Krac's Firebrand (3 page)

Raising his left foot, he kicked the door open and surged through before it had a chance to hit the floor. Twisting, he froze in mid-turn as a figure stepped out from the wall next to where the door once stood and held a laser pistol firmly against Rorrak’s temple. The cold fury burning in the depths of the blue eyes staring at him caused him to raise an eyebrow.

“Don’t kill him. He’s with me. He thinks you are going to want him to carry your ass out of here,” Krac said in a calm voice.

“Like that will ever happen,” Anastasia retorted with a roll of her eyes. She dropped her arm to her side. “Who the hell are you?”

Rorrak muttered a silent curse as he released a deep breath. His eyes swept over the blood staining the back of the body on the floor before he turned to glare at the female who had taken him by surprise. Brilliant blue ones stared back at him. Another curse, this one not so silent, escaped him when he felt an uncomfortable jolt in his chest. The overwhelming urge to run like hell and knowing he couldn’t held him paralyzed.

“Is he slow or something?” Anastasia asked sarcastically. “I know he can speak from his muttered curse but that doesn’t mean much, so can my parrot but the damn bird still picks on the cats.”

“I am not slow,” Rorrak growled in a low voice. “You are hurt,” he snarled as his eyes roamed over her face before his eyes darkened dangerously on her torn shirt. “How bad?”

Anastasia’s eyebrow rose at the huge Zion warrior’s tone. “Not as bad as that asshole. Now, if we can shelve the twenty questions for later, I’d like to get out of this shithole.”

“We have company,” Krac replied, tilting his head to the side. “They have found the bodies upstairs.”

“Damn it all to hell,” Anastasia muttered. “Is there another way out of here?”

“Yes, down the far end and to the right. There is another set of stairs leading up. It should take you close to my starship. Rorrak, take Anastasia and go. I will kill the others,” Krac ordered.

“How will you get back to the
Conqueror
?” Rorrak asked.

“I’ll use the transport that just arrived. Don’t damage my starship. I’m partial to the modifications I made to it,” Krac ordered. “Now go.”

*.*.*

Krac walked out of the room. He knew Rorrak would protect Anastasia, not that she wasn’t capable of holding her own against most adversaries. The mistake the mercenary in the other room made was being alone with the human female. Krac had witnessed Anastasia in action before and had trained with her.

He wanted information before he left and he couldn’t get it with Rorrak and Anastasia here. There were times when it was best that he was alone. There were things about the Alluthans that had been hidden in their DNA and the genetic information encoded in the implants that the humans had never found. There was a reason the Alluthans used a link to control those within their forces. The humans would never really know just how lucky they were to have Gracie Jones on their side.

Krac took the stairs leading to the upper floor two at a time. He burst out of the entrance, startling the four men standing near it. The curved blades in his hands found their mark as the bodies fell. His eyes swept the long corridor, stopping on one peculiar male who was giving orders. That was the male he wanted.

He turned as several males fired their laser pistols at him. His hands arched, turning the blades flat so the short energy bursts ricocheted off them. Three men fell. The two remaining men began backing up, firing continuously at him.

Krac’s eyes narrowed as they backed toward the staircase leading up. He couldn’t take a chance on the man he wanted escaping. With a flick of his wrist, he sent one of the blades through the air into the chest of the mercenary next to his main target. The force of the throw impaled the man into the stone wall as the tip of the blade cut deep.

He pulled a smaller knife from the sheath in his boot and threw it next. The scream of his target as it sank deep into his right thigh echoed loudly in the long, narrow passageway. Krac walked slowly to where the man half lay, half crawled up the stone stairs.

He reached over and jerked the blade out of the man, ignoring him as he fell to the floor. Using the tip of his boot, he caught the fallen laser pistol and sent it flying against the wall. He bent over the fallen human male, grabbing the man’s left wrist when he tried to bring his own blade around to stab him in the throat.

Krac shook his head as he felt the bite of the blade against his cheek instead. With a soft tsk, he broke the man’s wrist. He ignored the choked, agonized cry. There would be much more before he was done.

Raising his hand to his cheek, he wiped some of the seeping blood onto his fingers before wiping it along the man’s temple. Soon, he would have the information he wanted. He focused, watching in satisfaction as the male paled. Within seconds, there was no evidence of the cut that had marred his cheek just moments before.

“You have information I want,” Krac said calmly. “Information that you will tell me.”

“Go to hell,” the human male spit out.

Krac’s eyes gleamed dangerously as he gazed at the defiant eyes glaring back at him. Satisfaction coursed through him that he alone had the ability to draw out the information that he wanted. With a swift command, the nano-bots in the blood he had spread across the human’s temple reacted to his command. They seeped through the male’s pores and into his blood stream. Their destination, the male’s brain.

“I was born there,” Krac responded as he saw sweat begin to bead on the man’s brow. “What is your name?”

The man’s mouth tightened before his eyes glazed with pain. “Adders Weston.”

“Who do you work for?” Krac asked.

“None… none… The New Order,” Weston groaned, raising his good hand to his head. “Stop. Please, stop.”

Krac’s lips curved upward. “Tell me how you were able to kidnap Anastasia Miller.”

“I….” Blood began to seep from Weston’s nose as he fought against the probes searching for information. “Hinders told her about Gracie Jones. He promised to take her to meet her.”

“Who is Hinders?” Krac pressed. “Is he in charge?”

“One of Miller’s new bodyguards. He was here, with Miller. Dead,” he choked out in a hoarse voice. “Probably dead if you are here.”

“How did you know about Gracie Jones?” Krac bit out as he downloaded the flashing images rushing through Weston’s brain.

“Orders came down… from the source. Don’t know who. The orders come in encrypted. We were told to capture her,” Weston moaned, pressing his fingers into his eyes. “Orders came down to capture Gracie Jones and return her to Earth.”

Krac’s mouth tightened. “Why?”

“New Order. For the New Order. To gain control. Wanted information… that Jones has. Don’t know anything else. Oh God, make it stop!” Weston cried out, pulling at his hair. “Make the pain stop!”

Krac sent a silent command to the nano-bots he released into Weston. He had the images he needed, but they were disjointed. It would take days to piece the fragments together. One piece that came to him was the key to decipher the encrypted code he downloaded earlier. Perhaps there was additional information in the message.

With a single thought, he ordered the nano-bots to self-destruct in Weston’s brain. The miniature explosions shredded the thick brain matter in seconds. Krac pulled his small dagger from the thigh of the dead male and stood up. His brain quickly inserted the key into the message and translated it.

A cold rage built inside as the order formed in his mind. It was time to pay Kordon Jefe a visit. Gracie was in danger once again.

Chapter 4

“What in the hell happened to the side of your warship?” Krac asked as he walked into the conference room off the bridge. “And where is Anastasia Miller?” He added when he noticed the absence of the human female.

Grand Admiral Bran Markus grimaced as muffled chuckles echoed around the room. Cooraan, the
Conqueror’s
Chief Engineer, Captain Leila Toolas, the Chief Medical officer, Lazarus, the new Security Officer, and Rorrak all sat around the table. Instead, his sharp gaze swept over the male who worked specifically with Anastasia Miller’s elite security team in conjunction with Roarrk Jefe’s team which worked for the head council on Paulus.

“She is resting,” Toolas explained. “I gave her a mild sedative despite her protests. She needed rest in order to heal.”

“How badly was she injured?” Krac asked with a frown.

“Superficial wounds mostly,” Toolas replied lightly, looking over at Rorrak when he sat forward. “She will be fine.”

“Was she raped?” Rorrak asked harshly.

Toolas
stared into the dark, flashing eyes and shivered. Both this male and the one that just walked in frightened her even though she knew they would never harm her. Both males held an air of barely controlled restraint. She sat back in her chair when the huge gray male took a step closer when she didn’t answer right away.

Shaking her head, she quickly gave them what information she could without violating patient-healer confidentiality. She breathed a sigh when the new male finally sat down in the chair across from her. When she was finished, she quickly stood and excused herself.

Krac watched as the older female walked out the door. He turned and looked at Rorrak first. He had begun piecing the images from Weston together and he wasn’t liking what he was seeing.

“You have to stay with Anastasia Miller and protect her,” Krac stated. “The plot to kill the members on the council is larger than we originally thought. They want to use her and they want Gracie Jones for some reason. They think she has information they need.”

Rorrak scowled as did the other men sitting around the table. “What information?” He demanded. “Kordon needs to be informed.”

“I will be heading there. The
Conqueror
needs to return to Earth with Anastasia. She has to be there for the vote next week. All of you must make sure that she is kept safe,” Krac said, shooting each male at the table a look that warned them if they failed. “I will meet with your brother and Gracie. The human did not know what information the leader was wanting from her, just that she held information that would help them.”

“We will head there immediately,” Bran said quietly. “Cooraan, make sure we are running at full capacity. Lazarus, I want you and Rorrak to meet with Ms. Miller and find out everything you can about her abduction. I want names, positions, diagrams of the Parliament building, everything. When are you leaving for Zion?” He asked as he turned back to Krac.

“As soon as my ship is ready,” Krac responded. “A crew is preparing it now. So, what happened to yours? You do know you have a long pink line down the side, don’t you?”

*.*.*

Bran’s eyes narrowed and he shot Cooraan and Lazarus a look of disgust when both men burst out laughing. He was more than aware there was a long pink line gracing his otherwise immaculate warship. He was lucky the whole damn thing wasn’t pink. If he hadn’t ordered Lazarus and Cooraan to intervene it would have been.

“We had to stop at Newport Spaceport for a minor repair,” Bran replied. “A short-haul freighter came into the repair bay next to us.”

“Backwards,” Lazarus added, trying not to laugh again. “And crooked.”

“With the tower saying words even I’ve never heard before,” Cooraan said with a grin.

“Let us just say, the Captain is very well known there,” Bran commented.

“Well known?!” Cooraan laughed. “The captain is infamous! I was coming back to the ship when an all call was placed through the emergency communication’s system of the Spaceport that Captain Skeeter had arrived. I’ve never seen so much rushing around to secure things except before a battle. The only reason I wasn’t too surprised is because I know what she is like.”

“So, what is this infamous captain like?” Krac asked.

Rorrak growled. “A huge, dangerous pain-in-the-ass. I met her at the same time as Cooraan and Bran. She is a walking disaster area. She is Bulldog Ti’Death’s daughter. The huge Razor-tooth Triterian is very, very protective of her. I only met her once and that is once more than anyone deserves,” he said with a shudder.

“What did she do?” Krac asked with a frown.

“I’ll tell you what she did,” Bran said, pressing his lips together as he fought a laugh. “She broke his nose and almost his nuts as well as laid Cooraan and me both out.”

“At the same time?” Krac asked in disbelief. “Why would you want to fight a Razor-tooth Triterian? Even I would be challenged to defeat one in a fight.”

“Oh, we weren’t fighting,” Cooraan muttered.

“What were you doing?” Krac asked, looking back and forth between the four men.

“Dancing,” Rorrak grunted out, ignoring the laughter as he thought of the clueless redhead that had brought down the house one night long ago.

*.*.*

“Frog, daddy will never know, I promise!” Skeeter said in a soft, reassuring voice. “Who is going to tell him? I’m not. He might want to take the
Lulu Belle
back,” she fretted. “This is my third freighter. I promised him I wouldn’t tear it up.”

“You are dangerous, Skeeter,” Froget muttered under his breath. “You weren’t supposed to go out into space. I told you I would repair the damage to the
Lulu Belle
.”

“I know you did, but what about the other ship? I mean, I put a scratch on it too. It was only right to fix it,” she insisted. “I didn’t want you to have to do all the work. I was the one who… you know.”

Froget looked at the voluptuous redheaded human female walking beside him. It had been four days since she backed into the Zion Warship
Conqueror
, leaving a long scratch down its starboard side. He should have known better than to think she would actually listen to him when he said he would take care of the damage.

He had been working on repainting the outer damage to the
Lulu Belle
when another space scooter zoomed by him. He would have recognized it anywhere. Everything aboard the
Lulu Belle
was either pink, purple, yellow, orange, red… the list just went on and on. If it was not a standard color for normal space freighters, or anything else for that matter, it was on the
Lulu Belle
.