Grai's Game (First Wave) (3 page)

In contrast, the
fleets farther away were in a standard, battle ready formation. They were obviously manned, well maintained and adequately commanded. None of it made any sense, to any of them.

“Yeah, things went to hell when dear Daddy got sick. Some brain thing that’s eaten away at him until he’s basically a drooling
nut bag. The other ships, that is the problem. That would be my brother Dagog. He’s a bigger asshole than my father if you can believe that, and he’s going to be a major problem for all of us.” Traze said with a sigh, his normally smiling face falling into sadness.

Ivint stared at the boy suspiciously. Could he be telling the truth? Could Kalai be dying? Is this brother Dagog going to take over and be a more brutal leader? Or is this all an elaborate scheme to trick his people?

*****

“Grai, let me fix some of the
damage, or you won’t be able to speak. Damn, that guy can hit! I’d prefer not to tangle with him, if at all possible.” Julou said cleaning up Grai’s face and placing medibands all over the worst of the damage.

“My mate?” Grai said gruffly, ignoring the pain radiating in his face from the beating Balduen gave him. He really didn’t want to tangle with the guy again either. Even if he fought back he was doubtful who the winner would be.

“I’m here, my love. Julou released me first.” Tricia Clark said worriedly, as she ran a hand through her shoulder-length brown hair. She had known this was his back-up plan, but had not counted on how badly he would be hurt.

“Tristan?” Grai asked sitting up and swinging his legs over the side of the cot the Valendrans had thrown him on earlier.

Tricia moved quickly to his side to help him, her five-foot, eight inch, one hundred and fifty pound frame not really doing much to help his larger one. But, he adored her efforts and relished the feel of her body against his own after so many months apart.

“He’s the same. Maggie is with him… for now.” Tricia
said quietly. Even though she tried to hide it, Grai could feel the fear emanating from her, and see it in her light-brown eyes.

The stress was obvious in the paleness of her porcelain skin and the deep circles under her big, beautiful
brown eyes. He grabbed her small hand in his large one and gave it a tender kiss before standing to his full six-foot ten height and sucking in a painful breath. His ribs and stomach still aching painfully from Balduen’s fists, despite the medibands.

“Is everyone ready?” Grai asked as Julou handed him back all the items the Valendrans had taken from him before they had thrown him in the make-shift cell.

“They are all waiting outside. They know what to do.” Julou assured him before holding out a weapon to him.

Grai looked at the weapon long and hard considering whether or not to take it. Looking at Tricia’s tearful
expression, he shook his head at Julou.

“We’re going with the original plan. We will not deviate from it. You know what’s at stake. Make sure everyone understands that.” Grai looked sternly at the heavily armed people in the room until one of
the hybrids nodded her head and moved outside to relay the message to the others that were not of the beast species.

“I want you to go to Maggie and Tristan. Stay with them until someone comes for you. Lock the door and don’t come out.” Grai urged Tricia, holding her hands
gently in his as he looked down into her worried face.

“No, I go with you. We can both go to him later.
I’m your mate. It’s time we stood together.” Tricia’s light-brown eyes pleaded with Grai to understand why she had to do this. She smiled weakly at him when he just nodded slightly. Keeping one of her hands in his own, he guided her out of the door and into the hallway filled with his people.

Julou led the way to the conference room as Grai and Tricia were surrounded by Julou’s men and
their gifted and hybrid women.

Ignoring the gasps and shouts of warning from those gathered outside the conference room, Julou moved past them and flung open the doors. Holding his weapon in front of his
chest, he moved to the side upon entering, allowing some of the women to take up defensive positions before Grai and Tricia walked into the room.

“What is the meaning of this?” Banatar said, standing in fury.

The entire room moved at once; everyone around the table stood to their feet and took up defensive positions around Ivint. Valendrans, gifted, hybrids and Julou’s crew all pointed weapons at each other, screaming orders not to fire.

Ivint stared at the battered face of Kalai’s oldest son as he stood silently looking back at him. Making a quick decision that he hoped he would not have cause to regret later, he held his hand up and called for silence.

When the room quieted, Ivint ordered, “Lower your weapons. The sons of Kalai have gone to a lot of trouble to be here. I would like to hear what they have to say."”

When Reven and a few others began to grumble Ivint silenced them quickly, “Now!”

Ivint didn’t show his dismay when it appeared only half of the room lowered their weapons. Banatar didn’t bother to hide his shock when he realized just how many of his females were still holding their weapons… in defense of Grai.

“What the hell is going on?” Banatar demanded angrily.

“The High Councilor asked that you lower your weapons so that we may speak. Please do so and wait outside. All will be well.” Grai told his people, not taking his eyes from Ivint.

Banatar sputtered in outrage until Ivint turned to him
, “I believe we need less emotion right now. If anyone cannot remain calm, I would ask that you leave the room now.” Ivint gave Banatar a hard look before turning his gaze to the rest of room. When no one got up to leave, he turned back to Grai and Tricia.

“You’ve gone through a lot of trouble to speak. Please sit down. I believe your brother said we have another
thirty minutes or so until your father’s ship blows?” Ivint gestured to the empty seats at the end of the table, next to where Traze was grinning from the only occupied chair.

Grai gave his brother a questioning look and Traze just shrugged his shoulders, “That guy
and the cat caught me on the roof.” Traze gestured to David who was still armed and standing in the shadows of the room behind him; and Gibly who was standing in the middle of the conference room table his tail fluffed out and twitching rapidly from side to side.

Grai nodded his head at David, recognizing that
he would not give up his weapon. From what he had learned about the man, he didn’t blame him, the last time he did, hadn’t gone well for him. Quickly skimming the rest of the room he sat down confidently and pulled Tricia down to sit beside him.

Holding both hands up, he slowly lowered one and removed a small black object from his jacket pocket. Grai didn’t want to make any sudden moves that would
startle the wary group and ruin his plans before he could set them in motion.

“This is an alternate detonator, designed by my brother Koda, who built the explosive device and planted it on the mother ship. He also designed and built the
battle cruiser and warships now guarding your own vessels.” Grai looked at the detonator and Traze before sliding it down the table to Reven, who caught it easily.

“You’re telling us that this device will detonate your father’s
ship? With him on it?” Reven asked, disbelief lacing his words.

Again, Grai held up his hands and slowly removed another device from a pocket in his pant leg.
This device he slid across the table to Risk, who also easily caught it.

“It will connect to the ship’s vid feed. You can watch it blow from inside my father’s room where he is bedridden from a brain wasting disease. You can also view the other council members who are on the ship. We no longer know how many remain since we evacuated our people once the device was planted.” Grai said, his eyes on the High Councilor.

Risk looked questioningly at Ivint. Although he was dying to look at the unusual device and see if it really did do what the Relian said, he would not do so without Ivint’s approval. He was embarrassed when he felt like fist bumping when Ivint slowly nodded his head at him.

“Ivint, you can’t…” Reven never got to finish what he was going to say, before Ivint held up his hand for silence.

“Sir, I have video… holy shit!” Risk uttered in amazement as he scrolled through the different camera views on the Relian ship.

“Wait! There he is… dear daddy.” Traze said with a mocking sneer
as he pointed at the screen.

Everyone looked on in
disbelief and surprise when Kalai’s prone body came onto the screen. His pale, sunken features couldn’t hide who he was. Ivint was truly startled at the deterioration of the once fierce leader. Whatever affliction he had, had to be greatly devastating to have changed him so dramatically since the last time he’d they had seen him when he threatened Cari and Jess.

“Risk?” Jax asked, confident he would answer her unasked questions.

“It’s real. It’s a real-live feed from the ship. This thing is incredible. I can even view their supply manifests, personnel information… Sir; I have full access to the ship’s computers with this.” Risk told Ivint and looked at Grai like he’d lost his mind.

“Why is it that you have come, Grai?” Ivint asked the seemingly calm man, his sharp eye catching the slightly damp palm holding onto Tricia’s hand and the
minor trembling of his hand when he had slid the device to Risk.

“My brother’s and I would like to continue what we have been doing for the last few hundred years. Only without my father, the council a
nd my brother Dagog. And we want your help to make that happen.” Grai answered honestly.

Chapter Three

Banatar was the first to stand to his feet screaming. Grabbing the device from Reven, he began shaking it in his fist at Grai.

“You lying… how dare you come in here and make threats! Using our own women against us! And the things you did to my daughter! You should be in chains!
You should be ripped apart for what you’ve done to our people!” Banatar shook with rage; he didn’t want to hear any more of the animal’s lies.

“I understand your thoughts, but nothing is as it seems. If you
let me explain, I could clear up many misconceptions that you may have. However, you may want to stop shaking and squeezing that. It’s a very sensitive device, and you could accidentally set it off before we are ready.” Grai said as calmly as he could to Banatar before looking to Ivint for help. If the device went off before he was ready, it could ruin any chance he had at negotiating.

Ivint stood and reached out his hand to retrieve the device from Banatar, who turned bright red in the face from his anger.
Giving the device one last unintended squeeze in his fury, he pressed it too roughly into Ivint’s hand setting off a small beeping sound.

Ivint looked at Grai questioningly, but calmly. Even Grai was impressed with the man’s granite nerves and confidence when the screens exploded around them
seconds later.

Every person in the room stood on their feet and watched in fascination as flames engulfed the hallways of the ship, the other screen showing the
large-scale explosions from the view of the orbiting pod.

Traze flinched a little when three of the surrounding ships exploded dramatically when hit with flying debris from the mother ship.
“Oh hell yeah! That was awesome!”

“Sir, the orbiting pod bordering that quadrant and this one is beginning to register debris!” Risk said with shock
at the magnitude of the explosion. He looked back at the screen in time to see more of the surrounding ships become engulfed in flames.

“Koda, they set it off. Be prepared, it should only take Dagog about an hour to reach you!” Grai said, speaking into a comm device he’d pulled from his pants while everyone was distracted by the explosions.

“High Councilor, with all do respect, we don’t have much time. My brother Dagog and his forces will be coming, and he knows where some of your safe houses are.” Grai punctuated his statement by pointing to the screen with the view from the orbiting pod.

The fleet of ships that had been set apart from the now engulfed mother ship, were heading towards the orbiting pod at a fast pace.

“What game do you play?” Banatar demanded, his rage not diminished by the death of the Relian leader and countless council members.

“If we had more time I would have held off on the detonation until I could explain it to you. As it stands, we have about an hour before the ground and space forces begin a
full-scale attack on all of us.”
“Right now we need to try to fortify ourselves on the ground. Koda and his ships can take on Dagog, and he knows it; it's here on the ground where we need to be concerned.” Grai began when he slid a larger comm to Traze.

Traze began typing rapidly and gave a quick fist bump when he was able to change some of the screens in the room. Spread sheets and maps began appearing on the screens not showing the Relian ships.

“If I may, High Councilor?” Grai asked politely, nodding to the screens.

Ivint glanced at Risk who was looking at Traze in surprise and realized the boy had just
overran Risk’s computer security. Looking back at the burning Relian mother ship for a moment, Ivint nodded his head, grateful that Banatar was still silent from shock after pushing the button that killed the Relian leader.