Slain couldn’t lay a finger on us.
Vraik’s excitement wanes. “Are we really thinking of bringing her back there?” he asks.
“We breed her here. Once she is pregnant, we’ll have to bring her to Ubara,” I say. “It is the only way.”
Vraik shifts on his heels, clenching his hands together. “Why fly into the belly of the beast when we could use the Resnyx to eradicate Slain, and—”
Vraik cuts his sentence short. I sense Lök behind us.
He finishes Vraik’s sentence for him? “And run? Because that’s what he’d expect us to do. We’d outrun his warships for a while, but they’d find us eventually. On Ubara, law protects us.”
“That’s the thing. It sounds nice, but do we really trust Slain to uphold the law?” Vraik asks.
Lök strides forward. “No,” he admits. “But when the time comes to face him, I believe we’ll have a better sense of what to do.”
Vraik looks to me for answers, but I don’t have any. Lök is right. We’re walking into this situation blindly, and we don’t have a lot of options.
Trusting the female is an issue. But if we hold the Resnyx and don’t give in, maybe we can strike a deal.
“We must speak with her,” I say.
“She won’t agree to our plan,” Lök mutters.
“Maybe. But something drew us to her. Let’s listen to her concerns,” I say.
Diplomacy doesn’t come easy to alphas like us. The normal protocol is take or be taken.
By the looks of it, humans are adaptable.
We walk back to the excavation room. The door is bolted, and I can hear her sniffling.
I knock.
“I don’t want to talk to you,” she says, voice phlegmy and weak.
“We’ve come to listen,” I say.
“Yeah, well, I’ve got nothing to say to monsters like you,” she says.
Lök steps forward. “Is your plan to starve to death?”
I put up my hand to cut him off.
I hear her stand. She walks toward us. I feel the vibration of her hands against the door.
“I plan to wait here until Earth destroys your excavation machine. You fucked with the wrong woman,” she says.
Both Vraik and Lök stride angrily, but I ignore my instinct to yell.
I lower my voice. “Your armies cannot disable our machinery,” I say. “But if you want to leave, we will bring you home. You can live out your last days on Earth.”
She pauses. I can hear her feet slide away from the door. “I’m speaking to Rekker?” she asks.
“Yes.”
A firm resolve carries her voice. “I don’t want to go home. I think I want to live somewhere else.”
Vraik laughs. “Somewhere else?”