She huffed out a jagged breath. “Death isn’t the only way to end a life.”
The alien didn’t reply.
“Are you the same race as the ones who captured me?” Hadiza asked.
“Yes.”
Speaking with him was like pulling teeth. But she wasn’t keen to sit in silence for the next two hours until they emerged from the bridge. “And what is that race?” she asked patiently.
“We are Scaevens.”
“Scaevens,” she repeated, testing the word. “I’ve never heard of you. Not even rumors. But you speak the trade Creole.” That meant that Scaevens had dealings with Ravanoth, the Bijari, and the Yiruba. The Ravanoth were the first alien species humanity had ever encountered—barely a century ago—and to this day their economies were deeply intertwined. Shortly after the Ravanoth, the Bijari and Yiruba revealed themselves in a joint outreach. And yet, neither of the other three sentients had so much as hinted at the Scaevens’ existence.
The alien offered no explanation.
“You said you were only doing your job. What is that? Are you Scaeven police?”
“I’m an Enforcer.”
“So you protect people from criminals?”
“I protect the rest of the universe from Scaevens. We are a cruel race by nature, but time has taught us that it’s in our best interests to behave cooperatively with other species.” His words implied a threat. He was quietly warning her that it was his instinct to be brutal, and that she should be wary.
She accepted the warning. She hadn’t simply forgotten her time as a captive. And despite the fact that he’d saved her, the alien sitting across from her looked exactly like her captors. Her subconscious hadn’t yet formed a distinction between them. The sight of him still alarmed her. He had the same oversized body, the same inhuman eyes, the same iron-hard skin, the same too-long, too-sharp canine teeth.
Another prolonged silence lapsed between them. The Scaeven scraped his thumbnail against those too-large canine teeth. The pretty gold inlay flaked off, leaving a clean, unmarked fangs. Stripped of that little vanity, he seemed even more dangerous, more inhuman.
Growing uncomfortable with his tense, looming quietude, Hadiza broke it. “What did the traffickers want with us?” she asked. She could guess, but she’d rather get all the facts.
“Scaevens are a male-only race. We reproduce through mate-bonds with females of compatible species.” Speaking to her seemed to be causing him physical pain, but he went on. “Our birthrate is low, as the actual compatibility between races is not guaranteed. But humans…” his gaze flicked towards her, then quickly away. “Humans are very fertile.”
Sick unease coiled in her gut. “So we’re breeding stock.”
“More than that. Scaevens form an unbreakable emotional bond with the female who bears their offspring. It’s called a matebond. Once matebonded, he loses all interest or attraction in other females. Human females are seen as especially desirable mates because of the...” His gaze flicked to her again, then just as quickly away. He cleared his throat. “…the significant sexual dimorphism in your species. Females of other species do not display secondary sexual characteristics unless they’re in estrus.”
Hadiza pushed away the prudish discomfort such a conversation triggered—reminding herself she was a doctor, and perfectly capable of discussing bodily processes with clinical detachment. “They’re going to be disappointed. Most human women have birth control implants.”
“That poses no barrier to the mechanics of Scaeven reproduction.”
Despite the awfulness of the situation, her medical mind was intrigued. “Really? How does that work?”
He lifted one shoulder in a shrug, his gaze pinned on the readings of the flight panel. “I’m not a biologist.”
Another strained silence. Before it could stretch on too long, Hadiza asked, “So what about you? Are you matebonded?”
“No,” he said tersely. “Or I wouldn’t have reacted to you the way I did.” Shame and anger burned in his deep, growling voice.
She hadn’t done anything intentionally, but Hadiza still felt a wave of embarrassed guilt. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” he said flatly. “Human females project a pheromonal signature that Scaevens can’t help but respond to.”
“So any human woman would—”
“Yes.”
“Why did you only save me?”
He let out a little sigh, as if answering her questions was so onerous. “I could only take one human,” he explained impatiently. “My mission was to infiltrate the auction as a buyer and make a ‘purchase.’ The funds were encrypted in a way that will allow Enforcement to trace the payment far enough to tell us who’s processing the initial transactions. As far as you’re concerned, you’ll be safely returned to human territory. But first, we’re headed to an Enforcement station, where you’ll be examined and interviewed for any useful information we can use.”
Hadiza nodded, taking it in. A curious after-thought crossed her mind. “What made you choose me, specifically?”
The alien’s big fingers curled into massive fists on the flight panel. “Stop distracting me,” he gritted out tersely.
“Sorry.” Hadiza pulled her heels up to the seat, wrapped her arms around her knees, and let the rest of the bridge pass in silence. She tilted her head, as if she were examining the flight panel, but instead observed the Scaeven from her peripheral vision.
Even facing away from her, focused on the data on his flight panel, he managed to loom over her. His hair, dark smokey gray, was shorn into a low mohawk. He grew a thick beard that did nothing to hide the anvil-hard edge of his jaw. The dark color of his hair contrasted against the pale gray of his skin. The high bridge of his nose was blade straight, drawing a sharp line down to the firm contours of his mouth. Powerful muscles in his chest and arms strained his beautiful shirt’s exquisite weave. His massive hands could easily crush the life out of her, and he wouldn’t even break a sweat doing it.
Hadiza shivered and looked away from him.
A blinding flash of light signaled the end of the bridge, and they dropped into the middle of a thick asteroid field. The shuttle rocked as debris glanced across the nose. They dropped with a suddenness that left Hadiza’s stomach in her throat, ducking a freighter-sized asteroid.
The alien—the Scaeven—Errol—looked down at the flight panel and growled out a stream of what could only be cursing in his own language.
“What is it?” Hadiza asked.
“We’ve got followers. I have to pilot manually to lose them.”
“Manually?” her voice squeaked out. “In an asteroid field?” Hadiza had seen it done once before—but only by the best of the best. A Black Astro flying an Alliance warbird, trying to shake a pursuing Confederation battle cruiser. And even then, it’d only been for a few minutes, and it’d nearly been the death of everyone onboard.
“They’ll have their vessels set to autonavigate. The only way to lose them will be to make choices a computer wouldn’t. Make sure your restraints are secure.” He touched something on the instrument panel. A portion of the panel receded, and a yoke emerged. Errol gripped it, sliding his thumbs over a complex array of buttons. The computational fields vanished from the instrument panel, and were replaced by three different camera fields—port, starboard, and stern. In the stern view, two dark shuttles chased close on their tail. Behind them, a ripple of light cut through the void, and a third ship slipped into space.
Hadiza’s heart jumped into her throat. No. Please no. Don’t let them take me back.
“Here we go,” Errol warned.
He jerked on the yoke, and the shuttle cut hard to the starboard side, arrowing down through layers of spinning rock. Hadiza’s body slammed sideways against the restraints. She clutched the chest straps with her hands and curled her calves beneath the edge of her seat, trying to lock herself into place. The stern-view camera displayed three undaunted pursuers, weaving nimbly between asteroids and debris.
Hadiza bit back a scream as a massive piece of rock collided with the shuttle’s nose, sending them into a spin. The shuttle slammed one way, then the other. Her neck hurt. Errol spat out a stream of foul-sounding language, wrenching on the yoke and reorienting them. The nearest shuttle had closed a significant distance between them. In the camera, Hadiza could see gun ports opening along the other vessel’s nose.
“They’re readying fire,” Hadiza said. Her voice was calm, but she felt herself slipping into a familiar coldness, an odd distance that made her feel like she was sitting very far back in her own mind.
Errol swore some more in Scaeven.
“A vessel like this must have a shielding system,” Hadiza said, with the same detached calm. No, no, no. Come back. Don’t slip away—not right now.
“We don’t have the fuel to use it,” Errol snarled in the Creole. “Reaching the nearest habitable planet will take the last of our reserves.”
Hadiza accepted that startling news without reaction. She remained a rigid statue in her seat, clinging to the restraints, as Errol cut one sharp maneuver after another, sinking further and further back into her mind with each slamming collision.
“Doc!”
Hadiza twisted to answer the voice from behind her. But there was nobody there. That voice belonged to a ghost.
She braced herself back in her seat, sweating, and closed her eyes against the chaos in front of her. Another chunk of debris slammed into them. Her eyes flashed open as lights flickered inside the shuttle. The starboard camera winked out.
Errol twisted on the yoke, sending them spiraling upwards. Behind them, their nearest pursuer flew directly into an asteroid the size of a cargo hauler. The ship shattered into black splinters.
“One down,” Hadiza said tensely. Her voice sounded far away, tinny.
Errol pushed the shuttle over the surface of that same asteroid, borrowing its cover for a moment while he analyzed the other two pursuers in the remaining camera views. When he was satisfied, he slipped over the other side, hugging it with the ship’s blinded starboard side. Debris raced alongside them, nudging dangerously close to the hull, but moving along the same path of travel.
Below them, both of the remaining pursuers emerged from under the asteroid’s belly. Errol pulled on the yoke, and they rolled up, weaving through debris. The other shuttles shot after them. Errol rolled over the top of the asteroid, dropping back down the other side. Debris rattled and cracked against the hull. Hadiza slammed against her restraints.
Overhead, the other two shuttles appeared. They angled their noses down, aligning the gun ports.
“Tracking fire,” Errol told her with a scoffing laugh. “Hold on, human.”
He shot straight up at the other two shuttles then cut suddenly to the portside. He wove a tight circle, coming up behind the stern of one of the shuttles, then looping over the top of both of them. The enemy shuttles spun, trying to keep their gun ports oriented.
“Here it comes,” he warned.
There was no sound, but Hadiza could see the disturbance in the surrounding debris as one of the enemy shuttles fired at them.
Errol laughed, a wickedly pleased rumble. He cut downwards, drew a looping figure-eight between the other two shuttles, then shot straight away. In the stern camera, Hadiza watched one of the enemy shuttles take the shot that had been intended to kill her and Errol. It blasted a hole through the other shuttle’s hull. The force of the sudden vacuum ripped pieces of the interior out in a spray of glittering metal. Anybody inside would have died instantly.
“Two down,” Hadiza said. Her voice sounded very far away.
Errol twisted the yoke, and shot against the grain of the asteroid field, weaving up and down, left and right. Despite his agility, debris continued to slam against the hull, rocking the ship with brutal shudders.
“Doc!”
She couldn’t look. It was another ghost.
“Doc! Quick—it’s the Staff Sergeant!”
Errol swore and dropped just in time to miss a massive rock that had emerged from the cover of an even larger one. Debris glanced across the nose of the shuttle, slamming her against the seat restraints again. Behind them, their final pursuer was undaunted, weaving through the debris with an agility that matched Errol’s.
She blinked, and she was inside a different ship, a different time, her bones rattling with each jarring artillery impact against their hull.
“They gutshot me. That’s no good, hey, Doc?” The gray-faced Marine lay on the deck, clutching some of his own intestines against his belly.
“Who’s the corpsman here, Merrick? You just shut your pretty mouth and sit back while I stitch up this little scratch.”
He slipped away quickly after that. It wasn’t until he’d turned cold that she even realized he was gone, her eyes and mind busy picking tiny bits of shrapnel from the badly perforated colon of a deadman.
Her harness snapped against her chest, bringing her back to Errol’s ship. She looked down at her hands. No blood.
Hadiza hadn’t experienced a dissociative episode in more than a year. Since signing on as the physician aboard a nice, quiet, long-haul survey ship, there’d been nothing to trigger one. But, now, careening through an asteroid field, dodging enemy fire, running for her life, she felt that old familiar slipping sensation.
She jerked against her restraints with another collision. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them, she wasn’t certain whether she was looking at the present or the past.
Slowly, the voices of ghosts faded from her hearing. She looked up, and found herself staring into the empty void of another projected bridge. She glanced over at her rescuer, and found him staring at her intently. Those yellow, inhuman eyes were fixed on her face. His gray-skinned face looked as if it were cast in lead, all hard contours and severe lines.
“Where’d you go, human?”
“What?” Hadiza blinked.
He watched her with a perceptiveness that made her feel transparent.
“You went away. Just for a little bit.”
“No. I…” she shook her head. Why lie? It’s not like he could revoke her medical license or force her into another round of useless suppression therapy. “Yeah,” she admitted. “Old memories.”
“Bad ones.”
“Yeah.”
He didn’t say any more.
Some time later, when they were still in the dark of the bridge, the ship chimed, and an AI voice spoke in the growling language Hadiza recognized from the traffickers. Errol made a few adjustments on the flight panel.
Without looking at Hadiza, he said, “The gravitational differential was damaged in the asteroid field. We’ll be exiting the bridge directly into the orbit of a habitable planet, where I can get a new differential. The landing’s going to be rough.”
Hadiza nodded. With enough warning, she might not slip into the past again. It was when she was caught by surprise that these things tended to happen.
A flash of light cracked through the darkness in front of them, and a nearly imperceptible shift pulsed through the shuttle as they slipped back into open space.
A small, cloud-obscured planet filled their field of vision.
The landing was, as Errol had promised, rough. With the differential damaged, the ship had lost directional orientation. Errol had to pilot manually, keeping the nose up, as he allowed the small planet’s gravitational force to pull them to the ground on the nightside of the planet.
Hadiza clung to her restraints as they bumped and rocked through atmospheric entry. The cloud cover blinded them. They could see nothing but a thick, gray soup a
s they jounced and shuddered in their seats. Finally, they broke through into open air, in the dark of night.
The ground raced towards them. They were going in fast and hot—too fast. Even through the thick hull and all its layers of protective materials, Hadiza could hear the air whistling over the shuttle. City lights glittered beneath them. Hadiza knew better than to try to give a pilot instructions, but Errol had them on a direct course for the city. With no directional sensors and poorly responding manual controls, they would kill not only themselves, but the occupants of every building they plowed through. She bit her lip hard to keep from crying out.
Errol gritted out a curse in his native language, pulling hard on the yoke. He managed to bank, slowly, along the edge of the city. They sailed over brightly lit shipping docks, and veered out over an empty, desolate landscape of nothing but dust-strewn rock.
Errol pulled the nose up hard, and lifted all the flaps. It didn’t slow them enough. They hit the ground hard. Hadiza’s whole body felt as if she’d been thrown against a wall. Her vision whited out for a split second. The shuttle’s belly skipped over the rocky ground. Metal screamed and sparks flared.
At long last, the shuttle skidded to a gradual halt. For a long moment, there was only silence, and the sound of Hadiza and Errol’s labored breaths.
Then, Errol sank back against his seat and let out a humorless laugh.
Hadiza reached for her restraints quickly, clumsily. She couldn’t stand to feel the harness against her chest for another second. Her fingers tangled with the buckle. She lifted it, but the catch wouldn’t release. She bit out a frantic curse, jerking on the straps.
“Easy, human,” Errol said, easily detaching his own restraints.
Hadiza needed to get out of the harness. Her skin was too tight on her body. Sweat prickled down her back and chest. She continued to swear, slipping into her first language, Espuerbaa—the Arabic-Español hybrid spoken by the laboring classes on Kepler. She hadn’t had much use for her native language since she’d left Kepler for the military, where everything was conducted in the Alliance’s official language of French. But when she was frightened, or angry, or drunk, she always fell back into Espeurbaa.
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