by Hana Starr
There was an hour of oxygen in her suit. The clock was ticking, and so she got started with exploring.
The ship was like one gigantic solar panel on the outside, and the interior was a thing of many light sources. Right away, she knew what kind of aliens had been in this thing.
Illurians, an endangered rarity in this day and age. They were masters of light, able to manipulate its energy as long as there was an actual source to take from.
Whatever had happened here had smashed all these lights and disrupted the power core, for they were dead or only flickering.
Heading deeper into the halls, Jade counted the bodies as she passed. Twenty-four in total, all of which were the delicate Illurians.
It was a damn shame and a mystery what had fried them all, and it would make for an interesting tidbit to slip to her commander while he was tearing her a new one, but it wasn’t very practical for her to keep going on.
Yet, she had more than enough air. And she wanted to see their cockpit.
The doors to it were automatic and off their hinges, wobbling slightly open and shut with the surging remnants of power. Jade shrugged her shoulders and slithered through the gap, and then looked around.
She never got a good glimpse of what she had come to see though, because she found the twenty-fifth body. And it was still alive.
Standing stock-still, she examined it.
Ever since TranslateChips had become a huge success, the field of human augmentation had become more accepted as something that was less abomination and more improvement. Jade was a strong supporter of such sciences and had volunteered herself for another: ScanEye. One of her brown eyes had been implanted with a scanner which could read bodily information, much like her ship could read material content.
She accessed her scanner now, and the right side of her face was lit with a gentle blue glow as she scanned the body. He was unconscious, though stirring around, and his vitals seemed otherwise normal.
This is good, she thought, striding forward to grab up the fallen alien. I can pin the blame on this asshole right where it belongs instead of taking it myself.
The Illurians were slender aliens, which meant she had no problem dragging this one back onto her ship even when he was wearing his own suit. Once he was there and twitching around on the floor of her cockpit, she debated calling her commander again immediately but then decided a fellow sentient being deserved a bit more concern. She set about bringing him to her sleeping area with a bit of a grudge, though.
Courteous or not, she wasn’t going to let this affect everything she’d worked so hard for.
Chapter Two
Sorlo woke with a massive headache, which wasn’t really a surprise considering what had happened. The real surprise was that he’d woken up at all. After what happened to his ship and where they had been…
Which begged the question why exactly he was alive at all. Curiosity rising in his breast, he opened his eyes and looked around.
Clue one, which he had known even before he opened his eyes, was that this was not his ship. His beautiful Peace Bearer, Illurian-modified to be filled with beautiful light, had been blasted nearly in half from what he’d seen before he lost consciousness. This ship was small and narrow and very dark inside, so dark that he could hardly see.
Still, even here there was light. Life could not exist without light and so he reached out his hand to grab the energy and pull it towards him. The light faded from the blinking monitor near his head and began to gather in a small hot ball between his fingertips.
Satisfied at least that there wasn’t any irreparable damage to his body, or else all the necessary pathways to manipulate such energies would be corrupted and he wouldn’t be able to do it at all, he let the light return to its source and let out a soft sigh. His body ached in a direct echo of his head, making him aware that he was probably covered in bruises and gashes, not to mention the possibility of broken bones, but he couldn’t seem to make himself go through with a self-examination for the moment. It was all he could do to stay awake, even though he wasn’t tired.
The memories of what had occurred swamped over him and he clenched his hands into tight fist to try and combat it to no avail.
He and his twenty-four crew had joined Peace Federation of their own accord may years back. They had come to be known as Light Bringers due to their abilities and also simply to the non-violent ways they sought to use.
Illurians were pacifists once. The planet was peaceful enough to the point where it might be considered a utopia. Any violence against any person or creature was considered highly offensive and illegal, and duly punished. They were content with themselves, a civilization not all that highly advanced simply because they had no ambitions. Without a single rocket or weapon in sight, they had been sitting ducks for a terror of the skies. Gigantic, fearsome aliens who knew no mercy…
It had been a siege, and it served to bring about a new era: one of technology. It was a struggle but some of their numbers had managed to abandon the home planet and became refuges across the stars.
When he discovered there was an organization specifically meant to stop such things from happening, to protect innocent from meeting such dark fates, Sorlo hadn’t hesitated to gather all the nearby Illurians that he could and venture out to their recruitment base.
The rest was many years of history, during which more and more Illurians were erased from existence. According to sparse records, Sorlo and his crew were the single largest group of Illurians in any one place.
He knew what that meant. Extinction was on the horizon. His parents, his siblings, the beautiful light and serenity of his home, it would all be lost and forgotten very soon. He mourned for a bit, only to come out of it with a strengthened resolve that he would spare as many from harm as he could while he was alive. It was the Illurian way to bring light and hope, and he endeavored to carry out his missions in the war with as little violence as possible.
Of course, it was still a war.
And he’d tried to fight back. He had given it everything they had. He had never been more proud of his crew than when they were working together like a well-oiled engine, a chain of commands. They had been at their very best, but then reinforcements came for the enemy. Their shields had been knocked down, and a single laser fire had been enough to…
Sorlo shuddered again and gritted his teeth as the screams of his dead companions filled his ears. The jet of scarlet flame had burst away the top of the hull, exposing them to the emptiness of space as they had been struggling to don their life-support suits. What had happened to those who hadn’t worn theirs in time he didn’t have to imagine. He’d seen it all for himself.
And for those who had, the subsequent explosions and shrapnel had taken care of the rest.
His last memory was slamming the side of his head against his captain’s chair, having had his feet knocked away from him by the force of the blast.
Except…that wasn’t quite the last memory. The last coherent one yes, but he had been awake in and out this entire time, catching glimpses of his ruined ship and the cracked roof. He had tried to walk, to do anything, but each awakening ended the moment he tried to move.
Where he had ended up, he had no clue. He really suspected that this was a personal vessel, though. A civilian.
Which meant he was indebted to a civilian. Him! A captain!
Well, he would just have to make sure they got what they deserved, was all. And that included a personal thanks from him.
Opening his mouth to call out, Sorlo quickly shut it again. That wouldn’t do at all. The last thing he needed was to have someone standing over him like an invalid right now.
Groaning, he unclenched his fists and braced his hands against the side of the cot that he was laying prone upon. Then, despite the sick lurching in his head, he forced himself up to a sitting position.
The darkened interior of this small room spun around him. He shut his eyes and forced himself to breathe deeply, relying on the
world to right itself. After a time, it did and he was able to open his eyes again and truly look around.
He had thought he might be in some sort of miniature medical bay, but a personal civilian vessel wouldn’t have such accommodations. He was, in fact, strapped into the bed of a normal sleeping area. A very tiny and sparse sleeping area devoid of any personal items whatsoever, but a sleeping area nonetheless.
Surprising, really. Any civilian wealthy enough to own a ship for themselves was likely to have priceless little things cluttering up their space to show off.
Well, that wasn’t any of his concern what people did with their possessions.
He was about to shuffle around and slide his legs to the ground when he finally noticed that he was naked from head to toe, and swathed in bandages. Cautiously prodding at them, he found they were expert-tight and that he had also been dabbed with a liberal amount of quick-heal salve.
Perhaps not a civilian, then.
Putting his feet on the floor now, he stood shakily. His legs wanted to buckle, so he reached out and held onto the side of the cot. As his eyes adjusted to the dimness, he was able to make out a short hallway and then a doorway filled with a moderate amount of more light.
Despite himself, his heart raced a little when he saw it. It was the Illurian in him, who would always be pleased by even the simplest of things.
Bracing himself on anything within reach, Sorlo started out into the hallway and followed the light.
The doorway opened up into a tiny cockpit, and then he was through and he saw the details that the light had been hiding from him.
A woman stood there, speaking to a darkened console, but she wasn’t speaking any language that he knew. Even his TranslateChip couldn’t pick up on this, and that was impressive considering how many different galaxies he’d been to in his lifetime. It seemed to be a random jumble of corrupted words from many different languages, all tangled up together in an order that made no sense.
And the darkened monitor replied in the same manner, though it was a male voice that responded.
The woman winced, and his heart went out to her. She was quite obviously being berated for something that probably had to do with him, and he hated that he was the cause of any trouble.
Especially for someone so beautiful.
For a human, she was very tall and slender. Her skin was dark as ebony, and her hair was as long as her waist and just as black. Everything she did, every movement, seemed perfectly controlled and calculated. Even her reactions seemed like she had been rehearsing them for an eternity.
She winced again, and he knew he had to put a stop to it.
“Excuse me,” he said, picking a human language at random.
At once, the woman lost her calculated dexterity. She spun around and stumbled backwards with a startled sound, grabbing at her console to keep herself standing. “Shit!” she swore back in the same language, and he gave a little sigh of relief at having been understood.
“I’m sorry that I startled you,” he began, but at that point the male voice from the monitor interrupted.
The woman glared at Sorlo and then rapped out a few words of response to the voice.
“We cannot speak like this for long,” the voice snarled, belonging to someone who was obviously furious. “It is incredibly unsafe. Explain yourself, interloper.”
Sorlo blinked, a little taken-aback. Interloper? He was a guest on this vessel, wasn’t he?
“I am Sorlo, Illurian captain of the Light-Bringers. I am the reason you are angry with this woman, although I don’t know the reason why.”
“I am aware of you Light-Bringers,” the voice snapped. “Ridiculous pacifists, all of you. Are you aware how badly you have screwed things up?”
“Probably very much, sir.”
“It is no longer safe to speak in this manner at all. Jade, explain to this weakling what he has done. I will be bothered with it no longer.”
The console went even darker than before, if that was even possible. Sorlo sighed and lifted one hand to rub the back of his head. “Did I catch your name correctly, Jade? I’m incredibly sorry for the inconvenience I have caused you.”
Jade scowled at him. “Sorlo, you don’t even have any idea. Your burnt hulk of a ship arrived just when I was about to take down a traitor.”
Everything clicked a little bit better in his head now. “Do you mean that you’re part of the Federation?”
“I am,” she replied coldly.
“With such a small ship?” He wasn’t quite ready to believe it, but then figured that he was also part of a very unconventional group –or at least he had been. Before- so that it wasn’t his place to judge. “You say my ship arrived?”
“Drifting freely at high speeds,” she confirmed. “You nearly hit me and I was forced to head backwards. By the time you passed, my target was already gone.”
“I truly am sorry,” he said quietly. “How much trouble did I get you in?”
“What does it matter to you, alien?” Jade snapped. “I didn’t need saving, least of all by the likes of you. I’ll have you know that no one has ever failed a mission in my division before. But I just did. Because of you. I don’t know how I’m still here at all, to be honest.”
Sorlo winced, feeling worse and worse about what he’d caused by the minute. “I’m sorry. I can’t say that enough. I was ambushed.”
“I figured,” she scoffed. “I had to go on your ship to get you, don’t forget. I saw the damage. Your ship is too large and takes too much power. That’s why the rest of Peace Federation is failing the way it is.”
The rest of Peace Federation? Oh.
And now he knew who she was.
“You are Dark Peace.”
Jade nodded. “I am. Lucky to still be.”
“And I…cost you your mission.”
Sorlo went very still, unable to keep his alarm from crossing his face as he thought about the methods that this branch of the Federation was known for. A wicked little grin crossed the woman’s face, although she didn’t exactly look like she was about to try to threaten him. Still wary though, he stretched his fingers just a bit in the direction of the nearest source of light to prepare.
“What, you think I’m going to kill you after all I wasted and lost getting you out of that wreckage?” The grin faded into a pure scowl. “I don’t really think so, buddy. I don’t want to have to dispose of your corpse. I think I’ll just bring you back to your base so they can do that for me.”
The base!
At once, he was stricken with a wave of dizziness. Mostly composed of despair, it had him struggling to breathe or even think. Communications had been cut from his ship for who knew how long. Everyone had probably already given up every single Light-Bringer for dead; what would they think when he showed up there as the only one who was left alive?
The communications sent out to their families, the funerals, the briefings he would have to give over and over for each lost member…
Sorlo stared at the dark woman. “Why can’t you actually just kill me now?” he pleaded. “Be merciful and kill me rather than make me go through this.”
Jade snorted with contempt. “I don’t think so. I don’t kill people who aren’t targets. Although right about now, I don’t kill people who are targets, so you never know. I might shoot you in your sleep.”
Her fingers tapped the butt of her miniature charge gun, drawing his eyes to it. Instead of being threatened though, he was just amused.
“Really? You’re going to target an Illurian with a weapon that fires light and energy?”
Rather than conceding, she just shrugged. “So I’ll bludgeon you to death instead. Maybe then something will finally get through that thick skull of yours.”
Very funny, he thought, and scowled deeply. “Where exactly are we?”
“Fuck if I know. Uncharted territory outside of Federation reach. Where were you when you were ambushed?”
Jade turned to her console and expertly input a coup
le of commands. Watching her, Sorlo couldn’t help but feel a little bit of admiration. She might be a bitter contrast to everything he knew to be fair and righteous but she had skill, certainly. That was the grace in her every move, the flow of the way she walked and talked. Her dancing fingers led up to dexterous wrists, muscular arms to which her suit was molded. Tightly.
He could see every curse on her body, from the swell of her hip to the roundness of her breasts.
Only now did he remember that he was naked. Not that it bothered him personally, but he had to wrench his eyes away from her as she bent over or else risk being visibly aroused. That was the last thing he wanted. Who knew what she would do to him if she saw his dick poking up towards his naval? Cut it off, probably.