by A. G. Wilde
4
Ka’Cit Urgmental hated the Exchange.
Not because of how busy it was.
No.
He didn’t hate the crowds. He simply hated the individuals that made up the crowds.
He could see the demons on most of their faces—the lies they hid behind.
He only needed a few seconds looking at them to know if they were thinking something nefarious.
Maybe it was because of his job, the life he’d chosen for himself, but it was an uncanny skill that made him question the motives of every single being around him.
He’d long learned that most beings were selfish. Always.
He sat at one of the food stalls on one of the upper levels of the exchange, a woogli drink oozing in front of him on the counter.
Down below, the sea of shoppers on the main street flowed and ebbed.
He was alone. Despite that food stalls were always crowded at the exchange, this one was empty, save for his presence.
In front of him, the food merchant trembled as he pretended to dry some fresh drinking utensils.
What was his problem?
Ka’Cit eyed the merchant through the slit in his mask.
“Is—is something wrong with the drink?” the merchant asked, his round eyes flicking from the drink to Ka’Cit then back. His thin grey arms trembled, as did the antennae on the top of his head. “I can make a new one, no problem. No problem at all.”
Ka’Cit growled and the merchant almost dropped the utensil he was pretending to dry. “What makes you think I want a new drink?”
The merchant trembled even more. “B—because…well, you haven’t touched that one and you’ve been sitting here for quite…some…time?” The last words came out in a trembling voice, and the merchant’s eyes darted across the street to another merchant. When Ka’Cit glanced behind him, he saw the other merchant duck behind his stall before the shutters slowly closed.
Ka’Cit glanced back at the merchant in front of him. “Do you have a problem with that?”
The merchant began shaking his head so hard his antennae wobbled.
“Good. Then we don’t have a problem.”
Ka’Cit stared at the drink.
He wasn’t going to drink it.
Even if he was thirsty, he wouldn’t have removed his mask to quench his thirst.
He never took his mask off around people he didn’t trust and especially not in public.
He’d simply bought the drink so he’d have something to do other than stare at the counter while he waited for time to pass.
He had a job to do later. Information to collect. Maybe a few arms to break. You never knew with these things.
At that thought, his gaze darted to the group of Niftrills at the food stall farther down on the street below.
They were moving now, having finished their drink.
It was go time.
They had no idea he was on their tail. Earlier, when he’d bumped into one of them, he’d put a tracker and listening device on the Niftrill’s coat.
It was simply so could hear everything they were saying—not that he expected to get what he wanted that way.
It was never that easy.
“If everything is okay, Bone Crusher,” the merchant interrupted his thoughts once again, “I would like to close the stall. I, um, have, um, business to attend to?”
Was that a question?
Ka’Cit’s eyes narrowed to slits.
Bone Crusher.
He hated that name.
He didn’t crush bones…he merely broke them.
There was a difference…really, there was.
But this wasn’t a time to get into conversation with some random merchant. He was on a job.
His gaze slid back to the moving Niftrills and his head cocked to the side a little as he watched them move.
In the sea that was the many beings at the Exchange, the Niftrills walked as a singular unit. In the listening device in his ear, he could hear they were chattering about nothing in particular.
There were about twenty of them, and only one had the information he needed.
Getting that information, though…that was going to prove difficult. He doubted the one he needed was going to randomly blurt out what he was seeking to hear.
Niftrills were a pack species. They lived in large groups, worked in large groups, and were vicious when one of them was threatened.
He would have to be careful. Nothing could really break them apart, and that was a problem because he only needed to speak to one of them—a specific one.
Getting that Niftrill alone was going to test his skills.
A smile played at the corners of his lips.
He liked a challenge.
He had to be discreet, however. He couldn’t let them know he was watching them. It would make them alert.
They weren’t the smartest of species, that’s why they depended on their collective, but his reputation may have preceded him. He could never be sure about that though, so it was best to play it safe.
For that reason, he turned back to face the merchant before him.
The merchant was still standing before him, his antennae trembling with each passing second.
For phek’s sake, he wasn’t that terrible. It wasn’t like he was going to reach across the stall and grab the merchant by the neck. Not unless the merchant gave him reason to—
“Lehtt mee goh!” The sound cut through the audio feedback he was getting from the Niftrills.
Ka’Cit froze.
“Ahm nhot whit yoo! Lisss-cen too mee!”
He was no language expert, but…he knew those sounds. He’d heard a language like that before…but where?
He twisted in the direction the Niftrills had gone, his gaze finding them without much difficulty.
In their huge brown cloaks, they walked like a rigid block. No random shoppers could get between them or break up their group.
Ka’Cit’s eyes narrowed as he watched them move. He wasn’t sure exactly what he’d expected to see.
Maybe the sound had come from a passerby.
“Puleez!”
Ka’Cit stood, ignoring the merchant who jumped in surprise.
That voice; those words.
It came to him then.
He knew that language. Well, he didn’t understand it, but he’d heard it before many times.
His friends Riv and Sohut had human females on their Sanctuary, and they spoke exactly like that.
His gaze searched the moving throng.
He didn’t see Riv or Sohut’s females.
He could still hear the voice coming from the device in his ear, but she was talking so fast now, her sounds no longer sounded like words.
Ka’Cit turned to look down the street behind him, and that’s when he caught the blonde hair of Riv’s mate. She was far down the street at a stall with sleeping units for chids. Riv was standing behind her.
Riv’s mate turned then, to talk to someone who wasn’t there, and he saw the moment her eyes widened in panic as her gaze darted around.
Something was wrong.
Ka’Cit’s gaze flew back to the moving Niftrills.
The phekkers moved quickly because of how they walked together.
Other shoppers simply moved out of the way when an impenetrable block was travelling in the other direction.
Was he going mad?
He was sure he’d heard…
But the more he stared at the Niftrills, he noticed the Niftrill in the center didn’t seem to be walking with the others. As a matter of fact, he seemed to be trying to break the formation and head in the opposite direction, to no avail because the others had formed a wall around him.
“—noht whit yoo gahys!”
Phek.
The one in the center squirmed and fought. In the scuffle, and for only a second, he caught sight of something.
A face covering. One like Riv wore.
His entire body froze and only his life organ gave
a huge thump.
It was one of the humans; he just knew it.
It wasn’t Riv’s mate, and it certainly wasn’t Sohut’s—Sohut’s Clee-yo was taller than that.
It had to be that other human female.
The one he’d seen only once.
She was a little thing, he remembered, almost the size of a Niftrill.
A glance back down the street to where Riv and his mate were standing, and he saw that Riv’s mate was frantic. She was shouting, her gaze searching, and her eyes were leaking fluid down her face.
He didn’t need to be the smartest Merssi to put together what must have happened, but he didn’t have time to go to Riv to tell him he’d seen where the human was—rather, it seemed, the direction in which she’d been taken.
Without so much of a second thought, Ka’Cit gripped the rail surrounding the stall and launched himself over it, extending his claws to slow himself down as he clung to the side of the building.
Niftrill worked on cargo ships and if they thought she was one of them, they were going to force the human into the ship to fulfill their work obligation. They might not even realize she wasn’t one of them till it was too late.
They weren’t so good in the eyesight department.
He’d have to go after her himself.
5
Ka’Cit cursed underneath his breath.
The Niftrills moved quickly.
He hadn’t intended to approach them, not until he’d seen an opening, but he also hadn’t planned for a human to get caught between them.
He was hoping that once they broke formation at the dock, he could snatch the human, return her to Riv and somehow get back to the ship before it took off.
He still needed to find and speak to that Niftrill.
But there was no catching up to them now.
There’d been no delay before they entered the ship.
No stopping to load crates or boxes, and he realized why that was. This was only the second group of Niftrills working for this ship. There was another group already there who’d done all the loading and unloading before this second group arrived.
Which cargo captain would need the help of so many Niftrills?
He got his answer almost immediately.
Movement caught his attention and instinctively, he slipped behind a huge barrel resting in the cargo yard.
Ka’Cit froze as the cargo merchant who owned the ship came into view.
A feeling of uneasiness suddenly fell across him.
He knew that merchant…he’d heard about her at least.
Her name was Herza—and she was Merssi…like him.
If a female cargo dealer wasn’t strange enough, one that was Merssi was even stranger.
Merssi females didn’t work.
They were provided for. Protected.
To see one carving a life for herself was…inspiring.
The only problem was…there was nothing even slightly redeeming about the merchant in front of him.
Phekking Herza.
Most beings didn’t know what she was, but he did.
They only saw the fact that she was Merssi and expected her to be docile—a pushover.
She’d lure beings that way, make them believe they could get ahead of her and then cut them down—most times, literally.
She was cut-throat and, in the underground, she was known to smuggle slaves for credits.
A growl started in his throat.
Herza’s tight-fitting dark clothing hung to her curves. Her long dark hair was almost to her waist, and she’d braided it and adorned it with trinkets like the ones Riv wore.
Her back was to him and her tail swished lazily in the air as she signed the cargo release form and handed it to one of the Niftrills
With a light step, she hopped on to the ship’s ramp, which was already closing.
Phek.
This might not be what it first seemed at all.
He doubted the human was registered. Hudo III had strict laws about registering refugees and they had to be sponsored. If Herza somehow found that out, she was probably going to try and smuggle the human female and sell her somewhere on the black market.
It would be easy.
There would be nothing to track the human.
This was bad, and bad timing too. He was on a job—one involving life and death, based on what he’d been told—and the star was already midway across the sky.
He checked his sat watch.
He had to help the human.
Herza wasn’t just going to let her go.
He was as sure of it as he was sure of his own tail slapping in agitation against the barrel beside him.
The human was in danger.
He couldn’t leave her to fend for herself.
She was probably scared out of her mind.
As the ramp began to seal the ship, a plan hatched in front of him.
It was a crazy one, but no one had ever accused him of being sane.
Slipping from behind the barrel, he slunk behind the various crates and stacks of cargo in his way as he headed toward the ship.
6
Nia blinked her eyes open.
Her head felt funny.
Usually when she woke up in the morning, it felt like she’d rested well, but this morning, it felt like she’d been rolling around on a rock.
There was movement as well. Her bed jostled and she groaned, thinking that Riv and Lauren were going at it so hard, they were actually making her bed shake.
“Set him down before the boss comes.”
Wait, she didn’t recognize that voice.
In an instant, her memory flooded back.
The assholes in the brown cloaks. They were carrying her, holding her arms and legs, and Nia began struggling immediately.
“Put me down you fucking idiots!”
They let go of her so suddenly, she fell on her back.
Ignoring the pain, she scrambled to her feet. There was still that pebble in her shoe, and it was a big one too, but she could hardly pay attention to it now as she tried to make sense of where she was.
There was no huge crowd or amazing shops with stalls anymore.
The aliens that had brought her here weren’t paying her any mind now, going off farther into the ship…FARTHER INTO THE SHIP?
For it was a ship. She knew for a fact that it was, as the ramp that led outside was slowly closing.
Panic shot through her as she tried to rush forward, but she was either too weak or her mind was still sluggish from the blow to her head because it didn’t feel like she was moving fast enough at all.
Just as the ramp was about to close fully, her path was blocked off by dark leather.
Nia’s gaze moved upward.
A tall alien female was looking down at her.
For a moment, Nia was caught off guard.
The alien woman was Merssi. Dark hair, blue skin, and those telltale ridges on the brow, nose, and chin—though they were nearly as pronounced as Riv and Sohut’s.
The alien’s gaze was hard and cold.
“Get back to work, Niftrill. I don’t pay you to be wasting time. There are crates to stack before we are cleared for orbit.” The female’s look was dismissive, but Nia had just about had it.
Maybe her disguise had been just too good.
She tore the hood from off her head, allowing her afro to spread free, and tore the face covering from over her nose and mouth.
She knew what she was doing was a risk, but she didn’t really have a choice, did she?
“I’m not a Nih-trill. See?” She gestured to her face. “I’m not supposed to even be here. This was a mistake. Sorry to bother you and all, but if you would kindly let me off your ship, I’d be thankful. This has all just been a mix up.”
The alien female paused, her eyes locking on to Nia.
Damn, she was a frickin’ tall female. Nia had to stretch her neck back to meet the alien’s gaze.
What’s worse, she couldn’t read what
was happening behind those cold, green eyes, but she didn’t break eye contact as she continued speaking.
“Your crew thought I was one of them and forced me on board. I’m not supposed to be here. I’m sorry for the intrusion but it couldn’t be helped.”
The alien female didn’t even blink.
She pushed whatever she was holding into the hands of one of her crew, and a snarl that made Nia’s skin crawl appeared on her face.
Shit.
The alien’s fangs flashed and her eyes lit up.
“Now what do we have here?”
She crouched a little so she was on Nia’s eye-level and Nia frowned.
“I’m sorry,” she glanced behind the female and tried to head toward the closing door to no avail, “but I don’t think you understand me and the door is closing.”
The alien moved to block her path. “You’re not supposed to be here,” the alien said.
Nia gave the alien a tight smile. “No shit. That’s what I’ve been trying to say, but I guess you can’t understand me.” She glanced at the crewmen. Most were working, some were looking her way. “I guess they couldn’t understand me either. I’ll take this as a huge error and we can simply get on our separate ways.”
She moved toward the door again and this time, the alien woman placed a heavy hand on her shoulder.
“You!” The alien shouted to one of her crew. “What is this?”
The crew she spoke to glanced at another.
Nia still couldn’t see their faces properly.
“I’m talking to you, fool. What is this?”
“He was with us on the streets, my queen.”
Queen?
Nia eyed the female. Queen of this ship, maybe?
Riv and Sohut never mentioned their species having a queen, and she wasn’t quite sure a queen would be wearing skin-tight leather and working in what looked like a cargo ship.
“He?” She eyed Nia again. “Doesn’t look like one of you, does it now?”
The crew member shrugged and the alien female muttered under her breath. “Qeffing idiots.”
Nia’s eyes were on the door. The closer it came to closing, the more her panic grew, and she headed toward it again.
The alien female’s hand pressed into her shoulder, halting her movement.
“Hold it!” She popped something from her waist.
