Now, half starved, the crew were on the edge of despair. When they weren’t snapping at each other, they were withdrawn and sullen.
Even though Adriana had cut rations at the first sign of trouble, and reduced them again after the first month passed, the ship’s nutrition supplies were almost exhausted.
Their cargo included lockers full of DNA samples of many Earth animals considered essential to human survival. So far Adrianna had refused to activate those animals so they could be turned into food, but every day that passed brought her closer to a difficult decision.
“Captain?” Costas called from behind her.
Hearing sharp excitement in his voice, she swiveled to face him.
“We have excellent compatibility readings from a nearby planet.” His voice quavered, suspended between hope and disbelief.
Adriana’s heart tried to hammer its way out of her chest. She rose and walked slowly to the engineer’s station. Almost unable to speak, she forced out a single word. “Details?”
“Triple A. It’s a rare, almost-twin planet to Earth.” The data flashed on the screen at lightning speed. Costas read the important points out loud. “Same atmosphere. Benign planet surface.” His hand trembled as he touched one display after another. “Humanoid species, two. Similar flora and fauna. Little perceptible pollution. Clean air and water. It’s what we’ve been looking for all this time.”
Adriana didn’t trust her eyes or her ears. For years they’d only seen an occasional planet that was even borderline habitable but nothing like the Earth-twin they’d been sent to find.
Now here it was when they needed it most.
This was too good to be true which of course meant it couldn’t be trusted. But what choice did she have? If the Condor6 sailed much longer without repairs, it would end up a ghost ship.
She swallowed hard, almost choking on the last specks of her ration pellet. “We have sufficient fuel to lock and land?” Adriana knew the answer, but she wanted to hear his confirmation anyway.
“Affirmative, captain.” Costas’s hands froze over his screen, his voice lowered.
“But?”
“It will be a hard landing, captain. I can’t ensure crew safety.”
She knew that too, but it didn’t stop a cold chill running down her spine.
Ever since the navigation system had fried, Costas and she had shared a secret. They’d held onto an emergency fuel reserve, enough to enable exactly one landing. One rough landing.
Launching from and landing on gravity-dense planets drained massive amounts of fuel. If she decided to land, there would be no second chance. If this planet didn’t welcome them as new settlers, she’d have to hope they could get the resources to make good their repairs and refuel in order to return to space.
Costas bent his head over his console, as though he didn’t want to look at her, as though he feared she might destroy this thin thread of hope.
She resisted wiping her eyes which were blurry from hunger. She didn’t want to make the slightest gesture that could be construed as fear. Not at this critical moment. A leader should never show weakness.
“Lieutenant, set coordinates. This may be our last hope,” she said.
Costas’s body sagged with relief. “Yes, Captain.”
By the time she reached her seat on the far side of the bridge, the ship’s alert system was blasting all decks. Lights flashed. Sirens sounded between announcements.
The Condor6 is preparing to land.
All crew assume emergency landing positions.
Brace for a hard landing.
The last thing to register on Adriana’s consciousness was a stream of lights bleeding past her as her ship hurtled toward a green-blue planet.
Kaljeet Perac, overlord of the continent of Senne, stood in the eastern turret of his castle with his telescope focused on the bright spring skies.
“Eight degrees, my lord.” Penrath Sidle, his second in command, pointed at his opticscreen.
Kaljeet nodded. He’d already found the starship, a dot in the highest atmosphere, and was monitoring its descent. The nation’s tractor beams were locked on it, guiding it to the spot awaiting its arrival.
“Let’s go meet the aliens,” Kaljeet said.
Packing their scopes into leather cases, the two blue-skinned men trotted across the covered parapet walk and took the narrow, curved staircase that led down two floors to the inner courtyard. They traded their telescopes for firearms at the watchhouse before striding toward the faraway woods that hemmed the landing side. Junior officers fell into step behind them.
The distress call from the Condor6 had first reached Devmaer the day before. Kaljeet had called his highest-ranking officers to an emergency meeting and shared with them the details of the urgent message.
The ship was manned by a crew of forty humans from a planet called Earth in a faraway galaxy. Kaljeet had conferenced with scientists from all five nations on Devmaer. No one had heard of this galaxy, this planet, or this species. Because their distress call identified them as a species similar to the one already on Devmaer, and because the number of crew on board was too small to pose a serious threat, it was agreed to lower Devmaer’s cloaking shields when the craft drew closer.
Kaljeet then promised the leaders of the four other nations that Senne would screen the arrivals and determine what to do with them.
Ever since that meeting had adjourned, he’d been waiting to see what sport this new species might offer him.
None of the other leaders wanted any part of the alien craft or its crew. All the risk was his. If anything bad came with the new arrivals, it would be his to deal with. Likewise, any spoils would be his as well.
Reflexively he touched the pistol in his belt and ran his hand over his scabbard. He had little patience these days for anything or anyone that challenged his authority. They’d learn to heed his will quickly or he’d happily dispatch them to the world beyond.
Chapter two
Kaljeet watched the Condor6 bowl down from the sky. Senne’s high-powered tractor beams slowed its descent somewhat, but the final landing was hard, as he’d predicted. The starship hit the ground at a fearsome force, burying itself deep in the ground.
The spectators stood a safe distance back and waited for the dust to settle. All that was visible was the top dome of the craft, which was about fifty feet wide. At Kaljeet’s signal, his engineers dug down until they found doors which they pried open. Once they had access to the interior of the ship, they pumped in a cloud of perfume from vildehair flowers. The natural sedative would render the occupants of the starship extremely relaxed, easy to overpower.
The door was closed again and Kaljeet and his troops stood and waited for the vildehair perfume to work its way to all levels. When the alchemist gave her signal, the doors were reopened.
Kaljeet, wearing a breathing mask, was the first to enter. He was unsurprised by the quiet interior until he came to the first barracks room. The bodies draped over the beds were clearly emaciated. He sent word back to the troops that they needed to assemble all the healers they could find.
Senne was about to be tested as a nation, both its decency to frail beings and its ability to assimilate foreigners.
Kaljeet wasn’t interested in the lower ranking crew. He was searching for the ship’s captain. He wanted to see who dared to ask to land on his planet.
When Adriana started to regain consciousness, she found herself still strapped into her command seat. They were no longer moving, and a deep impenetrable fog clouded her head. They’d landed hard, at far too fast a speed, and she assumed that the G-forces had knocked her out.
“Need oxygen,” she said to the silent bridge. No one responded.
Inhaling deeply, she enjoyed the gentle scent that had filled the starship. Was that the fragrance of the atmosphere on this planet? It was more pleasant than any perfume she’d ever smelled.
The deeper she breathed
the more she relaxed. An irrepressible urge to giggle seized her, which was odd. She wasn’t the giggling type. Never had been. Never would be.
There was nothing funny about the situation they were in.
She scanned the windows of the bridge. What was she looking at? A dirt wall? Had they hit with so much force that they were buried underground? Fuck. The Condor6 wouldn’t be sailing anywhere soon.
The two other crew on the bridge were both slumped in their seats. From where she sat, they appeared to be sleeping. Before she could release her harness to check them, a murmur of voices reached her from the passage off the bridge.
Quickly she settled back into her seat and feigned unconsciousness. She wanted time to evaluate the people from this planet before answering their questions. Undoing her holster, she released the safety on her laser pistol.
The voices drew closer, almost at the bridge. She touched her wrist, activating her translator implant, and listened to the approaching conversation.
“Looks like we found the bridge, Penrath,” a deep voice said.
“Is one of these the leader?” another deep voice asked in the deferential tone of a subordinate.
Adriana sensed their physical presence without seeing them.
“Check shoulder flashes,” the senior one said. “This one looks like an officer, but not the commander.”
“Same here, Kaljeet,” Penrath said from the other side of the bridge.
“So, that means this one must be the commander.” The more authoritative one, Kaljeet, was beside her now. His crisp woodsy- jasmine smell reached her. A pair of gentle hands unfastened her harness, lifted her out of her seat, and laid her on the floor as effortlessly as if she’d been a sleeping cat. “They’re puny looking, aren’t they?”
It took every ounce of willpower for Adriana to keep her eyes closed, to continue the pretense of unconsciousness. She longed to see the creature handling her, the one who spoke with both curiosity and disappointment. But she maintained her possum strategy because as soon as she engaged with them, the conversation would be more guarded. She’d learn far less.
“Is she angry?” Penrath asked.
“I don’t think so.” Kaljeet ran a large hand through her thick copper-colored hair, loosening the braid that had held it in place. “This species may be like Kedrants. Perhaps their hair never changes color.”
“Ugly pasty skin,” Penrath said with derision.
The last of Adriana’s resolve evaporated at that remark. She’d been living in a starship for two years with only occasional refueling stops. Shore leave for senior officers was always heavily restricted. Of course, she was pale. What starship commander walked around with a golden tan?
The comment struck her as absurd. Once she began to chuckle, she couldn’t stop. Her anxiety over their predicament of so many months, along with the overwhelming relief that they had finally landed, poured out of her in a long, deep belly laugh.
Her eyes flew open and she gasped in astonishment at the two blue faces staring down at her. They were both wearing masks fitted with breathing filters and she wondered if the atmosphere on this planet was dangerous. Had the Condor6 sensors failed to catch a threat?
Kaljeet was kneeling over her. His amethyst eyes studied her the way her biology professor used to examine samples collected from other planets. She laughed harder at the notion of being someone’s lab specimen, even though part of her brain was screaming at her to stop. She might be in danger. Her response was inappropriate to her situation.
Penrath stood a few feet away, his arms folded over his chest as though to protect himself from whatever mania had seized her.
She pushed herself up to a sitting position and struggled to suppress her giggles. The harder she tried to stop laughing, the funnier her situation seemed.
“She’s got vildehair fits,” Penrath said from his safe distance.
Kaljeet’s long blue hair turned from blue to black as he watched her. The expression in his eyes changed quickly from cool indifference to something much more dangerous. Now he regarded her with a sharp primal hunger that was the same across all species everywhere.
He stood and raised her to her feet. “Kaljeet,” he said, pointing to himself.
Adriana bit her lip to sober herself. “Greetings Kaljeet. I am Captain Adriana Brennan, commander of the Condor6, a starship from planet Earth. Thank you for allowing us to land on your planet.”
“It is good that you have excellent interpreter technology. I think you will be guests on our planet of Devmaer for a long time.” Kaljeet made a sweeping motion around the bridge. “As you can see, your craft has landed with an impact that means its days of sailing the galaxies are over.”
His statement was like a bucket of ice water thrown in her face, even though she’d already guessed the situation. Hearing it declared out loud made it more final. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying welcome to Devmaer where you and your crew will learn to serve me, your new lord, for the years to come.”
As his words sank in, Adriana fought the urge to both laugh and cry at once. This was a bad dream which was odd because all her nightmares had been about her crew starving to death in the infinity of space. She’d never imagined her people, the crew she was bound to serve and protect, becoming enslaved to an alien species.
She couldn’t allow this to happen. She wouldn’t allow it to happen.
She drew herself up to her full height of almost six feet and found she still had to bend her neck to look up at Kaljeet.
“We are a free people from a free planet.” She spoke evenly, calmly. “We will be subjugated to no one. If our spacecraft is beyond repair, all we need is a small amount of land where we can establish a self-sufficient colony in keeping with the Intergalactic Treaty of CE 2603.”
Kaljeet’s eyes smiled at her over his mask. With one calloused finger, he lifted her chin just a little higher. “Devmaer never signed that treaty. You come to our planet, you live by our rules. In my realm that means you live by my rules. You are now my property and will learn to obey and submit to me.”
As he spoke, his hair changed from black to red before returning to the same blue color as his skin.
She stepped away from him, her hand flying to her holster only to discover that her weapon was missing.
Kaljeet held up the pistol. “Looking for this? You won’t need it where I’m taking you.”
With a single lunge, he covered the distance between the two of them. He picked Adriana up and threw her over his shoulder. “Penrath, get me an inventory of what’s on this craft. Make sure the crew and any live cargo are cared for. The captain is my personal bounty.”
As Kaljeet carried her up the two floors to the open hatch, Adriana tried to make sense of what was happening. Then he stepped out of the Condor6 and carried her up and over the mound of dirt that had been displaced by the hard landing. He stopped on the other side of it and set her down. She was standing on a patch of grass-like growth at the edge of a dense forest of unrecognizable trees.
Watching her reaction to her surroundings, he removed his mask. As she met his eyes, a broad smile brightened his face, revealing two rows of straight white teeth. He was a handsome man, she thought, despite the blue skin.
She took a deep breath. The air out here smelled different than whatever was in the starship. That explained his breathing mask and her attack of the giggles.
The massive hole in the ground commanded her attention. It appeared that Condor6 had driven itself five stories underground.
That realization made her head swim again. The physical stress brought on by months of hunger, along with the impact of the hard landing, had exhausted her and she felt herself falling.
Before she hit the ground, Kaljeet swept her back over his shoulder.
Chapter three
As Kaljeet walked back to his castle, proudly carrying his prize, he suppressed a smile that would have telegraphed his happiness. A new day was dawning.
He’d gone to the starship intending to imprison its captain and crew but one look at the copper-headed beauty had changed all of that.
Now the sun shone brighter than it had for years. For the first time since the death of his beloved Maisy, fresh hope stirred inside him.
Friends had presented many available women for his approval, both Devmaerean and Kedrant. None of them had triggered more than a ripple of carnal interest.
Then Adriana laughed, light and musical, and something in his gut tightened, the same way it had in another lifetime with another female. He thought that feeling would never return, despite his friends’ assurances.
So maybe they’d been right after all. It was possible to find love more than once in a lifetime.
For all that he wanted to own Adriana, to claim her as his, he’d made himself do the right thing. At least he’d offered her the chance to walk on her own. Only as she fell into his arms did he realize how malnourished she was.
The woman had spirit. As shaky as she was, she’d reached for her weapon to protect herself inside the spacecraft.
Then, even though she’d just shown she was too weak to walk on her own, she argued about being carried over his shoulder. When he’d ignored her protests, she’d pounded on his back in protest. In response to that, she’d wriggled hard, attempting to escape. A few sound smacks had put an end to that nonsense. She was a fast learner. Good.
He carried her to his suite, calling for his healer to attend immediately. Rayslie, his personal physician, arrived hot on his heels.
“Lay her on the bed,” Rayslie said. “Then go run a bath for her. Poor thing could probably use one after life on a ship.”
Kaljeet worked slowly in the bathroom, straining to listen to what was being said in the next room. Rayslie spoke in a near whisper, as though trying to calm a potentially dangerous animal. Unable to make out what she was saying, he balanced the water temperature, added bubble bath, and set out clean towels.
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