And then it kicked in. He felt himself roll into an invisible slipstream, his emotions sliding farther and farther away until nothing was left but an eerie confidence like nothing he had ever felt. He would complete the bounty and meet up with his mates. Everything else could wait. He had found out that Shandin hadn’t been killed—he was very much alive—and with his crew he knew he could find him later.
“Going somewhere?”
Reht froze in place. Black-tipped razors rested delicately against his chest as Diawn’s arms wrapped around him from behind. “You weren’t going to leave me again, were you?”
She kissed his ear before nibbling the edge of the lobe.
Reht swallowed hard as he carefully peeled her razorcutter fingers back from his chest. “Sweetheart...”
He turned around and knew why she hadn’t left him to die. He had seen the same look in her eyes when he first asked her join his crew. Beneath the layers of noxious contempt was the same young girl that craved only one thing, and he was the only person to have ever given it to her.
Although Reht knew he could never be what she wanted, he did care for her. There was something about Diawn he could never entirely disentangle himself from, and it was that same muddied feeling that kept him from killing her when he should have back on the Wraith.
Diawn led him to her quarters, and before he knew it, she had him pressed up against the wall. Still nursing the injuries she had inflicted, he could barely find the strength to breathe as she ran her hands down his chest and up his inner thighs.
“You’re mine.”
“Yes, baby, yes,” he said through a clenched jaw as she licked the lacerations on his stomach. He tried to move her away from his face, but she pressed her lips against his battered cheekbone before sliding her tongue into his mouth. He shuddered at the rawness of both the pain and pleasure as she pushed him down onto her bed.
Her eyes narrowed as she straddled him, running her razorcutter fingers lightly across his skin.
With his need throbbing in his loins, Reht’s pain faded to a mere backdrop as he wrestled her down onto her stomach. She bucked against him, but he gripped her around the neck, choking her until she submitted to him. He wrestled with his pants as he bit down on her shoulder, drawing blood as his incisors sank into her salty flesh.
She screamed for him as his momentum built with the speed of his thrusts, but the same fire that had sparked him to life suddenly dulled, and he couldn’t focus. Something was missing, something he couldn’t quite place.
The arch of her neck, the sound of her escalating breath as her three breasts bounced on her chest, the sweet scent of her perfume, the warm wetness between her thighs—it should have been enough to get him off, but it wasn’t. There was an unpalatable shallowness to it that he had never felt before, even after all the nameless women he had been with.
Angered, Reht squeezed her hands until she cried out in pain, and her resistance and anguish gave him the release he needed. But like before, it was muted, a numbness rather than a peak, and he rolled off her in dissatisfaction.
With one quick motion Diawn was back on top of him, the coldness in her eyes all too familiar. Her razorcutter fingers clicked at the joints as the tips grazed his cheek. “Where is she?”
It took a moment for Reht to realize who she meant. The exact situation was difficult to recall, as if he had been drunk or stoned, but the bitter aftertaste of their fight lingered. Triel, the only woman he had ever truly loved, had only been using him for what she needed and split when it was done. The Alliance was more important to her, as was her quest to save the displaced telepaths. There was no room for him in her life, and his feelings for her—once so strong they were almost painful—seemed to have flamed out the moment she chose her duties over him.
He closed his eyes. “Dead.”
When he opened his eyes she was still poised on top of him, ready to strike.
Not knowing why, he lashed out at her, striking her in the chest with the palm of his hand. She careened backward, racking her head against the support beam on the opposite wall. He jumped on top of her and raised his hand again to finish the job, but as her head rolled limply to one side, Diawn’s face changed to that of the Healer’s.
Reht screamed and stumbled backwards. Cold sweat broke across his brow as he held himself up against the bedpost.
“Starfox?” he whispered.
But when Diawn opened her eyes, he saw that she wasn’t Triel.
My love, help me—
The Healer’s voice, her sweet smell, was upon him, and Reht fell to his knees.
“What the chak is happening to me?” he said, digging his nails into his head.
“You always knew how to treat a lady,” Diawn said. She righted herself against the wall, wiping blood from the back of her head. “Sorry I tried to kill you.”
“What the chak was that gorsh-shit?” Reht said.
Diawn, still dazed, stumbled to her feet. “You threw me out. Thought I’d give you a taste of what I’d been through.”
“How’d I end up here?” Reht asked as he watched her lace up her bodice.
The ragged scar across her abdomen looked angry and red, as if it had never quite healed. It could have been an injury from a difficult client, but his gut told him otherwise. He only played on the surface of the black market, but he’d seen enough to guess how she might have acquired such a scar. Forced pregnancy, implantation and organ harvesting, or worse—she had been hitting the inner circuits, subjecting herself to the transactions that left a body soulless.
She wiped the blood from her mouth, smearing her lipstick. “My ship was ambushed by the Alliance. I had to take the lifecruiser and dump my cargo. And for some reason,” she said, wrapping her arms around his waist, “I took you with me.”
Revolted but unresisting, he ran his fingers down her face, cupping her chin and pressing her lips to his. He kissed her fiercely, biting her lip until she broke free. Before he knew it, razorcutter fingers ran neatly along his jugular.
“Careful, soldier,” she whispered.
“Why the hell are you dealing with Deadskins? What cash is in that?”
At the flash of uncertainty in her eyes he pulled her closer, her triple breasts warm against his skin. Diawn didn’t seem to relax, but she offered him more information than he thought.
“I don’t ask questions when I get paid. Seems someone’s hungry for their flesh. Pays better than any job we ran, and nobody gives a rat’s assino what happens to a Lurchin in unregulated territory.”
Lurchin. After the rise of the human rights movement, he had only heard that term in underground bars and labor camps or the unregulated outerworlds. It was the most hateful word used in any language, conceived by the unfortunate Sentients who had made first contact with the human refugees and suffered the host of diseases mankind brought to the Homeworlds. The only roughly equivalent word in Common was cancer.
“Who’s your Joe?”
Diawn’s face soured. “No Joe. This job is real. Organized.”
He knew what she meant. This wasn’t a low-level thug running some back-alley scam. This was a person with resources, someone with enough financial backing to hire Shandin as his middleman.
“Military? Come on, Di, you wouldn’t fall for that gorsh-shit.”
Diawn pressed all twelve nails into the thick of his neck. “You ask too many questions. I’m still not sure if I want to keep you...or kill you.”
Reht smiled. “You can’t kill me.”
Blood beaded at the tips of her nails. “You sure about that?”
He kept his smile as she withdrew, her eyes trained on his every movement.
Diawn typed in a command string into the door console. “I have business to take care of. I’ll be back in an hour. Wait here for me.”
He assumed she was going to meet one of Shandin’s thugs to collect the front money for the next run. He wanted to follow her, get a feel for the operation, but she would never trust him enough t
o let him accompany her.
“I love you, Reht,” she said, her back to him as she paused halfway out the door. “I always have.”
He rushed the door, but it clamped shut before he had a chance. Frustrated, he tapped his fist against the lock panel and muttered under his breath, careful not to be overheard as Diawn and her crew exited the starcraft. She intended to keep him hostage in her quarters, but he wasn’t going to wait around for her next mood swing.
“I know her better than this,” Reht muttered to himself, cracking his knuckles.
He looked around the room. It was the same mess Diawn used to make on the Wraith, meaning that he could possibly find something of use. He kicked her piles of clothing aside, sifting through the assortment of belt buckles, boots, and other accessories until he unearthed a nightstand next to the bed. Inside was the usual array of female clutter he had never understood but also a few familiar artifacts of their relationship—an old, faded picture of the two of them on Mor’Ceye VII, an open can of RedFly, and an empty bottle of his cologne. Buried underneath was her latest addition: his com and his chews.
“Thank the Gods,” he said, popping the chews under his gums.
Reht crouched to the ground, cleared off a space, and pressed his ear to the floor. The engines were off, and he couldn’t sense any other vibrations through the floor. As far as he knew, the path was clear.
He made his way back to the door and inspected the controls. The locking panel wasn’t anything he hadn’t cracked before, but he knew that Diawn was too sly to overlook something like that. When he crossed the wires and the door lifted, he paused before stepping through, eyeing the corridor for any hidden cameras or traps, but there was nothing. He even found an open weapons locker at the end of the hallway with a live Cobra II double-action pistol for the taking and a stash of passable counterfeit currency.
Reht chuckled, jamming the cold steel and the cash down the front of his pants as he made for the emergency hatch.
“He’adege!”
The voice had come from behind one of the control stalls at the far end of the corridor. Reht glanced around—the entire crew had docked, and the coast was clear. He looked back at the emergency hatch, but the cry came again.
“He’adege!” the voice pleaded.
The voice was feminine, young, thickly accented.
“Chak,” he mumbled as he raced down the corridor.
A control stall was a thermoregulated holding cell used by dog-soldiers and other privateers to hold precious cargo, typically narcotics and temperature-controlled chemicals. But when Reht flipped the view-portal, his eyes met with a dark-skinned beauty he had only seen in dreams.
“Holy Mukal.”
“He’adege,” the girl sobbed. He didn’t know her language, but he could easily infer the meaning.
Without thinking he released the door lock, and the young girl spilled into his arms. As she gasped for breath, he cradled her in his arms, completely stunned. Her skin was smooth, unblemished ebony except for the freckles scattered across the bridge of her nose. Her eyes were bluer than the deepest part of the ocean, mesmerizing him with their iridescent shine. She was no older than sixteen, and her hair, curly and smoother than silk, fell to the small of her back. By the tribal markings on her neck and shoulder, he guessed that her uncut hair symbolized her youth and virginity.
“Marrese,” she said, touching his face. Her smile was the brightest white, her teeth perfectly even. Brightly-colored strands of beads spangled her neck, arms, feet, legs—even her hair. Reht guessed she must have been royalty, some off-worlder abducted by Diawn, to be traded or sold to the highest bidder on the flesh auctions.
And then it hit him. This girl was perfect, something that a scumbag like Ash wouldn’t be able to resist. Even if he didn’t have as much as he needed on Diawn, he would have her—a flawless, virginal beauty, pure as snow and easily devoured—to smooth over his transaction with the bounty master. Then he could settle the bounty, reconnect with his mates and find Shandin.
“Come with me, love—I’ll help you. We’ll both get out of here, okay? What’s your name?”
She nodded, speaking in another tongue.
“Do you speak Common?”
She stared back with shining blue eyes. Reht looked away, fearing she might see what he was scheming. He fumbled with the bandages on his hands, swallowing the seed of guilt taking root in his chest. He had to do it. For his himself, his crew, the natives of Elia—but most of all, for his parents, their dead bodies before his eyes like a hologram, their pain burned into the flesh of his hands.
“Come with me,” he said, taking her hand and motioning to the emergency hatch.
She resisted at first, face contorted with fear. He noted the cuts and abrasions encircling her ankles and thighs; Diawn had not been kind to her cargo.
Reht pointed to the lacerations on his stomach and the bruises on his face. “I understand. Please, trust me. I’ll keep you safe.”
“Femi,” she whispered, bowing her head.
“Femi?”
She nodded, keeping her eyes on the ground.
He guessed it must have been her name. “Reht Jagger. Captain Reht Jagger, that is, of the Wraith.”
She looked at him and then straight through him, the dark blue of her eyes sucking him down like the deep cold of ocean trenches. Slowly, she put her hand in his.
He tugged her along, stopping beside the nav computer relay to swipe the motherboard’s signature chip. Without it she’d be flying blind, which would buy him some time, and he’d also be able to track her most recent stops.
“Now,” he said, throwing back the emergency hatch. “Where the hell are we?”
The neon lights and din of the bustling city were there to greet him, as was the familiar night sky.
Reht laughed at his fortune. “Never thought I’d be so glad to be here.”
He reached down and helped Femi through the hatch.
“Welcome to Aeternyx,” he said, kissing her on the cheek. Her skin was sweet against his lips. “Get ready for a good time.”
UNSURE OF WHERE TO go, Jetta jumped to a remote site outside the Narrus cluster. After anchoring their site, she unclipped and made her way back to the aft compartment.
“Hey,” Jetta said, touching the Healer’s shoulder, “are you okay?”
Triel mumbled something and rolled her head to the side. She looked up at Jetta, blue eyes pleading. “Take me home.”
“Home?”
But Jetta felt what she meant. It was a yearning to go back to a familiar place, one that was safe and happy and filled with the warmth of people she loved.
“Algar is dangerous,” Jetta said.
“Answers... to help us,” Triel said, her eyes closing again as she drifted off.
Jetta didn’t try to rouse her. The Healer’s thoughts indicated that she had made the same considerations. Algar was extremely volatile, given the looters and radical factions that fought for the planet’s resources, but it held the secrets of the inter- and intra-worlds. Could a Solitary Prodgy survive alone in the Starways? Was there a way to restore her? Could she save her tribespeople still trapped inside the Motti’s weapon? Or pull Jahx out of psionic limbo?
And what was the true story of Rion the Abomination? How did Jetta and her siblings fit in with Prodgy myth? It would be a way for her to corroborate or denounce Victor’s theories about the origin of her power, and possibly give her leverage against his manipulations.
Victor.
Jetta squeezed her eyes shut and ground her knuckles into the support structure of the starcraft. The pain was all that could drown out his voice. Her attraction for him was a disquieting mixture of disgust and admiration, hatred and empathy. He was both familiar and unwelcome, a dark current more powerful than her in which she hungered to submerge herself.
Jetta touched Triel’s arm, reminding herself of her objective, but then quickly pulled back. The Healer’s skin was still cool and gray, but that wasn’t what
made her retract her hand. It was something else—a deeper fear that she wasn’t ready to admit, even to herself.
The onboard computer beeped at her, alerting her to the ship’s low fuel cells. Jetta searched the starcharts for the nearest refueling station and found an outpost close to their site. She had never actually traveled in this region before, and she knew that she had to pick their stop sites carefully. Military was typically unwelcome in this sector, and anyone of human descent, however remote, had it even worse.
As she navigated to the outpost, her thoughts drifted to Jaeia. Keeping her sister out of her head was a constant task that ran counter to her innate ability. She wanted Jaeia to understand what was going on with her—she needed her support. But Jaeia couldn’t and wouldn’t understand her predicament, and it would only drive them further apart. Jaeia was not like her. Jaeia was a good person. Her sister wouldn’t even consider joining forces with Victor, even if it was only to steal his power and use it for the greater good.
“Gods,” Jetta mumbled, disgusted with herself.
She rechecked her landing coordinates as she set down on the ramp, keeping an eye on the crowd watching her dock. She hadn’t wanted to attract attention, but there was nothing she could do about the Alliance insignia branded on the broadside of her starcraft.
“Triel,” Jetta said as she got the equipment she’d need out of a locker. The Healer rolled her head to the side but didn’t open her eyes.
“I’m going to stock up for our journey and refuel the ship. Stay here. Hey—” Jetta said, shaking her shoulders. “I need you to stay awake and keep alert while I’m gone.”
But her efforts were of no use. Jetta chewed on the inside of her cheek as she weighed the consequences of dosing the Healer with zopramine from the emergency medkit. It would keep her awake, but it would also put strain on her heart. Whatever was involved physiologically when a Healer became a Dissembler, Triel’s ghostly pallor was suggestive of the strain her body was already under.
She ripped open the pack with her teeth and removed the green hypo. Triel’s eyes shot open the moment Jetta depressed the plunger, and she slapped the booster away before Jetta could inject the rest.
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