Brocke: Alien Warlord's Conquest (Scifi Surprise Pregnancy Alien Military Romance) (7 page)

The most maddening smile tugged her lips upwards then, gone in the next second when she nodded and followed Tomeh’s lead again.

Having her trust was a feeling like no other. Brocke never doubted himself, but Cora’s belief in him made him want to prove himself, something he’d never felt the need for before. Everything he was, all he had done, Brocke had accomplished it all for himself and for no other.

Cora was looking at him, and it made his hearts beat faster. She was slowly but surely taking a hold on him that he didn’t mind. On the contrary, Brocke wanted to possess her utterly more and more with each second.

There was a small lake near the factory where it dumped water and waste. It was barely larger than a pond, but it was well fed by the factory. Brocke knew that once a year, they cleaned it up not to damage the nature too much, but until then it served as comfortable storage. Several large drains tall enough to walk in stood near them, and whirring tubes fed some brownish sludge onto the shore. As they neared it, Cora wrinkled her nose.

“What is that horrible smell?” she asked.

“It's not natural, even in here,” Tomeh said bitterly, stopping before going down to the shore. “I am not a brave man, I have not gone to see, but there is something terrible down there. The big drains lead right into the factory, but they’re empty most of the time.”

All of them looked at Hemak, who was avoiding their gazes, mumbling something to himself.

It sounded a lot like "I didn't know", which was an admission in itself. It definitely didn't promise anything good down there.

Before Cora could descend to the drains, Brocke stopped her. He knew the smell very well and assumed she did too, considering how pale she was.

“I know Condor,” he growled to her, the tone of his voice freezing Cora in her tracks. “I don’t think you should go down there.”

“It’s my job,” she protested. “I’ve seen dead bodies before.”

With that, Cora rushed by him to catch a glimpse before he ultimately dragged her away, but at the start of the drain, she lurched back and a quiet scream of horror escaped her lips.

“
T
hat sick
fuck
,” Cora whispered, feeling tears run down her cheeks.

Brocke didn’t wait for her to force her legs to move again. The warlord suddenly appeared beside her, taking one look at the drain before lifting Cora into his arms and bodily carrying her away.

He put her down only when they were back on the shore with Tomeh, who was staring at her with a shocked impression. Cora looked at the lake, beautiful and glittering in the daylight. If she didn’t still smell it, she would have been able to believe nothing bad was happening in the world on such a tranquil day.

Just dead bodies
, she told herself.
Pull yourself together. This is your job, and that monster is still on the loose.

But it wasn't just dead bodies, not even close. Cora had seen some fucked up things in her life, but the drains were by far the worst.

One after the other, the victims had been chained to the inner walls of the drains, tall enough for even Corgan warriors to walk in.

Cora wanted to believe they had drowned, she really did. A part of her had to believe that to remain sane, but another, darker side of her knew Condor had timed the execution better than that.

It was possible, however, that the half-breeds had
merely
drowned when a massive amount of water rushed over them, spilling into the lake. After all, the man Cora and Ashby had found hadn't had any visible mutations.

She needed to keep that possibility in her mind, because there was nothing left of the victims now but twisted skeletons with a few chunks of flesh on their bones. Some appeared to have acidic burns, while others were so unnatural in color merely thinking of it made Cora want to hurl.

Other than water, the factory also dumped all of its chemical remains through that drain.

Above all, Cora couldn't shake the images of some of the skeletons lying in a way that showed they had been trying to get free.

Even breathing seemed difficult after seeing something like that. Cora swore to herself silently that whatever she or Brocke had to do to find Condor, they would. Legal or not, that monster had to get his judgment day.

“Did you see that missing spot?” Cora asked very quietly, but Brocke heard her anyway. “The closest chains were empty.”

“Your drowned man,” he said darkly.

“Yeah.”

What a terrible way to go.

Back when Cora had been a little girl, her father had taught her a technique to channel pain. All the times when she’d broken a bone or hurt herself in any way, Cora would squeeze down on the sensitive skin between her thumb and her index finger.

Right away, the body would focus on the piercing sensation there, but it was a bearable pain. Maybe it had something to do with the fact Cora was inflicting it on herself and knew she could stop at any moment.

She wished with all her heart in that moment that there was something like that for her mind. No matter what Cora tried, she wasn’t able to get the sight of those bodies chained to the drain walls out of her mind.

What a terrible way to go
, her inner voice threw the words back at Cora like a broken vid.

She had never hated her good imagination more. Cora could practically hear the screams of the victims as they heard the drains suddenly echo with the water and waste rushing their way. Hands tearing at the chains, trying to hold their breath… all futile in the end.

Tomeh was observing them with watchful unease while Cora tried to remind herself that her job required a peaceful, objective mind. Hemak, on the other hand, was visibly trembling. After all she’d been through, Cora wasn’t about to get herself taken off the case for misplaced anger.

It was difficult.

“You were smart not to look,” she told Tomeh, shaking the images away. “Keep away from there if you want to sleep. I will inform the Militant of this at once. They will come and clean everything up.”

The supervisor was taken aback.

“What about my factory…”

"We will go and see your factory now," Brocke cut in. "And judge what part you played in all this."

“What about my workers?” Tomeh asked, the hard lines of concern on his face aging him. “We had no part in this, but the warriors… they threatened us not to say anything.”

“The Militant will take care of that too,” Cora said, moving away so as not to feel that terrible stench anymore. “My colleagues will find out who helped and who didn’t. Those who are innocent have nothing to fear, but all of you suspected something and didn’t inform us. That will also come up.”

Tomeh’s complexion was almost ashen as he followed, stumbling.

“We were afraid…” he began.

“Yeah,” Cora said, turning to him, her eyes flashing with rage. “That is the excuse everyone in your position offers, but I have no sympathy for that right now. Perhaps you should go and take a look after all.”

The supervisor didn’t take one step towards the lake.

Brocke headed over to where Hemak was waiting, still shaking like a leaf.

"After what we just saw, I suggest you choose your next words very carefully," the guardian snarled, his voice so dark even Cora winced. "Is there anything else?"

Hemak almost jumped out of his skin, trying to back away even with his broken leg.

"The organ wing..." he whispered. "I think there are some people still there, but most of them were taken away."

Cora's heart dropped as her blood turned to ice. Brocke roared.

"
Survivors
?" he bellowed at Hemak so viciously the man fell back, trying to crawl away from the guardian. "Are you telling me there might be survivors and you mention this
now
?"

Cora already had her transmitter in her hand and spoke into it urgently.

"To all Militant units," she said. "Back-up requested urgently at the Ruval Factory south of Eborat. Possible survivors of the half-breed abductions. We need all units to search the complex here
now
."

Brocke grabbed Hemak by the collar of the warrior's armor, growling to him:

"You better hope we find them alive or I will gift you an eternity to regret you led us to the
dead
first."

They took off running, leaving a very stunned and shaken Tomeh to guard Hemak, but the supervisor's feelings weren't among Cora's priorities right then.

Her horribly lively imagination was working overtime again. Cora had no doubt their arrival at the factory had been noted by any men Condor might still have had there. She could only hope Brocke had dealt with them all, but she didn't have the luxury of that.

Everything she'd learned about Condor told Cora that if there was anyone still alive in the factory when Brocke got there, they wouldn't live very much longer.

Luckily Brocke seemed to know where they had to go. Cora was thankful for that, because to her the gigantic complex looked like a maze.

They made it back to the speeder as fast as she could possibly run and for once, Cora jumped on the bike with no hesitation. It took off, engine roaring and she had to cling to Brocke hard enough to break her nails, but it didn't matter.

Even with the bike zipping through the halls, it took them almost two minutes to reach the wing Hemak had mentioned. Brocke jumped off the speeder and Cora rushed in after him, pulling her gun free from the holster. They rushed through the halls, but the only ones they saw were a few scared workers.

When someone opened fire upon them, Brocke pushed Cora out of the way and headed straight-on into the melee. She stayed behind, not wanting to get in the guardian's way in combat, but Cora managed to pick off a few a few enemies too as Brocke's swords cut their path through the corridors.

As soon as Cora heard the first scream, horrified instead of in pain, her heart leaped in joy. It was an unnatural reaction, but until there was someone who could scream, it meant they were alive.

It seemed there hadn't been many of Condor's men there as Hemak had said. Brocke dealt with all of them as efficiently and quickly as he could and finally they burst into a lab where they found the survivors.

“Thank the Gods,” she whispered, taking in the sight of the survivors, chained and locked up.

Cora could barely speak out of the mind-blowing relief that overwhelmed her as they untied the victims and unlocked the cages they were kept in. The half-breeds stumbled out, talking all over each other and it was all Cora could do to note it all down for her program later.

She swallowed her disgust when they revealed Condor had been planning to use them as involuntary organ donors for his warriors. Apparently they weren’t worth keeping alive, yet their organs were still good enough for Condor.

Overhead, she could hear the first Militant fighters arrive, but Cora refused to leave until the entire complex had been searched.

As Brocke and the Militant looked through every corner of the factory, Cora heard out the testimonies of the survivors. Most of them didn't know much else other than that they had been kidnapped.

It seemed Condor wasn't as inept as she'd hoped.

"Is there any name you heard mentioned?" Cora asked them all. "Any place your captors spoke about?"

"Olyra," one of them finally said and Cora could tell it was important by how everyone near them winced. "I heard one of them talking about Olyra."

"What is that?" Cora asked. "A person?"

"It's a place," the young woman confessed, but she was avoiding Cora's eyes, saying that. "A horrible place."

"If Condor's men mentioned it, he might be there," Cora argued. "I will check it out. Where is it?"

"I don't know," the woman said. "None of us do or we would tell you. But the location wouldn't help you. Tell the guardian. Olyra is no place for a Terran."

Cora asked more, but that was all she could get from the survivors. She wasn't going to press already traumatized people more, but they were being surprisingly unhelpful when it came to that odd name.

She stayed in the factory until nightfall, checking over every place where they found even the slightest trace of the presence of Condor's men. They had been infuriatingly clean, but Cora supposed priests were supposed to know how to erase their traces. Still, she stayed until she was absolutely certain there was nothing new for her to see. Even then, Cora gave strict orders to be notified if anything new turned up.

When Brocke returned to her, she didn't bring up Olyra just yet, wanting to confront the guardian in private.

If Cora's hunch was correct, she had stumbled upon something that Corgans hadn't shared with the Union. Things like that required a delicate touch.

F
or the first time
, Cora barely noticed being on the speeder. Cold air rushed past her, ruffling her messy curly hair as she buried her face against Brocke’s armor.

She was shaken, and Cora didn’t like it one bit. The day had been one big rollercoaster of emotions. First the horror of the bodies in the drain, then the absolute joy of finding survivors. Then the mysterious Olyra and hints of a secret Cora felt she had learned by accident.

The mutilated bodies were the image hardest to shake. It seemed that some events and monsters were still able to bring her down. Ultimately, Cora knew it would only make her keener to find Condor and make sure he received justice with all of his crazed followers.

Her hands were wrapped around Brocke’s firm, solid form. Cora had been raised and taught to obey the law. It was her job to enforce it, but every once in a while she was tempted to take matters into her own hands. Bastards, crooks, and killers who didn’t deserve to spend the rest of their days in some comfy cell, well-fed and cared for.

She had never given in to that desire, but now Cora didn’t have to. Gaiya was a Corgan world, no matter what the Galactic Union wanted to believe or stated in official documents. Everything in that realm was a bit more Corgan than anything else. Even Brocke, a half-breed by his genetics, was more Corgan, and that had nothing to do with the organ transplants he’d received like all other warriors.

There was something different in their spirit, the way they saw the world.

Cora didn’t have to dirty her hands, she didn’t even need to do anything. In fact, her inactivity was what was needed. Brocke would slay all those responsible. She hadn’t asked him, but Cora was entirely sure that Gomor didn’t wait for any of the killers. Brocke’s blades were what lay ahead for them.

The fact that Condor had pushed her so far bothered Cora the most.

They had barely arrived in her quarters when the messages started pouring in. Ashby's image was blinking on her screen first. Cora answered her call, putting it on holodisplay so that Brocke could hear the news too.

“Good news,” Ashby said at once. “Ambassador Swann has found the person who helped Condor. They are interrogating him now.”

Cora noticed that the priestess' eyes flickered to Brocke, but she didn't say anything. It figured. In Cora's experience, Ashby had never been one to ask needless questions and no doubt she knew who the guardian was anyhow.

“Define ‘they’,” Brocke said, and despite herself, Cora smirked.

“The chieftain’s men,” Ashby said, watching as Brocke nodded appreciatively, prompting her to continue. “At this point, they’re pretty sure he was working alone.”

Cora turned her program back on, adding all the information she'd gathered from the factory as she listened to the priestess. Testimonies, details of the crime scenes, death counts. Everything Cora could think of.

“I’ll cut a whole lot of empty talk and say he was just a guy,” Ashby went on. “Came to Gaiya, didn’t like half-breeds too much. Don’t know how an idiot like that got transferred but your Ambassador is pretty furious that he got through the screening process.”

“At first, he probably thought Condor was promoting some philosophical issue of purity, so he helped him find the victims. As soon as he realized what was going on, tried to quit."

"Let me guess," Cora said, raising her eyes to Ashby's flickering holoimage. "He was scared. We have heard that before today."