by Casey Lea
“Ye, sah,” the wearer of the black boots answered instantly and bent to help Darsey to her feet.
She had to quell a moment of absolute panic and let him pull her upright as she regained control. She wanted to leap at Greon and release all of her fear and anger in attack, but she knew that the suit and his guards made that impossible. She needed to wait for a better chance. She lowered her eyes again and turned obediently after her captor, trying to look submissive while adrenalin shook her.
Nightwing steered Darsey carefully around Greon, toward the opposite side of the cabin, but then stopped her, just short of a small door in the far wall. His fingers tightened in her arm and she almost lashed out anyway. Tension screamed through her temples and she just wanted to do something. Anything.
Nightwing ignored her to bow to Greon. “Leader, I’ve given thought to your earlier advice.”
“Indeed?”
“It’s good advice and I’ve decided to take it.”
“Certain-sure. When we dock, you may find a suitable slave.”
“I’d rather not wait, sah. We’ll have to be out for an age now, just to recover credit from this tour. I wish to buy this alien and gain a slave full quick.”
Darsey and Greon both gaped at the suggestion, before Greon’s mouth tightened to a single gash.
“She’s our only loot from this ex and I want some return. A mermaridian lady or gentik geneticist will pay well for those blue eyes, but she’ll be a poor slave without them. I’m not wasting tek to fix her, Senior. She’s not worth the credit and I’m out of profit as-is.”
“You needn’t be, sah.”
Greon was suddenly still again and his silver eyes glinted when he glanced at Darsey. She held her breath while the two males faced each other. She wasn’t sure what her dark-haired captor was offering, but she prayed that it would save her life. Her heart began to hammer for lack of air and she took a small, gasping breath. It went unnoticed by the two aliens.
Greon tapped his pursed lips and then reluctantly shook his head.
“You’re a good Senior, Nightwing. Truly, the best I’ve had and I’d like to indulge you, but blue eyes are unique. They could be worth multi-credit.”
“You’re right, Leader, and I appreciate that. I’m willing to cover all loss. I’ll trade my full ship’s share from this flight.”
“Hmmmm. Not enough.”
“All right. This trip and the next.”
“Make it three full trips signed to me, not the ship, and we deal.”
Darsey felt the alien standing close to her, stiffen with anger. “I’d still have to make full repayment to the ship for its loss.”
“Truly, truly,” Greon agreed airily. “I estimate that will take your total share from another two outs. That’s five profitless tours. Are you sure you want such?”
Darsey heard her captor’s teeth grind. He glanced at her and she appealed to him with her eyes. She could only hope the plea was as clear as if it was spoken. He turned back to Greon and answered curtly, “Deal.”
“Deal,” the captain agreed.
They both raised their left arms and Darsey saw that Nightwing wore a bracelet similar to Greon’s. They were wider than those on the guards’ wrists and gold, rather than gray. The intricate patterns engraved on the strange bands started to glow, then flashed simultaneously and a line of light briefly linked them. Darsey realized that the gesture was an exchange of information, presumably the details of her sale and resolved to try to to steal one of the useful bands. She was distracted from her thoughts by a tap on her shoulder.
Darsey looked up at her new owner, who was slightly taller than her six-foot height. She smiled at him, but he ignored her expression to jerk his head curtly at the door. She felt a surge of anger in response, but didn’t hesitate. The small, curved door was close and Darsey headed awkwardly toward it, her boots dragging in the thick crimson pile.
A shimmering screen filled the doorway, but dimmed when she approached it, to reveal a long tunnel exactly like the one she’d been floated along earlier. It could have been the same passage, but there was nothing for Darsey to positively identify.
She reached the oval opening and shuffled through it with undisguised enthusiasm. Her owner followed immediately and she guessed that he was equally relieved to escape from Greon. They tumbled back into weightlessness and, by the time Darsey stabilised herself, the door behind them looked firmly shut.
3
Alien Welcome
Darsey floated down a tunnel in the heart of the strange ship and wondered whether she was dreaming. As nightmares went it was frighteningly good. It might have been helpful to pinch herself, but gripping skin through her space suit was impossible. Great, she’d found a design flaw. A strange giggle started to rise in her gut, but a voice from behind her strangled it.
“Are you well?” Nightwing asked and Darsey twisted to face him with a yelp. He was floating just behind her and looked disturbingly solid. “Do you require calming?”
Was this guy for real? “Do you always start your dates with that one?”
They eyeballed each other again and for a moment Darsey thought they were going to slip back into a staring competition, but Nightwing’s cold, gold eyes narrowed before he looked away.
“Our dates usually begin with the day of the week. Day one, 273, or ten, 54. The year depends whose territory you’re in.”
Darsey felt her face crumple and made an effort to smooth it. “What… what’s the date? Here. Today.”
For the fist time she saw what might have been sympathy in the alien’s eyes. “It’s day 201, 2340 Rim and the time is 4:78.”
Oh, God. None of that made sense. But then nothing had made any sense since she saw that damned anomaly in space. “Sh-should have ignored it,” Darsey whispered. “Looked the other way.” She was shaking, but it seemed impossible to stop. Dammit. She had to get if under control. Looking vulnerable, especially in front of aliens, wasn’t her style. She looked back down the tunnel and found inspiration in the small, shimmering door behind them.
“Must be fun to work for,” Darsey ventured, with a nod toward Greon’s quarters, and her companion laughed, naturally and without restraint.
The unexpected response shocked her after his previous dourness and she regarded him uncertainly. His expression eased to a reassuring smile, which Darsey managed to return.
“Greon? He’s sweet once you know him.”
“Really?”
“Sadly not. He’s as sharp as a cut from a friend, but don’t fear. I know how to best Greon.”
Darsey inwardly rolled her eyes, but assumed an outward expression of awed admiration. “Wow, really? You must be the real leader-”
“Quiet,” the alien interrupted, and Darsey’s mouth snapped shut as she looked at him in bewilderment.
His tawny eyes regarded her coldly, until he suddenly smiled again. However, that friendly grin was not for Darsey. His gaze moved past her to someone approaching along the tunnel. There was a whisper of air and a female figure glided to a halt between Darsey and Nightwing. The newcomer pretended to ignore the human, but Darsey glimpsed curiosity in her gray eyes before she turned away with a shake of long, silver hair.
“Hey, Senior.”
“Hey, Jileea.”
“New?”
“Single species that seems base grade primitive. I’m keeping it for service, but I’ll be lucky if it’s fit for such.”
“It’s female,” the stranger commented. Her remark was a statement, not a question, and Darsey was grateful to meet someone who could actually recognize that.
“Ye,” the male agreed guardedly. “So?”
“Soooo,” the other drawled in response, “will she bring any profit? Can we take her to auction, or to a brothel? Was this detour worth it?” She looked over her shoulder at Darsey again and her mouth frowned, creasing her pale upper lip. Her expression was unimpressed and she made no effort to hide her doubts about their new acquisition’s worth.
The female’s head snapped round to face him and her voice rose too. “You bought her? She’s not to go to auction? There’s no outer credit? No cash in?”
“That’s right, Data Senior, but there’s no loss-”
“How can you know that?” the other interrupted fiercely, making Darsey jump and float gently away from the arguing pair. Her owner’s eyes remained fixed on his subordinate, but one of the feathery strands that framed his throat rose higher when Darsey moved away. It tracked her path and then settled, pointing straight at her, until she drifted to a halt. She scrunched her hands into fists and drifted without moving, even when the female crewmember’s voice rang down the tunnel.
“Don’t act the ignorant kres, Wing. You know it’s important. A profit-light tour can draw bad Luck. We may be pirates, but most of us are mermaridian and we won’t let anything curse our Luck. If the mutt think something has, there’ll be disaster. Most of the crew will mutiny.”
“Led by you, maytell?” Nightwing asked softly.
The female’s silver hair bristled, while her lips creased even further. “Don’t cast shade on my loyalty. I’ve been Data Senior for three years past, with no sign of revolt. I’m warning you with good intent, because this unsold slave could be death to morale. The ship’s Luck should be purged. Now.”
She spun to face Darsey before Nightwing could protest. Jileea’s lips twisted and her right arm rose, hand held flat in a fist, so the silver bracelet around her wrist was revealed in unmistakable threat. Darsey flinched and drifted backwards. Far too slowly. Every instinct screamed at her to run, but how? The alien’s arm moved to track Darsey, who kicked out hard in response aiming for the sloping tunnel wall.
Her foot connected with enough force to throw her across the passage. She rebounded from the curve of its far side, but Jileea’s hand followed the movement and then steadied as Darsey stopped just short of the exit she had hoped to reach. She groped desperately for that oval opening, but the spacesuit’s bulk slowed her again. Jileea’s eyes narrowed in concentration as she aimed down the corridor.
“Enough.” Nightwing’s order was quiet and deceptively casual, but his fist came to rest against the back of his subordinate’s head. His golden wrist band was humming so loudly that even Darsey could hear it and Jileea’s hair rippled with that vibration, like a silver curtain in a breeze.
She quickly raised her arm to aim at the ceiling instead of Darsey and much more slowly turned her head. She studied her crewmate grimly, but her tone was apologetic. “No need to blow holes in the ship. Greon wouldn't thank us for such.”
Darsey hardly heard her. The sudden, inexplicable threat to her life had finally released the horror building since her capture. She started to tremble and took a deep breath as adrenaline shook her. The two aliens were oblivious. They confronted each other and Nightwing’s grim words echoed in Darsey’s head.
“Don’t ever raise an arm to my property, DS, or you’ll lose it, I swear.”
“Swear on your honor?” the other challenged and Nightwing’s face grew taut.
His amber complexion paled and two faint scars, one along each cheekbone, glittered gold against it. “Do you taunt me, Jileea?”
Darsey took another shuddering breath and managed to bring the tense couple back into focus. She could see that the woman was tempted to say yes. The two measured each other for a charged moment and then Jileea relaxed with a wary smile.
“Not so, Wing. You’re my friend and I’ve no thought to argue, even less to fight. I regret acting so fast. I more-so regret what I just said. I was simply curious…” Her voice trailed off with a questioning lilt, but Nightwing stared at her until she nodded in submission, without asking again about his honor.
“I’ll have no more talk of cursed luck,” he ordered softly, “from you or any other. The ship made a profit, which all will share, and the slave’s not to be touched. There’ll be no more words on this. Agreed?”
“As you say.” Jileea pouted, but then seemed to relent and smiled more warmly at her superior before raising her wrist.
Darsey tensed, but the silver bracelet moved past her to fire a pulse that sent its owner flying along the corridor. Jileea shrank in seconds to a receding streak of silver. Darsey sagged deeper in her suit in relief, but Nightwing ignored her to stare after his subordinate. He watched Jileea until she vanished in the darkness, and his expression was brooding. He started when Darsey finally touched his arm and when she drifted into him, he looked down at her with a rueful grimace.
“She would have killed me,” Darsey stated as flatly as she could, but her voice still shook. “Why?”
Nightwing’s features hardened again as he considered the question. “She certainly would. She’s mermaridian, as-with Greon and the mutt who escorted you aboard, and they’re a species that has some extreme superstitions.”
“About good luck?”
He raised a finger and then his arm, to grip Darsey’s wrist. His gold bracelet pulsed and they started to move. The passage flowed past them in a seemingly random stream of well-lit openings.
“Mermaridian believe that luck flows in currents. They think once they’re in a stream of such they can’t lose. They take crazy risks when they’re winning. Unfortunately, they’re also total obsessives about bad luck and what might draw it. If they see you as a curse magnet, they’ll kill you in a purge ritual.”
“Great,” she groaned. “This day just keeps getting better. At the moment, I do feel cursed.”
Nightwing swung to face Darsey as they floated down the passage and shook her by the wrist. She tensed at the sudden movement and they glared at each other.
“Don’t ever repeat that,” he said fiercely. “Don’t even think it. Especially near a console. Such will get both of us killed.”
His grip on Darsey tightened and he extended his wrist again. The resulting surge was so strong it forced the breath back into her lungs. They hurtled down the tunnel, and entrances passed as a golden blur. She tried to find enough air to protest, but, before she could, the trip was over. They braked hard and Darsey was swung into a corridor where her weight returned. She stumbled again, although her companion made the transition to gravity smoothly. Great. Her body had clearly embraced its role as the bulky, clumsy alien. She sighed and made an effort to look around, despite the padding holding her head.
The passage in front of Darsey was claustrophobically cramped. It was lucky she was used to living in a tin can. Doors were crowded along the corridor, recessed ovals of faded orange set in dirty lavender walls. The surfaces appeared smooth, yet the floor beneath her shuffling feet offered plenty of grip. Light glowed uniformly from the ceiling and walls, but, as they passed the junction with another passage, the section around them flickered and faded. Only the dim light from the corridor ahead remained.
“What a dump,” Darsey blurted in disbelief, and Nightwing looked at her with a raised eyebrow.
“I’m sorry your first alien ship disappoints. We’ve little here to rival inner system technology.”
“Not unless you steal it,” she snapped, but he ignored her.
“Here,” he said abruptly and grabbed her wrist to halt her before a faded orange door. “My quarters.”
Darsey drew a sharp breath and if felt as if her spacesuit was pinching her in the middle. Which was ridiculous since there was plenty of room, enough for her to pull her arms into its hard shell if she wanted, but some sort of vice was definitely tightening in her gut. She jerked her hand angrily and Nightwing released her straight away. They glared at each other yet again, while she awkwardly crossed her suited arms and braced her feet. She had no intention of being dragged anywhere else.
However, Nightwing paced away from Darsey, then turned back and threw his arms out w
ide. “Do I have to carry you from the corridor before more of my crew try to claim your eyes? Do you lack all but the most basic protective instincts?”
“My instincts are just fine and they’re screaming at me to stay out of your parlour.” Darsey pushed her spacesuit into a slight crouch, ready to resist if the alien tried anything, but instead he paused before walking slowly back to join her.
“My name is Nightwing. I’m a kres. I claimed you as my share of the plunder to protect you. I’ve no intent to harm you and I’ve no habit of keeping slaves. I’m not like Greon. I repeat, it should be obvious I won’t hurt you.”
Darsey tried to place her hands on her hips, but they slid off the hard curves of her suit, so she frowned at the alien instead. “There’s hurt and then there’s hurt. How do I know you don’t have other designs on me?”
One of Nightwing’s brows shot up, his eyes flicked briefly down, then up as he checked out Darsey and then he started to laugh. He managed another glance in her direction before he threw back his head and roared. Tears started to flow down his checks and he stamped his feet, while she felt fire spread under her helmet padding and across her face. She stamped her foot too, but it seemed he couldn’t stop and she had to speak over his guffaws.
“You! You are not a gentleman.”
Nightwing wiped a hand across his cheeks, still chuckling. “I don’t understand what that is, but I am amused. You’re the most entertaining primitive I’ve met.”
“And you’re the rudest, most arrogant prick I’ve ever met. Didn’t your mother teach you manners?”
A hand closed tight around the back of Darsey’s neck, making her yelp. Nightwing pulled her close and thrust his face into hers, until all she could see were amber eyes above angled scars. Impossible to read, but she was guessing he was pissed. Perhaps aliens didn’t have mothers. He jerked her closer still and ignored her small cry of protest to lean lower until his breath was hot against her cheek.