In hindsight, maybe it wasn’t a great idea to pick a fight against someone who could see the future.
That thought flashed through Cade Stryker’s mind just as he crashed against the unyielding wall of the bar. He jerked his head away just in time, took the landing on his shoulder and crumpled to the wall.
‘Wait,’ he slurred, holding up a hand to stop his advancing attacker, who halted and looked at him quizzically.
‘Giving up?’ growled the Neathan, whose name Cade couldn’t pronounce, though he knew it began with Kh. Cade let his head drop, breathed noisily, giving the appearance that he was more injured than he looked, and groaned.
‘Human,’ his assailant chortled—it was a chortle, but it came out like a wheeze, and only a fellow Neathan or someone who knew them well would recognize the sound; Cade, who lived on the planet after all, knew the species very well— ‘You can’t win against me. Why don’t you give up before you get hurt?’
Cade flung himself against the alien’s legs, springing up from his sprawled position, using his feet to power himself forward. His idea was to take his assailant by surprise. Bring him to the ground by momentum and pummel him to submission.
It was a great idea. It didn’t work. The alien knew what he was planning.
The Neathan’s tail—yeah, they were bipeds, but they had long, swishy tails, scales that came or went with the heat, bulbous eyes, bald heads and bushy eyebrows—caught him on the chest.
The alien was shorter than most of his species but was powerfully built. His blow flung Cade against the bar. Glasses shattered. Occupants yelled and dived out of the way. Bottles fell to the ground, one rolling near his hand.
He grabbed it without thinking, propped himself on an elbow just as the Neathan bent over him, and swung hard. The bottle splintered against the thick Neathan’s head. Onlookers gasped. Someone screamed. Cade looked in horror at the jagged ends of the bottle and then at the Neathan. He swallowed. His alcohol-induced haze vanished. Getting into bar fights wasn’t like him. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered. ‘Did I hurt—’
He saw the alien grin. By the time his brain computed that Kh-whatever-his-name-was had a particularly strong head and it was not even scratched, it was too late. A fist the size of a shovel connected with his jaw with the force of a speeding spaceship and sent him into oblivion.
While Cade’s still out …
It was 5055, five years since the war between Calara and Neatha had ended, which had freed humans from Brock’s rule. Cade had played a vital role in it. He had worked with the Neathans, who helped arm the rebel humans, and in the final, epic battle, he had been at the forefront. He hadn’t wanted to help, initially. Brock and his goons hadn’t bothered him. humans had brought it upon themselves by not revolting in force. That was the way he saw it. Andy, the AI on his ship, with whom he was bonded; Tauxol, the Neathan general and Supreme Commander of their military forces; and Deet, the human rebel commander on Calara, had persuaded him.
And there had been Kiara, a human from Earth who had miraculously survived its destruction in 2080 and turned up on his ship. She had made him see the light. Without her, the war couldn’t have been won. Cade had moved to Neatha after the war. He wanted to forget the past, make a new life for himself. What better way than to start fresh on a different planet? On Neatha, in the Odyssey Galaxy, the same star system to which Calara belonged. The Neathans were the most advanced race in the galaxy, in fact in several galaxies. They were supremely intelligent, could see the future, and had no interest in conquering other stars or planets. They had a highly sophisticated military, for defense only.
Cade found them to be a warm and welcoming species. He wasn’t the only human on the planet. A few hundred thousand had migrated from Calara and had made the planet their home. Cade opened a bar and stocked it with exotic drinks, and the establishment’s uniqueness made it a success. He didn’t revert to smuggling and thieving. Those days were behind him. Life was looking up. And then the Dracons showed up.
Hold up, Cade’s stirring …
Cade groaned, shook his head, and moaned louder when a million jackhammers got to work in his head. He rolled to his side and pushed himself slowly to a sitting position.
He was on a narrow bunk. A small room, longer than his six-foot-one-inch height, but not by much. About ten by ten, he figured. White. No windows. He fingered the wall. Made of some kind of metal. He knew where he was: a Neathan prison.
These jails were unlike any on Calara. Neathan imprisonment centers were temporary confinement areas. Their rooms expanded or contracted automatically depending on the prisoner’s size and state of mind. They changed color: the most common were calming tones designed to pacify the inmate.
White? What does that stand for?
Before he could figure it out, a wall slid away silently and a figure stepped in.
Cade’s heart sank. It was Tauxol.
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