Page 55 of The Captain's Bounty
“You can’t leave,” Lissa gasped, blinking as if she were having a hard time seeing things clearly. Bruwes didn’t like that, and he definitely didn’t like that she kept struggling to sit up, despite the tightening of his arms. He gritted his teeth—humans—and grudgingly helped her to sit up, since she was going to keep trying anyway. He pulled her closer, though, resting her head against his shoulder while she lolled weakly, struggling to see the scav standing over them.
“I must,” the being now occupying the scav told her with the thinnest thread of sympathy humming through its cold voice. “As I say, you are known to them, to the Corporation that will forever hunt you. If they take you, it means one regrettable death.” The helmet turned to take in the watching crewmen and the scav’s shoulder rolled in an awkward, first-time shrug. “And perhaps a few others. But if I am taken, it means death andsuffering on a truly universal scale. I must leave you.” It paused again and added pensively, “I’m a little sorry.”
“So am I,” said Lissa with a puzzled frown, as if she herself couldn’t believe it.
“But I think I leave you in good hands.” Yet another pause, and when it spoke again, Bruwes could hear a smile—distant and unpracticed, but genuine. “Good, stern hands.”
Lissa’s eyes widened and her cheeks turned a bright pink.
“Take her,” the scav said, once more aloof as it addressed Bruwes. “She is quite infatuated with what you do.”
Bruwes glared, his eyes narrowing as it suddenly occurred to him exactly what the other was hinting at. Because of course this parasite knew about his exertion of dominance and every time she’d yielded to it. Every spanking, every bond he tied her into when he bent her over the end of his bed, spreading the plump lips of her quivering sex and pushing himself inside her—this thing had been there.
He was decided. He didn’t like his private time with Lissa intruded upon, and he especially didn’t like it when he didn’t know it was happening.
“You’ve been inside her from the beginning,” he stated.
“No. Only since our encounter at the… Your words are insufficient,” the being huffed in frustration. “Suffice to say, I’ve been inside her for as long as you’ve known her. It was an interesting experience.” It looked down at itself, one hand rising to prod at its chest. “I do not have great expectations for this one, but at least it is comfortably androgynous.” It looked in its faceless way back at Lissa. “I have been too polite to mention it, but we would have made much better progress if you weren’t engaging in hedonistic carnality at every opportunity.”
“Do tell,” said Vullum, raising his spines.
“Shut up,” Bruwes growled.
“You c-can’t leave,” Lissa weakly gasped again. “They’re coming for you too!”
The being looked from her to Bruwes. “She must eat and she must rest, or she will die again and I will not be here to revive her.”
Done coughing, Lissa was still sucking air when she heard that, and stopped. Her eyes widened. “Again? When was I dead?”
The faceless helmet turned toward her, and it was everything Bruwes could do not to shove the other back at least a step. There was something so silently intimidating in the quiet with which it studied them both.
“You were dead before I entered you,” it finally admitted, the intimidation of the scav’s stance definitely not carrying over into the softness of his blunt confession. “And you were dead again once I left you. As will this creature be,” he touched his chest, “once I leave him. I have never left a host alive before. But you have been… interesting company. You even tried, in your own ineffective way, to help me. You are the only one who ever has. I am not accustomed to that.”
In his arms, Lissa shook her head and Bruwes understood why. He was struggling to follow this and not let the blindness of his growing fury take control.
“You killed her?” Bruwes repeated, just making sure he’d heard that right.
“The servo-security bots protecting my prison did that,” the being corrected. “I simply occupied the empty husk that was left. I may have been a bit premature about my forced occupation. Her mind was still quite active.” He gestured to Lissa in Bruwes’s arms. “This husk,” he said, spreading his arms and looking down at himself, “is delightfully silent. At last, I can do as I wish without constant protest or complaint.”
“You kept trying to kill people,” Lissa mumbled, her eyes no longer open, but closed. She’d turned her face toward Bruwes’s chest. He could feel the weight and heat of her limp hand, resting on his forearm. “Killing people is wrong.”
“And leaving an enemy alive to pursue you again is foolish and ultimately self-defeating. I will admit that you possess the potential to become a true intelligence, perhaps even equal to that of my own kind, but you are as yet an egg. An unhatched egg, who cannot imagine the world beyond the shell enclosing it, or the universe existing beyond that world. But you will grow, and perhaps, in time…” Lowering himself once more, the being reached out with the scavenger’s hand, this time to stroke sweat-damp hair away from Lissa’s brow. “Perhaps I will meet one of your kind again, in some distant day. I will remember you to them, Lissa Blackwood, and they will know of all you have done to make their future possible.”
Fine words, but Bruwes really didn’t like that lingering touch. However, his attempt to slap it away caused a jolt of near-blinding electricity to slam up his hand, arm, spine, and into the back of his head. He whacked into the corner of the part’s rack he was leaning against, damn near breaking his nose.
From the other side of that faceless helmet, the being regarded him. “Do not strike at me again, and do not hunt me. It will not end the way you think it will.”
The two glared at one another, or presumably the alien glared. Bruwes couldn’t be sure because of the helmet, but he was mad enough to do the glaring for them both.
It was the being who looked away first, turning to regard its deceased companions. “You should go now. These aren’t the only hunters on your trail. There will be more.”
“G-go?” Lissa said.
“This ship isn’t going anywhere,” Kelys spoke up. “Not without a jump coil, at least four new hull plates, not to mentionrecharging the nav-thrusters and, oh, about a hundred other small but vital repairs, and right now, I don’t even know how we’re going to get to a garage, let alone pay for it, or didn’t your superior brain think of that?”
Ignoring him, the being once more fixed his attention on Bruwes. “Take the other ship. It has no more crew to contest you and no one will be looking for you on a scavenger vessel. I will take this one.”
“I thought your whole thing was not wanting to get caught,” Cory broke in with a half-laugh. “How are you not grasping that the ship is broken? It does not go. It is one loud fart away from hull breach and implosion.”
