by Enid Titan
“Hey,” I chastise her jokingly, “You’re the alien. I’m the Odilian.”
“Licker’s making mushroom stew tonight. Are you sure we should eat that?”
“What choice do we have?”
I beckon her into the tent and she sighs.
“Nova told me this was the hard part.”
“She’s right. Three hard days and without Connie, we don’t know if our signal blockers are operating at peak capacity.”
“Great. So the confederacy could vaporize us from space at any minute?”
“We wouldn’t know what hit us.”
“I’ll sleep well tonight,” she grumbles sarcastically.
I grab her hips and pull her close to me, kissing her forehead.
“You won’t sleep at all tonight if I have anything to do with it.”
“We can’t have sex in the tents where everyone can hear us.”
“Kazim’s tent is next to ours. Trust me, I owe it to him.”
“Ew.”
“Fine. I don’t need to get between your legs to enjoy you. I’ll have your warm body pressed against mine. And your curls suffocating me to death.”
I kiss her, and she pulls me closer. When we pull away from each other for a gasp of air, Jaen giggles.
“Let’s get supper.”
I’m happy. For the first time since I agreed to go on this voyage, I realize it. Watching her bounce away with an eager smile on her face, and Bonbon on her shoulder, I realize that loving Jaen has made me happy.
Chapter 68
Mushroom Soup
We sit around the campfire and Kazim leads us in more singing before going on a speech about the saboteur that Garth quickly cuts him off from. He warns us about the days ahead and his typical Garth Moray inspirational crap. Surviving this mission will be a miracle — like any mission out here. No one else succeeded at this salvage clearance. The chances we’ll succeed are low by default.
We hold bowls of soup and sit around the fire together. The first bite tastes… strange.
“This is surprisingly good,” Jaen whispers.
“Yes. It tastes like… a little spicy?”
“Delicious soup, Licker,” Garth mumbles.
“Aye.”
And that’s all I remember about dinner. The first bite of soup. The next thing that enters my awareness is a sharp cutting around my wrists. I gasp for try to sit up but… I’m paralyzed. I can’t move. Wait. Not paralyzed. Bound. I try to speak, but I can’t. I hear a distinct woman’s voice above me, and I don’t need to turn or see her face to recognize it.
“We’ll have a 12 hour head start. Based on what they’ll find on the way there, it’ll be plenty of time.”
“They never suspected a thing.”
I don’t recognize the second voice. It’s another woman’s voice, but not one I’ve ever heard before.
“This one’s awake.”
A large wad of dirt hits me in the mouth and then the boot knocks me unconscious again. The next time I wake up, I think I’m either the only one awake or the only one alive. It’s quiet. Too quiet. And someone drugged us all. It’s efficient. We all had to eat together out of one large pot. Our guards were down. We expected guerrilla warfare on the ship’s systems or even personal attacks. No one expected poison. Odilians are resistant to most venoms. Our planet was called the Snake Planet many years ago — before the confederates first burst into existence. Surviving snake bites were to our advantage.
The tightness around my wrist only strengthened. I can’t move without cutting my wrists off. Garth uses this restraint on the toughest prisoners. Not even Connie got the wire. But we’ve all been restrained with it. I’ll have to pry my hands out and risk cutting myself. If I can get to a medical probe before I lose too much blood, I can probably survive. I might have to break one of my bones.
I can’t. I don’t want to make myself. But Jaen. I struggle to swivel my head around and I can barely get a view of her slumped over. She’s on the ground and I can’t see her chest moving. I can’t hear her breathing. She may not be alive. I doubt our saboteur was careful with the dose. Saboteurs, I remind myself. There were two voices. Two voices and I couldn’t place the second one. Female. I couldn’t tell the species. The voice I recognized…
I close my eyes and think of Jaen Nabokov. I break my bones. I scream and the horrible howl wakes Horus and Poke. We’re the three most resistant to poison on the ship — helpful that we’re senior crew. The shapeshifter only understands human physiology, most likely. But that’s because our shapeshifter is at least part human. I still don’t understand why she’s doing this. But at least I understand who.
12 hour head start. Not if I get everyone awake in time. I yank my bloody hands from the wire and stumble toward a med-kit. There’s too much blood spilling from me and my hands hurt. If I heal the breaks wrong, I could risk looking like a mutant or shelling out hundreds of thousands of credits for proper surgery. I don’t want that.
The blood makes me sick to my stomach and I still don’t have the strength to check on Jaen yet. Pain. So much pain. My teeth chatter and my vision blurs. I’m dying. The cuts are too deep. I cry out as I hold the probe. I can barely grip it in my hands and have to use my teeth. I heal my dominant hand and then the other. By then every inch of me drips in sweat. I free Horus and he rouses Garth. I untie Poke next. She’s swearing until she sees my hands still dirty with my blood.
“Did you break your bones?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“You won’t have much of a trigger finger.”
“We don’t have time to argue. Wake the senior crew.”
“Where’s Garth?” Poke asks.
Our saboteur got close to Garth’s bowl. She’d made sure of that, hadn’t she? And then she’d made sure Garth fell into a deeper sleep than any of us. Horus finally wakes the Captain.
“What the hell is going on?” He grumbles gruffly.
Like me, he probably has few memories of the night before.
“Jisoo,” I groan, my hands still struggling to find their previous dexterity, “She drugged us. But she’s not working alone.”
Garth’s eyes grow large and black. I don’t want to stand here and wait for him to realize that he bedded the saboteur while he tortured me in prison.
“Who is she working with?”
“I don’t know. I need to check on Jaen.”
“Jaen’s still here?”
He seems surprised that she isn’t the traitor. I don’t answer him. I rush over to her and feel for a pulse. Jaen’s smaller than most aliens and smaller than most humans. She’s average sized for humans, but in this sector of space with constant interbreeding, she doesn’t have the advantage of an Odilian grandmother to give her height or anything like that.
“Jaen?” I murmur, searching for a part on her body to check her pulse, “Jaen, wake up.”
I can’t find a pulse. She’s limp when I lift her into my arms, hoping I can feel her heartbeat or hear it if I press her against my chest. But Jaen Nabokov’s chest doesn’t move. Her heart doesn’t beat. She’s been given too much poison, and she’s dead. I lift her off the ground and hold her against my chest.
“Captain,” I choke out, “It’s Jaen. She’s dead.”
Chapter 69
Weaker Than Ever
Poke races over to me, and I nearly crumble. I can’t walk another step, but I can’t bring myself to let go of her. We were going to have a life together. I’d introduce her to my family and keep her in my bed, and we’d spend every harsh cold season huddled in bed. Poke touches her neck.
“Are you a moron?!” Poke snaps.
“Have some respect, Annabel. You might not have cared for her, but I did.”
“Tell her that.”
“She’s dead,” I murmur, “And it’s my fault…”
“She isn’t dead you IDIOT!”
Poke smacks the side of my head. Hard.
“OUCH! I couldn’t find a pulse.”
�
��You are such a moron sometimes!”
Poke storms off yelling, “FALSE ALARM. You’d think he studied her human physiology enough!”
We’re free, but Jisoo’s still had plenty of a head start. Nova and Kazim take Jaen over to the medical cots to help her get over the poisoning faster. At least Jisoo didn’t kill all of us. Six members of the junior crew have gone missing, and I have no choice but to assume Jisoo got rid of them.
Garth approaches me as Poke barks out commands and completes an assessment of the sabotage. We have no more tents, very little food, Licker’s dangerously ill. Their species have intolerant blood to most toxins. We’re frankly surprised Licker survived at all and without Xanth, treating the worst affected by the poisons won’t come easily. Xanth had a wide array of medical knowledge and decades of practice. At best, we’re a clan of a few field medics.
Garth’s hand slams on my shoulders. Hard.
“Gavriel,” he grunts, “Tell me everything you witnessed. Where the hell did she go?”
I can’t offer Garth more help. Unfortunately, asking my advice had only been a pretext for pulling me aside. He had more important matters to attend to. Matters specifically pertaining to Jaen Nabokov.
“She’s in no position to keep up. We must leave her with a junior crewman or abandon her to die. Seeing as she’s Jaen, I’d rather not abandon her. I don’t relish the idea of putting her out of her misery, but choking would be quick and relatively painless.”
He’s speaking about Jaen with the same emotional response you’d have slaughtering a fish. I can see why their relationship ended with bad blood.
“Captain,” I interrupt, as he continues to consider safe methods of euthanasia for the woman I love, “If anyone remains behind with Jaen, it should be me.”
“Nonsense,” Garth responds gruffly, “Jisoo’s made herself a nice head start and worse, she’s made me look like a fool. I can’t waste your talents.”
“I refuse to leave her behind.”
“You’d give up your contract for a girl you met a few weeks ago? A human girl? Given the way your kind feel about outsiders, I’m surprised.”
“Captain, if you intend on killing Jaen to put her out of her misery, you’ll have to kill me too.”
“What do you propose then?” Garth snaps.
“I’ll carry her.”
“Carry her? She’s lighter than most Odilian females, aye. But the girl isn’t slight framed by any means.”
A strange criticism from a man who has at least 130 lbs on Jaen, but I’m in a position that requires me to pick my battles.
“I can carry her.”
“If she slows us down, I’ll do what has to be done. But you’re a good man for not abandoning her, even if it gets you less gold.”
I hardly think it makes me a “good” man. I’m not an animal, but I’d like to think after billions of years of evolution, we could set the bar higher than not being an animal. Jaen will recover, but she won’t awaken properly for another few hours. She’s not terribly heavy, but Garth was right that she isn’t terribly light. And her limbs refuse to stop sloshing around. I don’t remember her feeling this fragile. I remember her thrusting a knife into my side. Where the hell is Bonbon?
A horrible thought crosses my mind. Could Bonbon have been the second shapeshifter? By nightfall, I still haven’t caught sight of the little blue creature. But I grow increasingly suspicious. There were two voices. One of them was Jisoo’s, but she’s missing anyway, so I won’t assume the shapeshifter stole her shape. Not any time recently, at least. It would have “been” Jisoo for a long time, possibly as long as I’ve known her.
I set Jaen down in the first tent that goes up. I won’t sleep a wink tonight with her unconscious and with Jisoo on the prowl. And Bonbon. Garth still doesn’t know about the illicit creature Jaen smuggled on board. My arms are nearly too sore to help set up our second campsite. Half the crew wants to push on faster, but Garth reminds us that the shapeshifter will need rest too. It will have to revert to its true formlessness about as long as one evening cycle, longer depending on its physical condition. It’s little comfort to me. I’ll not get a wink tonight.
Chapter 70
Sexy, But Stupid
After supper, I open our tent, and Jaen sits up holding Bonbon.
“Jaen! Set that creature down! He’s an orchestrator of our doom and I won’t let him sink his dastardly claws into you once more!”
I pull my blaster out, wondering if I’ve overdone it a bit, and aim at Jaen’s pet hedgehog.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”
“I’m putting the creature out of its misery. Don’t worry. This will be painless.”
“I’m not letting you shoot my pet!”
“Jaen… that creature is no pet. It’s an evil shapeshifter.”
“Gavriel… it’s a hedgehog.”
“There’s only one way to find out.”
I cock my blaster, and Jaen hides the foul creature behind her back.
“If you want to kill Bonbon, you’ll have to kill me first.”
“Jaen! Do not argue with me. I searched our previous camp for hours and carried you for even more hours, and I didn’t see the creature once.”
“Did you check my pocket?!”
“I—I—…”
Naturally. Her pocket. How could I have been such an idiot? Maybe Jisoo’s drugs affected me more than I want to admit.
“You didn’t, did you?”
“I did not.”
I lower the weapon and Jaen scowls.
“You were going to murder my pet!”
“I… I was merely exercising caution.”
She sticks the hedgehog into her pocket to be safe. I can’t say I blame her given my behavior.
“Sorry.”
“You should have left me behind,” she snaps.
I fold my arms. Okay, I nearly vaporized Bonbon, but I apologized, didn’t I? She doesn’t have to tear into me for saving her life. I remind her that I saved her life. I must have done it rudely because she pops her hip out and taps her foot.
“Yes. I get it. You saved my life. But you put everyone else’s including yours at risk. I could have waited for you to get back.”
“These woods are filled with creatures we do not understand. Some wolf or crocodile could have carried you off.”
“Instead, you carried me off.”
“Fine,” I sniff, “Next time you’re in bad straits, I’ll leave you to die.”
“I’m acting like an asshole, aren’t I?”
“Yes. You are. I thought you were dead.”
“Sorry,” she murmurs.
She runs up behind me and wraps her arms around me. Feeling her warm womanly body pressed against mine makes me forget why I’m angry with her. I don’t need to be angry with her because she’s here and alive.
“I’m sorry I nearly killed Bonbon. I quite like the hedgehog.”
“We don’t know who that second shapeshifter was,” she whispers, “You only wanted to protect me.”
“Mm. Yes. I do.”
“If anything happens to me, leave me behind, Gavriel. Okay?”
I turn to face her and grab her hips, pressing my forehead to hers so my hair hands between my horns.
“I could never do that. I’d carry you hundreds of miles if I needed to.”
“You’d break your arms.”
“Then I’d use my legs.”
She wrinkles her nose.
“I’m not sure how that would work.”
“I’m not sure either,” I whisper, running my finger over her lips, “But I know that I love you enough to figure it out. Promise me this, Jaen… Promise you won’t do the same for me.”
She won’t promise, but we have each other in the tents for the night. I leave after she falls asleep. She’s weak from the drugs and I won’t rest knowing I’m not leading the guard. Nova and Kazim man the furthest guard post. Ever since they declared their love for each other, Nova still keeps Kazim close. He�
�s on ex-girlfriend terms with nearly half the ship, so I can’t exactly blame her.
I wander from post to post, keeping watch on the night watch. I hear a low growl as I’m close to the center of our encampment. We’re only two hours from sunrise. I would have thought any dangerous creatures would bother us shortly after dusk. I assume they would have watched and waited. Then I remember that no other crew survived this salvage mission.
The growl gets louder, but it’s still far off. Only species with better hearing than most will have heard the noise.
Horus snorts, a puff of steam erupting from his nose. His black eyes reflect warm orange fire light as he moves his blaster to the front of his body.
“Hear what?” Garth grunts, his tongue wrapping around a giant drumstick of meat as he polishes it off.
“I hear it too,” I murmur.
“Alert the outer rim.”
I reach Kazim on the intercom.
“We hear growling. Low frequency, you wouldn’t detect it yet.”
“There’s nothing out here.”
“Keep watch. It’s nearly sunrise but we know little about the species that live here.”
“We’ll manage. Over.”
I hear Nova giggle as the signal fades. I hope Kazim’s taking this seriously. We’ve never been in more danger than now. A few junior crewmen wander out of their tents with weapons slung over their back. They can’t sleep and prefer to join the watch. I hear a snarl, not nearly as far-flung as the first growl.
It’s one of the girls we rescued from Saroyan, but I can’t remember which.
“We have a problem out here. There are creatures… I can’t describe them… over fifty of them. I… Send reinforcements —
We hear a piercing scream and then the signal cuts out. Shit. Garth springs into action.
“Gavriel, Annabel, get over there and see what happened to them.”
Annabel and I are well matched for speed. In her race, most females are larger than the males. Her stride outpaces mine, but I’m tough enough to keep up. We halt suddenly when we see it — a plume of black smoke rising from a charred center of sparse trees. We’re crossing the desert tomorrow, but the trees here are already thicker with stored water in their centers, adapting for the desert’s inevitable encroachment.