Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 66904 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66904 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
With my naked eye, it looks as though they’re just viewing Grave City from this wilder position, a location just outside the main walls, on an elevated plain. It’s the perfect place to do surveillance, which is why I am here in the first place.
But the lens they’re using on the tablet is lighting up the scene in a way the eye cannot. Through the tablet view, the city is lit up with thousands of tiny dancing lights that must represent some form of electricity or energy. It’s fascinating and beautiful, but I cannot appreciate it at all because a creeping feeling of pure dread is starting to run through my veins. If that is what the city looks like through that damn device…
Rustling nearby makes me tense. There’s far too much foot traffic in this area. I should be further away. It is starting to feel as though it is only a matter of time until one of these saurians trips over me. The area is getting more and more crowded by the moment.
“Wrath!” The two saurians with the tablet greet this even larger beast with a certain level of politeness and deference I wouldn’t have said was possible. The newcomer has a breadth of being and a gravitas that I can sense before he so much as murmurs a word.
“How is it going, boys?”
He speaks the way the captains used to speak, with a kind of casual tone that is not actually casual at all. It holds heavy authority in every syllable. His voice is deeper than the other two. He sounds like gravel is being crushed somewhere deep in his throat. I can’t make out his features, but I can see the outline of a horn and a flare that comes out over his shoulders, protecting his neck from the rear. It’s actually a very adaptive feature. We should all have one.
“Just talking about the human females,” one of the saurians says. “Is it true we can mate with them?”
“Mate with them? We can breed them, boys. According to very reputable medical sources, mating with humans could result in hybrids. Hybrids will breed fast, do as they’re told, fit into smaller spaces, be more agile, and more importantly, have no official rights in saurian society. The alpha’s law only applies to saurians. That’s why they’ve been able to take the humans as they please. It’s the same as taking anything, isn’t it. Same as picking up a lizard and making it a pet, or dashing its brains out on a rock and turning it into a snack. Humans can be used, and I say we use them.”
That little monologue brings with it a stunned silence finishing with a guffaw of excitement. We humans know a little of the saurian political landscape due to our surveillance. The alpha of Grave City is Thorn. He has Captain Sullivan. Then there is Enforcer Avel. He is a winged saurian, and a lusty lover. He has taken Captain Raine captive. Then there is Wrath.
Wrath is a living legend in the city. When we listen in to the conversations we can pick up via drone surveillance, he sounds like a Robin Hood type figure, a charismatic rogue leading a band of thieves.
I’m not here for Wrath.
I’m here for two of our crew.
But he’s still talking.
“Do you have them on view?”
“Yes. That’s them, right?”
They move the tablet so Wrath can see it, and I catch a small glimpse of what is being displayed on that screen. My blood runs cold in my veins as I see not only the city displayed in those pulsing blips of light, but the ship itself, hovering above the city. It is lit up as though it is made of neon signs, an absolute blinding mass of light.
“That’s a ship full of human wombs,” Wrath laughs. “They think they’re invisible, but that human cloaking device is no match for outlaw tech.”
“Could be males on board.”
There aren’t, but I can tell that worries these outlaws. Not Wrath, though.
“Good. Males can be slaves. Females can be breeding stock. They’re all ours for the taking.”
I can understand all the terrible things he is saying because saurians speak standardized galactic. They talk like crude animals, but they are technically civilized. Their planet is located on a trade route, and though the city doesn’t really encourage visitors to leave the port, they are settled enough to…
“Bring it down, boys.”
Wrath gives an order which doesn’t mean anything to me at first, but soon causes intense concern as both saurians hoist cannon-type weapons to their shoulders. At first I am not worried, because they look like they’re probably small missiles and that’s not going to touch the Mare. She’s armored pretty heavily.
Then I notice something else. Both of the shoulder cannons have a thick lead from the rear. There’s no actual missile loaded. That means they’re not what I thought they were. They’re not primitive weapons loaded with projectile ammunition. All those leads go back through the undergrowth to a…