Anders: An Auxem Novel

by Lisa Lace

  “So what? You’re good at four things, right?”

  “I don’t know if I can hack the tractor beam and take it down.” I felt the bitter feeling of defeat in my stomach. “Okay. I can’t.”

  “What are we going to do now?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

  “Do you think we can get into their control room? It’s a long shot, but it’s all we have left, Anders.”

  “Let’s do it.”

  Going to the control room turned out to be a bad idea.

  “Put your hands up in the air where I can see them.” Gwen stiffened and lifted her arms. I took my fingers off the keyboard.

  I didn’t know what kind of a weapon our assailant wielded. The best-case scenario was still pretty bad. If he was holding a stun gun, I didn’t want to get hit. It could scramble your nervous system for life even on the lowest setting. Everyone’s body reacted differently to the discharge.

  Gwen’s eyes darted in my direction. No, I didn’t want to fight back right now. I shook my head. We couldn’t resist yet. She nodded at me. At least she understood our situation was a disaster.

  GWEN

  I sat down on the floor of the cell. I didn’t know there were rooms like this on the transport, but it made sense there’d be a brig or the equivalent somewhere. The room was cold, empty, and bleak. There weren’t any secret passages in here.

  There wasn’t a way out for us this time. We weren’t going to be able to escape or save anyone. We had failed completely.

  Anders had fallen asleep on the floor across from me. He had a black eye and looked like quite the brawler. I couldn’t sleep at all thinking about my fate as a sex slave.

  I stared at Anders, who didn’t have any problems snoring despite his burdens. Tears came into my eyes. Why did it hurt to watch him sleeping on our last night together? I felt like I was breaking into pieces.

  I tried not to think about how much I had hurt him, but the guilt overwhelmed me. He loved me, and I had broken his heart. The realization made my tears start to come down harder. I sobbed as quietly as I could. The agony inside me had to get out before the pain destroyed me. Anders rolled over in his sleep like he was turning away from me. I couldn’t blame him. I had been an awful friend. Now I would never see him again.

  The crying only stopped when I ran out of tears. I felt empty and emotionless as I waited for sleep to take me. But it wouldn’t come. I felt like I was waiting for something.

  A realization hit me like a wave breaking on the shore: I loved Anders. But was it too late to do anything about it?

  Chapter Sixteen

  ANDERS

  I lay perfectly still, trying to fall asleep. If I couldn’t become unconscious, I would be satisfied with the illusion of sleep. I just didn’t want to look into Gwen’s eyes and see disappointment.

  I had failed everyone. Their fate was in my hands. People had trusted me to get one thing right, but I couldn’t do it.

  When she started crying, I rolled over onto my other side so she wouldn’t see my reaction. How had things gotten so bad this quickly? I thought we had everything figured out. We created a good plan. Now we were stuck in a cell. The Markans would arrive, but we wouldn’t be able to meet them. The women were doomed.

  There was nothing I could do about any of it. I felt frustrated and helpless. I curled myself into a ball, but nothing could soothe my internal struggle which was somehow worse than anything I ever felt from my wings.

  I had let down my family, and the people counting on me, but worst of all I had let down Gwen. She might not love me, but she never stopped believing in me. Now, even she had given up on me. I forgot about reassignment. I forgot that I didn’t want to be around her. All I remembered was that nothing could ever make me the person I wanted to be.

  Eventually, I drifted off into a restless slumber.

  I was back on Auxem, in a cave where my brothers and I used to play in before the dark times. How did I get there?

  My mother was next to me, drinking from a glass. I had no idea what was in the green liquid.

  “Anders, when are you going to start believing in yourself?” She looked exactly how I remembered her from my childhood.

  My heart broke all over again when I saw her because I knew what I was seeing wasn’t real. “I’ve totally screwed everything up, Mom. People are going to suffer because of me.”

  She shook her head. “It’s not over unless you give up.”

  I sat beside her. I was wearing blue pajamas with yellow birds on them. They were my favorite pair when I was a child.

  “I don’t think it’s a matter of willpower. Gwen and I are locked up, and we can’t get out. They’re going to sell the women and kill the men. I can’t do anything about it.”

  “Anders, complaining doesn’t accomplish anything. Take control of your destiny and be the man I know you are inside.”

  “What if I can’t do it?” I stared at the yellow birds.

  “Don’t blame the pirates. If you try, you have the possibility of success. But you will definitely fail if you start from a losing mindset.”

  I remember that was something she used to say. A ball appeared and started bouncing off the walls of the cave.

  “I think you should wake up now. Go and do what’s right, Anders. I believe in you, and I love you.” Her eyes looked just the way they used to when she tucked me in at night.

  “I love you too, Mom.”

  She smiled. “Don’t give up on Gwen. I have a feeling she’ll come around.”

  “I don’t think so, Mom.” I stood up. “She doesn’t love me. People usually don’t change their minds about that.”

  “That might be true, but only if she didn’t love you. It’s time to wake up now.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Wake up.” I heard the words come from outside. “Wake up, Anders.”

  GWEN

  Anders was in such a deep sleep that he wasn’t stirring.

  Priya looked nervous. “I don’t know how much time we have left. The pirates were dumb enough to fall for our distraction, but they’ll come back eventually.”

  Anders finally opened his eyes. He was groggy, but after seeing the expressions on our faces, he realized it was urgent for him to get up. We followed Priya out the cell door.

  “Did you manage to bring the women safely to the fifth wing?” I had to know right away.

  She nodded. “Allex came looking for us and led us back. We even managed to find the ones missing from before. Everyone is secure and accounted for.”

  “How did you get the entry code for our cell?”

  “The doors open for him because he’s a royal. He’s waiting for us in the tunnels. The hardest part was luring away the pirates. Fortunately, most of them are stupid, sex-deprived males. We had some of the girls flash them, and they lost their minds like wolves after rabbits.”

  We followed her, running softly down the hall. “Allex gave me a stun gun from the armory, and I was waiting around the corner.” She grinned. “Those bastards are tied up in a closet right now.” She opened the tunnel door, and we dashed inside. “It would be bad if one of the princes got caught. But I’m just a stowaway. There are no consequences if something happens to me.”

  “It would matter to me.” Allex’s voice came from the shadows. He stepped forward, swept Priya into his arms, and they kissed until I had to look away. I noticed Anders’ eyes on me. I shivered involuntarily. When they finally came up for air, Allex was all business again.

  “The Markans have arrived and are fighting the pirates. Hacking into their tractor beam is out of the question, so we’re going to have to use brute force. Do you happen to know any pilots crazy enough to try and blow up their generator?”

  I glanced at Anders. “We might.”

  “Good. I think your ship is ready to go now. The Markans can only keep them busy for so long. They need your help.”

  ANDERS

  “This is suspiciously similar to landing on an
asteroid.” I looked at the specifications for the pirate ship holding ours in a tractor beam.

  “If we just landed on one, how hard can this be?” I thought I saw admiration in her eyes. Something had changed in her attitude toward me, but I wasn’t sure what had happened. I only knew that she seemed different. I didn’t have time to analyze it thoroughly. We had more urgent issues.

  “I don’t think we’re going to get more than one chance. And look at all those obstacles sticking out on the route. Do you think you can handle it?”

  She nodded. “We better get it right the first time.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. All you have to do is fly us inside.”

  She traced a finger down the path through the maintenance corridor running along the ship’s exterior. “Well, all you have to do is press a button. Your job’s easier than mine.”

  We needed a ship. The only one available wasn’t flightworthy — it was one of the fighters I had damaged. Fortunately, it was an easy repair. One of the women was part of the flight crew and had finished fixing the fighter. She had replaced a small chunk of a missing wing, and it was ready to go again.

  Gwen and I did our flight preparations, said goodbye, and entered the ship. The pirates and the Markans were already in the heat of battle. Both sides had managed to destroy ships. We needed to use the diversion to distract the pirates while we attacked the generator.

  When we were alone on the ship, I gazed deeply into Gwen’s blue eyes, wishing that things were different. But there was nothing left to say.

  “Be careful, Gwen.”

  She nodded, and I thought I saw disappointment. “I will. You too.”

  The slightest mistake could cost our lives. We strapped into our seats. Gwen was at the front piloting the ship, and I was manning the weapons systems.

  “Anders, are you ready?”

  “Not really. Does it matter?” I flexed my hands and shifted in my seat.

  “Prepare to launch.” She lifted the fighter off the deck. “It’s your time to shine. Go blow up something.”

  I squeezed the trigger, and the door in front of us exploded. We flew out the hole, immediately heading for the pirate mothership. A Markan ship began following us right away. I sent an encrypted message to the craft identifying ourselves. A few moments later, a pirate vessel appeared next to us, intent on attacking the Markan ship. We shot them down before they knew who we were.

  After we took out the first ship, the pirates figured out our identity quickly. “We’ve got two on our tail.” Gwen never took her hands off the console or her eyes from the monitors. I watched as she expertly dodged around both pirate and Markan ships before I turned back to my screens.

  We went straight up to avoid a collision. I tried to fire on the closest ship, but Gwen was moving too erratically. “I can’t get a lock when you fly like this.”

  “That means they can’t lock onto us either.” Gwen sounded like she was gritting her teeth. She went into a series of maneuvers that took us within a few feet of some other ships, leaving our pursuers behind. The next minute was uneventful as we started to get out of the combat area.

  “We’ve got another one following us.”

  “If you can fly straight for ten seconds in a row, I’ll get a lock on it.”

  “Like straight into another ship?” Gwen gave a mirthless chuckle. “Sure. No problem.”

  “I could shoot them if I had a lock.”

  “Quit your complaining. It takes three seconds to get a lock, not ten. You’ve had plenty of time. The computers could do better than this. If you can’t get one, it’s your fault, not mine.”

  She had a point. I focused all my attention on the ship following us, moving the crosshairs on my screen and trying to target the bastard calmly. After a deep breath and a moment of intense concentration, the monitor beeped.

  “There we go,” I muttered under my breath. I fired before I lost him, aiming to disable the enemy ship. It was a direct hit, and the ship fell back and stopped. With luck, we could turn the tables on the pirates and capture some of their ships. “We got him.”

  “Wonderful. Now comes the hard part. We have two minutes until we reach the maintenance corridor. Let’s hope you can do it again when it counts.”

  “I can do it again any time you want. I’m good at four things. Don’t worry about me.”

  Gwen’s cheeks flushed as she stared at the monitor.

  Chapter Seventeen

  GWEN

  The thought of fucking Anders had me flustered. If I actually loved him, we could go all the way. I felt a spike of desire shoot through my body. Taking a deep breath, I tried to focus on flying. Sex would cloud my brain, and I needed to be at the top of my game if we wanted to escape.

  “Don’t make promises you aren’t going to keep.” I felt like I should tease him back. It came out more serious than I had intended.

  “Excuse me?”

  “We’re arriving at the maintenance corridor.” I had a satisfied smile on my face. “Preparing to enter.”

  “Wait a second.” Anders unbuckled and came to the front of the spaceship. I slowed the vessel to give us a moment.

  Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut.

  He knelt down in front of me and took my hands, staring at me hopefully. I bit my lip, unable to look away from him. Should I tell him? Would it affect our ability to do our jobs?

  But what if we died out there? Wouldn’t I want everything out in the open between us?

  I took a deep breath before I said it. “I love you, Anders.”

  He looked shocked for a moment then quickly recovered. “You love me like a friend?”

  I shook my head.

  “Like a brother then?”

  My lips started quivering, and I shook my head again.

  “Maybe like a terrific professor?” His eyes lit up with happiness.

  I put my hands on his cheeks. “I love you like you’re the man I want to be with for the rest of my life.” I wondered if he was still angry with me and would reject me after my confession. I held my breath as I waited for his response.

  He gave me a beautiful smile as his eyes shone. I leaned down and kissed him. The kiss contained longing, desire, and the regretful knowledge that we might not survive ten more minutes.

  “I love you too.” He gave me another quick kiss on my lips. “Let’s do this and start the rest of our lives.”

  I gave a sharp nod. “You got it.” I swiveled my chair to face the console. “Preparing to enter the maintenance corridor.”

  The tunnel was wide and deep. In the beginning, flying inside it wasn’t an issue. The problems would start about two minutes after we entered the shaft and the communications satellites appeared. They showed up at random intervals throughout the corridor in all directions. Some even protruded from extensions that stretched into the middle of the open space. It reminded me of a simulation from flight school.

  The satellites wouldn’t damage our ship, but an impact might throw us off course and into the sides of the corridor. Considering the speeds we were flying at, hitting the wall would make us explode in a fiery ball of death.

  I flew in at a moderate speed and set a timer to count down as soon as we entered the chamber. I watched the monitors, holding my hands above the console and ready to adjust our course at a moment’s notice.

  The satellites started appearing after one minute.

  “That was unexpected.” I managed to guide the ship around the obstacle.

  “You’re going to have to speed it up.”

  I increased our velocity. We had done some calculations beforehand about our missile strength. They didn’t have enough force to take out the generator. Several layers of pipes and valves protected it. But if our ship moved at a certain speed, our velocity would augment the explosive power of the missiles when we launched them. If we were moving too slowly, our missiles would detonate harmlessly. We would survive, but we wouldn’t get another chance. The Markan starships were already sta
rting to pull back and regroup. The pirates had them on the run. Once they weren’t distracted by the Markans, they would direct their attention to us.

  The satellites were everywhere now. I tilted the ship on its starboard side to avoid one, then dived, banking immediately to go around four in rapid succession. For the next three nerve-wracking minutes, I couldn’t think or speak. My brain became wired directly to the fighter’s control panel. I wasn’t supposed to slow down, but I couldn’t help it. All the maneuvering was beginning to reduce our speed.

  “We’re approaching the generator.” Anders’ voice sounded tense. I knew he was giving me a gentle reminder about our velocity, and I juiced the engines.

  “I would like to stay alive too.” I banked to the port side and raised our speed up to the necessary level. Evading the last few satellites was going to be terrifying.

  “Three minutes to target.” I flew as quickly and steadily as I could.

  We were almost there. Anders would hit it, and we could go home and get on with our lives.

  That’s when all hell broke loose.

  ANDERS

  “They’re firing torpedoes at us.” Gwen was shouting as glowing balls of energy appeared around our ship. I tried to shoot them down, but there were too many for me. Gwen managed to dodge a couple, but most of them hit us.

  “Our shields are at fifty percent already. They’re specifically protecting the generator, Anders.”

  Of course they were. That’s what I would do if I were in their position. Why had we thought they would be careless?

  “All we can do is try to shoot them down.”

  She put the ship on autopilot and took manual control of one of the automated turrets. Together, we managed to take out the next wave of torpedoes, but it seemed like they would never end. As long as the pirates had enough energy to create them, they would not run out.

  Our velocity had decreased so much that I couldn’t even fire at the generator. Everything was going wrong.

  “Gwen, we need to accelerate. We have to make the run no matter what they throw at us. We’re not going to get another chance to disable the tractor beam.”