“Itʼs hyr fabric,” Sazon said into her ear. “Made from the silk of the hyr spider. It reacts to heat. Hyr spiders only eat prey with a certain body temperature. If the correct prey gets stuck on their web, the silk contracts around it. You put it on and your body heat causes it to shrink to fit you. You can shape it any way you like.”
“I donʼt recognize it from anything I saw the Tecran wear. This is wonderful.” She brushed her fingers over it, and felt it react to the heat of her fingertips. The Tecran had worn uniforms of a dark purple which had looked similar to thick cotton——practical and hardy. This was soft and beautiful. “Thank you.”
“Hyr fabric is the most expensive fabric in this part of the galaxy. I saw in the inventory that we were carrying these two packs for the daughter of the Tecran military leader, and had them pulled from the cargo hold and packed in this shuttle.”
That meant he had thought of her and what she would need well in advance. He had been honest in his promise that he would help her, and on top of that, beyond the bargain, he had thought of her comfort.
He had also killed the lion.
She needed to remember there were a lot of shades of gray in Sazo.
And if she ever slowed down his plan, there was a chance, just like the lion, sheʼd become so much collateral damage.
She lifted the crystal off her neck and looked at it. “That was really sweet of you. Thank you again. Now, Iʼm going to find the shower, and when all the hot water is gone, Iʼm going to work out how to dress myself in hyr fabric.” She started to pull the earpiece from her ear.
“Wait.” Sazoʼs call was a squawk.
She put the earpiece back in. “Yes?”
“It would take one hour and thirty minutes for the hot water to be gone. We only have an hour before you need to be back in the harness for landing.”
“Can you send me a signal when forty minutes is up? Like a beep through the comm system?” She had nearly said intercom, but even though she spoke in English, a language she had taught Sazo since heʼd first introduced himself, she stopped herself in time and used the Grih term. She could speak relatively understandable Tecran by now, and almost fluent Grih. They had decided it was better for her to concentrate on Grih, rather than Tecran, given the plan was to escape the Tecran, and never meet up with them again.
Ever.
She pulled the earpiece out and put it and the crystal——she couldnʼt think of that faceted, slim piece of technology as Sazo——on top of the storage unit. It was the first time sheʼd been free of Sazo completely, apart from when she slept, for at least a month and a half. Not since heʼd had someone include the earpiece on the breakfast tray a guard brought her each morning.
She grabbed both of the packs heʼd got her and slung them over her shoulder as she made for the rear cabin door, eager to find out what lay beyond it.
A kitchen galley to the left, a small bathroom to the right, it turned out. This really was a two-person explorer. But she wasnʼt complaining.
She stepped into the bathroom, and then, even though Sazo could hardly get up and walk in, given he was an artificial intelligence lodged in a crystal key, she closed the door. Of course, he would also, by now, be residing in the systems of this craft.
She looked around, but couldnʼt see a camera, and what would she do about it, if she could?
She pulled off her clothes, folding them neatly to one side, because she had learned to take nothing for granted, and she may need them again, and then stepped into the shower.
The Tecran were a little taller than humans and a lot bulkier, so the shower stall was roomy for her. She worked out how to switch it on, and stepped back for a couple of seconds to let it come up to temperature, only to find it came out hot straight away.
As soon as the spray hit her face, she closed her eyes, tilted her head back, and at last, private and under cover of the sound of falling water, let herself cry.
Chapter 3
Dav could hear his own breathing inside the biohazard suit and nothing else, except for the occasional curse from one of his boarding team over his comm as they came across more and more dead Tecran littering the passageways and cabins.
They seemed at first glance to be merely asleep, their thick-set bodies lying up against walls, as if they had sat down to rest and just slid sideways, the feathery protrusions on their heads limp.
He lifted the concentrated beam of his laslight to illuminate the dead littering the area just outside the launch bay, pressed up against the doors as theyʼd tried to get in.
The interior doors had been locked when Dav and his team had arrived at the bay in three gun carriers, and theyʼd had to hook the wiring up to the power system on one of their own ships to get them open.
Dav could only assume the power failure had left the doors in lock mode, with no way for the Tecran crew to make it to the fleet of smaller explorer and fighter craft in the hangar. If they had been able to, a lot more would be alive. All they would have needed to do was start the engines and close the doors, and the on board systems would have provided them with the air they needed to breathe.
There were a few alive, though. Mostly officers with personal breathing apparatus, and one patient who was on a ventilator in the sick bay. Lucky for him, the ventilatorʼs backup power came from a powerful battery built into the machine itself, not the backup system on the ship, or heʼd be dead too. According to one of B Team, he was nearly there, anyway, his chest barely lifting up and down.
Dav turned his laslight back to the one thing on this ship that had no business being here and studied it a little more. It was a dead animal of some kind in a cage, nothing heʼd ever seen before. He would bet quite a large chunk of his pay that if it were breathing, it would show up orange on Kilaʼs little screen.
This one life form, of all the life on this ship, had not died of a lack of breathable air. It had been killed by lethal injection, the syringe still in its shoulder, as if the person whoʼd plunged it in was too scared to pull it out. Looking at the incisors and the claws on the animal, Dav didnʼt blame them.
He played his light over it a little longer, and then tapped his comm. “Final casualties, Commander?”
“Four hundred and eighty-three, sir.” Commander Appal had to clear her throat. “Kilaʼs confirmed from her side. We havenʼt missed anyone.”
They had the captain alive, along with most of his senior officers. And none of the hassle of a large-scale prisoner population. All their would-be prisoners were dead.
Dav wasnʼt sure what he thought of that.
If the Tecran ship hadnʼt been disabled, he knew they would have shot the Barrist out the sky and killed every single person on board. If heʼd had the fire-power available himself, he would have done the same to them.
But this seemed like a waste of life. A tragedy.
And the burning question was, what were the Tecran doing in Grih territory to begin with?
He tapped in to the Barristʼs comm system. “Weʼre secure, Borji. Bring your team over and find out what the hell happened to this ship.”
The place on the Grih planet Dav came from, Calianthra, had a saying: beware of unexpected gifts.
He was wary, all right. Very, very wary.
She was clean, and she was cried out. Wrung out like a limp rag. Only thirty minutes had past of her hour, because she was worried about working out how to use the hyr fabric, and she didnʼt want to ask Sazoʼs advice.
Her hair hung below shoulder-length, clean but in need of a good brush and a hair tie, smelling of the gel Sazo had provided. A sort of cinnamon and vanilla spicy mix that was amazingly good.
She sorted through the garments, and realized she was humming a tune while she did it. Sheʼd always enjoyed singing, but since sheʼd been taken, sheʼd hummed and sang more than she ever had in her life. There was something so pithy about song lyrics. They got right to the heart of things in a few words.
She didnʼt doubt she was sane because of them.
Sh
e lifted out an item that must surely be underwear, although so big she could have got both legs in one leg-hole. She pulled them on, and then bunched them close to her skin. The fabric contracted, and as she pulled and arranged, it obeyed completely, shrinking, molding itself to her, until she had exactly the kind of underwear she preferred.
Flushed with success, as well as the humid air of the shower room, she pulled out a sleeveless tank top which she guessed was a bra equivalent and went to work again. When she worked out she could have any level of lift and separate she wanted, she played for a good five minutes, grinning as she made her breasts do the impossible, giving herself cleavage that would be the envy of any playboy bunny. The beep Sazo said heʼd send at forty minutes sounded, and she toned it down a little, although not totally. She was tired of being grubby and drab.
The pants and long sleeve t-shirt were easy, and the fabric was stretchy enough for her to move freely.
She ran into trouble with the shoes.
The only ones in the pack looked like massive ballet slippers. The Tecran had big feet, and she wondered how the hyr fabric in the shoes would work. Sheʼd prefer trainers, something she could run in.
Sazo said the Grih were peaceful and had strict rules guiding their encounters with alien life. They would never subject her to what the Tecran had. But call her a cynic. Sheʼd like the option of running, if she could.
Of course, sheʼd been without shoes for three months, so anything was an improvement.
She slipped her foot into one, and then the other, and they started to contract. Ballet slippers, it was, then. They were comfortable, at least. And the soles were probably thick enough to run over rough ground.
She closed up the packs again, still wishing for a brush and a hair tie, but the Tecran had feathery stuff on their heads and if they brushed it, there was no evidence of that in the things Sazo had gotten for her. She combed her fingers through her hair and then braided it in a French braid.
“A hair tie, a hair tie, my kingdom for a hair tie,” she sang under her breath.
“A hair tie?” Sazoʼs voice came through the speaker by the door.
“A stretchy, thin band to wrap around the end of my hair, to keep it in place. Iʼd be happy to see a comb or a brush, too.” She kept her voice neutral, but she didnʼt like that heʼd been listening to her. Although she knew she could be misunderstanding. He was in the craftʼs systems, and if she spoke, he would hear it, whether he was actively listening to her or minding his own business completely.
And what else did he have to do at the moment?
Boredom was a huge problem for Sazo. Idle hands do the devilʼs work had never been more applicable. Although, this time, the devil had been totally in her corner.
Theyʼd needed each other——Sazoʼs access to the shipʼs systems and her mobility and opposable thumbs——and their plan had worked.
She walked back into the small cockpit, still hanging on to the end of her braid, peered out the porthole one last time at the Tecran ship disappearing into the distance, and gave them the middle finger.
Buy Dark Horse
Also by Michelle Diener
Science Fiction Novels
Class 5 series:
Dark Horse
Dark Deeds
Dark Minds
Historical Fiction Novels
Susanna Horenbout and John Parker series:
In a Treacherous Court
Keeper of the King’s Secrets
In Defense of the Queen
Regency London series:
The Emperor’s Conspiracy
Banquet of Lies
A Dangerous Madness
Other historical novels:
Daughter of the Sky
Fantasy Novels by Michelle Diener
Mistress of the Wind
The Dark Forest series:
The Golden Apple
The Silver Pear
Short Paranormal Fiction
Breaking Out: Part I (Short story)
Breaking Out: Part II (Novella)
About the Author
(c) Daniel Navaratnam
Michelle Diener is an award winning author of historical fiction, science fiction and fantasy.
Michelle was born in London, grew up in South Africa and currently lives in Australia with her husband and two children.
You can contact Michelle through her website or sign up to receive notification when she has a new book out on her New Release Notification page.
Connect with Michelle:
@michellediener
michelle.diener.author
www.michellediener.com
Acknowledgments
Thank you to the team of awesome readers, editors and authors who help me make my books as good as they can be. This journey would be a lot more lonely without you. Thanks again to Jeff Brown at Jeff Brown Graphics for the awesome cover.
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