Moon Struck

by Heather Guerre

  Hadiza stirred back into motion. “Can I come with?”

  Errol paused, halfway through putting his jacket on. After a moment, he finished pulling it on. “Yes. If the part is ready, we’ll go to the shuttle and install it.”

  “Does that mean we can leave?”

  “If we’re lucky.”

  Chapter Ten

  Errol watched Hadiza pull on her cold gear, tying down her hair, disappearing the exquisite shape of her enticing body, cloaking her scent beneath the metallic thermal fibers. At last, she draped the thermal scarf over her head. Her big, dark eyes met his as she wrapped the long end over her face.

  The after-image of her gaze still burned in his minds eye, and as he stared at the shapeless, gear-swathed figure, want still gnawed at him. After the conversation they’d just had, the feel of her skin, the nearness of her face—her mouth—his self-control was razor thin. He couldn’t put hands on her again. Her scent was inside him, coursing through his blood, filling his mind with evil suggestions.

  She wants you. Just a kiss, and she’s yours.

  He could kneel in front of her, pull that scarf away from her beautiful face, press his lips to hers, let nature destroy the barriers between them. Let his conscience and her happiness become forgotten concerns.

  Take her. Claim her. Fill her with your seed, get her with your child. Make her yours forever. She wants it.

  “Ready?” Hadiza asked, jarring him from his toxic thoughts.

  “Yes.” He turned away from her, releasing the door locks, and stepped into the bracing cold. He inhaled deeply, savoring the razor-sharp burn in his lungs, the raw blaze over his skin. It clarified his mind and chased away the feverish skin hunger.

  And yet, even with the bracing cold, his mind was a storm. Ecstatic joy and crushing melancholia blurred together into an emotional chaos that squeezed his chest until he couldn’t breathe.

  She was attracted to him.

  Without the toxin.

  Just on her own, she wanted him.

  How?

  Didn’t matter.

  But—

  She didn’t want to stay with him. When he’d laid it out for her—stay with me forever, or return home—she’d simply nodded and accepted the plan to get her back to her own kind.

  What had he really expected? They’d only known each other for a brief time. And despite the fact that she had the poor judgment to be attracted to him, she clearly had enough sense to recognize an emotional blackhole when she saw one. The only thing she wanted from him was sex, and he was on the verge of giving it to her—and using it to trap her.

  You can’t help but be a brute, can you, boy? You’ll never be anything but a monster.

  With a frustrated growl, he tried to shove that old ghost away.

  “Are you okay?” Hadiza asked, her head tilting beneath the cover of the thermal scarf. He felt her eyes on him, and kept his gaze pinned on the alley ahead of them.

  “Fine. Let’s be quick.”

  At the shop, he found the same grizzled old Scaeven sitting behind the counter, fussing with the articulated arm of a soldering bot. The proprietor looked up, and the frustration in his expression flattened to something grim and suspicious.

  Errol kept his pace even, but his senses went on high alert. He maneuvered Hadiza to stand behind him, using his big body to block her from both the open door and the other male. “The differential ready?” he asked.

  The old Scaeven flicked a disinterested glance at Hadiza’s diminutive form, then returned to Errol, regarding him darkly. “Someone’s looking for you.”

  A pulse of alarm ran through him, but Errol kept his face blank. “You get a name?”

  The other Scaeven shook his head, returned his attention to his bot. “Was wearing patriarch insignia.”

  “How do you know he was looking for me?”

  “Described you. Light skin. Short hair.”

  Errol nodded. It wasn’t common for Scaevens to shear their hair short. Military regs required short hair, but after they completed their compulsory service, most Scaevens chose to grow their hair long enough for the elaborate braids that signified moon origin and, if you were important enough, paternal line. Errol’s paternal line was insignificant and, much like the military, short hair was more pragmatic for an Enforcer.

  “Say what he wanted?”

  “Can’t be good if it’s a patriarch on your tail.”

  “No.” Errol regarded the hot-rigger for a moment. “Going to be a problem for you?”

  “Your funds encrypted?”

  “Neutral markers.”

  “Then it’s not a problem.” The old Scaeven hoisted himself from his seat and disappeared through a narrow door within the shelves. He returned with tightly wrapped bundle, and set it on the counter in front of Errol. “You know how to install it?”

  Errol nodded.

  “I told him I’d seen you, but that you’d lifted offplanet already.”

  Errol nodded again, his composure unruffled even as cold dread slid down his spine. “I’m grateful.”

  The other Scaeven growled scornfully. “You’re nobody to me. But the patriarchs? They can get fucked with an arc rifle.”

  Errol said nothing. He paid and, keeping a tight guard on Hadiza, they left.

  He carried himself with a casual ease, but Hadiza seemed to recognize his alertness, responding with her own careful vigilance. She reacted to his maneuvering with practiced ease, keeping herself flanked between his body and structural cover—avoiding doorways and windows, never allowing other pedestrians to come between them. She did it all with a nonchalance that made him question whether it was intentional or not—but then she betrayed herself by dropping into a defensive stance at a stranger’s unexpected movement, and he knew that her every step was deliberate and calculated.

  Former military, she’d told him. And grateful to be out. Her experience made her a partner rather than a liability, but he regretted that she had to be forced back into a mindset and circumstances she’d wanted to leave behind. Yet another reason she would never want to be his mate. His life as an Enforcer would never be quiet or without risk. He couldn’t offer her the stability she wanted.

  “What’s going on?” Hadiza whispered.

  “We’ve been tracked. Somehow. A patriarch is looking for me. There’s no reason for a patriarch to even know I exist, except that half the auction buyers were patriarchal sons.”

  “What’s a patriarch?”

  “The ruling class of Scaevos. If the patriarchs are involved with the traffickers…” A bolt of cold dread ran down his spine. Theoretically, Enforcement operated independently of the patriarchy-controlled Council. In reality, half of the Enforcers were in the pocket of one patriarch or another. And if a patriarch wanted Errol eliminated, his mysterious death wouldn’t see even the most cursory of investigations.

  Each heartbeat passed like the striking of a gong. It wasn’t just his own life at risk now. If he were killed, Hadiza wold be captured, and returned to the exact fate she thought she’d escaped. He couldn’t allow that. If Errol were to disappear today, there’d be nobody to miss him, and no loose ends to be tied. His parents were dead, killed several solars ago by a catastrophic airlock failure onboard a short range cruiser. He was unmated, and therefore childless. His position in Enforcement could be replaced by some eager young recruit, and the few friends he had would dispense their grief in the comfort of their mates and families.

  But Hadiza—he’d told her he would get her home. He could not fail her.

  Hugging the darker, less traveled alleys, Errol led a circuitous route to the edge of the city, where the wind howled over the barrens. In the far distance, his shuttle was a dark lump against the horizon—easily mistaken for a random outcropping of rock.

  As they stepped into open, the tension in Errol’s spine ratcheted to nearly unbearable. He took Hadiza’s mittened hand and hauled her along. She ran to keep up with his long strides, never once complaining or slackening her p
ace. Several times, the wind snapped Hadiza’s scarf free of her face, exposing her delicate skin to the brutal cold—but each time she managed to snatch it before it blew away, and secure it again.

  Halfway to the shuttle, the structure began to resolve into clearer lines, revealing itself as an unnatural intruder in the bleak landscape.

  They were nearly there when a low thrum vibrated the air. Errol and Hadiza twisted back in tandem, in time to see a black space cruiser traveling towards them. It disappeared in an instant, cloaking shield activated.

  Errol bit out a vicious curse. He scooped Hadiza into his arms, and sprinted towards the shuttle. A poorly aimed compression charge hit the ground to their left, sending up a burst of dusty rock.

  Errol ran faster. Hadiza clutched tightly to him, making herself as easy to carry as possible. Another compression charge rocked the ground, this one far to their right. Whoever their gunner was, he wasn’t experienced. Probably not military—at least, not a weapons tech. That was a small mercy. If Errol could just get to the shuttle, the refractive exterior tiles would render compression charges useless.

  Another charge opened the ground just behind his heels. He stumbled, but kept his footing. His sprinting pace brought the shuttle closer and closer. Small details became clear. Dust streaked the nose of the vessel. A drift of thin gray soil had built up along the edge of the body, carried there by the endless, howling wind.

  Another compression charge blasted the earth at the edge of the shuttle. It left the shuttle mostly undamaged, but the sudden crater made the entire vessel shift with a loud metallic groan.

  Errol shifted Hadiza into one arm. He ripped opened the hatch and lunged inside. He managed to seal it, just as another compression charge disturbed the ground beneath them, sending the vessel on a wild sideways tilt.

  He dropped Hadiza to her feet and surged towards the center galley. Another compression charge blasted the ground beneath the shuttle. And then another. And another. The shuttle leaned harder and harder to the starboard side. Errol realized they were trying to blast a steep enough trench to roll the shuttle onto its side, making it impossible to lift off.

  He wouldn’t give them the time to do it. He ripped up the floor hatch, then manually parted the shielding panes, exposing the innards of the shuttle’s propulsion train. Two ion shafts, twisting around each other in a double helix, took up the majority of the long, narrow chamber. Beneath the ion shafts, at the fore of the chamber, frayed biocircuitry dangled over the empty socket where the gravitational differential belonged.

  Working as quickly as he could while minding the delicate biocircuits, Errol dropped the new differential into its place. He pruned the damage off the circuits and carefully stretched them to connect with the terminals on the differential. It was a minute’s effort to carefully disentangle his large body from the crowded chamber, restore the shielding panes, and lock down the floor hatch.

  “Did it work?” Hadiza asked.

  Errol grimaced. “We’re about to find out.” He initiated the start-up sequence. The flight panel glowed to life. Numerals whirled through various fields on the panel, settling one by one as the shuttle’s internal diagnostics calibrated to the new part. When the last field cleared, Errol let out an unsteady breath.

  He triggered the manual overrides, and took hold of the yoke as soon as it emerged from its recess. “Hold on, rourra. We’re lifting off hard.”

  Hadiza nodded and grasped onto her restraints.

  And they were off.

  The force of the launch crushed him against his seat. They passed through the thick, gray cloud cover and into open air. The sudden blare of sunlight had him squinting, temporarily blinded until the photofilter darkened the windshield. He pulled the camera views up on the flight panel. The stern camera captured the parting of clouds behind them where their cloaked pursuer broke through.

  No time for safe, protocol-directed decision making. Still in atmo, Errol pulled up a bridge projection. It was going to be a rough transition, but they had to jump before their pursuers locked a bead onto their trajectory. A hot flash split the air in front of them. The thin atmosphere cracked and sparked against the edges of the bridge’s mouth. Electric interference sparked over the hull as the shuttle slid into the bridge, rattling and shaking the vessel.

  And then all was still. And silent. And dark.

  They were in the bridge.

  Errol turned to Hadiza. “We’re safe for now. But once we exit the bridge, it’s possible they’ll be waiting for us. They have tech that civilians shouldn’t.”

  “What happens then?” Hadiza asked. Her voice was even, but he saw her grip tighten on the restraints.

  “If we’re captured—”

  “I won’t be taken by them again,” she said bleakly. “I refuse.”

  “I’ll do everything in my power to prevent that. But if they do manage to—”

  “They won’t,” she said with grim certainty. “They won’t take me again. Not alive.”

  Errol’s blood ran cold as he realized what she was saying. “Hadiza,” he breathed, pain radiating through his chest at the thought of her beautiful big eyes gone blank with death. “No. If we’re captured you need to—”

  “I have a knife in my boot. I know exactly where to cut. It’ll be quick.”

  “Hadiza. No.”

  “It’s not like there’s anybody who’ll miss me. I haven’t seen my parents in years. My friends are all captives. I’ve got no children, no lover. It’ll be quick and simple, and I won’t have to—”

  Errol slammed his fists on the console. Numbers and light rippled over its surface. “NO!”

  Hadiza was quiet. He couldn’t see her expression behind the cover of the thermal scarf, couldn’t read the tension of her body through the heavy cover of her cold gear.

  “Listen,” he said desperately. “If the patriarch’s forces catch up to us, they’ll kill me.”

  Hadiza stiffened.

  “I’ve already sent a message to Enforcement. It will transmit as soon as we exit the bridge. They’ll know you’re with me. They’ll know we’re being pursued. If you’re taken again, an Enforcer will come for you. I’ve made certain of it.”

  Hadiza was quiet. The silence of the bridge was oppressive, crushing in on him. She reached up, pulling the thermal scarf from her face, letting it drape over her shoulders. Her soft, soulful eyes met his, and their depths reflected a grim resolve that tore him apart.

  “Don’t let them catch us, Errol.”

  Before they fully emerged from the bridge, Errol knew they’d been anticipated. Three long range cruisers marked with patriarchal insignia—the house of Sahr—waited in the hot, dark remains of a long-dead star. They didn’t even bother cloaking themselves. That was how certain they were of capture. How unafraid they were of consequences.

  Errol used the last fleeting moment inside the bridge to set up their next move. The fuel cells had juice enough for one last jump. There was only one way to guarantee their pursuers couldn’t follow on the next jump, and that was to set coordinates through a jumpless zone—a pocket of space where, for one reason or another, a projected bridge would collapse. It was close to a suicide mission. But if the patriarch got him, he was dead anyway. And Hadiza had made it clear that she would not survive capture.

  He had to work quickly—override the shuttle’s AI and manually plug in the coordinates for an unoccupied moon on the outer edges of Scaevos. If he could get inside the Scaeven territory, Enforcement might have a chance of reaching him before the patriarchs did. And the empty moon, Tranar, orbited Scaevos within a thick band of granular ice. The particulates were too close together and too erratic for a bridge to safely project through.

  In the last heartbeat before their next jump—the jump that could very well kill them—Errol looked over to Hadiza. Her gaze met his. Her beautiful face was serene, but behind her eyes was a riot of fear and anger. He’d dragged her through hell and back, only to fail her. He’d promised her safety. He
’d told her he’d get her back to her home. There was so much he wanted to say to her, but there was no time.

  So he simply said, “I’m sorry.”

  They dropped out of the bridge, and the three waiting ships immediately fired a volley of anti-spacecraft charges that could have destroyed a planet. Errol’s little short-range cruiser didn’t stand a chance.

  Or, it wouldn’t have, if they’d still been there.

  As fast as they emerged from one bridge, Errol opened the next. A wave of bright blue plasma raced towards them, and then it was gone—replaced by all-consuming darkness of the superluminal bridge.

  But they were far from safe. The bridge was unstable, pinching space that shouldn’t be grabbed. Their fate was out of his hands—they wouldn’t be taken by the patriarch or the cartel, but they might not live to celebrate their escape. Even so, it was better odds than Hadiza had given him otherwise.

  The shuttle rocked and screeched. Dangerous flashes of colorful sparks burst against the hull. Something slammed into their side, sending them into a spin that brought Errol’s stomach up to his throat.

  The spin leveled out, but the ship continued to shudder and jolt, slamming him against his restraints, and rattling his teeth together. Despite the blinding darkness, Errol turned to Hadiza. “Are you okay, rourra?”

  But she didn’t answer.

  Ghosts

  Her harness snapped against her chest as the pilot pulled a tight maneuver, trying to shake the pursuing Confederation battle cruiser. She was crouched on the control deck of an Alliance warbird. Her hands were slick with the blood of the Marine who lay dead before her. She hadn’t been able to save him. Laser fire had severed his femoral artery and they hadn’t gotten him back to the ship fast enough for Hadiza to excise the cauterized end and reconnect the artery.

  Four other dead bodies lay beside him, stacked shoulder to shoulder like silverware in a drawer. They slid across the deck, along with the equipment that hadn’t been locked down.