Shattered Sun (The Sentinel Trilogy Book 3) Read Online Free Page A

poisoning their brains, do they not? What I gave you was only building on what your people have known for generations. Sugar. When we exterminate your race, we will only fly you on a course that you have already piloted.  
    A shiver worked through Mose Dryz’s limbs. He resisted going for a vial of sugar. Did the queen commander know his secret? If she did, then no doubt he’d been summoned here to be consumed.
    Come with me.  
    She turned and stalked away with jerky movements, feathers ruffling. Mose Dryz walked behind her. He didn’t control his legs—they moved as if by some unknown force—but he could feel every step. The gravity was light on this world, and he walked as if jumping across springs. The bird was only as tall as a human, and he found himself looking down at her, wondering what he’d do if she gave him control of his body again. Could he break her neck before she stopped him? Would it be worth it to sacrifice his life to destroy one of their queens? Or would another simply step into her place?
    They walked alongside one of the factories, where birds used crawling dozers to push slag into a heap the size of a small mountain. The queen commander lifted into the air to fly over the slag heap, but left Mose Dryz to climb his way up one side and down the other. Slag shifted and crumbled beneath his feet, and on the way down he stumbled. The tumbling slag nearly buried him before he got clear, and he choked on the poisonous dust it kicked up.
    The queen led him up a filthy hillside, where he came upon a flattened stretch of ground. In front of him, a pool of shimmering, poisonous-smelling water. To his left, a giant, wire-enclosed encampment. There was a Hroom on the inside, looking through, who gave a shout when he saw the general.
    Hundreds more Hroom came running from the encampment and pressed their faces against the fencing. A handful of shorter humans jostled through the Hroom to get to the fence. The prisoners were filthy and naked, bony and starving in appearance. The fencing was made of wire coils with sharp edges, and the pressing crowd left some of them screaming as they were shoved into it.
    Stand here, the queen told the general. You will see something.  
    She tilted her head back and shrieked. Several drones had been roaming the exterior perimeter. A little taller than the ones he’d spotted earlier, with a few bright feathers among the drab, they carried guns strapped to their wings that they controlled with their beaks. At the queen’s command, they lifted into the air, swooped over the top of the fence, and came back holding flailing, struggling Hroom and humans.
    They tossed the naked prisoners at the feet of the queen, who darted in, slashing. She tore open bellies, groins, and legs, then ignored the disabled, suffering victims while the guards flew back for more prisoners. Mose Dryz stared in horror.
    Are you so surprised? I have seen the fishing fleets on your planets. They drag helpless creatures from the depths by the thousands to squirm and suffocate.  
    “They are animals. We use them for food. These are sentient beings.”
    Your species is a race of predators. So is mine. But we stand at the apex of the food chain. As a fish is to you, so Hroom are to the flock.  
    The guards came back with more victims. Again, the queen slashed and tore until they were wounded and helpless, even as the guards flew off for more. Soon, there were thirty or forty victims moaning, pleading, trying to hold their guts in with one hand and crawl away with the other. The guards stalked through, cocking their heads and searching for something. They hooked their talons into the belly of a slender human man and dragged him out, screaming. They had a brief, screeching conversation with the queen, who then spoke into the general’s mind.
    This one is a lieutenant on an Albion warship. Not a true feast, but his status will brighten my colors.  
    She said this even as she pinned the man with a talon and