Celestial Beauty

by Angela Castle

  “Okay then.” Raz rubbed his hands together. “Hip cannons I think, who know what dangers lurk out there.”

  Zeb rolled his eyes. “And since when has that ever stopped us?”

  A gleaming shone in Raz’s gaze at the prospect of a bit of danger and adventure. Zeb already knew the answer to his question.

  Nothing ever.

  ****

  Raz’s keen eye surveyed the area round them, but there was nothing he could spot or pinpoint. Retirement from the Demos army hadn’t dulled his senses in the slightest. He glanced in silent communication with Zeb, who walked beside him as they made their way down the slope of the glassy highlands and into the swamp, heading towards the Jorval wreckage. Raz knew Zeb felt it, too, the acute awareness of being watched.

  Zeb nodded, and they continued. “Native do you think?”

  “Was nothing on the sensors to suggest there was intelligent life dwelling here?” Raz placed his hand over the top of his blade, his senses alert for any threats. Life in the Demos’s Special Forces had taught them not to jump too quickly, unless immediately necessary.

  “Stay alert.”

  “Yes, oh mighty commander.” Raz’s tone mocked, but Zeb didn’t have to tell him what was needed. Once a commander—always a commander. Zeb was eldest of their brothers, accustomed to being in control and leading them.

  Raz followed Zeb as he picked his way through the swamp, before stepping up, out of the murky water. The Jorval craft was half embedded in an embankment.

  Side by side, they stared down at the ground a foot from their position. “I’m now starting to suspect a survivor,” Zeb said, as they both surveyed several mounds piled neatly with rocks. Clearly someone had buried the dead. Zeb pulled a bio scanner from his pocket standing at the foot of the first pile. “Three Jorval remains.” He moved to the next, and the scanner beeped. “Three unknown species.”

  “What do you think this means?” Raz moved in closer to examine the pieces of salvaged metal roughly tied together, forming a cross at the top of each unknown graves.

  “It means something to the one who buried them. These grave indicate someone with a sense of empathy, but I have no idea the meaning of these crosses.” Zeb pocketed his scanner and headed towards the ship.

  “Either that or they did it so not to attract predators,” Raz added as an afterthought.

  Empathy and intelligence. Raz pulled his own scanner out and studied the readings. “Do we have the current patches to our scanners with the new species data?”

  “No,” Zeb called, almost at the broken back section of the Jorval ship, which lay on its side. The whole underbelly had been ripped open.

  “So our scanners couldn’t tell if the unidentified species was a human?”

  Zeb paused, turning back to face Raz. “Two ways to find out, check the Jorval logs or…” Zeb nodded towards the mounds.

  Zeb knew Raz wouldn’t want to dig up the burial mounds, nor did he. Zeb turned his attention to the Jorval ship. Zeb had vanished around the aft side. He needed to find the Jorvals data logs to tell them where they’d been and what they’d done.

  Ignoring the lingering sensation of being watched, Raz rose to his feet and hurried after his brother.

  Chapter Two

  Red men? Celeste set down the zoom goggles. They looked tall, at a guess, over six-five. Extremely handsome with clean cut, symmetrical faces, full lips, and aquiline noses. Their bodies were built strong. Their black tops did nothing to hide the well-defined shoulder and arm muscles. One’s black hair hung longer than the other’s, but she could clearly see they were identical twins.

  An air of lethal danger hung about them, with weapons strapped to their belts, as they looked around with gleaming intelligent, golden eyes. They stopped and appeared to run some sort of device over the graves she’d dug. Yes, she’d even buried her abductors, not wanting anything left to attract any kind of planet scavengers. Plus, it was the right thing to do, even if she’d been the cause of their deaths.

  The one with the longer hair stopped to lift his gaze and glance around. Celeste held her breath as his gaze passed right over her. If he’d spotted her then he showed no sign of it, and he moved after his twin disappearing torn open gaping underbelly of the wrecked ship.

  She picked up her alien goggles again and looked back at their huge ship. Were there others like those two? Indecision filled her. Would they harm her if she revealed herself? Could she go on living on this planet alone?

  They vanished into the ship for a long time, before remerging, talking to each other. The one with the longer hair pulled something from a pocket on his pants, ripped open some packaging, and took a large bite.

  Celeste’s stomach growled at the sight of the red man eating what could have passed for a chocolate bar. They had food, and she needed food. New possibilities emerged in her mind. Maybe she could persuade one of them to give her food? Together they were more dangerous than apart. Find out why they are here and if all else fails? She’d simply cut and run, hide until they left.

  Nothing much left to lose and she needed to survive, didn’t she?

  She checked her mixed patched clothing and her makeshift belt, lifting what she’d learned was some kind of alien tranq gun. She had lots of stuff she’d pulled from the ship to the cave trying to figure out what they were and what they did. So far this one had come in most handy, keeping her safe from this planet’s more dangerous creatures, and it looked like it would again as a plan formed in her mind.

  ****

  “Good news.” Raz shoved at Loc’s leg. Their brilliant engineer and mechanically minded brother was flat on his back under the panelling on the bridge, and Kue was on the other side, where the high pitched whine of the calibrator flicking on and off could be heard. “The Jorval ship has a shiny Reisin coupling.”

  Loc pulled out from under the panel to stare up at Raz. “So where is it? I swear by all we hold holy—”

  “Still on the ship,” Zeb interrupted. “We’ll get the laser cutter and head back out. There wasn’t enough power to retrieve the Jorvals’ records.” Zeb waved the little chip in his hand.

  “I’ll have to wait for a few more hours until I can get this part done.”

  Raz and Zeb looked at each other and knew there was something else going on. “What is it?”

  “There is something else out there, hard to miss the feeling of being watched.” Raz flopped down on his chair. “Are the food modulators working at least? I’m starved.”

  Everyone ignored Raz. “There were burial mounds. Someone or something buried them, and that someone or something is watching us.”

  Loc’s sigh was one of taxed patience. “I’ll get the main scanners running within the hour, and then we can scan for other life forms.”

  “Ah, but we need to update our alien species database, too. Three of the dead were unknowns.”

  Loc scowled at Raz’s comment. “We can’t do that until I have the long range comms working again. I can only do so much. I said this is going to take days to repair. And since when are you two scared of eyes?”

  Loc hid his grin at Zeb’s annoyed growl.

  “I’ve got my hope set on a malfunctioning sex droid running around.” Raz jumped from the chair. “Come on, commander. You can go scouting while I get the coupling. Demos up, big brother.”

  Yeah, they all wanted to beat on Raz at times, but he always got the job done. “The sooner I get the coupling the sooner you can start on the outer thrusters.”

  Raz groaned.

  “You heard him.” Zeb smirked at Raz. Zeb was getting far too much enjoyment out of tormenting Raz. “We’ve got work to do, and I’ve got a mystery to solve.”

  Raz took it all in stride. “I think we need to get out of the scrap business and follow big brother’s lead into mystery solving across the galaxy.”

  Loc again rolled his eyes as Zeb shoved Raz towards the door. Loc turned back towards his work. “I’ll give you one fucking mystery to solve,” Zeb g
rumbled. “When you wake up, you can solve the mystery of which one of us knocked you out for being an idiot.”

  Raz’s laughter echoed through the ship as they again headed out.

  ****

  Zeb thumped the Jorval control panel. There was no power in any of the systems. He pulled his portable power supply and attached it to the controls, and it lit up. Quickly, he found their travel records and downloaded it before searching for that elusive piece of technology the Jorvals guarded. It was a mystery how the Jorval came up with such an advanced piece of tech, which allowed them to fold space and head into other galaxies, far beyond their own. One such galaxy contained the planet in which those human females had come from, and it made Jeb wonder what else the Jorval had been up to. Yes, they were the Hellious Galaxy’s main traders, but no one knew a lot about who they really were other than greedy, self-serving thieves. But the galaxy was filled with similar creatures, self-serving and deeply cruel. He and his brothers had seen some of the very worst of the Hellious Galaxy, as their old job sent them to sort out the worst of them, and it had left Zeb feeling more than a little jaded and pondering if there was any goodness out there at all.

  The panel beeped demanding access codes, and he tapped the power supply pack and sent a simple jolt through the system to short out and override the internal security. He half smiled as the data flowed into the chip, also pinpointing where in the ship that elusive piece of tech was kept. If the Demos could control this technology it would help in their efforts to put a stop to Jorval interspecies slave trading.

  Something clanked just outside the ship. Instantly alert, Zeb moved back through the bridge to the big open hole of twisted and torn metal. The high whine of the laser cutter started up, telling Zeb Raz was busy with his job. The ground was soft under his black boots, and he noticed someone had scraped an arrow. Not subtle. If whoever was out there was playing games, Zeb would soon put a stop to it. He unsheathed his blade, keeping it low and un-threatening as possible, deciding to take the bait and followed the arrow.

  “Show yourself. Do not play games, or it will not end well for you.” He moved up the hill towards an outcropping of tall rocks. He glanced around, noticing a piece of yellow cloth sitting on one of the knee high boulders to his right. He moved over and picked it up, examining it. He realized too late that it was a distraction, which cost him.

  Zeb spun at the sharp sting in his neck. His hand gripping and yanking out an object, he registered the markings of a Jorval neutralizer dart. Fuck an Ice Demon, not only was he getting old, but too fucking slow. They’d sprung the trap faster than he thought they would.

  There was no way to stop the drug invading his system. His knife clattered against the rocky earth. The drug acted fast, his knees buckling under him sending his bulk crashing to the ground. He tipped sideways as he battled against the sluggish effect. He blinked rapidly, as a figure moved into his line of sight. Am I hallucinating? A pair of pale skinned, rather delicate feet came into his dimming vision, and he glanced up to see a pair of the most beautiful pale blue eyes, staring down.

  “You know the bigger they are, the harder they fall…” a soft feminine voice said, but his vision was too blurred to make her out properly.

  Female.

  Fuck, I always knew a female would be the one to bring me down.

  He blacked out.

  ****

  Instant regret flooded Celeste, her hands shaking as she lowered the alien tranq gun. The technology had saved her life, so she always kept it on her belt. A week back, while exploring more of the land around her, she’d been attacked by a huge, half furry, half scaled lizard beast. Knocking it out she’d run back to the safety of her cave shelter.

  She was no one’s dinner or slave for that matter. She gazed down at the big red man, and she picked up his huge knife glancing over the delicate scrollwork on the handle. It was a beautiful blade. She shook her head. It was sensible to be armed out here. She was the least of the dangers running around on this fucked up planet. She slipped the blade into her makeshift belt, before crouching down and moving carefully closer, in case he was playing possum.

  Fuck, he was going to be one big pissed off alien once he woke up. No doubt his twin brother would be, too, when he realized something was wrong and came after her.

  You’ve done it again, you idiot! Throwing her head back she cursed the sky. Why don’t I ever learn? Leave him and run.

  It was one of the better thoughts she’d had today. Instead, she lifted her trembling hand and placed her fingers against his throat. Heat seared though her finger, tingling up her arm. She ignored it, hoping his similarities to humans were more than on the surface. Heaving a sigh of relief at the feel of his strong pulse she removed her hand. She stared at his clean cut, handsome face, relaxed in his unconscious state. He was more handsome up close, and his black eyelashes were full against the high angle of his cheekbones. Her gaze moved to his full, sensual lips. She bet these twins were a hit on a lot by their women on whatever planet they were from.

  Figures. Finding the most attractive man she’d ever seen and she’d knocked him out. She shook her head. Don’t let his looks fool you. He’s a dangerous alien, so better him than me. It wasn’t hard to miss the way he and his brother had moved with lethal grace across the marshland, prowling with awareness in their every step as they’d headed back towards her crashed ship. No doubt aware they were being watched, by the way they kept scanning their surroundings. She was half surprised he’d fallen for her little setup. She guessed her success was due to the fact she had used some of her torn clothing to distract him. She’d kept hidden until the last second, quickly aiming at his thick neck. Scared out her mind, she’d felt she had no choice but to strike first and bring the big red man down. Right, pat him down and tie him up. Safety first.

  ****

  Raz stiffened, the sensation tingling down his spine. A strong subconscious connection existed between him and his brothers, as with all Demos quads. Something wasn’t right. One of them was… Not finding Zeb anywhere on the ship, he stopped to listen to his internal senses. If Zeb was dead he’d feel the cut of their connection. This was different, but that didn’t mean his brother’s life wasn’t in mortal danger.

  He set down the laser cutter and moved silently back through the ship. Keeping a low profile he peered around the torn edges across the marshland, only to see Zeb’s boot slide out of sight around a set of boulders, just at the base of the small mountain range, to the right of the Jorval ship.

  Damn, Zeb was in danger. Whatever it was, it took a lot of stealth and strength or a lot of stupidity to knock out one of the best Demos fighters known in the Hellious Galaxy. Raz unsheathed his knife. He’d have to be on his guard and hurry, before who knows what the creature who’d just taken Zeb out did the same with him.

  He tapped his wrist comm. “Code four, Zeb’s been taken down, tracking assailant.”

  “Acknowledged, need back up at location? What are you facing?” Kue replied.

  Raz thought fast. Did he need his brothers’ back up? It would take his brothers minutes to get to them. Better safe than sorry. They still didn’t know what the Jorval had been transporting, and whoever had taken Zeb down could have been from the wreckage or something else on this planet.

  “Assailant unknown, you’d better haul your asses out here. Firepower may be needed.”

  “Acknowledged, hold tight, brother. Kue out.”

  ****

  Foggy awareness filtered back into Zeb’s mind. His training and years of experience of covert operations had prepared him for every possible situation. Instinct told him to remain still and keep his breathing steady, so not to alert the enemy. His arms were behind his back, so he flexed his arm muscles, and felt the tightening of his bound wrists. He restrained his snort. He ran his thumb over the raw fibre he’d been bound with. It wouldn’t take too much for him to break free.

  “I know you’re awake.” That voice. Unmistakably female, but soft, almost mus
ical. Unable to contain his curiosity, he opened his eyes only to stare into the same soft, pale blue ones, ones he’d remembered just before blacking out, but these were filled with hesitation and fear.

  Like a punch to his mid-section, the blow of the pretty rounded face with pinked cheeks made him suck in a sharp breath. His gaze ran down her shambled clothing. It looked like it had been fashioned from different cargo coverings. Strips wound up her legs and across her body to keep the makeshift clothing in place. Despite the dirt, the top of her hair shone in the pale light, with a mixture of dark browns, gold, and red.

  Zeb had seen images of a few of the human females on Galafrax and had viewed them with indifference. Now, to be this close to one, he was utterly stunned. No to mention she impressed the Fire Plains out of him, by managing a surprise sneak attack to take him down. Doing a quick check, he couldn’t feel that she’d harmed him other than the small dart, which his body would have all too quickly worked out of his system.

  “I … I’m Zeb.” Zeb frowned at his poorly formed words. He was a commander, had led many successful missions, faced many deadly situations and survived. Never had he been at a loss for words, until now.

  Obvious puzzlement made her brow scrunch as she studied him. “You understand me?”

  Pieces were now falling into place. Their instruments were not calibrated to detect human life. If they had been they would have picked up her life signs in an instant. Loc was right. They did need a new fucking ship.

  “Yes, you were on the Jorval ship?”

  “Jorval? That’s what th-those things were called?” She shook her head and unhooked something from her belt. He recognized a few of the Jorval weapons and tools. He noted her hands trembling as she aimed the neutralizer at him. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Zeb.”

  She rolled her pretty eyes. Behind his back he worked on the fibres, which slowly gave under his careful tugging as his brain kicked back into gear. “I am Commander Zeb Nova of the salvage ship Reclaimer. I and my brothers are Demos from the planet Galafrax. I know your kind. You are a beautiful human female.”