by Lace, Lisa
"Don't tell me you have a problem again, Grenta."
"One of the cargo. She did not take to the conversion process."
Jaal grunted. "Well, dispose of her. We don't have time for anything else. The miners are getting anxious, and we're going to lose the bonus for rapid delivery."
"How do you want it done?"
"Toss it into space."
Rev moved forward, growing alarmed. If she was spaced, there was little he could do for her.
"Jaal," he said, "spacing her now will leave a body for someone to find. Why don't you head into the atmosphere, and I'll flush her then? Her body will burn up as it falls."
Jaal grinned. "That's why I like you, Cax. Always thinking. Yes, that sounds like a plan. Get her ready. I'll signal you when we start our descent."
"Okay, Captain," said Rev. He turned to find Grenta looking straight at him, his eyes narrowed.
"When did you get so eager? I've known you a couple years now, and you’ve never volunteered for anything."
"I'm just anxious to get this job done and get my cut. I have big plans for my money."
"Like what?" Grenta's suspicious gaze followed him as Rev went to Tracy's tank.
"Like none of your business, old man." Rev grabbed a wad of disposable towels and put them at the edge of the tank. He hauled Tracy up and removed her mask. He awkwardly wrapped a towel around her. As Grenta watched him, Rev slung Tracy over his shoulder and picked up the rest of the towels with his free hand.
"Don't take too long, Cax. You have to get the others ready for transport."
Rev grunted in acknowledgment. He left the lab and headed for the nearest airlock.
* * *
Tracy woke when she became aware that someone was tugging on her. As her eyesight cleared, she saw Rev kneeling beside her, pulling up a bulky white suit over her torso and stuffing her arms into it. He zipped it up gently and then attached some boots to her feet.
"What's going on?" she asked.
"We don't have time for explanations. You need to listen carefully. The captain ordered me to launch you into space, but I convinced him to let me dump you in the atmosphere, where your body would burn up."
"Oh, that sounds much better."
"It is," he said earnestly. "This way you have a chance to survive. Stand up."
She struggled to her feet with his assistance and waited anxiously for an explanation while he inspected the seals on the suit.
"This is a high-altitude jumpsuit and should protect you against the heat of reentry. It will get uncomfortably hot in the suit, but don't panic. You won't burn up."
"You sure about that?” Tracy was getting scared now. She'd never done anything like this.
Rev put a backpack on her and latched the buckles under her breasts.
"Now don't lose this pack. There's food and water in the pouches. You're going to have to hang on to the suit too. It will capture your body waste and recycle it until it is so pure you can drink it. On this planet, you will definitely need it. It won't smell pretty, but it will keep you alive until I can find you."
"You're going to look for me?"
"Of course I am. Now listen. You are going to fall, and it will feel like a long time. But there is a sensor that will measure your distance to the ground, and it will release a parachute at the right time. There is nothing for you to do unless you hear an alarm." He held up a helmet for her to see. “If you hear an alarm, pull this red tag, and it will manually release the parachute."
"I don't think I can do this."
"Of course you can, Tracy Walsh. I'm counting on it."
"Can’t you come with me?"
"I want to. But we need to make sure the captain and his crew think you're dead, and it might be suspicious if I spaced myself. I have to get to my people first and get these criminals to justice—that's the only way you'll truly be safe."
"Rev, I'm scared."
"You'd be a fool if you weren't." He bent his head and kissed her. It was a hard kiss, filled with longing and passion. It promised delicious things, but it was cut short.
"Cax!" the intercom crackled. "You ready?"
Rev snapped the helmet on Tracy's head.
"Yeah," he said.
"Release the hatch now."
"Yes, Jaal." His hand worked a panel at the side of the hatch. With his other hand, he held the front of Tracy's suit.
The hatch opened, and Tracy felt a rush of air pull her backwards out of the hatch, but Rev gripped her tightly. The air whipped around them, pulling his hair wildly around his face.
"When I let go of you, step back," he yelled over the wind. "Don't even look down. Just step back and fall."
Tracy swallowed hard, hoping she could trust this man who claimed to be bonded to her.
"I'll find you," he said.
Suddenly he let go of her, the ship dipped to the side, and she fell backward out into space.
Her heart hammered in her chest as the air rushed around her. She kept her eyes locked on Rev standing in the ship, watching her. But then something shimmered in the entrance, and the person looking at her from the ship was a large green man wearing Rev's clothes.
Green, she thought. This guy is a fucking green alien. I hope I'm not headed to Mars right now. You sure can pick 'em, Walsh.
The suit was heating up. Flames curled around her, obscuring her vision of the green man. Her green man. The faster she fell, the smaller the ship got.
She was alone, on fire, and about to collide with an alien planet!
Chapter Fifteen
Tracy Walsh had delivered newspapers in punishing weather. There had been snow, ice, rain, and heat. She had to get up in the middle of the night and deal with bozo carriers. She had dealt with office politics and managers who, to put it mildly, may have come directly from a mental institution.
None of her newspaper trials had prepared her for being abducted by aliens, subjected to physical examinations, having the hottest sex she'd ever experienced, or a terminal velocity fall from a spacecraft into the atmosphere of an alien world.
At first, she had felt totally weightless as she fell away from the ship. In a moment of panic, she’d thought she was caught in orbit, being pulled by the planet's gravity just enough to spin around eternally in a loop. But the alien spacecraft receded from her vision, its dark outline blotting out the stars and indicating that she was moving closer to the planet. Finally, she felt the tug of the planet below as she entered the denser lower atmosphere.
The air screamed in her helmet as flames shot up around her. Rev had told her the inside of the suit was going to get a little hot, but he didn't mention that it would feel like an inferno. Sweat beaded on her forehead and all over her body. She was becoming even more uncomfortable because she couldn't wipe any of it off.
At least if Rev was correct about the suit processing body wastes, she'd have plenty of water to drink.
If she lived.
She watched the dark of space turn from murky gray to blue before she hit the clouds. Suddenly, she couldn't see anything at all as she was enveloped in the white vapor. But her time in the clouds was brief.
When she broke through the cloud cover, a voice sounded in the helmet.
Parachute will deploy in one minute.
One minute. One minute! Tracy thought for sure that she'd be smashed on the ground like a discarded doll in one minute, and the chute would take that long to deploy?
A hard yank jerked Tracy around so that her feet pointed towards the ground. The chute opened, and her descent slowed.
Estimated time to landfall is five minutes.
Well, she'd be alive for five more minutes at least. Five minutes of hanging in the air, waiting to smash into the ground.
God damn, Rev, she thought. How did he expect her to handle falling directly from space into a strange alien world?
Memories of Rev flashed through her mind: Rev pushing his tongue into her mouth, meeting hers, sliding against and around her tongue, stealing her b
reath. His exotic taste, sweet yet musky, was a spice too heady to ignore. She remembered leaning into his kiss while he caressed the small of her back with his fingertips, a light touch that pulsed tingles through her body.
Great. Fucking great. How could she be thinking about sex, sailing through the atmosphere of an alien world? But she couldn't help it. Something hit her head and her heart with thoughts of him.
Why was that? Did she miss the big green guy less than ten minutes after he shoved her out of a spaceship?
She remembered him leaning into her, the bulge in his pants broadcasting his lust.
She’d begged him to undress and he did, pushing his erect cock into her hands.
He’d groaned and asked her to stop, but she had no intention of ever stopping.
Fuck. She did miss him. And worse, judging from the ache between her legs, she wanted him more than before.
His last words to her had been, "I'll find you." Well, he damn well better. She had a lot to say to him. After she fucked the hell out of him, that is.
The sight of the below shook Tracy out of her reverie. Beneath her stretched miles and miles of dusty brown land. The ground seemed to encompass everything around her, and she could see not a single green thing from her vantage point high in the sky. Off to her left were some pointed peaks. The sun flared bright white from behind those mountains, and everything appeared searing hot. As she got closer, the brown land turned into a brilliant yellow.
It slowly dawned on her. This place was a desert. A fucking desert. How on earth—check that—how on wherever was Rev supposed to find her in a desert? All the sand looked alike.
What was she supposed to do now? Her camping trips had not prepared her for survival in an environment like this.
Snakes. That was all she could think about, and one trait she shared with her favorite fedora-wearing adventurer. She had no problem confronting a burly, gun-wielding newspaper deliveryman and demanding that he pay his bill, but snakes scared the shit out of her.
What if there were desert snakes? Or worse? Who knows what alien creatures slunk or burrowed in those desert sand dunes?
The voice spoke again.
Sensor information confirms an open terrain landing. Advise assuming the proper position for safety.
Tracy's panic hit a new high. Position? Position! What was the proper position?
"Somebody help me!" she cried out.
Help requested.
Processing.
Hold straps above your head, tuck in your chin, and round your back.
Okay. She could do that. Chin to chest, back rounded. Check.
Upon impact, bend your knees and hold your legs together.
Twist to your side at an angle to the ground.
Land on your posterior, going into a roll after you make contact.
Tracy worked this out in her head. She tried bending her knees and found that despite the gravity pulling her in one direction, the suit easily moved when she nudged it with her body. Good. Great, in fact. She might survive this after all.
She felt the parachute slowing her descent. Maybe she could just land on her feet and avoid all that rolling?
Do not attempt to land on your feet. Doing so can cause irreparable harm to your body.
Maybe not. Hell if she was going to end up on desert world with two broken legs.
All she did was go with her friend to a bar.
All she did was kiss—okay, more than kiss—a hunky guy in the alley outside the bar.
No way was she supposed to end up rushing to her death towards an alien planet, an unknown number of light-years away from Earth. No. Nada. No way. She was going to have serious words with the aliens who had put her in this ridiculous situation.
I will never go to a bar with Carol again!
Her anger provoked a rush of adrenaline. Tracy reined in her panic and focused on the task at hand.
Legs and knees bent, twist them to the side, land on my ass. Check!
Below her the sand peaks were getting bigger, jutting towards her. She could make out different colors now, great slabs of red and blue and gray rock that poked into the sky at different angles. She was heading straight towards the rocks.
That would be a very bad place to land. She saw herself hitting those rocks, and thoughts of painful broken bones filled her overworked mind.
She needed to avoid them, and apparently her only friend, the suit, thought the same thing.
Sensors indicate rocky ground ahead.
Pull right strap and twist to turn towards a softer landing area.
Tracy twisted her body and pulled the strap, and with a feeling of exhilaration, she turned in the air away from the rocks. For a moment, she forgot all about the aliens as a sense of satisfaction came over her. This was fun!
She immediately felt silly for enjoying herself during a life-and-death descent to an unknown world. Maybe she was going a little crazy. But who wouldn't go a little crazy after being abducted by aliens...shoved out of a spaceship...and fucked by the sexiest man she'd ever met?
The last vision of Rev filled her mind as the ground rushed towards her. He was green. The fucking guy who got her in all this mess was fucking green. What the hell was that all about? How did he change appearance? Why was he a beautiful light brown at first, and now he was green? If they ever found each other again, he had a lot of questions to answer. He should not have held back information like that. He should have told her.
Then she remembered they didn't use a condom. Hell, she didn't even know if aliens had condoms. But he should have used one. What if he had some freaky alien virus that would make her sick? What if he had some mutated alien sperm that could get her pregnant despite the fact she was on the pill? Tracy always prided herself on being responsible, but how responsible could one be when faced with someone who looked like that?
What the hell would she even do with an alien baby. “Oh, honey,” she would say to the kid. “Yes, I know you look different from the other kids at school, half green and half brown, and that's because your daddy was special. He was from outer space, you see.”
Or what if he ended up going to alien school?
“That's because your mommy is special. I am from outer space, you see.”
There were going to be years of therapy for all of them.
God damn aliens. Fuck them. Fuck them all. They had no right to steal her life, her home, and her sucky job from her. She didn't have much, but it was hers.
He was right. Rev had no business having sex with her and taking advantage of her situation. Manipulating how hot he made her, taking her when she was slick between her legs, aching and ready, needing him. God damn alien. God damn fucking sexy alien. They were going to have one long fucking talk, that was for sure.
If he found her. God, she hoped he'd find her.
She missed him already.
And as for those other aliens? She had more than a few words for them.
They were going to deliver her friend to some mine on this planet to be some idiot miner's wife.
She'd locate that mine.
She'd find Carol, get her away from those aliens, and somehow get her changed back into human.
But before she did that, she was going to kick some alien ass and make sure none of them ever, ever went to Earth to steal more women.
Yeah. She'd survive this jump all right, and then she’d find those fucking aliens, and they would learn that they shouldn't ever fuck with Earth women...unless they asked for it.
Chapter Sixteen
Rev watched Tracy fall towards the planet with a sinking heart. He did not want to be separated from her, not now and not ever, but it was necessary to protect her life.
The crew of this ship would have killed her. And though he wanted to make the jump with her, he still had to perform his duty.
He had to follow these men, and record their transactions selling women to the miners. Then he could give testimony in court to put these criminals in prison once and for all.<
br />
The hardest thing he’d ever done was pushing Tracy out of that hatch. But he’d done everything he could to keep her safe.
He’d programmed the suit to operate in training mode so that it would give her critical information when she needed it. Rev made sure there were emergency supplies stored in the suit's catch pockets. All he could do now was hope that she made landfall in one piece. She was brave and worthy to be his mate. She had to live.
Otherwise he could not.
Rev's fear made his heart beat faster. At first, his heart rate change made him panic. He then realized the ancient stories about bonded mates were correct. He was feeling what she felt. Good. That meant she still lived. He felt anger then and knew that came from her too. Good, Tracy, he thought. Use that. Stay strong.
He'd done desert survival training and was very aware of the dangers that awaited her. Lack of water, heat, the cold of night. He had no idea what animals, if any, lived on this odious planet, but just those first three things were plenty to threaten her life. He needed to get to her as soon as possible.
An audio transmission entered the room. "Cax, is it done? Is that woman off my ship?"
"Yes, Captain."
"Good. Go help the doctor get the cargo ready."
"Yes, sir."
This next part would be difficult too. He did not want to help get these women, so casually referred to as “cargo,” ready to meet the miners and live the rest of their lives in servitude.
He was about to walk out of the hatchway when he spied his green visage staring back at him in the reflection of the inner hatch window. Cold shock washed over him. His disguise! He checked the controls and found they had inadvertently turned off, perhaps when he’d pushed Tracy off the ship.
With a sigh of relief, he turned the holo disguise back on. Now when anyone looked at him, they would see the familiar face and form of their fellow crewman Cax.
Then he wondered if Tracy had seen his true form.
What would she think of him? Would she think he’d lied to her about what he was and what he did? Was it possible that, in a moment of carelessness, he had ruined what little trust they had between them?
