by Layla Nash
They had to run, and fast. Those Xaravians would be back on their ship and hunting their lost crewmate in the time it took them to run across the dock, and the Memphis needed to be long gone before their radar could track them down. It was bad enough the Xaravians had gotten a look at the Memphis and Gemma, but that was the nature of the game. She sagged back in the pilot’s chair but didn’t let herself relax. There wasn’t time.
The sooner they turned the target over to the Tyboli, the better.
Chapter 4
Gemma
Even two hours later, after Wyzak had been secured in the brig, Gemma still vibrated with tension and nerves. Things never went exactly to plan with her and Milo, but they didn’t usually go so badly wrong. Milo joined her in the front of the ship and strapped himself in with a dark look at her; he had a knot on his forehead and a bruise on his jaw from where he’d gone flying in the escape from the spaceport.
It wasn’t Gemma’s fault the anchor stuck and she’d had to rev the engines to brute force free them from the port, but she still felt a little bad. “You could just use the reju-pod, you know.”
“I figured I’d make you feel guilty a little longer,” he said.
“It isn’t working.” Even though maybe it was, a little. Gemma checked the autopilot and adjusted the navigation. “Did you signal the Tyboli? We need to turn this guy over as soon as we can.”
“They left us a transport route where they could be hailed. I put it in the nav system before we landed at the port.” Milo frowned as he fiddled with the controls, brushing her hand aside, though he winced as his forehead pulled at the welt.
Gemma rolled her eyes and unstrapped her harness so she could get up and stretch. “Fine. I’ll go make sure you actually secured the brig this time.”
“That happened once,” Milo called after her as she headed through the ship.
Gemma waved over her shoulder at him and muttered, “Yeah, but I was the one who got my ass kicked.”
Her steps slowed as she approached the brig—a former cabin they’d transformed into a high-security jail cell. Did she really want to see Wyzak? She’d never been a coward or particularly bothered by taking bounties to whoever paid enough money, but the Xaravian... She tried to push aside the feeling that they should have released him and let the Tyboli do their own dirty work.
She’d barely had a few minutes of conversation with the Xaravian. It wasn’t like they were friends or even acquaintances. He’d bought her a drink. That was it.
And he’d flirted, and there’d been something in his eyes when he looked at her... He hadn’t glanced at her arm once—like he hadn’t even seen it. He definitely hadn’t commented on it, which was strange. Most guys seemed to think it was a fair topic of conversation, since she couldn’t cover the damn thing, and it was the first thing they brought up. Since it was the last thing she wanted to talk about, those conversations never went anywhere.
Gemma bit back irritation and tapped on the viewing screen to check the occupant of the brig. Milo had rolled the Xaravian onto the single bunk, where the prisoner remained. Wyzak didn’t stir. She held her breath, waiting for some sign that the pirate pretended to be unconscious, but he didn’t crack his eyes open or twitch his boots or anything. Either he was a talented actor, or he was really tranq’d out.
Which made sense, since she’d had to dose him twice to actually knock him out.
She retrieved a set of laser shackles from the wall and keyed open the door to the brig. Milo knew better and should have put the Xaravian in restraints before he left him alone in the brig, but with the rush out of the spaceport... It was sloppy, and she hated sloppy, but she could still fix things.
She clenched her jaw. Milo was getting increasingly lazy. They couldn’t afford to be lazy, not when they chased after more and more dangerous targets. Gemma didn’t want to work alone, since she was more effective as part of a team, but she was starting to think that a bounty-hunting trio was the way to go. That way someone else could double-check Milo’s work instead of her.
Gemma stood over the unconscious Xaravian for a long time, waiting for him to spring up and tackle her, but only a faint snore whistled through his nose and gave any indication he even breathed. She studied his profile as she debated whether to bind his arms or legs. He looked like a brute—most of the Xaravians did, after all—but in the bar, he’d been... considerate. Smiling and a little flirtatious.
Granted, he’d spent the stars-only-knew how many weeks on a pirate ship full of males, but at least he mostly acted like a gentleman and not a pirate.
She muttered under her breath about all the ridiculous thoughts chasing through her brain and dragged off his boots. The smell made her nose burn and practically curled the pin-straight hair on her head, but very few marks made a run for it in their bare feet. The shackles plus taking his boots would be a deterrent to a speedy escape. She slid the laser shackles around his ankles and engaged them, making sure they were set and locked before stepping back.
Gemma leaned against the wall opposite the cot, watching the Xaravian. She should have gone back to the pilot’s seat to make sure Milo didn’t accidentally disengage the autopilot and launch them off on some random trajectory. Or she should have gone back to her quarters to get some rest, or up to the mess to get a quick meal, or even to the loading bay to investigate why the anchors hadn’t disengaged when they should have. There were any number of things she could have done and should have done and normally would have done, but...
She stood there and watched the Xaravian breathe.
Her conscience twinged again. The bounty listing hadn’t said what the Xaravian crew did to deserve a Tyboli bounty on their heads, but the amount was substantial enough it must have been retribution for something truly terrible. Successfully turning over the captain, Faros, or the second-in-command—the guy sleeping in front of her—meant she and Milo could take the rest of the year off from hunting bounties if they hadn’t wanted to upgrade the Memphis.
She gnawed on her remaining thumb, self-conscious about her left arm enough that she tucked it behind her against the wall, and worried over why she worried. It was too late to get rid of Wyzak or drop him back at the spaceport. The rest of his crew would no doubt be hunting them. Xaravians weren’t known for their mercy. The best hope the Memphis had to survive to take another bounty was to deliver Wyzak to the Tyboli, get the bounty, and beef up the shields and weapons. And then run.
The collar of his traditional robes slipped a little as he stirred, groaning, and Gemma went still. She fingered the stunner in her belt, prepared to knock his ass out again, but the Xaravian lapsed back into silence. She peeked at the broad expanse of his chest and the layered scales revealed by the change in his position. He looked like a damn wall of muscle. He’d be a great bounty hunter if he weren’t already a pirate.
Not that there was much of a difference between pirates and bounty hunters, really.
It was all semantics. And most of the time, people didn’t care about the quibbling. Whatever they were called, Gemma and her type all fell under the heading of “bad news.”
She’d thought a while ago of leaving bounty hunting behind, but she’d frozen up with no idea of what she’d actually do for a job. No one would hire her for legitimate security work, not with her background and arm, and she wasn’t really trained for anything else. She could have jumped a transporter or generation ship to go terraform a new planet, but she didn’t know shit about farming. Gemma glanced down at her left arm and the sleek metal and electronics that tried to replace what she’d lost. Uninhabited planets didn’t have the tech necessary to keep her working, and a one-armed farmer probably wasn’t worth much.
Gemma pushed upright and headed for the door, even more irritated with herself. She didn’t have time to moon over the prisoner and debate the futures that might have been. She was who she was and she did what she did. There wasn’t any use dreaming about something else, something more. No one wanted someone who was par
t machine. True androids were in high demand, but the useless patched-together freaks like her... They tended to malfunction or not function at all. Everyone knew it.
She’d reached the door when the Xaravian groaned more, then silenced, then started cursing. Loudly.
Gemma hesitated, knowing she should have slipped into the hall and locked him in until the Tyboli arrived to take him away. But she looked back and caught the gleaming silver eyes glaring at her from the handsome face, all of his scales gone a brilliant scarlet-orange. Her feet didn’t move.
So that was what rage looked like.
It felt like a challenge and a punishment, to stand there and confront him. Like it made it okay that she would eventually turn him over to the Tyboli. She wasn’t going to run like a coward and hide away from his accusations. Gemma squared her shoulders and arched an imperious eyebrow at him. “Well?”
The taut muscles of his stomach and chest flexed as he sat up and his eyes narrowed, and Gemma started to reconsider having only put one set of shackles on him. Surely three or four would have been smarter.
Chapter 5
Wyzak
Light splintered inside his skull and shattered into bolts of agony behind his eyes and through his head. Wyzak wanted to crawl into a dark hole until his head stopped aching and his neck no longer felt like someone had tried to choke him to death, but for some reason, it felt like he needed to move, to run.
And when he forced his eyes open and took in the surroundings, he realized precisely why he needed to run.
The urge to run turned into the urge to fight, and he clenched his fists until some of the seething fury subsided. He didn’t roar and rip apart his robes, even though it was tempting, because he needed to keep his thoughts in order.
The Earther from the bar, that mysterious female, lingered near the door of what had to be some kind of cell. She gave him a look like he was something she’d just scraped off her boot and said, “Well?” like he was the one who owed her an explanation instead of the other way around.
Wyzak growled and sat up, clenching and unclenching his fists as if that might relieve the tension that crackled through him. “Where am I?”
“A brig.” She made him a mocking bow. “On my ship. Be welcome, be at ease.”
“Release me.” He ground out the order as if there were a chance she’d obey, and for a second, it almost looked like she considered it. A curious tension drifted across her expression, then she shook herself and leaned back against the wall—deliberately putting more distance between them.
He filed the strange behavior away to mull over later. Wyzak swung his legs over the side of the uncomfortable cot where he lay and considered the laser shackles that restricted the movement of his feet. She’d taken off his boots, too. “What do you want?”
She shrugged one shoulder, unimpressed. “What every girl wants—money.”
“I can double whatever you’re getting paid.” He had no doubt that Faros would manage it, despite the need to use those credits for other things.
“No, you can’t.” And damn him if she sounded a touch regretful, resigned to the fact that he wouldn’t be able to purchase his freedom.
The glint of light on her fiery hair distracted him, and his pained thoughts struggled to come up with her name. “Gemma,” he said, finally, when the syllables floated to the surface of his brain. The strange syllables stuck in his mind despite the drugs she’d used to knock him out, and the strange way she’d offered her hand in greeting in the bar. It had been almost sweet.
Her head tilted as she watched him, and a bit of a smirk pulled at her mouth. “Yeah?”
Wyzak growled his irritation. “Who’s paying you?”
“How many enemies do you have?”
It seemed like an odd question, although it answered at least one of his forthcoming queries. It had to be one of the bounties on his head. Maybe he’d just been a target of opportunity there on the spaceport, or maybe they’d sought out the Sraibur on purpose. She didn’t look inclined to tell him the truth, so maybe he’d never know. “Who’s paying you?”
She hesitated, looking at him for a long time, then said quietly, “You’ll find out soon enough.”
She turned away, ready to leave, and Wyzak lurched to his feet. He almost immediately pitched to the floor again, but he managed to steady himself and balance despite the shackles around his ankles. The lasers tightened as he tried to move.
Gemma dropped into a half-crouch, ready to fight, and lifted her arms to guard her face. Her reflexes impressed him, especially for an Earther and someone who looked too young to have spent any amount of time in a military or mercenary company. One of her arms glittered and distracted him. He frowned as he studied it—one of the fancy alloy limbs, meant to replace something lost that couldn’t be rejuvenated with the medical pods—which meant she lost the arm in some backwater where they didn’t have real medical care, or something even worse had happened.
Lights flickered within the metal, as if the damn thing carried messages, and the fingers curled and uncurled as if they had minds of their own. Maybe they did.
His mouth went dry as he imagined the scenario that led a relatively young Earther to having an arm like that. He frowned; surely a bounty hunter with the resources to fly a ship like the one he was on also had the resources to purchase a more lifelike limb to replace what had to have been a prototype or temporary stopgap.
When he finally looked at her face, her expression had gone as frigid as a desert winter on Xarav after the suns went down. A blizzard brewed in her hazel eyes. “Looked your fill?”
The words snapped through the air in a whip-crack that sent him back a step. Whatever sympathy might have been in her had frozen over the moment she caught him studying the arm. Wyzak struggled through the muddle of his thoughts to understand why her attitude had changed so quickly. “It’s—”
She held the arm up so fast that he took another step back and nearly tripped on the shackles, and knew immediately it had been a terrible mistake to move away. Pain zipped through her eyes and was replaced by... nothing. A complete lack of emotion or caring or anything at all.
The metal hand curled into a fist right in front of him. Wyzak didn’t take his attention off her face, suddenly uneasy with the way she’d reacted. Did she fear her own arm? Had someone forced her to get the alloy limb instead of a re-grown one? Was it one of the early models that had software bugs and wreaked havoc while the owner slept?
Gemma clenched her jaw until her entire face went red, but she didn’t speak. Wyzak didn’t wait for her to come up with something; he didn’t like that look on her face. Even though she was his jailer and meant to turn him over to some unknown enemy, he still didn’t want her to think he feared her or the mechanical arm. “Design it yourself?”
Gemma wasn’t amused. She opened the door and slipped through, shutting and locking it without another word.
Wyzak frowned at the door for a long time before he limped back to sit on the cot. He had to figure out a way to escape or at least get out of the brig. The ship might not be big enough to have escape pods, but he could damn well signal the Sraibur and take command of whatever ship he was on until the rest of his crew came to rescue him. He could definitely overpower Gemma, and chances were he could deal with whatever partner or crew she worked with as well. He rubbed his jaw and tried to massage the aches from his joints.
Whatever she’d given him in the bar had hit him like a ton of sand blown in from the desert. He felt like he’d aged a few decades in a matter of minutes. He slowly started to stretch and test each of his joints, wanting to warm up his muscles in case the girl came back and he had a chance to overpower her.
The fury settled cold around his hearts. Regardless of the promise in her eyes when they flirted in the bar, and ignoring the stricken look on her face when he’d stepped back from her arm, the girl wanted to sell him to one of his enemies. She didn’t have the remorse to regret tricking him, lying to him, drugging him, a
nd kidnapping him. He couldn’t afford to let sympathy creep in when he thought about her. She meant the death of him.
He spent a little time destroying the laser shackles, though they were fairly good quality and resisted his brute force for longer than he expected. Wyzak prowled the inside of the brig like the cage it was, just waiting for an opportunity to go free. He’d have his chance for revenge against her, of that he was certain, although he was less convinced of what he’d do with that opportunity when he had it. Part of him still wanted to kiss her and drag her to a comfortable bed so he could convince her to submit to his attention. She’d claimed she wanted an adventure. He would be perfectly happy to devise such an adventure for her. Wyzak growled and stretched more as his thoughts circled the lusty lessons he would teach her, all of which included a great deal of discipline. He just needed the right opportunity to get free.
Chapter 6
Wyzak
The next time the door opened, there were two of them there—the girl and a male Earther Wyzak didn’t recognize. He bared his teeth at the other Earther and ignored the girl as she dropped a bowl of protein slurry on the floor near her feet, then kicked it in his direction. Wyzak didn’t look away from the male. “Who the fuck are you?”
The kid—for he had the half-formed and gangly look of a young male of any species, still searching for his strength and power—held a stunner aimed in Wyzak’s direction and didn’t let his arm waver. “The fuck difference does it make to you?”
“I’d like to know who I need to hunt down and kill when I get free from here,” Wyzak said, and almost made it sound friendly.
The male gripped Gemma’s shoulder and drew her back toward the hall. “Not your concern, pirate. Just stay calm and we’ll all be rid of each other in a little while.”