Page 94 of Aria's Ascension

Two weeks passed in a flurry of activity. The breach in the wall was fully repaired, thanks to Lilac knowing where Zhrovni kept the construction robots.

Aria found their faceless faces, gaping midsections, and too-human gestures damned unsettling, but Lilac assured her they were just programmable machines, no different than the various fabricators.

She watched them suspiciously anyway, and had fallen into the habit of resting her hand on the gun she always carried, just in case one got any ideas of enslaving their creators. She’d seen that movie. Paranoid, and highly unlikely or not, she was ready to shoot if needs be.

Besides, if being abducted by aliens had taught her one thing, it was that virtually nothing was impossible.

Ship repairs were coming along nicely, especially once Rellik found a couple of engineers among those they’d rescued, and an actual spaceship pilot among the gladiators they’d woken so far.

There were more gladiators left in stasis than she was at all comfortable with, but the Gaelli were hard at work reversing the dangerous genetic manipulation that had been done to them. Because of their hard work, Aria was able to free a new gladiator every couple of days.

After Thrasin came back shot that night, she’d ordered him to stop searching, told him she’d find a safer way to look.

He hadn’t listened, the stubborn man, determined to bring her friend back.

Kix told her it was his way of unnecessarily apologizing for the incident in his cave, which she found insane, bordering on suicidal.

She discovered he was going farther and farther out each time when he didn’t come back one night. She’d stayed up, waiting for him, worried sick until the suns were peeking over the horizon.

When he finally returned, bleeding and weak, she lost it.

Aria tore into him, mercilessly, yelling loud enough to lure a crowd. He was attracting attention out there. The bad kind. The kind they couldn’t afford. His stubborn, selfish obstinacy was going to get people killed if he didn’t stop, himself included.

Her parting words still rang in her ears.

“Find some other way to kill yourself if you’re determined to die! But don’t you fucking dare pretend it’s for me. I won’t carry the burden of your death, Thrasin. I refuse.”

He’d been stone faced and left without a word. She knew from others that he hadn’t left again, but she hadn’t seen him since. She felt him, though. Sometimes it was a spike in her pulse or a whisper of his dark chocolate and vanilla scent, but she felt him when he was near and knew he followed her.

Knowing he didn’t trust himself with her, and preferring to haunt her from the shadows rather than take a chance that she could handle the darkness with which he struggled, hurt. It left an ache in her chest that grew a little more every day.

She wanted him, badly. But, she wouldn’t push him. It had to be his choice.

In an effort to distract herself, and everyone else, she was holding mandatory combat and weapons classes, with some of the more patient ex-gladiators acting as instructors.

Of course, not everyone appreciated her efforts.

The smartass, Bree, who’d made the snide comment about humping when Victoria said the males she was with were nice, decided combat wasn’t for her. Rudely.

Aria had cocked a brow and shut that shit down, fast.

“You’re on a slave planet, Bree. I will not allow you or anyone else to be victims, because that means some poor fool will be put in the position of having to save your sorry ass. We’ve all got better things to do than go out and rescue you, because you wanted to be either lazy or a naive idiot, got it?”

When she’d sputtered angrily, yelling something about Aria having a god complex and that someone needed to knock her down a peg, Aria just cocked a brow.

But, when Bree started yelling out derogatory thing about her mates,other herrose up in an angry rush, Aria lost her temper… and threw the practice blade at the woman’s head.

Probably not her best moment, and definitely an impulse she should’ve tried harder to resist, but her aim was perfect so that was a win. She hit Bree square between the eyes with the plastic blade, which knockedherdown at least four pegs.

Aria strolled casually up to where the woman was sprawled in the sand, blinking at the sky, stunned to blessed silence. Finally.

“You done being an asshole?”

Bree had shaken off her stupor enough to glare up at her, but the woman wasn’t without a survival instinct entirely because she clenched her teeth and nodded.

“Good. Now, get up and get back in position. I’m going to teach you to protect yourself, if it kills you.”

While she was busy holding combat classes, Kix was working with the Gaelli and anyone who showed an interest or aptitude for technology, mechanics, and engineering. Another of the humans was in that group, a woman by the name of Ahura, who obviously had very nerdy parents.

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