“I WILL SAY this; you do have a flare for the dramatic. But subtlety, I think, is lost on you.”
In the dimly lit command station, the lemon eyes flared. “I have no time for your riddles, old witch!”
“I was referring only to the name of your new warship. An interesting choice,” Haggar responded, nonchalantly. She leaned against her gnarled cane and watched the self-proclaimed King of Doom stalk about the bridge, his boot heels clanging metallically on the floor. He stopped suddenly, and whirled to face her, mouth set in a grim, bitter line.
“You are hardly in a position to joke, crone,” he warned. “I know well the paltry extent of your powers. Not only do you rely on me to serve as your sword in this matter, but you let that slave escape from you once again!”
Haggar’s eyes narrowed, but she seethed inwardly. If it was true she held little love or loyalty for Lotor, still she knew he spoke the truth. “First of all,” she said contemptuously, “I did not ‘let’ him escape.” That was not entirely true, so she chose not to elaborate. “In any case, you shall have him, for it is quite easy to guess where he is headed. He is too late to stop us and will soon be apprehended and then…what you choose to do with him is your own affair. I don’t care to know the grisly details.”
From the sudden hate that surged in Lotor’s eyes like blood, Haggar could well imagine the grisly details for herself.
Slipping silently from the shadows, like a shadow itself, Haggar’s familiar, the blue-furred, razor-fanged cat-like Coba, padded across the floor to sit at its mistress’s feet. Lotor regarded it disdainfully. “I owe you nothing,” he told the witch, though he was still looking at the cat. “When the Voltron Force destroyed Castle Doom, you rescued your stupid cat before even thinking to aid me.”
Coba and Haggar favored him with much the same look. “I fished you out of the moat,” Haggar offered.
“After betraying me! For a dead man.”
“Are you so sure he is dead?” Haggar’s words slid across the cool air like a knife and he looked up, eyes ablaze, furious.
“Zarkon is dead! I am King of Doom!”
As if to emphasize his point, he pivoted on his heel and with a wide whirl of his black cloak, stalked to the throne-like, skull-adorned command chair and flung himself into it. One hand clawed at the armrest possessively.
“A king without a crown, without a castle or subjects,” Haggar jeered.
“Silence!” Lotor thundered. “You have placed yourself in my power, witch, and I know why. Your powers are drained. A lowly slave escaped you. I shall see to it our plan does not go further amiss.” He gazed at the planet on the view screen hungrily. “The secret weapons this planet hides shall soon be mine! And then I shall reclaim Doom and then Arus, and then all the Galaxy shall be mine.” Suddenly, he slammed his hand down upon the armrest. “Why do we wait? Why not attack, now?”
“That would be futile,” Haggar reminded him in a voice like smoke. “Once you enter the atmosphere the storm would seize your ship and destroy it. These are not fools, these people. They are not like the Arusians, who dive for their caves at the first whiff of danger. They have their defenses, and powerful ones at that.” She too regarded the small planet with a look much akin to the one in Lotor’s eyes. “Only the Blue Lion of Voltron can withstand the ice storms. My man has gone ahead of us to destroy that which controls the storms. Once he has done his work, we may pass freely to the planet and take what we will.”
Lotor ground his teeth. “When?” he demanded in a taught voice. “When?”
“Soon, soon, my lord…King.” Her lips curled around the word, as if she were tasting it and savoring some spice she alone detected. “He will not fail us. Soon.”
Intensity blazed across Lotor’s violet-tinted skin like a forest fire and he watched the view screen with blood-filled eyes.
Haggar smiled.
Go to Chapter Seven
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