Desert World Savages

by Lace, Lisa

  "Zywth!" said Tul. "We've been waiting for you!" His voice trembled.

  "What is all this?" Zywth stepped over the threshold and entered the room.

  Tracy caught sight of a powerful green man entering behind him. For a second, Tracy's heart lifted, thinking it was Rev. While his face bore some resemblance to Rev's, there were obvious differences. His nose was a little crooked, as if it had been broken and never set properly. He was also thinner. They were both the same shade of green, though. Probably a Kerdim, like Rev.

  "We found the captain like this," Tul stammered.

  Zywth stood over the body of the pirate captain. He glanced over at Ennhr’s cage. "It's a shame about the Jer'hym. I definitely could have found a use for him, possibly even a buyer. Well, get your men together. Tell them to pack what they need. We'll be leaving in thirty minutes."

  "Who says? I'm captain now," said Tul.

  Zywth bore down on Tul immediately and slapped him so hard he stumbled backwards. "I'm doing you a favor by allowing you to join my crew. Don't abuse my generosity. I can get disagreeable quickly if my good nature is unappreciated."

  Tul swallowed hard. "Yes, sir."

  The green man had been staring at Tracy the whole time. "And what's this?" he growled.

  "The tracker's mate," squeaked Tul.

  Bending towards Tracy, the green Kerdim drew in a deep breath. His expression was unreadable. Without warning, he hauled her to her feet and untied her ankles. He removed the bindings on her wrist, shaking his head. "You don't even know how to secure a prisoner properly. You're lucky she didn't kill you all,” he said over his shoulder.

  “Get dressed," he told Tracy roughly. "No one wants to see your sickly pink ass hanging out all over the place."

  "Go easy on the merchandise," said Zywth. "No marks."

  "Yes, sir," said the Kerdim.

  Tracy pulled on her shirt, pants, and sandals quickly, with everyone in the room watching her. When she caught the Kerdim's eye, he growled at her.

  "And you," Zywth said to Halc, "take me to the tracker scum. Now!"

  "Yes, sir," said Halc unhappily. He had grudgingly but quickly adjusted to the new chain of command.

  "Come along, whore," said the green man.

  Tracy shot him a nasty look. This man wasn't like Rev at all.

  “Make sure your people are aware of who's in charge now," Zywth said to Tul. He simply couldn't stop giving orders.

  Tul couldn't get out of the room fast enough.

  "Come on, Tev," said Zywth. "Stop worrying about the pink female. Let's get that tracker; he's the one that is worth a lot of money."

  Tev? Tracy's mind raced. Was this Rev's brother? What was he doing acting chummy with that nasty Zywth? And why was he calling her a whore? Something didn't make sense.

  Tev grabbed her arm with a jerk, and pulled her along. Halc led them through the corridors of the ship. At the end of the corridor, they walked single file down narrow metal stairs that led deeper into the bowels of the ship. Tev walked behind her. Tracy heard him sniffing and felt his hot breath at her neck. It creeped her out, but there was nothing she could do about it. As they walked through the ship, it grew darker and darker. Tracy found it difficult to make out any details around her and had no idea about her actual location in the spacecraft. Even if she escaped imprisonment, it would be hard for her to get out of there.

  It felt like it took forever to stop walking, but when they did, what she saw broke her heart.

  In the hold, Rev was held spread-eagled between thick chains that hung from the ceiling. His head lolled to the side.

  "Rev!" she cried.

  Tev marched up to Rev and smashed him in the gut with his fist. Rev opened his eyes, gasping at the blow.

  "The bounty on your head requires only that you’re alive," Tev spit. "They won’t care if you have any internal injuries."

  "No, leave him alone!" Tracy rushed forward and launched herself at Tev, smashing her fists into his back, but she only met hard muscle. Her blows were useless. He swung her around, and she struggled against him.

  "You want to defend him against me?" Tev laughed. He swung her around and gripped her arms tightly. He turned Tracy's head, forcing her to face Rev. "Look at him now. Your mate. Is he not pitiful?"

  Rage surged through Tracy, and she was about to let loose the one useful thing she’d learned in self-defense classes when she caught Rev's eye.

  He winked at her.

  Tracy's mind raced. She hoped that meant Rev had a plan. Was this terrible situation merely a facade, an act for show? Suddenly she felt like everyone was watching her. If it was an act, she was going to make it a good one.

  She squirmed out of Tev's grasp. To add to the deception, she swung wildly at him, connecting with his jaw. That would serve him right for calling her a whore.

  Tev's eyes widened in surprise, and then he laughed. "Feisty pink one."

  "My name is Tracy, you piece of filth."

  "Enough of this. No one cares what your name is," said Zywth. "Let's move the tracker to our ship. Then we can get out of here and collect the payment."

  Tev pushed Tracy towards the bulkhead. "Keep an eye on her." He moved to Rev and carefully loosened the restraints on his wrists. "I hope you've made peace with whatever deity you worship," he said with a scowl.

  "Screw you," said Rev.

  "That's what I thought you'd say," said Tev. To everyone's surprise, in a single motion, he put a laser pistol in Rev's hand, and he pulled out another one from a fold in his clothing.

  Zywth was complete unprepared for this turn of events. "What are you doing?" he shouted. He ran for cover, shooting randomly in Tev's direction at the same time.

  As red-hot streaks zipped around the hold, Rev and Tev moved in opposite directions, taking up positions behind some boxes of cargo. The brothers fired calmly and methodically. Although Zywth was growing frustrated and taking wild shots, neither group was gaining the advantage.

  Finally, Tracy took matters into her own hands. She raised her hands and shouted, "Hey!"

  Zywth turned his head and fired at her. Taking advantage of the distraction, the brothers finally hit Zywth with their shots, landing one streak of fire after another into his flesh. Zywth fell writhing on the deck. Rev and Tev swept their weapons around the hold, looking for any other threats. For the first time, Tracy noticed that Tul was conveniently absent.

  Tev clapped his hand on Rev's shoulder. "All you all right, brother?"

  "Better now that you're not hitting me. What's your plan?"

  "We're taking Zywth's ship and getting out of here."

  "Lead the way," said Rev to his brother.

  Next, Rev threw his arm around Tracy. "Are you harmed?"

  "I'm fine. But how did your brother end up on the exact same derelict we accidentally encountered?"

  Tev snorted. "We were looking for you. It was easy to convince Zywth to start hunting a tracker with a big bounty on his head. Looking at where you were coming from, and knowing that Rev was trying to find me, we could make a guess that you would head towards the outpost. Zywth was aware Kor was in the area with his little trap, and we told the pirate to let us know if a Kerdim showed up. Kor would never have the courage to collect the bounty himself."

  A low rumble filled the room. "Get down!" said Rev.

  When Tracy didn't react quickly enough, Rev pulled her down to the floor. Tracy looked up to see a crowd of armed men entering the hatch to the loading bay. Rev and Tev didn't even bother looking at each other. They drew their pistols and fired at the hatchway. The lights in the bay flickered out. All Tracy could see were the silhouettes of backlit men in the hatchway and red streaks of laser fire.

  "Hold your fire! Hold your fire!" shouted Halc.

  He rushed to the doorway with a body slung over his shoulders. It had to be Zywth. Was he still alive? Had Halc actually rushed in, picked up Zywth, and carried him out? Why bother?

  Halc made it safely to the door despite Rev and Tev
taking shots at him.

  Rev cursed. "Tev, look!"

  The men at the door were pulling the hatch closed. Tev looked back to the loading bay doors. "They're going to open the doors and eject us into space," said Tev.

  "We have to put on emergency suits!" said Rev.

  Tev scanned the walls and pointed to some lockers almost hidden behind some boxes. "There!"

  The three made a crazy rush for the lockers. Rev got there first and ripped them open. "They have suits here, and they seem to have been maintained. Let’s hope they fit us."

  He handed a suit each to Tracy and Tev. Immediately, both brothers pulled down the front of the suits. Tev held one out, and Rev stepped backward into it. Rev did the same for Tev. She was amazed at the ease and quickness with which they moved. Stepping backwards into a space suit looked so simple. When Rev held her suit open, she tried to follow their example. It must have been their training that made it look easy, because for her it was a difficult task.

  Behind them came the sounds of hydraulic doors moving. Tracy felt a tug at her body. She looked around frantically and saw the loading bay doors open. Her eyes grew wide, and she started moving more quickly to get her space suit sealed up.

  Rev pointed to her feet. "There are magnetic soles at the bottom of the suit. You'll have a few minutes to secure yourself before the vacuum of space overcomes the magnetic pull against the bulkhead."

  "We'll have to use tethers to secure ourselves and still be able to move anywhere," said Tev.

  After Rev zipped his suit shut and put on a helmet, he looked through the lockers to see if there were any ropes. "Here we go!" he said, tossing some line to Tev.

  They worked together to secure everyone, but it was a race against time as the doors to space were slowly opening and the atmosphere around them was being sucked out. As they attached tethers to each other, everything in the room that was not secured began to fly around them. Crates, tools, and garbage filled the air as the bay doors opened wide to the blackness of space.

  The brothers moved together, trying to get closer to the bulkhead at the left of the doors. Tracy followed at a maddeningly slow pace until she felt her feet lift off the ground.

  "Rev!" she yelled.

  There was no answer. He couldn't hear her.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  She was floating. The only thing that prevented her from drifting out into space was a thin line attaching her to Rev.

  The brothers were at the bulkhead now, gripping tightly to handholds with one hand, while they tried to clip the other end of the line to a loop protruding from the metal wall. They fought against the drag of Tracy’s mass, as she had nothing to hold on to and was pulling them away from the wall. Finally, Rev gave a final pull with all his strength and was able to clip the tether to the wall. Exhausted, they let go of the wall and tumbled into space, the line attaching them to each other and to the ship floating behind them.

  Unlike Tracy's first time in a space suit, after the initial rush out of the spacecraft everything seemed to move very slowly. Crates and debris from the hold floated by them serenely. It would all have been quite relaxing except the only thing preventing her from floating in space for the rest of her life was a thin rope attached to an alien.

  Rev drew on the tether to bring Tracy closer to him. He tapped his helmet, and he motioned for her to do the same. When she hit the helmet with her hand, an illuminated display appeared in front of her eyes, and a speaker near her ear squawked to life, enabling communications between the three.

  Rev spoke first. "How are you doing?" he said.

  "I'm still alive," she said, with as much enthusiasm as she could muster.

  "Follow Tev. We are going to go to Zywth's ship and try to enter it from the outside."

  "We can do that?"

  "We're going to have to. Unfortunately, we don't have many options. Ready? Let's go."

  Tracy had no choice but to move with the brothers. She was tethered between them. The metal hull of the Jer’hym ship stretched as far as her eyes could see. How far would they have to go before they reached the other ship?

  Rev pulled up on the tether and moved past her and Tev. Putting his feet forward, his gravity boots made contact with the ship's hull, and he became anchored again. Up close against the ship's surface, Tracy saw that the hull was dotted with handholds. Rev clipped the end of his tether to one. Tracy realized that this was how people would be able to secure themselves when they were working on the outside of the ship. Rev had told her earlier that micrometeorites were a big danger in space travel, ripping their way through a ship's exterior. Tracy imagined it would be necessary to do repairs on the hull often. She hoped they wouldn't pass through a meteorite storm while they were trapped outside the ship.

  After Rev confirmed that his attachment was secure, he motioned to Tev, who released the link of the tether snaking through the landing bay doors. Now they floated free again as Rev tugged them in his direction. Tev sailed over Rev's head, and holding his feet out, he connected with the hull of the ship. He then connected his tether to another handhold.

  Leapfrog, Tracy thought. We're playing a very slow game of leapfrog.

  The journey was long. As she was pulled along by the brothers back and forth, Tracy’s view alternated between the broad hull of the ship and the black of space. Looking at the stars from out there was not the same as viewing them from Earth. There was no familiar arrangement of constellations and no atmosphere to filter their light.

  The array seemed endless—there were more stars spread out before her than she could ever see from Earth. They dotted the endless expanse of space in a riot of blues, yellows, and even some reds. It was like a pointillist painting with even bolder colors. It was an awe-inspiring sight, and if they weren't in such a dire predicament, Tracy would likely have appreciated the view more. But she was getting tired, and she was only concerned with getting to the spacecraft.

  She wasn't sure how they'd get inside once they arrived, but the guys seemed to have things well in hand. She was quite impressed by the way they worked together. Of course, they had known each other all their lives. It was like they were partners and always would be. They had established a regular rhythm of latching, unlatching, and moving. The three were making a slow, but steady, pace across the face of the merchant ship.

  Tracy had lost track of who was in the lead position, and with the space suits, she couldn't tell who was who. One of them fumbled latching the tether to a handhold, and the other prematurely unhitched the other end. They had been working like robots but trying to move faster and faster.

  Naked terror washed over Tracy as they free floated above the ship, and she imagined that they'd float away into empty space. A handhold flashed in front of her eyes, and she grabbed it with one, then two gloved hands. Her feet now pointed to the stars, while her nose pointed to the hull of the ship. She held on tight, bracing herself. Her shoulders shook as the mass of the two men pulled against her. She hung on tightly, and the brothers bounced back, heading towards the spaceship again.

  Tracy watched as one brother passed behind her, then to her side, and grabbed another handhold. He latched the tether again, securing them to the ship. Tracy relaxed with a sigh and let go of her hold. Her arms burned with exertion. From that point, they moved slowly and more carefully.

  According to Tracy's helmet display, an hour passed before they encountered the shape of another ship sticking up from the hull. A few more leapfrog moves and they were in the crevice between the ships. The size of the ships was relative; from this position, the smaller ship loomed over their heads.

  One of the brothers pushed himself off the merchant ship and floated to the smaller transport, sailing very slowly through the vacuum of space. He found a handhold and clipped the rope to it. He hauled on the line, and she and the other brother joined him on the face of the transport.

  Tracy was normally a good judge of size and distance. For her job on Earth, she had to be, but she was having
trouble thinking of a comparison for the size of the smaller ship. She guessed it was about the size of the NASA space shuttles. That made it about half the size of a commercial passenger plane at home.

  One of the brothers, and here she guessed it was Tev, moved them towards a small hatch at the nose of the ship. He pushed aside a panel and revealed a keypad. Tracy couldn't see the symbols, but she watched him punch in a code. The small hatch opened. The brother disappeared into the hatch, and Tracy was pulled towards the hatch. Up to this point, Tracy had done surprisingly well for an Earth girl. She hadn’t allowed the unfamiliarity of the spacewalk to unsettle her, but when she floated inside the ship, she became disoriented and queasy.

  Tev was standing upside down; his feet were firmly planted on the decking, hauling in the tether hand over hand. He looked up at her and smiled, his expression so similar to Rev's and yet a bit different. When she entered the ship, Tev grabbed her suit and flipped her so she was pointing upside down too. If Tracy had had anything in her stomach, she'd have lost her cookies right there. As it was, she only felt like she had to vomit. Tracy decided that a life in space was definitely not glamorous.

  Rev followed after them, and Tev closed the hatch. Tracy looked around and saw they were in the cockpit. Two seats sat close to a bank of lighted panels with a joystick at each seat. Behind the pilot chairs was a row of passenger seats.

  Both brothers tore off their helmets, and Rev drew Tev into a brotherly hug. "We made it!" he yelled.

  "It won't be worth anything if we don't get away from here," said Tev.

  "Then let's go. Tracy, strap in."

  Tracy settled into one of the other chairs, and after removing her helmet, she secured the seat belts around her. Instead of a single strap, on this ship there were two that came over her shoulders, securing at a latch in the center of her chest. The brothers sat in the pilots' chairs and started working through the preflight sequence, speaking to each other so fast Tracy couldn't catch what they were saying.