Page 3 of Chased By the Alien Mercenary
I’d also learned that my fellow slaves and servants were all three from a species called Ulinial, and they were pacifists who kept to themselves. They did not want to speak to me unless absolutelynecessary. A girl could have felt left out, but I was under the impression that they didn’t talk much to each other, either. As if they were so worn down by their fate that all they could do was their tasks and little else.
I really would have liked to know what else was in store for me and how these collars around our necks worked, but nobody felt like explaining anything to me. So I dusted, I cleaned, and I tried to gather as much information as I could. Which wasn’t much. But at least I knew the layout of the three above-ground floors of this building, as well as the garden and the pool outside. I knew there were about ten guards on the property outside and a handful that patrolled inside. They all had rooms below, in the basement, where I’d also first woken. While the three Ulinial women and I shared a tiny closet next to the master bedroom, for easy access if the big boss needed something, I supposed.
On my eighth day here, I’d been counting them, marking them down on a piece of paper I’d pilfered and kept in my pocket, everything changed. I had not realized that a landing area was available nearby, not until I heard the roaring of a ship coming in. I nearly dropped my purple feather duster as I rushed to the window to get a peek. Big black ship: sleek, a little sharkish. Recognizing makes and models of spaceships wasn’t my strong suit, but I knew this one looked like nothing I’d seen before—definitely not a ship that flew about the Alpha Quadrant.
From my vantage point, I could see the Krektar guards, led by the ugly fucker who had tried to give me surgery. They were rushing out the gates to greet those deboarding the ship, a fancy, sleek, silver hover vehicle zooming out to ferry these new guests back to the mansion. Great. Not. This was going to put a wrench in any escape plans. I saw so many guards stream out of the ship,dozens upon dozens of figures in black armor. Not good. I had a feeling I was about to meet whoever owned this place, and an equally strong feeling that it wasn’t going to mean anything good for me.
Keya, the leading lady for us servants, burst into the grand library behind me. She was out of breath, indicating she’d been running flat out to find me. “You are wanted,” was all she said. Normally, that might have been a statement that would have had me jumping for joy. But under these new circumstances, it filled me with nothing but dread.
Forced to abandon my vantage point by the window, I followed Keya’s rapid footsteps into the mansion. The tip of her long braid, wrapped around her waist twice, swayed by her hip. For the first time, I noticed that carved wooden beads decorated those tips, and they clacked gently together as she hurried. To me, it sounded like a countdown: at the final clack, the building would collapse, my hair would burst into flames, or something else dramatic and awful.
I wasn’t prepared for the truth, not one bit. The last thing I expected was for her to lead me to our cramped sleeping quarters and order me to undress. When she opened a small wardrobe at the back of the tiny room, I expected to see more gray jumpsuits, but my stomach turned at the sight of skimpy lingerie. Oh no, that wasn’t going to lead to anything good. As if she were prepared for my resistance, she called out once, sharply. The door opened behind me, and the distinct smell of Krektar rushed into the room. I gagged, and then it was too late. Again. Trapped, I suffered the indignity of being stripped of my clothing, then stuffed into a slinky silk piece and a thong.
With shrieks, I fought against Keya, who was wielding a hairbrush, each yank on the knots in my long hair like a blow, a precursor of the horror about to come. “Don’t do this,” I begged them, and the Krektar laughed, fiercely excited, aroused by my struggle and plight. I could see the evidence of it pressing against his pants, and it made me so nauseous I threw up. They were only just in time to let me up and turn. It was almost a disappointment that I hadn’t managed to soil myself and delay what was to come.
After that whirlwind and a forced rinse with cleansing mouthwash, I was shoved into the master bedroom and locked inside. Then the waiting began, and it was almost worse than the ordeal of being stripped and redressed by strangers with unkind hands. I paced on bare feet around the opulent room, steadfastly avoiding looking at the massive bed. Having tried every window and door I could find, I had exhausted my escape options, but I wasn’t going to give up the fight. I had already yanked a shirt out of the closet to cover myself, though the pants and shoes were all so ill-fitting I’d given up on those. Now I just needed a weapon.
Night had begun to fall by the time the door finally opened, and I did not hesitate, didn’t even check who came through it. I’d braced myself to the side of the beautifully engraved wooden door, a massive silver candlestick in hand. Raising it over my head at the sound of the door opening, I smashed it into the head of the first guy through with a warrior’s cry.
On my last assignment, I’d been forced to fight off a monkey or two, and even one handsy local guy. I’d had to fend for myself on other jobs too; you had to be brave and bold to be a lone woman out in the far reaches of the Alpha Quadrant. But the surge of adrenaline that fueled this attack was like nothingI’d ever felt before. There was something extremely terrifying—and motivating—about the fight for survival, the instinct to do whatever it took to come out on top and live.
My strike made my target crumple to his feet, thudding heavily against the gold-veined marble floor. Blood splattered across the marble and then began rapidly pooling against the glossy surface around the alien’s head. Head wounds were always nasty bleeders, but I was surprised by the amount. And then I realized it was another of those Krektar—though not one I knew—and, with a sinking feeling in my gut, I twisted away from the body to look at the open doorway.
Another male stood there, tall, like all these damn aliens were. His red skin gleamed with hints of gold along his sharp cheekbones, and more gold shimmered in lines around his arms, which were bare and heavily muscled. He was handsome—strikingly so—with a shock of black hair falling over one shoulder in a long braid. He was also, very clearly, the one actually in charge, on account of his very fancy gold-embroidered boots and rich clothing.
Our eyes met, his full of surprise, and I took a deep breath and charged. It was now or never, with his guard out of the picture. My blow landed across his shoulder, the second hit his forearm, and then he moved, lightning fast. The candlestick was yanked from my tingling fingers, tossed carelessly aside, and then he raised his hand and backhanded me hard across the face. I went spinning, then collapsed against the marble next to my first victim. His eyes were open, an odd detail I kept remembering later on, which made me wonder if my strike hadn’t killed him. Surely not.
Then pain had coursed through my body—so sudden, so intense—that I had screamed and thrashed against the floor, bruising myself on the marble. It hurt so badly that black danced across my vision, and my breathing came in rapid, painful bursts. My hands clutched at the collar around my neck in reflex, but I was not coherent enough to consider where the pain came from. When I blacked out, I was certain death would greet me, this time, for real.
I almost felt cheated when the pain started to ebb and life resumed around me: angry voices and shouted commands that my hazy brain couldn’t yet parse. Then a hand seized my neck, yanking me up and shaking me until I opened bleary eyes. It was the gold-and-red alien, glaring at me with a mouth tight with distaste. “This is how you greet me, slave?” he drawled, fury in every syllable. “You’re lucky you didn’t try this madness with my boss, he would have killed you on the spot. You’re very lucky I got here first. I’ll teach you manners; I’ll teach you how to please my master, and me.”
He let go of my neck then, and I thudded heavily back onto the floor. I was so numb after that onslaught of pain that I didn’t even feel the marble as it struck the back of my skull. Teach me? Lucky? He was off his rocker if he thought any of this amounted to luck. I was cursed, that’s what. This whole year was cursed, starting with the assignment to Colony Planet 12. I should never have gone to investigate blue monkeys and colonist abductions.
If he thought I’d be grateful, hewasthe one out of luck. But I didn’t fight when Krektar hauled me off the floor and dragged me from the room. I was too weak to try, anyway. The bossy guy with the fancy boots didn’t follow my escort, didn’t follow me. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? Then they dragged medown the stairs, into the dark tunnels below the mansion, and a new kind of dread filled me.
It was cold here, a little damp, and it smelled of the Krektar who lived here. They sounded excited, the pair that held me and forced me to stumble along the rough stone floors. Dust clung to my toes, and cold was already curling up my legs. We passed the room I’d woken up in a week ago, but it already seemed like ages. Then more rooms, before, at the end of the hall, I was thrown into a cell. One with actual bars and a heavily padlocked door. Nothing high-tech, nothing fancy. It was downright medieval. But they left me there—locked up, alone, in pain. But alone—and that was good.
Every part of my body ached, like someone had set my nerve endings on fire. I was all wobbly and weak as I crawled from the door to the tiny cot in one corner, with a single worn, smelly blanket. Lying down against the cold, hard, plastic-covered mattress eased some of those aches. When the nausea also faded, I was left with that pervasive, strength-sapping cold. I wrapped the blanket around me, but it wasn’t enough, I was barely dressed and lucky they hadn’t taken the pilfered shirt from me.
Now what? I was even more trapped than before, and now that I knew what this awful collar did, I was less keen to test the rules. I didn’t think I could handle that kind of pain again. Just thinking of it made my eyes tear up and a whimper rise in my throat. No, just no.
There was no window, nothing but three solid walls, a wall of bars, and a metal door. No way out. I rose and shuffled over to test the padlock they’d used to secure the door, fingering thecold, slightly rusted metal. Silly that it was this low-tech, did they not use this cell often? Why was it so old? The questions hardly mattered; I neither knew how to pick a lock like this nor a more high-tech one. And then there were the barracks down the hall, full of dozens of Krektar and other, equally big and deadly-looking aliens I didn’t know anything about. Yeah, they didn’t need a lock. I wasn’t getting out.
With a dejected sigh, I sat back on the edge of the lumpy, narrow bed. My feet were covered in dust and grime, already scratched from the rough stone. The cold was making them ache, so I pulled them up onto the bed with me, beneath the blanket, and then I waited. It sucked, because I didn’t like giving up, but after what I’d just gone through… I didn’t have much fight left.
Maybe I’d feel better after some rest; maybe an opportunity would fall into my lap in the morning. Maybe...
Chapter 4
Solear
I knew something was off. Every bone in my body ached with the feeling, and I couldn’t put my finger on it, couldn’t explain why. Aramon was flying our shuttle, following the low, daring path I’d set out for him to the letter. Each dip of valley and rise of hill was traced by the nose of our shuttle. Behind us, the second shuttle followed a slower, much less stealthy path, counting on us to lay the groundwork for the first surprise.
“I know,” Aramon said under his breath, a response to the anxiety rattling inside my brain. This wasn’t my normal pre-battle excitement. It wasn’t about being eager to start blowing things up and breaking things apart—though there was that, too. That was always a good way to express myself without holding back the avalanche ofthingsinside my head. But whatever I was feeling now was much bigger, much heavier. I had no name for it. I wasn’t good with feelings, let alone analyzing what I felt. I hated it.
If I sat with my feelings too long, I always felt the urge to break things, to kill things. Lash out first, so it couldn’t strike me where it hurt, so I wouldn’t need to feel so soul-crushingly alone. That made Aramon’s thoughts turn dark. I could sense the spiral in his mind the way he could sense mine. Guilt—always, he felt so much guilt—and no matter what I said or did, it didn’t ease. I knew it wasn’t his fault that it had taken weeks to dig me out, but he seemed to think it was. That who I was now was his fault, too.
“I’m scanning, but there’s no sign of change,” Aramon said. Then he smirked. “Too bad, we could have used a challenge.” I wanted to hiss at him, so I did, warning him that he was going to jinx the whole damn mission by asking for trouble. He laughed, and laughed louder when I growled at him.
