by Corin Cain
This means they’re not going to be able to find us.
That’s what I wanted, isn’t it? I try to smile, but I can’t. I press hard on the accelerator and we blast forward, far exceeding the speeds I could reach with the Wayward Scythe.
Despite the speed, there are no g-forces to make my head lurch back against the seat. The Reaver is a marvel of alien technology, with inertial dampers that can turn dizzying speed into smooth sailing.
When we get wherever we’re going, I’ll be able to sell this stolen vessel and I’ll make enough to start a legitimate business that will sustain me for centuries to come.
The only drawback? I can’t plant roots anywhere. If I do, the Aurelians will find me. I know Aelon, Vinicus, and Iunia are going to search for me endlessly – for the rest of their thousands of years of life, if needs be. Even when I blot them out of my mind, I’ll always have a general sense that they’re in one specific direction – as they will with me. All they’ll need to do is keep moving towards my location. The closer they get, the clearer it will be to them where I am.
Even if it takes thousands of years, they’ll continue to hunt me.
But that’s okay. Better to be hunted than dead, which is what I’d have been in a hundred years if I hadn’t allowed myself to be Bonded to the Aurelians. No matter what downsides there are to the Bond, it will be worth it. I just have to learn how to deal with the wave of urges magnified and amplified by the Bond – including the one to turn this ship around and return to the arms of those three magnificent warriors.
I didn’t expect to want them as badly as I do. It isn’t just the Bond that draws me back towards them. In fact, the Bond almost feels… dormant – like it’s lying in wait, letting my own urges do its work for it.
And that’s most certainly happening. Every cell in my body is screaming to turn around – to return to The Instigator – and I know it’s me making that call. I can tell the difference between my own independent desires and the ones influenced by the Bond.
I suppose part of me will always belong to those three Aurelians now. Part of me will always wish I could be with them. Part of me will never cease wishing that I could change their very nature, and I’ll hate myself for not trying.
From the first moment I saw Captain Aelon, I knew I wanted him – and yet I hated him at the same time.
I just wish I could give him more peace than the sweaty hour we’d spent coupling together – the only time I’d ever sensed that burning, vengeful anger quiet inside him.
I check the HUD and the controls, and then call over my shoulder:
“Keep your eyes trained on space. I don’t expect anyone to test us, but we need to be ready.”
“Aye, Captain,” says Sawoot, more relaxed now that The Instigator is becoming smaller and smaller in our viewscreen.
We’re quiet as we fly. The adrenaline dump after that frenzied escape has made us all docile. Sawoot scans space with enough firepower at her fingertips to rip through anything that tests us – short of a warship like The Instigator – but she’s calm and silent as she does so.
In fact, not a word is said between the three of us for the next hour or so, as I pilot us to nowhere in particular. I’m just trying to put as much distance between us and the Aurelians as possible. The impulse engines are at full power, with only a fraction of the energy allocated to the shields and weapons batteries. If we get ambushed by surprise, a las-gun would slice through the weak shields and turn us to dust; but I’m not expecting anything in the darkness of empty space.
People forgot just how big space is. It’s easy for a woman to disappear into that gaping maw of emptiness. I don’t worry my crew with the knowledge that Captain Aelon and his battle-brothers will always have a general idea of where we’re going. Their muted auras are growing fainter with every mile of distance I place between us and them. If I didn’t have The Instigator marked on my maps, I wouldn’t even be able to pinpoint where they are on the HUD anymore.
That won’t stop them from coming after me as soon as they regain power.
They will come after me, right?
It’s silly to think Captain Aelon and his triad would let me go. I remember Iunia’s words. He told me that he’d thought I was brave and capable. Those didn’t just sound like the words a man says to coax a woman into bed. I heard truth in his voice. He respected me.
It felt real.
If the Aurelians don’t come after me, my problems will be solved – but, in some insane way, I’ll actually be hurt. I have to hope they give up on me, but I don’t want them to.
What is it they call that? When you have two contradictory notions that you maintain at the same time?
Cognitive dissonance?
Or love, as Sawoot once called it jokingly.
I suppose I can give my weaker instincts the edge this time. As much as I might logically pray for the triad not to pursue me, my romantic instincts win out. I know it’s impossible for them to let me go. I’m part of Aelon, Vinicus and Iunia’s minds now – lodged in there like a splinter.
Their location is growing fainter and fainter in my mind, but I can still feel their pain at losing their Fated Mate – and they’ll always feel my guilt at leaving them. Their grief is palpable, raw, and all-consuming.
They’ll come after me, and they’ll never stop trying to find me. I just have to get my crew far enough away to evade them...
…and I’ll have to get used to the pain from their auras.
And then, the moment I think it, the three of them suddenly wink out of my mind.
The Aurelians disappear – as if they’d never entered my consciousness in the first place.
I gasp. Something feels horribly wrong. My stomach suddenly clenches.
A surprise attack.
The Toads must have caught them off guard. When I disabled The Instigator, those Toads must have been lurking in the shadows – perhaps concealed in the gravity well of the moon, or beyond the distant asteroid field.
Gods! What if that’s true? What if the Toads saw The Instigator, after we’d temporarily crippled her, and attacked?
Aelon would have had no defenses. He’d have had no way of fighting off the Toads – and they’d have been able to turn The Instigator to dust as easily as you might blow a derelict hulk out of space.
My heart stops. Have I… Have I just killed the three men who wanted me so desperately?
All I’d wanted was my problems with the Bond to end – but I suppose you need to be extremely careful what you wish for.
Now, I suppose I’ve got my wish – although in a way I’d never, ever have wanted. Now, I suppose I’ll never have to worry about craving those three gorgeous warriors ever again. I won’t ever have to worry about the triad hunting me down and holding me captive. I won’t have to run from them anymore.
I’d been worried about the three aliens having a constant presence in my mind, a constant reminder that I didn’t choose them. It would have been like a leaky faucet, dripping their anguish into my consciousness throughout the day.
But now, instead, their absence will be the constant reminder – the brand burned into my soul that I was the reason for the deaths of Aelon, Vinicus, Iunia – and the rest of the crew of The Instigator.
Oh, Gods. I take a ragged breath. My guilt will be endless.
I practically murdered them. I might as well have!
I left The Instigator completely defenceless when I knew there was an enemy force hellbent on their destruction. I felt the grief of my triad, before they died. That grief wasn’t just at losing me. It was at being doomed by me.
My eyes grow wet as the evil of what I’ve just done sinks its hooks into my soul. It will never let go. I will never forgive myself for this.
Flashing lights blink in the cockpit. Our comms-link suddenly cuts out. I hadn’t been planning on messaging anyone, anyway - but it’s a strange and sinister coincidence.
Then, my heads-up display grows fuzzy – before fading to black.
<
br /> “Dammit! We picked up a faulty Reaver!” There’s always an undercurrent of fear in Theme’s voice. Some people are predators, some are prey – and it’s clear from his nature which of those Theme is.
“It’s not the Reaver,” Sawoot’s voice is dark and clear.
I see her meaning instantly.
At the very edge of my vision, I see a ship. There’s no tractor beam on me, but I’m piloting towards them like their vessel is pulling me toward it. My hands grip the controls hard.
It’s a Toad mothership.
The huge, green behemoth is an affront against all that is good. The Toad species is technically neutral – not at war with either the Human Alliance or Aurelian Empire – but wherever there is crime, corruption or evil, you’ll find the tendrils of a Toad faction involved.
When a Toad mothership appears on your radar, you flee. Those massive ships can raze an entire city from orbit. Hell, it is a flying city, filled with a crew of thousands with a single motivation – profit.
Profit at all costs – that’s all the Toad species have been interested in since they dragged themselves from the swamps and hammered space rockets together out of aluminum and circuit boards.
I narrow my eyes, unable to zoom in with the HUD down.
The hulking, green ship is terrifying enough – but hundreds of little dots are flittering around the mothership like flies around a gigantic turd.
Assault ships, defending their base.
Gods!
The Toads didn’t come back with a battalion, as I’d warned Aelon. They came back with an army.
“Holy shit. Tasha! What are you doing?” Sawoot’s voice is frantic. “Quick, turn! Left, right, anywhere! They’re going for the Aurelians. They’ll ignore us if they don’t pick us up on sensors!”
If.
That breaks me out of my trance.
The moment the Toad ships notice us, we’ll be dead. We’re in a Reaver and they didn’t block out communications for nothing.
It means the Aurelians are alive.
I breathe a huge sigh of relief.
Centuries ago, and millennia before that, the Toads and Aurelians were at war. In ancient times, they created obscene weapons of mass destruction called Planet Killers, which could obliterate whole worlds. In later generations, the weapons of war became for tactical. Old hulking warships like The Instigator served on the front lines for the Aurelian Empire, while the Toads invented devious tools including some Orb-powered technology that could actually block the Bond, just like they have ways of blocking comms-signals and disabling an HUD.
Think about it – how useful would a weapon be that could prevent the triads of Aurelians from telepathing each other, or sensing each other’s locations or emotions?
Regardless, that’s an explanation that fills me with both gratitude, and despair.
We’re flying towards our deaths – and yet, I’ve never been so grateful.
So, my triad are alive – but for how long? The Instigator will soon be engulfed by a green wave of Toad assault ships – even more than Aelon’s scheme could possibly defend against.
If I don’t warn them, they’ll all die – every Aurelian aboard The Instigator, all those warriors and Reavers on the surface of the moon, not to mention all the human miners on the surface of planet Tarrion.
The miners who hired Captain Aelon to defend them – but have now signed their death warrants with that allegiance. Those miners, sitting on rich ore deposits, could bear witness to the slaughter in an interstellar court – creating a diplomatic incident between the Toad factions and the Aurelian Empire…
…but only if they remain alive.
That’s why the Toads will slaughter them.
But regardless, this means the Aurelians are alive. That thought alone is hope.
Now, it’s my choice whether they stay that way.
If I let the three Aurelians die, all my problems will be over. A cold-hearted woman might take all the benefits of the Bond and leave her mates to die; but she’d be no less cold-blooded than a Toad if she did that.
A tough survivor might escape, leaving the crew and captain of The Instigator to their fate; satisfied with the thousands of years of life and the enhanced physicality the Bond has granted her. She’d let the three men face death, along with all the soldiers and miners unlucky enough to be aligned with them.
In the past, I’ve always thought of myself as that cold-hearted, tough survivor – but a moment earlier, I’d felt the guilt of being responsible for the death of Aelon, Vinicus and Iunia – not to mention the rest of the Aurelians on board The Instigator – and I could barely live with myself.
I know I can’t live with the decision now that I have the chance to choose differently.
But if I go back, nothing will change.
Grief grabs me anew.
Captain Aelon will never change. He’d captain The Instigator into battle against even a Toad Mothership, flanked by thousands of assault ships. The bloodlust is all he knows – and he’ll get what he’s wanted for all these decades: An honorable death, cremated by las-fire and buried in space.
“Captain?”
My dead silence is making Sawoot nervous. She can’t figure why I’m piloting closer and closer to the Toad fleet. My sensors and my ability to sense the Bond might have been cut off, but the sensors and readings of those Toad ships sure as hell haven’t been.
“I just need to get a little closer, so I can see their numbers.”
Theme coughs nervously. “I’d… I’d recommend against that, Captain. Strongly against that. They haven’t noticed us – yet. But, when they do, they’ll see a Reaver. An Aurelian Reaver.”
Sawoot nods. “A Reaver they’ll assume will warn Captain Aelon of their approach.”
My two crewmembers are making sense – but I’ve long-since abandoned the need to rely on logic.
“We’re going back.”
I can feel their eyes turn to me.
“Are you crazy? That bloodthirsty captain wanted to pick a fight with the Toads! Let him get what he wished for! If we go back, we won’t be able to do anything except be held captive and die alongside him!”
Suddenly, I remember the words Theme screamed back when this adventure started – when we were first being pursued by those Toad assault vessels.
“Are you crazy? We’ll be shredded by the next barrage.”
I’d just commanded him to divert all power from our shields to the engines, as the Toads chased us towards the moon of Tarrion. He’s protested, but followed my orders – and it had saved our lives.
That’s why I’m the captain, and he’s the technician.
I suddenly realize that it’s all a circle – life, I mean. Everything is the same, and everything is different, and it all revolves back to where it started.
I turn to Theme and meet his eyes. They’re wild – not quite human anymore, in his desperate panic.
“Theme,” I snap. “I trusted you to get us out of The Instigator. Now, you have to trust me. I can convince Aelon to turn away – I know I can. I’m his Bonded mate. He will change for me – but I need you to trust me right now. Can you do that?”
The lie in my voice stings. I’m killing Theme if my gamble fails. If Aelon is the man I think he is, I’ve just signed Theme’s death warrant as surely as if I put him on the Aurelian Kill List myself.
He gulps. I can see the tears forming in his eyes, but then he shakes his head and sets his jaw.
“Okay – I trust you, Captain.”
Fuck.
Be careful what you wish for, right?
Theme has his trust in me, and now I feel a new kind of guilt as I turn the Reaver around and power back towards The Instigator. I just chose my triad over my own crew. I’ll have to live with that guilt if it leads to Theme or Sawoot getting hurt – or worse.
I’m risking the two people most important to me for the chance to save my Bonded triad – and the worst part is that I don’t even know if Aelon can change
. In fact, I’m almost convinced he can’t…
But I have to try.
My eyes flick down to my HUD and comms-link readings. They’re both dead – and no matter how fast I pilot away from the Toad Mothership, I can’t seem to get enough distance to get those systems working again.
The Toad mothership behind us might be an ungainly beast, but it’s one of the few Orb-powered ships in the Toad fleet. The hulking, green vessel might fade from our vision but every time I think I’m making a hundred meters of distance between us and them, I’m still not rewarded by the communications array firing back up, or the HUD relighting.
The Toads must be diverting an unbelievable amount of power to their signal jammers and Bond disrupter as they approach The Instigator, knowing that the element of surprise will become ever more crucial with every second they remain undetected.
Gods – I totally judged the Toad strategy wrong. So, too, did Captain Aelon.
I’d thought they’d attack the mining camps to distract Aelon and force him to commit resources to defending the humans.
Instead, they’re just going to use brute force. They’re going to descend on The Instigator in unbelievable numbers – using overwhelming firepower to rip open The Instigator like she’s a tin can of beans. The Toads might not even bother with landing parties – since Aurelians are fearsome in hand-to-hand combat. Instead, they’ll just raze that ancient warship to dust and collect the near-indestructible Orbs as they float among the wreckage and frozen, mangled bodies.
Aelon won’t stand a chance, but even in the face of such overwhelming odds, he still won’t turn tail and run. I know the brutal man. I know he’s aching for his blaze of glory, and he’ll die before running; and take every member of his crew with him.
Not that they’d object. Vinicus will follow Aelon into hell itself. Iunia will swallow his pride and draw his Orb-Blade even if he knows such actions are akin to suicide.
The thrusters are at maximum velocity, and yet I can’t shake the Toads pursuing us. They might have faded from our vision in the distance, but their disrupters are still preventing me from warning the Aurelians, or giving us a third option of simply alerting them and fleeing.