“It will be your problem if we get caught.”
“How? You’re the captain. The captain goes down with his ship.”
“And what do you think happens to the first mate? She goes down too, Trissa. She’s lucky if all she does is go down.”
She wrinkled her nose at his double entendre. Eudod was an asshole, but an asshole who had saved her from having to crawl back to her colony as a Galactic Academy dropout. She figured she was probably lucky that all he did was make the odd off-color comment about her desirability.
He was not a handsome man. He wasn’t a man at all. She’d never bothered to find out what species he was. She barely cared about his name. He was her ticket to a better life. That was all that mattered, so she could overlook his hunched, squat frame, his knobby arms, and his elephantine legs. If she’d had to describe him in one word, it would have been goblinesque. If she’d been allowed two words, they would have been goblin jerk.
Eudod was her opposite in almost every physical way possible. He was getting on in years, whereas she was just twenty-one. Old enough to be accepted into the sought-after Galactic Academy, and old enough to be kicked out as well.
A pretty smile and a dash of freckles over her nose under laughing green eyes had gotten her a long way, but in the end, being cute wasn’t enough to save her. The demerits had added up and inevitably they’d given her the boot. She’d returned from her last disciplinary hearing to find her stuff packed for her. Campus security had dropped her at the nearest shuttle point with just enough credit on her account to get home.
She had sat in that shuttle bay for hours, fighting a battle of wills within herself. Call home and tell her guardians she’d been expelled? Or... or what.
Eudod had been the ‘or what.’ His junker shuttle had pulled in about an hour after the one she was supposed to be on had departed for her home colony. He’d spotted her sitting alone in the departure lounge and asked her if she knew anything about piloting a shuttle craft and basic astrometrics. She’d said yes. It had been partially true.
That was two months ago. Now they were sitting outside the border of Kilvoy territory while Eudod scanned for a way in. The space looked empty—barren, even—but the Kilvoy were well aware of what this part of space was often used for and there were sensor arrays deployed throughout it in an ever shifting grid. Eudod’s ship was equipped to detect the sensors and he said he’d made clean runs through the system before, but looking at him now, Trissa wasn’t sure she believed him.
“I’m tired,” she said, stretching. “I’m going to grab a nap before my shift.”
“You’ve got four hours,” Eudod said, breaking open a fresh cap marked with a large anachronistic ‘J.’ A green mist rose from the separated pieces and he inhaled it deeply with a satisfied snort.
“Seven,” Trissa said.
“Five,” he countered.
“Six,” she relented.
“Done.”
Every time she attempted to get some rest, she had to negotiate with Eudod. He didn’t ‘believe’ in eight hours’ sleep. He didn’t believe in a lot of things. Trissa had lost count of them all. Chicken was on the list, for some reason she couldn’t be bothered listening to. Eudod was paranoid, that was the long and short of it. He was also a deeply unpleasant shipmate. Once this run was over, she was going to jump ship and try to trade her way back home. Anything was better than being stuck in cramped quarters with a Jitter addict.
She retreated to her cabin, which wasn’t really so much a cabin as an alcove with a partition that could be rolled down to give some semblance of privacy. There was enough room for a small bunk bed and underneath it, and her personal effects, of which there weren’t many.
The smuggling racket had not turned out to be profitable at all. Eudod said that they were barely breaking even, that she ate too much food and drank too much water and so he couldn’t afford to pay her as he’d promised. She was pretty sure he was lying, but what could she really do about it? Aside from ripping him off at some point after they docked, there wasn’t anything.
She lay down on her bed, closed her eyes, and prayed for the next star base.
Somewhere in her dreams, she was back at home. She was sitting in her mother’s kitchen, eating an oatmeal raisin cookie. It had been a full decade since she’d had the simple pleasure, a cool glass of milk with condensation creating dew on the outside. Golden sun streamed through the window, the rich liquid light she had only ever experienced on Earth. Every planet was different, suns shifting toward blue or white, or sometimes red. The Earth sun was special. She hadn’t appreciated it then. She hadn’t appreciated anything then.
The timer on the oven rang, a sharp bell in the midst of the peace and quiet. She stuffed the cookie into her mouth and waited for her mother to come bustling in and take the next batch out.
“Ma!”
Her mother didn’t appear, so Trissa got up and went over to the oven. When she got there, she saw that it was empty, and the little yellow light that usually illuminated the interior was blazing red and whirling, like a siren.
She felt a presence behind her, turned around to see her mother standing behind her, looking rather annoyed.
Instantly, Trissa knew what her mother was mad about the cookies. She thought Trissa had taken them all.
“It wasn’t me,” Trissa tried to explain. “There wasn’t anything in there when I checked, there...”
Her mother shook her head and parted her lips. Trissa knew what she was going to say. She was going to say what she always said. Put the cookies back, Trissa. You’ll spoil your dinner.
And then Trissa would say what she always said. I’m not spoiling dinner. I’m spoiling breakfast.
“Trissa...” her mother said, just as she always had, “...prepare to be boarded.”
“Huh?”
Prepare to be boarded.
The kitchen slipped away and Trissa’s eyes fluttered open as she woke from the confusing dream to a very loud and intrusive voice blaring through the shuttle. She had no idea how it was happening. There was no internal speaker system; the shuttle wasn’t large enough for one of those.
Prepare to be boarded.
“What the hell? Eudod!” She shouted his name. “That wasn’t even three hours!”
Prepare to be boarded.
“Eudod!” She yelled the captain’s name again. There was no response. Their shuttle wasn’t big enough to miss the sirens. It was two ‘cabins,’ a cargo bay, a cockpit, and an escape pod. Trissa got out of bed still in her underwear and went to find her asshole captain. He wasn’t in the cockpit, and he wasn’t in his nook either. The door to the pod was shut. Sealed. It took her a second to realize that it was actually gone entirely. The pod was absent, and Eudod with it.
“What the fuck...” she hissed under her breath.
Prepare to be boarded.
She didn’t know how to prepare for boarding, besides pulling what passed for a uniform back on, the drab gray-green pants far too big for her, but at least covering her ass. She didn’t have time to get her boots on before the inner airlock opened and a man stepped into the shuttle.
Trissa fell back, wishing she had some kind of weapon. She didn’t, because the only phaser on the ship was Eudod’s and that had obviously gone with him. There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. She pressed up against the farthest bulkhead, her eyes wide as a Kilvoy inspector boarded the ship.
He had to stoop under the airlock gate because he was so tall. Almost seven foot, by Trissa’s reckoning. His hair was dark and relatively long, slicked back over his head. It fell to his shoulders in severe fashion. He was wearing a black coat with an angular lapel and a series of badges down the left side that seemed to indicate rank. If sheer number of them meant anything, he was no mere grunt. The back of the coat was long and fell just shy of his boots; the front of it was shorter and ended at his waist. The effect was to emphasize the length and power of his legs, clad in high tactical fabric.
He had
several weapons strapped to his hips and one on his back. She assumed they were pulse weapons, but they weren’t entirely familiar to her. Everything about this guy was totally cutting edge. Eudod would have killed to have any of his stuff in stock.
“Uh... hi?” Trissa tried a small wave.
His eyes roamed the shuttle before settling on her. He did not seem pleased to see her. He did not seem pleased about anything. He ignored her entirely and she watched, helpless as he walked around, looking in crates and boxes.
“These are empty,” he said, his voice accented like a whiplash. “What was in them?”
“Uhhhhh...” Trissa’s voice failed her. “Well, er... uhhh...”
“You speak Intergalactic English?”
“Yes,” she nodded quickly.
He stalked over to her and looked down at her, his eyes finding every defect and oddity about her. He was very handsome, in a harsh way. Polished brutality was all about him. His jaw was sharp and masculine, his cheekbones high, his brow quite prominent and adorned with thick dark brows that were more carefully manicured than her own.
She felt like a bug under a microscope as his cool gaze ran over her body and found her eyes. She gasped as she saw his properly for the first time. They were slightly narrowed, as if he were almost perpetually suspicious, but they were also quite large, and now they were focused on her she could see that he had the most incredible eye color. Blue and gold and purple were latticed through his irises in an angular fashion that made his eyes gleam like jewels.
“Holy...” she murmured under her breath.
“What are you?” His demand was curt. “What species?”
“Human.”
“Human?” He seemed vaguely surprised. “You’re a long way from home.”
“Everywhere is a long way from here.”
“Little animal species,” he said, more to himself than to her, as if she weren’t really there. As if she weren’t really a person. His whole bearing since entering the ship had been as if it was entirely empty. She had the oddest feeling that he regarded her as being about as animate as one of the empty crates.
“Not that little,” she replied, interrupting his little private reverie.
He looked down his nose at her five foot nothing frame and allowed himself what she was sure must be the very rare pleasure of a smirk.
“I sensed two lifeforms on this shuttle. You are clearly a... subordinate. Tell me where your captain has gone.”
“I’ve got literally no idea,” she said. “I was asleep. I guess he abandoned ship—and me, the moment you got within sensor range. So I guess... I guess I’m the captain now. If that’s how this works.”
“Not in Kilvoy territory. Your kind is not permitted to own property.”
Your kind. Those two words set off an indignant reaction. Trissa had been so disoriented and confused at first she hadn’t put up any resistance to this invasion, but his arrogance kicked her brain back into gear. She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him with what she hoped was feminine ferocity.
“Oh, because I’m a woman, I’m not allowed to own property? That’s so sexist!”
“Not because you’re female. Because you’re human.”
“Well, that’s speciestisists!” She stumbled over the word and ended up being uncertain as to where to end it.
“Whatever it is, it isn’t that,” he replied. “You will submit to a thorough interrogation.”
“I just told you. I don’t know anything.”
He cast his gaze around the room again. “You are in sole charge of a shuttle packed with contraband, and you claim that there is a captain who left you, but has left no trace of his disappearance.”
“You know he was here!” Trissa exclaimed, thoroughly pissed now. “You told me you detected two life signs! He must have set me up! He knows how to set off your systems! He must have ejected while I was asleep and let me drift into your scanner array, so now I look like the criminal.”
“Yes,” he agreed with her, his lips thinned. “You do look like a criminal.”
“Well, I’m not. I’m just a girl who got caught up in a big scam. I was used! None of this is my fault!”
He now had a very similar expression on his face as her instructors used to have when she attempted to get out of trouble with them, except his had a certain difference. There was heat in his eyes. That fractal blue and gold and purple gaze mesmerized her as she fell silent.
“Strip.”
“What?”
“I will know the truth about you.”
“Getting naked won’t change... hey!”
He obviously wasn’t going to wait for her to comply. When she did not take her clothes off immediately, he started to remove them for her. He pulled her out into the most open space in the cramped little shuttle and bade her to stand still. As much as she wanted to resist him she found that she couldn’t. Something about his eyes kept her still. Like a hypnotist, he mesmerized her and she could not move, not even as he peeled her doublet off her shoulders and then down her arms. Her under-vest was next, the shimmering fabric peeling up over her head, her arms moving at his will rather than hers.
“This is...”
“Silence.” He snapped the word at her. “I will not tolerate your chattering. You have told me precisely nothing of use thus far.”
“Well, being naked isn’t going to tell you anything. I didn’t write all the smuggling clues on my body.”
“Enough.” He frowned at her, his eyes gleaming furiously. “I have told you to be silent once. I will not tell you anything twice.”
“You can’t just... ow!”
Her words turned to a cry as a sudden bolt of pure pain burst across her rear. She whirled around to see him standing behind her, holding a dark lash in his hand.
“How...”
She turned around and he was there again, in front of her. Exactly the same as he had been behind her, down to the fold of the dark lapel of his long coat, but without any lash. Two. There were two of them.
Trissa backed away from the pair, shaking her head. She could have sworn there was only one man on the ship with her. Had another slipped on while she was distracted?
“You’re twins?”
“No.” The voice came from both men simultaneously. Before her astonished gaze, the one who had been behind her faded from view, man becoming mirage as she was left facing the alien inquisitor.
“I see you know nothing of my species,” he said, obviously unimpressed at her ignorance.
“I mean, Eudod... the captain, he mentioned... he said something, but... I wasn’t really interested.”
“Ah, so not just ignorant, willfully so.” He shook his head and stepped forward. Trissa let out a helpless scream as he plucked her from the floor and yanked her trousers off, leaving her in her bra and the panties she’d been sleeping in. “I am impounding this ship and you.”
“You can’t impound me,” she complained as she dangled under his arm. “I’m not property.”
“Of course you are,” he snorted. “Talking property, granted, but property nonetheless.”
He carried her toward the airlock, ignoring her struggles as she kicked and screamed and tried to grab at the walls. They were all too smooth. There was no handhold to be had, and even if there had been, it would not have helped.
“Wait! All my stuff is here!”
“I can’t imagine there’s anything you would want to keep among this trash.”
“Then you’d imagine wrong! I have my books and my... hey! Hey!”
The airlock closed and the outer door opened. Beyond it should have been space, but instead a gleaming walkway had been attached to the hull of the shuttle, allowing the Kilvoy officer to carry her onto his ship.
Hauled onto the Kilvoy vessel, Trissa was instantly impressed by the larger ship. It was much higher quality and possessed of much higher technology than the little shuttle she’d been on. In fact, hers looked like a total trash heap compared to this shi
p. There was no clutter, no crates of various sizes and provenance packed all over, no empty ration wrappers coiled around the cables. Everything was clean and sleek and spacious. Someone really should have bothered to clean their shuttle, she thought to herself as the officer carried her into a large empty space, which seemed to be a cargo hold. Made sense, given he’d called her property.
Trissa was trying pretty hard not to panic. She wasn’t sure what the Kilvoy procedure was for dealing with smugglers, but fortunately Eudod had taken the cargo with him, so really, all she could be held responsible for was a ship full of nothing.
“Hey!” she exclaimed as he set her on her feet. “I haven’t done anything wrong. Why are you detaining me?”
“You’re a suspected smuggler.”
“With no smuggled cargo?”
“You’re a suspected accomplice. And, as I told you, humans are not recognized as having independence in this sector. You have not attained the necessary level of evolution. Your ship will be impounded and you...” his brow rose a fraction of an inch, “will be dealt with. Now, remove the rest of your clothing in preparation for decontamination.”
“I don’t need to be decontaminated.”
“Your shuttle is a biohazard, and so are you. Off with the clothes, human brat.”
She scowled and did not obey him. How dare he speak to her like this? She was not a lesser lifeform and she wouldn’t accept being treated like one either. She was going to tell him exactly what she thought of him. She was going to... all those rebellious thoughts somehow melted into mush when she opened her mouth, looked into his eyes, and felt that intractable force take hold of her again.
He reached out, took hold of the straps of her bra and slid them from her shoulders. The bra slipped to her waist, revealing her breasts to the officer’s gaze. As his eyes slipped from hers to inspect her semi-naked form, the spell was broken. Trissa put her hands up to cover herself, palms obscuring as much of her breasts as she could.
“Hands down, human!” He snapped the order impatiently. “You will do as you are told or you will be punished.”
Alien Alphas: Twenty-Three Naughty Sci-Fi Romance Novellas Page 93