by Layla Stone
The sides of Rannn’s mouth quirked slightly to the right. “You do that.”
Pax almost stuttered. Rannn wasn’t a captain who supported blitzing around. The fact that he didn’t say so…was telling.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
The captain’s smirk widened into an all-out smile. “She’s a Bolark.”
Pax reflexively pounded his fist on the center of his chest. “Ouch, that hurts.” Just imagining a Bolark beneath him was enough to give him fits. No, thank you. The green skin. The scales. The power-hungry attitude…with little to no regard for others.
Bolarks were not his nor Rannn’s favorite race. The last one had been an admiral lower-end on Pegna spacestation and had tried to send them all to the Federation disciplinary barracks, the FDBS, for leaving the space station to rescue one of their team members.
So, needless to say, Pax would likely have issues with the logistics officer. Which was frustrating, because he needed his whiskey. Needed the sweetness in his life.
Why did fate hate him so much?
Chapter Two
Medical Check-Up
Vivra walked into medical and was quickly asked to sit in a bed. The medical officer’s name was Ansel. He was a few inches taller than she was, with thin arms and legs and wavy brown hair that was tucked behind his ears.
Ansel didn’t look her in the eye when he asked her to sit down, nor when he requested that she lay back to be scanned by the medical scanner bed.
She laid back, leery of being secured in the pod with a Numan on the outside. Ansel may be one of the crew members that the captain had brought with him, but trust was earned, not given—especially with his kind’s reputation.
Numans were a race of mad scientists. Horror stories of the people they abducted and experimented on were known throughout the universe.
“Try to relax, and it will be over before you can count to two hundred.”
She didn’t count, and his soft tenor did nothing to ease her distress.
Small, blue lights flashed from the inside of the bed. Vivra felt pricks at the crooks of her arm. The bed was taking her blood. Something the Numan had failed to alert her to. A few minutes later, the clear top slid back, and Ansel held out his hand to help her up.
She took the offering only because shunning him would put her in the same spot she’d been in with the last medical crew. They didn’t like her, and she didn’t like them.
Ansel pulled a chair from across the room to sit in front of her. Picking up his Minky pad, he tapped it. “Now, for a few questions.”
Oh…joy.
“Do you take any verminium?”
She was surprised that he knew about the Bolark-specific vitamin used for those who lived in space. She used to take it, but she was out. “No.”
He reached back, opened a drawer, pulled out a box, and handed it to her. A box of verminium. Free? The last medical crew had told her it was one hundred keleps.
“What do I owe you?”
“Nothing.” He almost looked offended. Back to his Minky as if what he’d done was insignificant, he asked, “Have you felt ill? Had dry skin, dull tastes, are you not passing your bowels regularly?”
All things specific to a Bolark common cold. He was uncommonly informed. More so than any other medical officers she’d worked with. “No.” She adjusted herself on the table so that one ankle was tucked under her other leg. Getting comfortable.
“In your file, it recorded you leaving the ship on Yerg. And that was over two years ago. I assume you’ve been off the ship since then. Can you tell me when and what places you’ve visited?”
He assumed wrong. “Yerg was the last planet I disembarked on. Not that I plan to ever step foot on the unbearably tropical planet again.”
Ansel looked up from the Minky. “Nowhere?”
Vivra said firmly. “In the past fifteen years, I left the ship three times. Twice was when the ship orbit-docked on the planet Marnak,”—the Federation immigrant planet that welcomed all those who wanted to escape their own homeworlds—“for repairs. They have decent Bolark spas.” It was never easy to find a good retreat, especially one that specialized in her unique skin care.
But she was also a lower-level logistics officer and didn’t go on many emergency pick-up missions or the meet and greets when orbit-docking with other planets.
Garna was only able to orbit-dock because it was too big to get in and out of a planet’s atmosphere.
Cargo ships, luxury liners, galleons, transporters, and sloops could dry-dock for repairs because they were small enough to get in and out of a planet’s atmosphere.
Ansel tilted his head back down. “Any allergies?”
“No.”
“Had sex with non-Federation crew members or with any crew members who may have had sexual contact with non-Federation citizens?”
“No,” Vivra answered, thinking back to her last blitz. It was forever ago.
“Ever been pregnant or plan to become pregnant?”
Wow. “No.”
“Cybernetic upgrades? Tattoos or piercings?”
“No.”
Ansel tapped the pad then asked, “Tell me about Yerg. It says you came back feeling sick. Do you know what might have gotten you sick? Did you take the medicine prescribed when you returned?”
No. She didn’t take the pills. “I settled payment with my contacts on the planet for a logistics order. Verified the shipment was all there, ate, and came back to the ship. By the time I got back, I felt nauseous. By the next day, I was throwing up every hour.”
Ansel had not stopped listening nor watching her. “But did you take the medicine that was offered to everyone who came in contact with the illness?”
“No. Oxycillian makes my scales itch and, sometimes, it creates this white residue in my nose. Whatever it was had already passed. I felt fine.”
Ansel marked something down and then shut off the Minky. Folding his hands in his lap, he said, “You and the thirty-five other survivors reported the same thing. They didn’t take the medicine either. And all thirty-six of you lived through the Eldon disease. Do you think that’s a coincidence?”
She had no idea. But her mind was quiet as Ansel spoke.
“I don’t think it is. And I believe when I process your blood, I will find the same thing I found in the other thirty-five survivors.”
Please don’t be worms. Please don’t be worms. “What?”
“Mutated blood. The cells have been exposed to a virus that I have not seen before. Although there are too many to know them all, so that does not surprise me.” He shrugged. “But how would a virus on Yerg protect you from a disease on Eldon, a totally different planet?”
No idea. But Vivra was starting to feel some emotion she didn’t recognize. She was not an idiot, she knew that she should be dead. But for some reason, she was alive. “Do you think you’ll be able to make a cure from the immunities in my blood?”
He slowly shook his head. “I would need the original virus to do that. The bodies they left in containment for testing are secured outside the ship so no contamination can occur. But I will pull the Eldon disease from them to test for a cure.”
“How are you going to get the original virus? It could have been a random thing I picked up or from something I touched.”
Ansel rubbed his hands together before folding them in his lap. He took a slow breath, and it looked like he was holding himself back. Very calmly, he said, “I’ve interviewed every other survivor. One thing you all had in common was that you ate. The food supply on Yerg could be contaminated, or it could be from the water source. The most logical place is the water, which is why you were prescribed Oxycillian. It’s for water contaminants: fungal, viral, and parasites.”
Vivra sat back a little, not sure if Ansel’s quick and effortless conclusion was indeed why she was still alive. It was too ridiculous to think that contaminated water had saved her life. And then to th
ink that the virus was able to protect her against the Eldon disease. “Was the Eldon disease also a water virus?”
Ansel twisted his wrist inside his opposite hand as he spoke. “I will pull samples from the bodies once I have the Yerg virus onboard and begin running tests on that first.” He pointed at a metal box. “I have a probe on its way back from Yerg as we speak.”
Vivra was speechless. He had been aboard for such a short time, and he had already done all that? She could respect someone like that.
“The lab, probe, and all experiments will be done outside the ship so even if the disease escapes, it will die in space.”
Vivra had to rest her hand against the top part of the medical bed’s lid. “That sounds smart.” To her surprise, she heard Ansel chuckle softly to himself. When she peered over at him, the fear trickled from her mind. Vivra didn’t realize that the medical officer would look so…human. Not the soulless mad scientist she expected him to resemble.
“I’ve been known to have my moments.” Then he stood up, made sure that she had her vitamins, and walked her out. Once outside the medical bay, her Minky pad pinged. She pulled it out and read a message from the captain.
Captain’s brief in ten minutes.
Vivra had never been to a captain’s brief. Probably because she was not the highest-ranking officer in logistics. But now she was. That brought a satisfying smile to her lips.
Chapter Three
The New Mission
The harsh clattering of bells blared from Pax’s alarm. The offending noise emanated in a higher than necessary volume. Pax quickly slid his index finger on the top of the black pad and read the message. A captain’s brief in ten minutes.
Taking a deep breath, Pax leaned his head to the side while pushing his knuckles against the opposite side of his chin to pop the crick in his neck. Then he twisted to his left as far as he could until his spine popped, bringing with it a cascade of relief. Twisting right, he repeated the action and groaned at the special tingles that came with adjusting his bones.
Pushing himself off the chair in his office, he grabbed his freshly opened water pouch and finished the contents.
Minutes later, he was in the elevator, selecting the captain’s level nine.
Once there, he exited and walked the short distance to the conference room, the doors opening as they picked up his presence.
Captain Rannn was sitting at the head of the large, rectangular table. The piece was one giant 3D audio-cognitive computer projector and could seat up to thirty crew members. There was an image hovering above the table now, a single planet orbiting a red dwarf star. The planet had a glowing green circle around it as if it had won a green ribbon.
Yon stopped talking to Rannn when he noticed Pax’s entrance. Both Rannn and Yon were Yunkins. An honor-bound race that had eggshell-colored skin and silver-white hair. Both had scars like Pax had from the fighting arenas. But Rannn had a nasty one that cut down the front of his face and ran past his eye to his cheek.
Yon was the executive officer. Rannn’s second in command. He sat closest to the captain’s left. Pax chose the seat opposite Yon and lifted his chin in greeting.
Yon mimicked the action.
Rannn tapped the desk in front of Yon and said, “We’ll go over your duties after this.”
"Are we waiting on anyone else?" Pax asked as he sat down, feeling his lower body sink into the chair’s extra padding. He rubbed his hands over the chair’s armrest and thumbed the smooth fabric with his callused and scarred skin.
The softness was amazing and a secret love of Pax’s.
Rannn answered. "I invited the division leads for the captain’s brief."
"Lovely," Pax mumbled while reclining in the plush, black, synthetic-velvet chair. Interlacing his fingers over his chest, he relaxed and closed his eyes. For approximately three and a half seconds. Unable to stay relaxed when the door slid open, he peeked to see who had entered. Being a prisoner for months had finely tuned his survival instincts. Unknown noises were cataloged, entrances and exits were taken into consideration, and, of course, small weapons were kept in his uniform boots.
Sands, the mechanically adept half-cyborg, half…something humanoid entered the room. The metal plates in his jaw weren’t a bad look on the male.
Wearing new Federation-assigned black boots, non-Federation black pants, and a dark grey belt, Sands greeted Pax and the others with a chin lift. Instead of the white Federation jacket, he wore a white undershirt with cut-off sleeves. One arm was flesh, and the other was cybernetic. Where the metal arm and skin connected, he didn’t have any scarring or anything to make it look like a butcher had hacked him up. Whoever had done the work, blended the cybernetics efficiently and made him look like any other Federation cyborg. Minus the Federation coding under the eyelids.
Federation cyborgs were those who needed cybernetic upgrades because of some deformity or injury and couldn’t afford the work. So, they paid the Federation back by working off their debt.
Good workers, but Pax never took the time to get to know any of them. Interacting with Sands made him wonder, briefly, if the others were like Sands: all male, fully humanoid, just with updated parts.
Pax and Sands had battled together, had eaten together, and had rescued another member of their crew together, but still, he had no idea what Sands was before he became a cyborg. Pax also didn’t know what was in Sands’ coding. No one did. But that didn’t seem to bother Rannn, who considered Sands a lucrative if accidental addition to the crew.
Sands sat at a seat halfway down the table on Yon’s side. "I've seen skeleton crews before, but this is like being on a haunted ship. You hear movement, but you never see it."
Pax had not even heard it. Made him wonder if Sands had enhanced hearing and an assortment of other neat tricks. "What? You don’t have infrared vision? You should have taken the upgrade."
Sands gave him a pointed glance before returning his eyes forward. "You’re a tarq, Pax."
Pax sat forward at the low blow. A tarq was something a savage did with their sex when alone too long. It was unholy and abominable. “You do know that I am in control of all the weapons on this ship, right?”
Sands’ metal hand was balled into a tight fist, but the middle finger fell back, and a sharp double-edged blade sprouted from the hole.
Pax smirked. “Anytime you want to hit the training room, let me know.”
Before the crash, Pax had trained daily on the mats. He would love to get back to it. And with Sands as a partner, it was sure to be a good workout.
“I’d end up killing you.” Sands’ solemn tone didn’t intimidate Pax in the least. Quite the opposite.
He flashed his bright, warming smile straight at the male challenging him. “I look forward to seeing you try. After this meeting. You and me. And you can bring all your accessories, too.”
It looked like Sands was about to say something, but he stopped mid-breath as Yon’s contemptuous tone carried over the table. “Ignore Pax, he’s a tarq, he just thinks he’s not because he wears a Federation shirt.”
Pax gave the officer a long, slow, consuming look. “Yon, I know almost dying might have scared you, probably gave you nightmares, and you’re not sleeping, which means you can’t tell when you sound like an arrogant bastard.”
Yon looked bored. “I always sound like an arrogant bastard, it’s the consequence of having a sexy, baritone voice.”
“Regardless, Sands should be with the tanks, not the cranks, which is why a quick round in the training room will be a great way to test him out.”
“He stays a crank,” Rannn clarified. “I need a reliable mechanic.”
Pax accepted the captain’s decisions, but that didn’t stop him from saying, “There are other cranks, you can do without one.”
“A female Hetten, and a male from Verrain,” Sands said with a knowing gleam in his eye. Hettens and Verrains were both humanoid races.
Verrain was the
main planet that handled the Federation cyborgs and all other cybernetic upgrades.
Unfortunately for Pax, two mechanics on a ship the size of Garna would not cut it. Even with Sands, who could go without breaks because he was a cyborg. It still wouldn’t be enough if and when the ship got into a planet-sized altercation, something the ship had been designed and created for.
“Why are there only two other mechanics?” Sands asked the captain.
Rannn opened his mouth to answer, but the door opened and in sauntered, Clalls, the communication’s officer.
The Night Demon carried an unopened nutrient bar in one hand while cleaning his yellowish teeth with his freakishly long, pink tongue. Clalls was still the annoying bastard Pax remembered. The male’s tongue made a sucking sound ending with a nasty pop.
Listening to mouth noises made Pax’s insides curl. He stared at Clalls, imagining crushing the male’s esophagus with one hand. As a slave fighter, he had done it several times. But those were life-and-death fights. This was a star carrier, and he couldn’t just kill the pain in his ass.
When Clalls’ eyes skimmed past his, it took a second for the Demon to realize that he was trying to get his attention.
Clalls tilted his head toward Pax with a curious expression.
Apparently, the Demon had no idea how grating he was. “Don’t come in here cleaning your teeth. It’s nasty.” To Pax’s dismay, the Night Demon’s lips pulled back into a toothy grin.
Pax realized too late that for a tarq like Clalls, he would likely go out of his way to irritate him. And Pax had just given him a seed as to what irked him. Damn.
The door opened again, and a green, curvy Bolark walked in, her dark green eyes swirled with gold. Her enchanting gaze scanned the room, overlooking Pax completely as she made her way towards the head of the table.
Pax almost stood up to feel what those eyes felt like on him. His skin tightened and tingled down his chest. As she walked past, a sweet, citrus scent almost made him growl. It took great effort to keep the sound in. No one should smell that good.