by Roxie Ray
I suddenly realized that ever since I'd sought out the Sives' protection, I'd been deeply frightened of Umel. His easily bruised ego and rax abuse made him erratic, hostile, and unpredictable. He'd become a kind of boogeyman to me, a constant threat hanging over my head – a living reminder that he could change the nature of our arrangement, do anything to me, demand anything from me, with no provocation at all.
But now that he'd been shamed and stripped of his status as boss of the Sives, this was the first time I was able to see him for what he was: Nothing but a weak, lonely, pitiful, self-absorbed, pain-wracked addict.
If I hadn't hated him so much, I'd almost have felt sorry for him.
When we got to my cell, I saw Suzanne hovering outside and gave her a look. She got the message and sidled off to another part of the unit, giving us our privacy.
“Your name is Paige, yes?” Hakkas asked. He was standing close to me, and there was an urgent edge to his tone. “You work in the infirmary?”
“Um...yeah, that's me. How did you know?”
He smiled. The effect was unexpectedly disarming – to see such a handsome and roguish expression on a face that had been so hardened and threatening a few moments before. “Like I said, I have my sources. From what I hear, you've been an important part of Umel's operation since you got here. As far as I'm concerned, that means you can play a crucial role in mine as well.”
“I mean, you're the boss now, right?” I laughed uncertainly. What the hell did he have in mind for me?
“You've been in here long enough to know which Sives regularly use rax. And with your medical knowledge, you'll be able to parcel it out to them in very specific doses. I don't want them detoxing, but if they're too doped up, they'll be useless to me. I need them to get just enough to function and focus. You'll be in charge of that.”
“You're just going to trust me to hang onto all this rax?”
Hakkas shrugged. “Why wouldn't I? You have no reason to steal it... you're clearly not a user. And if you tried to sell it on your own, odds are whoever you offered it to would just take it from you and beat you to death rather than paying for it.”
He had a point there. “What about Umel? Does he get rax, too?”
Hakkas shot an amused glance toward Umel, who was still mumbling to himself blearily in his cell.
“Watching him go through withdrawal is a tempting prospect,” he admitted, “but then he might get desperate and strung-out enough to make a move against me. No, he gets his dose, too.”
“What if he tries to take more than just his dose?”
“He won't,” Hakkas assured me, stepping even closer. “I'll be watching over you.”
I felt a peculiar sense of comfort wash over me. With the sense of power and authority Hakkas projected, I had no trouble believing I'd remain safe for as long as he was looking out for me, even though I had no real reason to believe him. But I couldn’t help but want him to keep talking to me like that.
“In that case, I guess I'd better start breaking this stuff up and distributing it,” I said.
“Good. I'm glad I can rely on you, Paige. Just be careful, and make sure you're not seen by the jailers. We don't have enough of them on our side yet to ensure we'll remain out of the seg cells if we're caught.”
“Understood.”
He nodded and stepped out, leaving me alone with the green bag and a million questions I didn't even know how to ask.
Suzanne poked her head in, letting out a long, low whistle. “He's a damn fine specimen, for a Sive.”
4
Surge
After a bit more grandstanding and glad-handing with the Sives, I picked up my prison-issue bedding from the floor where I'd dropped it, went to my assigned cell, and made up my bunk. The inhibitor bolts that had been attached to my forehead during my initial intake ached severely – and the worst part was, with the mental shield implants that had already been placed in my skull to hide my true thoughts, the damn bolts weren't even necessary.
Not that the jailers who'd processed me had known that.
The first phase of the plan had gone off exactly as expected. The rax I'd brought in with me had bought the Sives' loyalty almost instantly. I was relieved that the miniaturized cloaking device had successfully hidden the drugs from the jailers' scanners.
The technology was cutting edge – Dhimurs and I had been tinkering with it ever since we'd confiscated it from a group of Mana saboteurs some time ago. The cloak would be enough to allow me to smuggle contraband, which would impress the Sives. With a few minor adjustments, it would even allow me to become invisible. But that would quickly drain its batteries, so it was only to be used as a last resort.
Still, even though the mission was a success so far, I could feel the eyes of the entire cell block on me... and I didn't like it one bit.
I'd been a spy and covert agent for as long as I could remember – emphasis on the “covert.” My missions had always involved slipping in, executing the task at hand, slipping back out again, and being light-years away before anyone knew I'd been there. Drawing attention was the last thing I'd been trained to do. Even when infiltrating under an assumed identity, the goal was to avoid scrutiny whenever possible.
Now here I was – blowing into this prison, taking over a whole gang, and making a big noise about it.
Not that I'd had much choice. If I'd just slipped in as one more random prisoner and kept to myself, I wouldn't have the clout or resources to try to solve the mystery of Karaak's big scheme. Odds were I'd have been assigned to a terra-pod and killed in an accident, and that would be the end of that.
Instead, I had to instantly command fear, respect, and deference to get what I wanted. Which meant I'd been forced to abide by the same rule that dictated survival in every prison, from the most obscure scumholes of Earth to the farthest reaches of the known galaxy: On the first day, find the toughest inmate you can, and publicly beat the living hell out of them to clearly demonstrate to everyone else you're not to be screwed with.
Which was loud, messy, necessitated a considerable expenditure of energy, and ultimately, painted a massive target on one's back for the next person who decided they wanted to make a similar point.
Still, here I was. And that wasn't even the worst part of it all.
Paige was the worst part.
Because when my eyes met hers, the magnetic pull I felt between us was undeniable... and incredibly unwelcome, given the circumstances. The instant and all-consuming desire that filled me like burning liquid metal was unmistakable. I'd heard about it my entire life. I'd never felt it for myself. I'd never wanted to.
Or maybe I'd just refused to admit to myself that I had.
Either way, I knew. I was gripped with a sudden, frenzied, terrible certainty. One that shook me to my very core. One that held me as tightly and surely as the artificial gravity of the station held me to the floor.
Paige was my predestined mate.
But it made no sense, damn it! Why would I go my entire life without encountering my fated mate, only to discover her in the middle of an important mission... and in a horrible place like this? What kind of despicable joke was that for the universe to play on me? To dangle her in front of me, knowing that I couldn't tell her how I felt or act on my urges without jeopardizing my assignment?
For the first time in my life, I wished I was a Lunian. Those moon-wizards may have been annoyingly smug and bloviating at times, but in that moment, I'd have traded anything for their insights into the arcane mysteries of the cosmos.
As it was, I was at war with myself, my impulses clawing and climbing over each other like a tumble of bloody soldiers on a battlefield.
Then again, perhaps I wasn't warring with myself after all. Perhaps I was warring with Hakkas. Perhaps it was his mind, his essence, that recognized Paige as a mate. Could that be possible, I wondered?
And if it was, did it matter?
I was still seized by the same intractable and elemental mating instinct, wh
ether it was his or mine. I still felt the same need to protect her and claim her, whatever it took. How could I hope to resist that, when every cell of my body was screaming for me to act on it?
I didn't know. But in the middle of the most dangerous mission of my life, a complication like this was the last thing I needed. Paige was crucial to the success of this endeavor. According to the reports given by Sharon and Tetro, having her as an ally and resource was my best chance of uncovering what Karaak was up to. I couldn't afford to muddy the waters with a mating urge I didn't even know was mine to begin with.
That's what I repeated in my head. Over and over and over. Hoping, with each repetition, that it would somehow feel more real to me than my desire did.
So far, it wasn't working.
I heard knuckles rap against the entrance of my cell and turned around, bristling. Whoever it was, I cursed myself bitterly for not sensing their approach before they made their presence known. Not good. My keen training, my survival instincts, were already being disrupted by this sudden mating urge. That was the last thing I needed in a place like this, where that heightened level of awareness could be the difference between life and death.
Four huge, hairy, burly Carnage Riders were standing there, eyeing me coldly – two Xehrulians, a Kroteian, and a Svanteian. From the various bulges in their uniforms, it wasn't hard for me to see that they were all heavily armed, even though their meaty, callused hands were currently empty.
“What do you want?” I snapped.
“Aw, come on, Hakkas,” one of the Xehrulians replied with a toothy grin. “Are you really gonna act like you don't remember your old pal Morgo?”
My stomach turned to a ball of ice. I'd known there was a chance I'd run into criminals who knew the real Hakkas, but I hadn't been looking forward to encountering them, given the complications they might present. I tried to search Hakkas' memories, but digging through the echoes of his brain wasn't as straightforward as looking for files in a computer. It was more like swimming down to the floor of a deep, dark ocean and sifting through the sand for a specific stone or shell.
“'Course, maybe it ain't no act,” Morgo went on. “After all, it has been a while since you double-crossed me back on Colloros.”
A vague impression of Morgo slowly surfaced in my mind. Hakkas had done him dirty, for sure... promising to sell him a huge shipment of rax, then selling him out to his boss, who wasn't supposed to know about Morgo's little side business. And what's more, based on the wisps of emotion clinging to the memory, Hakkas had enjoyed every damn minute of it.
“But hey, I'll bet he remembers me, right?” the other Xehrulian prodded. “Or at least, I'll bet he remembers my wife, Berha, since he ran off with her during that scam on the Drekkir homeworld an' left me holding the bag.”
Another memory bobbed up: This Rider's name was Hragha. His wife's hair had smelled like the wild blood-blossoms that grew on the plains of Valkred. She'd had a tattoo of a Zebnian cockatrice on her left buttock. And the way she'd tasted...
I shook my head, trying to banish the useless sensory impressions. They wouldn't exactly help me out of the situation I currently found myself in.
“Seriously?” the Kroteian exclaimed. “You're really gonna just stand there an' shake your head at us, like you suddenly got amnesia or somethin'? Next you'll be sayin' you don't remember me, is that it?”
I almost wished I didn't, but now that Hakkas' memories were being pried loose, they were coming more easily by the second. The Kroteian was called Black Bolpho. He'd had warrants out on him in nine different star systems, for offenses that had ranged from petty larceny to multiple murder and cannibalism. I'd “befriended” him on the ice planet Egone, with the intention of reporting him to the nearest authorities and collecting the hefty bounty on him as soon as I had a chance...
No. Hakkas had done that, not me. I had to maintain a clear line between the two, for the sake of the mission and my own sanity.
“He may have forgotten you dudes, but I'm sure he didn't forget me,” the Svanteian growled. “Not after all we’ve been through together.”
The memory came into focus – and oh, it was a bad one, to be sure. The Svanteian, Taylus, had served time with Hakkas in an underwater penal colony on Mana. They'd watched each other’s backs inside, and got close enough for Taylus to trust Hakkas with his plan for robbing the Pan-Galactic Bank on Symyk VII when his sentence was up. But Hakkas had escaped and carried out Taylus' plan on his own, then bribed a jailer to extend Taylus' sentence by another twenty-four lunar cycles.
I could almost hear the real Hakkas laughing at me.
“Sounds like he don't have nothin' to say to us,” Morgo announced sadly, clutching his chest as though miming heartbreak. “Guess we didn't leave much of an impression on him, huh?”
“Damn shame,” Taylus chimed in. “But now that he's trapped in here with us, I figure we'll have plenty of time to reintroduce ourselves. Maybe make a really deep impression on him this time.”
“Or several,” Bolpho added.
I looked the Kroteian squarely in the eye, cracking my knuckles loudly. I didn't relish the idea of another fight so soon after arriving – it might make the jailers think I was a troublemaker, which could cause them to scrutinize my movements and actions more closely – but I wasn’t about to back down from this one. “If you trash think you have a score to settle with me, come on. Let's get this over with.”
They looked at each other and guffawed. The stench of their combined breath filled my cell, making my eyes water.
“Nah, there are too many eyes on us right now,” Hragha said. “Wouldn't want the jailers or your fellow Sives breakin' up the action. Better you know what's comin'. Sweat it out a little. Spend a few days lookin' over your shoulder. Because we are gonna settle up with you, blood boy. When there's no one else around, when you least expect it... we're gonna yank out yer fangs one by one, an' jam them up yer nose 'til they hit brain.”
“You're welcome to try any time you like,” I answered.
Before Hragha or the others could respond, an alarm droned from the speakers mounted above the cell doors. A Valkredian admin with a deep, booming voice called out, “All right, line up for count, and then it's lights-out!”
“See you around, bat-fucker,” Bolpho sneered as he and his fellow Riders drifted back to their own cells.
I stood at the entrance to the cell next to a scrawny-looking Mana with yellowed, bulging, watery eyes and flaking scales. He'd been sitting a few rows behind me on the transport shuttle. The jailers marched down the rows of prisoners, confirming their numbers out loud. Mine was 00H2114, and I called it out dutifully when called on.
Then the Mana and I went into the cell and the barred doors slid shut, locking us in for the night.
“My name's Kuhlii,” he said. “I'm in here for fraud. Say, you're the new leader of the Sives, right? Any chance there's a place for a guy like me in your gang? Without any protection, I figure my days are numbered in a place like this.”
I considered rejecting his request outright, then thought better of it. Now that I was running the Sives, they'd expect me to recruit new members to strengthen our ranks... not that it looked like this skinny, sickly guppy would be much of an asset. “Maybe. What have you got to offer?”
His slimy green lips pulled back in a grin, revealing rows of tiny teeth. He was one ugly specimen. How the hell had he gotten anyone to trust him enough to defraud them?
“The last scam I ran on the outside? Eight hundred thousand rulas. The authorities never found the loot, which is why I got such a stiff sentence. I've still got friends on the outside with access to the funds. Well, a cousin, actually. Point is, I can pay you plenty to watch my back. That money could buy a whole lot of bribes and rax, know what I mean?”
“All right, I'll think it over.” The truth was, I already had so much to focus on, Kuhlii would probably be the last thing on my mind while I was in here. I wasn’t planning on being here long.
/> “Good, good. Just, y'know, don't think it over for too long, heh. I'd hate to get shivved while you're still pondering.” He climbed into his bunk, and in a few moments, I could hear his gurgling snores.
I reclined on my own bunk and laced my fingers behind my head, staring at the smooth black marble walls. Based on the reports I'd read from Sharon and Tetro, these cells were built from a rare mineral that acted as a kind of psychic amplifier – one that Karaak frequently used to invade the prisoners' dreams and terrorize them. I'd been warned that the warden tended to specifically target new arrivals for these violations, in order to break their wills swiftly and decisively.
So I resolved that I would not sleep. Not the first night, not the second... not even the third, just to be on the safe side. I'd gone without sleep for days at a time before, during some of my more challenging assignments when constant wakefulness was required in order to stay alive.
But after a while, I could feel some outside influence working its will on me. Making my thoughts cloudy and my eyelids heavy.
Was it Karaak, using his Lunian abilities to try to drag me to sleep so he could pry into my mind?
Or was it Hakkas, his mind and will stubbornly rebelling against mine?
Either way, no matter how hard I tried, I ended up plummeting into a fitful slumber – and when I did, the dreams assaulted me at once.
I was trapped in a metal box. Dark. Cramped. The coppery smell of rust filled my nostrils... or was it blood? It felt like a century since I'd last fed on real blood. Too many missions. Too many battles. Always restless, always hungry. Never enough time to properly indulge myself. Never enough time to have a “self,” to be anything other than an instrument, a weapon, an agent of Valkred.
Something was banging relentlessly on the outside of the box, denting it, crushing it in around me to stifle me even more. There were grunts, roars, howls of frustration. Whatever it was, it couldn't penetrate the thick metal – but it was still determined to try, to gain access whatever it took.