Veiled Vixen: Sci-Fi Alien Romance (Harem Station Book 6)

by JA Huss

  Serpint squints his eyes at me. “What are you talking about?”

  “The day we arrived on ALCOR Station. We all had a message from Corla. They were all spin node coordinates. And these coordinates lead to… places. Outside this galaxy.”

  “OK,” Serpint says, holding up a hand. “Assuming that’s true, who fucking cares? We need ALCOR.”

  “I’m disappointed in your disappointment in me.” It’s the Baby’s voice coming from… wherever that voice comes from above us.

  “Yeah,” Serpint says. “Well, we’re disappointed in you too. You’re the whole reason we’re in this position in the first place, you piece-of-shit halfwit mind. You betrayed us.”

  “Hold up,” I say. “Explain that.”

  “I would prefer not to talk about it,” Baby says.

  “I don’t give one sun fuck what you prefer, Baby. What the hell happened here?”

  “You have no idea how bad it is, Valor,” Serpint says.

  “I know. Because no one will fucking tell me. So why don’t you start talking?”

  Baby says, “The Succubus and I had a… fight.”

  “A fight?” Serpint says. “That’s what you’re calling it? Our water generators are offline. All the gardens are dead. Wait until you see the parks and greenhouses, Valor. They’re gone. We don’t even know how everyone is still breathing.”

  “What the fuck?” I say.

  “That was not my doing,” Baby says.

  “The hell it wasn’t!” Serpint is agitated now. “You and that evil Mighty Bitch ruined all of it.”

  “And yet you’re all still alive,” Baby retorts. “Why do you suppose that is?”

  “Because Luck has some secret garden. You already told us.”

  “Wait,” I say, putting up a hand. “What secret garden?”

  “That’s what Veila wants,” Serpint says. “Baby says there’s a huge forest down on the lower levels where Luck is holding out and that’s how we’re still breathing. And in that forest there’s some kind of flower that enables the Cygnian princesses to get pregnant. Luck and Nyleena both know about it.”

  “Hmm,” I say. “Veila told me that she needs to get to Earth to save her babies. That she needs something from there to bring them to term. Or, possibly, she can take something from Corla’s blood and use that to make what she needs. But both of these things are unavailable to her. She just spent the better part of the last hour trying to convince me that I need to help her get one or both of these things.”

  “Lies,” Serpint says. “She might have Crux convinced, but not me.”

  “Not me either,” I say.

  “She’s not lying,” Baby says.

  “No one cares what you think,” Serpint says. “You’re not in control of anything anymore.”

  “I still control the ventilation,” Baby mutters.

  “Yeah,” I say. “About that. Veila threatened to cut off the air up here so everyone has to move to the lower levels if I don’t talk Luck into surrendering.”

  “Baby,” Serpint growls. “I swear to the fucking sun god of all the universe, I will hunt you down and kill your data core if you go through with that.”

  “Veila has control over me,” Baby says. “There is no way for me to resist her.”

  “OK. How the fuck did that happen?” I ask. “Someone needs to fill me in.”

  Serpint gets to his feet and straightens his black t-shirt. “You need to talk to Crux about that. That story is all his.”

  And then he walks away. Just gets into the lift that goes directly to his quarters and disappears.

  “Whatever you’re going to do,” Baby says, “you need to do it fast, Valor. Because we don’t have much time.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  But he’s gone. And the only answer I get is silence.

  Crux’s office is just down the curve of the station a little ways and I can see it from where I sit in the harem room. But it’s dark and empty right now.

  I can’t remember the last time I looked at his office and found it to be dark. He’s always in there working on something. I don’t even know what he does, to be honest. Runs the docking bay schedules. Deals with immigrants. Security bullshit.

  But right now the docking bays are all under Luck’s control, the gates are locked so there’s no immigration happening, and as far security goes… well. The beacons are offline and if all the hints people have been dropping are true, then there is no security.

  So I go to his quarters.

  I chime the bell, but there’s no answer. So I push in a special code and enter anyway.

  “Crux?” I ask. The whole place is dark. No lights on and the windows blacked out.

  “Go the fuck away, Valor. If I had anything else to say to you, I’d have answered your chime.”

  “No. I’m not leaving until you tell me what happened here while I was gone.”

  “It doesn’t even matter.”

  “Well, everyone else is saying it does and no one will tell me because they say it’s your story to tell. So… lights on, for fuck’s sake!”

  One light flicks on in the corner. A single floor light that illuminates the room just enough to make out shadows of furniture.

  And this is Baby’s doing. He’s in control of shit like that. But it’s interesting that he respects both our wishes. Turning on a light for me because I asked for it, but leaving the place mostly dark, because that’s what Crux wants.

  The Baby is tiptoeing around us like we’re breakable. Telling in and of itself.

  He did something bad. That much I can deduce. And for some reason, he’s sorry about that and this is his way of showing it.

  “I’m not leaving until you fill me in.” And I prove that fact by walking over to the couch and flopping back into the cushions.

  I wait. For a long while. Crux just sits in a corner chair, silent and still. Like he’s thinking. Or sad. Or traumatized.

  But I’m not leaving. So I settle in and start thinking about my own problems.

  Tray. Brigit. ALCOR. Booty. Asshole.

  And, of course, Veila.

  And those babies.

  It bothers me that I don’t know who the father is. Why does that bother me? Yeah, that bothers me too. Because now that things are not chaotic, I’m not chained to a torture wall on her ship, and I’ve had some time to adjust… well, I feel that attraction.

  I don’t want to, but it’s there. It’s definitely there.

  “You’ve never been the best liar,” Crux says, breaking our long silence.

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” I say.

  “Right now it’s not. Baby?”

  “Yes, Crux?” The Baby’s voice is low and soft.

  “Get the fuck out.”

  It’s weird when the AIs leave you alone. You never really know if they leave. They are omnipresent, after all. But there’s this feeling in the air when they do go. And I get that feeling now.

  Emptiness.

  I learned to recognize this feeling a long time ago. The first time Luck and I left Harem Station I felt it. We didn’t have Lady back then, just a regular ship. Not sentient or anything. So when we left though the ALCOR gate the first time there was this immediate feeling of disconnect.

  It was weird at first. Luck and I both felt it. It was like being set free and being adrift all at once.

  I didn’t like it. It took me a long time to be OK with it. Because in that moment I knew there was no all-powerful god-like AI watching over us anymore. It was just Luck and me, and that was it.

  Either we figured it out together or we didn’t. No one was coming to save us.

  And that’s the feeling I get now. Like the Baby really, truly did leave.

  “OK,” I say. “What happened?”

  “Corla,” he says. “Corla happened.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She woke up.”

  “What? How?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe Veila? But I don’t thi
nk so. I questioned her after I got the message and—”

  “Wait. What message?”

  “From Corla.”

  “Explain that, Crux.” Alarm bells are going off in my head. Because didn’t Tray say something about a message from Corla to Brigit?

  “I don’t really have an explanation. She just…” He sighs. “I thought I was dreaming. I really didn’t think it was real.”

  “When? When did this start?”

  “Like… less than a spin after you left. Right about the time the princesses went crazy.”

  “Crazy how?”

  “It was very confusing in those first few days after you guys left. Because we all knew—at least us, you know, me, and Jimmy, and Serpint, and Luck—we knew it was fake. We knew the fighting was just a distraction, but somehow…”

  He looks up at me in the duskiness of the room. I catch his eyes crackling with light. And it makes me wonder when this light in our eyes became normal. Because we didn’t do this when we were younger. So when? When did the light appear? Was it when Lyra and Corla showed up?

  “It became real, Valor.”

  “What do you mean real?”

  “He shot me.”

  “Who?”

  “Luck. And his plasma rifle was not on stun. He fucking…” Crux stares at me, shakes his head. “He fucking killed me, Valor.”

  He waits for a reaction. But I don’t think I can quite process what he just said.

  “But… you’re here.”

  “I know. I don’t really understand that, to be honest. I know our medical center is top-notch and those pods we have can do amazing things. But he fucking blew a hole in me.”

  “Bullshit,” I whisper. “Luck? Why would he do that?”

  Crux gets to his feet and lifts up his shirt. And there is it. A huge, red scar almost the entire width of his chest.

  I just stare at it, unable to believe my eyes. “But…”

  “He shot me. He killed me. And from that moment on, nothing about what we were doing was fake.”

  “But how did you—”

  He drops his shirt. “I told you. I don’t know.” He walks over to his dining room, pours himself a drink, downs it, and then pours another before turning to face me. “Something happened to me while I was dead.”

  “You couldn’t have been dead, Crux. That’s not possible.”

  He downs the second drink and turns back to the bar. Leans his hands on the edges and drops his head. “Did you ever wonder how you guys did it?”

  “Did what?”

  He turns to face me, his mouth a grim, flat line, his expression nearly blank. “Survived out there. All those battles you and Luck have been in.”

  “Well.” I chuckle a little. “It doesn’t hurt to have a partner called Luck, right?”

  “It wasn’t Luck, Valor. And it wasn’t luck, either. We… we’re…”

  “We’re what?” I ask. Because my heart is skipping right now. Skipping with the knowledge that he’s going to say something I already knew, but couldn’t admit to.

  “We can’t die.”

  “Draden died,” I say. And I don’t even know where it comes from. Because I know there’s a chance that’s not true.

  “Did he?” Crux asks. “Did we ever see his body?”

  “Look,” I say. “I get it. Some really weird shit has happened to me too. Lots of things I don’t really understand. But—”

  “But nothing,” Crux interrupts. “Dude. Luck shot a fucking plasma rifle at me at point-blank range and I died. I… I went places, Valor.”

  “What places?”

  “I don’t know. But it was gold. It was like a golden cloud of… space dust. Or star dust. Or like… a giant gold nebula.” He walks towards me, grabs my upper arms and shakes me. “Have you ever seen that? While you and Luck were out there? Did you ever see a gold nebula?”

  “Nebula?” I ask dumbly.

  “Think! Valor! Think hard. Did you?”

  “I don’t know. I… I don’t know. I’d have to think about it, I guess.”

  “Think!” he says again. “Think about it right now! Because…” He lets go of me and turns away. “Because I need to know if it’s real.” He turns back. “I need to know what happened to me. Because…”

  He stops to stare off at… nothing. Just to stare. Lost inside himself, I think.

  “Because why, Crux?” I ask in a whisper.

  “Because it was not good, Valor. It was terrifying. And there were others there too.”

  “Who?”

  He shakes his head. “Other… things. And before you ask me what things, I don’t know. I just know I came back screaming. Like you. And that’s why I thought—”

  “No,” I say. “I mean, I don’t know why I wake up screaming like that from cryo, but… I have never seen that place.”

  “You’re sure? Maybe you just forgot. What do you remember from cryosleep?”

  “I don’t remember shit, dude. That’s the point of cryosleep, right?”

  Crux begins to pace the length of his dark living room. Back and forth several times. And I suddenly can’t think. I don’t know anything. You could ask me my name right now and I wouldn’t be able to tell you, that’s how empty I am.

  “We need to find out what that place is. Because it’s real. I know it’s real. And I died and went there.”

  “Like… an afterlife?” I offer. Generally, as a rule, none of us Harem brothers believe in that shit. I mean, how do you believe in God when you live with him? And he’s just circuits, and wires, and data cores? But I think that’s what Crux is getting at here. And that’s the only reason I say it.

  He stops pacing and grabs his hair with both hands. Like he’s frustrated, or bewildered. Or scared. “I think it was Corla,” he says. “Because when I woke up…” He looks at me. And now his eyes are bright fucking violet. Lit up like he’s some lost Cygnian prince. “When I woke up, Valor, she was sending us messages.”

  “What kind of messages? Because Tray… I mean, listen. Our story about what happened to us while we were gone is long, and I don’t really have time to get into it right now because most of it has nothing to do with any of this. But he said Corla was sending messages to Brigit when she was in her cryopod.”

  “Who the fuck is Brigit?”

  And hell. How the fuck do I answer that without starting a spin-long conversation about what we learned about the Akeelian girl twins and how they have been turned into minds?

  “She’s just a girl in a cryopod—”

  “What? What the fuck?”

  “Anyway, listen. In the end we decided that the messages were from Veila because she captured us. And we figured the messages were how she traced Brigit’s cryopod and found us. But at first Tray said it was Corla who sent those messages.”

  And then, while Crux is trying to process this, a thought hits me. And it hits me hard.

  Because just a little while ago, Veila said, Corla was with me.

  What if all this time we thought Corla was one of the good guys? We thought Veila stole her. And that’s why she was on Cetus Station when Serpint showed up.

  But what if Corla and Veila are actually working together?

  “What are you thinking?” Crux asks.

  “Nothing.”

  Crux rushes me, grabs me by the shoulders again, and then shakes me. But hard this time. Like he’s fucking serious. “Tell me, you asshole! I know you. I know you better than you think and I know you’re hiding something from me right now. So fucking tell me!”

  “I don’t know, Crux. What if… what if Corla and Veila are both bad? You told us that Corla said she had a plan, right?”

  “Twenty years,” he whispers. And his voice is husky and growly. Like he has to force those words out.

  “And if you ever saw her again, everything had gone wrong. Remember that?”

  He nods, violet eyes lit up so bright, I have to turn my head a little so they don’t blind me.

  “Well…” I shrug awa
y from him. He lets me go, eyes still lit up as he stares at me. “We found her. You have her. And you have to know in your heart that seeing her again is wrong. Because I tell you what, I hate Veila. Fucking hate her with a passion I’ve never experienced before. But if she were to leave right now… I’d have a hard time staying behind. I can already feel her pull. So how the fuck have you been able to keep Corla locked up in that cryopod for over a year, Crux? How?”

  His eyes go dark. Like instantly. They just blink out. And I see spots floating across my vision where his irises were just a second ago.

  “Star-crossed,” he says.

  “What?”

  “That’s what I told her. Back then. That day we had the breeding ceremony. When we were making our plans to leave. I told her we were star-crossed. Two ships passing in the dark. Meant to be together, but never able to be together. And she said yes. That’s what we are. And that if I ever saw her again I needed to stay away from her. I was to never come near her again. But… like you, I can’t help myself. I need her.”

  “And now the beacons are offline. Do you think she did that?”

  He nods. “I think she did that so we’d have to remain apart. So I wouldn’t be able to go inside the beacon and see her or talk to her. And that there was no chance I’d ever touch her again.”

  He turns and grabs his hair again. And a noise begins to fill the room. At first it’s low, and rumbling. But it gets louder, and louder until it’s a roar. Like the roar of a wild animal the likes of which I’ve never seen before.

  It’s Crux. He makes that noise.

  It’s not a roar of power, though. Or triumph.

  It’s a roar of defeat.

  And then he drops to his knees and goes silent. Bows his head to the floor and just stays like that.

  A man broken.

  I have never seen Crux like this and it scares me. He was always the strong one. The confident one. The smart one. The one we counted on to make rational decisions and pull us through whatever crisis we were in.

  And now… now he’s on his knees.

  And his princess—no, his queen—she did this to him.

  “Hey,” I say quietly. “Crux.”

  He doesn’t move from the floor. Just stays there in that defeated position. “Valor,” he says. And then finally he sits back up, still on his knees and finds my face. His eyes are so dark now, I don’t recognize him. They look like someone sucked out his soul. Like he really is dead and this body in front of me is a corpse. “You need to find out what’s going on with us. Something is wrong. With all of it. With Lyra, and Nyleena, and Delphi.” He chokes out her name.