The Space Empress He Craved

Chapter 106

POV: Lyra

[Still unconscious—third person observation]

At around 3 a.m., Helena Tanner's comm-device screen illuminated. Being careful not to wake her match, she shifted slowly to reach her device on her night platform. Her optical organs squinted in the dark as she read the message from a frequency she was careful not to add into her contact list but knew by memory. She threw her covers and stood, which was when her match asked groggily, "Where are you going? What happened?"

She tried to mask her worry and responded in a flat tone, "Just work. I have to check on something."

"Now?" Her match asked in disbelief as he checked the illuminated figures on his chronometer next to him.

Helena forced a smile and pressed her lips to her match's facial area before explaining, "It's urgent. I'll come back as soon as it's done." Her match groaned in annoyance before falling back onto his rest platform.

Helena put on a thermal covering over her inner garment and didn't bother doing anything with her lower coverings. When she was outside their rest chamber, she re-read Greg's message, and her thoracic cavity started to feel uneasy. Your transport bay. Ten minutes.

Thank the cosmos her transport bay was far away from everyone's rest chambers. She left through the back portal, and immediately recognized the High Commander's back. She quickened her pace to make sure she was in front of him before her ten minutes were up.

He didn't turn when she was right behind him so she whispered the greeting, "Your Excellency."

"Do it." Greg said flatly.

In a flash, two large-sized males appeared from behind Helena and one of them held her in place and covered her vocal opening before the other injected something from a medical injector into her bio-fluid stream from her shoulder.

The High Commander then turned indifferently and muttered, "Strangle."

Helena tried to scream but realized that she couldn't. She opened her vocal opening and expelled the atmosphere in her respiratory organs but she couldn't be heard. What happened to her voice?!

Her eyes screamed fear as they met Greg's black orbs in the dark. When her vision blurred and she thought that she was going to terminate, Greg said, "Let her fall." The male holding her threw her against the wall of her transport bay and let her body fall to the ground as she took in large intakes of atmosphere, still voiceless.

When she caught her breath, she tried screaming again but it was to no avail. Greg scoffed darkly and lifted her himself by her neck and pinned her on the wall like he did with Livia the other night.

His black eyes bore into hers as he asked rhetorically, "Did you think I'm as careless as you are, Tanner? Did you think I won't take necessary precautions before launching an attack? The substance we just injected in your system blocks your vocal cords so I don't see why you're still trying to scream. You're not getting out of this."

He threw her to the ground with force, and Helena tried to crawl away but she was backed into a corner. Her mouth moved, like she was pleading with Greg, begging him for mercy. The High Commander's growl sent a shiver down her spine when he said, "You wanted to terminate her."

Confusion crept into Helena's fearful eyes as she mouthed, "Who?"

Greg lost his patience and took her by her ankle before slamming her body twice against the floor. He only stopped when one of his males said, "Your Excellency, we're in no position to tell you how to do your job but if you want to keep her conscious, you'll have to aim less at her cranial area. Anywhere else is fine. Just leave the cranial area."

Lyrokans heal quickly. And Helena's bleeding cranium was already recovering though her vision was still a little blurry from the impact. Greg didn't give her time to recover fully before he pressed her knee joint against the floor, and bent her lower leg upward, breaking her joint with the sound of a crack as Helena screamed voicelessly. Cold perspiration appeared on her face, and optical fluid flowed in steady streams from her eyes.

The sight didn't make Greg any less merciful. He was still enraged. "I told you to do nothing. I told you to not trigger the Empress. Not only have you tried to trigger her, you wanted to terminate her. And with poison. Ha! Pathetic!" His voice broke at the word 'terminate' and the words after that didn't mask the hurt and pain he felt.

Despite Helena's agonizing pain, she shook her cranial area and repeatedly mouthed, "I didn't."

"I know how to do my research, Tanner. Stop denying it." Greg said before bending her leg even further. Her features squinted in pain, and she was sobbing in agony. Tanner kept shaking her head as optical fluid streamed down her facial area, her mouth kept repeating the words 'I didn't'.

Greg scoffed darkly again and suggested, "How about this? The plan was to inject the very same concentration of Xytherium you gave to the Empress into you. But now that you're so persistent in denying it, maybe we should give it to your match and offspring instead."

Her eyes widened as she pleaded inaudibly, "No. No. Please, no."

Greg pressed, "Then admit it. You tried to terminate the Empress."

"No." She mouthed, and Greg was left conflicted. Normally, when threats were made to the victim's family, they'd give in and tell the truth. Some would even lie and admit to his accusations just to protect their family. Tanner was insisting that she didn't try to terminate me. Did his contact make an error on the Harrison Brown research?

He let go of her leg and let it fall as he stood to think. He leaned casually against the wall as he pondered on his predicament. His males opted to say nothing, and just watched Tanner to make sure she didn't try to escape. It wasn't as if she could. Her knee joint hurt unlike anything she'd ever experienced in her life.

Greg had a plan. But he didn't really like it. It felt too merciful. He approached Tanner in slow steps. The click of his footwear was the only sound echoing through the walls of the large transport bay. He stood before the fidgeting female and said in a low voice, "Here's what's going to happen, Tanner. I'm going to give you an antidote for your vocal cords. When I start hearing that irritating voice of yours again, you'd better be talking about only what I want to know. If you say anything irrelevant, I'll terminate your family. And if anyone hears us, I'll terminate your family. Is that clear?"

Tanner nodded. It wasn't like she had a choice. Greg then uttered his males' way, "Do it." And they did. One held her still while the other injected another substance into the same area. In less than a minute, Tanner found her voice again when she could hear her own heavy breathing from the pain that Greg had just inflicted upon her.

Greg then started, "Who is Harrison Brown?"

Tanner shook as she stuttered in a whisper, "I-I hired him t-to g-go after s-some f-former employees. It wasn't the Empress, I swear!"

"What former employees?"

Tanner kept her three employees' absence from the High Commander, thinking that she could eliminate them and cover her tracks before he found out, got angry and came after her for being unable to keep them in place. She stuttered again, "T-They d-do the au-audits."

Greg's eyebrows furrowed. He squatted and looked her dead in the eye as he asked, "THE audits?" She nodded.

"So, the beings who know what we've been doing are NOT within your reach anymore. Is my understanding correct?"

Tanner nodded in dismay, and the gears in Greg's cranial processor started turning. He replayed whatever little he knew about what took place in Tanner's office when his cousins and I went there. The employees were manipulating the audits for cycles but they never disobeyed Tanner for the Emperor.

Greg doubted Orion used the Emperor's Authority on them to get the real story. His cousin was too much of a coward to ever wield that power. That pathetic second-in-command was just a mindless upper-rank servant to the Emperor. There was no way he got them to reveal it either. The only reason that the employees decided to give in after all these cycles was "Lyra." Greg subconsciously muttered under his breath, and he sought some comfort in saying my designation.

Tanner was depleted but she was still shocked at the High Commander's softened features when he said that designation.