by Sara King
“We’ll come back for her. Let’s go.”
“If you think that thing’s dangerous, I can get onboard and blow it to pieces,” Dallas said.
“I’m not afraid of the alien,” Rabbit said, pointing. “I’m afraid of them.”
A squadron of airborne warships were bearing down on them like a hive of bees.
“Everybody get on board!” Dallas squeaked. They got inside and shut the doors just as the first bombs hit, shaking the ship.
Dallas ran with the others to the helm and began to execute the commands for takeoff. She was just lifting off the ground when she saw the size of the ship in front of them. She released the controls, her jaw dropping.
Interstellar warship Retribution, this is Everest, unclassified. You are trespassing on the Emperor’s soil. Proceed with liftoff and you will be terminated.
“Since when do atmo ships get that big?” Rabbit whispered.
Athenais was brought to the helm of Retribution wet and near-drowned. The two men escorting her wore stylized medieval plate and carried pikes, but Athenais’s bloody nose attested to the fact that they were more than just decoration.
“Athenais.”
Juno sat in the captain’s chair and looked up at her approach. The former Psy operative wore a brocaded white shirt and matching pants that reminded Athenais of a karate gi. Her golden hair was wrapped into a tight bun behind her head and her angular face twisted at the sight of Athenais.
“Juno.” Athenais nodded coolly. “What did you do to the girl?”
“We’re educating her, along with that former Utopi you were dragging around.”
“You’re brainwashing them.”
Juno’s lips tightened. “Why are you here?”
“I came to get my shifters. Where are they?”
“Your shifters.” Juno snorted as if she found that particularly funny. “They are currently involved in procreating a new shifter race on Xenith.”
“Well, get them. I’m taking them home.”
“They aren’t going anywhere. They’re my guests.”
“Your breeding stock, you mean.”
Juno shrugged. “I am saving a species.”
“You mean you’re making more of them so you can cut a few open and see how they tick.”
Juno gave her a long, flat stare. “Of all of us, the gift was most wasted on you.”
“Ha!” Athenais cried. “I suppose you haven’t seen Angus in that hell-hole planet he’s made for himself. You can’t go outside without getting the skin blasted from your bones.”
“He formed a government, crafted his own economy.” Juno looked Athenais up and down, disgust written on her fine features. “You’re just a thief.”
Athenais sighed. “What about Rabbit? Once a month or so, he’ll go out and spend a day robbing people in the streets, to ‘keep from getting rusty.’”
“Rabbit has expanded his influence unseen over several planetary stock exchanges. He’s snatched up more real estate than a dozen mega-corporations combined. He could overthrow governments just by picking up his comset, while you’re just a disgrace to humanity.”
A…disgrace? “Who died and named you God?” Athenais cried. Then she paused, thinking. “Oh, wait. That’s right. You did.”
Juno’s angular face hardened to solid rock. “Your friends should be done with their session. As soon as they return, I will be taking them to the capital. We can use two more freighter captains.”
“Good. I’ve been wanting to see the capital.”
“You’re not coming with us.”
“Oh?” Athenais raised a brow. “And what are you going to do with me, oh mouthpiece of the divine?” She cocked her head at Juno in question. “That is what you set yourself up as, isn’t it? Wait, wait. Let me guess. The Creator. The Founder of this wretched little planet, Mother to All, Whose Firm Hand and Guidance Will Bring Truth.”
For the first time, Juno smiled. It did nothing to soften her face.
The doors opened and four guards entered escorting Fairy and the Colonel. Both had blank looks on their faces. Athenais felt a rush of dread, then of fury. “What did you do to them?”
Juno ignored her. In a bored voice, without even taking her eyes from Athenais, Juno said, “Dallas, program me in as the new captain. I’m flying from now on.”
Fairy never even twitched. She sat down at the console and began entering codes. When she was done, she got up and stood like a zombie, waiting more instructions.
Seeing Dallas’s slack expression, Athenais fought a surge of despair. As blank as a dead man’s grimace, her blue eyes just…stared.
Damn Juno. As much as Dallas pissed her off, Athenais had still liked the sneaky little twit.
Juno tested the new settings, found them to her liking, and smiled. “Well, then. Back to what I am going to do with you.”
“You’re lucky I don’t have more time to be inventive.” At that, Juno boarded the ship and it lifted off with a whirring hum. The silence that followed was absolute.
Athenais stared up at the blue sky for long minutes as the lifeboat rocked against the waves. She twisted her arms behind her back, but only managed to rub her wrists raw against the ropes. Finally, she lay back and relaxed. Even if she got loose, she had no oars, no sails. Her clothes were all gone except for the spacer underwear, whose canister was already full. Juno had even confiscated her boots.
Looking up, Athenais watched the clouds roll over the sky above her. Juno had claimed to have dropped her in the path of a huge megastorm, but right now all she could see was a few strands of clouds pushed by a soft breeze.
It didn’t last.
Not two hours later, the winds began to blast against the little boat, the waves tossing it eighty feet into the air. After thousands of years immunizing her stomach to the disorienting motion of space, Athenais discovered seasickness. Retching, miserable, she curled in the bottom of the boat, praying that the waves tossed her into the ocean so she could drown.
Unfortunately, it didn’t happen.
Somehow, the stubborn little boat stayed upright throughout the entire two days of howling winds and ferocious waves. On the third day, Athenais woke to the sound of the automatic pump expelling the last of the water from the pool in the bottom of the vessel.
Throughout the storm, her seasickness had been enough to make her forget she hadn’t eaten. Now, sitting on the calm seas with nothing in sight to distract her from her hunger, Athenais’s stomach began to tear a hole in her gut.
Two more days passed. Athenais spent them in a daze bordering on delirium. The sun baked her exposed flesh, burning her pale spacer’s skin an angry red, which healed, only to be baked again a few hours later.
On the sixth day, she woke with the odd feeling of being watched. As soon as she tried to sit up, however, something big splashed into the water beside the boat, jerking it.
After her encounter with the strange creature on the beach—and her subsequent need to traipse on down to the water and dive really, really deep into the pretty pretty ocean—Athenais began twisting, trying to get free. The knots only dug in deeper, tightening until her extremities went numb. Sighing, she lay back and watched the clouds.
Something brushed the bottom of the boat, tilting it, then was gone. Athenais sat up and peered over the edge. The water was a blue-green, infinitely deep. Then she saw something massive—easily many times the size of Retribution—move deep underneath her in a slow pass under her raft. She swallowed and lay back down. So this was why Juno wasn’t worried about her finding a way out of the boat. Hell, the sadistic bitch probably wanted her to crawl out of the boat. All the better for the wildlife.
Athenais closed her eyes, trying not to think of the enormous alien and how much of Retribution it could have swallowed at once. She’d been eaten by a large carnivore in the past and was not eager to repeat the experience. A few feet off, she heard surface water ripple on an otherwise calm day. Fighting down nausea, Athenais imagined tearing Juno’s head off and using it
as a soccer ball.
The boat rocked again and the prow began to slide through the water. Athenais looked over the edge, trying to identify what was under the boat, and whether the boat was sliding through the water, or about to be pulled under the water.
Whatever was propelling it stopped.
Scowling, Athenais moved back from the edge. The boat started to move again.
“Shy, huh?” she said. Trying not to allow her nerves to get the best of her, she turned to peer out at the horizon. The ocean in front of the boat looked like the ocean behind it. She had no idea where she was, and Juno had made sure to keep her under guard in the cargo bay while she chose the coordinates.
Exhausted and weak, not knowing whether the critter was stealing her off to safety or to a home-cooked meal, Athenais fell back to the bottom of the boat and tried to sleep.
When she woke that night, the smell of seafood was overpowering. She sat up and stared. A dead fish lay in the bottom of her boat. Fat, silver, it stared up at her with a single dried-out eye.
Her stomach thought for her. Athenais pushed it closer with a knee and struggled to find a place small enough for her puny human jaws to find purchase. She closed on the tail and bit down hard. She tore scales and flesh from the carcass and barely paused to swallow before she tore off another chunk.
Behind her, something big dropped into the ocean with a splash, rocking the boat. Realizing that whatever it had been had been watching her, Athenais swiveled and lurched to the edge of the boat. “What are you?!” she shouted at the rippling ocean. Whatever it was did not return. Athenais went back to the fish, propping the head between her knees so she could chew on the tail with her teeth. The boat began moving again.
After stuffing herself with fish, Athenais collapsed back in the bottom of the boat and lay awake watching the stars. What was helping her? And why?
And was it really helping, or was it just fattening her up?
The next morning, she jerked awake when the boat hit something hard. She looked up and her heart began thudding in her chest.
Land.
Laughing, Athenais levered herself out of the boat and into the shallows. She flopped into the water and pushed herself to the beach with her toes. Then she crawled a few feet through the sand and lay there, exhausted, the waves lapping at her bare feet.
She lay there an entire day. The tide came up to her chest, then receded again.
Apparently, whatever had helped her so far had washed its hands of her once getting her to land.
Wet, tired, Athenais struggled to loosen the ropes at her back, but they would not budge.
…And probably wouldn’t, for at least another thirty years.
“Well isn’t this just peachy,” Athenais muttered. She collapsed, staring at the sand under her nose. Her one-time friend was probably living it up in some palace somewhere, having some naked man with a Herculean physique feed her plums while she swatted him on the ass with a riding crop and tugged on his leash. The psychological nutjob was about as kinky as they came. Athenais was actually surprised Juno hadn’t decided to use her in one of her various breeding programs. That was her specialty. Government-sponsored eugenics. And, well, if Juno was the government, things had probably gotten pretty nasty.
Hell, just having Juno on the planet didn’t bode well for the sanity of the population. That she was obviously in some sort of position of power pretty much meant Ragnar, Rabbit, and the twit could all kiss their asses goodbye.
Athenais spent hours thinking about that, and about what Juno had said about her being the most worthless one with the ‘gift.’ The woman was so full of crap it was coming out her ears. The way Athenais saw it, she was the only one who had retained any semblance of sanity over the years. The rest were either megalomaniacs, psychopaths, or paranoid schizophrenics. Hell, most were all three. Athenais was the only one who had a normal job, flying a spaceship. Sure, a normal job where she stole other people’s stuff and sold it to the highest bidder, but how was that any different than a repo man or a foreclosure officer?
Yeah, that’s what she was. A governmental foreclosure officer. After all, she mostly only stole government goods. Hell, she was basically doing everybody else a favor, ‘cause no one else had the balls to stick up to the Man. Everyone else bellied up to the Utopia like it had every right to be there. Not Athenais. She gave em what-for.
Or, at least, had. She was pretty sure she was going to be stuck on Juno’s rock for a very, very long time.
That night, something brushed her leg. She started awake, thinking it was scavengers. Whatever had touched her jumped back with a wet flop and stayed there. Athenais squinted, trying to make out its shape in the darkness. She could feel it sitting on the sand in the darkness, watching her.
Exhausted, Athenais lowered her head. “Water,” she whispered. The Potion had kept her alive despite the elements, but her thirst was excruciating.
Hearing her voice, her visitor cringed further away.
“No,” Athenais cried, twisting her head to look, “Wait. Water. Please.”
The thing turned, flinging sand, and she heard a splash as it flopped back into the surf.
Athenais groaned and slumped back to the beach.
It was well past midnight when something warm and salty pressed against her lips, startling her out of a restless sleep. Something with sharp claws held her head so she couldn’t pull away. Then, as Athenais was starting to struggle, warm water flowed against her lips.
Reflexively, Athenais swallowed, the water soothing her parched mouth and throat. When the flow stopped, she groaned. It wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough.
“More. Please, more.”
The thing flopped away from her and slid back into the ocean.
When it returned the second time, she was awake. She heard it crawling up the beach toward her, a scuff-sliding sound in the darkness. Athenais held absolutely still, willing to do anything for another sip of water.
Despite her resolve, however, her heart began to pound as it crawled over her. The thing was big. The long, streamlined silhouette it cast against the dawn sky was at least four times her own body mass. Its huge eyes were bigger than her head, ringed with silver, and its wide, toothy mouth was easily big enough to swallow her upper torso. She tried not to flinch as it reached out and held her head steady with one massive clawed limb. Then it leaned down and pressed its stiff, salty lips to hers.
Athenais wasn’t sure if it was regurgitating or simply holding the water in its mouth, but as soon as the second flow started, she drank. When creature had passed her everything it had, it pulled back. Then, as if she were made of paper, it flipped her onto her stomach and she felt hard, clawed fingers fumble clumsily with the knots.
“You’ll have to cut them,” Athenais said, finally breaking the silence.
Her rescuer jerked and moved away, its mass making the beach shiver under her. For an instant, Athenais thought it would flee. She was surprised when, after a tentative moment, it crawled back, dragging its long, sharklike tail behind it. They watched each other, alien-to-alien, as the thing reached out with a big, timid arm and one-handedly started fiddling with her bonds. Athenais felt something grind against the ropes. She twisted to look back, then gave a chuckle of despair.
“Her ropes are made of synthetic silk. You’re not going to be able to cut it with a seashell.”
The thing said nothing and continued to saw at the ropes.
“My name’s Athenais,” she tried again.
It ignored her.
“Odd that you can understand me, but not speak. How’d you learn?”
Her rescuer grabbed the rope it was sawing at and pulled. To her surprise, it snapped. Must have been a weak strand. She tried to move her hands from behind her back and realized patronizingly that the creature had not chosen the best rope to free her. Probably a lower-intellect. Barely above primate. Her amusement faded when the thing dropped its shell and flopped away and back into the ocean.
“Aw, damn it!” Athenais cried, flailing. “Come back here and finish the job! You damned chicken. I’m not gonna do anything to you! Jesus, Allah, and Buddha!”
It did not return.
Athenais struggled. The ropes were looser, but she hadn’t eaten in over a day. She flailed until she exhausted herself, then lay with her forehead in the damp sand. Why did these things happen to her? It was almost as if Karma was giving her one great big kick in the nuts after another, yet she was pretty sure her Karma was clean. After all, she didn’t count stealing from the government or putting immature little twits back in their place bad Karma. She’d have to ask Rabbit about that someday. Maybe she needed to take up meditation or something.
When the alien came back the next night, Athenais didn’t wake until it started jerking on the rope it was trying to break.
“Please,” Athenais said, “I can’t even sit up. I’m too weak to do anything to you. Please, just finish the job.”
The creature was silent. Finally, in a grating voice, it said, “You’ll survive, human.”
Athenais gave a hysterical laugh. “Oh, I know. Believe me, I know.”
Another rope snapped, despite all probabilities. Athenais realized one of her hands was free. As the creature started to slide away, she threw out her arm and grabbed what felt like a wrist. A huge, slippery, scaly wrist.
The alien froze.
“Thanks,” Athenais said. Then she released it and let her hand fall into the sand.
The alien grunted and flopped away, taking his clamshell with him.
Athenais sat up and tried to tug the rest of her bonds loose, but when the waterlogged silk refused to budge, she simply fell back to the ground with a laugh of despair and stared at the sky, too exhausted to try and drag herself across the beach, looking for another shell.
She must have fallen asleep, because when something slimy dropped into her hand, hours later, it startled her awake. Athenais struggled to sit up, dizzy from hunger and exposure. It was midday, the sun beating down upon her from a cerulean sky. When she glanced down at her limp hand, she was surprised to see a salmon pressed into her palm, its body ripped in half, its orange flesh still twitching. Numbly, she lifted her head and looked down the beach.