by Aria Bell
“Don’t think…” I said on a gasp. “Don’t think he’ll make that mistake…twice.”
Gren’don laughed and dumped me on the ground. I twisted, meaning to kick him anywhere it would hurt, preferably the balls, but then I saw that sword in his hand and thought better of it.
He tossed a pair of wrist binders at me. “Put these on and be quiet for once in your life.”
I put them on but left them loose enough to give me some hope of wriggling my hands out because they were meant for thick Jardan wrists. But Gren’don only leered at me, reached out and snapped them tighter, foiling my impromptu plans.
He sheathed his sword and pulled out a hexagonal device that fit into his palm. “Stand up.” He waited, watching like a predator as I obeyed. He pushed me toward the living quarters area. “I learned you humans get gifts during your mating ceremonies. So I have a special one for the captain.”
Fear ripped through me as I watched him place the device over the entry into the living quarters. Kash wouldn’t see the device until he’d already stepped into the room. Gren’don pushed two buttons on the device and it hummed. He synced it with a handheld computer he pulled from his pocket. A light in the center of the hexagon went red before vanishing.
“What is that?” I demanded, my voice edged with panic. I’d never seen anything like it, but I was certain it was dangerous.
My fear seemed to amuse him. “A surprise for your special mate.”
He showed me his handheld computer. The screen showed a vid image of us standing in the room from the viewpoint of the device. He grabbed me and yanked out of the bedroom. I knew it was some kind of bomb or trap, not just a camera.
“Something I picked up on Kyel Yost. A little surprise. The camera will alert me when he’s dead. Don’t be afraid, you’ll be able to see his last moments.” He waved the screen in front of my face, taunting me. “It will all be recorded for posterity.”
I tried to wrench myself away from him, but his grip was like steel, and my hands were bound. I slapped at the computer device in his hand, but he jerked it out of range before I could hit it. Cursing, I tried to kick him, but he shrugged off the blow and effortlessly shoved me to the floor. In an instant, he had his sword out again and brought the blade up under my chin. I froze, knowing any movement would result in being cut by the sharp edge.
“You’re a feisty one,” he said. “No wonder your father hates you. But I need you to behave, so no more of that or I start to cut. As long as I leave your face unmarked, I doubt your father will care if his package is roughed up during delivery.”
I kept very still, swallowing hard. He grunted and lowered his blade again. My thoughts were in a panic as he hauled me back to my feet and checked the corridor. When he saw the passageway was clear, he dragged me along behind him.
“Not a sound from you,” Gren’don warned.
I didn’t reply, but the corridors he dragged me along were empty of crew, filled with pipes and access terminals and flashing alarms. None of the passageways were familiar, and I had no idea where he was taking me. I tried to get a handle on my fear, but all I could think about was the trap Gren’don had set for Kash. I was desperate to warn him somehow, but I had no idea how to do it. First I had to escape somehow, and Gren’don never seemed to let down his guard.
Soon we entered the engine area at the rear of the ship. Here alarms were blaring, red screens flashing, and the half dozen engineers were shouting to each other and working frantically at computer terminals and on machinery. No one even glanced our way. Their focus was riveted around the ship’s main drive reactors. The engine room was full of metal-grill catwalks, machinery, and computers. Gren’don kept us out of sight after threatening me with his blade again, giving me another warning not to draw attention.
Screw that. I had to do something. This was the first time I’d seen other crewmembers. I might not get another chance if I didn’t take this one.
“Hey!” I shouted. “He’s trying to kill the captain! Don’t let—!”
Gren’don’s hand clamped around my mouth, silencing me. I was about to bite him when his blade hovered at my throat again. Only one of the engineers had done anything but glance our way. The Jardan crewmember was hunched over one of the terminals, deep in the computer code for the engines, and he seemed more annoyed by the distraction than anything.
“Hurry up and fix those engines,” Gren’don growled at him. Then he looked down at me. “She’s the one who broke them.”
I tried to yell in outrage, but it only came out as a muffled squeak against his hand. The engineer glared at me and returned to his work.
Gren’don pushed me along one of the access areas to the side of the engine room. Then he shoved me into a storage room full of energy containment cells and huge barrels of coolant.
“You’d better be worth all this trouble you’re causing me,” he snarled and shoved me against the containers. “We’ll wait here for a bit. After your mate is dead, we can leave again.” His smile was cold and evil as he glanced at his microcomputer. “Shouldn’t be long. You can start grieving for him at any time.”
“I really hope you can do more with that sword than threaten unarmed women,” I spat at him. “Because Kash is going to carve you into bite-size pieces.”
He grunted. “You’re loyal, at least.”
“Something you wouldn’t understand. You think any of the crew will follow you after you murder the captain? Oh, sorry, I meant ‘shoot the captain in the back like a coward?’”
“They are pirates. They follow strength, but most of all they follow money. Which is why I can challenge him now. He kept them in loot and owned their hearts…until you stole his.”
I wanted to curse him, to spit into his face, but I felt as if my hope and my will to fight was draining away. Was it true? Had I cost Kash his ship because he’d mated me? I wanted to deny it…but I suspected it was true. He’d taken me as mate to save me from my father and protect me from the crew— No, those might have been his first reasons, but he’d done it because he loved me. I could see it in his eyes when he looked at me, read it in his smile, feeling it in the tenderness and the passion of his touches. He’d mated me for me.
And now it was going to cost him everything.
A musical chime began to sound insistently. Gren’don pulled the microcomputer from his pocket. My heart seemed to freeze in my chest, then break into icy shards.
No…
Gren’don glanced at the viewscreen before his face was marred by an ugly, triumphant grin. “That’s the alert. It looks like my little surprise just introduced itself to your mate. How does it feel to be the grieving widow?”
I sank to my knees, choking on a sob as tears blurred my eyes. Sorrow wrenched through me, leaving me breathless and shaking. He couldn’t be dead.
Kash Dra’sten couldn’t be dead…
* * *
Captain Kash Dra’sten
“How long until the engines are back online?” I demanded of Second Mate Sav’kon.
“At least a standard hour, Captain. The engineers are working as fast as they can. We have a full system re-mesh running now. Everything’s a mess.”
“What the hell happened?”
Sav’kon turned his wide eyes my way. To witness a pirate looking as shaken as Sav’kon appeared right then disturbed me. “One of our own hack bots was used on the engine core coolant subroutines, forcing us to shut it down before it melted down. The corruption code attacked the security systems as well. We’ll have to untangle the synchronizer codes for the engines, and start fresh with a complete system purge and realignment.”
I ground my teeth, my hand tightening on the grip of my sword. That meant we had an enemy on board who’d sabotaged us with one of our own weapons: the hack bots we used to disable ships we were about to raid.
Gren’don. It had to be. “Where is First Mate Gren’don now?”
Ters’sen, a system tech, only shook his head. “All onboard security systems are d
own. No cameras, no sensors, no remote access to door locks. We can’t track anyone. He could be anywhere on the ship.”
“He did this,” I snarled.
“It looks that way, Captain.”
The urge to charge from the bridge and run back to Sylvis was so strong I actually took a step toward the door before I regained control of myself. Making sure my little mate was okay was almost a physical need, something as demanding as breathing. But I was captain. I also had responsibilities to my crew and the safety of everyone on this ship. I had a traitor on my ship who had almost melted down our engines, and my crew was clearly rattled. I had to get my crew back on track and moving so the Defiance Blade could get the FTL drives up and running again. That was the only hope to get back to the outer rim. Until I knew exactly what we were facing and the extent of the damage, I couldn’t leave the bridge, either to check on my mate or hunt down Gren’don. Besides, I’d locked her in and told her not to open for anyone but me. If she followed my orders, she’d be safe until I could reach her side again.
Still, my fists clenched in helpless rage. I should have killed him when I’d had the chance, but he had always walked the line, never openly defying me.
Until now.
Gren’don and whoever else was behind this sabotage would pay dearly.
“Give me the status of our cloaking device,” I demanded.
“Still online, Captain.”
That was a relief. Even though we were far from the system where we’d been raiding and from Lyss, we were far from safe. If the cloaking device had failed, we’d be vulnerable not just to the galactic police or the military, but also to any pirate or scavenger scanning the system. I gave orders and allocated resources until I felt we had a coherent plan to fix the mess Gren’don had made. It was finally possible to hand off command to my second mate.
“Continue getting the systems up, with priority to the engines. I want teams of raiders walking the halls. Search all quarters. They have orders to detain First Mate Gren’don Surdal by any means necessary.”
“Aye aye, Captain.”
“Sav’kon, you have the bridge.” I touched the microcomputer at my ear as I headed for the door. “Reach me on this. And keep me up to date.”
The moment the automatic doors to the bridge slid shut behind me, I struggled to keep my pace at a walk when every bit of my mind was screaming for me to run back to my quarters and make certain Sylvis was okay. When people saw captains running, it could lead to panic, fear, and mistakes, even among Jardan.
An instant later, I broke into a run anyway, appearances be damned.
Luckily, my quarters were only a short distance from the bridge. As I ran, I ripped my blade out of my scabbard with one hand and drew my blaster with the other. I preferred to kill Gren’don with my blade, but I wasn’t about to be caught with only a sword at a blaster fight. If he’d gone after my mate, it meant he had no honor at all.
My heart chilled all the way through as I slid to a stop in front of the doors to my quarters. The door status display showed the door was unlocked. I’d locked it. I was absolutely certain of it. Had the hack bot attack unlocked it when it took down all the systems? But no, I saw the access panel had been compromised by a secondary hack. The dread inside me sharpened, nearing panic for my mate’s safety.
The doors slid open for me. I stormed inside, weapons raised, ready to attack. A quick scan of the outer area showed no sign of Sylvis or Gren’don.
“Sylvis!” I yelled, hurrying toward the living quarters.
No answer.
I stepped through the doorway into the bedroom area. I swung my head, desperately searching for her. “Sylvis! Where are—?”
A blaster bolt shot past my head, so close that a flash of searing pain told me I’d lost at least part of my ear.
I cursed and swung toward the threat at the same time I hurled myself to the side. Whatever was shooting at me adjusted its aim. The next blaster bolt hit me in the upper left shoulder as I turned.
Pain flared like hot coals pressed against my muscle. I grunted, opening fire in the direction the blaster shots had come from while simultaneously falling behind the bed. More blaster bolts seared the bed as they tracked my movement, scorching the wall and one lucky shot searing a wound along the back of my thigh.
I hit the ground hard. Both of my weapons were almost jarred from my hands, but I managed to hold onto them. Fury swirled inside me, but an instant later calmness swept through me as an idea flashed into my mind. I released my sword and grabbed the table by the same bed where I’d spent so much incredible time loving Sylvis. The bed now scorched by blaster fire instead of the heat of our passion. I grunted, amused. I’d have to tell that one to Sylvis. She’d appreciate it—
More blaster shots hit the wall, forcing me to focus back on the fight and push aside the pain of my wounds and my worries for my mate. With one smooth motion, I lifted the table and hurled it in the direction the blaster bolts had come from. At the same time I sprang to a crouch, my blaster pistol raised.
There. Above the door. An assassin shot trap.
Its lens eye flashed, and it spat energy death from the charge prongs in its center. The blaster bolt hit the table I’d thrown toward the trap.
I didn’t give the trap a chance to hit me again. One precise blaster shot struck it dead center and left it a smoking hole over my door.
I picked up my blade again and stood, sword in one hand, blaster in the other, waiting to see if there would be another attack. But there was nothing. I wasn’t bleeding—the blaster bolts had cauterized the wounds—but the throbbing, burning pain made me grit my teeth as I scanned the room. No sign of Sylvis and no sign of Gren’don. Aside from the blaster burns everywhere, there was no sign of a struggle. No blood meant she was probably okay.
Please let her be okay.
Ignoring the pain from my wounds, I quickly rushed through the rest of my living quarters anyway, calling her name, getting no response. Fear and fury warred within me. Fear that she was in danger and I wasn’t there to protect her. Fury that anyone would dare come after my mate. First I would save her, then I’d make Gren’don pay.
With the systems all messed up by the hack bots, the ship’s central computers wouldn’t be able to detect the blaster fire. I stared at the trap I’d blasted. I’d seen those kinds of assassin traps before. They were often used when bombs would endanger the entire spacecraft. The trap’s blaster bolts were powerful enough to damage living tissue but wouldn’t pierce through the bulkhead or any shielded glass for hull windows. Gren’don was a coward who didn’t have the guts or the heart to face me blade to blade, resorting to dishonorable tricks and craven little traps to try and end me.
And that coward had my mate with him now. He wouldn’t kill her. He needed her for the ransom. Still, I would need to be even more careful going forward. A revolting coward like him wouldn’t hesitate to use Sylvis against me, hiding behind her as a shield or using my love for her to try and save himself from my wrath.
The word love flashed across my mind as fast as a meteor but ten times as bright. Yes, love. I gladly admitted it now. I’d mated her, but I’d been holding my feelings back, knowing there was a chance she’d leave when she had what she wanted—freedom from her father…and freedom from the Defiance Blade. But I loved her. I swore I would tell her after she was safe in my arms again. She needed to not only see my love in my actions but also hear how much I loved her from my lips.
I stormed out of my quarters, weapons in hand, on the lookout for more cowardly traps but now forewarned. I might even have an advantage. If Gren’don believed the assassin trap had killed me, then he wouldn’t be expecting me to hunt him down and shove my sword down his throat.
I grinned without humor, already anticipating it. Then my grin faltered as my thoughts turned back to my mate, in danger because of me, the woman I loved needing my protection and I hadn’t been there for her.
Stay strong, Sylvis
. Stay strong, m
y tersa tuval, I thought to her, wishing she could hear my voice. Wishing she was in my arms. Hoping I wasn’t too late.
CHAPTER NINE
Captain Sylvis Trasker
I stayed on the ground, sobbing quietly as the metal-grillwork of the floor bit into my hands. Kash Dra’sten had just come into my life, so why had his death left such a huge, gaping hole in me?
Easy. Because he’d stolen my heart.
Because I’d fallen in love with him…and now I’d lost him.
Gren’don was watching me with contempt written all over his face. “Jardan or human, females are so ugly when they cry. You’re lucky you’re worth so much to me alive.”
I only sat there, trying to pull myself together and control my shock and grief, but I couldn’t. Every time I closed my eyes, I could see Kash’s face in my mind. His smile. Those lively blue eyes. My fingertips ached with the memory of his skin under my touch. Now I had nothing. No ship. No future. No mate. I’d been thinking about happiness…and now that was destroyed.