by Layla Nash
She screamed as cool air rushed into the mask and stole away her ability to talk. There was no sign of Trazzak or Maisy or even the cutter as the gurney floated out to the docks. Her vision swam and everything tilted around her until she didn’t know if she was awake or dreaming. It felt like a nightmare, through and through.
A battered ship waited with a narrow loading bay, and the Xaravian hauled the gurney up and into the ship before crawling in himself, sealing the doors behind them. He muttered something under his breath as he maneuvered around the gurney and Jess’s feeble attempt to punch him, and climbed into the navigator’s seat to re-engage the engines. Jess squeezed her eyes shut and tried to think through the tapioca in her brain. Maybe it was all a misunderstanding. Maybe Trazzak would storm in and save her. Maybe the restraints would fail and she could save herself.
But the ship creaked and shuddered as it detached from the clinic and the orbital structures, and the Xaravian started clicking buttons on the control panels in the ancient ship. He exhaled and glanced back at her as Jess groaned and tried to pull her arms free. “At least with this payday I can get a proper ship.”
Jess gasped for air as the mask flooded her nose and mouth with a foul-smelling mix, and she struggled to hold onto consciousness. She couldn’t afford to pass out. She had to figure out how to survive this. She couldn’t give up. She still had to find Nathan and figure out how to negotiate for the rest of the crew, she had to....
But as darkness set in, Jess figured the bounty hunter would take her to Nathan straight away, so at least that was one thing she didn’t have to do herself.
Trazzak
Trazzak got a sinking feeling in his stomach as soon as he reached the docking bay on the cutter, even with so much to distract him after the conversation with Vaant, and Frrar’s intensive class on how to use the relays to their advantage. Alarms blared from the clinic, but nothing else moved. No doctors going back and forth, no incoming or outgoing patients. Nothing. He gripped the old relay in his hand and picked up a stunner from the rack near the door, not looking at Frrar. “Stay here. Be ready to close the dock and get out of here as soon as I get back.”
The engineer nodded, expression grim, and hunkered down with a weapon — far larger than anything Trazzak remembered being on the cutter — to defend the ship. Trazzak moved faster as he cleared the dock and found no enemies or staff or anything at all — not even another ship. He distinctly remembered at least three other ships in the dock when they arrived. He shook off the increasing trepidation and jogged into the clinic, skidding past a vacant information desk on his way to the isolation wards.
Anger bubbled up in his chest, setting his scales alight in a blaze of red and orange, as he approached Jessalyn’s room and found more alarms, more people, and more chaos. And in the middle of it all: an empty bed. Jessalyn was gone.
Trazzak roared and everyone else froze, the doctors and nurses cowering against the walls as they scrambled to get out of his way. He wanted to throw the equipment across the room and break everything in there. “Where is she? What happened?”
One of the security guards remained behind a massive chunk of equipment, not quite peeking out at Trazzak but close. “A Xaravian came in and took her. We thought it was… we thought it was you.”
Trazzak’s eyes narrowed. “Why? Why would I break her out when I just brought her in? Why didn’t you stop him?”
“All of you look… well, look alike.” The security guard didn’t even look ashamed at the casual racism, and held up his hands like he was stating a fact. All barbarians looked alike, apparently. Trazzak ground his teeth until he thought his jaw would break; he’d have to wait to teach the bastard a lesson, because he still needed to find out what happened to Jessalyn. “We weren’t about to get in the middle of a rampaging Xaravian and a pissed-off Earther.”
“Then what the fuck do they pay you for?” Trazzak loomed over the security guard. “It didn’t even occur to you to slow him down?”
No one answered, although the guard’s face turned red. Trazzak didn’t give a shit. He stared around the room, looking for a hint of where Jessalyn may have been taken, but saw nothing. He grabbed the security guard by the front of his uniform and pointed him toward the door. “Security footage of the dock and this corridor. Now.”
The alien grudgingly led the way through the clinic, dragging his feet regardless of how much Trazzak growled, and the Xaravian made a mental note to purchase their own damn clinic somewhere, so shit like that wouldn’t happen. He didn’t know if the Alliance rescued Jessalyn, or a bounty hunter came for her, or what, but he wasn’t about to let her get away on her own terms. He still had questions. The rebels still had questions, and they needed to figure out if she was the spy in their midst. Letting the Alliance or someone else drag her away meant never finding out for sure. He wasn’t going to let that happen.
He breathed down the security guard’s neck as the asshole finally pulled up footage on the massive viewing screens. Trazzak took over the controls so he could focus in on the perpetrator — a big Xaravian, although the face and any identifying marks were obscured by robes and a hood. He cursed and muttered, trying different angles and viewpoints, up and down the hall and all the way out to the dock, and fought the rising urgency of needing to track her down. Jessalyn was getting farther away by the second, maybe forever beyond his reach. Maybe he would never know the answer to how she felt, what she thought, whether they had a future or even a friendship ahead of them. Or whether she was a traitor or not.
Trazzak growled more and his scales rattled as he gave up on identifying the Xaravian. The bastard was good enough to keep himself hidden, which probably meant bounty hunter. The only other people good enough to avoid being seen like that were Ministry spies, and there was no way in all seven circles of the sandiest hells that a Xaravian would be a spy. Which meant bounty hunters had managed to track them down.
He copied over the beacons and docking information for the two ships that docked after they arrived, as well as the shitty corvette that had been there before. Trazzak loomed over the security guard and once more resisted the urge to beat the alien bloody. “If she’s injured or dead, you’ll pay for it with your life.”
Trazzak didn’t wait for a response and instead strode back to the dock with enough information to hopefully track down whoever stole Jessalyn. Frrar still waited in the cutter, ready to defend the ship against the curious patients who’d shuffled out of their rooms to find out what caused the alarms, but got moving as soon as he saw Trazzak. “Where are we going?”
Trazzak threw him the relay and the information on the beacons. “Get this in the nav system, and start monitoring the relays for any communications from a bounty hunter to that son of a bitch Nathan. A Xaravian grabbed her out of her room. I couldn’t get a good view of him, but we’ve got three ships to track down and not much time. She’s still sick.”
The engineer saluted smartly and bolted for the bridge as Trazzak sealed the docking bay, locking everyone out, and followed after him. Trazzak paused in the corridor outside the bridge for a moment as rage seethed through him and his vision went red. He had to find her. There were too many things unsaid, and too many questions unanswered. And if anyone was going to get the bounty for turning her in, he wanted it to be him. At least then they could afford to purchase the weapons system from the damn Dablonians.
Jess
Jess faded in and out of consciousness. Every time she opened her eyes, she expected to be somewhere new and more dangerous, but instead it was just the crappy ship around her. She didn’t make any noise, not wanting to alert the kidnapper that she was awake, and tried instead to move her arms and legs. Nothing worked. The cool air still rushed at her through the mask; when she managed to dislodge it a little with a hearty shrug, her head started to clear.
Jess had to get away or leave a message. She didn’t know if Trazzak and the others would come after her, but in the off chance that they did, she needed to leave
clues so they could find her. The bounty hunter who took her had to be taking her to the Alliance; there was no other explanation. She never thought she’d have to worry about Xaravian bounty hunters, particularly after everything Trazzak and Vaant said about the brotherhood of warriors, but there she was.
The bounty hunter said nothing, not even into the communicator, and the ship flew with no lights or identifying radio transmissions that she could hear. A real professional, then. Jess kept her eyes open even as she wanted to squeeze them shut in despair. The bounty hunter would turn her in to the Alliance, maybe directly to the Minister, and whatever bargaining power Jess might have had with returning of her own volition disappeared. She’d be just another prisoner, another traitor they could make disappear.
Her breath caught as the ship turned and slowed, the bounty hunter making several adjustments to the controls as he signaled across the radio to dock somewhere. Jess strained to overhear any identifying information, but everything blurred into nonsense no matter how hard she concentrated. She knew from hard-learned experience that being moved to a second or third or fourth location made it exponentially more difficult for someone to find her. Jess didn’t want to leave that ship without somehow signaling that she’d been there. The cool metal of her bracelet was the only thing she could feel as the ship jolted and then stopped, and started to decompress and groan as the docking procedure started.
She hated the thought of losing her bracelet, but there wasn’t time to come up with anything else. Jess rotated her wrist and managed to slide it off over her thumb, flicking the bracelet far enough away from the gurney that hopefully the bounty hunter wouldn’t see it when he took her off the ship, but still visible enough that someone boarding it would notice. Jess held her breath and braced herself, closing her eyes until she could see only a sliver of the room. If the bounty hunter thought she still slept, maybe he wouldn’t re-adjust the mask and really knock her out.
The Xaravian grumbled and muttered under his breath in Low Xarav as he tightened the straps pinning her to the gurney, and as he adjusted the settings and equipment in the back of the ship before he opened the single bay door. The first wave of air from wherever it was they docked made Jess’s chest tighten — it smelled like garbage and rusted metal, battered dreams and crushed hopes.
She gouged her thumbnail into her thigh to keep from reacting as the bounty hunter floated the gurney off the ship and onto what appeared to be an illegal trading post. As if that weren’t bad enough, he didn’t even go through the front doors of some of the trading stalls, and instead moved around back to where there was far less traffic and no one was interested in anyone else’s business. Jess’s heart sped up as panic rose in her throat. She recognized places like that one — a shady meeting place for dark dealings. And it was one of the places the Ministry went to get rid of problems.
Jess concentrated on whatever positives she could find. She wasn’t dead yet. She wasn’t entirely knocked out or drugged up. She had a small chance that Trazzak or at least Maisy would want to find her. And she had her reputation and knowledge. She could possibly bargain her way out of a gruesome death, if the Ministry wanted to learn more about how the rebels did business. Jess never thought she’d betray people she started to think of as colleagues, as least for the rebels, but if it meant saving her own life... She shivered all the way through. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that.
She just wished she had a chance to apologize to Isla and the others for failing to get their names cleared, and hoped that whoever came to arrest or kill her would still let her send a message to her family. Surely her nieces and nephews would wonder what happened to her, far away among the stars.
The bounty hunter took a key from his pocket and unlocked one of the dingy storage rooms, shoving the gurney in to crowd next to a single table and pair of chairs, then seated himself. Jess exhaled and managed to maneuver the mask all the way off. Not just a regular bounty hunter, then, if he already had a meeting location set up. He already had the key, which meant he’d been expecting to meet someone there regardless of whether he found Jess. She didn’t like that at all. Another tick in the column for “not just a bounty hunter.”
The silence stretched and no one else arrived. Jess didn’t see any use in pretending to be asleep, and managed to whisper, “They’ll never let you keep the bounty.”
The Xaravian jumped about a foot in the air. Apparently her unconscious act fooled him. She took some comfort in that. The bounty hunter scowled and lurched to his feet, and his long hair fell back to reveal a mass of scars on his face. He looked even more terrifying than Trazzak, which Jess hadn’t thought possible.
She bared her teeth in the best threat she could manage. “And there are others looking for me. They’ll come for me, and you’re going to get your ass kicked.”
“That’s what you think,” he said under his breath, unimpressed. “No one’s looking for you. No one cares. You’re going to disappear here and all that will be left is a stack of cash big enough to fill my ship to the brim.”
Before Jess could draw breath to argue or condemn him for being a damn traitor to the rest of Xarav, a soft staccato knock on the door made them both freeze. After a few heartbeats, the Xaravian went to the door and glanced through, then let the battered metal swing in to reveal... Nathan.
Jess bit back a groan. Newton’s laws, she just couldn’t catch a break. Nathan eyed her, one perfectly groomed eyebrow arched in curiosity. “So there you are.”
As if he hadn’t expected to find her strapped to a gurney, half-dead and pissed off. Jess didn’t know what she’d ever seen in him. Smarmy asshole. “And imagine finding you here. Regular Saturday night for you, Nathan?”
He smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Lovely to see you, too, Jessalyn.”
The Xaravian glanced between them, his expression sour. “Sorry to interrupt the flirting, but I want my money.”
Nathan sighed and shook his head, slanting a sideways look at Jessalyn as if to see her approval as he said, “Barbarians. No decorum at all. Fine, Yurik. You will get your money.”
They knew each other. Jess’s blood curdled as her worst fears were confirmed — the Xaravian had to be a paid informant, working for Nathan. She wanted to know for sure, just in case the laws of physics and time broke and somehow she ended up being rescued.
“Congratulations, Nathan. I didn’t think anyone had co-opted a Xaravian before. That’s quite a score. I didn’t think you had it in you.”
The Xaravian scowled and kicked the edge of the gurney, dumping Jess half onto the floor. “Go fuck yourself, Earther. You don’t know anything about this.”
“I wouldn’t call him co-opted,” Nathan said smoothly, and maneuvered to release the straps that held her, until Jess flopped the rest of the way onto the dirty floor. “Our interests coincide in a few areas, that’s all.”
“Particularly when you’ve got a stack of cash,” Jess said. She barely managed to lift her head to keep from suffocating against the horrible trash under her cheek. “That’s a solid foundation for working relationships. As long as you’re always the highest bidder, Nathan.”
The information officer sighed, catching the back of her uniform and hauling her up to sit in one of the chairs. “We’re always the highest bidder, Barnes, and you know it. Don’t act so surprised. You’ve done this dance yourself.”
The room tilted around her at the sudden change in direction, and Jess swallowed bile at the nausea as well as the smell. “Then pay for a better meeting location next time.”
“Give me my money,” the Xaravian growled. “I don’t want to waste any more time with your stupid games.”
Nathan retrieved a substantial metal box on wheels from near the door and skidded it in front of the Xaravian. “There. Now don’t let us waste another moment of your precious time. You still owe me those reports. Two weeks.”
The Xaravian shouldered the box and disappeared out the door without another word. Nathan secured the bent
metal carefully, then eased into the chair across the table from her. His teeth glinted in the half-light as he studied her. “Jessalyn. Ready to talk now?”
She didn’t let herself look at the leather bag at his feet, knowing full well it contained all the various little tools he used to make sure people talked. At least the toxin would probably kill her before Nathan had to torture her; it was some small consolation. She just hoped that Trazzak searched for her, and that maybe someone would find her before it was too late.
Trazzak
Trazzak piloted the ship while Frrar fiddled with the relays and narrowed down the outgoing communications from the clinic. They managed to narrow down the possible culprits to a single ship, the battered cruiser that had been at the clinic before they arrived. Trazzak didn’t like the looks of that — if the bounty hunter knew they’d be taking Jessalyn to the clinic before the cutter even docked, it meant there was another spy amongst them. Or perhaps Jessalyn managed to get a message to the Alliance to come and rescue her.
From what Frrar pulled off the relays, though, it seemed less and less likely that Jessalyn had anything to do with her own disappearance. It was cold comfort for Trazzak, though it created enough rage to cover over the growing worry.
As the cutter tore off after the cruiser, so they could at least confront the pilot to see whether they’d noticed anything at the clinic that could explain who took Jessalyn, Trazzak hailed the Galaxos and Heisenberg to ask for backup. He didn’t want to try and fight the entire Alliance, or even just the Ministry, by himself in a second-rate cutter if they rushed into an ambush. He got only a few words out before Isla ordered the Galaxos around, and for once Trazzak didn’t mind that she took over and ordered Vaant around on his own ship.