“Ten minutes. If you haven’t found her by then, you’re out of time,” Jake said over the com link.
Trevor raised one hand to acknowledge the warning and kept moving. He trusted the rest of the team to carry out their jobs, which included Jake, Red, Owen and the others traveling through various ducts and maintenance passageways in the hull which were normally only used by worker drones. Any of these lower forms of Shemdylann encountered would be killed, no questions asked. Jayna and Clint would remain at the ship on guard.
His job was the most delicate, to find and rescue Gianna, while using his dominance attributes to subdue any of the enemy he met. Failing that, he’d have to kill them.
Fortunately the corridor outside the cargo hold was empty, although he heard the buzzing and clicking of Shemdylann conversations going on nearby. Verlaine didn’t hesitate but darted to the left and tugged hard against the leash so Trevor jogged with him. At the first cross corridor, he heard approaching footsteps and flared out his wings, which were principally useful for communications, vibrating at extremely high speed. He deployed his antenna to their fullest and released a cloud of pheromones which would inform any Shemdylann they were facing a being of the highest rank, no matter his appearance. In his hatred for the species, the renegade red headed scientist had thought it was amusing to give a human this advantage with a generous helping of the components from the royal jelly. It had served Trevor well when he was slaughtering the enemy soldiers at the prison camp and he was grateful for it today.
A hulking Shemdylann soldier came around the corner and stopped dead in its tracks at the sight of Trevor, before going down on its ‘knees’ and bowing its head. The deadly tail coiled in submission. “Forgive me, exalted one, I had no idea you were aboard. How may I serve you?”
Using the alien vocal cords he acquired during transformation, Trevor said, “My presence is top secret. You were not to know. Silence is essential. Remain here.” He reinforced the command with a flick from one of his deadly side tentacles, delivering enough poison to a small vulnerable spot on the alien’s body to paralyze the other. Satisfied the threat had been neutralized for now, he jiggled Verlaine’s leash and edged past the frozen Shemdylann. The venom would wear off eventually but not before Trevor finished his rescue mission.
He hoped. Although the command he’d given should force the soldier to remain silent about having encountered an ‘exalted’ member of the ruling class deep in the bowels of the ship where such a personage would never be found normally. He’d rather have killed the enemy outright but if other Shemdylann came upon a paralyzed crew member they’d assume the soldier had committed an error and been punished with a temporary spell of humiliation under paralysis. A dead alien would raise alarms.
Moving faster now, Trevor and the hound ran past a series of doors. Gianna’s scent was strong and he knew he must be close but he didn’t have time to check every damn compartment. The mission clock ticking in his head was running dangerously tight. Once he found her, he had to get her back to the sortie ship. Jake and the others wouldn’t abandon them but there were going to be a lot of explosions and the situation would become untenable.
Verlaine stopped so suddenly he slid on the plating of the deck. Retreating a few steps, he sniffed furiously at the edges of one door and gave an excited howl as best he could despite the muzzle.
“Found her, eh? Good boy.” Trevor patted his head quickly, took a deep breath and activated the door. Now he scented Gianna as well, but also a number of Shemdylann. Here goes nothing. Striding through the door as if he owned the ship, projecting the crucial pheromones, he took in the sight of a cage, guarded at each corner by a massive alien soldier and Gianna sitting up as he came inside. A wave of cool relief flowed through his mind as he judged her to be unharmed.
“You will stand down,” he said to the aliens in his combination of command communications.
The guards stiffened at first, as astonished to see him as the first Shemdylann had been and then folded their gawky bodies into the obeisance mode. He reinforced his order with bigger doses of the venom from his tentacles, which moved so fast even Shemdylann couldn’t see the strikes coming. He didn’t want to use up enough venom to kill them outright. Satisfied his opponents were safely paralyzed, he turned his attention to Gianna.
Verlaine was pacing restlessly along the force barrier surrounding the cage. Gianna stood wide eyed, mouth agape, staring at him. Now she put out one hand shakily as if wishing to touch him. “Trevor?”
Obscurely pleased she recognized him, even in this horrific form, he nodded. “No time for explanations. Stand back and cover your eyes while I blast the force field and then the door.”
She obeyed and he shot the controller for the barrier and the door, which swung open with a squeak. Verlaine raced inside, jumping up on Gianna, trying to lick her face, body in constant motion with excitement and happiness, tail wagging so hard Trevor felt the breeze. “Down, boy,” she said with a laugh.
“Come on, we have to hurry.” Trevor motioned to her from outside the cage. “In a few minutes this ship is going to suffer a series of explosions. Are you all right?”
“A little worse for the wear but okay.” She stopped in front of him, looking him over from head to toe. “I—I don’t understand any of this but thank you for coming for me.”
There was a sound from behind him and Gianna’s eyes widened in horror. Trevor swung around and swore as the Shemdylann captain entered the room.
“Get behind me,” he said to Gianna, as he raised his rifle and fired twice in quick succession. The shots landed but Shemdylann were notoriously hard to kill, having only a few vulnerabilities in their rock hard carapace. Trevor wasn’t going to be able to overawe this alien. From the gold markings and jewelry piercing her shell and claws, she was high ranking indeed, much too elevated to be in command of a relative scow like this one. Solve the puzzle later. He dropped the rifle, which wasn’t going to be of any use now.
Facets in her eyes whirling, she was studying him, not at all fazed by the shots she’d absorbed. Nor was she showing him any deference. “What kind of an abomination are you, human maggot?” she asked in Basic. “And how did you get aboard my ship?”
Trevor moved away from the cage, remaining between it and the Shemdylann but giving himself space to maneuver. Wings vibrating a furious challenge, he raised his claw-tipped arms, snapping the talons menacingly. The enemy gave ground but he wasn’t fooled. She was studying him, buying time, not terribly concerned about his potential as an enemy. Her tail arched above her head, dripping venom from the point, scoring holes in the deck where the droplets landed. “I’m the one who’s going to destroy you,” he said in Shemdylann, releasing a useless cloud of pheromones.
The other waved her massive claw casually, as if to dispel the scent, which clearly had no effect on her. “Trying to save your pretty friend, I assume. Not going to be so easy, mutant.”
Now she rushed him but Trevor was prepared and ducked under her claws, rolling under her, administering a tentacle strike to one of the vulnerable points on her belly. Aided by the power of the wings, he rose to his feet and dodged as she lunged forward again. She lashed out with her tail and he had to block the blows with his own armored fists. Dueling with her required all his concentration because each of them possessed multiple offensive weapons. He had an assist from whatever DNA or substances the scientist had used to create him, which gave him instinctive feints and evasive maneuvers. His third eye sent confusing signals to his brain but mixed in with the data stream were close-up views of chinks in her armor.