Chapter 18: Transmission of War
The hum of the command bridge was a different beast than the thrum of his chambers. It was sharper, colder, a needlepoint of focused energy that prickled the skin. Liora stood near the tactical holotable, her borrowed clothing—dark, seamless fabric that felt like a second skin—doing nothing to ward off the chill. She was studying the flickering ghost of a nebula on the display, trying to map its currents, trying to remember her purpose here beyond the warmth of his bed and the grip of living rope.
Vexis was a silent monument in his command throne, his fingers steepled, watching the void through the great viewport. The peace was fragile, paper-thin.
It shattered with a sharp, discordant chime from the comms station. A junior officer, a being of glittering chitin and too many eyes, flinched. “My lord. A tight-beam transmission on an old Human Resistance frequency. Heavily encrypted, but… it’s breaking through our older filters. Origin: the Trask debris field.”
Vexis didn’t turn. “Play it.”
The audio crackled to life, filled with static and the faint echo of a ship’s interior. But the voice was unmistakable. Ryland. It was worn thinner than she remembered, frayed at the edges with a fatigue that went bone-deep, but the core of it, that granite stubbornness, was intact.
“—repeat, this is Commander Ryland of the Free Vanguard to any surviving elements. We have confirmed visual on the Eclipse Bringer. Intelligence suggests a high-value asset is being held aboard.” A pause, the hint of a swallowed breath. “Liora. If you can hear this… we see the damage. We know what he’s done. Hold on. We’re coming for our lost soldier.”
The message looped once before Vexis made a slight gesture. Silence crashed back in, heavier than before.
Liora’s blood turned to ice. She didn’t move. She barely breathed. The nebula on the holotable swam in her vision.
Vexis rose from his throne. The movement was liquid and utterly silent. He crossed the bridge, the crew melting away from his path, their focus suddenly riveted to their consoles. He stopped inches from her. She could smell the ozone on him, and beneath it, the dark, mineral scent that was his alone.
“Your old keeper,” he murmured, his voice for her alone. It wasn’t a question.
She found her voice, it was desert-dry. “He’s not my keeper.”
“No?” Vexis’s tail, a whipcord of muscle and scale she’d felt coiled around her thigh just hours before, slid from behind him. It moved with a mind of its own, wrapping around her wrist not with bruising force, but with an inescapable, possessive lightness. The cool scales pressed against her pulse point. “He speaks of you as a damaged asset. He speaks of retrieval.” His head tilted, gold eyes dissecting her. “He thinks you are something to be rescued from the monster.”
He leaned in, his breath ghosting over her ear. “Shall we show him how thoroughly I’ve reprogrammed you?”
Her stomach dropped. “What does that mean?”
He straightened, his voice projecting to the watchful bridge. “Open a channel. Broadcast on the same frequency. Visual feed from my position.”
“My lord,” the comms officer chirped, “they will get a lock on our position—”
“I am counting on it,” Vexis said, his gaze never leaving Liora’s face. “Do it.”
A light on the holotable glowed a sickly green. They were live.
Vexis’s hand came up, not to strike, but to cradle the side of her face. His thumb stroked the line of her jaw. It was a lover’s gesture, broadcast to her former commander. His other hand rested on her hip, pulling her subtly closer until her body was aligned with his, a portrait of intimacy.
“Commander Ryland,” Vexis said, his tone conversational, almost pleasant. “What a poor time for a social call. Your ‘lost soldier’ is currently occupied.”
Liora was frozen. Every instinct screamed to shove him away, to spit in his face, to scream to Ryland that she was a prisoner. But the memory of the living rope, of his mouth between her legs, of the broken cry he’d torn from her, was a chain heavier than any metal. She had chosen this. To save her own skin, to burn her old life. This was the consequence, live and in vivid color.
Ryland’s voice boomed back through the bridge speakers, raw with fury. “Voss! Status report! Is he coercing you?”
Vexis’s thumb pressed against her lower lip. His eyes held hers, a silent command glittering in their depths. Show him.
Her heart was a frantic bird in a cage. She looked straight ahead, as if at a viewfinder, seeing not the bridge but Ryland’s desperate, hopeful face on some distant monitor. Her voice, when it came, was flat, hollowed out. A perfect military report. “No coercion, Commander. I am here of my own volition.”
The silence from the other end was deafening.
Vexis smiled, a slow, wicked curl of his lips. He leaned in again, his mouth hovering near hers, a performance for the camera. “She learns so quickly,” he purred, loud enough for the mic to catch. “She’s found new loyalties. New… appetites.” His hand on her hip slipped lower, cupping the curve of her backside, a blatant, claiming touch.
Liora flinched. She couldn’t help it.
Ryland’s voice shattered the silence, a roar of pure anguish. “LIORA!”
Vexis severed the transmission with a flick of his fingers. The green light died. The bridge was silent, the crew rigid, pretending they had heard and seen nothing.
The warlord released her, his tail slipping from her wrist. The warmth where he’d touched her turned to a clammy shame. He looked down at her, all false tenderness gone, replaced by a look of cold appraisal.
“You see?” he said quietly. “The truth is simpler than his heroic fiction. You are not a damsel. You are a deserter. And now…” He turned back to his throne, the viewport displaying the endless starfield. “…now he will come in blind rage, not cautious strategy. He will waste his ships and his people trying to reclaim a ghost.”
He sat, the picture of imperial calm. “Set course for the Kalnar Abyss. Maximum burn. Let’s give the good commander a chase worth singing about.”
The ship’s engines groaned to life, a deeper vibration thrumming through the deck. Liora stood rooted, the echo of Ryland’s shattered voice ringing in her skull. She had done it. She had severed the last thread.
Vexis glanced back at her over his scaled shoulder, his final words barely audible over the rising whine of the drive.
“Welcome to the winning side, little spark. Try to look less like you’ve just shot your own dog.”