Silas: Imperial Warrior (A Sci-Fi Alien Warrior Romance) Read Online Free Page B

to travel and see other planets and moons in the Quadrant, on the behalf of the Empress or chasing down some criminal, but he couldn’t say he had ever seen or heard of anything like that reptile creature.
    “Not many are,” she explained, swiping her hand over the surface of her tablet and calling up another image. This one was of a planet, large and rocky. Even in bright blue, Silas could see that it was a dry, craggy place, and he leaned in closer. “This is Shuva,” Ammaline said. “A planet not in our Quadrant and thought to be dead. The Fremeri are its primary residents, and they are also thought to be all dead.”
    “And you’re thinking that isn’t true?”
    “I know it isn’t true,” she said. “The Fremeri supposedly died with their planet, nearly one hundred full cycles ago. As the story goes, the water all dried up, leaving the planet dry and barren. Nothing could grow, nothing could thrive. The Fremeri were already made to survive in dry conditions, but without any plant life or animals, they slowly starved to death and then cooked under the heat of their twin suns.”
    Silas let out a low whistle. “Sounds like a good way to wipe out a species to me.”
    “Indeed. But Shuva is riddled with tunnels and caves, underground places that could be used as shelter, or places to hide.”
    “And you think the Fremeri have been hiding down there?” His voice was skeptical.
    The Empress shot him a sharp look. “I do,” she replied crisply.
    “But why...ah, Your Imperial Majesty?” Best not to forget his place here.
    She gave him that tiny smile again. “Because I have seen a Fremeri before. If they were all dead, then I would not have encountered one.”
    “Alright,” Silas said slowly. “Fair point. But then, what makes you think they’re doing this now?”
    “Because someone saw one here. You have to agree that they are very hard to mistake for something else.”
    And yeah, he couldn’t argue with that.
    “The fact remains, Captain, that things are getting worse. We have reports from other sectors, siting deaths, dismemberments, and more robberies. Food and water are disappearing from markets, and in some of the more populated areas to the south, people are starting to go missing as well. We cannot ignore this.”
    Silas sat up straighter in his chair. This was the part that really mattered here. Whoever was doing this would be caught and brought to the Empress’ justice, there was no doubt about that, but knowing what his orders were was how he would know how to do that. In his time as Captain, he had several successful missions under his belt, and as dull as the job could be sometimes, he wanted to continue the trend. “What would you have me do?” he asked.
    The Empress rose from her seat, moving over to the screen in the wall that depicted a scene of the market at its most lively. It wasn’t safe for the Empress to spend time in a room with windows, not when someone could come through and kill or hurt her and she refused to have guards in her office while she was working. So the compromise had been this, a screen that took up most of the wall that she could change the image of to look out at the market or the harbor, or the shuttle deck.
    For a moment, she just gazed out at the people on the screen, and then she turned back to Silas. “I do not want to think that this could get worse,” she said softly. “I want to believe that this is petty crime. But if the Fremeri have been alive and in force for all this time, then they could have been just waiting. Just planning. This could be the beginning of something awful.”
    Silas inclined his head. “What would you have me do?” he asked again.
    “Protect our people,” she said simply. “In whatever way necessary. And try to capture one of the Fremeri alive, if you can. For questioning.”
     
    “Ready to move on your orders, Captain.”
    The voice in his ear was familiar, and Silas smiled. Cress was always going to be following