I didn’t care what those fuckers thought. I had that damn hope. I was determined to be stronger than they. I refused to believe this lonely life was my destiny. I refused to take it off. She would come. Someday.
“I will not remain here, a prisoner,” Rezz insisted.
“You aren’t a prisoner, Warlord.” I sighed and leaned back in my chair, prepared for the worst. Twice in the last ten years a beast had arrived and lost control. A fact not lost on myself or any other Colony officer watching the exchange. Tyran was not the only security in the room. Three warriors per new arrival was my preference. Today, we fell well short. Counting Tyran, there were only seven guards—and none of them were Atlan. If Warlord Rezzer lost his temper and went into Beast mode, even with Tyran’s strength, we’d most likely have to kill the Atlan. An action I would prefer to avoid.
Once, the thought of executing the beast would have sent me into a spiral of anguish and self-hatred. Regret. Frustration and a sense of betrayal. But he wasn’t just dealing with being on the Colony, his beast was, too. It was an internal battle of wills and I had yet to know who would win with Warlord Rezzer.
I knew how he felt. Trapped. Escape one prison to arrive at another. I’d been on the other side of this table with Tyran beside me three years ago. And just before that, we’d spent three agonizing days in the hands of the Hive Integration Units before the Coalition ReCon team got us out of there. We’d been lucky. Salvageable. Although it hadn’t felt like luck at the time.
Now, the only emotion flowing through me, as I watched Rezz fight for control, was resignation. He would either control himself, or he would not. There was no half-measure.
And he wasn’t wrong. Although technically, this wasn’t a prison, none of us would go home. Ever. And although the common perception on the Coalition Worlds was that the warriors of the Colony were contaminated with Hive technology and not fit to re-enter society in their home planets, the truth was worse—but easier to accept.
The Coalition Fleet couldn’t stop Hive command communications on a broad scale. Every warrior here had imbedded Hive tech that couldn’t be removed, not if we wanted to stay alive. We were only safe on the Colony because we were so deep inside Coalition space that the Hive couldn’t reach us to fuck with our minds or control us like puppets. There were a few with experimental implants being tested. We were testing a new scanning and interference frequency generator. And Lady Rone, an expert scientist in brain and body chemistry, was helping us test new ways to strengthen our bodies against Hive attack.
But I knew it might not be enough.
The highest levels of command didn’t want to alert the civilians on our planets to the fact that we were having trouble stopping the Hive. It was frightening, and could potentially cause panic. We were proof of that failure and we couldn’t uncover that political nightmare with our presence on the home worlds.
The Coalition Fleet was barely holding its own, struggling to hinder the Hive expansion into Coalition-controlled space. We were on the brink of losing this damn war.
When Prince Nial became Prime of our planet, he’d inherited the mantle of command over the entire Coalition Fleet. Prillon Prime was the first world to stand up to the Hive and to recruit others, and the Coalition had grown around us. We’d been fighting a long, long time. Centuries. When Prime Nial took power, he’d lifted the ban on Hive-contaminated warriors going home, especially since he was one of them. One of us. That had led to more revelations…had forced the I.C., the Intelligence Core, to come forward with some hard truths.
We couldn’t go home. Ever. Not all of us.
Prime Nial was infected with Hive tech himself. But after his ascension to the throne, he’d met with the I.C., and they’d explained things to him, things those of us on the Colony already knew—that there was no way to ensure he could control himself in the face of a Hive command. The technology imbedded in his body still obeyed its master, and would answer when called.
The Prime had been given a special implant by the I.C., a permanent signal inhibitor designed to keep him free of Hive control. But it was experimental. And even with the inhibitors available, most Coalition planets refused to lift their ban on contaminated warriors rejoining their civilian populations.
Contaminated warriors were too big a risk. I didn’t disagree. I had to deal with them on a daily basis. Hell, I was one of them. Hoping that those on Prillon Prime would accept me and Tyran as normal was too much, even for me.
Prime Nial did his best, but in the end, most of the Prillon warriors on the Colony, myself and Tryan included, decided to stay. We’d all fought to protect our people. Going home like this, even with the experimental tech the I.C. offered, would place our families in danger and make our sacrifices, and the deaths of so many friends and fellow warriors, worthless. None of us wanted to lead the Hive to them, to turn on them and lose control.