NO WORDS ALONE

by Autumn Dawn

  Her ensign crutch was a braver man than she. “Can’t be worse than Mom’s cooking,” he said philosophically, and began gathering ingredients.

  Xera felt sick. She started to hobble to the stairs. Step, crunch. Drag, step, squish. She shuddered. Reaching the steps, she hurried up. Brirax, Delfane and their captain had been either slow to leave or were waiting for her. They didn’t say anything. Atarus wordlessly placed a hand under her elbow and supported her as she climbed.

  “Tired?” he asked as they reached the upper cavern and blessed light.

  Not a bug in sight. She sighed gratefully and tried not to think about the condition of her boots. “Some.”

  Shocking her, he swung her up into his arms and strode off toward her bench. None of her crew was there to see it, and his own people didn’t seem fazed.

  “What are you doing?” she gasped, panicked. She struggled, but he was even stronger than he looked. Was he going to try something now that no one was watching?

  He set her down on her bench. “Stay off the foot if you want it to heal. There is little for you to do now but translate, anyway.”

  She gave him an unfriendly look. “I don’t like being carried.”

  “You do not seem to like bugs, either, but you will eat them,” he said, unconcerned. “What is the name of the man who helped you down the stairs? You should have him for your help.”

  “Ensign Trevor, and I won’t need help long.”

  “Good.” He walked away.

  She watched him go, her gut still swirling with unease. She began to wonder how much of Delfane and Brirax’s help was his doing.

  She was still wondering a little while later when Delfane brought her a bowl of gray soup. “What is it?” she asked warily.

  “Don’t ask,” he advised her.

  She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and told herself it was mushroom soup. Of course it was. It wasn’t bad, really.

  He handed her a mug of faintly glowing green tea. His eyes crinkled with amusement. “Your face reminds me of my daughter when she tries something new. Her face always twists just so.”

  Surprised, she asked, “You’re married?”

  “Yes. Drink your tea.”

  Cautiously, she complied. It wasn’t great, but it was drinkable. Kind of reminded her of kelp.

  “Good. Now you will finish the soup and translate the making of it for your people.”

  It was a lot easier to finish the soup than it was to explain to everyone else how it was made. She turned a little green, much to the amusement of the Scorpio. She saw several of them laughing to each other and talking quietly but animatedly as they gestured in her direction. She’d have thought they were jerks, but noticed that several of them were eating the gray soup, too. Maybe they thought she was finicky, or they were making the best of a less than gourmet meal by cracking jokes. Even Atarus seemed amused.

  To her surprise, her own captain slurped the slop right down. Must not be a picky eater, she assumed, or he just liked a full belly.

  Afterward, she gave language lessons. Occasionally she had to ask an alien for confirmation regarding the meaning of a word. They seemed willing enough to talk to her, if especially aloof around her crew. The feeling was mutual.

  Well, she reminded herself, the two groups had been shooting each other out of the sky just yesterday. Feeling more like an ambassador than an interpreter, she often stood between the two races, using her body as a kind of buffer.

  It was tiring work, and she excused herself after an hour to hobble back to her bench. She lay down, inserted her earbuds and listened to music. The device was small enough to fit into a necklace and contained millions of files, many of which she’d still never heard. Now, given time and the lifetime warranty on the battery, she might just get a chance. She shoved that image out of her mind as soon as it formed and concentrated on other things. It had been a gift from her sisters on her last birthday and contained many family photos. She flipped through them as she listened to music, feeling wistful. She missed them and wondered what they’d been told about her disappearance. They’d worry. For that matter, she was worried.

  The downside of teaching everyone the language was that she was helping herself out of a job. She didn’t think it would change her situation, though. What might? She couldn’t think of anything, so she concentrated on simply doing her job. Any intel she might get from the aliens about their culture or language would be a powerful tool if she ever got back to the GE. To cheer herself up, she imagined herself being in high demand as an expert on the Scorpio race. Of course, not knowing when they might be rescued, she might find out more than she wanted to know about their mating habits.…

  Stop torturing yourself, she ordered herself sternly, and sat up. There’d been no comb in her pack, so she tried to untangle her hair with her fingers. The motion was soothing and it gave her something to do.

  Ensign Trevor must have noticed. He came over and offered his comb. “Here. I don’t need it.” His hair was cropped regulation short.

  She smiled gratefully. “It’s short now. Give it time. But, thanks.” She couldn’t see what she was doing while she combed, but at least she now had a prayer of undoing the rat’s nest.

  Trevor sat down on the bench next to her. “Quite a hike yesterday, huh? Felt like I’d been sucked into a horror movie.”

  “It isn’t over. There’s still the food,” she said with a grimace.

  He laughed. “Yeah. At least there is food.” He let his gaze trail aimlessly around, clearly stalling. At last he spoke. “Look, Harris-d, I was thinking we could do each other a favor.”

  She stilled. He didn’t meet her eyes, or he might have flinched at the suspicion there. She’d had too many come-ons start with that very line.

  “You’ve really got a bad situation here, and I’m sympathizing with that. Being the only woman and all.” He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “I was thinking maybe I could help you out.” She waited. She’d thought he was all right, maybe a little geeky, but he was no different than the rest. He was making a play for her. She wanted to hit him for trying to take advantage. In her present mindset, that was the only way she saw his offer.

  “It would really help if you had a guy on your side, you know. I’m willing, if you like.” He got a little red-faced. “If the others thought you were taken…”

  “So you want sex in exchange, is that it?” she asked coldly.

  He flinched. “Well, it would be nice, but I’m not trying to force you or anything. I just thought I’d offer. It’s not like we…I mean…” He stumbled to a verbal stop, his face glowing red.

  She couldn’t speak right away, didn’t trust herself. She’d always had a temper, but she had common sense, too. He stood up. She almost let him walk away. “I’ll think about it,” she choked out.

  He paused, looked over his shoulder. “Okay,” he said.

  He hesitated, then moved on. Xera gripped the comb so hard it bit into her hand. Suddenly she didn’t care about her hair.

  “The first one’s approached her,” Toosun observed softly. He was sitting with his brother, and the two men watched the quiet scene unfold across the room, just as his brother had predicted. Ryven also watched the way Xera just sat there, staring at her feet after the human ensign left. It was a dead giveaway.

  “Yes,” he said. He continued sharpening his blade. The eight-inch knife had the same shifting coating as his uniform and was already razor sharp. An enemy would not see it coming in the dark.

  “Will her captain permit her to go to another man?”

  “That one? He’ll let her ser vice anyone who asks, then demand her for himself when he wants her. She will not be permitted to refuse.” Ryven’s eyes were shuttered, deceptively focused on his task.

  “We will keep watch, then. If she chooses a man of her own free will, do we still intervene?”

  Ryven looked at him. “In this situation, will any choice of hers constitute free will? Even if it did, it would
not change my plans for her.”

  Toosun nodded. “The men are settled, then. Shall we start with drills this morning? They need to stay busy.”

  “Yes. After they’ve bled off some energy, they can participate in more language studies with the translator. Also, ask for volunteers to do recon outside the shelter—we need to know more data about our environment, need to see if there’s any recoverable equipment outside. If your group finds remains, burn them with lasers. Burial is too hazardous now. You have one hour. If you do not return on time we will send out a search party, but anyone left outside at dusk is expendable.”

  The brothers held each other’s gazes. They had done this often enough that nothing else needed to be said. They had love but also duty. It had always been that way.

  “We’ll recover what we can and stay on the rocks. That should keep the diggers at bay, and the flyers are sleeping until dusk.”

  “Just don’t walk into any caves,” Ryven said dryly. After a moment he added, “Ask the humans if they’re brave enough to go.”

  Toosun grinned. “The translator won’t tell them my exact words.”

  Ryven flashed a brief smile in response. “Be discreet, then. I would rather our numbers be even—not that they impress me as warriors.”

  “No. I will ask her.” Toosun hesitated. “What about their weapons? Will we take them soon?”

  Ryven knew his brother wouldn’t question the wisdom of his decisions directly, but he was sure his men were all wondering. “We will wait a little longer. Let them think they have nothing to fear—it will lull them.” There had been enough casualties. There would come an opportune moment, and then he and his men would act.

  He hadn’t forgotten his objective—the interlopers would pay for their indiscretion. They were trespassers, and would be treated as such. Even the woman would learn her place…as soon as he decided what that place should be. It seemed a waste to send a woman like her to prison. He darted a glance her way. He had to think about the possibilities.

  Xera eyed the Scorpio second in command, Toosun, and contemplated what he’d just said. As she didn’t feel like hobbling over to her captain just then, she caught Khan’s attention with a gesture. It wasn’t hard—he’d been watching her with alarming frequency, especially whenever one of the Scorpio spoke with her.

  “What?” he demanded as he approached. “You too lazy to bring a message to your captain?”

  She gestured to her bound foot. “I’m still recovering, sir. It’ll heal faster if I stay off it.”

  Khan’s small eyes gleamed with nasty satisfaction. “So you’re only good for sitting on your butt or lying on your back, eh? That’s about…” He broke off as the Scorpio shifted toward him, just enough to make him wary.

  “The Scorpio are making up a reconnaissance party,” she explained quickly, keeping her voice even. “They want to know if any of us are brave enough to accompany them. They plan to be gone an hour.”

  “Brave enough?” Khan snarled. “Any of us are braver than a stinking, filthy alien. Cort! Trevor!” he bellowed. He looked at those two men, who hurried over. “Get ready for a recon mission. I want to know what these guys know at all times! Grab any gear you happen to see lying around outside.”

  The men paled but hurried to do what he said.

  Captain Khan turned to Toosun and eyed him arrogantly. “What else do they want?” he asked Xera.

  She kept her sigh to herself, though she was suddenly exhausted. In his own language she told Toosun, “They are getting ready. Is there anything else?”

  Toosun looked at her and ignored her captain, who practically breathed down his neck. “My lord has told our men to watch out for your safety. It is not our custom to see women mistreated. If you become afraid, you may move your sleeping place to our side of the shelter. You will not be disturbed or harmed.” He gave her a slight bow of his head, then turned and looked down at Khan.

  Faced with the Scorpio and his superior height, much of the captain’s bravado leached away. Khan turned his back and stalked off.

  A dark expression flashed through Toosun’s face. It was leashed but not gone when he nodded to Xera and returned to his own men.

  Xera took a slow breath, then exhaled. She’d just been offered protection by people she knew nothing about. Unfortunately, she knew too much about her own kind. She’d better be down to zero options before she took such a huge risk. She took her laser rifle crutch and hobbled over to sit by a few of her human companions. They were fiddling with a radio, clearly waiting to get reports back from the imminent reconnaissance mission. In response to the few curious looks they shot her, she said, “You might need translation help on that.” She wasn’t going to give Khan another chance to say she was useless.

  The communications officer nodded and handed her a headset.

  Chapter Four

  Xera didn’t envy Cort and Ensign Trevor as they followed Toosun and his crew outside. Both humans and Scorpio lined the entry tunnel, ready to blast anything that came through the door, though the shelter’s sensors had reported nothing deadly beyond. A flash of light appeared as they exited, then darkened to artificial light as the heavy doors closed on the sun outside. It didn’t take long before Ensign Trevor reported, “We found a boot…Scorpio make.”

  There was grim silence in the room as everyone heard the transmission. Xera remembered the Scorpio who’d gone down under a flyer.

  “There’s a ripped pack. We’re gathering the goods. Doesn’t seem to be anything else.”

  There was apparently a path carved into the rock that wound up to the top of the shelter, and the team followed it. Toosun explained the path was for maintenance on the solar array, and Xera translated. The top of the rock opened up into a rough plateau.

  “Good place to land a ship,” Cort reported tersely.

  Captain Khan tensed.

  “You can see for miles up here,” Ensign Trevor broadcasted. He was looking through electronic binoculars. “Not that there’s much to see. Desert, rocks, sand.”

  “Same thing as yesterday,” Cort affirmed. “There’s a few other rocky hills scattered here and there, but that’s it. This rock isn’t very big, either. Maybe the size of a football field. Makes you wonder why they bothered to build a shelter here at all.”

  The hour of reconnaissance passed quickly and uneventfully, but it provided a much-needed distraction. The men made it back to the shelter with no problem.

  “Sandstorm looked to be kicking up,” Cort remarked as he entered.

  “Tell me about the landing pad,” Kahn demanded. “Any sign of recent use?”

  Cort shrugged. “Hard to tell.”

  “What I want to know is if they have a ship on the way,” the captain snapped. “For all I know we’re sitting ducks, with no way to know if or when our own distress signal will be answered.”

  His crew tensed. However brief their truce here, no one wanted to be a war time guest of the Scorpio. POWs had no guarantee of fair treatment, no matter what the GE claimed.

  “They killed Genson,” one of the men added bitterly. “We’ve got no call to be trusting them.”

  Xera couldn’t argue; everything her companions said was true. She didn’t like where this was going, though. The building tension could lead to bad decisions, maybe get somebody killed.

  Khan looked at her. “Harris-d, you’re going to question them. Ask them about the planet, about its resources. Ask ’em why a shelter was put up in this place, find out everything you can. Be careful about it! They don’t need to know we’re suspicious.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said soberly.

  “The rest of you, keep your eyes peeled! We don’t need any nasty surprises. From now on, two of you will be on active watch at all times.”

  Xera limped back to her bench and waited a while before approaching the Scorpio. It was hard to view them objectively—they had been kind to her. There was no telling what would happen to her or her crew on an alien ship, though. They could end up
under the authority of someone who was less lenient, with harsher views on the treatment of captive females. She hadn’t been home in three years, and she wanted a chance to see her sisters again.

  The Scorpio didn’t seem disturbed by what the recon mission had revealed. Singularly and in pairs, they now performed martial arts drills. Doing so, they made her years of study look like kid stuff. She held a black belt in two different disciplines, and she had no doubt any one of these guys could take out her old masters without breaking a sweat. They were unbelievably fast. She could only be grateful that their space technology was roughly on a par with that of her own people, or they wouldn’t still be here.

  She waited until Delfane was finished with his kata and had taken his turn in the ray shower before approaching him. He saw her coming and waved her over to a bench.

  “That was impressive,” she said. As she settled down, she winced. How long would it take this foot to heal? It was killing her whenever she failed to keep it elevated. “What do you call your martial art?”

  He said something unpronounceable.

  “The…killing way?” she translated hesitantly.

  “Close. Your foot is better?”

  She sighed. “It hurts, but it won’t kill me. I’m sorry for the loss of your crewman.”

  He nodded but offered nothing else.

  “This is a very cruel planet. Why did your people bother building a shelter here? Our scans showed some minerals, but nothing that couldn’t be found on an asteroid. Even these oceans are filled with poisons.”

  He shrugged. “It lies within our boundaries. Claiming it is our right.”

  The GE would argue that, but Xera wasn’t about to. “Sure. I’m just glad I won’t have to live here.…” She trailed off, let a touch of genuine anguish color her words. “At least, I hope I won’t.”