Page 59 of Taken to Kor
“You seem different,” she finally says.
“I am different. You, on the other hand, don’t seem to have changed at all.” I glance around theatrically. “I see you’ve still got great taste.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m bored,” the former Drakesh king says. “Let’s get on with this. Our allies are waiting.”
Noooooow, this is getting interesting. “What’s the plan, Mathilda? Hold me captive for another fourteen solars, wait for me to give birth, sell the hybrids, slit my throat? I mean, you should be familiar with all that. It’s what you did to your daughter. Do you remember killing your own kid?”
Mathilda’s hands tighten around her weapon. Her eyes blaze. She doesn’t like when I talk about this. Somewhere deep down, I think she has an entire Hell full of demons tearing her apart for what she’s done, over and over again. My words just bring them up. At least, that’s the idea.
I smile, because talking about my mom reminds me then of what I need to do. What pirates are best at.Revenge.
“Did she cry out for her mom when you killed her? Did she beg? Mama, mama no please! Aaaarg!” I make a clutching motion and grab my chest, pretending to fall. Mathilda’s front teeth clench. She opens her mouth and starts to talk, but I speak over her. “Or did she tell you what she thought about you? That you are the worst mother in the history of all mothers and the worst human in the history of all humans? Did she call you a fuckwad? A bastard? A bitch? Did she call you an ugly old hag? You are, by the way. Did she tell you that her daughter, Deena, would one day become a pirate seeking revenge and tear you down to the nothing that you are?”
“You are…” Mathilda lifts her blaster and takes a half step towards me.
Pogar rises to stand and steps up beside her. He grabs the barrel of her blaster and tips it up. “You are allowing your frivolous human emotions to take control. If you intend to live, then…”
“Youdarethreaten me? This plan is mine.”
“The plan is yours. Everything else belongs to me, including the contacts, the allies and the battleship. So come. Grab the female and join me or stay here and allow her mate to tear you to pieces. I could not care less what fate befalls you, female.”
“She can’t communicate with him and your Drakesh soldiers subdued her guards.”
In a fluid motion, the red-skinned alien reaches out and grabs Mathilda by the throat. He arches down towards her and speaks directly into her forehead. “You think that those are the only eyes Rhorkanterannu has on Kor? You are misguided. Now let’s move. I have no desire to linger here. The attack is prepared, the plan already set into motion. Bring the girl. Come, human.”
Mathilda looks furious as he releases her neck and heads for the stairs. Muscles in her cheek and neck both twitch. Her long grey locs swish around her shoulders when she tracks him with her gaze. My hand flinches towards my lightning stick in a way that’s visible, hoping to distract her while my other hand reaches through the hole in my pocket for the battle kilt tied around my waist underneath the dress I’m wearing. The tarp.
“Don’t move. Come here.”
“You just said not to move.”
“Don’t be smart with me. We both know you never were.”
I shrug. “Seems like you’ve lost a bit of those smarts, too. What’s your plan here? You think that guy’s not gonna betray you? That’s literally why he’s been stuck here the past half dozen rotations.”
“Luckily, our interests happen to align. When I take back the colony, he’ll take his revenge on Va’Raku, who stole his planet from him.”
I roll my eyes even though I’ve got no clue what she’s talking about. I don’t know anything about Voraxian history, but I don’t let it show. I just keep reaching slowly for the micro-blaster hanging off of my belt, refusing to move forward. Refusing to go with her. If I go with her, then the battle will get a thousand times more difficult.
“Riiiiiiiight. Because the colony is just gonna open up its arms and welcome you back after they exiled you for slaughtering human females and for teaming up with that ugly dude. Makes sense.”
“They won’t have a choice. Why do you think you’re here, Deena? It’s certainly not for the pleasure of your company. I mean look at you. Pregnant, rounder than a moon, and cripple. Rhorkanterannu was right. You truly are defective.”
The words are intended to slay, and some part of me feels that they’re true until I remember looking straight ahead into a mirror as I put my dress on early this solar. The distant sun had just begun to rise. Rhorkanterannu was still in bed — a first, since I almost always sleep longer than he does — and I looked at myself naked and I looked at him naked, sprawled out on our net behind me and I thought to myself,damn if we don’t make a sexy, sexy family.
“There’s nothing wrong with my leg.” I straighten.
Mathilda stiffens. Her pupils contract.
I shrug with one shoulder while my hand finds the blaster and fixes around it. I carefully unclip it from its holster, speaking as I do. “The only thing wrong with it, is that you’re the one who broke it. You said it was to protect me, so I wouldn’t have to go into the Hunt. I think it was to protectyou, so you wouldn’t have to look into the mirror and see a woman who killed both her daughter and her granddaughter.”
“Stop talking, Deena, and move.”
“Why would I?” I balk. “I don’t get why you need me anyway.”
“The pirates won’t fire at our ship when we leave the port with our mercenary army if you’re on board, and the humans, as stupid as they are, won’t let the Voraxians fire if you’re on board either. All of these creatures you callfamilythat you’ve surrounded yourself with are too sentimental for these Quadrants. You’re what ensures that we make it door-to-door without any fight. They’re too stupid to know any better than not to die for you.”
