by Viki Storm
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
About the Author
© Viki Storm 2019. All Rights Reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form by any means without the prior written consent of the author, except in the case of brief quotations for critical reviews and certain noncommercial uses permitted by law.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, locations, and events portrayed in this work are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.
Sold to the Alien Prince (Zalaryn Raiders Book 1)
Captured by the Alien Warrior (Zalaryn Raiders Book 2)
Claimed by the Alien Mercenary (Zalaryn Raiders Book 3)
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LIA
Princess Lia, heir to the Stonewood Throne on Lekyo Prime, is dead. She died twelve years ago.
I killed her.
The long, twisting scar down the side of my face is the only reminder I have of the day she died.
In my small lavatory, I wipe away the steam and stare at my face in the mirror. This is a luxury, having my own bathroom. I’m the captain of this ship, and as such, I get the captain’s quarters, including the private lavatory, small as it may be. It’s only a few square feet, a glorified shower closet.
Everything’s small on a spaceship. And I don’t mind at all.
After all, I used to live in a cage that was smaller than this lavatory.
The face staring back at me from the foggy mirror doesn’t even look familiar. My eyes are wild, the corners of my mouth turned down in a perpetual frown. I’m all angles and hard edges. Because I needed to be in order to survive.
When you’re a prisoner of the Rulmek, soft girls don’t survive. Pretty girls don’t survive.
Pampered, spoiled princesses don’t survive.
Which is why I had to kill Princess Lia—the part of myself that would have made sure the rest of me didn’t get out alive.
I was taken off my home planet, a simple human settlement called Lekyo Prime, when I was fifteen. I was a pampered and spoiled princess, but I’ve never been stupid, and I learned right away that I had to become tough, hard—twice as ruthless as the bastards that held me captive.
As I use a rough towel to wipe the water off my skin, my eyes flick down the length of the mirror, unbidden, to spy the rest of my body. I see a flash of hard angles, jutting bones and taut muscles before I pull my gaze away.
My heart starts to hammer. My hands go numb. I need to put on my clothes. I’d shower in them if I could. I hate being nude, hate it when I mistakenly glimpse my uncovered body in the mirror. The breasts, the thatch of hair between my legs—bared and uncovered, I am flooded with shame, a reminder of the time when I was not afforded the dignity of clothing. When I was kept caged and filthy like an animal.
Like an animal. Until I became one.
I finish toweling off and throw the wet rag into the laundry chute. My arms are weak as I reach for my uniform, the comforting black synthetic suit that covers me from chin to toes.
This has been a long day. The thought of wrangling myself into the tight suit exhausts me, but I plop down on my bed, pulling the suit up one leg, then the other.
The meeting with my crew this evening did not go well. I fear that I’m losing control—of my crew, of myself. We were in the mess hall, the dinner plates stacked up and pushed away.
I had meant to explain my plan to attack the Rulmek ship, but my Second, Sorren, had interrupted me.
“Let’s not be hasty,” he said. I wanted to strangle him.
“There is a Rulmek ship in this solar system, and you’d have us ignore it?” I shouted. I know shouting does no good. Shouting does not convey strength—quite the opposite—but I couldn’t help it. “We’ve been in the Janus system for twelve solar cycles waiting for the bastards.” That was true. Our next job was lined up, but we had some time to kill before we were needed, so we waited around the Janus system, hoping for a Rulmek ship. They often pass by here, as it’s on a popular trade route. Two days ago, we intercepted a transmission between the Rulmek and the Targk that included the Rulmek course of travel.
The fucking Rulmek. Fleshtraders, slavers. There is no way I’m going to let them go on by, off to some other unsuspecting planet to take girls away from their homes and their families.
“Normally I would agree with you,” Sorren said in the mess hall. “But the Zalaryn transmission changes things.”
“It changes nothing,” I said.
“Sure it does,” he continued. “They begged us to stand down. Perhaps we should. The important thing is that the Rulmek are dealt with—not that we are the ones to do it. Zalaryn technology is superior. Their numbers are greater. If we rush in without a plan, we’re apt to get slaughtered.”
“I agree,” said Pior, my navigator and one of the best pilots in the Three-Star Rebels. “And if there are casualties, let the Zalaryns suffer them.”
“Fuck the Zalaryns,” I spat. I looked to Fen and Kern for some support, but the mechanic and comm engineer just shrugged. I hadn’t expected much from the two weaklings on my crew, but I had expected something. Fen at the very least loves a good fight. “They’re just as bad as the fucking Rulmek. Maybe you don’t mind the Zalaryns bossing you around, but I don’t take orders from any alien bastards. I make my own decisions.”
“So do we,” Pior said, bristling at the implication. “As a crew. All five of us together.”
“Balls,” I shouted and stormed out of the mess hall, pushing away my cup and spilling water on the table.
The shower helped relax me but not nearly enough. I screwed things up with my crew tonight. I didn’t act like their captain. I acted like the crazed and wild animal I used to be.
That I still am.
I can’t let a Rulmek ship sail past us. I know that I swore an oath to the Three-Star Rebels. We are the knife in the back, we are the calm after the storm, we are the lock and the key.
I know I can’t lead my crew into danger to settle a personal score.
But still. The damned Rulmek. I thirst for their spilled blood. My finger itches to pull the trigger on my particle blaster. My knives are waiting to be notched and dulled as I pull them out of Rulmek bone.
I zip up my suit and feel my body shutting down. I lie down on my bed and pull the blankets up over my head. On my side, I curl my knees up to my chest. This is a response to stress I learned inside a cage in the bowels of a Rulmek slave ship. It is not a helpful reaction, but nothing can be done. My eyelids are heavy, my body like a limp piece of meat, my mind seeming to shut down one circuit at a time into the refuge of sleep.
I hope that things will be better in the morning, the path clearer and my crew less contentious.
A wr
y smile touches my lips as I drift to sleep. I have hope.
And that’s something I vowed never to have again.
BANTOKK
I flip a switch and enable the cloaking device on my ship. It’s a small ship, the smallest in the Zalaryn fleet, barely bigger than an escape pod. I just entered radar distance of the Three-Star Rebel ship, so I cloak my own. I don’t think they had time to notice the little blip on their radar, but if they did, I’m sure the greedy bastards are wringing their hands in anticipation of extorting something valuable from a small two-seater ship like this.
I disabled communications after I sent the last comm to Captain Vano back on Lekyo Prime. The last thing I need is for the rebels to intercept a Zalaryn message and figure out that I’m coming for them.
Because I am coming for them.
And they’re not going to like it.
That rebel bitch had the nerve to demand that I stand down. I don’t know where they get their nerve, their bravado.
There is a Rulmek host descending on Lekyo Prime, their warship big enough to hold thousands of those evil creatures. Captain Vano, myself and our communications expert, Orlon, devised a foolproof plan to stop the Rulmek invasion. Our combined Zalaryn and human forces on Lekyo Prime cannot hope to repel a thousand or more Rulmek, so fighting is not an option.
My mission is supposed to be simple. Foolproof. And I’m the fool.
I’m supposed to fly my stealthed ship within two kilometers of the Rulmek warship. Beam a lumbroid program into their navigation system. The program will reroute the Rulmek ship, lock their navigation system and disable the escape pods. They’ll be rerouted to a far-flung Kraxx settlement where, with any luck, the two vile races will kill each other.
Brilliant in its simplicity and ease of execution. It was too perfect, too easy to work.
That’s where the rebels come in. The crew of their ship insists on engaging the Rulmek in open combat. Their captain is a female who could not possibly be of sound mind if she thinks that her puny five-human crew is going to defeat the Rulmek host, at least a thousand strong.
If the rebels engage the Rulmek, I will have no chance of beaming the rerouting program into their system. I will not be able to get within the required close distance.
I have my orders. Disarm the rebels by any means necessary. Nothing is to interfere with my mission. I’d be better off aiming a fission beam straight at their fuel core and watching as the rebel ship is vaporized. But I can’t do that, not if there’s a chance I can reason with their captain.
A slim chance though it may be, I have to hope that there’s a chance… Even though something tells me that this human lacks the capacity for rational decision making.
Their ship comes into my sight. It’s an old ship, one more suited for smuggling than for battle. Which doesn’t surprise me. These rebels have a lot of high-minded rhetoric about protecting the weak and punishing evildoers, but at the end of the day, their main rackets are extortion and stealing and reselling black-market goods.
When traveling in the void of space, it’s hard to maintain regular sleeping patterns, but I have surveilled the human ship and noted their sleep-wake cycle and determined that they should be asleep at this time. I turn off my engine and drift toward the rebel ship. As I get closer, I see it’s aptly named The Golden Plague.
I hover near their docking bay and wait impatiently as my comm panel logs into the rebel security system and syncs the data. I deactivate their alarms easily, marveling at how primitive their technology is. Zalaryns are one of the more advanced races in the universe, but still, their security systems could be overridden by a child.
When I’m sure that everything is deactivated, I dock my ship and use my comm panel to open their ship’s hatch. It’s loud, even to me in my ship, so once the portal is open, I hurry inside the rebel ship. It is quiet and stiflingly hot. They must not run a modern cabin air ventilation system.
Using the ship schematics on my comm panel, I find my way into the ship’s main living quarters. The crew cabins are segregated from the captain’s quarters, so I sync my comm panel to the door lock mechanism, and with a few strokes I’m able to seal off the crew cabins. They won’t be able to get out of the corridor unless they shut down and restart the entire ship’s operating system—which would depressurize the cabin and kill us all in a matter of minutes.
This is too easy. For a bunch of thieves, you’d think they’d be a little more heavily guarded. But humans are a cocky lot, like that damned captain thinking she could fight the Rulmek warship.
The damned captain. I need to get into her quarters now. I’m not sure how I’m going to persuade her to leave the Rulmek ship alone and let me proceed with my plan to reroute it.
This is a task better left to Captain Vano, but he’s occupied, and it’s fallen to me. He always knows what to do; ideas come easy to males like him. Me? I’m just the Admiral Superior, which means I’m the male who’s the best at following orders.
Will I be able to reason with and persuade the human rebel? Can I use diplomacy and bargaining? Or will I have to resort to using force?
The idea of using physical violence against a female—even a human—is repulsive to most Zalaryns, but if she threatens the safety of the colony on Lekyo Prime, she will be dealt with like any other enemy.
I make my way as quietly as possible to the captain’s corridor. It’s hard to breathe this stuffy, stale air. As I’m syncing my comm panel to the captain’s door locks, my muscles tense and I freeze.
I’ve sensed a slight movement, the thick air easily transmitting the movement to my cranial sensory pads. I hear nothing but the whir of my own blood in my ears. I put my hand to my weapon and give it a slight charge. The anankah that all Zalaryn warriors carry is useful for hand-to-hand combat and will emit a blastwave that can disable or kill, depending on the level of charge. But it’s not good to use in a pressurized environment except on the lowest of settings. Still, humans have fragile, weak bodies, and even a low blast should be more than enough.
I turn around, ready for a fight, but see no one. Is it possible that I am too tense? Imagining things that aren’t there? I exhale, and just as I’m about to return to my task at the lock mechanism, a human male lunges silently from my left side. His face is a mask of grim determination, lips pressed into a thin white line, eyes two bulging orbs of terror.
I raise my weapon and give him a quick blow to the tender spot between the neck and the thick muscle of the shoulder. He grimaces and doubles over, staggering and cursing. I am surprised; I really thought he would go down instantly. He looks ragged and thin, but he must have the resilient stubbornness of a rodentoid defending its hoard.
While he is bent over in pain, I wrench both his arms behind his back, and he squeals. “Quiet,” I say. “You sound like a girl.” I lift my knee into his nose with a wet squelch. I notice blood dripping onto the floor as I lead him to the crew quarters. He struggles to free his arms, but I can tell the heart has gone out of him.
Most humans, they give in to defeat almost instantly. That gives me hope that maybe the captain will be this way, too. Like a supergiant star, most humans burn hot and fast and fizzle out quickly.
I open the door to the crew chambers and toss him in quickly before re-engaging the locks.
Now for the captain.
I unlock the door to the captain’s corridor and find her room. I put my ear to the door and try to hear if she’s stirring or asleep, but the door is thick and soundproof. Which is good—I don’t want her crew to be able to hear the things I might have to do to her.
I press some buttons on my comm panel and disengage the lock. The bolts snap free with a loud clink that echoes in the empty hallway. I tap the door and it retracts into the wall, leaving the captain’s quarters open and exposed.
I see her on the bed, one arm snaking out from under the blankets. Her scent assaults me at once, invading me and rendering me as speechless as any blow to the head.
She is
fertile and untouched by any other males. I can smell it—almost taste it. My sensory pads are firing nonstop, overwhelming me with this female’s ripe and irresistible aroma.
Why am I thinking about this now? She is the enemy, an obstacle in the way of my mission, a threat to the colony on Lekyo Prime. I feel my instincts raging inside me. The desire to mate, the desire to protect. The two things I absolutely do not need to do right now.
I can’t get her scent out of my head.
I can’t quiet the instinct inside me.
This foolproof mission, this fool’s errand.
And I’m definitely the fool.
LIA
The instant my door opens, I snap out of sleep. My senses are acute, homing in on the danger. None of my crew would breach my locks unless it was a dire emergency.
“Sorren?” I ask. The intruder’s shape is silhouetted against the light from the open door, but I can see at once that it’s not Sorren.
It’s not any of my crew.
We’ve been boarded.
The figure standing at my door is huge, looming over me as I lie on my narrow bed. I can only sense his size and strength; the rest of his features are obscured by the darkness. I get the impression of raw power. Of unrestrained masculine energy. Something buried deep in the reptilian, survival-oriented part of my brain is responding to it—I feel myself drawn. That’s the only way to describe it, as irrational as it is. I brush it aside, dismissing it as some fluke of the fear and the panic.
I evaluate this entire situation in less than a second—but even that is too slow. Before I can propel myself out of bed and grab my weapon, he shoots me.
There is the soft humpf as a pneumatic burst is fired. I curl into a ball, brace for impact, for any number of injuries: the burning stench of a laser as it sears my skin, the icy touch of a neuroparalytic beam, the crushing suffocation of a kinetic blastwave, the instant eyeblink of nothingness from a particle beam severing my head from the rest of my body.
Instead, I feel a sensation of coldness encircling one of my wrists. I try to yank my arm away and realize that I cannot move it. The cold metal snaking around my wrist is some sort of manacle, probably a heat-seeking projectile programmed to latch onto anything alive and hold it tight.
