Page 4 of The Arabis Triad

A blade of fear sliced through his heart. Not for himself, but for the survival of their mate and the other human females in this horror of a room.

A message appeared on Trum’s wrist-comm. His mouth pulled into a tight line. “The self destruct has been initiated.”

Paxt turned to his warriors. “Evac everyone! Get them all out. Now!”

Paxt ignored the screams of the females and warriors who carefully, yet forcibly, cut metal bars to retrieve them out of their cages when the locks failed to open. It was for their survival. Coltan and Ashir helped those closest and it was done in a matter of seconds. They had no time to waste. A series of smaller booms, followed by a massive explosion rocked around them, chaotic and deafening.

“Out! Now!” Paxt boomed over the noise of the human female’s screams and groaning metal.

There was a flurry of activity as the room emptied, only the dead left behind. Paxt offered a quick prayer for the fallen females before leading his brothers down the corridor. A precious two of them hadn’t made it.

They bolted down the corridor. Smoke billowed through the vents, acidic and dark. Paxt held his mate’s face to his chest to minimize smoke inhalation. She was limp, her limbs dangling with each step he took.

“Hurry!” Paxt said.

The corridors quickly emptied as warriors fled off into their shuttles. His Triad dove through the connective tunnel between the scaled one’s ship and their craft.

“Coltan, pilot us away. Ashir, retract the tunnel.” Paxt followed Coltan, leaving Ashir to separate their craft. The walkway whined and thudded into place as it retracted into the body of their craft.

The floor tilted as Coltan, already behind the pilot seat, reversed from the main body of the scaled ones’ massive transport ship. There was a flash of white before the ship disintegrated in front of his eyes. Paxt managed to fold himself into the co-pilot seat, protecting their mate with his arms before the concussive waves of the explosion hit.

“Hold her tight, Paxt!” Coltan yelled as the blast smashed into them, sending them into a tight, uncoordinated spin. Tremendous vibrations hammered them. The acidic smell of burning electronics invaded his nostrils as well as the sharper smell of trioxygen. Their intelligent ship would self-mend, but it would malfunction in the meantime.

The vibrant whites, yellows, and reds of the explosion expanded in a brilliant imitation of a sun, a final stretch of matter, before contracting into a pinpoint of dark rubble and ash. The immense vacuum of space was too great even for a blast of that magnitude.

“Brace for backlash,” Coltan said, voice calm.

They were too close to the ship to escape the suction of reverse impact. Paxt gritted his teeth as the engine strained and whined. As though they were on the tight end of an elastic band, their craft was thrown back toward the debris.

Coltan cursed as he fought for control. Paxt could only hope that Ashir had been able to harness himself in and was safe. Lights flashed over the console as the wreckage grew larger in the viewscreen. An impact from a shard of metal would mean their immediate death.

Paxt stared at their mate. Even through the filth that covered her, she possessed an achingly beautiful face built from delicate lines. If he was going to die, he wanted the last thing he saw to be of her.

Coltan roared as he forced the control of the craft against the magnitude of the explosion. The ship shuddered as pieces of debris slammed into the hull. Reverberating booms echoed through the walls.

There was a shift in the direction of their craft. Paxt strained against the grav-force as they skimmed over the top of the debris. They swirled in an out-of-control haphazard spin, but amazingly, slipped past the main bulk of the dead ship.

Slowly their ship evened out. Paxt’s heart hammered in his chest. It was only by the skill of Coltan’s piloting that they’d made it. He was about to commend his brother when a burst of black cloud appeared from nowhere in front of them. Coldness slithered up his spine.

“What’s that, Coltan?”

Coltan shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

A Reptile craft came from behind the explosion and shot into the clouds, disappearing into the darkness.

“Where did they come from?” Paxt said.

“Looks like some of the scaled ones escaped,” Coltan said.

Another alarm sounded on the console, the one they’d installed with the tracking technology from the Ozar. As he watched, the magenta light that indicated the Arabis crystal dimmed until it went black.

“Son of adrumasturd,” Coltan cursed. “The Arabis Crystal is on board that ship.”

The clouds began to retract, billowing in on themselves as they shrank. They were going to lose their crystal.

“Can you track the craft?” Paxt barked.

Coltan swiped his fingers over the console, entering commands. “There’s no trace of the crystal from here. Paxt, if we don’t follow them now, there’s no telling how long it might take to find it – if we ever do again.”

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