by Cora Blu
Clenching his teeth, Oliver cursed the freakish sensation of his body, forced violently through a vacuum organ by organ. Hell, he hated that.
Within the containment wall, the touch of the hard surface under his boots grounded him. Reaching between his legs, cupping his boys, he did a quick roll call making certain everybody made the journey intact: present and accounted for. He released the breath he held.
Stepping from the transmission pad, he dialed in his personal code then waited for it to cycle through. Hearing the mechanics click and chime, he crossed to the sliding doors to exit the bay.
Commander over the Earth to Planet fuel exchange dock stationed outside of Sector Five, Oliver Cantrell came to Earth to get information on who financed the illegal fuel trafficking sold on the dark side of the planet away from the space station. Only a few companies could afford to finance such an expense. This also was in violation of the treaty between humans and the karuntee. One he knew personally, Stadium Bank Corp, where he’d kept Richard Edwards under surveillance for a month before introducing himself as his cousin through marriage.
As always, Oliver had a plan. If everything went according to schedule, Sector Three through Five would not only be free of Earth’s pollution, but he would have someone to share his solitary life with. Failure was not an option he worked with on this mission. He’d save his planet from greed and his heart from despair. By one thick-hipped, alluring, black Asian southern flower at a time.
Oliver changed out of his pencil suit, grabbed a bite to eat, then headed to the cargo bay. Inside the bay, he studied the day’s entries from his crew. Echoes bounced off the walls of the cargo bay with shuttles coming and going between Earth and Sector Five. The bay doors slid shut and he continued with his rounds, checking for consistency within the shipments. Taking count, Oliver noticed a smudge on the lip of the tall cylinder and rubbed a hand across his face. He kept his bay spotless considering the nature of the cargo—fuel.
Four of the twelve tanks that came from Earth carried unusable elements. This might be number five. He stepped around the gray tanks and checked the logs, verifying shipment numbers with the tracker. After scanning the barcode, he checked in the items one by one, carefully examining the contents. It took a while, but he paid close attention to each name and serial number before transferring the data to his permanent files.
A second light flared as he waved the wand over the smudge on the one lid. The blue light glowed bright; changing to a fluorescent green, indicating the container had not been properly decontaminated. Oliver shut down the bay and signaled his staff. After informing them of the long night ahead, he began to log his findings.
Tension tightening the skin around his eyes, he widened them, stretching the muscles. Now he knew why he had crow’s feet—tension. He needed rest. He’d been up for two solid days.
Visually thumbing through the cargo bay contents, he caught a glimpse of four large letters printed on the side of a cylinder. O.C.H.I. Too exhausted to make sense of the letters, he jotted them down in his electronic pad to research later. He’d seen them somewhere before. What did they stand for? He’d look it up tonight. Right now, he wanted a hot steam, some dinner, and a glass of brandy…in that order.
A scratching noise eased from the back of the bay to the office catching his attention. Oliver closed a hand on the handle of his weapon in his holster on his hip, and inched around the bay contents keeping his back to the walls. He crept down the center stairs, crouching low to peer through the aluminum grates of the stair rail down to the first floor. A large body sprinted through the space. He hustled down the stairs, uncaring of the noise his boots made. Jumping over the last two steps, he ran down between the tall cylinders, his finger poised over the trigger of his weapon, pushing the setting to stun.
A loud thud echoed from the back. He flattened against the wall, easing down to see what made the noise. One of his crew lay sprawled out on the floor, his eyes closed with blood running from his mouth. Someone was in there on his bay.
Oliver held his weapon in the air, reached down, and touched the man’s throat. Slight vibration, but the pulse was enough to call a medic to the bay and security to circle around to the other side. Holding the man’s hand, Oliver tapped his transporter and the medical lounge came into view in a matter of seconds as his head stopped spinning.
After settling the crewmember with the physician, Oliver tapped the device and prepared his body for attack once he materialized in the bay. Something heavy came down on his arm, knocking his weapon to the ground. It skittered over the floor under the nearest tank. Wine-tinged hands hit the ground next to his face before it tried ripping Oliver’s head from his body. Karuntee. Air whooshed from his lungs under the weight. Oliver’s head hit the floor and stars flashed before his eyes.
Before an arm came around his throat, Oliver shoved back, driving the male into the wall. The impact caused his hands to drop. Oliver pivoted on his boots and threw out a fist, slamming it into the male’s jaw. Blue blood spurted across the room. His knuckles screamed in pain. The karuntee scrambled to his feet, taking Oliver to the wall with the force of a car ramming him backward. Other men exploded from the aisles and a full on fight charged through the space.
Karuntee threw humans around the room as if they were rag dolls, but the men never stopped fighting. Oliver drew his weapon, blasting the karuntee in the chest. Watery blue blood blossomed over the karuntee’s chest, seeping through his vest. The karuntee leaned forward and dropped to his knees, gagging. His spikes extended to half their length, yet waivered. With the loss of blood, the spikes were limited in their ability to extend.
Cautious of the quiet, Oliver spun on his heels and kicked the male in the head. He dropped flat to the floor. No movement.
A tap to his communicator brought his security to the bay. They gathered the body on the floor and disappeared with the karuntian to their holding cell inside the medical tube for examination.
A large, familiar body filled his view at the end of the aisle and Oliver inhaled, pleased to see his captain, Ryner Holston. Waving a hand to the next aisle, Holston held a weapon as long as his arm and followed the curve of the wall to aid his men fighting on the other end. The battle raged in blue and red blood dotting his shuttle bay floors and walls. A fist came at him. He spun on his booted heel, missing the impact by a fraction, the air moving layers of his hair.
“Shit!” Oliver ducked and plowed a fist into the male’s gut, bringing him to his knees. Picking up a metal pole from the rack along the wall, Oliver slammed it across the alien’s back. These were karuntee. You fought to survive, not to slow them down.
They’d brought this battle to his home, his bay. No one brings a fight to my bay and walks away unscathed, not even a karuntian.
Four men were hospitalized with chest wounds from extended spikes from a karuntian and one karuntian lay dead. Exhausted, Oliver questioned his security on the attack and saved the karuntee for when Captain Aroc Farkus arrived.
Oliver eyed the karuntee captain across the bay, returning the glare boring from those freaky black and burgundy eyes. He drew in a breath and realized his anger wasn’t entirely for the surprise visit from a hoard of karuntee. No, he’d seen Aroc speaking to one of their women on the launch pad months ago after a meeting. Why the hell couldn’t he keep to karuntee females?
Captain Farkus’s temple pulsed under the moon tattoo above his ear. “My males don’t attack unprovoked,” he warned, defending their actions. “What did your people do to provoke this attack?”
As he climbed to his feet, Oliver eyed the spots of blue marring Aroc’s uniform sleeve. “You got nerve coming onto my bay with accusations, Captain Farkus. Again you shove yourself into our world where you never belonged.”
“Never piss on a chained dog, Commander. One day the chain might break.”
“Is that a threat, Captain?”
“I’ve never had to make one—”
Ryner held up a hand. “Okay, before you
kill each other,” he said, “I sent Captain Farkus the message. His males were raising hell on my station.”
“And I’ll see to my males.” Captain Farkus appeared to do a head count, his attention moving around the bay.
“Your people came to mine to share our technology for the metals we can’t fabricate,” Captain Aroc Farkus barked, wiping the red human blood from his hands.
Ryner stepped between both men. “Aroc, you know the rules. Karuntee aren’t allowed on the station without an invitation and guards. Somehow, they got on the station and started sabotaging the tanks. My commander was protecting his bay.”
Aroc stood a foot taller than both men, and outweighed them by seventy pounds at least. His breathing remained normal, but sweat glistened over his shoulder. Oliver was still panting from their fight, but karuntee were built for battle living on a planet that was nearly bare of vegetation. They were heavy protein consumers. Their bodies appeared to be roughly honed from marble. “I’ll conduct an investigation on my men and handle my people. This is why I never wanted the treaty between our kinds. It will never work.”
Oliver placed his weapon in his belt. “So it’s our men you won’t interact with, Aroc. Because our women you’ll take anytime you got an itch that needs to be scratched.” Knowing karuntee would mate with a human tore at his sense of calm. “How many more of our women will you kill for your own pleasure?” Certain his words would start a war right there in the cargo bay, with fuel and expensive equipment, Oliver braced for a second fight. And it didn’t take long before he was blocking a fist coming for his head.
“Shit!” Captain Ryner Holston called, rushing into the soon-to-be-bloody mayhem, boots steps clattering over the tile floor. Oliver ran at Aroc, shoulder down, aiming for his gut. They hit the floor in a mass of arms and legs in a wild arc, fists pounding, and feet kicking wildly catching the other man.
Aroc shot an arm out, throwing Oliver across the room. His body smacked the wall. Stumbling to his feet, Oliver fell back, stopped by a cylinder, and then shoved off to charge Aroc again. Grunts filled the chamber as men came in from all levels to defend their commander, Cantrell. Oliver picked up a three-foot wrench-like tool from the tray, slamming Aroc in the back as he came around, sending him to one knee on the floor. The weapon bounced from his grip on impact to skitter across the floor under the machine. Fuck! Without a weapon, he’d have to use his phaser, which could hit a machine igniting a fire in the space. He took his stance, preparing to go hand to hand. He rushed Aroc coming up off the floor, and then caught an elbow to the gut as he came down on Aroc.
Cursing, Oliver hit the ground, rolled to a corner, and grappled for the weapon on his hip. Heavy feet pounded across the floor. He managed to adjust the setting to kill, fully prepared to take out anyone attacking his bay.
Aroc lifted the overturned cylinder from in front of Oliver, tossing it back over his shoulder to slam into the others on the far side of the room.
A beam of light lit the air. A shot rang out and Ryner stood with a weapon trained on both men.
“Try me…I’ll shoot both of you. Now drop your weapons and have your men stand down. Do it now!” His voice echoed through the space filled with heaving sweaty bodies.
Oliver locked eyes with Aroc. The karuntee hovered over him, and his short pelt swayed on his shoulder from his anger.
“Men…stand down,” Oliver ordered over his shoulder. Weapons sat poised, ready to fire as the men looked from Oliver to the karuntee challenging them. “Tell your males to stand down, Aroc, or this isn’t over.”
Aroc bared his serrated teeth before tipping his chin. His males lowered their battle weapons down at their sides. Oliver’s men reciprocated the gesture, lowering theirs after changing the settings to stun. Karuntian were vicious opponents when provoked and one never knew what would set them off.
“Either we work together or I can’t allow you on this station, treaty or not,” Ryner stated, still holding his weapons.
“Treaty or not, I protect my males above everything,” Captain Aroc snarled in response.
Oliver swiped at the moisture on his cheek while staring at the floor, riddled with slain men and karuntee, the surface slick with pooling blood. “One of your males stole his way into my bays and attacked my men. I’ll protect them at all cost,” Oliver fired back.
“Commander Cantrell, see to your men, and, Captain Farkus, see to yours—illegally on this station for nefarious reasons. Then I’ll see you both in my office in two minutes,” Ryner ordered, helping a man to his feet and over to a stool beside the control panel. “Check the station and make certain there’s not an outbreak on another level somewhere, then I want this bay cleaned from front to back.” He threaded his fingers through his hair. “Commander, Captain, a minute and a half…in my office. Any more bloodshed and you both go before the council.” Ryner looked at the captain. “Aroc…get a grip on your temper. Being here without an invitation as part of the treaty is forbidden. Remind your males before there’s a blood bath on my station and I have to pick a side to aim my weapon on. My wife’s days away from going into labor and I’m tired, horny, and sick of this shit between you two. So dick off on your time, not mine.”
Breathing ragged, Oliver watched Ryner storm out of the bay before the large doors closed.
“Stick to your karuntian females.” He got to his feet. “Our women are accustomed to men, not aliens.”
“Be careful human, you’re still breathing through your nose because of my human female.” Aroc raised his chin. “Explaining why I killed you would sabotage my plans for the weekend.”
Angered, Oliver swallowed that crushing blow to his ego. Had he stolen another one of their women after Katherine died? Who was his new woman?
***
Anxious to leave, Oliver signed himself out of the medical bay’s care to go home. In his home, two levels up from the shuttle bay, he stepped from the shower wrapping the towel low on his hips. Waving the medic wand from the wall over his slices down his arm, he sucked in a curse over the torn flesh knitting together. Never comfortable with men touching him, he’d left the medical bay before all of his wounds were healed. In prison he’d nearly killed to protect himself from less. Some demons were best worn as weapons.
No broken bones, but Aroc could throw a punch like a steel beam to the stomach. When would he learn to let it go? Never. His partner would still be alive if not for Aroc Farkus letting her die when he could have saved her. Three years had passed but the pain was still there.
Still a little sore, he crossed the room from his sofa to peer down at Earth through the small viewing window, wondering what Ms. Sadie was doing for the evening. Women like Sadie had to have a man somewhere and wouldn’t be interested in someone like him. Someone with hang-ups and nightmares he battled on a daily basis. An ex-con living on a space station surrounded by aliens that could bite a man in half was no place for someone as gentle as Sadie.
She had the prettiest skin and…Sadie, oh shit, what had he been thinking? Her skin color, that’s why she was avoiding him. She’s black in the 1960’s in the south. He’d apologize tomorrow, but he wouldn’t stop pursuing her. She could come live on the space station with him and forget about the stiff views down on Earth.
He moved to the dining table, placing a mug from the rack beneath the replicator. Oliver inhaled the rich, dark coffee’s aroma swirling from the mug. Those males were there to steal from him. Crossing the room, he depressed the button, exposing the larger view of space. Setting the cup down, he strode across the room to his pet iguana, Ted, stretched out on the low table.
“I think it’s time we had a woman in the house, Ted,” Oliver said to the lizard. One large eye followed him around the space. “Fighting all the time is getting old without a gentle woman to come home to.”
He glanced down the hall to the soft pink light flashing down over the door.
“I wondered what took him so long to get here.”
Approaching the door, Oli
ver watched the square filter window fade to reveal Captain Ryner on the other side. The man made it a habit to stop by after Oliver came back from Earth to hear the reports first-hand.
The door slid back. Never one to stand on ceremony, the tall man crossed the threshold uninvited into Oliver’s home. “Captain Holston… a cup of coffee or an aspirin?"
“Black. I had three aspirin after I left Aroc with his men,” he answered removing a phaser from his hip then setting it on the table. Accepting the cup Oliver held in front of him, he reclined in the high back chair, one ankle crossed over the other. He took an appreciative drink of the hot coffee, releasing a heavy sighing afterward. “The karuntian that you shot died in the medical tube, but we were able to retrieve evidence from the soles of his boots. He came from the dark side of the moon where few karuntee continued to dwell. The Hjortsberg’s brothers dealt in black-market fuel. Captain Aroc informed me the karuntian had gone rogue months ago. Now it’s up to you to find out if Edwards is the man on the other end or are we looking at another rogue group of humans.”
Oliver studied his hands, thinking of the blue blood that marred it thirty minutes ago, and wondered when karuntee would take their fight down to Earth.
“I’ll let you know what Aroc reported back. Now what’d you find out on Earth?” Ryner asked, breaking into his thoughts. “How many are funding the illegal shipments?”
“Edwards and five other bankers financed the last two shipments of unfiltered machine gases,” Oliver reported.
Ryner grunted. “Too greedy to see that cheating us on the shipments will cost them more in the end,” he said. “When we set up this contract with Earth, it was to give them access to Karuntian technology, not steal from us. This planet has lain hidden for many centuries. We open a dialogue and this is what we get in return.”
“It was as I suspected,” Oliver said, picking up his electronic pad, browsing his notes. “Once alcohol began to flow at the Edwards party, convincing them I was looking to invest wasn’t a problem. Got access to his home office. Money is transferred from bank to bank.”
