by L P Peace
‘It’s okay.’ He let out a deep breath. ‘He went quiet. We stopped making love as much. I thought I was crowding him, and I wanted to see more of the galaxy, so I talked myself into leaving. I was gone less than a cycle when I was taken by Tolomus.’
Danielle gripped his hand tighter, and Sidha gripped hers in return.
‘There was a Temerin girl in the cages. Tonni and a Surilan girl whose parents had sold her to Tolomus.’
Danielle hissed in a breath. They were worse than her parents, though only marginally.
‘After we got the radiant.’ Sidha tilted his head towards her. Danielle nodded her understanding, the radiant the Tessans had shared with Earth. ‘I contacted Aerdan and told him about the girls. Tonni and Galla wanted to stay together, and Aerdan agreed to bring her to her people. We met up with them on Tessa. Kentor ran out of the ship and straight to me. He held me for hacri, telling me he missed me and he was sorry. Maybe I’m a vashni,’ Sidha said. ‘But I love him. I’d rather be here than anywhere. I don’t want to leave again,’ Sidha said. ‘I want to be with him.’
Danielle felt herself choking up with emotion, and from the look on Sidha’s face, he was feeling the same way. She stood, knelt on the seat and wrapped her arms around him. Sidha hugged her back.
‘I’m good,’ he said after a few moments had passed.
Danielle backed away and knelt back on the seat.
‘What about you? Any males on Earth?’
Danielle shivered at the thought. ‘No. God, no! I don’t really trust human men.’
‘Why not?’
The question was so sincerely asked, for the first time, Danielle considered telling him everything. But the thought of saying it out loud. The idea of uttering the words and talking about him. Danielle shook her head, repressing thoughts of him and men at uni and the academy who didn’t want to take no for an answer. ‘I’d rather not go into it. Just… a lot of bad experiences.’
‘And alien males?’
‘Nothing but bad experiences.’ Danielle shivered.
‘Even with the crew.’ Sidha jerked his head towards the door. ‘They really like you, you know.’
‘Do they? Or do they just want to get laid?’
Sidha’s lips thinned in disapproval, and Danielle felt herself shrink under his gaze.
‘The Temerin don’t have a word for vrokking, remember,’ Sidha said, gentle rebuke in his eyes. ‘They only ever say “make love”. That doesn’t mean they don’t have short-term relationships or even what you and I would consider vrokking, but for them, all sex is lovemaking, especially when they really like the female.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Danielle said. ‘I was just trying to be funny.’
‘I’m not offended, just defensive of my friends.’ Sidha moved closer. When he resumed talking, his voice was quieter. ‘They really like you. You could have your choice, and they would wrap their world around you and make it yours.’
‘So why don’t you believe Kentor will do that for you?’ Danielle said, matching his tone.
Sidha’s mouth opened in shock, realisation sparking in his eyes.
‘Or are you still waiting for him to be ashamed, cuz Sidha, I don’t think it’s gonna happen.’
‘What’s gonna happen?’ Kentor asked as he walked in. He walked over to the galley portion of the mess and started opening things and pulling out ingredients.
‘A private bet,’ Danielle said, keeping Sidha’s gaze. ‘And I’m gonna win.’
‘Against my Sidha, I don’t think so.’
Sidha’s face fell a little. Danielle grabbed his chin and looked him square in the eye.
‘Oh, I think so.’ She smiled.
‘Why?’ Kentor was intrigued now.
‘Because he wants to lose,’ she said.
‘I… Strange.’ Kentor was looking around for something and distracted, but his attention was still on them. ‘I just have to get some olgi from stores.’ Kentor walked out.
As soon as they couldn’t hear his footsteps anymore, Sidha grabbed her hand, a fearful look on his face. ‘He’s never going to let me alone until he knows what the bet is now.’
‘I figured.’ Danielle grinned. ‘He loves you. And until the two of you talk about it, you’re gonna be miserable not knowing. After this, you’ll know.’
‘If it works, I’m going to love you. If I doesn’t—’
‘You’re still going to love me. But it’s going to work.’
By the time Kentor returned, Danielle and Sidha were standing at the counters, chopping weird alien vegetables. Kentor smiled with approval as he walked in, and Danielle hated herself for feeling uplifted by it.
Kentor was much larger than Haddis. He was over seven feet tall and bulky. He reminded her a little of Makios Desares in body type. Like a wrestler, tall and powerful. Haddis was the same, just shorter. Aerdan was muscular, just on the more reasonable side, whereas Bedvir was between the two.
She’d found herself admiring Haddis the other evening. Thankfully, no one had noticed, but she wanted to kick herself for being so foolish. If they found her doing that, they’d assume she was actually interested, and then their stupid competition would get even worse.
‘What’s this bet?’ Kentor asked.
Danielle heard Sidha sigh. ‘Nothing. We can talk about it later.’
Kentor stiffened. ‘All right,’ he said, his voice betraying more nerves than Danielle thought the male could manage. Kentor opened his mouth to speak.
‘I just blasted the engine issue,’ Aerdan said as he walked in. ‘The slavers took the bait, and we’re headed to the ambush site.’
Danielle froze. ‘I thought you were going to warn us when this was coming,’ she said. Her voice was tight, and nerves had exploded on delicate wings in her stomach.
Aerdan froze. ‘This is me letting you know,’ he said.
‘It’s not much notice,’ Danielle pointed out. ‘What’s going to happen? Are we boarding the ship? Will they be able to board us?’
‘Our role is to bring the ship to the ambush,’ Aerdan said. ‘Once we get there, everything else will be handled by other Temerin.’ Aerdan moved closer to her, reaching out and touching her arm. A thrill went through her at his touch, and Danielle jumped back.
‘Yeah, well. It would have been nice to give me more notice than this,’ she hissed. A shock of fear had gone up her spine. She should be nicer than this. Better, but she was so scared. The worst part was, she wasn’t sure if she was more afraid of being bait for a slaver or the things that had shot through her body at Aerdan’s touch.
Aerdan’s eyes filled with hurt. ‘My apologies,’ he said in a controlled voice. ‘We’ll have enough time to eat mid-meal and relax before we actually have to meet with our people. It’s fine, Danielle.’ With that, Aerdan walked out.
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Stupid bitch! Stupid bloody bitch! Stupid whore! Why can’t you keep your bitch mouth shut?
Danielle turned and saw Kentor and Sidha staring at her.
‘Sorry. I’m so sorry.’ She dropped the veg and knife she was holding and ran back to her room.
* * *
Danielle’s rejection cut like a knife.
Not only had she stepped out of his touch in the galley, but then she hadn’t come out for mid-meal at all. She was rejecting his company again, and it stung.
Aerdan sat on the bridge with Haddis. Bedvir was in the engine room with Kentor, and Sidha was sitting with Danielle to help keep her calm. Apparently, even being this close to a slaver was terrifying her.
Bedvir had set up the ship to look like they were struggling to keep up speed. Since they first noticed the ship following them, over fifteen rotes ago, they’d played a dangerous game in tempting it to gauge its abilities. The whole time, they’d kept enough of a distance to stay ahead, and now, they were losing that distance. Limping to their rendezvous and luring in their prey.
Aerdan took in the rendezvous site as they entered. They were in a planetary system that was slowly
being ripped apart by a distant black hole. The system's star was having the life and light drained from it by the gravitational forces, which also ripped the planets apart, pulling them into boulders and plumes of gas like fingers that stretched out towards the yawning portal.
This wasn’t the first time they’d used this system for this, and it wouldn’t be the last.
‘How close?’
‘A couple of hundred madith,’ Haddis said, keeping his eye on the slave ship.
Aerdan turned his focus ahead to the large asteroids they were headed towards.
They had once been a part of a planet that looked like it may have been habitable before the tidal forces of the black hole wrenched pieces of it into space. The planet had fallen out of its orbit and was hurtling in an elliptical orbit around the outermost gas giant. Aerdan was headed straight to a small cluster of asteroids.
‘One hundred and fifty,’ Haddis said.
It was strange that the slavers had followed them this long. It was one of the reasons Thanesh didn’t believe them. There were so many places to get slaves from. So many planets to steal them or buy them from in bulk and sell on. Why had this ship followed them for so long?
‘One-hundred.’
Aerdan switched on the comm. ‘We’re almost there. It’s almost over.’ He said the last for Danielle more than anyone else. He switched the comm over to the engine room. ‘Bedvir, ready.’
‘Been ready for rotes,’ he said. Aerdan could almost hear the grin in his words.
‘Fifty. Forty, thirty, twenty—’
‘Do it.’
Aerdan looked down at the console panel and monitored Bedvir opening the waste compartment. It was mostly filled with caustic cleaning agents from cleaning the ship's engines and pipes, as well as having some radiation properties that the vysor hadn’t been able to neutralise.
The compartment opened, and the contents spread across the front of the slave ship. With any luck, it would completely obscure their cameras for the next few sicri.
A few sicri was all they needed.
Aerdan saw the two ships that, together, could create a cronitone field. He increased the speed of Compound Errors, moving quickly past the ambush site and activated the rear screen.
Behind them, the ships activated, and the slave ship went dark. A moment later, the vessel was swarmed by Temerin vessels.
‘Vrok that ship,’ Haddis grinned.
‘Vrok them,’ Aerdan said.
‘Shame we don’t get to board them until the action is over,’ Haddis said, staring at the ship with vengeful eyes.
‘Yes,’ Aerdan sighed. ‘But she was so frightened. I couldn’t put her through it.’
‘I know. Me neither.’
Sidha sat with Danielle as they watched the whole thing on the screen in her room.
The Temerin were a force to be reckoned with.
They’d limped here, pulling in the slavers with fake vulnerability, and even now, she could see the lights of the ship come back on as they took charge.
There was a knock on the door.
‘Come in,’ Danielle called.
Haddis walked in, his red eyes shining with excitement. ‘We’re going in. Would you like to come have a look?’
‘Erm, where are the slavers?’
‘Oh, they were airlocked straight away. We don’t keep them alive.’
Danielle tried to feel bad for them for a moment but having spent a couple of weeks on one of those ships, she just couldn’t bring herself to feel anything but glad and satisfied.
‘Okay,’ she said, standing.
They all walked down to the cargo bay while Aerdan piloted the ship towards the much larger slave ship. They docked inside, and the ramp opened as Aerdan appeared.
Several Temerin were standing outside waiting for them. There were several red ones like Haddis and Kentor, two orange and brown like Bedvir, but none like Aerdan. Several Temerin with green markings were digging through cargo containers that had either been sitting in the docking bay when they got here or had been brought there. Beyond the hall, Danielle could see more were being dragged, pushed and guided through on small hover devices.
‘Plenty of supplies and goods for us all to share,’ a Temerin with spotted blue markings said. He left the crate he’d been digging through and walked over to greet them.
‘Dirvan,’ Aerdan said, his voice slightly tight.
‘Aerdan.’ He nodded. He turned friendlier eyes on Haddis. ‘Good to see you,’ he said before looking at Kentor to include him in the greeting. He briefly acknowledged Bedvir before taking in Sidha and giving him a suggestive grin. Kentor pulled Sidha into his side and glared at Dirvan, who laughed before turning his attention to Danielle, a vulgar smile on his face.
Haddis, Aerdan, and Bedvir all moved closer to Danielle.
‘Hands off,’ Aerdan said. ‘She’s ours.’
‘I most certainly—’ Danielle was pulled into Bedvir’s arms.
‘If you say you’re not, Dirvan will hound you looking for attention. He has many lovers. Mita Nevnir are very open about sex. Almost as much as the Amarans.’
‘Most certainly am.’ Danielle nodded. She looked at the three males and realised she’d just told a room of bemused Temerin she was fucking them all. ‘All three of them,’ she finished weakly.
Haddis and Aerdan looked back at her, grins on their faces, which only made her embarrassment worse.
Aerdan turned back to Dirvan. ‘Any slaves on board?’
Dirvan’s face turned utterly serious. ‘Three Aavani, two Mvari, a Zavi, and three Temerin.’
‘Temerin.’ Haddis stepped forward.
‘From the homeworld,’ Dirvan said.
Silence dropped on the room. Danielle looked across the vast chamber and saw the way the other Temerin were exchanging glances. There was a heavy, dark quality suddenly.
‘Take me to them.’ Aerdan was following Dirvan before Danielle had even realised it was him who had made the demand. Guiding her, the rest of the crew followed.
‘The crew called the ship Misery.’ Dirvan looked over his shoulder at them as he spoke.
‘Bloody hell. What a bunch of shitheads.’
Dirvan started laughing. A moment later, the group came to a stop as he guffawed, his hands on his thighs for support, the tension in the room suddenly cut. He looked at her with bright eyes. ‘Shit head? Durv head. Why does it sound better in your language?’
Danielle shrugged but smiled.
‘Come,’ Dirvan said, forcing himself up and back on their journey.
Looking at the guys, Danielle was surprised to see pride beaming on all three faces.
Dirvan led them to a lift, which shot off as soon as the doors closed. ‘At the sicri, they’re all together outside the cages. We’re stripping out the slavers’ rooms. Replacing their things with stuff from our stores.’
‘Let us know if you need anything,’ Aerdan said. ‘I’ll have Kentor and Sidha bring them straight over.’
‘I think we have everything, but I’ll let you know.’
‘Thanesh will want to know about this,’ Danielle said. ‘He’ll want to give everyone a place on Tessa.’
‘Not everyone,’ Dirvan said, his voice holding a trace of anger.
‘What do you mean?’ Danielle asked.
‘He’s never offered us a place on his world,’ Aerdan said. The same anger was evident in his voice.
‘Oh.’ Danielle didn’t know what else to say.
The lift doors opened, and they were walking over to thick doors which sat open. Beyond, Danielle could see the slaves sitting on the floor surrounded by Temerin. Three golden Aavani, the preferred colour of their race, sat beside the Mvari, Zavi and three grey aliens that looked like Temerin, but they had none of the markings of their race.
‘Are… are those the Temerin?’ she asked Bedvir, who nodded in response.
‘Why don’t they have markings?’
Bedvir sighed. ‘The markings, the hair, the eyes,
they’re all because of a food we eat,’ he said. ‘On Temir, we call it kolgi. It makes our markings, hair, and eyes vibrant, and in the dark, our markings and hair give off luminescence—’
‘You glow in the dark?’
Bedvir smiled at her question and the shocked tone of her voice. ‘Yes, but only with the kolgi. We can almost recreate it if we find the right ingredients. We call it olgi, but the colours aren’t as strong and there is no luminescence. These Temerin don’t have the markings because the Bentari doesn’t know about the kolgi. They think it’s a weed.’
‘So what mitas do they belong to?’ she asked. They’d stopped by the door as Aerdan went in and sat on the ground, talking to them.
The Temerin, along with the other freed slaves, looked terrified and unsure.
‘They will not know. If they were brought up in the facility on Temir, then the Bentari would have taken them from their mothers when they were born. They aren’t taught about our culture. About our history. The Bentari lie and say we kill the facility-born so they won’t reach out to us.’
‘But you protect them?’
‘They are Temerin,’ Bedvir said. ‘They are our mita, regardless of what markings they carry.’
‘So what now?’
‘We refit this ship so that it can carry Temerin families. Many of our people are spread around the sector, trapped on uninhabited planets that if they are invaded, they will be enslaved. We kill the slavers, free their slaves, take their ships and use them to give our people a way to keep moving. We will crew the ship with a skeleton crew and teach the Temerin who come to live here how to run it and how to defend themselves if they are attacked.’
Danielle rubbed her chest as she watched Aerdan talk to the Temerin slaves. He was careful in his gestures, and though she couldn’t hear his words, his tone was calm and encouraging. He pointed towards the door, towards Danielle and Sidha. She realised he was telling them that if they were happy to adopt non-Temerin, they would always look after their own, regardless of where they were born. Danielle smiled at them encouragingly. She wanted to go to them and tell them all they were safe now. But she knew it had taken her a while to believe it, and she was only enslaved a few weeks. These Temerin grew up in horrific circumstances. It would take them a long time to process everything they had gone through and come to trust their people.