by Kyle, Celia
“We know it’s dangerous, Zander, and we’ll do all we can to protect her, but this has to be done. It’s our only way in.”
“Impossible.”
“Zander…” Solair sighs and spreads his hands. “What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to change your mind.”
He crosses his arms over his chest.
“That’s not going to happen.”
“Zander, I can appreciate your concern, but it’s my decision, not yours.”
I can’t stop a dark look from shooting her way, and then I quickly rise from my seat.
“I can see my counsel is not welcome here.”
Solair calls after me, but I don’t stop. In fact, I don’t stop until I get back to my quarters and dig out my own tablet.
Thrase is not the only one qualified and willing on this ship. If she’s going undercover into danger, I’ll be right there with her, fated mate or no fated mate.
Chapter Ten
Thrase
The hover taxi drops me off in front of the Starcorp building, a massive anvil-shaped structure all the more foreboding for its ominous emptiness. The lights on the sixth floor are the only ones activated in the entire place, and I can’t stop my palms from sweating at the thought of entering that—what did Zander call it? Nest of vipers.
I feel terribly for Zander, having to sit on the sidelines while I enter a potentially dangerous situation. After the last couple of days, we seem to be inching closer to one another, to maybe admitting there really is something going on between us…
What am I doing? Fantasizing about an alien hunk is so not my style. Besides, it’s all just chemical reactions in the brain, hormones, and the silly procreative drive in all sapients who reproduce sexually.
Did I just think the word sexually? Ugh, I thought it again. Okay, for real this time. Banishing all thoughts of Zander right this minute.
Of course, he’s all I can think about as I walk up the crumbling pavement leading to the Starcorp building’s entrance. When I’m about ten feet from the doors, an IHC marine steps outside. While his hand remains far away from the rifle slung over his shoulder—I am expected, after all—I’m keenly aware of its presence.
“Can I help you, ma’am?” Though his words are professional, his tone is not. Also not professional; the way he’s leering at me, even though I’ve taken pains to dress in the least titillating manner possible. Ugh, human men are the worst.
“I’m here for my orientation. Talia Hurst.”
“Hurst, huh?” He brings out a tablet and checks it with a squinty-eyed gaze. “Yeah, you’re on the list. Figured you’d be an ugly cow given your résumé, but you’re something else.”
“Uh, thanks. Can I go inside now?”
“Sure, sure.” He opens the door for me, but as I attempt to cross the threshold, he impedes my progress with his body. “Say, I get off duty in a few hours. Want to grab a bite to eat?”
“Sorry, I’m on the twenty-day fast of Sekora.” I duck under his arm before he puzzles out that Sekora is a Solari holiday and not likely to be celebrated by a tech-savvy scientist.
Another guard directs me to the elevator, a dilapidated thing that seems to take forever to get to the sixth floor. One thing that stands out to me about the Starcorp building is the surveillance tech. It’s all new, totally at odds with the condition of the rest of the structure. I do my best to remain calm and project an air of professionalism. It’s okay if they realize I’m nervous, I tell myself. They’ll just chalk it up to new job jitters.
At last, I reach the sixth floor and the door slides upward. Stepping onto the surface of a worn gray carpet, I glance about self-consciously as several men gathered around a work table go over data on a holodisplay. They turn it off quickly when I approach, but I notice several names—female Earth names.
A rail thin man with a pencil mustache and a bad combover approaches me, his face grinning ear to ear.
“Hello. You must be the other new hire, Talia. I’m Bruce. It’s so nice to meet you.”
I take his offered hand and shake it. His grip is limp and sweaty, which is about as appealing as it sounds. I hope he doesn’t notice the way I pointedly wipe my hand on my overcoat.
“Yes, thank you. Wait, did you say other new hire?”
“Yes, you’ll have Professor Rednaz along with you for orientation today. Please follow me.”
Rednaz? Could be a name I’ve never encountered, but it doesn’t come close to any sapient species dialect I can think of off the top of my head.
Bruce leads me out of the office suite and down a hallway with cracked and peeling paint. The overhead lights flicker, and I decide it can’t hurt to bring it up.
“Looks like this place has seen better days.”
“Indeed.” He chuckles and gestures at the flickering lights. “Our work here is time critical, so we’ve had to go ahead and start before maintenance is finished. I promise you in a few weeks’ time it won’t even be an issue.”
Well, that’s a loaded statement if I ever heard one. Combover Bruce takes me to an office at the end of the hall and pushes the door open.
“You can get started on your paperwork, and then I’ll be back in twenty minutes or so to start your orientation.” Like many Terrans, he uses the term “paperwork” in a non-literal fashion, and hands me a tablet with a form to complete on its screen. I thank him and enter the room. Then my jaw falls open.
“Zander? What the hell are you doing here?”
Zander winces and glances at the empty doorway.
“Shh.” He puts a finger to his lips. “It’s Rednaz at the moment. Don’t blow my cover.”
I put two and two together. That rat. He didn’t think I could take care of myself so he’s tagging along. While I resent the implications, I can’t help also feeling a little flattered.
And a little relieved, if I’m being honest with myself.
“Rednaz…” I roll my eyes to the ceiling. “Really? Using your name spelled backward? How very Count Dracula of you.”
“Count who? I’m no Vasper human fetishist, if that’s what you’re implying.”
“Oh for heaven’s sake, Zander. Give it a rest. Will you? I’m just kidding. I’m actually glad you’re here.”
“You are?” He relaxes visibly. “Oh, well. Good.”
For a moment awkward silence reigns. I study the tablet in my hands and start filling it out. He pretends like he’s not looking at me out of the corner of his eye while making as if he’s looking at his own tablet. When I can’t take the scrutiny any longer I set my tablet down and face him.
“Zander… about what happened in the armory…”
“Yes?” He licks his lips and sets his own tablet down. “What about it?”
I find that I can’t speak, my mouth suddenly dry and a nervous sweat breaking out on my body. Damn him, how can he have such an effect on me? Mind over matter, Thrase. You’ve got this.
“What about it? I think you know what I’m getting at.” I can’t quite look him in the eye. My cheeks are burning. God, I must be red as a Vakutan’s scales at the moment.
“You mean…” Zander swallows hard. “When we almost… almost…”
The door bangs open and we both turn angry glares on Bruce as he enters.
“Hey there, newbies, finished with that paperwork yet… is something the matter?”
“No.” I say stiffly, standing up and handing him my completed tablet. “Everything’s just fine.”
Bruce frowns, but doesn’t press the issue. We’re taken back down the hall, through the office suite and past the men gathered around the table. Once again they shut off the display as I pass. Now I’m really dying to know what’s on that holodisplay…
Dying. Great choice of words, Thrase, given the circumstances. I notice Zander is the only non-human I’ve yet seen in this entire complex. I guess that Project Blue Dawn must not have many applicants given their stringent contract clauses. Or they’re on to him already and a
re just laying a trap.
Bruce takes us to a small chamber with a recently installed heavy metal door leading to another room in it. The small glass panel in the heavy door is frosted over, so I can’t see inside. A rack with winter coats hanging on it adorns the left side, and Bruce takes one of them down and dons it.
“Sorry, but we have to keep the temperature low in this chamber.”
I put on my coat with ease, but Zander has a difficult time given his broad shoulders. When he finally puts it on, it rips down the back seam.
“That’s coming out of your paycheck.” He pulls the door open with a grunt of effort and ushers us through.
Zander and I gape because what we see are about twenty cryopods with female occupants all in stasis. Just glancing at their biometric panels gives me chills that have nothing to do with the cold. They’ve pumped up these women with a cocktail of dangerous drugs, most of which haven’t even been approved for use in much of the galaxy.
Even worse, many of them have shaven heads and stitched scars that seem to indicate neurosurgery. No wonder we had to sign a non-disclosure agreement and aren’t allowed to leave the building’s campus.
Zander is a bit bolder than me. He turns to Bruce, a sneer twitching at the edge of his mouth.
“Mr. Bruce, I’m beginning to wonder about the ethical implications of this work.”
“Indeed.” I come up beside him and cross my arms over my chest. “Are we to believe that all of these women are volunteers? And what exactly are they being treated for?”
Bruce looks between the two of us and sighs, rubbing the end of his already reddening nose.
“Look… you’re being compensated very well for a lot of reasons. One of them is your expertise in your respective fields of study. The other reasons are a bit… murkier.”
“I’m not comfortable with this. Does the K’Patel Science Commission know about these experiments?”
Bruce looks me dead in the eye.
“That’s the kind of talk that gets people gone around here.”
Zander arches an eyebrow under his horns.
“You mean fired?”
Bruce turns a cold glare on him.
“I mean gone.”
Zander and I exchange glances. What have we gotten ourselves into?
Chapter Eleven
Zander
“Stay put,” the scowling Kraaj in front of me growls. “I’ll be outside to make sure that happens.”
“Yeah, sure,” I reply, and then step inside the room, closing the door behind me.
It’s only been a couple of hours since we’ve signed our contract, and these cretins are already treating us as if we are their slaves. Sure, they’re cretins who don’t mess around, but they’re still cretins. Unfortunately, their cretinistic tendencies have separated me from Thrase. After we were done with the orientation process, we were both led into a room to sign our contracts and then herded to separate accommodations.
Frowning, I walk around the little room I’ve been given.
Despite the dilapidated appearance of the building, it seems like Starcorp spared no expenses when it came to renovating the floors they were interested in. And that’s a good thing since the contract we’ve just signed with them indicates we’re not to leave the premises under any circumstances. That, of course, was justified with the confidential nature of the work we’ve been hired to do.
Nonetheless, we’re prisoners here.
Despite the modern decoration—sharp and angular lines, a minimalist display of furniture, and a grayish tone everywhere—the room still feels like a prison cell. It doesn’t help that this policy of having to remain in our accommodations whenever we’re not working is being enforced by armed guards. Even now, I’m too painfully aware of the roided up Kraaj standing outside the door.
I try to take my mind out of all that and decide to do it by focusing on dinner. There’s a sumptuous meal on the table by the corner, which must have been placed there by some lowly grunt. I take one bite of the carefully cut steak, but even its flavor feels bland. Any other time, and there’s nothing I would’ve enjoyed more than a good steak straight from one of the many farms on the frontier worlds that border the League. As it is, I can’t even stand to be looking at food.
To make matters worse, even our comms were removed, which prevents me from communicating with Thrase. That, of course, makes it almost impossible for us to plot our next move. Whenever we’re together, we’re supposed to be working on the project, and it’s hard to talk with the other employees and our superior around.
It’s ironic, truly. I pissed off Solair, escaped from the Ancestral Queen, and managed to sign a contract with Starcorp… and all just so I could be near Thrase.
All that effort and now I can’t even see her.
Bored out of my mind, I sit behind the small workstation inside the room. In truth, it’s nothing more than a small terminal with access to limited entertainment. Despite the urgency with which Starcorp wants results, they don’t want us to be fiddling with any kind of work-related documents unsupervised.
I flick through the many holovids on offer, but quickly decide against watching one of them. I bring up the control menu and, with a few quick strokes on the keyboard, I input a command that allows me to bypass the restraints that have been installed on the terminal. It’s child’s play.
I start digging through whatever’s on file, but there’s nothing of interest. Then, I try to push my way deeper into the system, but my knowledge of cyber-security isn’t as eximious as Fiona’s. Still, that doesn’t prevent me from accessing a three-dimensional map of the building. A couple of seconds of looking at it, and I quickly uncover the location for Thrase’s room.
“Finally, some good news,” I mutter under my breath, a smile spreading across my lips. Coincidence or not, she has been placed on the fifth floor, and her room is right below mine. As all the accommodations have balconies, I assume that with some acrobatics I’ll be able to get there unseen.
Rising from my seat, I make my way toward the balcony. I push the glass door open as silently as possible, trying not to make the thug outside suspicious, and then place my hand on the railings. The moment I look down, I immediately feel the dizzying punch of vertigo.
The building is anvil-shaped, which means the edges of the upper floors reach farther than the floors below. That, of course, will make my acrobatics even more perilous. I can’t jump directly from one balcony to the other, nor is it a simple matter of climbing down. Evidently, this isn’t going to be as easy as films make it seem. Still, I don’t let that discourage me.
Carefully, I swing one leg over the railings and take a deep breath. I lower myself until I’m hanging from the railings, my fingers the only thing preventing me from plunging to my death, and then start swaying my legs. Once I have a momentum going, I grit my teeth and let go, the swaying motion of my body propelling me forward as I fall.
I thought I’d crash inside Thrase’s balcony but, instead, I crash against the outer railings. Disoriented, I reach up instinctively, holding to the rails as I dangle from the edge. I feel my fingers start to slip over the smooth metal, and my heart almost stops beating. I miscalculated this, and now I’m going to pay for it by falling to my death.
“Zander? What the hell are you doing here?” Thrase’s voice cuts through my ominous thoughts, and then I feel her delicate fingers clutching my forearm. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
Allowing her to help me, I haul myself over the railings and awkwardly collapse on her balcony. For the first time in my life, I find myself praising the universe for solid ground.
“What are you doing?” Thrase continues with a low whisper, pulling me up and dragging me inside the bedroom. She closes the door behind us and then holds a finger up against her lips, cautioning me to be silent. “You made such a damn ruckus. Are you trying to get us kicked out of this place?”
“I think they’d do more than just kick us out,” I tell her, reminding mys
elf not to raise my voice. “I hacked into the system and managed to access the building’s schematics. That’s how I found you.”
“Smart,” she says. “But stupid.”
“It had to be done,” I continue and then forget what I was about to say when I notice she’s wearing nothing but a skimpy nightgown made of satin. It allows for an expansive view of her cleavage, and the way the hemline cuts just a couple of inches above her knees make her legs seem even more perfect than they already are. Everything about her seems magnetic, and I find myself rocking on my heels as if that magnetism is pulling me in. “Right, so, huh… we have to figure out our next move.”
“Yes, of course,” she replies, and I can’t help but notice the way her cheeks have turned tomato-red. Still, she doesn’t make any attempt to cover herself, and I couldn’t be any more thankful for that. It’s hard to focus when she’s dressed like this, but it’s a price I’m more than willing to pay.
“They’re on us every minute of the day, but there’s a slight lull in security whenever there’s a shift rotation, I think,” I force myself to say, looking around the room just so her breasts don’t make me speechless. “If we time it right, we might have fifteen minutes or so that we can use to poke around. That’s the only time I figure we won’t have anyone breathing down our necks.”
“I’ve noticed the same patterns in security, yes.” Taking one step toward me, she looks straight into my eyes, her slightly parted lips commanding all of my attention. “It’s going to be risky, but it has to be done.”
“Yes, I agree,” I whisper, but I’m no longer thinking about our improvised plan. I’ve lost myself in her eyes, and my entire body is abuzz. A scorching heat has spread from between my legs to the rest of my body, and my pants have been uncomfortably tight. “Thrase,” I continue, enjoying the way her name rolls off my tongue. Throwing all caution to the wind, I reach up and lay one hand on her face.
“Yes, that’s me,” she breathes out, her words charged with… something. Then and there, I feel the jalshagar pull, and my rational mind shuts down. Without even thinking about what I’m doing, I lean in. Her lips part some more, her eyelids flutter, and she even goes on tiptoes.