that tore through Taeger’s head like an explosion. Screams of rage. Pure, killing rage.

  His team was doomed. The other creatures would come. Already they struggled under two. More would surely end them, and they were running out the white rings.

  The creatures moved like phantoms. Ghosts. Their bodies were as dark as their ship. The edges of their forms flickered, growing and expanding, appearing and disappearing as they phased in and out of this dimension.

  They were only partially here, and they were killing everyone.

  “Strike hard and fast, then run for the ladder!” Taeger yelled. That wasn’t the plan. The plan was to take them all out, then rescue the boy. But they weren’t going to last here. He hoped there would be a more defensible position on the lower level.

  With a loud cry, Elduin, the Knight closest to Seth, leaped straight for the enemy’s head, his arm raised to strike as he flew through the air. He struck true; the ring embedded in the center of the creature’s forehead. Elduin’s laugh turned to a gurgle as he fell, the Dark One’s claws protruding from his back where the monster stabbed him through the chest.

  Seth drew his sword and sliced the tendons at the back of the Dark One’s legs as Greig leaped for its shoulder, shoving the creature off balance. With quick strokes, Greig gutted the creature and removed its monstrous head.

  “Now!” Seth shouted.

  Moving with every ounce of speed he possessed, Taeger drove the ring in his hand deep into the center of the dark, black abdomen closest to him and nearly fell to the floor, dizzy, as a surge of power erupted from the ring, finally completing the circuit, locking the second Dark One’s body in place.

  “Get down!” Seth bellowed.

  Taeger and Greig dropped split seconds before Seth’s longsword pierced the second attacker’s chest cavity, slicing up through bone and sinew until the creature dropped to the floor, destroyed for all time.

  Standing, Taeger took in the damage. Two of his men down. Elduin with a hand through his chest and Lyari’s throat ripped nearly in half by one swipe of the Dark One’s claws. They had a quarter mile of empty space to cover, nowhere to hide, and no way off the ship unless they gained control of it.

  Chapter Two

  Taeger

  * * *

  “There are more Dark Ones in this section,” Taeger reminded his men.

  “Why aren’t they fighting?” Greig asked, wiping blood and grime from his face.

  Taeger closed his eyes and gave himself to the old ways, taking knowledge from the web of energy that surrounded all living things. In other parts of the ship, more of the Dark Ones stirred, paying attention to what transpired here, but not disturbed enough to interfere. But the others coming? He shuddered as their appetite for horror and torment moved through his mind.

  “They like to play with their food.”

  “Damn them.” Seth growled. He kept his longsword in one hand, a curved ring in the other.

  Taeger looked at each of his men in turn. Good men. They nodded. Words were unnecessary. They were all in.

  As one they turned and ran forward. Uncowed. Undeterred. Ready to fight. To die.

  Boots pounding on the hard, black floor, they raced to the opposite end of the ship, passing countless doors, and behind each door forty or fifty souls locked in terror. There were thousands of intelligent, sentient beings on this ship alone.

  Less than halfway to their destination, the attack came, two more Dark Ones leaping upon them from behind. Belsaran and Almar turned to face the attack, Almar bellowing over his shoulder to run. To go on. To save the boy.

  With a curse, Taeger left them behind, knowing they were right. Belsaran and Almar were buying time, time to save Ion.

  The ladder was steep, meant more for sliding than calculated movement. Taeger slid below, landing on his feet in a corridor identical to the one above. He moved aside for Seth and Greig to land and looked over the barren black floor, staring at door after door after door as far as he could see.

  There were no lights. No outcroppings. Only their night vision sensors allowed them to see. The corridor was perfectly empty, with only faint markings on the floor where the prison blocks had been moved and loaded in turn, one after another.

  They were in the deepest depths of hell with no way out.

  But they wouldn’t lay down and die without a fight. It wasn’t in them.

  They would survive and take the boy to safety. There was no other choice.

  At last, he felt the boy’s presence. Throwing several light sticks on the ground so they could see without the aid of their night vision sensors, they pushed the square on the wall to open the door to the cell. His shoulders sagged with relief as there was no blast of air, just a quiet sigh as the atmosphere inside the cell merged with that of the hallway. Taeger crouched down, decloaked, and held out his hand to the little boy, just three years old. “Ion?”

  Ion turned his head, his cheeks chapped from crying, his eyes puffy and swollen nearly shut. “Taegie? Is that you Uncle Taegie?” he whispered in his best, bravest big boy voice.

  “It’s me. I got you.”

  Ion ran to Taeger, wrapping his arms as far around his favorite uncle as they would go. “I knew you would come get me. I told her you would come and save us, Uncle Taegie. I told her.”

  “That’s right. I’ll always come for you.” Taeger squeezed the little boy he’d come to love as hard as he dared. He didn’t want to hurt him. “Come on. We have to get out of here.”

  “Okay,” Ion said happily, wiggling out of Taeger’s arms. “I’ll get them,” he added, waving Taeger back toward the cell.

  “Wait,” Taeger whispered urgently. “Get who?”

  “All of them,” Ion said with big, innocent eyes. “I promised you would come and save us and take them anywhere they want to go, Uncle Taigie, ‘cuz I knew you would. Right? And a ‘umerian promise can’t ever be broken. That’s what you said.”

  Taeger pinched the bridge of his nose in resignation. “A Lumerian promise is a sacred oath, Ion.” He sighed and almost wished he was not teaching the boy to be so honorable. How was he to get so many people out when he wasn’t sure they could get out at all?

  But that was not the Lumerian way. “Very well, Ion, I won’t leave until everyone is off the ship,” he vowed, resigned to his fate. The boy’s promise was more binding than he knew. A promise was a promise, and Taeger had also made several to Ion’s father, including his own vow to raise the boy as his own, teach him what it meant to be honorable. To keep his word, no matter how casually or without thought it was given. A promise was a promise.

  “Ion? Where are you?” A woman’s voice called out for the young royal and Ion’s eyes lit up with happiness.

  “Over here!” Ion turned back, ran into the cell, and reappeared seconds later leading a woman by the hand, looking up at her adoringly as he rambled, “Told you Uncle Taegie would come. I told you! ‘Member I told you I got lost in the trees and it was dark and I was scared until Uncle Taegie found me? He always comes. He said so. Promise is a promise.”

  The woman’s touch was kind. Protective. She pulled Ion close, then shoved him behind her as she approached the open doorway. “So you’re Uncle Taegie.”

  Hearing such a beautiful woman call him the ridiculously childish name set his teeth on edge. He did not want this female to think of him as such. For a reason he did not have time to examine, he wanted her respect. Her admiration. Perhaps, even, a taste of fear. He was a Lumerian Knight, an ancient, not a helpless child or a doddering elder uncle. “I am Commander Taeger Qebroelk Norasair. We are here for the child. He is under our protection.”

  Cassandra tilted her head, staring into his hazel eyes, measuring his worth. A gorgeous blue marking just above his left eyebrow told her he was Caldorian. The man was huge. Easily the biggest Caldorian she’d ever seen, tall with muscles on top of muscles. Smoking hot. Broad shoulders encased in some sort of alien military style black uniform that flickered in and out of sight. Lots of alien weapons. And was that a sword strapped to his back, too?

  Her fingers itched to get a hold of just one of the high-tech devices he was packing around. She couldn’t remember seeing any of the Caldorians on Earth carrying such weapons, but then, they had only come to Earth two years ago and were extremely secretive. They guarded their tech from prying eyes, so it wasn’t that surprising.

  She pulled Ion a fraction closer as he peered around her, one hand covering his ear as she hissed, “Mr. Norasair, I’m Cap,” she paused mid-word, deciding against giving the smoking hot Caldorian any more information than was absolutely necessary. And giving her military rank was definitely not necessary. “Cassandra Davis. Ion seems to think you’re some sort of superhero, and I hope you are, because I saw the creatures that killed his guardian, and I don’t think we stand a chance in hell against them.”

  A heavy weight pulled at Taeger, only centuries of training allowing him to keep his emotions under check, his face a stony mask. “Marcano is dead? You’re sure?”

  “Well, I tried to help him, but he wouldn’t have it. Ion was trying to get him to drink some water, so I helped pour some down his throat. He was bleeding out and told me to take the boy. There’s no way he could survive injuries that severe. I - I’m sorry.” Her shoulders slumped briefly before straightening again, one hand wrapped around Ion’s head as she pressed the boy to her side like a protective Kuvu bear with a cub. “And he gave me this.” She held out Marcano’s dagger, hilt offered in Taeger’s general direction.

  Relief swept through him at her words. There was a strong possibility Marcano, his best friend and second in command, was still alive. This woman was human. Thought like a human. Marcano was not human. None of them were. They were Lumerians. Ancient. Nearly immortal. They’d been betrayed thousands of years ago. Their planet had been destroyed, survivors hunted lest they share what they knew about the Intergalactic Council. He, Marcano, and the rest of the Knights under his command had gone into hiding. They’d survived it all and Taeger was sure the water she spoke of was Maju water, a strong healing agent for his people. So, unless he saw Marcano’s head detached from his body, there was a chance he still lived.

  For now, the question remained; who was this female that Ion so clearly adored? Her grip was sure, her balance, even with Ion clinging to her leg, good enough for him to recognize someone with combat training. She was obviously human. Beautiful. Brave. He leaned down slightly, intending to intimidate the small woman, but she held her ground. Impressive. Was she a black market trader? A human spy, perhaps? “Marcano is tougher than you can imagine. Keep the dagger for now. What exactly were you doing on Mora Five?”

  Cassandra put the dagger away and moved back a step. “My business there is irrelevant. I’m glad you’re here to get Ion. I hope that extends to the others as well.”

  “You have to come, too! You promised, Cassie! Don’t leave me!” Ion left Taeger’s arms and ran to Cassandra, wrapped his arms around her leg and clung, obviously attached to his new protector. The poor boy had never had a mother, not one that he remembered. Seems he was placing this female in that role. Which could be a big problem since they knew nothing about her.