by L P Peace
‘What?’ The red light disappeared.
Around them, the gem-like things, which on closer inspection seemed like actual gems, began to emit light. Then everything outside the viewscreen went black.
‘What just happened?’
‘We’re inside the wormhole,’ Makios said reassuringly.
As soon as he said it, the black in front of them became textured somehow. Rhona wasn’t sure what she was seeing, but there was something different to every part of the space she was looking at.
‘I don’t know what I’m looking at,’ she whispered.
‘No one does,’ Makios confided.
The space in front of them suddenly fell away. An intractable force caught hold of the ship, and as though the gate at a racetrack were opened, they were sucked along after it. Rhona had watched science fiction shows. The wormholes were always shown as being filled with light. This wormhole felt like falling into a dark pit, and even though she couldn’t see their movement, she could sense they were moving. When the shaking began, she yelped.
‘It’s all right, Rhona,’ Makios said.
‘I know it’s all right,’ she snapped irritably. She heard Makios chuckling to himself, and that piqued her ire.
The shaking increased. Rhona dug her fingers into the arms of her seat. She could see why everything had to be locked down now. None of Makios’s plants would have survived if they hadn’t have put them in the individual lockboxes that morning.
The shaking was mounting at an increased rate. Rhona clenched her teeth to stop them rattling and squeezed her eyes shut, convinced they would roll out of her head if she didn’t.
‘When does this stop?’ she asked through clenched teeth. Spittle flew out of her mouth.
‘We’re not halfway yet,’ Makios’s voice replied.
‘Fuck!’ she cried out.
The shaking increased, levelled and was suddenly over.
Rhona opened her eyes.
There was nothing out there. Nothing. No stars, no gate, nothing.
‘Makios?’
‘Stay there,’ he snapped when she made a move to open her belt. ‘We’re not through yet.’
A force gripped them and the shaking increased all at once.
‘Fuck!’ she cried out again. ‘Next time we do something like this, walk me through it first.’
‘I don’t understand what you mean!’ Makios shouted beside her.
Slowly, the shaking began to subside until it had all but stopped.
‘We’re going to stop suddenly,’ Makios said. ‘Brace yourself.’
‘Oh, great,’ Rhona said, pushing herself back in her seat.
‘No, Rhona, relax or you’ll break your arms.’
‘How do I brace myself relaxed?’ she snapped at him.
‘Relax now,’ Makios said urgently.
‘Way to calm me down,’ Rhona said. She let go of the arms and took a deep breath. Nothing happened for several long seconds, then the ship stopped suddenly throwing Rhona against the restraint. All the wind was knocked out of her. She could already feel bruising developing as she wheezed for breath. She looked out of the viewscreen. The black disappeared, and she could see the stars out of the tube-like ring they were in. She dragged in a few breaths and swallowed the bile and vomit that had come up.
‘Well, that was horrible,’ she said dryly. ‘Are we actually somewhere different? Because this looks like the same place.’
‘Most gate stations look like this,’ Makios was chuckling.
‘What are you laughing at, Captain Blackhorn?’
Makios went quiet. Beside Makios, Vella laughed, then quickly tried to smother it when Makios looked at her.
‘Vella, take the chair,’ Makios said. When Rhona looked up at him, he was grinning at her. He pushed her chair back and knelt down in front of her.
‘You really scared me for a moment there,’ he whispered.
‘I scared you? Advanced warning before we do something like that again, okay?’
A small, barking laugh came out of Makios’s throat. ‘Definitely. I promise.’
‘Tyne,’ Rhona called. ‘I need alcohol. You coming?’
‘Absolutely,’ Tyne said.
Rhona grabbed Makios’s face and kissed him. When she drew away, she looked at him, drawing on her long moments as a captain, which due to the whole kidnapping she counted as years. ‘I love you,’ she said. ‘If you ever put me through anything like that again without a thorough description beforehand, I’ll cut off your balls and hang them over the bed as my prize.’
Makios grunted deep in his throat. ‘I love you too,’ he whispered. He kissed her and released her.
Rhona stood and walked to the door. When she turned, Makios was watching her. She shook her head and grinned at him. When he smiled back, she knew they were okay.
The Invictus looked like a manta ray without the tail. Rhona would have thought a ship this shape would be best suited as some kind of fighter. That’s the shape they were in Earth space. But Invictus was huge.
It flew towards them and swept to starboard, which had always felt like a stupid term to Rhona. They were in space; everywhere was starboard. He was heading towards the airlock in the galley.
‘Come meet Dairon.’ Makios stood from the pilot’s chair and walked over to her.
‘I’m not going with him,’ Rhona warned.
Makios nodded. ‘I have accepted this,’ he said.
Rhona’s eyes narrowed. ‘If you try putting me on that ship against my will, I’ll have the biggest shit-fit you’ve ever seen.’
‘I don’t know.’ He looked over her head. There was a contemplative look on his face. ‘Bigger than finding out I’m a smuggler? Bigger than the gate? I’m getting immune to your “shit-fits”, my goddess.’
Rhona stepped towards him, holding his gaze. ‘My shit-fit will make the gate incident look like a pleasant day in comparison,’ she promised him.
Makios led the way from the bridge to the galley.
The airlock was open and a violet-blue alien with long electric blue dreads was standing talking to Deyuul. They were about the same height, she noted.
‘Hello there,’ a smooth voice said.
The monster from Rhona’s nightmares stepped out from behind Dairon.
He had large, deep-set, pale blue eyes, his nose was short and slender but elegant. His high cheekbones stood over a hollow in his cheeks that accentuated his bone structure. His full-lips wore a charming smile. His skin and hair were white, and he was a little over seven feet. He was taller than Makios, she realised. He was handsome and was terrifying.
No wonder they had managed to round up fifty-thousand humans in an hour. How could you fight one of these things? How could anyone? How could she?
‘Are you all right, little human?’
‘Makios?’ she reached for him and he stepped in front of her, putting his back to the Cealin.
‘Rhona, it’s okay. This is Devorak. He’s an ally.’
‘How are any of them an ally?’ she hissed.
‘You should have warned me he was on board Dairon,’
‘A last-metri decision on my part, I’m afraid,’ the Cealin spoke. He walked around Dairon and propped his ass on a table. ‘Things were becoming uncomfortable on Tessa because of the high human population. They had a remembrance for The Violation.’ Devorak waved towards Rhona. ‘I’m guessing Earth still remembers it too?’
‘Oh, do we remember the day your people came and stole fifty thousand men in an hour? Yes, we do.’
‘An hour? Do you mean an hacri?’ Devorak considered. ‘That’s impressive. I didn’t think General Vollan had that kind of organisational skill.’
‘Are you kidding me?’ Rhona glared at Makios. ‘I’ll tell you something for nothing: not a single one of those humans will get on that ship if he’s on it.’
The Cealin and Dairon looked at each other.
‘Ah!’ Devorak exclaimed. ‘Perhaps I should have stayed on Amara.’
&nbs
p; ‘Perhaps?’ Rhona snapped.
‘So, now what?’ Devorak looked from Rhona to Makios to Dairon.
‘Well,’ Dairon crossed his arms, ‘I need to take the people to Tessa.’ He looked at Devorak. ‘So I guess you’re going with Makios.’
‘Err, no.’ Rhona looked at Makios for support. He considered her before turning to the Cealin.
‘If you have anything you need to bring, go get it now.’
The Cealin glanced at Rhona, nodded and returned to the Invictus.
‘What did you just do?’ Rhona growled.
‘Dairon,’ Deyuul looked at the hybrid, ‘why don’t you come and meet the people you’ll be hosting?’
‘But they’re going to argue,’ Dairon said with an anticipatory grin on his face.
Deyuul shook his head and steered the alien away.
‘Makios?’ Rhona crossed her arms.
‘No.’ Makios glared at her. ‘Two things.’ He held up two fingers. ‘One, I love you. You are exceptional. Fire and fury, and I love that about you.’
Rhona smiled despite her anger. ‘Well, it’s a good job.’ She shrugged. ‘I have a lot of that.’
‘I had noticed.’ He grinned at her. ‘Two, I am the captain of this ship. I will make the decisions. I will take your thoughts and feelings into account, but I will make the final decisions.’
‘Makios—’
‘No.’ He held up his hand. ‘You say Devorak can’t be on that ship, so he has to be on this one. If you don’t want to share the ship with Devorak, then go with Dairon. I’d feel better knowing you were safe anyway.’
Rhona crossed her arms and glared at him. ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she said. ‘And if you brought that thing on board to make me go, I’m going to be so angry at you.’
Makios went silent. Rhona glared at him, waiting for some kind of admission.
‘Makios, did you—’
‘Thing?’
Rhona frowned. ‘What?’
‘You called Devorak a thing.’
Rhona waited for a question. ‘Yeah?’ she shrugged.
‘Is that what you think of non-humans?’
Rhona’s brain ground to a halt.
‘All I’m saying is, if you ever do meet them, some of them might not be as bad as you believe them all to be.’ Damn that man and his logic.
She had—she knew she had. She once considered all aliens to be her enemy, only interested in preying on the human race. She’d carried those beliefs so long. They were so ingrained in her that even now, in the face of aliens she’d come to care about, the one alien she cared about above all others, that bias was still inside her. Makios, Decimen, Vella—all of these aliens proved that not all aliens were what she thought they were. The green Ledaan and Thalos definitely proved they were out there. Even among races like the Amarans where slavery and abuse were illegal, they were still there. Damaged people, damaging others. Was she one of them?
‘Is that what you thought of me?’ he asked. ‘When we first met.’
‘For a few minutes,’ she admitted. ‘But you proved you were different.’
Makios let out a long sigh. ‘Rhona,’ he let out another deep breath. ‘Not all Ledaan want to buy you. Not all Amarans want to hurt you, and not all Cealin want to enslave the human race.’ He shook his head. ‘Not even all Bentari or Fedhith want to enslave the human race. And races change.’
‘Didn’t you tell me his people imprisoned you and tortured you just a month ago?’ she asked.
‘Yes, but none of them was Devorak. During that incident, Devorak requested asylum because his people are trying to kill him.’
‘Why?’
‘You can ask him that,’ Makios said. ‘He’ll be on the ship for several cycles.’
With that, Makios shook his head and walked away. The look of disappointment on his face, in his eyes, made her feel sick.
‘Well, that was uncomfortable.’ The Cealin walked back onto the ship.
‘That didn’t take long,’ she said. She stared at his face and saw the faces of Cealin as they tore fathers, sons and brothers from families.
‘I don’t own much.’ He watched her warily. Rhona would have laughed at the idea of one of his kind watching her as though she could harm him. Instead, all she could do was think of Makios and how she had disappointed him.
‘Come on. I’ll bring you to the bridge until everyone’s off.’
She turned and led him down the short hall. When they entered, Makios was there alone.
‘Are you going to see your human friends off?’ He wasn’t looking at her as he spoke.
‘Yeah.’ Rhona left the bridge and headed to the stairs that led to the storage rooms beneath. At the bottom of the stairs, with no one around, she shut her eyes and took a deep breath to shift the weight of Makios’s disappointment. It hurt that he thought less of her than he had before. She was such an idiot. Such a blind idiot, and what was worse, her dad had been right. Rhona opened her eyes and looked at her shaking hand. It hadn’t stopped from the moment she had seen the Cealin—Devorak. She was hard-wired to hate them. It was a part of her education, about the aliens who led the way on attacks on Earth.
Makios was insistent that Devorak was better than that. Well, okay then. She just needed to discover that for herself.
Letting out another deep breath, Rhona walked over to the door of the hold.
The room smelled better than it had previously. When she saw everyone the first time, the room had smelled awful. Rhona arranged for the humans and the other aliens who’d been rescued to get access to the showers in everyone’s rooms so that they could begin to feel somewhat normal again.
The hold, like much of the ship, was black with metal walls, ceilings and floors. Now, it was covered in sleep rolls. The crew had donated furniture and clothing, and the humans took their meals in the galley in shifts.
Rhona looked across the floor and saw Doug, who was sitting with Sidha playing some kind of alien card game. Nearby, Callie Dalgleish was looking at her, eyes shining a smile on her face, her wife Emma chatting to her.
Dalgleish tugged on Emma’s hand, and the two of them walked over to her. Rhona pulled them into her arms, her longer Martian limbs encompassing the two women.
‘You’re staying then?’
‘Yeah. I can’t let the idiot go on his own or he’ll get in trouble.’
‘I’m not sure he’ll be much better off with a ginger by his side.’ Rhona clung onto the two women tighter and laughed quietly.
‘Do you think we can really trust these Tessans?’ Emma whispered.
Rhona let go and looked in Emma’s eyes. ‘I’ve spoken to their leader and his human wife, err, mate. Whatever. I’ve talked to the entire crew. It all seems to be legit.’
Emma’s lips thinned, but she nodded.
‘I think it would be pointless to lie to us,’ Rhona said. ‘We’re at their mercy. If they wanted to hurt us, they could. Besides, I trust Makios.’
‘Me too,’ Callie said, wrapping an arm around Emma.
‘If they are… are you coming back to Earth with us? Or are you staying here with him.’
Rhona took in a deep breath. ‘Both. I’ll go back to Earth, but when Makios leaves, so do I.’
‘I’m happy for you.’ Callie smiled.
When they were called up, Rhona led the way. She spoke to and hugged each person as they left, if they would let her. The young Hieladan male slid by, his black scales glinting under the lights. Rhona was fascinated that this half-snake species even existed. Galla and Tonni were the last to leave. They hugged Rhona, then Vella and were gone.
Tyne appeared and tried to slink on by as the others left.
‘Don’t you try that with me,’ she warned.
Tyne smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. He walked over to her, pulled her into a hug and sighed. ‘Apologies. I am not having a good day.’
‘I know. I’m sorry. If I hadn’t punched him, Makios would have saved us.’
Tyn
e huffed a mirthless laugh. ‘No, Rhona. Tala would have been blown from existence. Drexan would have done horrific things to you for his pleasure, and I know he was looking for another adalan to replace me.’
Rhona clutched him at the news. Tyne would have died. ‘I wish Aran was with us.’
‘As do I,’ he whispered, his body shaking.
The blue alien eyed him as he walked by.
‘You’re Alethia’s brother?’
‘Dairon.’ He stepped forward and held his hand out to her. She studied his face as she shook his hand. His skin wasn’t quite blue, more an off-violet shade. His eyes were black. She realised he was young.
‘You take care of this one, yeah?’
Dairon dipped his head in a small nod, suppressing a smile that curled his full lips anyway. ‘Of course.’
‘He needs a room of his own. No bunking him with anyone.’
Dairon took in a deep breath. ‘I know Alethia won’t mind if you take her room.’
‘I don’t nee—’
‘Yes, he does. Ignore him.’ Rhona looked at Tyne. There was an irritated look on his face. ‘I know—I’m a cow, sorry. I hope you’ve forgiven me next time we see each other.’
‘There is nothing to forgive,’ Tyne said, letting out a deep breath. ‘I know I’m difficult. I’ll be better once Aran’s safe.’
Rhona nodded. ‘Me too.’
Tyne pulled Rhona into his arms once more. ‘I can’t help feel I’ve exchanged my death for Aran’s,’ he admitted before turning and disappearing down the umbilicus. Rhona watched him go, unsure what to say. She felt the same. Had she sacrificed Aran to save herself?
They were going through the wormhole again. Rhona strapped in on the upstairs mezzanine rather than join Makios on the bridge. He still hadn’t looked at or spoken to her since their last exchange on the bridge several hours ago.
‘We’re entering the gate,’ his voice came across the comm. He sounded subdued. ‘Brace.’
Devorak’s head appeared. ‘Ah, there you are,’ he said and strapped in next to her.
Rhona stared at him as he settled. He was taller than Makios, but not as big in the muscle department.
‘I heard Makios tell you that you should ask me why my people are trying to kill me.’