Alien Freak - Calista Skye Page 0,59

to do what you just did. That’s all.”

“I can do that without the title, too.”

“That’s true. And it’s fortunate. Because I don’t think I will ever have a throne.”

I place one palm flat on his chest muscle. “Zaroc. Have you lost your whole family? I mean, tell me to shut up if it’s none of my business. I’ll understand.”

He gently grabs my wrist. “It’s not something I dwell on. But yes, I’ve lost my uncles, my aunts, my grandparents, my parents, and my siblings. All my friends. My home. My planet. Everyone hunted down and killed by the Gurandu. The only thing left is me. And I won’t last much longer. It will be a relief, I think. That it’s finally ended.”

I glance at his face. His eyes are wide open, staring at the moon above.

“You could still make it,” I say softly, mostly because I don’t want him to think like that.

“The first we heard of the Gurandu was when I was twelve. There was a communication, sent to the king. My father was informed that the Gurandu had determined that the Lancefers were to be made extinct, as a part of their hunting game. At first everyone laughed. It was too strange and too impossible. Lancefers are fierce warriors, our planet had never been conquered. While we had conquered many. But the king was a responsible ruler. He investigated if there was a real danger. As it turned out, the Gurandu had hunted many other species to extinction. Sentient species with real civilizations. None of them as advanced or as powerful as planet Lancef, though. But our defenses were strengthened, even so. And nothing happened for about a year, I think.”

I stroke one finger on Zaroc’s chest, from soft skin to hard scales, slowly back and forth.

“Then,” he continues, “a hundred antimatter bombs fell from the sky and exploded all over the planet. They came in from space at enormous speeds. RSAM is any defending general’s greatest fear – Relativistic Speed Antimatter Munitions. They travel so fast, you can’t even see them before they’re through the defensive line. They have immensely devastating power. Even a single bomb would be bad. We got a hundred. We realized that they had been sent years before, probably decades, launched and sped up from Gurandu ships right outside our solar system long before we even knew that their species existed. Decades before they declared us about to go extinct. They had planned far ahead.”

I keep stroking, wanting him to know that I’m listening. “I’m sorry to hear that,” I say softly.

“Anyway. Eleven billion died, while about ten million survived, mostly those who were off the planet. We, the royal family, happened to be in space at the time. But all my uncles and aunts and cousins and most of my friends died in that attack. We were stunned, just waiting for the Gurandu to finish the job and send more antimatter weapons to every place a Lancefer could be found. But they didn’t. We were able to find out that’s how the Gurandu do it – they take out the vast majority of their victim species first, then enjoy hunting down the survivors. That way, each kill is more valuable and counts for more points for the hunter.”

Anger starts to boil in me. “That’s just evil.”

“Only then did they start their real hunt. Many of them take part in that phase, probably half a million. It’s easy, you see – when there are ten million Lancefers in the galaxy, the chances of finding one to kill are high. The king first ordered all the Lancefers to gather together, to offer resistance and wage war against the Gurandu. We did. But by now we didn’t have a planet of our own – Lancef itself was devastated. And other governments wanted us gone from their jurisdiction, so that we didn’t attract more antimatter bombs to fall on them. We became a space-bound species, using small ships, traveling in unpredictable patterns around inhabited space.”

He pauses, staring into space, frowning with some memory.

“We tried to attack the Gurandu, but to no avail. They have seen everything before, every strategy a victim species will try in order to escape. They were ready for everything, and they kept killing us. One after the other. A few thousand a day, by this time. As we became fewer and harder to find, more Gurandu left the hunt and went on to hunt other species. The rate of killing went down,