wait until Deltor is good and dead before opening the portal.”

  “We’re not going to let it get that far.” Lovo chimed in.

  “They’ve already taken a good portion out of The Livian Forest. We have samples ready for the scientists to check out.” Dajus stated.

  “And the buildings we lost in Plactu.” Another soldier said with his head down. Even though they capture both Frok and Shi, a feeling a failure washed over the ship.

  “The Queen wants a report from us.” Mallobo read an incoming signal.

  “Does the Queen want a report or does Elder Senex want a report?” Dajus asked with venom in her voice.

  “Just tell them what we know.” Lovo said to Mallobo. As it stood the warriors had two tasks at hand, finding the third Cugan was first and foremost, but also finding Rilo’s informant. All of the Telda’s were accounted for and the ones that they found in Vitca and Plactu were all dead. Due to the Cugan experimenting on them until they got the proper device ready for destroying Deltor.

  Lovo sat next to Rilo who was no doubt blaming himself for his friend’s kidnapping, “Hey now, it probably won’t make you feel better, but I’m fairly sure that your friend is being held captive by the third Cugan. Well find her.” Her words did comfort him but very little. Everyone had lost a friend that day. The three that was with Trystan and Mallobo and the one that Dajus used as a human shield.

  It began to bother Dajus that she felt no remorse for her action. ‘Should I feel bad?’ she thought as she sat in her small quarters, everyone was resting before they finally landed in Kitnar.

  The Skyro appeared to her in what looked like her own body. ‘Well, you’re still alive, that’s the important part isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, but that girl is dead.’

  ‘You didn’t like her anyway.’

  Dajus looked at her reflection; the Skyro had none since it was in her head, “No I didn’t.” She said out loud.

  Everyone regrouped to come up with their next plan of action. They had their best interrogators on Frok and Shi, but no one knew how to separate the Cugan from their hosts. Dajus stared as the interrogators pounded Frok and Shi with questions in their separate interrogation room. She had an idea, at first she thought about sharing her idea with her fellow warriors but then realized that they wouldn’t go along with it. So she acted.

  No one knew what she was doing, but everyone watched as Dajus burst into Shi’s interrogation and pulled her by her curly blue hair into the room where Frok was, “You two have come so far, you’ve done so much hard work, and the two of you won’t even be alive to enjoy it.”

  “What are you doing?” Frok asked.

  “Is there a reason why you two chose twins?” No one answered, Dajus pulled out her weapon and aimed it at Shi, “This isn’t a stun gun, this is a ray gun, a zig of a jolts will not only shut down her entire system but it will boil her insides until they are a mesh of hot liquid.”

  Shi gasped and whimpered.

  “Oh no darling, there’s no need for that, I’m sure you weren’t whimpering or crying when you killed three of our soldiers earlier today, the same goes for you.” Dajus powered on the gun, and Shi flinched. “I would have used that fancy little gun you two created but our scientists are looking it over at the moment. So I’ll just have to settle for this,” Dajus aimed the gun. “What’s it going to be Frok?”

  “Dajus don’t!” Lovo shouted.

  “Why not! They have no reservations when killing our people, taking over the bodies of our people, and now our home? I’m going to start counting Frok, and I’m going to stop at any number I feel like…”

  “You wouldn’t.” He cried.

  “Oh, I think you and I both know I would. One!”

  “What about the Deltorian host?” Frock tried to change her mind.

  “I’ll have to assume she’s dead, Frok! Two!”

  “Stop this game!” Frok demanded.

  “You first. Three.” Dajus said, right before shooting Shi right in the chest, she flopped for a bit and then laid still. “Let me know when you’re ready to talk.”

  “What was that!” Lovo shouted as she followed Dajus out of the room.

  They followed her to their chambers, “Doctor Grevar, nice to see you.”

  The doctor looked nervous, “I…almost believed you in there myself.”

  “So you saw my performance?” Dajus said sitting down. It was late evening and the colors of the walls began to glow and change colors with the shapes of smoke that drifted inside the walls.

  “Performance?” Trystan asked.

  Dajus held up the gun, “Stun gun.” She chuckled.

  Mallobo nodded in approval while Trystan and Lovo looked annoyed and sick. Lovo sat down next to Mallobo while Trystan continued to stand.

  “My assistants are keeping an eye on her vitals, if it looks like she’s about to wake up, we’ll move her out of there, but I doubt it, I think you shot her with enough that’ll keep her out for a week.”

  The warriors received a call; they all hoped it was Frok ready to tell them what they needed to know but instead it was one of Mallobo’s warriors. “Sir, you didn’t say anything in your report about bringing an alien along.”

  “We brought an alien along with us?” This was news to everyone including Mallobo. Everyone including the doctor rushed to the hospital, where they found a short creature strapped to a bed in front of them with a strong clear case locking it inside.

  “I guess this is what a Cugan looks like, but how did it get on our ship?” Mallobo asked.

  “It must’ve been loaded when we came to pick you two up. There was no way anything was getting inside it while we were away.” Trystan was certain of his security abilities.

  “I’ll be sure to examine it for you the four of you.” The doctor was eager to begin his study of the Cugan creature. He couldn’t wait to write the first editorial ever on who and what the Cugan were.

  As soon as the doctor finished his last sentence, the warriors were summoned – Frok was ready to talk. All of the soldiers huddled around the interrogation room ready to see what he had to say. Once he said he was ready to talk, they moved Shi from his sight. He could feel everyone’s eyes on him even though he could not see them. He knew they were all present to see the fall of the Cugan.

  “You killed her right in front of me, my sister. You don’t deserve this planet.” Frok tried to pull himself together. No one said anything and waited for him to say anything useful. “There is technology that we have to share bodies with one another. A few of us are able to live in one body at a time, it’s what helps us survive, it’s what helps us stay alive when the Messengers come after us.” Frok held his head into his chained hands. “My sister and I lived in the same body for years with one other. The plan was to wait for him to find a suitable host and then to implement his plan of attack. This whole idea was his from the start. I just wanted a better place to live. Where we live the Skyro are treated better than us. Those filthy beings.”

  “Is that why we found the body of Cugan on our ship? That’s your body? Who’s the new host?” Mallobo asked.

  “The soldier who isn’t here.” All of the warriors turned to leave the room to check in with all of their units. “I brought them as much time as I could.”

  Mallobo heard Frok’s slip up, “Them?” Lovo and Trystan were already calling everyone who went out with them earlier to the war room.

  Dajus pulled out her gun and aimed it at Frok, “Yes, there’s two. They’re probably moved on to the contingency plan.”

  “Which is?” Dajus asked.

  “To open the portal, right above the palace.”

  Everyone was accounted for as far as Trystan could see, using his technology everyone’s brain waves were Deltorian.

  “Wait!” Lovo shouted, “Where’s Rilo?”

  Rilo sat in the security offices with his partner Kirka, “Well, I??
?m pretty sure they’ve figured it out by now.”

  Kirka, had a headset on and turned to Rilo, “Well, Frok and Shi did the best that they could. Did you bring our body back here?” She continued to type in a sequence that opened portals.

  “Yes, but they found it.” Rilo answered.

  “How were you able to get close to a solider of the Deltorian warriors to take them over?”

  “He was snooping around and happened upon my body. It was easy.”

  “Using the Qay-Et virus as a smoke screen was a great plan, it gave me plenty of time to sneak down here and work on the portals, I had a tough time finding them, now all I have to do is unlock them and…”

  Mallobo, Trystan, Lovo and Dajus bombarded the security offices, it didn’t take long for them to find Rilo.

  “Kirka.” Lovo said with disappointment in her voice. ‘I should have known better.’

  Kirka continued to type, “Don’t be so hard on yourself or on poor Rilo here, Kirka and Rilo really are good friends, and she really did have information on where Frok was, but that made her a target and being a friend of one of the warriors closets soldiers, I couldn’t resist setting this plan in motion. You wouldn’t happen to know the proper key into opening a portal between here and another dimension would you?” She asked with a giggle. “Don’t worry I’ve almost got it.”

  The security offices were the control room they were designed to keep intruders out. It was the very last defense in an attack on the palace. Kirka didn’t have enough knowledge on the beams, lasers and cannons to activate