Without looking at her, Dykan threw back the rest of his drink, clutching the cup so tightly Kat was afraid it might break. “And do you know what was even worse than losing my mother? My father’s betrayal.” Dykan stared at the wall. Kat could only see his profile, but the ice-cold expression on his face was unmistakable.
“His bonded had just been murdered by those cowardly humans who had fired upon a much smaller vessel with peaceful pilgrims on board, and he—of all senators—voted against an attack on Earth. With that act, he brought shame to my mother’s memory. He refused her justice. My brothers and I never forgave him for that.”
Kat opened her mouth and shut it again. Her heart was pounding in her chest. She drew in a deep breath before speaking.
“You’re talking about revenge, not justice. I never had the pleasure of meeting your mother,” she whispered, “but what I hear from you, she must have been very special. Very kind. Maybe your father knew that your mother would never approve of killing millions of innocent men, women and children.”
Dykan flung his head in her direction. His eyes were flaming red. “Innocent?” He spat out the word, his face distorted by hate. “All humans are egoistical vermin driven by greed. They should all have been wiped off the face of that pathetic planet.”
This was anger talking, Kat gathered, not the Dykan she knew. He didn’t hate her, she was sure of that, and she was human. Okay, partly, but she looked one hundred percent human. There was no denying that.
“Yes, there are a lot of bad humans, just as there are a lot of bad Makaen. I had been told that all Makaen were brutal beasts. You were the Freddy Krueger of my nightmares.”
“What?” Dykan frowned, shaking his head in confusion.
“Freddy Krueger is a character from old horror movies, scary stories from Earth. He’s super creepy, especially with his fake knifelike fingers,” she explained briefly, “but my point is that I used to be so incredibly scared of Makaen. Until I met you and realized you aren’t a monster, and now I’m no longer afraid. It’s the same with humans. There are so many good people, like my father, and my family and Lucas…and…and me.”
Kat put her hand on Dykan’s cheek. His face felt hot under her touch.
“If your species had invaded Earth, my family might have been killed. And I lived on Earth too, for a while. If an attack had taken place a few years after the war had started, I could have been killed too. Would your mother’s death have been avenged by mine? Would that have satisfied you?”
Dykan covered her hand with his, pressing it closer to his face and closing his eyes. Kat saw how his nostrils flared and she felt his breath on her hand. When he opened his eyes again, they were no longer red but a warm gold.
“No,” he said hoarsely, gazing at her with such intensity it made her radiate inside, “it wouldn’t have. I prefer you sitting here with me, feeling your hand on my skin, calming me down.”
Kat smiled. “You may not like to hear this but I believe that on the inside Makaen and humans aren’t that different, Dykan.”
He grunted indignantly. “We don’t—”
Before he could say any more, a high-pitched alarm went off, startling Kat so much she jerked in her seat.
“What’s going on?” she asked, worried.
Dykan placed a kiss on her palm, then stood up, reluctantly releasing her hand.
“We have found your Zzjitzzeën ship,” he explained.
He reached for a panel on the wall and tapped a small green square, the button for the ship’s intercom. “As you can hear, we have detected our prey. Everyone to the bridge.”
Kat felt the knot in her stomach return. This was it. The moment they had been waiting for, and the moment she had also been dreading. She wanted Lucas to be safe and Dykan and his crew to be unharmed. But what if she couldn’t have it all? What if she had to choose at some point? Could she? When had her conviction that Lucas’s safe return was paramount so radically changed?
Dykan reached out his hand. “Come, I’ll put a shirt on and then we’ll go to the bridge.”
Kat sighed and bit her lip nervously. She nodded faintly, taking Dykan’s hand. “Yep, let’s go, Captain Bakan.”
Chapter 14
Kat and Dykan were the last to enter the bridge. The bridge wasn’t large, and with Selvin, Boda and Sly sitting in the seats by the control panels, Mitha and Lirid leaning against the wall next to the doors and Kat standing in the middle with Dykan pressing his body against her back, the room was cramped. On the viewscreen, the Zzjitzzeën ship was visible.
“Do they know we’re here?” Dykan asked.
“No, not yet,” Selvin replied. “We are hidden in an asteroid field, but should they scan this exact area, they will detect us.”
“How many Zzjitzzeëns are on board, Selvin?” Dykan needed to know what he was up against.
“There are dozens of life signs on board that ship, but at this point I can’t tell which are Zzjitzzeëns and which are not. Furthermore, there seem to be places on that ship the scanners can’t penetrate. And I can’t do a full scan right now because then they will detect us.”
“So you can’t tell if there is a human on board?” Kat asked.
“No, I can’t,” Selvin answered.
Dykan sighed. He preferred to have more information to work with, but it was what it was.
“Is there a way we can enter their ship without them knowing it?”
Selvin shook his head. “Negative, Captain. According to our scans, the Zzjitzzeën ship has too many safeguards. Their sensors will pick up any external movement. We need to hack their computer to shut the sensors off, but due to the safeguards, we can’t do that from the outside.”
Dykan frowned. “So we can only hack their computer from the inside?”
“Affirmative.”
“How can we hack the computer from the inside to shut off the sensors when we can’t get into the ship because of the sensors?” Lirid asked, confused.
“Well, we can always ask the Zzjitzzeëns to invite us in,” Sly put forward.
Lirid snorted. “Right, as if they’re going to invite us over for lunch. Unless we are their lunch, I doubt they’ll roll out the red carpet for us.”
Selvin turned around in his seat, looking thoughtful. “Sly has a point. If we can’t board their ship from the outside, we need to board it from the inside.”
“What are you thinking?” Dykan asked. He knew the look on his friend’s face. Selvin was plotting something.
Selvin put a hand under his chin. “The Zzjitzzeëns are amoral assholes, but they’re also traders. In their own depraved way, that is. They’ll do anything for credits. Suppose we had something they really want to get their hands on. Then they’d let us board their ship.”
Dykan narrowed his eyes. “What do we have that they could possibly want?”
As if it was rehearsed Selvin, Sly and Boda turned their heads toward Kat simultaneously.
“What?” Kat wondered, flicking her gaze from one Makaen to the other.
“No!” Dykan bellowed, giving his crew a warning glare. With the gracefulness and speed of a panther, he moved in front of Kat, shielding her with his body.