by Kit Tunstall
Telling herself it was a pointless line of speculation, and that they might not even become lovers, let alone anything else, she tried to push aside the thoughts. That only led to her dwelling on his safety though, and she had worked herself into quite a state when she heard a scraping of rock nearby.
A wave of relief rushed through her as she turned in his direction. “That was faster than I…” She trailed off, eyes widening as the form in front of her lost any resemblance to Zyan that it had borne from the corner of her eye. Once again, Aladrina’s true shape appeared, making Ellie shiver with dread and fear.
“I need your help, Earthling.”
Ellie glared at her as she scrambled to her feet. “What makes you think I’d ever help you?”
“A complete lack of options.” With those ambiguous words and a cold smile, the tail with the stinger separated from her body, wrapping sinuously around Ellie and dragging her closer.
She shivered at the awful sensation. “Get off me.” She’d never felt anything so unpleasant in her life. It was like being wrapped with bands of Jell-O, but much harder and unbreakable than gelatin.
“My ship crashed. The harbinger-class is a piece of junk, but it was all I could…borrow at the time I escaped. I need your ship, and you’re going to open it for me.”
Ellie shook her head, trying to dig in her heels as Aladrina dragged her behind her. Her body undulated in an almost magnetic fashion, but it was nothing like the soothing sensation she got from looking at Zyan’s faintly visible scales. This was more of a nausea-inducing reaction, like being on a roller coaster or spun around multiple times before stumbling away. Closing her eyes helped, as did breathing through her mouth. In addition to feeling unpleasant, Aladrina also exuded a musty smell that was almost enough to make Ellie vomit.
“I just want off this planet. Do your part, and you’ll be rewarded.”
Ellie shook her head again. “I’m not going to help you.”
Aladrina paused just briefly to turn to look at her, her beady gaze with her slightly blob-like eyes drilling into Ellie in an unsettling fashion. “If you don’t open the ship for me, I’ll simply cut off your hand. I assume I need your eye as well for a retina scan? You can cooperate and be intact, or I can leave you in pieces here on this forsaken planet. Which will it be, human?”
Ellie glared sullenly at her, refusing to answer, though that in itself was a reply. She didn’t like the idea of helping Aladrina, but she liked the idea of losing parts of herself even less. Besides, surely Zyan would realize what was happening before it was too late. She was certain he wouldn’t let Aladrina escape off the planet, and he certainly wouldn’t allow the alien to endanger her health or life.
They reached her ship without incident, though she kept expecting Zyan to appear. When he did, he looked worse for wear. He was staggering a bit, and there was a visible wound in his shoulder. He’d clearly had a run-in with Aladrina’s stinger. “Zyan.” She let all her relief filter through her voice.
“Are you well, Ellie?”
She nodded, more concerned about him than herself at the moment. She moved her gaze to his shoulder. “What about you? Did you get your medicine in time?” Obviously he must have, or he would have either been dead or suffering somewhere from hallucinations at the moment, but the question had still fallen from her lips.
“I did.” His expression hardened when he looked at Aladrina. “Release her now. They want you to go through the process of execution, but I won’t hesitate to kill you now and deal with the consequences later.”
Aladrina let out a hissing sound that might have been a laugh. “What’s this? A Karadisian attempting to turn his back on honor and rules? I don’t believe it can be done.”
He growled at her. “It wouldn’t be eschewing my honor. I’d simply be dealing with a blight on the galaxies.”
Her tail tightened perceptibly around Ellie as her stinger caressed her cheek. Ellie shuddered at the sensation, hating how helpless she was in the moment.
“Allow me into the ship, human.”
Ellie shot Zyan a questioning look, surprised when he nodded. “Really?”
He nodded again. “If she gets away now, I’ll simply follow her to her next destination. I want you safe.”
That same hissing-laugh sound came from Aladrina again. “Isn’t that sweet? You mean more to him than his mission. Congratulations, human female. You’ve done something I thought impossible, which is to make a Karadisian deviate from his course.”
Ellie ignored the taunts, wriggling in the tail wrapped around her. “You have to let me go if you want me to use my hand to open the ship.”
With just the briefest pause, Aladrina’s tail slipped off her, almost oozing to the ground. Ellie looked down and shuddered, half-surprised not to see a trail of slime marking the path Aladrina had traversed.
Irritated, she opened the biometric panel on her ship and placed her palm inside. Next, she rested her head against the forehead bar and opened her eyes wide. The ship confirmed it was her in nanoseconds, and the door opened with a hydraulic hiss.
“Thank you, human.” Aladrina hiss-laughed at her. “You’ve been so helpful.”
“Not by choice,” said Ellie, noticing Zyan was rapidly approaching.
“That’s unfortunate, but it doesn’t concern me. As much help as you’ve been, you can be of even further assistance.”
Ellie tried to take a step back, not liking the ominous note in the alien’s tone. Before she could move, Aladrina had wrapped the tail around her again, drawing her close. She gagged as the amorphous mass pressed into her, and the scent overwhelmed her.
Aladrina formed fingers from her body, and Ellie let out a gasp of pain when she suddenly ripped off the force field transmitter and tossed it out of the ship. The alien’s words weren’t for her, but for Zyan when she spoke.
“Take a long look at your female, Karadisian. You’ll never see her again—unless you’re the highest bidder at the auctions.” That cold, hissy laugh escaped her again as the door closed, locking Zyan on the outside and Ellie inside the shuttle with the Sibian crime lord.
During the brief time she had been without the force field, but not inside the controlled atmosphere of the shuttle, she had grown breathless and weak. It took a moment before Ellie could draw in a deep breath, and when she did, she tried to scream.
It was an irrational response, because there was no one to hear it besides Zyan and Aladrina, and they were both already aware of the situation. Zyan was trapped outside her ship, and he wouldn’t be able to gain access without her biometrics. She was truly at Aladrina’s mercy. “What did you mean by auctions?” She struggled to tug free of the tail still enfolding her.
“The locations vary, but I have contacts who will tell me where to go. It’s where we deal with commodities such as yourself. No one’s ever bought a human before, but then again, no one’s ever sold one either.” She hiss-laughed. “You’ll bring a good price. Enough for me to start over far away from the reach of the Interstellar Alliance.”
Ellie grimaced. “When Zyan finally kills you, he’s going to make you suffer first.”
The alien appeared unconcerned by that. “First, he has to catch me, and he’ll find that practically impossible. Secondly, I know you’re just a human, so you have no idea about the rules and regulations of the Interstellar Alliance, but bounty hunters are forbidden to kill their quarry. We’re to be executed only under sanctioned circumstances, and in the least cruel way possible.” She said the words mockingly.
“He’s coming for me.” She wasn’t certain where the core of faith in him came from, based on their short acquaintance, but she knew Zyan would find her. She only hoped it was in time before Aladrina could follow through on her plan to sell her to some alien buyer with unknown intentions.
Chapter Five
As soon as the ship closed, Zyan tried to open it again. He wasn’t able to bypass the biometrics in place and was reluctantly impressed by the security of the Eart
h vessel. He had hoped it would be more primitive, but then again, he knew he shouldn’t have been so optimistic. If Aladrina hadn’t been able to access it, he wasn’t likely to either. The Sibians had an affinity with technology beyond many of the aliens in the galaxy, so if she hadn’t managed in the hours she’d had while they were trapped in the cave, he wouldn’t either.
He cursed in frustration as he stepped on the auxiliary force field. It crunched under his foot, and he bent down to lift it before sliding it back into his wrist device. It should repair itself, but he wasn’t cursing at the lost backup force field. He was cursing because it had a tracking chip inside that his device could have used to follow her. Aladrina must have realized that as well.
From her parting words, he knew Aladrina planned to sell Ellie at one of the slave markets. The problem was, their locations were kept secret and almost impossible to discover. The criminals didn’t talk about it with outsiders, and they changed the locations frequently and with short notice to those who would be involved in buying and selling.
He went to his shuttle, letting himself in with his own biometric system. There were signs that Aladrina had tried to tamper with it, but it had proven resilient to her. At least the interior was as he had left it, but he ran diagnostics to ensure everything was in working order both inside and out. Aladrina wouldn’t have hesitated to sabotage his shuttle if she couldn’t steal it. Fortunately, she had either been suffering from lack of time after she had ambushed him, or she’d been unable to finesse her way past his security systems.
With no leads and no real idea where he was going, he fired up the shuttle as soon as he could. His vague plan was to follow Aladrina, hoping maybe his ship could pick up the signature of Ellie’s before they hit ionospace. If not, she could be anywhere in the galaxy.
Cursing softly to himself as he left the planet, passing through its atmosphere with some rumbling from the ship, he searched open space as soon as he entered it. A faint trail remained, and he followed it as far as he could, but then slammed his hand down on the console when the ship yielded the information that the other vessel had gone into ionospace.
“That’s a terrible reaction. You might hurt yourself, and your mate’s going to need you.”
Zyan spun around in his chair so quickly that his head was whirling when he searched for the sound of the voice that had spoken to him. He stared in openmouthed shock for a long moment at the sight of an alien standing behind him. “Who are you? How did you get on my ship?” One thing was certain. The alien hadn’t been here when he had run diagnostics, or the computer system would have sensed life signs.
To be sure that the system wasn’t malfunctioning, Zyan slanted a look peripherally at the computer readout, which now registered two lifeforms aboard. “How did you get in here?” he asked again.
“I exist outside of time and space, Zyan Lan Par.”
Zyan frowned at him. “What does that mean, and how do you know my name?”
“My people know much about every life in the galaxies—though ‘my people’ aren’t all of my species. I suppose you could say we’re drawn to this line of work.” A faint line appeared in the alien’s smooth face, and it seemed to be an expression of amusement. It was difficult to tell with his pale peach skin that had no visible mouth or nose. Only brown eyes blinked out of his perfectly shaped oval face, and there wasn’t a hair on his head or anywhere on his body. He wore a flowing white robe and looked vaguely mystical.
Zyan was in no mood to be mystified. What he needed was a way to find his mate, and if this alien was impeding that, he would deal with him quickly. With that in mind, he removed his pulser and pointed it at the alien. “Start talking, and enough with the mysterious claptrap.”
The being inclined his head. “Very well. I’m Freydon Rote, and I work with the Celestial Mates Agency.”
Zyan shook his head. “Never heard of it.”
That line crinkled across his face again, suggesting amusement. “It’s not likely that you would have, since we exist outside of time and space. Our mission is simple. We discover species meant to be mates and help them find each other.”
Zyan rubbed a hand on his face. “I still don’t know what you’re talking about, or how you got on my ship. I have more important things to deal with right now, so you can just leave the way you came.” Either that, or he could assist by tossing the alien out the airlock.
“That would be an inhospitable thing to do, though it wouldn’t injure me. Again, outside of time and space,” said Freydon with that line appearing again.
Zyan let out a frustrated sigh. “I assume from that comment that you can read my mind. So read it. Understand what’s important to me, and if you can’t help me, then get lost.”
“I can help you. A large part of our job is simply observation. We observe to ensure mates are meeting as they’re supposed to, and that the obstacles parting them aren’t too insurmountable. When those obstacles appear, we do our best to smooth them. In this case, the obstacle facing you is insurmountable. Without my intercession, you’ll never find Ellie. Therefore, if you look at your navigation station, you’ll see coordinates that I’ve entered. Follow those, and you’ll reunite with Ellie. She’s your fated mate, so don’t let her go, and don’t lose her.”
Zyan looked at the computer, confirming coordinates he hadn’t programmed himself were now awaiting execution. He authorized the new flight plan before turning back to ask Freydon Rote more questions. Instead, he found only the emptiness of his ship, and the strange Celestial Mates agent gone as quietly as he had arrived.
Chapter Six
Ellie woke with a raging headache, and a lingering bit of nausea, but those weren’t her immediate concerns. She also woke naked, and she was confined in a hard, clear tube. She didn’t even have enough room to lift her arms from her sides to pound on the glass, if that’s what it was. She certainly couldn’t cover any of her exposed body parts, and she comprehended she was surrounded by people—no, aliens—who were looking at her.
She turned her head both directions, realizing she was in one of a long line of such tubes. Each held a different alien, and she was temporarily sidetracked from her own quandary by natural curiosity as she took in the various forms around her. She’d had no idea there was such a rich amount of life in the galaxies, though she had hoped to find proof one day.
Just not like this, crammed into a tube and lined up with potential other sales. She could definitely do without the “sold into slavery” aspect. As she caught the gaze of an alien staring at her, she shuddered. He was tall, solid, and a faint orange color, with luminescent sparkles under his skin. If he hadn’t been staring in at her in what she was certain was a leering fashion, he would have been a fascinating, perhaps even beautiful, sight. As he was, undressing her with his gaze—not that there was anything left to undress—he was just creepy. Even the novelty of him being an alien couldn’t detract from that.
That was the problem with all of the aliens around her, aside from those in the tubes. No matter how strange, exotic, or entrancing their forms, they were all here to buy another life form to enslave. A hint of sadness welled in her at the thought, and she blinked back tears. She was overwhelmingly disappointed. A lifetime of media and training had prepared her to encounter other aliens in the galaxy, but all her learning had led her to expect civilized beings, who found a way to solve their problems without violence, and would never condone the sale of another life form for enslavement. She had clearly overestimated aliens, as had the rest of humanity.
The orange alien moved on, soon replaced by another group, and then another. She got tired of looking at them and closed her eyes, trying to pretend like none of this was happening. Where was Zyan? He had to be here soon. He just had to before someone bought her.
Her eyes snapped open when something tapped on the tube. She let out a startled gasp at the hideous sight before her. The alien was probably only three meters high, but he was twice as wide as he was tall, and tentacle-li
ke extrusions protruding from his body made up a good portion of his bulk. Except they weren’t quite tentacles either, because they ended in sharp talons. His skin was an angry red color with white pustules, and she wasn’t certain if he was infected with something, or if that his species’ normal appearance.
His eyes were the most chilling of all as they devoured her. He licked his lips with a tongue that had to be at least eighteen inches long, and it was obvious he found her interesting.
It became even more obvious a moment later when folds on his body parted, and a long extrusion extended into the air, pressing obscenely against the glass. Ellie grimaced when she looked at it, seeing enough resemblance to a human glans to intuit that was the alien’s penis. She wanted it nowhere near her, and she struggled in the tube, though it was pointless.
He might have stood there gaping at her all day if there hadn’t been a sudden flurry in the crowd around them. She couldn’t identify by what means the attendees had known, but clearly the auction was underway, because those in attendance had moved from examining the life forms in the tubes to gather in the middle of the room.
Above where they stood, there was a humanoid being on a dais. It started speaking rapidly, and though Ellie couldn’t understand its language, it was obvious the thing was giving a spiel about a slave that suddenly appeared on the platform. She looked around her, noticing an empty tube several spaces down. The alien up for auction was currently in a tube identical to hers, but positioned near the auctioneer. How had they transported it?
She kept her gaze focused on the poor creature being auctioned off, sickened by the size. She hoped it was a fully grown adult for its species, but it certainly looked small and childlike, with its frail frame, short height, and large eyes.
When that creature was sold, the auctioneer quickly moved on to the next one. He paused only long enough to allow the current owner to retrieve its new property. Ellie was saddened by the way the little creature went along without even a hint of fighting its fate.