by Layla Nash
Vaant kept his attention on the Xaravians as they drew closer to boarding the Galaxos, his grip on the portal firm. Griggs started to ask questions, all businesslike despite that Vrix looked at her like a starving beast, and Frrar braced to have to explain yet again when the bay doors whooshed open. He scowled as he looked back and found the wide-eyed Earther doctor, Maisy, hurrying to catch up to Griggs.
She was the very last person Frrar wanted there when his bastard brother stepped onto the Galaxos. Maisy was too beautiful and too innocent and too very sweet. Faros wouldn’t be able to resist the urge to ruin her, to drag her away and spoil her, then leave her to die alone. He’d done it before.
Frrar strode over to intercept the doctor before she could get more than a few feet into the room, his voice low. “You need to leave. Immediately.”
She jerked away as if he’d threatened her and her mouth fell open as she stared at him, then he caught sight of the red around her eyes and filtered through everything he’d heard from Vaant and Vrix about what it meant when the Earther women turned red. It wasn’t good, regardless of how or when it happened.
Maisy drew her shoulders up and back and fixed him with a stare that might have been furious, if it hadn’t been spoiled with a slight wobble in her voice. “There was a distress call and they might need a doctor. I’m not leaving.”
“It’s too dangerous,” he said, trying to shoo her back through the bay doors as he heard the airlock decompress and Vaant prepared to let the pirates board the Galaxos. “We’ll call if there’s a need for a doctor. Go back to the sick bay.”
Her lips thinned until they almost disappeared and her dark eyes flashed as she clenched her tiny soft hands into fists. “I’m. Not. Leaving.”
Frrar’s scales rattled in irritation. She’d done the same thing when he tried to keep her on the ship when they were searching for Jessalyn after she was kidnapped. Trazzak entrusted Frrar with the ship and the doctor as Trazzak went to rescue the other Earther from a pirate hub, and instead of staying put like a sensible person, Maisy took off into the incredibly dangerous floating port to find her friend. And then Frrar had almost died getting into a shootout to keep the Alliance from stealing the ship, stranding them all on the port, and probably getting them all killed. “You. Should. Go.”
Maisy’s eyes narrowed even more and moisture coated her lashes and she... stomped her foot. “No.”
He took a deep breath and reached for her arm, ready to drag her out of there since she didn’t seem inclined to listen to reason, but Maisy yanked her arm away and avoided him until she managed to sidle up next to Griggs. The prickly security officer wasn’t nearly as happy to see Maisy as the doc was to see her. “You’re supposed to be in sick bay.”
“And you’re supposed to be in the security office,” Maisy said under her breath.
Frrar scowled and traded looks with Vrix, then reached for Maisy once more. “I’ll take her back to sick bay.”
As Maisy wound up for an absolutely deafening argument, the airlock finally released and loud Xaravian voices filled the dock. Frrar froze, his eyes closing as one particular voice cut through the air and right through his scales. Too late.
Faros’s deep words made his scales rattle, and Frrar prepared for battle. “I’ve heard much of your adventures, Vaant. It’s good to see you’ve made a warrior of my little brother.”
Frrar growled as he faced his brother, hands clenched at his sides. He tossed the stunner aside. He’d use his blade and his hands to finally kill the bastard, and that would be the end of it.
Chapter 3
Maisy
Maisy held her ground as Frrar tried to send her out of the bay, and was mostly glad she did when the rough-looking Xaravians from the other ship finally reached the Galaxos. The strangers looked completely worse for wear—even for Xaravians, who all tended to be kind of ragged. Vaant greeted the newcomers while Vrix hung back, Griggs next to him, and Frrar turned an angry red.
The leader of the newcomers had an easy smile filled with sharp teeth, unusual for the Xaravians, and he was just as big as Vaant and Vrix. He wore the traditional Xaravian robes that made it difficult to tell how broad-shouldered he was, but the billowing fabric did not hide the dark blood congealing on the Xaravian’s front and side and legs. Maisy blinked, adjusting her grip on the medical bag. She wouldn’t be intimidated by them.
The newcomer didn’t lean on anyone else, despite the obvious pain, and shook Vaant’s arm before his attention turned to Frrar. “Nothing to say, brother?”
The Xaravian next to Maisy stiffened and a soft growl rose in his chest. “No.”
Vrix glanced between the two warriors and very carefully maneuvered Griggs behind him, though the security officer tried to peek over his shoulder to see what was happening. Maisy frowned, trying to read what caused the tension in the room; if they were brothers, surely there wasn’t a reason for so much hostility?
She hefted her bag and stepped forward, putting on her business-like doctor face. “Where are you injured?”
All eyes turned on her, and the new Xaravian’s smile slid wider as he studied her from head to toe. “And who are you?”
“Dr. Cunningham,” she said, despite that she could feel her cheeks start to heat under his scrutiny. The two Xaravians who’d arrived with him from the other ship also eyed her. She refused to be intimidated by the incredibly fearsome warriors. She was a doctor, they all looked injured, and they’d boarded the Galaxos after sending a distress signal. Clearly they were in distress of some kind, despite looking hungry more than hurt. “The ship’s doctor. Do you require medical care?”
“Yes,” the stranger said, just as Frrar growled, “No.”
The stranger didn’t even glance at the other Xaravian. “I’ve never been treated by an Earther. This should be interesting.”
Maisy ignored the scrutiny as well as the disapproval radiating from Frrar. “Great. I’ve never been anyone’s first. Let’s go.”
Griggs snorted as Maisy turned on her heel to lead the way to the sick bay, and it was only then that Maisy actually heard what she’d just said. And her whole face burned and she went lightheaded and wanted to run instead of walk, so she could hide in some of the cupboards instead of having to confront any of the Xaravians who were trying to parse out what she’d meant. Maisy kept moving, holding up a hand to fend off Griggs as the security officer jogged to catch up and grinned so widely Maisy could almost count her back teeth. “I don’t want to hear it. Who the hell are those guys?”
“Pirates,” Griggs said. She glanced back but kept up easily. “Or rebels. Or both. They’re all kind of fuzzy on the details. I didn’t know you’d never been anyone’s first, Maisy.” And she grinned more.
“I hate you right now,” Maisy said. She slammed her palm against the wall next to the sick bay so the doors opened, clipping her shoulder on the left one since it was always slower than the other. She tossed her bag onto the counter and went to the main gurney, pulling a fresh sheet across it, and glanced at the half-asleep ensign with his wonky arm. “Get your brute of a man to have someone take this little chick back to his quarters.”
Griggs chuckled and waggled her eyebrows. “Don’t get all flustered just because you accidentally flirted with the big handsome pirate.”
Maisy gripped the rail of the gurney and wished her head would just explode. She’d never felt so much like a joke around the rest of her crewmates. “Get out.”
The security officer glanced at the half-open doors, rolling her eyes. “Come on, Maisy, I’m just teasing, it’s completely—”
“Get. Out.”
Griggs blinked and all amusement disappeared. “Maisy, what—”
She’d had enough. She’d really had enough. “I’m serious, Griggs. Get out.”
Silence answered, then Griggs cleared her throat and went to the gurney with the half-conscious ensign. “Let’s go, kid. Vrix is on his way and won’t want to see you slacking off.”
The young
Xaravian scrambled up and headed out the door, still clutching his injured arm to his chest, and almost ran into Vrix and the three pirates as they loomed in the hallway. Maisy pushed away her irritation and the embarrassment from Griggs’s teasing, and folded her arms over her chest as she waited for the four aliens to enter her sick bay. She was mistress of her domain. She was the doctor. She would heal them, patch them up. She could finally prove to everyone how capable and strong she was.
The big Xaravian with the easy smile stepped into the sick bay and looked around, carefully shedding the first layer of outer robes. Vrix remained near the malfunctioning doors, frowning at the mechanism, then glanced at Frrar as he lingered in the hall. “Can you get these working properly?”
The engineer scowled but started to take apart the wall next to the doors; Maisy relaxed a little just from knowing Vrix and Frrar would remain close, even though she definitely wasn’t afraid of the pirates. She could tranquilize all three of them if she needed to.
She pointed the leader at the main gurney. “Hop up. What caused the injuries?”
His eyebrow rose and the long tangled strands of his dark hair revealed quite a few bones as he sat on the edge of the gurney and shrugged out of the rest of the outer robes. He wore only sand-colored trousers, disappearing into knee-high soft boots. His massive scaled shoulders flexed as he maneuvered his right arm to glance at the huge furrows something had ripped from his chest, across his shoulder, and around to his side. “A little haugmawt guarding a transport ship this time.”
Holy crap. Maisy had seen a lot of broken bones, laser burns, stunner wounds, and even some stab wounds from the rowdy crew of the Argo before they’d been sold by the captain, but she’d never seen anything like the deep claw gouges the Xaravian was walking around with, as if they were no more than annoying splinters. Blood still leaked from the wounds. She just looked at it, trying to devise a plan to treat what should have been shock-inducing damage, and yet the Xaravian seemed completely unperturbed as Vrix asked him something about the rebellion.
She swallowed her trepidation and instead looked at the other two pirates, pointing them at the other gurneys. The two went silently and shed their outer robes, revealing wounds nowhere near as severe as their leader. So at least she had sort of triaged the three. Maisy snapped on gloves and recharged one of the wound regeneration pods, holding her breath as she approached the pirate.
He didn’t notice her efforts to treat his wounds as he answered Vrix. “We were in unclaimed space when a ship attacked us. They were flagged as neutral but everything about them said Alliance. We fought of course, but they managed to board and caused a spot of trouble.”
He smiled at her, silver eyes flashing, and Maisy kept her expression schooled to indifference. She was professional, capable, and reserved. She wasn’t going to be intimidated or charmed by a patient.
Vrix ran his nails down the scales on his arm, his eyebrow arched. “They managed to board? Seems... unlikely.”
The pirate grinned, leaning back on his arms as he studied the wounds on his chest. “They may have believed we were... something other than we are. They were surprised.”
“I’m certain they were,” Vrix said. “Why did you think they were Alliance?”
“They chased us after we... borrowed something from the Alliance.” The Xaravian frowned a little as he watched her work on his side, sealing the wounds and reinforcing the plating of his scales. He was huge and radiated heat, the lazy swirling of colors in his scales distracting as she tried to concentrate. “A neutral ship wouldn’t give chase like that, especially into neutral space.”
Vrix’s expression darkened. “You stole something from an Alliance-affiliated ship, got caught, got chased by a neutral ship into neutral space, got boarded, and then killed the crew?”
“We didn’t kill anyone,” the pirate said. “We may have encouraged them to seek employment on a nearby ice planet, but they were all alive when we left them.”
“Typical,” Frrar said from the doorway.
The other Xaravians glanced in his direction, and the pirate stiffened just a touch. “Do you have something to contribute, Frrar?”
“Like you—no, nothing of substance.”
Maisy frowned as she looked at the engineer, puzzled. He could be bristly and overbearing on occasion, like when he tried to keep her from helping Jess on that awful pirate rest stop, but he’d never acted like a total brute before. And he looked about half a second from killing the warrior who was supposed to be his brother.
Vrix wasn’t entertained. “Set aside your issues until we sort this out, then you can go to the gym and beat on each other until you’re bloody.”
“Excuse me,” Maisy said, her irritation and uneasiness getting the better of her. All of the Xaravians staring at her didn’t help. “If you’re going to fight, could you get that out of the way before I bother to heal anyone up? I don’t like having to re-do all my work.”
Frrar stared at her like she’d grown a second head, and the pirate started to chuckle before he inclined his head in a courteous gesture. “My apologies, Doc. I won’t undo your handiwork until at least tomorrow.”
“See that you don’t,” she said under her breath, certain her whole face was red, and bent once more to study the way the claw marks gouged under his arm and across his back. She retrieved another wound regeneration pod and handed it to Vrix, pointing at a second pirate. “Make yourself useful and put that on him.”
Maisy was still surprised when they listened to her, more so because the grim Vrix actually took the pod and slapped it onto the injured warrior. She took a deep breath and left the main pirate to finish up with the third pirate. At least the day was somewhat more interesting than she’d expected. The Galaxos continued on her way to one of the planets known as being a waystation in the intergalactic slave trade, to help some previous acquaintances rescue some survivors, and now there was a pirate ship attached to them.
She sighed and got another capsule from the bin against the wall that Griggs hadn’t bothered to shut or lock. So much for a chance to actually prove she could stand on her own, when she had at least two chaperones as she did her job. Maisy fumed as her thoughts drifted to Griggs’s ridiculous bullshit teasing.
Chapter 4
Frrar
Frrar wouldn’t have left Maisy alone with his brother for a blink, even with Vrix there, so it was a shred of good luck that the sick bay doors malfunctioned and gave him a reason to linger nearby. The delicate Earther liked to think she was as rough and tough as some of the other Earther women, but Frrar knew she wasn’t—and he preferred that. Maisy was calm and sweet and soft, looking only at good things and hopeful outcomes and the healing power of her knowledge. He found all kinds of reasons to linger near the sick bay, whether to fix the doors or tinker with the machinery or anything, just to be near her. Being in her presence relaxed him, even if he didn’t know why.
So he couldn’t trust Faros anywhere near her, because his brother would crush that out of her.
Faros remained on the gurney, content to watch Maisy work on his second-in-command, and kicked his heels against the metal contraption that held it up. “So we find ourselves in a bit of a situation, Vrix. I need to go after the other ships that were supporting the neutral one that attacked us, but we need a bit of assistance.”
“We’ve already got pressing business elsewhere,” Vrix said. At least he didn’t sound particularly perturbed about not helping Frrar’s brother. “The nearest rebel base will be your best bet.”
Faros shook his head, almost dislodging the healing pod thing that Maisy had set on his shoulder, and she scowled as she went to adjust it once more with a stern warning to stop fussing.
Frrar folded his arms over his chest and leaned against the doorway, scowling at his brother. “They can’t go to the rebel bases anymore.”
“I see the rumors have reached you even here,” Faros said, his eyes darkening as he glared at Frrar. “We’re trying to mainta
in some distance from the rebellion, so the rest of our activities don’t reflect poorly on the overall effort. Not all of our missions are sanctioned, Vrix, but it is all in service to the rebellion. We don’t need much in the way of assistance, and it will be temporary until we can circle back to Xarav and pick up the rest of the crew.”
“What kind of assistance, then?” Vrix asked. “I won’t promise anything.”
“We just need to borrow a few personnel,” Faros said. “Just for this mission. We go after the ships, seize their cargo, turn the crew over to the authorities, and we’ll be back before your mission is even started. Nothing more.” And he smiled charmingly, as if Vrix would be swayed by his ridiculous bullshit.
Vrix’s eyes narrowed. “You want to take our crew?”
“A doctor and an engineer,” Faros said, holding his hands up as if to deny wanting to go shopping among the Galaxos personnel. “Or a medic. Ours had to go back to Xarav on some family business, and we haven’t been able to find any clinics to treat us. Which is why we hailed you.”
Frrar shook his head, knowing that Mrax would never agree to go out on a mission with pirates. And engineers... He was the only engineer on the Galaxos, unless they wanted to count the crazy Earther engineer, Rowan, who was like walking chaos. Frrar considered himself a bit of a mad genius when it came to machinery, but the Earther was absolutely fearless. Which made her terrifying to work around.
Faros was still talking about the engineering requirements, something to do with the propulsion system as well as the communications suite. Despite the sleek expensive ship, apparently they had some bugs in the tech. Which was just what they deserved, since chances were they’d stolen the ship from a far more deserving crew.
“Frrar is our chief engineer,” Vrix said, his tone guarded. “I doubt he wants to go, but—”
