Page 27 of Found By the Alien Warrior

Perplexed, I tried to interpret her meaning. "Is that advice?" The question tumbled out, filled with skepticism.

"Consider it a warning. Now, I won’t keep you from your laundry." She stepped aside from the door, leaving me just enough room to pass.

I squeezed by her, feeling the cold almost project from her green scales. Her words hung heavy in the air, a dark cloud threatening a storm. As I walked away, all I could do was shake my head.

"Great pep talk, Vessa," I muttered under my breath. "Really lifted my spirits." I clutched the bundle of laundry tighter. I wondered how many more warnings I'd receive before they turned into threats or worse.

I finished my laundry and went to the ship’s mess hall for my next duty. The soup of anger, shock, and frustration simmered in my veins like a poison, each heartbeat pulsing with Vessa's words. I needed to tell Aurik and warn him about the viper I once considered a possible ally.

The ship gave a shudder, and I felt its gradual descent. We must be landing. Where, I didn’t have the slightest idea.

I entered the mess hall behind the other noncombatants on kitchen duty this afternoon. Taking a tray of soup bowls off a table, I balanced it on my arms as I navigated the crowded mess hall. Fighters, grim-faced and scarred, reached for sustenance with hands calloused from combat. I found Aurik off in a corner by himself again. My stomach got an excited flutter as I approached his table like the awkward new girl at school with the hots for the hunky loner.

"I thought the plan was for you to try and make friends with all the cool kids."

Aurik looked up, his eyes reflecting the dull grey that swallowed the light outside the window. He was an island of solitude.

I noticed something else in his face. Something happened, didn’t it? I've never seen you look this way before."

He kept his voice low, pretending to eat from the bowl of soup I set in front of him. "I learned Korga smuggled Hyl’teron onto the ship before we left Zephyra.”

I remembered his opponent during that chilling cage match, the one who ended up helping us in the end. “Is that what he does when people lose, take them in?”

“If they have skills and he can get away with it.” The shadows on Aurik’s face deepened. “Hyl’teron refused to comply over the past couple days."

"And?" I pressed, feeling the chill of space creep into my bones.

"Gornoc had him removed.”

I was shocked but understood his unspoken words. This ship didn’t stop at hubs. Hyl’teron was gone.

Aurik offered some advice. "Be careful. Korga’s lackeys will do almost anything for him."

“Oh, don’t I know.” I leaned over and pretended like I was running my fingers through his hair and squeezing his shoulders. Others in the mess hall saw my flirty behavior and either smirked or looked elsewhere, not taking us seriously either way. "Vessa told me she stays because she wants to, not because she has to."

I quickly recounted what she told me about repaying a debt to Korga.

Aurik's expression hardened. "That changes things. She's more dangerous than we thought."

"This ring. It's full of snakes.”

Before Aurik could reply, the ship lurched beneath us. Dishes and bowls went skidding across tables. I stumbled before I lost my balance. Aurik’s hand shot out, his fingers closing around my arm with a steadying grip. “What was that?” I asked, once the tremors subsided.

He looked at the one small steamy window in the mess hall. “Thermakon.”

"Therma-what?”

“A planet of geysers and hot springs. I chased a bounty out here once. There’s an inactive volcano that makes the ground quake.”

So this was supposed to be our next stop? I imagined gladiator fighs in lava fields. "Fantastic,” I grumbled. “Korga's crime ring now comes with natural disasters."

The room fell into an eerie silence. I realized my voice cut through the noise like a knife. All eyes fixated on the entryway where Korga stood, his presence like a dark cloud.

"I came to check on everyone after the ship landed, only to find you don’t approve of my entertainment."

I matched his stare, making my expression of what I thought of him very clear.

"Tell me, Sonya." He advanced towards me with the slow certainty of a predator. "How would you run things?"

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