Femme Metal

by Nathalie Gray

  “You are stubborn.”

  “And that, too,” Alex said, nodding emphatically. “Look, they’re my girls, my responsibility. I’m the one who got them into this mess.”

  Sekmeth shook his head. “No. I did.”

  But he could be stubborn, too! Alex threw her hands in the air and stalked to the couch. Sitting on the armrest, she crossed her arms and looked out the window. Hovercrafts flew so close the thermoplastic shuddered. Sekmeth’s posh home high above other Gorgosh buildings afforded a stunning view of the protective dome around the brothel-ship. Alex turned to watch the Yithian adjust the shirt around his long neck. His hair hung loosely today, which suited Alex just fine.

  “You are not part of my plan,” he said after a while. “And the Femme Metal is my ship now.”

  “Don’t go there. It’s my goddamn ship.”

  A long sigh swelled his chest. “Do you have another plan, one that does not put anyone in danger and preserves my name here?”

  She didn’t. But she’d walk to hell and back before she admitted it. “All we have to do is go there while he’s having fun with someone else, I don’t know. Anyway, we bust into his place, get Kim then come back here. No need to give the guy anything.”

  Sekmeth’s face tightened, his hands curled into fists. “He will not ‘have fun’ with someone else, Alexandra Novona, and we cannot just ‘bust in’. It has to be done correctly. I will go to Drokesh and ask the transaction be nullified. Alone. With you everything becomes complicated.”

  If she ever had her way with Drokesh, there’d be bits of him floating around the station. Alex stood and cocked one fist on her hip. “Why do you want to help anyway if it’s so damn complicated? Why not just keep the ship and get off this rock?”

  A long black coat covered Sekmeth right down to his big black boots. He rolled his shoulders and avoided looking at her. Embarrassment? Where did that come from?

  “Look, Hunter, what’s going on? Why are you trying to help? And don’t give me that ‘Drokesh tainted the hunt’ crap. I don’t buy it.”

  He ran both hands up his face. Alex had never seen him looking so miserable, as though he fought a losing battle against his better judgment. “The woman-child… Lajinia told me Drokesh intends to keep her as his first concubine. She is too little, in age and body. She would not survive.”

  A chill prickled the length of her arms. First concubine. She didn’t know what it entailed, only that it left her mouth dry. Alex placed her hands on his cheeks, forcing him to look at her. “Survive what?”

  “Children. She is one herself. Drokesh should know better.” The last words were a snarl. He pulled his face away.

  Kim a mother? To Yithian children? The size of them alone would kill the tiny girl. Anger bubbled up her throat, made her grit her teeth. “He’s not going to get her pregnant, I can tell you that much. I’ll cut his—”

  “Alexandra Novona,” Sekmeth said, putting a finger over her lips. “I will get the woman-child back, then the other two and we will all leave on my ship. Meanwhile, you must put this back on.”

  The inhibitor gleamed in his gloved hand. His ship.

  “Like hell I will.” Alex took a step back before he had any ideas.

  “I deactivated it. But you need to wear it so no one bothers us when we get the others. I do not want my…transaction with Drokesh to be a public affair.”

  A Hunter buying back his preys couldn’t have rated very high on the cool factor, especially when Yithians prided themselves on their warlike stance. She took the silvery band from him and checked it all over. True, the tiny knob under the closure had been filed off. She clicked it on her neck. “If you’re not back before the end of the shift, I’m going there myself.”

  He grinned.

  Alex watched him enter a hovercraft from the landing pad below his window. Wind buffeted his coat, an angel with silver hair and black wings. She had to trust the guy, though she wondered about his motives. He seemed genuinely annoyed with the whole deal. Perhaps some Yithians were a cut above the rest. Trust had never come easy for her, but maybe, just maybe, she could trust this one.

  The craft zoomed out of view and over the building. Heat from its thruster hit the pane against which she leaned and rattled it.

  “Three hours, Yithian. Then I’m going there in the flesh to deal with Drokesh.”

  * * * * *

  Sekmeth sensed trouble as soon as he stepped off the elevator and into Drokesh’s posh, private apartment. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, a shuttle roared past, its emissions trailing snakes of warm air. A small sound alerted him someone had entered the room behind him. The faint smell of Yithian musk reached his nostrils. Drokesh had just mated. The human-child’s tiny person flashed in Sekmeth’s mind, a painful reminder of his species’ less-than-perfect traits, especially when it came to carnal hunger.

  “You surprise me, Hunter.”

  Sekmeth turned to the older Yithian. “Then you are losing your edge.”

  If Drokesh was slighted, he didn’t let it show as he approached and stopped only when he stood practically under Sekmeth’s nose. “I cannot recall a single instance where you have wanted to see me so soon after a hunt. Should I be flattered or worried?”

  “I have come to reclaim the human females.”

  Drokesh’s eyes narrowed to slits, the pale opalescent orbs darkening considerably. “Directness was always your chief virtue. May I inquire as to why you would wish to reclaim what is no longer yours?”

  A stab of self-reproach pricked Sekmeth’s heart. His motives, though clear to him when he was with Alexandra Novona, were less so now, faced with another Hunter. Why, indeed, would he wish to encumber himself with these humans? All he wanted was the one. Yet he recognized, as surely as the scent of a cornered prey, he also wished to make her happy, to redeem himself in her eyes. How she’d changed him in only a few days.

  With a defiant lift of his chin, Sekmeth set his jaw. “My motives do not concern you.”

  Drokesh’s eyes narrowed even further, until only a thin strip of slate gray orb showed through his lids. “They are enticing humans, are they not? I would be hard pressed to part with mine.”

  “I would transfer the credits back to you.” Sekmeth hated how his words sounded. Like a plea.

  With a bejeweled hand, Drokesh smoothed some imaginary crease on Sekmeth’s shoulder, all the while staring up at the younger Yithian, as if judging the true intent behind the unexpected request. The robe he wore glimmered like oil in water. After a while, he shrugged. “You may keep the one you won and reclaim the other two. The little one stays with me.”

  It took a supreme act of willpower for Sekmeth not to show his disgust. “I must insist she be part of the deed as well. She belongs—”

  “Human!” Drokesh called, drowning Sekmeth’s words.

  Saliva thickened in Sekmeth’s mouth as he watched a portion of wall slide to the side to allow in a pair of Yithian guards flanking the woman-child. She wore that thing again. When they drew near, Sekmeth could still smell Yithian musk on her. His revulsion must have showed for Drokesh chuckled then wrapped an arm around her tiny neck, pulling her close to his side. He died many deaths as she glowered up at the towering Yithian.

  “You won her captain, reclaimed her peers. Must you deprive me, as well, of such delightful company?” He kissed the top of her head.

  Sekmeth realized he was fisting both hands sporadically. His gaze was drawn to the woman-child, the large eyes staring up at him, the silent accusation mixed with confused hope. Alexandra Novona’s threat she would come there and “deal with” Drokesh only deepened his resolve to reclaim all three humans. She wouldn’t survive fighting such an accomplished, ruthless Hunter. But she wouldn’t die easily, either.

  “Name your price,” Sekmeth said at length.

  “I have credit, Hunter, as you well know. So my price will not involve credits.” He let his hand rest on the woman-child’s shoulder, the tips of his fingers reaching down over
a breast. Tears welled up in her eyes. Sekmeth had to look away to hide his shame. Drokesh was tormenting her for Sekmeth’s benefit, to teach him, to hurt him.

  After the older Yithian had toyed with her nipple to his satisfaction, he let his hand fall to the side. “My price will be paid in a way only a Hunter can. It is the only adequate payment for such transaction, one true to the spirit of the hunt.”

  The woman-child’s confused expression turned to one of alarm as the two Yithian guards approached. A knife gleamed in one’s hand. Drokesh gently steered her to Sekmeth’s side, giving her one last kiss on the mouth that made Sekmeth want to smash his boot in the other’s face.

  With a smile as glacial as it was wide, Drokesh crossed his arms over his sinewy chest. “Now, Hunter, remove your clothes.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Two hours and fifty-two minutes had passed. No Sekmeth.

  Alex rummaged in the kitchen, or what looked to be the kitchen, for anything she could use as a weapon. She’d have to go there, in the lion’s den. God knows what she’d find. She’d just spent the last hour scratching the back of her neck, where an itch had generated by the minute. The exact opposite of the pleasant tingle Sekmeth triggered. She wondered if anything had gone wrong. Some kind of residual ESP thing, maybe? Nah. She was just itchy and cross and nervous. Dread filled her gut. Her brain knew Sekmeth was a Yithian Hunter, well equipped to protect himself. Now, if only her heart would listen. Stupid, useless organ.

  The sound of thrusters rumbled in the distance, then the pof-pof of a light landing very close by. Alex rushed to the window just in time to see a hovercraft retracting its skids and pressing its belly to the landing. The hatch opened and something black and silver and blue rolled out and flopped down onto the ground.

  “Oh, shit.”

  Alex wrenched the door open. She emerged onto the landing pad just as another form, this one tiny, landed near the first.

  “Kim!”

  The young woman stood on unsteady legs as the hovercraft took off again and veered sharply away. Its heat emissions hit Alex. She put a hand up to protect her face. When the wind and heat had abated, Alex rushed up to the landing and floundered to a full stop a few feet away. Kim’s face was a white mask of fear. She was barely covered, for god’s sake! But what stopped Alex’s heart was the prone form on the concrete landing pad.

  “Cap’n…he…they sliced it off of him—it was horrible, and…the blood.”

  “It’s okay, girl, I’m here now. It’s all good.” Alex squeezed Kim’s naked shoulder. “You all right?”

  She nodded, her eyes still looking a bit too wild for Alex’s tastes.

  Sekmeth stirred. Then like a bowstring, he flopped onto his side and snapped his head up. His eyes were black slits. He snarled something in Yithian then seemed to recognize his surroundings. His face relaxed, he sat on his heels.

  “Help me get him in,” Alex said as she rushed to the Yithian and snaked an arm under his. With Kim’s help, they half-dragged, half-guided the stumbling alien into the apartment and onto the couch. His leg dangled over the side, which opened his coat all the way down. Alex gasped.

  His naked torso gleamed with blood.

  He cringed when she tried to peel the coat off his shoulder. “I will do it.”

  “Get your dirty fingers away from there,” Alex snapped, pushing on his hands.

  She gently drew the coat over his shoulder and as far down as she could go. After bending his arm, Sekmeth’s hand passed through the sleeve. He closed his eyes. What she saw stopped her cold. Her mind refused to believe the signals her eyes sent.

  A patch of tattooed skin was missing, right over his shoulder and coming down a bit over his pectoral. The size of a hand. No skin, just raw, dark-blue flesh beading with blood.

  “What is that?” she murmured, sinking to her knees by his side.

  “Drokesh’s price.”

  Alex turned to Kim who had drawn near and stood uncertainly by the couch’s edge. She crossed her arms and held herself tightly. “To get me. That was the price.”

  “What price? What’s going on?”

  Of all the crazy things happening lately, this topped it. Then it hit her. Of course. Alex cursed under her breath when the realization, the full weight of it crushed her. Sekmeth had given up one of his tattoos, one of his preys, in other words, so he could get one back. Sadistic, demented affair, the whole thing. Bile seeped up her throat.

  “You were supposed to buy them back, Sekmeth. Jesus…not like this.”

  He stared at her. “Drokesh was a Hunter. He had a right to name his price and reclaim the symbol.”

  Her whole chest constricted at the mere mention of the name. “I’m going to get myself a piece of him, too, the crazy bastard. Some sausage-shaped piece, that scum—”

  Sekmeth shook his head. “It is over. Kim is back. Now,” he said, pulling himself up and sitting. “I need to take care of this before the rest peels away.”

  Alex wasn’t sure if she should try to laugh, cry or take a stunner and shove it up Drokesh’s blue ass. Sideways, too!

  They bandaged his shoulder the best they could while Kim sat and stared out the window. After a while, Sekmeth leaned back into the couch and closed his eyes. His face looked drawn and flushed. Alex resisted the urge to hover around his head and offer help. She hated it when she felt sick, so she wouldn’t do it to someone else. Still, the urge was strong. Instead, she drew near Kim and leaned against the thermoplastic pane.

  “You going to be all right?”

  Kim nodded. “Drokesh was enjoying it, Cap’n, he totally was. The Hunter never made a sound, you know, like he wasn’t there. And I was like, ‘oh my god, stop it’ but no one listened and I nearly puked. Gross. And…and I miss Eva and it’s all turning to shit, like everything, you know—I hate this place!” She shivered.

  Alex took the top Sekmeth had lent her and wrapped it around Kim’s shoulders. The thing came down to her knees. With a small smile, she nodded. “Thanks.”

  “I miss her big mouth, too. We’ll get Ebinay and Annabelle back now and take the Femme Metal the hell off this chunk of rock. It’ll all be all right, you’ll see.”

  Kim looked from one to the other then back again. “How come…? I mean, you’re together?”

  “I’m not sure, Kim. I hope.”

  She expected Kim to say “like, totally gross” or something. The girl only nodded.

  Alex did hope they were “together” as Kim put it. How shocking was that! Alexandra Novona, Captain Steel from her time in the military, was falling for an alien. A Yithian, for god’s sake! The enemy. How had that happened? It wasn’t just a physical thing. Something else drew her to him, something much deeper. But she’d poke around that later. High time now to get some rest and wait for Drokesh to hand over the other two.

  She pushed her plan for Drokesh to the back of her mind. Not too far back, just not in front where it’d get in the way. But she knew someday, somehow, she’d be coming back here to settle the score. Maybe she’d get something of his Kim could hang on the Femme Metal’s view screen. Wouldn’t it be a riot to have two blue balls happily bouncing there for all to see? Alex grinned.

  * * * * *

  Alex woke up from a bad dream. She couldn’t remember what it was, only it’d left her shivering and cold. She stood from the narrow couch in Sekmeth’s living room and padded to the floor-to-ceiling windows. Underneath, Gorgosh gleamed all colors.

  That strange sensation on the nape of neck, one she’d come to associate with him, made her hair stand on end.

  “You cannot sleep.”

  It wasn’t a question, so she didn’t answer, only grunted and leaned against the thermoplastic panes. “Sorry I woke you,” she whispered so she wouldn’t wake Kim who slept in a smaller bedroom down the hall. Poor kid needed her sleep.

  “We will get them back,” Sekmeth said, approaching but remaining behind her.

  “I don’t trust Drokesh, he’s a pig. He’s going to s
tab us in the back.”

  Sekmeth sighed. “The word of a Hunter is binding. He will keep it. We should know soon when he will transfer your two females.”

  Yeah, right. “How do you feel?” she asked, uneasiness creeping in her heart again. Why couldn’t she just talk to the guy without getting all tangled up in her own two feet!

  “Better now.”

  “Why, uh, why did he keep it…you know, the tattoo?”

  “To reclaim the symbol and make it his own,” Sekmeth replied.

  “Like Kim would say, ‘gross’.”

  “He will copy the symbol to his skin so the hunt will be his.”

  Hot hands landed on her tensed shoulders, expert fingers massaging knots of stress and anger. She meant to lean into him and relax but couldn’t. So she just hovered near the panes, wanting to touch him, yet afraid to open something she wasn’t sure she could close again.

  He stopped rubbing her shoulders. “Are you afraid of me?” he asked, a hint of amusement in his deep baritone.

  The mere thought piqued her. She was afraid of no one. Especially not some—

  She grinned. “Almost got me.”

  “What must I do to convince you to trust me?”

  She did want to trust him. God knows she did. Only he was Yithian. The bad guy. “It’s not you, it’s me. I live in the past, I guess.”

  “The past when our species were at war?”

  She nodded.

  “I was not in the war, and so never participated in any of the border conflicts, although I did vote for those who organized it all.” His sigh unsettled a few curls from around her ear. “For what it is worth to you, Alexandra Novona, Yithians are not all bloodthirsty monsters. Some of us are pacifists.”

  “Like you?” she asked, trying to tone down the sarcasm, partly succeeding.

  He chuckled. “No.”

  “What did you do before becoming a Hunter?”

  “I always was a Hunter. One is born this way then groomed, molded by years of training and conditioning. It is quite an honor to be caught by one, you know.”

  She could tell he was going for sarcasm, only he wasn’t very good at it. His boast almost sounded genuine.