Page 3 of Bonded Queen: to the Alien Warlord Triad

I walk out of the bathroom, pushing past Orr, and grab my belt. I pull it around my waist and sheathe my Orb-Blade. We will fight in robes. The Scorp will not be entrenched yet, burrowed in their caves, and mobility will be better than armor in a battle. I pull on my combat boots and stomp, testing my balance. The three of us are ready to command.

“Tally.” I state the word as we stride down the bleak, grey hallway of the warship.

“Four hundred full triads. Many broken ones. Full count, two thousand, eight men from our command, and ninety-two full triads who volunteered from Obsidious. We’re short on Reavers. Only one hundred. Obsidian took the rest—and we’re vulnerable to ambush.”

I nod as I walk, my triad’s footsteps in time with mine, our combat boots stomping down the hallway with rhythmic intensity, and tally up the count. “We will not be ambushed. Obsidian will guide us through the rift. It will be tight, but we’ll land the troops and use the Reavers for air-support.”

Kriz’s aura flares with nervousness he can’t conceal. “Do you trust his guidance? We are the first ship he’s guiding through the rift. When we left the Empire, survivability was down below forty percent.”

Orb-Shifting is the only thing Kriz fears. He’s charged into pitch-black Scorp nests without a second thought. You could be killed by an unlucky barb or a cave-in, but you feel in control of your destiny when you have an opponent in front of you. Orb-Shifting is something else. We’ve all seen ships ripped in two when the shift failed, warrior triads flailing and gasping for air in the vast emptiness of space. You can fight a Scorp. You can’t fight the eternal emptiness of space.

“Yes.” I let my confidence infect him through the Bond. As leader of the triad, I need to be the foundation they can depend on.

Orr doesn’t have a hint of fear. He’ll go where I lead. He’s a battering ram. “Is she there?”

He asks the question we’ve all been asking ourselves, over and over, torturing ourselves with hope.

I don’t answer. I can’t. Artificial light gleams against us as we stride, our robes whipping with our movements, the air stale and dull in our mouths. It tastes old. I ordered all life support and generators put on bare bones as we pulled out of the atmosphere of Obsidious and past the orbital defenses which prevent shifting. I commanded all power to the Orb-Drives. It’s been over a century since the aged warship has shifted, back before each journey was a perilous gamble.

The floor gleams like a mirror. It’s perfectly polished. I demand complete discipline from my men, and none are above taking turns scrubbing the decks and searching for any minute deficit. The blast doors have been tested. Weapons stations have been tallied and recorded. There hasn’t been boarding warfare in decades, but I can see it like it’s all around me, Aurelian triads fighting in close corners, their Orb-Blades clashing against each other and the sides of the hallways, bodies packed in tight, the polished floor stained with blood.

A huge set of blast doors hiss open in front of me, as I lead my triad into the meeting hall. Orr is at my left, Kriz at my right, like it’s been for centuries.

We enter the meeting hall together. The ceiling is high. The walls of the room are slate grey, like our eyes, and there is no furniture, except for a raised stage where we will address our troops. There are bright lights from the ceiling, but it seems to be sucked into the Orbs of each blade, Orbs that are hungry for blood, ever thirsting. Each warrior is in black robes, contrasting against their marble skin.

My men stand straight-backed and proud, in perfect formation—except that unlike a warship for the Aurelian Empire, here some broken triads stand with missing members. Lone Aurelians who would have been discharged from the Aurelian military stand with empty space on either side of them. Though we’re packed into the meeting hall, others leave the man-sized spaces open out of respect for the fallen. Some of those men have been up for days straight, checking ammo stores and loading up weapons, in the rush to prepare us for the last-minute jump, but they all stand with the same unyielding discipline. If they’re tired, they don’t show it.

Brands are knuckled as we stride through the crowd and take our places on the raised stage, assessing our men.

Near the front of the crowd is Krazak and his triad, three strong, but they’ve lost more than anyone in this room. We came up in Academy together on Colossus, the home planet of the Aurelian Empire, spending our first hundred years as rivals with grudging respect. After our time at Academy, we were drafted into the army to serve our century fighting for the Empire.

He fought at my side in each deployment. He used to laugh, bellowing, deep and booming, a laugh that would cut through the noise of a packed mess hall. He’d outdrink any green rookie who thought he was hot shit, young bucks striding into the mess hall straight out of Academy, ready to conquer the universe. I remember his laugh booming out when he bet two months’ salary he could piss longer than another drunk triad, and the way he smirked before taking his lashing for unacceptable conduct in silence.

Now he’s lost everything that was him. He and his triad’s slate-grey eyes are filled with empty hate. Their eyes will never change colors when they Bond their Mate. There’s no direction to his hatred. His every moment is agony, and all he wants is war.

He felt the Bondthrum,as did we.

He felt the call of his Fated Mate on the forsaken planet. His yells joined mine when we pled to the General to allow us to Orb-Shift. He was caught trying to steal a Reaver to go to her himself. Any other time, he would have been executed for desertion. Instead, he was beat to an inch of his life, and I swear the General would have ended him—but we needed the men. Instead, he was stripped of his rank, reduced to the same status as a triad straight out of Academy, and thrown into the fray. He fought harder than any other man.

His reward for his whirlwind of violence was the greatest pain any Aurelian can imagine. He knew there was no chance his Mate survived the Scorp attack, and he fought for revenge, killing, rushing in on suicidal missions, clearing whole buildings and nests in his lust for death. Every one of the reptilian monstrosities he killed made him emptier. He knew it was not the Scorp to blame.

It was the Queen Jasmine and Emperor Raegan who forbade Orb-Shifting. Who allowed the planet full of weak humans to try and rule themselves.

It was General Gladinus, the decorated soldier of near a thousand years in age, a man of unbending, unflinching honor, who followed the laws.

It was the weakness of the Aurelian Empire that stopped ruling with an iron fist and let go of its grip on human-populated planets, children not ready to face the world crushed by the deadliness of Scorp.

Krazak and his triad lost the only thing that could make them whole. Now he wants only revenge. The rest of my troops have the same emptiness in their eyes, their slate-grey irises meeting my gaze with determination.

All of us cast off honor. There is only one path for us.

War.

Every man in this warship has the same scorn for idle old Aurelians who sit by the pools on Colossus, mating emptily with their unbonded harems while planets in Wild Space are overrun.

“Men.” I say the word, and it rings out, hollow, as they greet me with silence. I don’t enhance my voice with my smartwatch’s loudspeaker. I let it come out naturally, and though not a one of them speaks, they react. Hands tickle the hilts of Orb-Blades. Every one is eager for the coming battle. We no longer wear armor. In battle against Scorp and Aurelians, who have shearing claws and Orb-Blades, maneuverability matters more than defense. The troops wear the black robes of Obsidian.

“We are going to a forsaken planet. We received reports which were confirmed a week ago that Trebulous lies in the path of tens of thousands of Scorp. The planet declared Independence. No Aurelian Empire soldiers are coming to protect them. We will claim this planet for Obsidian.” I stare out at them, looking for any sign of hesitation or weakness in their eyes.

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