Hunted by the Alien Pirate: Mates of the Kilgari

by Kyle, Celia

  Looking at me one last time, Montier gives me a heartbroken nod.

  “I’ll be back for you,” he says and then turns on his heels and follows after Solair and Varia. I watch them disappear the way we came, and a kind of lonely desperation washes over me. After finally finding a crew, friends and family, it seems like I’ve just lost it all. After finally finding someone to love…it’s all slipping right through my fingers.

  Chin up, I think. It’s not over yet.

  Yes, where there’s hope…

  There’s a way.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Montier

  Legs pumping furiously as I run behind Solair and Varia—who clutches the tablet Fiona passed off like it’s a newborn child—I feel the sting of betrayal. My own betrayal of my fated mate.

  The only way I can keep moving forward, farther and farther away from my one true love, is that I know by staying her chances of survival drop to nearly zero. As much as I hate to admit it, Fiona was right. Our only recourse was to abandon her, temporarily, or so I keep telling myself

  “Heads up, we’ve got Kraaj mercs up at the next junction.”

  Good. I need something to hurt right about now.

  I pour on the speed, sprinting past the rapidly moving Solair and Varia as if they’re standing still. A guttural, animalistic scream rips the air, and it takes me a moment before I realize it’s my own.

  The Kraaj turn toward us, hands reaching for their weapons, but I’m already in their midst. Using my momentum, I launch a mighty overhand right, connecting solidly with the silver-skinned temple of the nearest Kraaj. There’s a deeply satisfying crunch of bone, and his eye blows out of its socket to dangle by the viscera and gory optic nerve.

  Even before he crumples to the floor—dazed or dead, I know not which—I’m assaulting the next merc. My foot lashes out to connect with his forearm, my intention being to prevent him from drawing his firearm. But perhaps my anger is fueling my already considerable strength because his arm crumples like aluminum foil beneath my blow. His mouth flies open in a scream of agony as his fellow merc manages to draw his weapon. I latch onto his wrist, and we struggle for dominance as he continuously pulls the trigger, leaving a black line of scorch marks on the corridor hall and making Varia and Solair dive to the floor in search of cover.

  My strength proves superior. He gapes in astonishment as I slowly pull his arm out to the side and continue the motion until it comes right out of socket.

  I want to smash him, kill him, but Solair drags me by the arm.

  “Come on. There’s no time. We have to get to the shuttle.”

  I growl, resisting his pull. Solair is a powerful Kilgari, but he’s no match for my strength.

  “Please, Montier. We can’t save Fiona if we get captured too.”

  That does the trick, and I allow him to pull me along until I start moving of my own volition. We burst out of the door, leaving the maze-like environs of the Project Blue Dawn facility behind us. A terrible pain stabs in my chest when I think about how Fiona is still back there, all alone, in the clutches of one of the galaxy’s most ruthless sapient species.

  We reach our shuttle, Solair using his fob to open the bay doors ahead of us, and pile inside. Solair leaps into the pilot’s seat and tosses a glance over his shoulder.

  “Radio the other team, and tell them to get moving now.”

  Gritting my teeth in frustration, I pull out my comm unit to do just that. In a moment Grantian’s voice comes over the line, sounding far too cheerful given the circumstances—not that he has any way of knowing.

  “Montier, what’s the good word?”

  “There isn’t one. You and the others need to return to the Queen, now.”

  “But we have yet to finish…”

  “Now means NOW, Grantian. The Blue Dawn Facility is crawling with mercs, both human and Kraaj.”

  The shuttle’s engines hum to life, and we begin our liftoff. I brace myself with a hand on the cabin roof because I’m much to wound up to sit at the moment.

  “Mercs? Since when does the IHC use mercs?”

  “Since when does the IHC experiment on and abduct its own people? The humans are dressed like marines, but they are not what they seem.”

  “Copy that. We’re hightailing it back to the Queen.”

  I terminate the contact and slam the comm back into my pack so hard I nearly crack the case. Solair shoots a glance over his shoulder.

  “Better strap in tight. We’ve got a tail.”

  Cursing, I sit down in one of the side-facing seats and strap my crash webbing in. Varia looks at me with great concern. I know she’s almost as worried about Fiona as I am, but I can take little comfort in this.

  The shuttle, with only minimal inertial dampening fields, banks hard to the right as Solair attempts to lose our tail. We’re thrown into our crash webbing hard enough that Varia will probably have bruises. I peer out the rear viewing ports on our shuttle and grimace at the sight of a hover sled with four Kraaj mercs riding on it. One of them, braced by his fellows, stands up in his seat and fires a pulse rifle at our ship.

  “Incoming.”

  It’s all I have time to say before the green-hued photonic pulses smash into our hull. The lights dim, and Solair loses engine power for a brief moment before failsafe counters the short circuit.

  “We can’t take too many more hits like that.”

  “Then I will see to it that we don’t have to.”

  “What are you doing?”

  I don’t answer Varia’s question. Instead I unstrap myself and move to the rear of the shuttle. I hit the button to open the rear bay door and the turn my attention to one of the seats bolted to the side of the cabin. My muscles strain and tendons pop as I struggle to rip it from its moorings. Wind whips into the cabin as the rear bay door opens fully just as I finally free it.

  With a snarl, I spin in a tight circle and hurl the heavy seat out the back. Our erstwhile pursuers attempt evasive action, diving steeply, but the seat smashes into the occupants even though it misses the hover sled itself. Three of the four Kraaj go sailing off to plummet to the ground hundreds of feet below, including the pilot. The remaining Kraaj struggles to make it to the pilot’s chair, but I pull my side arm and put a slug right between his eyes.

  I slam my fist into the button to close the bay door so hard it cracks the panel slightly, and then I sit down in my spot to sulk. Not enough. I need to punish more of them.

  Solair is an expert pilot—not as good as Swipt but still far superior to the average. He gets us back to the Queen around the same time as the second team. As soon as the shuttle settles into place, he’s barking in his radio at Swipt.

  “Get us airborne, now. We need to put some distance between ourselves and Perseus.”

  We rush up to the bridge, all three of us, joined by Grantian. He gets on his comm and contacts Ilya.

  “Ilya, work your magic and mask our engine signature. Pursuit is expected.”

  “Copy that, Grantian. I can reroute the plasma junction to…”

  “I don’t need to hear the how. Just do it.”

  “I can work and talk, Grantian, but copy that.”

  When we reach the bridge, the Queen is already on the cusp between blue skies and the deepening blue of the upper atmosphere. I wince in pain as we leave the planet’s surface behind and sail among the twinkling stars.

  “Fiona…” Solair catches himself, shooting an apology at me. “Grantian, make a super luminal calc.”

  “Destination?”

  “For fuck’s sake, Grantian, I don’t care. Anywhere but here.”

  As he finishes the calc and we jump a short distance—in interstellar terms—away from Perseus, I turn to Solair.

  “I can put together a rescue team within the hour, Solair. By the time we’re ready to return to Perseus, those mercs won’t know what hit them.”

  Solair’s face is crossed by a grimace of pure mental anguish.

  “I’m sorry, Montier. Bu
t we’re not going back to Perseus.”

  “What?” My mouth gapes open. “But we must. Fiona is still in danger.”

  “The answer is no, Montier. I really am sorry.”

  Grantian and Swipt drag me off the bridge before I can throttle my captain, as I am in the grip of inarticulate rage.

  My fated mate. Gone.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Fiona

  Even though my face is pressed up against the cold metal walls of the maze-like compound, my hair twisted painfully into a handle by the massive Kraaj merc who holds me captive, I can’t help but smile.

  That’s because I’ve just heard over their comms that Solair, Varia, and my love have eluded capture. My sacrifice was not in vain, and even better, Varia has the data downloaded onto my tablet.

  I’d call that a conditional win, under the circumstances.

  “It is most unfortunate that our quarry has escaped us—for now.” The man holding my hair yanks back hard enough to make my neck pop and lifts me into the air like a rag doll. “Fortunately, this little delicacy is a wellspring of information we have yet to tap. I shall take her to Commander Tarsk immediately.”

  He leers in my face as I grab onto his wrist with both hands, seeking to end the painful tension on my scalp.

  “You’d best play nice with him, little one. He has ties to Councilor Opak himself.”

  Despite my plight, I grin fiercely in his face, blood trailing from my lip due to his earlier harsh slap.

  “Am I supposed to be impressed?”

  I’m expecting another blow, but the Kraaj tilts his head back and guffaws with great mirth.

  “You have spirit. I like you, little one. Perhaps when Tarsk is finished with you, and you go up on the block, I’ll bid on you myself.”

  “I already have a man, and you don’t measure up.”

  I put extra emphasis on the word measure, but my insult seems to have the opposite effect. He cackles louder and lowers me until my feet touch the floor.

  “Get on with you.” He continues to hold my hair, shoving me down the corridor ahead of him as I stumble to keep pace with his much longer stride. About half the time he’s basically carrying me by my hair. I try not to give in to my fear, however understandable it might be. Sooner or later, my love will come and free me. Of that, I have no doubt. He’d move the stars themselves out of the sky if that’s what it took.

  And he’ll have the entire Ancestral Queen crew behind him. Given all that we’ve been through in our short time together, I couldn’t ask for a better rescue squad.

  So for the time being, I need to remain strong, and not give them so much as one iota of information. The Kraaj have a brutal reputation, deservedly so, but they rarely do permanent damage to human females.

  We are too valuable a commodity on their much-maligned auction blocks. The Kraaj see such auctions as an honor, an elevation of a lesser species to serve them. Obviously that’s a sentiment I don’t share, but it also gives me hope that they won’t be especially vicious in their interrogations.

  They are also highly misogynistic and tend to underestimate females of any sapient species. I can use that to my advantage. While I cringe on the inside to think of playing up to the dumb blonde stereotype, I’m determined to do whatever I can to keep Montier and the Queen free and safe.

  My captor half pushes, half carries me along the winding path down into the bowels of the facility. Between this building, the mercs, and all of the equipment therein, this has to be costing Project Blue Dawn a fortune. Either they’re funneling funds from legit IHC ventures or they have the backing of powerful financiers—possibly both.

  I do my best to try and memorize the path we take in case I need to flee along it later. I’m counting on the fact that the Kraaj tend to be arrogant and dismissive in the extreme to give me a chance for escape.

  We reach a double set of sliding doors about four levels down, and my captor reaches up to press on the chime button.

  “Come.”

  The voice that emanates over the speaker is nothing short of cold blooded and just this side of annoyed. I hope I’m strong enough for what’s to come because if I break and spill my guts about the Queen and our mission here, I’ll never be rescued.

  The doors slide apart with a hiss, and a modest office space is revealed. The silver-skinned Kraaj standing behind the stainless-steel desk is large even for one of his sapient species. A bit of crimson at his neck hints at tattoos on his torso, and the neatly trimmed mustache and goatee make him seem like an angry fisherman captain who’s just pulled up an empty cage onto his deck.

  “So. This is one of the interlopers foolish enough to try our patience.” He sneers. “Pretty, but weak, like most human females. Leave her.”

  My captor releases his hold on my hair at last, and I plop heavily to the metal floor, banging my rump pretty good. The apparent Tarsk grunts as if it doesn’t matter, and gestures at one of the empty chairs.

  “Seat yourself.”

  I rise to my feet, rubbing my aching hip.

  “I’d rather stand.”

  His eyes narrow to slits, nostrils flaring with barely contained anger.

  “Sit. Down.”

  Then I remember I’m supposed to be a poor, dumb blonde girl scared for her life. I meekly seat myself and tremble visibly.

  “That’s better. A good woman is an obedient one. Now, explain to me what you and your allies were doing trespassing on our compound?”

  “Compound?” I tilt my head to the side. “I—we thought this place was abandoned. We were just looking for our friends who went missing on a supply run. Perhaps you’ve seen them?”

  “The only stupid humans I’ve seen are you and that other one with the two-dicked cretins who penetrated our fortress.” Tarsk sneers at me. “Don’t play dumb with me, trollop. I’ve no patience for it.”

  It’s not hard to work up some waterworks, considering I really am scared.

  “I’m—I’m sorry. I don’t understand. We were just looking for our friends, I swear. Please don’t hurt me.”

  His silver lips twitch in a smile, and then he leans back in his seat and steeples his fingers before him.

  “You are an excellent actress. I was nearly fooled, but I pride myself on my observational skills. You came into here, armed to the teeth, and somehow hacked into one of the servers my folks have been tasked to protect.”

  His brow comes low over his eyes, and they glitter with anger.

  “You have made us look bad, human. Very bad. I will have to explain my failure to Councilor Opak, something I have never had to do in my entire career. But if you tell me what I need to know, I can make things easier for the both of us.”

  “I don’t know anything. I swear. And I know what you do to human females, so I don’t feel much comfort in your promises.”

  He arches an eyebrow and then grins.

  “So be it. I’m not all that concerned, nor am I fooled by your clever lies. We’ll find your friends soon enough. They are only an inferior species after all.”

  Tarsk rises from his seat and moves around the desk to loom over me. I can’t repress a shudder as he reaches for me, but all he does is gently stroke my cheek with the back of his hand.

  “So pretty, and so very young. You will command a high price on the auction block. Consider my warning. I will return shortly and ask you one more time to tell me what you know.”

  He goes to the door and programs it to remain locked with a passcode he takes great pains to conceal from me. Then he exits the office, leaving me very much alone.

  Alone with his computer console. What an arrogant prick, thinking that this poor, dumb woman is helpless in his grasp.

  I wait a few moments to be sure he’s gone and then swiftly, silently rise from my seat and rush behind his desk. The console is password protected, if you can call it that. It only takes a couple of minutes for me to convince the console I’m an admin and get full access.

  That’s what you get for undere
stimating me, Tarsk. Now your secrets will be mine.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Montier

  The doors to the bridge slide open, and I inch my way inside, both Grantian and Swipt struggling to keep me back to no avail.

  Solair turns about in his swivel sweat, his face creasing with a frown at the sight of my return.

  “Didn’t I throw you off the bridge?”

  “It didn’t take.” I stagger another step, dragging Swipt along the floor as he clings to my ankle.

  “Hold him.”

  “We’re trying. He’s as strong as a fucking Odex.”

  Solair sighs, and shakes his horned head.

  “Let him go, men.”

  They release me, and I stagger a few feet into the bridge before I regain my balance. Solair looks at me with a lot of sympathy in his gaze, but also more than a little anger.

  “Montier…if there were any way to rescue Fiona without endangering the entire ship and crew, you know I would do it in a heartbeat.”

  “Solair, I was among the first to join your crew when you came into possession of the Ancestral Queen. We’ve been in danger almost the entire time. It goes with the territory of being a privateer.”

  I look about the bridge and encompass the crew in my gaze, studiously avoiding the nav console where Fiona normally sits.

  “I look around me and I see brave men and women who are more than willing to risk their lives to save one of our own. We do not shy from battle.”

  I turn to Grantian, who stands a few feet away glaring darkly at me. The former mercenary is no doubt feeling miffed, his pride wounded by my ability to resist his powerful frame.

  “What about you, first mate? You used to fight for a living, for cold hard credits. Are you so unwilling to spill blood for my fated mate now that the time has come?”