by C. F. Harris
“The only thing keeping me from acting on what you just said is the long time we’ve spent together,” I said, keeping my voice level.
Vlox flinched. His nostrils flared and I could see the fury building there, but he wisely kept his mouth shut.
Good. At least he was finally showing some sense.
“We’re going to set up a tow on this ship and start calculating to get the hell out of here through warp space,” I said. “Designate a crew to stay behind and figure out what they have on that bucket of bolts while we interrogate the humans and wait for those tow calculations to complete. And make it clear to the humans that they are in no danger.”
I bit off every word at the end. I wanted to make it clear to him that we weren’t going to become slavers.
He was right, of course. That crew could be valuable. Especially if there were a few more beauties like the one I’d personally escorted back to the ship.
It was rare to find humans on the black markets. One of the perks of being a species that had come to dominate their corner of the galaxy was there weren’t many slavers who were willing to undertake the risk of grabbing humans.
Sure a slaver might attack out of opportunity, but the humans had a habit of catching up with crews who did that sort of thing on the regular. Even well out of their territory. The things the humans did to the slavers they tracked down had become the stuff of legend.
Taking slaves in the middle of human territory? Well that seemed like the next best thing to suicidal to me.
“As you command,” Vlox said, though he didn’t sound happy about it.
I thought of the human I’d seen through her faceplate. The fierce warrior who’d come out of nowhere and did her best to end me with a plasma cutter of all things! I felt a stirring between my legs remembering the moment. And that caused no small amount of embarrassment.
If others in the crew found out that I was basing my decisions for the whole crew mostly on glimpsing a pretty face through a faceplate in the middle of combat for a few moments…
Well they just wouldn’t find out about that. Would they?
That wasn’t the kind of distraction I needed, though already the thought of seeing her again, of actually seeing the curves of her human body, was distracting me from the important business of running the ship and trying to figure out what in the known galaxy to do about Vlox and his grumbling.
Still, thinking about that woman…
I turned and headed for the command center’s exit.
“Where are you going?” Vlox asked. “We’re still in the middle of combat!”
“Where I am going is no business of yours,” I growled. “But if you must know I am going to go down to the cargo hold to make sure our guests are being treated appropriately.”
I made sure to emphasize the part about the humans being our guests. Best to make it clear to Vlox that I wasn’t going to put up with him trying to pull anything funny.
“Very well,” Vlox growled, casting irritated glances to the others around the room, but otherwise keeping his peace. “I hope you know what you’re doing Vrath.”
“What I am doing is commanding my ship,” I growled back at him.
My irritation stayed with me as I made my way down to the cargo hold. I couldn’t be sure if that irritation was for Vlox and the way he’d blatantly challenged me in the command center like that, or if it was because I knew the real reason why I was heading to the cargo bay.
It had nothing to do with worrying about how the humans were being treated and everything to do with a pretty face and a warrior spirit that’d surprised me.
The doors to the cargo bay opened and my mood didn’t get any better. Most of the humans were gathered as far as they could get both from the door into the ship and the doors to space, but not all of them.
A human female was hunched over the control panel for the cargo bay. No, the human female. The one who’d caught my attention. She turned to look at me, her eyes going wide, and I’d recognize the delicate features of that face anywhere.
Things started to happen very quickly even as time seemed to slow down as it always did when I found myself in potential danger.
Lights indicating the doors to space were about to open flipped on. I sprinted across the room to the control panel. I looked it over, all the controls were in Galactic Standard like all Standard Shipyards hull, and quickly tapped in my override.
The lights dimmed. Only for a moment, but the controls were mine again. I frowned. Those controls shouldn’t have obeyed any command from a human. I stared down at the human woman, amazed that she could do this much damage in such a short amount of time.
I was going to have to have words with Kirok, he was supposed to keep a closer eye on prisoners than that, but for the moment I had to think of what to do with this beautiful human who was seemingly far more dangerous than I’d first thought.
A complication, to be sure, but I was surprised to realize that it was a welcome one as I looked her up and down, drank in her curves, and wondered if it would be possible to confine her to my quarters for the duration of the flight to wherever it was we were dropping the humans off.
9
Rachel
That hulking hunk of alien looked pissed.
Whatever. So I’d managed to figure out that the console they were using was an old revision that had a pretty well known backdoor built into it.
It’s not like what I’d done was really all that bad. It was something anyone who spent any amount of time researching security exploits in Standard Shipyards systems would be able to figure out.
Sure I hadn’t thought it out past activating the exploit, but I didn’t think it would actually work. And then he’d been there. I shivered thinking about him running across the room and pulling me away from the console.
He’d looked furious. He’d been magnificent. Even more magnificent outside his suit than when we were fighting between the ships.
Not that it’d been much of a fight. It was more of a curb stomp.
Like what was happening now.
“What were you doing?” he growled in Standard.
Oh my. It wasn’t fair for someone to have a voice like that. It was like smoldering honey moving through my ears, and it had me going weak in the knees. My legs were all rubbery and it was a damn shame I wasn’t near that console because I needed to have something to lean against.
I thought about leaning against this alien, then thought better of it. No, I was a prisoner, after all. I stood a little straighter.
Best not to show weakness in front of the Vosk. I’d read somewhere they were sort of like old school Klingons and only respected you if you showed strength.
“I was doing whatever the fuck I wanted,” I said. “What the fuck are you doing attacking an unarmed repair frigate in the middle of human space?”
The Vosk’s eyes narrowed, and he looked royally pissed off. He took a step towards me and his hands flexed, and I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of fun he might be able to get up to with those hands if he put them to the right use.
I shook my head to chase those thoughts away. Now was not the time or the place for thinking like that.
“We are here because I have an idiot of a scout who told me there was a derelict piece of human salvage in an unoccupied system,” he growled, his face softening for a moment.
It was only for a moment, and then he seemed to realize what he was doing and the mask was back.
“You’re coming with me,” he said, putting a hand on my arm.
I glanced over to the other humans in the makeshift cargo bay holding cell they’d created for us. Some of them looked at me like they wouldn’t want to be in my shoes, but none of them made a move to save me
Great. I guess if I was going to get out of this I was going to do it on my own. The only problem being I had no idea how I was going to get out of anything even before the big handsome and scary alien decided to take me for a ride.
Motherfucker.
>
“Y’know we could talk this over or something,” I said as the doors opened and I was back in the hallway.
“You are dangerous,” the Vosk growled. “Too dangerous to be allowed to go free.”
“Says the big hunk of meat who attacked my ship and is dragging me through his ship,” I said.
He paused. Took a deep breath as he closed his eyes. I got the feeling that meant the same thing whether we were talking Vosk or human body language.
“I did not intend to attack your ship,” the Vosk said.
“You have a funny way of not intending to do something,” I shot back at him.
“It was an unfortunate necessity to keep you from letting other humans know we were here,” he said. “We were not expecting to find anyone here defending that comm array. I can assure you that you and your crew will be dropped off at a spaceport that has ties to the Terran Confederation as soon as we are done here.”
“And you’ll forgive me if I don’t hold my breath waiting for that,” I hit back. “I’ve heard the stories about what the Vosk do to human prisoners, and I’m not going to gleefully click my heels all the way to a fucking slave market.”
The Vosk seized me by my shoulders. Pulled me in close. I was suddenly painfully aware of how much larger he was than me. Those broad shoulders moved to well muscled arms and a body that was clearly on display in all its Vosk glory.
I’d heard about women who got the hots for these assholes, and I’d always laughed at them. Well I could totally fucking understand where the obsession came from now!
And the last thing I needed was to fall for this asshole. He was the one who’d taken our ship, after all. He was the one who’d caused all of this.
At least I got the feeling he was the one running things. Vosk commanders tended to be at the front of any attacks they led, and all the other Vosk had deferred to him so far.
“You’re hurting me,” I said, though I didn’t quite mean it.
It was more something to say. No, honestly the thing that terrified me more than the way he held my shoulders was how much I liked it. That more than anything told me it was time for me to get the hell away from this alien before I started making some serious mistakes.
He glanced down, his eyes running up and down my body. It was pure fire where he looked at me. Well then.
Sure it’d been awhile since my last bit of fun at a spaceport holdover while we were making repairs to the Linda, but even then I hadn’t reacted like this.
Motherfucker this was dangerous.
Finally he let go. I didn’t know whether I should be happy that he was letting me go or disappointed that he wasn’t so close any longer. I gave him a once over of my own and wondered if a girl could get the alien to pull me off to some side corridor for a close encounter of the sexy kind.
Of course that would be a terrible idea. Then again what I knew to objectively be a terrible idea and what the brains both above and down below were telling me as I looked this alien over were two very different things.
“You will come with me,” he finally said, though this time around he didn’t grab my arm.
Well there was a disappointment. I sighed, and he gave me an odd look. How to explain to the big scary handsome in a craggy sort of alien way because goddamn look at those muscles that I wouldn’t mind it if he had a bit of the rough and tumble with me?
I sighed again and gestured for him to lead me on. Just like he’d been leading me on since the moment I got a good look at him through that spacesuit glass.
He took me to a smaller room, and I immediately recognized the place.
“Standard Shipyards Brig 2010,” I said, looking around the place. “Not bad, if you’re into that retro sort of look.”
The alien started. “How do you know this much about our ship?”
“Oh come on,” I said, rolling my eyes for good measure. “I’ve spent my entire career working on Standard Shipyards stuff. You learn a thing or two if you’ve been at it that long.”
He looked me up and down again, and this time there was something even more intense there. It was an interesting look. An interested look.
It was a look that had a longing setting up shop just behind my belly button and then moving down between my legs where I was in very real danger of soaking my jumpsuit. At least the bottom half of my jumpsuit.
I looked away. The intensity of that gaze was too much.
“You will step in here,” the alien said, gesturing to a small cell with bars instead of the standard forcefield that’d been all the rage in ancient earth shows that depicted space travel.
Bars were so much more practical, even in the far future where humanity had tamed the stars and made relativity our bitch and had endless energy from antimatter drives to pump into things like wasteful forcefields.
Bars had the advantage of not going out when the power went out. Something that was very possible and very dangerous in the middle of combat.
“Yeah, I figured you were going to say something like that,” I said with a sigh.
Though the Vosk surprised me as I moved into the brig. His hand caught my arm, only this time his grip wasn’t nearly as strong as it’d been when he was yanking me out of the cargo bay.
It was just enough to let a girl know he was there.
“I am called Vrath,” he said.
“Nice to know,” I said, pulling my arm away from him.
For a surprise he let me pull my arm away. Talk about your all time unexpected moments. Sure it wasn’t quite as surprising as having a Vosk warship landing on top of us, but with the whole warrior spirit thing he’d been going for it was up there on the day’s list of surprises.
“So what happens now, Vrath?” I said, testing out the name and liking how it sounded on my tongue.
I wouldn’t mind seeing how other parts of him felt on my tongue too.
“I will send men to keep an eye on you,” he said, looking me up and down again. “I regret that I can’t do this myself, but I have a ship to run.”
“So you are the one in charge,” I said. “Very interesting.”
His eyes narrowed as he seemed to realize he’d just given something up. It wasn’t much, but it was something. What was with this sudden change in this alien warrior?
“You will stay here until I have had time to determine what to do with you,” he said.
“Oh is that all you’re going to do to me?” I asked, grinning as I got closer.
I was aware that poking at the scary alien commander wasn’t a good idea. He had the kind of muscles that looked like he could snap me in two.
Then again this was probably the only time I was ever going to get a chance to get up close and personal with a Vosk warrior like this, and there was something about being up close and personal with this one that had me thinking the sorts of thoughts that hadn’t run through my mind since back in my Academy days when I’d been a bit of a party animal.
“What do you mean?” he asked, looking me over again.
“You don’t want to confine me to quarters?” I asked, reaching out and touching his chest.
He took in a deep and shuddering breath. Moved towards me. It was a slight, almost imperceptible move, but it was still a move.
This was getting more and more interesting. My stomach twisted in knots. My brain screamed that this was a terrible idea trying to seduce the alien who’d just taken our ship.
But my brain wasn’t doing the thinking. No, the fire in my belly, the ache between my legs, was calling the shots. And from the way I felt something hard pressing against my stomach as I pressed against this Vosk hottie his brain down below was calling some of the shots too.
The only thing that interrupted the fun was the door sliding open and two Vosk warriors stepping in. They paused, looking between me and the commander, then looked away.
Vrath stared at me for another long moment, then stepped outside the bars and slammed them shut. Leaving me trapped in my small cell.
Motherfuck
er.
Vrath hit a key combination on the Standard control panel outside. It was a damn shame I couldn’t see what he was doing, but I knew that control panel would be just out of reach of any of the cells so it wouldn’t matter.
“I will return,” he said, his voice low and gravelly. Like he was barely holding it together.
Then he was gone. Those last words echoed in my mind, though. He would return.
“What the hell have you gotten yourself Rachel?” I muttered as I sat on a bench in the back of my cell, all under the watchful eye of a couple of muscled Vosk warriors who would’ve been nice to look at if I didn’t already have the example of Vrath to keep me warm in the cold cell.
10
Rachel
Trapped in a brig. Honestly. You try to overload your captor’s systems one time and they get all pissy and put you in a room where you can’t possibly do any damage.
I sighed. At least I had the memories of Vrath to keep me company.
Though with those two guards out there standing watch over me like I was an actual fucking danger I didn’t think there was any chance I could enjoy thoughts of Vrath in the way I truly wanted to.
I leaned against the wall. There wasn’t even a cot or facilities for me to relieve myself. Not that there’d been anything like that in the cargo hold either, now that I thought about it. Maybe it was better that I was alone here instead of stuck in the cargo hold where they’d have to come up with a pee corner or something.
It was enough to make me wonder if Vrath had been completely honest and we weren’t dealing with slavers here.
Slavers would have facilities to keep their product alive. At least I assumed they would have facilities to keep their product alive. Admittedly there was a spectrum, and not all slavers were made equal for all that they were all scum.
It’s not like there were many shining examples from human history of slavers treating their products like the sapient beings they actually were, so I wasn’t sure why I’d expect the same from aliens who weren’t even the same species.
