Adverse Effects

by Alicia Nordwell

  He buried his face against me, nodding. “I’m scared.” I winced when he nuzzled a sore spot on my neck.

  From the looks of the cage we were in, and my chains, he had every right to be afraid. “You said ‘they didn’t care’ before. Who are they?”

  I could barely hear his hum when he said, “The Vlrsessiums.”

  Fury filled me. Seral had sworn the bio net around the planet would keep them out, but someone must have let them through. Either that, or when the first group came they weren’t the only ones. How could I have been so fucking stupid? Just because we’d been in a city, supposedly protected by the guards and the Caeorleians’ technology, I’d let my own guard down.

  I’d unlocked the windows. I’d failed to get the guard’s attention when they tranquilized me. “I’m sorry.” My throat was tight. “I’m so sorry.”

  Yaseke leaned back and looked up at me. I stared at him. His face was pale, his eyes raw, and a deep-colored mark marred the side of his forehead. “What for?”

  “The Vlrsessiums got in through the windows I opened. We were taken because of my fuckup.” I slumped against the wall when I told him the truth. How angry would he be? Would he yell at me? Blame me for this? Well, he wouldn’t have to do the last one. I blamed myself enough for both of us. “I’m sorry. I’ll get us out of this, I swear. I don’t know how, but I won’t let anyone hurt you.” I prayed to nameless and faceless gods in that moment; entities I’d never entreated for my own safety I’d beg to protect my tziu. I prayed I would be able to keep my promise.

  He hushed me, lifting my face with both of his hands. “I know you will. But I don’t blame you, Dade. Do you think a small lock on our windows would have stopped them? Vlrsessiums landed on Caeorleia, crept into the capital city, and captured both of us without alerting the guards. And then they got us off the planet.”

  That was what the vibration around us was. I’d marked it immediately. Engines. I’d heard them for years, but I would never forget the teeth-grindingly painful sound of being in space.

  “Any sign of Buphet? Did he do this?”

  “I don’t know. I heard someone talking to the Vlrsessiums outside their ship and I saw some shapes, but I couldn’t make them out.”

  We hadn’t questioned everyone, unwilling to tip our hand. Seral had ordered Buphet’s closest allies watched, but he must have had others besides Aleru. I closed my eyes. Now we were paying the price for our misjudgment. I hoped Nicklaus and Ryker were okay.

  “Have you seen anyone else?”

  Yaseke shook his head. I leaned my head back against the hard wall, shifting to get more comfortable.

  “You look tired. Rest, I’ll watch over you.”

  “You slept for so long. I was too scared.” His fingers touched the sore spot on my neck. “You kept choking.”

  “The paralytic must have affected my neck. I once got hit by a stinger from this nasty bug on a mission that did that. I was fine then. I’ll be fine now.” I stroked his back as best I could with my arms chained. “I’ve been in worse situations than this. We’ll get out of this one too.”

  Yaseke nodded against my shoulder, his body already growing heavier.

  The worst part of being a captive again was the knowledge that as much as I wanted to protect Yaseke, I was very limited in what I could actually do. The Vlrsessiums had shown a surprising intelligence when they chained me. While Yaseke slept I searched every square inch of our cell. I couldn’t even see seams where the ceiling met the walls. There was no place for a door in the walls that I could see.

  Then an entire wall section of the cell disappeared in front of me. Yaseke gasped when I slid him off my lap against the wall at our backs. I crouched in front of him, glaring at the ugly-ass aliens who entered our cell.

  Four of them. Two stayed back, holding projectile weapons on us. One held a few items in his hands, and the other glared down at us.

  The one carrying stuff threw it at me. I let it hit me in the chest, then fall to the ground. I wasn’t going to let them distract me into being one second less ready to attack. My hands were the only weapons I had, so I’d have to wait for them to get in close.

  “What do you want? Where are you taking us?” I demanded.

  “Prewagwn wehen eya yea xahnen. Xahnen!” The Vlrsessium glaring at us spat out the last word as if it were poison. His mouth was full of jagged yellow teeth that he bared at me. He wasn’t using the subvocal hum the Caeorleians used, but actual words. Too bad I didn’t understand it. His snarls needed no translation.

  “Do you speak Standard?” Several races I’d encountered over the years had hurled insults in a common language.

  The Vlrsessium snarled, his red hair standing out around his black face, his eyes glowing. I glared at the other one in our cell when he moved, dividing my attention between them. His almost lipless mouth gaped wide as he stepped forward several paces until he was just outside my reach.

  I loosed a wicked hum, an instinctive threatening response that I couldn’t suppress in reply to his growls as I crowded Yaseke closer to the wall. I glared at one of the aliens, hate and rage consuming me. The Vlrsessium who’d spoken shot backward, shaking his head. The two at the edges of the room raised their weapons.

  The fourth was the one I was most interested in. He had fallen to his… knees, for lack of a better word, though they appeared like double joints where I had only one. Green goo leaked from holes around his neck. He slumped to the floor.

  The other three let out a piercing howl in unison.

  I’d hurt them. They all rushed toward the body on the ground. If we were to get out of this, we had to take advantage of the distraction somehow.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “What did you do?” Yaseke stared at the man convulsing on the ground.

  “I don’t know, but we have to get out of this cell, Yaseke, or we’re dead. They’ll kill you.” Dade’s voice was harsh, filled with rage. One of the Vlrsessiums looked up, his eyes glowing, his ebony skin ashen. He snarled.

  Dade put one hand back and held Yaseke tight to his body. “I won’t let them.” He was shaking. His voice was distorted, vibrating.

  “Isit.” Yaseke shivered from the sound, the raw fury. One of the guards with a weapon took a step toward them. Letting him go, Dade took a step forward too, staring into the Vlrsessium’s glowing eyes.

  “You like losing part of your hive mind? Feel good? What are you going to do about it?” The alien might not have understood Dade, but his tone was clearly a taunt. It didn’t matter if Dade was chained to the wall—he was threatening the Vlrsessium group, and the hunter knew it.

  Dade spat in the direction of the dying member of their group. The guard roared, leaping forward. Dade didn’t flinch. He stared hard at the Vlrsessium, opened his mouth, and that same hum came out, vicious, low, a deadly vibration.

  It felled the hunter just as it had the other member of their quartet. The guard slammed into the ground just as Dade fell to his knees, grabbing his own head. The other two howled, their backs bowed, their heads thrown back. The sound was like the baying of their hunting call. They would kill them, driven insane by the loss of two of their minds, Yaseke just knew it.

  He knew he had to move. He had to get a weapon. Pushing away from the wall, Yaseke darted toward the convulsing guard, wishing he’d fallen on his back. He had to yank on the strap of the weapon and shove at the Vlrsessium to get it out from under his body. The alien was so hot his skin scorched Yaseke’s hand.

  The metal cylinder was nothing like he’d seen before. He tried to remember how the guards had held it. Yaseke put one hand on the top over a thick plate and pointed it at the other two aliens.

  Nothing happened.

  “Fuck!” His heart pounding, his hands icy-cold and shaking, Yaseke tried again. “What am I doing wrong?”

  “Put it in his hands,” Dade croaked.

  “What?”

  “Use his hands to shoot.”

  That… oh, that was disgustin
g. Yaseke had to do it, though. He tugged the Vlrsessium’s arm, wincing as it flopped over bonelessly. He slapped it down on the plate on top of the cylinder, and it began to flash red.

  Yaseke pointed it at the two remaining hunters. In that moment, he was not a healer, he was a male joined in besedad protecting his isit.

  Yaseke depressed the buttons on the side. Blinding radiance flashed in the room as a wide beam came from the end of the weapon, bathing the last two Vlrsessiums in a glowing light.

  They froze. They didn’t even appear that they were breathing. Yaseke dropped the weapon, and the light shut off.

  “Oh God,” Yaseke moaned. “I killed them.” He couldn’t stop shaking.

  “No,” Dade croaked. “They’re stunned, frozen.”

  That was what they’d done to him. He’d been aware but unable to move. But he’d not stayed that way. If the Vlrsessiums weren’t dead, then they were still dangerous. What was he going to do?

  “Get the keys or whatever it is.”

  Yaseke spun around. “Keys?” He blinked. The chains. Of course. “It should just be a bar with a special sensor. But what if they… wake up?”

  “Can you drag that ugly fucker over to me?” The alien was big, stacked with muscles upon muscles.

  “I don’t know,” Yaseke said slowly.

  “Try,” Dade urged him. He crawled as far as the chain would let him go. “It’s not far, just a few steps. Then I can cover you while you look for the key-bar thing.”

  Yaseke’s skin crawled at the thought of touching the dead alien again, but he knew he had to do what Dade said. His isit still needed his help. He grunted as he bent over and picked up the thick arm with one hand.

  “Yaseke.”

  He stood up. “What?”

  “Give me the weapon first. Then you can use both hands.” Dade held out one hand.

  Yaseke blinked. That would make moving the Vlrsessium easier. He gave the tube to Dade, who began turning it, examining every inch, even though his hands were shaking. Yaseke hurried back to the Vlrsessium. It took all his strength, and he had to move him in a series of jerks. Finally he was close enough to Dade for him to reach the alien.

  Skin crawling, Yaseke longed to wipe his hands clean, but he was still unclothed. He was not going to wipe them on the very thing that had dirtied them.

  Dade wrapped the Vlrsessium’s hand over the plate. “These buttons?” he asked. Yaseke nodded. Dade pressed them down, and the white light beamed over the frozen aliens. “Just in case.”

  Yaseke’s mouth was dry, and he trembled as he approached the two slavers still kneeling over the downed one between them. They were lucky they were already prisoners of the Vlrsessiums, in a way. If they’d been in hunting mode when the first one went down…. Yaseke shuddered.

  They would’ve been slaughtered. Those nasty teeth weren’t just for show. The Vlrsessiums weren’t wearing much, thankfully, and Yaseke found a black bar about the length of his palm in a small pouch hanging off the side of one of the aliens’ ropy belts. He managed to search them only by never looking into the eyes of the frozen aliens.

  “This is it,” he said.

  “Okay, bring it here.” Dade’s gaze never left the aliens, not even when the chains fell off. “Here, take this.” Dade handed him the weapon braced in the Vlrsessium’s hand. Yaseke swallowed hard but trained it on the stunned Vlrsessiums. His eyes widened when he saw Dade take the first one’s head in his hands, holding on to the jutting jaw over the thick neck.

  The sickening cracks and pops when he twisted the alien’s head around were loud in the silent cell. Yaseke winced, swallowing repeatedly to force down the rising bile. He took shallow breaths, trying to stay in control.

  The other alien began to blink. “Dade! It’s wearing off.” Yaseke couldn’t fire at the Vlrsessium again with Dade that close. His isit jumped and landed behind the last alien, then snapped his neck quickly and efficiently. Neither of the Vlrsessiums fell, their bodies still locked rigid. Dade was panting, his hands shaking.

  “Damn, that was hard. Their necks are thick, or maybe it was the weapon’s freezing them rigid. Still, I’ve never known a humanoid alien species to live once I’ve broken their necks. These fuckers are dead.” There was a dark satisfaction in his voice as he shoved them both out of the way.

  Yaseke couldn’t hold it in anymore. He dropped the weapon and fell to his knees. One hand braced against the smooth wall, he retched, bile burning his throat and mouth as his stomach heaved.

  “Tziu!” Dade leapt to his side. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I know you’re not used to this level of violence. I’m sorry, but I was a soldier… I can’t change that. I wish I could be someone else for you, someone gentle without all the blood on their hands that has been spilled on mine.”

  Shaking his head, Yaseke wiped at his mouth. “Not your fault,” he croaked. “Without your past we’d still be prisoners. I’d be a captive of these Vlrsessiums, then held by whoever they sold me to. I was always the target. If you hadn’t joined with me, I’d have been alone.”

  He looked up at Dade, hoping his isit could see the truth and sincerity in his eyes.

  “You saved me. I don’t care what things you might regret in your past, how many you’ve killed or why, because in the end all that brought you to me. I need you, just as you are. Not someone else, or someone better. No one could be better than you.”

  Dade pulled Yaseke into his arms, and Yaseke collapsed gratefully against his body. “Let’s get out of here.” He picked up the weapon Yaseke had dropped.

  “I only saw these four Vlrsessiums,” Yaseke said. “And the ship is too small to hold a second hunting group. They’re highly territorial.”

  “You never know,” Dade said. He looked down the corridor cautiously. “There could be other species on board. Stay close, but stay behind me.”

  Systematically they worked their way through the ship, but they didn’t encounter anyone. Yaseke was shivering when they were done. Dade took him back to the holding area, where he grabbed several large swathes of fabric he’d seen piled in a clear bin.

  “Here, wrap up in this.” Dade put a length around his own hips and then drew the wide material up and over his chest and tucked it in the material that looped around his waist. “It’ll cover you up somewhat.” He looked at the crates. “We need to check these and the other cells. I saw two behind ours. Then we’ll go see about changing the heading on this ship.”

  “You think you can fly it?” Yaseke asked as he fumbled with his fabric. It was soft and smelled good, like herbs. He fingered an edge, wondering what it was made of and which planet the Vlrsessiums had stolen it from.

  “I might.” Reluctantly he followed Dade back to the small hall past their cell. Beside the blank squares Yaseke assumed were doors were small screens. They didn’t respond to their touch.

  “Do you think we need…?” He glanced back at the guards lying dead in the cell. The paralytic had worn off, and the two aliens with broken necks were now lying limp on the ground.

  Dade grimaced. “Here, hold this. I think one of us should be armed at all times.”

  Yaseke reluctantly agreed, nodding as he took the weapon Dade found and fit his fingers in the firing mechanism. It was clearly Caeorleian. Clothing, weapons, slaves… someone was doing a lot of trade with the Vlrsessiums. With a lot of grunting, Dade dragged the alien who had seemed to be in charge out of the cell and down the hall to the doors at the end.

  “Okay,” he said, panting to catch his breath. “I’ve got him against the wall here. I think you can just reach up with his arm and put his palm on this scanner. It looks low enough.”

  Yaseke shook his head. “Me? Why me? I don’t want to touch him!” He looked away, aware he was acting cowardly, but he didn’t want to touch the Vlrsessium—dead or not.

  Dade pulled Yaseke into his arms gently and stroked his back through the soft fabric draped over him. “I know. I’m sorry I have to ask you to do this, but we need the
se cells open. What if there is someone trapped in there? We can’t leave them—they could die.

  “There’s also a chance of whoever is in there being hostile, or they might think we’re associated with the Vlrsessiums. We have to be prepared to fire on them, and it would better if I were the one to do that.”

  Yaseke buried his head against Dade’s chest. He closed his eyes, breathing in the scent of his isit and desperately seeking comfort from their shared warmth. Dade’s heartbeat was a steady thump in his ear, a far cry from Yaseke’s, which was pounding madly. Finally, he looked up. Dade stared down at him, his expression calm and patient.

  “Okay.” He took a few deep breaths. He handed Dade their weapon, then stepped over to the Vlrsessium. He wrinkled his nose. “These guys stink worse dead than alive. I didn’t think it was possible.”

  Dade snorted. “Remind me to tell you about this one time I fell into the remnants of a meagasir hatching nest.” His lip curled. “It took weeks to decontaminate.”

  “Another time,” Yaseke said. He waited for Dade to take up a solid stance just to the left of the door, his body partially protected by the edge of the wall. “Ready?”

  “Ready.”

  He slapped the Vlrsessium’s hand against the wall plate. The solid wall dissolved. Dade didn’t move his head as he searched every inch of the room with his gaze. Yaseke gasped when he darted inside the cell.

  “Dade!”

  “It’s empty.” Dade stepped out into the hall.

  Yaseke’s heart was racing. “Don’t do that!” he snapped.

  Dade touched his cheek. “I’m sorry I scared you. I had to check to make sure no one was hiding in there somewhere.”

  Yaseke took a deep breath. “Okay. One more.” He had to tug on the Vlrsessium, his arm a dead weight, to get his palm to reach the other pad on the other side of the wall. Dade took up his position. Yaseke’s hands shook so bad it was hard for him to hold the alien’s heavy arm.

  “Ready?”