Discovered (A Galactic Battle Series Book 2)

by L H Whitlock

  He reached out and snagged the zipper that dangled on her lower back, the tip of it nestled at the top of her tail bone. His lips dried and he slowly pulled it up. The sound of the material closing nearly did him in. He should block the door and take her, show her what emotion could really feel like, somehow convince her to stay with him. She held her hair out of the way, giving Brock a good look at the slope of her spine.

  “Thank you,” she murmured, then licked her lips. And with that Brock’s willpower dissolved. He caught her around her slim hips, pressed her to him, and crushed his lips to hers.

  She gasped as he slipped his tongue between her lips, savoring her sweet taste. His mouth moved with a will of its own and he cursed the fact he could only explore the curve of her back with one hand when it was clearly a two-handed job. He broke the kiss only because he needed air, and found that she was just as much in need of oxygen as he was. Her green eyes were dark, her cheeks pink, and her lips swollen. He was about to go in for another taste, but Bixom re-entered the hut.

  “Oh good, I was beginning to think you two were never going to get up. Let us get a move on. We have a lot of ground to cover.”

  “Right-oh!” Alyssa said with a nervous squeak, and hopped past Brock, nearly tripping on the uneven floor. As she passed Bixom in the threshold, Bixom turned to watch her then looked at Brock with a raised brow.

  “Shut the fuck up,” Brock hissed.

  Bixom laughed and leaned his hip against the doorway. “You are always in a mood, are you not?”

  “I wouldn’t be in a mood if you minded your own damn business.” Brock’s fist clenched, he should teach the young Hilian how to knock first.

  Bixom raised his arms and patted the air. “I am minding my own business. I was just saying, we need to build this shelter or we will be sleeping outside.”

  “Right. Fine. Let’s get a move on.”

  29

  Alyssa walked across another makeshift bridge and around a hut in search of supplies. Bixom steered a small floating platform and Brock walked a few paces behind her. One of the locals had told them that there was a dump at the edge of town and that they could choose any open area they wanted to start building.

  Alyssa swallowed the swell of emotion that threatened to overtake her. Her legs were wobbly and heat pooled in intimate areas. Releasing a breath, she tried to focus on her task—building a shelter—but she couldn’t help but listen intently to Brock’s every movement behind her.

  What was she to do now? She was banished by her people and she didn’t want to burden Brock either, but she couldn’t bear the thought of being away from him. He was the only person who truly understood her. Who let her be her.

  Catching a glimpse of a floating limb, she dropped to her knees and hefted the waterlogged arm onto the bridge. She studied it for a moment but couldn’t imagine the rusty, bulky arm on Brock, so she tossed it back and watched it sink beneath the dark water. Sure, they needed to build a shelter, but she needed to get Brock an arm. That was her priority. She had caused him so much trouble, the least she could do was get him an arm.

  Brock forwent the next thin metal bridge and jumped the gap between the houses. He landed on the edge and wobbled backward, his arm twisting to try and keep him in balance. Then he toppled into the water. Bixom bellowed with laughter from the float and Alyssa scowled at him.

  Brock pulled himself onto the float. He grabbed Bixom by the neck of his slender suit and tossed the smaller man into the water. A smile tugged at her lips. Men.

  “Come on! This is disgusting!” Bixom protested.

  “Maybe you shoulda thought about that before you laughed at me. Don’t laugh at a man while he’s down, he’ll eventually get back up.”

  “Whatever. You still have not recovered from only having one arm.”

  “Yeah, well, you think I’m a tough dude now, just wait till I have both my arms.”

  Alyssa peeked over her shoulder as Brock gave a flex of his arm before helping Bixom back onto the raft.

  “Not if your girlfriend keeps rejecting them. What was wrong with the last one? It looked old and rusty. I thought it was fitting.”

  “Are all you Hilians annoying?”

  “Only the privileged few.” Bixom mock punched Brock in the stomach and Brock gave him a responding punch.

  “Hey, Alyssa, don’t get too far ahead,” Brock called out.

  Alyssa stalled and waited for their raft to catch up, and when it did she hopped on. It looked like the junk yard was still quite a ways away.

  “So,” Brock said after several moments of silence. “I wanted to tell you guys about this earlier, but we haven’t had much alone time. Looks like the coast is clear now. Anyway, I went into the control room back when we were on the ship and found some reports and plans for Harvests. I didn’t know the Developers were Harvesting for Synthnic. I thought that was just Golan.”

  Bixom narrowed his gray eyes. “Harvesting, huh? What would they need Synthnic for?”

  Alyssa gnawed on her bottom lip. Harvesting planets? “They used to get Synthnic from Ulrick, who stole it from Golan’s tanks. It was used to keep Aray together and power the magnetic core, and they use it to power some weapons, like the Mass Beam from the warship.”

  Brock scoffed. “Oh, that fucking thing. So, why would they be Harvesting now? Aray is gone and they certainly don’t need to be Harvesting fifteen planets just to run some weapons.”

  Alyssa watched a trickle of sweat lose itself in Brock’s beard. He scratched at it constantly.

  “Maybe they are planning an attack?” Bixom suggested.

  “An attack on what?”

  “Who knows? They do not seem to keep their word or anything, so what is to say they are not planning on blowing up the entire solar system?”

  “They wouldn’t do that,” Alyssa cut in.

  “Oh? And why is that? Seems probable to me,” Bixom said.

  “Well, not the solar system at least. They live here, they are very proud, they wouldn’t destroy their system. Others, maybe, but not theirs.”

  “Why do they like it here so much? Their damn star is about to explode.”

  “What?” The float jostled as Bixom jumped to his feet.

  “You mean Vilnor? It would take hundreds of thousands of years for it to implode,” Alyssa said.

  “That’s not what the data I saw said. It’s extremely unstable and progressing rapidly.”

  “Still, even if it is rapid, we have tens of thousands of years to get the hell out of here.” Bixom sighed heavily and sat on the lip of the side, nearly tumbling into the water again.

  “Unfortunately not, the thing could honestly blow at any moment. And I don’t mean a universe’s ‘moment’ but a literal moment.”

  Bixom dropped his face into his hands. “Well, that is just lovely.”

  “What I can’t figure out is how and why it’s progressing so rapidly. It’s not natural.”

  “Nothing about this place is.”

  “We just need to figure out how to get out of here sooner rather than later.”

  Alyssa touched her finger to her lips in thought as she listened to the two men. Get out of here. She would like that. It was cold, and wet, and stuffy, and moldy, and she hated it. And the idea of seeing other worlds excited her.

  “We can make a ship,” she said.

  “A ship? I doubt there are working ships down here,” Brock said.

  “Maybe not, but they aren’t that complicated to make. And we have an entire junkyard to work with. The hardest part will be finding an engine that can get us out of here. I doubt we can make one that can get into orbit—unless I get lucky and find some really good supplies—but I bet I can make something that will get us to the surface. Then we can steal a ship.”

  Bixom laughed. “Well, look at you. One day hanging around the likes of us and you are already a criminal.”

  Alyssa placed her hands on her hips and glared at Bixom, who winked back playfully.

  Brock
nodded. “We need to find a way to hide the ship from these people though.”

  Alyssa chewed on her lip. “We can create a hut and build the rocket on the inside. We just won’t make the roof very strong so we can fly out.”

  Bixom shrugged. “The lady has a good plan.”

  30

  Sweat poured down the sides of Brock’s face and his back, somehow finding its way inside the tight jumpsuit. He glanced at Bixom, who looked about as miserable as he imagined he looked. Alyssa just looked hot. Smoking hot as she threw her head back and shook out her long blue-black hair. She seemed to have the same ability as Gloria. Sweat seemed to do nothing to her except make her hotter. A bead trickled down the side of her face and she brushed it off with the tip of her finger. Damn. He licked his lips as he watched another dribble slip beneath the top of the jumpsuit.

  He hefted a slab of metal up and stumbled as he stepped over the pile of floating rubble. Bixom waited with the raft and helped Brock load it. The floating pile of trash seemed held together only due to the natural tide, and the junk just piled together in a corner between three large metal pillars. Brock could only guess at their purpose, but judging by the sheer size he imagined they supported a portion of the city above. Lights were still strung overhead, but they weren’t nearly as dense as they were above the cluster of huts.

  Brock carefully lowered the slab onto the raft, and Bixom used a long pole to help maneuver the raft and its cargo to the building site at least a quarter mile away. It didn’t seem like a long trip, but the work was exhausting.

  Bixom would drop off the slab and then come back for the next load. It would take all three of them to put the hut together, but they had agreed that it would be easier to collect the supplies first. Alyssa was currently focused on finding the mechanical parts she would need for the ship. He wasn’t worried about looking suspicious. The huts seemed to be designed with anything that fit together, ranging from old electrical items to discarded limbs and scrap metal. If someone questioned them on their choices, that would be his argument.

  “Ahh!” Alyssa screeched.

  Brock spun around as Alyssa fell back over a pile of metal, the items in her arms flying and rolling down the pile of junk.

  “It’s another one of those things!”

  Brock pulled out a gun he had found in the rubbish and raced over to Alyssa. The creature was crouched low. Its slimy, slippery body was covered in black spikes and its teeth were long and purple. It stood only about a foot tall and two feet long, with six legs and three flat tails.

  He aimed and shot. The gun jammed. “Motherfucker,” Brock mumbled. He raced forward, kicking the animal. It flew, landed on its side, rolled over, and scurried at Bock with an angry hiss.

  Brock was about to kick it again when it launched at him. Brock dropped the gun and caught it just before it collided with his face. He stumbled backward. His feet tangled in some wire and he fell, landing hard on his side. The creature yipped and bit his arm. Thankfully the slender suit had a built in armor or he would have lost his only arm!

  Before the creature could strike again, Alyssa slammed a metal arm down on it over and over again until dark purple blood oozed from its slimy body and it lay limp in the garbage.

  “Are you okay?” she gasped.

  Brock stared up at her, too shocked to reply. She looked absolutely fierce, yet she still held that look of innocence in her eyes. He hadn’t taken her as the violent or protective sort, yet she had jumped to his aid.

  “Uh,” he finally responded. “Yeah. Good thing I still have this slender suit,” he said with a slight laugh.

  Alyssa nodded and held out a hand. He gladly accepted and untangled his legs from the wire. Alyssa held up the appendage she had beaten the creature to death with and studied him for a moment before tossing it to the side.

  Brock chuckled. He didn’t know why she was so picky. He would be happy with any arm at this point.

  “Bixom is coming back. We should get the last load for the night pulled together,” Alyssa said.

  Brock nodded and hoisted another slab of metal over his head to make his way to the edge of the garbage pile.

  He dropped it as he saw the dim outline of Bixom’s raft slowly bobbing in the water toward them. Alyssa joined him with an assortment of limbs and added them to her pile. Brock raised an eyebrow at her.

  Alyssa shrugged. “I found some good options. The ones we can’t use I can take the mechanical systems out. They should help me build some of the controls for the ship.

  Brock smiled and brushed a smudge of dirt from her cheek. He was a mechanic himself, but he didn’t think he could compete with Alyssa’s skill.

  Bixom pulled the ship into the rubble as much as possible and they loaded the ship with the metal. Each picked a corner to keep the craft balanced.

  “Will this day ever end?” Bixom mumbled as he began pushing the raft back.

  “Almost, we just have to get the walls up so that we can begin working on the ship tonight. I don’t want to delay.”

  “What time is it anyway?”

  Brock shrugged. With there being no natural light, no real tide, and no working RAB, it was impossible to tell how long they had been at it. They could have been working for hours or nearly a day.

  “I’m starving,” Alyssa said and pressed a palm to her flat stomach.

  “Oh, someone dropped off a box of supplies. Water and those damn meal bars. You know, the ones that taste like chalk.”

  Brock groaned along with his stomach. What he wouldn’t do for some bitko.

  31

  Alyssa stared at the makeshift hut and bit her lip. It didn’t look so bad compared to the others, but it didn’t seem like it would hold together if a strong wind passed by. Luckily for them, there was no wind down here. Or was it unlucky, as she could really use a refreshing gust of air.

  Brock and Bixom put the slabs of metal together, sometimes using netting or wire to hold it together and sometimes welding. It depended on how close it was to the top. They wanted that to be weak so that they didn’t damage the ship too much when they flew out. The hardest part of escaping would be knowing which way to fly out. They would have to go through the entire town and try to find the way they came in. It didn’t seem like there was a clear shot in the direction of the junk yard.

  They had decided to build the hut between two existing ones rather than at the edge of town. That had caused a huge debate. Brock wanted to build it closer to the junk yard so they had privacy and easy access, but Bixom insisted that it would be less suspicious if they built one in town, right under everyone’s noses. To Brock’s displeasure, Alyssa had sided with Bixom. Most people didn’t bother them other than a few curious glances as they passed.

  Alyssa opened her meal bar and chewed on it as she studied the control panels in front of her. None worked, but she bet she could break them down to make a full working unit. She had the workings for the engine inside the hut already, which was the piece that would give them away, if someone saw it.

  “All right, that is enough for today. I am beat,” Bixom said, stretching his arms above his head. Alyssa had to agree. She ached all the way to her bones.

  “I second that,” Brock said with a groan. He placed his hands on his lower back and arched.

  Alyssa walked across the platform and entered the hut. They had placed a curtain down the middle for extra privacy and to split the area into two rooms. It was also useful to be able to close the curtain and work hidden from prying eyes.

  Bixom drew the curtain closed. “I am feeling a bit restless. I will take first shift. I cannot shake this feeling of being watched.”

  Alyssa frowned. She had been thinking the same thing. Ever since that weird eye in the wall, she couldn’t get the image out of her head and swore that she kept seeing eyes everywhere. Floating in the water and wedged into the platforms and walls.

  Brock gave him a lazy wave and turned to face Alyssa. “You tired?”

  Alyssa nodded. “Yeah
. Sorry, all I could find were a few blankets and stuff. Maybe we’ll be given better blankets and bedding once they see that the hut is up.”

  “I’m so tired I don’t even care. Can you help me out of this? I can’t stand being in this suit another minute. It’s so fucking hot.”

  Alyssa unzipped the suit, exposing Brock’s broad back. Goosebumps blossomed over the dark brown skin as the humid air wafted over him. She reached behind and undid her own suit as Brock worked to take his off. A brief moment of shyness crept into her mind, but Brock had seen her in her undergarments many times, what was once more? Especially if she would be a little cooler and not so wet. She hung her suit on a piece of metal hanging from the wall.

  She avoided looking at Brock, but could still feel her skin heating with the thought of him standing behind her in nothing but his boxers. Instead she distracted herself by rummaging through the box that had contained the water and meal bar rations. The people down here were no freer than those above. The difference was that these people had to ration out of necessity because there weren’t many supplies that made their way down here. And because they lived in fear instead of banding together and taking what they deserved, and what was fair.

  She pulled out the cleaning spray with a relieved sigh. Pulling herself to her feet, she spun around and showed Brock her find with a triumphant smile, knowing that he would be just as delighted. He only raised a bushy black eyebrow.

  “It’s hydro spray,” she clarified.

  “Hydro spray?”

  “Yeah, you spray it on clothes and your body and you are cleaned.”

  “You people don’t take baths?”

  “A bath?”

  “Like stand under running water or soak in a tub?”

  “Oh…” Alyssa bit the inside of her cheek. “That does sound nice. The Developers would never do that though, that would be an indulgence. We just spray ourselves with this and it does the job.”