by T. S. Ryder
Before she could speak, the click of boots sounded. Both Sara and Bond turned. A second T'shav was strolling up the gangplank. It was the one from before in the fighting ring, the one that had walked away. Bigger, broader than Bond, his skin a darker red.
Giant claws were sprouting from his shoeless feet. An acrid scent hit Sara's nose and she drew back, her body instantly telling her to throw herself at this new alien. He was in musth, and the look he was giving her had her mouth going dry. Fear flooded her; it was only then that she realized that she wasn't afraid of Bond, but this new guy was a completely different story.
Bond brought his sword up. "You again?"
"Me."
"What are you doing here?"
"I came for the girl. I know who you are," the older T'shav said. "I wasn't about to risk your father's wrath coming down on my head by killing you in the arena. But from what I've been listening to, the girl doesn't even know she's your supposed Starmate… if such things even exist."
Sara repressed a gasp. She knew only a little about the T'shav notion of Starmates, but it was essentially soulmates with a spacy twist. Was that the reason Bond had fought for her? Because he thought she was his Starmate? That's ridiculous.
"You said you were hired to retrieve her."
Sara's heart nearly stopped. "Hired by who?"
"Nobody, Blue. I lied about why I was fighting for you. The truth is, I need a woman to help me through my musth. You're a woman." The T'shav grinned at her, though he didn't take his eyes off Bond for long. "Don't worry about all this talk of consent. By the time I'm done with you, you won't remember your name, let alone—"
Bond sprang lithely forward. The sword came down, but the other T'shav sidestepped him. The sword sunk into the floor and stuck there. Bond grunted as a fist collided with his ribs. He abandoned the sword, blocking another blow that came at him. They parted and Bond drew two daggers. They flashed in his hands, but the older alien dodged him. He was quick and slammed a closed fist to Bond's shoulder.
Bond stumbled. Sara gasped, looking around wildly for something to help with. The sword Bond had dropped was too heavy for her, even if she could get it free. The T'shav howled as Bond drove one of his daggers into his thigh, but responded with a blow to Bond's stomach that had him backing away, wheezing. She spied a wrench nearby, and as the older T'shav punched Bond in the face while he stabbed his shoulder, she ran for it.
There was no time to think. Bond had twisted his body so that the older T'shav's back was to Sara. Clutching the wrench, she raced forward and brought it down on the beast's skull with all her strength. Bond followed it up with a knife through the alien's ribs. Blood splattered as the second blade swiped across his throat.
Bond let the T'shav drop. He grabbed Sara's hand and pulled her into what appeared to be a training room. "Are you okay?"
Sara stared at her bloody clothes. "I've killed before. I'm a lieutenant in the Corps."
"That's not what I asked."
She straightened herself and nodded. She had seen friends die. The death of some animal that was planning on raping her wasn't going to get to her. "I'm fine."
"We need to leave," Bond said. "He might have friends. I'll get rid of the body once we're in space."
Once we're in space. Sara nodded again. Her old bucket wasn't going anywhere, anyway, and if he was her only way out of this planet full of scumbags… Well, better be with him than stay here.
Chapter Four: Tom
For the first few days after they left the planet behind, Sara didn't leave the bedroom. Tom's ship was a one-person luxury vessel, equipped with bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, training, and entertainment rooms. Yet, with Sara squirreling away in the bedroom and not by his side, the space suddenly felt too big.
Tom wasn't certain what to do about the situation. It wasn't as though he had never been with a woman before, but none of them had been his Starmate. The T'shav believed that souls were born of stars before they were placed into physical bodies, again and again, until the star had learned all it needed to and grew cold. Sometimes there were two souls belonging to one star, or one soul split in two, depending on who you talked to. Those two souls would always find each other, no matter what life they were born into.
Sara wasn't T'shav, though, and she might not understand the concept of being Starmates. She was human. He hadn't told her that he had figured out that she was originally from Earth, although it had been fairly obvious after spending only a little time with her.
Human DNA was universal, meaning that it shared all its elements with the other species. Thus, it was in high demand. Anyone knowing she was human would put her in grave danger. He wanted to tell her that he knew and she was safe with him, but it would be best to wait until there was a little more trust between them. Being killed by his Starmate because she was afraid of what he'd do to her wasn't something Tom wanted to experience.
He was cutting up the tender shoot of a hissu plant, considering how to approach her with this knowledge. The sound of the door opening heralded her approach, and Tom turned, giving her a brief smile. "I hope you're hungry."
"Starving." Sara pulled herself up onto a stool and put her elbows on the counter he was working at. Her brow furrowed. "Doesn't this thing come equipped to deliver ready-made meals?"
"Yes, it does, but I like the sensation of cooking my own food. There's an art and grace to it. Like dancing."
"Maybe to the way you do it," Sara mumbled, focused on his hands as she watched him work. Her cheeks took on a faint purple tinge.
Tom had to smirk at the slightest sweet scent coming from her. When he first noticed how much he turned her on simply by doing menial tasks, he thought for sure that they would be pledging themselves to one another before they reached the next planet in his course. Sara was stubborn, though, and didn't let her deliciously curvy body dictate her actions. He admired that about her, as much as it pained him to wake up in the morning, stiff in more ways than one, frustrated by the lack of her body in his arms.
"There's something I have to ask you," Sara said, then hesitated.
Tom turned to put the hissu in a frying pan. It was a tactic he learned from his father. When a woman wasn't sure she wanted to say what she was going to say, continue about your work so that she didn't feel pressured to speak.
"Hey, can you look at me?" Sara slid off the stool, marching to block his path. "I told you I have something to ask you and you walk away?"
Tom opened his mouth to tell her he was listening but closed it. "Sorry. What did you want to say?"
"Well, first, I never thanked you. For, uh, killing that other T'shav. And fighting for me in the arena, I guess. I mean, you did sort of save me."
"I did," Tom agreed, grinning at how reluctantly she admitted it.
"But why did you? I mean, I could understand not backing down from the T'shav if it was a territorial thing or whatever. And I could understand wanting me for your musth—"
"I told you, I would never—"
"It wouldn't take much to get me to consent pre-musth right now," Sara interrupted, wrinkling her nose. "You're damned sexy. It would be a terrible idea, though, so don't start getting ideas. I don't have any birth control and I've looked through your cupboards. You don't either. But we're getting off track. Do you think I'm your Starmate?"
Tom cleaned off his knife and began sautéing the plant, giving himself time to think. Obviously, he was going to tell her the truth, but how exactly should he go about doing so? "Do you know what Starmates are?"
"Soulmates. Something about stars and belonging together. Pre-determined destiny."
"Something like that. Yes. I think you're my Starmate."
"Crap."
Tom winced, though he tried to cover it. She had only known him a few days, there was no reason to believe that she would just stay with him. There was no logical reason to, and she was a logical person. "I have other reasons for wanting you with me, though."
"Other reasons?"
; "I'm on a mission to retrieve a ship filled with humans in stasis." He glanced up; Sara's eyes were huge, her jaw hanging slack. "I need a Corps officer to help me get through security checkpoints."
Sara swallowed. Looking dazed, she nodded. "What do you want the humans for?"
"I have been tasked with bringing them to a planet they can colonize once they're woken from their sleep. A human sanctuary, I guess you could say."
"Humans. How many? Where are they?" She leaned forward, her golden eyes looking into his intensely.
They had the distinct over-shininess of bionics, and his hands clenched. What had happened to make her need the prosthetics? Something natural? An illness, maybe? Perhaps an explosion or a faulty ship entry had damaged them. Or it could be that those who woke her from her own stasis pod took her eyes for the DNA inside of them, to sell to one of the various corporations interesting in human DNA.
"Bond, come on. You need my help, so there's no point in keeping the information from me."
Tom started a little, shaking his head to clear the anger from it. Sara apparently took it as a denial, because she folded her arms across her chest–he longed to see what that would do to her breasts without her baggy clothes in the way–and glared at him. Her nostrils flared.
"Tell me, or when we get to one of these checkpoints you're worried about, I'll tell them that you kidnapped me and they'll disintegrate your ship."
"Threats don't do well with me, Sara," Tom said, narrowing his eyes. "If I don't find those humans, somebody else will. Somebody who will sell them as slaves or worse. Do you really want that?"
Sara stiffened. She leaned back, trying to wipe the interest from her face. Tom watched her attempts with amusement. His Starmate was not the type that liked to be manipulated or admit her weaknesses, he saw. It just made him admire her more.
"Why would I care what happens to a bunch of humans?"
Tom couldn't help but chuckle, which earned him another glare. "You care because you are also human."
The blue stain on Sara's face paled to turquoise. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, her hands began to tremble, and her eyes darted to the knife laying on the countertop. Tom kept his distance, not wanting to frighten her even more by invading her personal space.
"I'm not a human."
"You are. Aphrosian women have narrower rib cages, and you're taller than any Aphrosian I've seen before."
"That doesn't mean anything. I'm not human. If you're planning on selling me or whatever else you might be thinking of, it's not going to work. Because I'm not human and it would be very easy to prove you a liar if you tried to pass me off as one."
Tom sighed, shaking his head. "Sara, you made a James Bond reference when I told you my name and I've heard you singing Somewhere over the Rainbow. We don't have The Wizard of Oz, that's an Earth thing."
Sara stared at him, realization creeping over her face. "How do you know about James Bond and The Wizard of Oz?"
"My mother's human."
Sara's eyes were so round she looked like they were about to pop out. Which, given that they were bionics, was entirely possible. "What?"
"I know hybrids usually aren't possible, but with your human DNA, you share the same genetic markers as all the species, we just have extra ones, which makes it so that human women can carry and give birth to other species."
Sara held up her hand. "Back up a minute, there. Your mother is human?"
"One of the first to be discovered."
"Wow." Sara blew out a breath and shook her head. "I didn't expect that. So… you're not going to try to sell me?"
"I told you, you're my Starmate." Tom leaned forward, brushing the back of his hand over her cheek. The contrast between the blue of her skin and the red of his made them look like fire and water, clashing together. "I would never allow anyone to harm you."
"You don't even know me."
She didn't understand the ways of the T'shav. That was fine. Tom withdrew. He'd give her time to adjust. He was sure she would come to feel the same way about him as he did for her. They were Starmates, after all. But he wasn't going to frighten her off by being too intense.
"So, who else knows you're human?"
Sara shook her head. "Nobody anymore. I've worked hard to build a new identity. But… it has been a little lonely, with nobody to share my life with."
Tom turned back to the food. "You can tell me."
Chapter Five: Sara
Sara hesitated. If it was true that his mother was a human, then she had reason to trust him. T'shav were known as mercenaries and barbarians, but there were also known to have strong family bonds. And it was true, she really did want to tell somebody about her past.
"Well?" Tom rose a brow as he served the cooked hissu along with a type of grain resembling a mix between corn and rice.
Sara sighed and began. "I was born on Earth in the year 1989. From what I've figured, if I hadn't been taken, I would have turned twenty-seven this year. I was in the military. Air force, so I was a pilot. I loved flying. There was such magic in looking down on the planet, seeing the land in patchwork beneath me. Spaceflight doesn't hold a candle to it. Probably because it's all black out there."
"Space flight can be boring."
Sara accepted a spoon from Bond and scooped up a bit of the grain. "When I was twenty-three, I was in a house fire. My friend's kids were trapped inside, so I went back in to get them out. Which I did. I managed to save them."
"That was very heroic of you. Mom told me that your human buildings didn't have the fire suppressants that we have ourselves."
Sara shook her head and shivered at the memories. She had tried her best to forget all of this, even though sometimes her bionic eyes would twinge and she would have a flashback to that horrible fire and feel the smoke clogging her lungs again.
"Was that when you were taken?"
"No. It was when I lost my eyes. Something happened, and I got hit in the face with a piece of debris. Both of my eyes were damaged beyond repair. No more flying for me. And then I was taken. I remember going to bed, falling asleep, and when I woke up I was in this strange new world, and I could see."
Bond nodded, his gaze steady on hers. He had the blackest eyes she had ever seen. They were really quite lovely.
"The people who woke me up explained about Earth, how I had somehow been in status for thousands and thousands of years, that Earth was a dead planet, and that if anybody found out I was human, I would end up dead, a lab rat, or a slave. They got me into the United Species Corps and disappeared. I've never seen them again, and I have no idea why they helped me in the first place."
"Many of the humans I've met have similar stories," Bond said. "I think my… corporation has something to do with it, but it's technically illegal, so they to keep a low profile. I'm sorry that you can't go home, Sara."
Sara smiled at him, relaxing despite her previous misgivings. Maybe it wasn't such a bad idea to trust him. She squeezed his hand. Telling Bond even that little bit about her past was a relief. Until now, there was literally nobody that she had been able to tell. Just saying it out loud felt like a huge burden had been lifted from her shoulders.
"So what about you?" she asked "Any tragic backstory?"
Bond shook his head. "My father has a fleet of ships, my mother is human, and they are deliriously in love. I've never met anybody happier together than the two of them, and I'm not saying that just because I'm their son."
His eyes lit up as he was talking about his parents, and a soft smile spread across his face. Sara was surprised when a pang hit her heart. He wanted the same relationship. Despite his muscles, devilish appearance and tendency to skewer people with a broadsword, he was a romantic. Whoever got this guy was a lucky girl.
He thought that she was the one. She busied herself eating, trying not to think about the implications of that. They hardly knew one another. Yes, she found herself being drawn to him on a sexual level, but 'I wanna have sex' and 'I love you' were two extremely differen
t things. Bond was a little intense for her.
Does it really matter? she wondered. I don't owe him anything. And as soon as we've got these humans safe and sound, I'm out of here.
She would just have to keep telling herself that.
***
Things continued to be friendly between them over the next few days. Sara was surprised that Bond never made things awkward by insisting that they were Starmates. She had known men in the past who had decided that they were perfect for her and wouldn't let it go, but Bond was different. He seemed happy building their friendship first.
Sara could only hope that he wouldn't end up whining about being friend zoned if, in the end, she didn't develop romantic feelings for him.
Sexual attraction was not in question, but Sara was determined to keep a firm hold on her passions. The last thing they needed right now was to become bed buddies and for Bond to think that meant that she was going to stay with him forever and ever. Or worse, getting pregnant, although since Sara hadn't had her period since her abduction she wasn't sure if she was even capable of having babies anymore.
Still, the dreams that woke her in the middle of the night, sweating and panting with a deep ache that she could never satisfy herself, were driving her to her breaking point.
Several days later they landed on a planet controlled by the Planchet Corporation to repower. Sara went with Bond to the power station. Being in the ship all the time had worn her patience thin, and while she wasn't much of a shopper, she enjoyed browsing the local products while Bond haggled over the price to repower the ship.
Today, though, he was in a grumpier mood than usual. "You'll fill my ship for half that price," he demanded of the Aphrosian at the bar. "Do you hear me?"
"I hear you, Sir, but the power costs more than that to collect in this region. I really can't let it go for any less than—"
"Do you want to keep your head on your shoulders?" Bond snarled.
The Aphrosian paled. "Sir, I—"
