Primal Planet Captive: SciFi Alien Fated Romance

by Skylar Clarke

  “A rocket hit the bridge. No warning. The cult’s ship was cloaked. I have no idea where they acquired a device substantial enough to work with this vessel, but they’ve rigged it to function somehow. Had we known they possessed such technology, we would have been alert to such things. But I fear we underestimated them.”

  “I think we both did,” I say. “How many?”

  “I only saw five, but I assume it takes a slightly larger number to keep a ship this size up and running. On our earlier scans, we noted six. They pointed their guns directly at your ship. It was already badly damaged and separated from my own. Another hit would have killed us both. I didn’t—”

  I stop him before he can get any further. “I understand,” I say. “It was the right call—the only call really. My ships not equipped to take on that level of firepower even without sustaining heavy damage first, and I wasn’t exactly in any shape to help you man the guns.” I pause then, realizing that there is something he has still neglected to mention. “What about your ship?” Your men, is buried beneath the question and goes unspoken, though I am sure the concern comes through in the tone of my voice.

  “Badly damaged as well,” he says. “There was a hole in the hull, and they seemed to be drifting. They fired several shots at this ship, but only one managed to make contact before we were out of range. They stopped firing once we were aboard.”

  The pain in his voice is full and real, as is the possibility that his men are dead or dying. Their state depends entirely on how much damage the ship suffered and how well his engineers were able to hold it together.

  “Hey,” I say. “They’re not incompetent with you as a commander. If there is any possible way to keep that ship going, they’re gonna find it.”

  “They might be dead in the water,” he says. It is a human idiom, picked up from me or some other soldiers during our days of working in tandem whenever there was some discrepancy about whether Velorian or Federation troops should respond to a situation.

  They could very well be drifting with no way of contacting assistance, but I do not say this. “They’ll be fine. Anyway, I have an idea, so long as you’ll help me out a bit. How long has it been?”

  “Not long,” he answers. “Four hours, give or take. There should be close to twelve hours of oxygen in reserve on the ship.”

  “Right,” I say. “I don’t think they searched me very thoroughly. The only thing I seem to be missing is the blaster. I’ve even still got a knife in my boot. If you can reach into my back pocket, there should be a lockpick there. It’s small enough I doubt they’d notice, even if they were looking.”

  Jari is frowning. I cannot see it, but I recognize his tone. “I don’t see how that will help. My own handcuffs don’t seem to have a traditional keyhole and I’m having no luck breaking them by force.”

  “Why don’t you just—”

  “I’ve tried shifting,” he interrupts. “The cuffs … somehow they’re intercepting it. To try causes pain. Whatever technology they’re using, I’m not familiar with it, and neither is the Velorian military.”

  I’ve never heard of such a thing, and as a person who occasionally operates outside of the boundaries of the law, I usually make it my business to stay up to date on various frightening advancements and knickknacks. For Jari to admit that it causes him pain, the discomfort must be great indeed. “Well,” I pronounce. “Shit. Okay. Still need you to get the lockpick from my pocket.”

  Jari starts another rant about the impossibility of escape, but turns around anyway, putting his back against mine. I angle my own to match. The spines there make it impossible for us to be pressed tight against each other in such a way, but we do the best we can. “You won’t be able to take upwards of six men by yourself with just a knife, and there’s no way I can contribute much to any fight without the use of my hands and no dragon to call upon. It would be one thing if they were members of some lesser species, but all but of two of them appear to be Velorians,” he says, hand finding my pocket and slipping inside. It’s a strange feeling—his hand there with no intent that is not practical.

  “This isn’t the way I imagined this happening,” I begin, and Jari chokes on a laugh.

  “You,” he says, searching with a bit more enthusiasm now, “are absolutely ridiculous.”

  “I know,” I reply, as he pulls the lockpick free. His hands pass it to my own, pressing it in to my palm, where I grip it tight and maneuver it into the most useful position. I have only learned this in recent years, when lawlessness became something I needed to now. As a soldier, you can simply break down whatever doors need breaking, but as a bounty hunter who sometimes operates outside of the realm of legality, such things often came in handy for jobs where you don’t want to leave a trace of your entrance, forced or otherwise.

  This being said, I am not by any means an expert, and would have no chance of picking something remotely complicated. Despite the simplicity of the handcuffs, I drop the pick three times due solely to the awkward angle and have to search for it blindly on the dusty floor. At last, just when my fingers are beginning to cramp, the tumbler within the lock turns just so and the cuffs spring free. As my shoulders have been wrenched into such a position for several hours, I sigh in relief.

  “Got it,” I say.

  “I’m happy for you,” Jari says. “Though I still don’t quite see what you’ve accomplished.”

  In answer, I stretch my aching arms forward and fiddle with the backside of my prosthesis, where an alien on X-24 once grafted on a custom detachable comm device. My fingers search in the dark for only a moment, before they find the correct screw to turn and pull it free. The best part is that it doesn’t compromise the integrity of the leg. “I’ve got a friend in this system at the moment. With a little luck, he’ll answer.”

  I turn on the comm device and cross my fingers as I find the channel I want to speak on, the same one Vince had used to contact me before my unlucky stop on Morda-6. There is a lag that stretches out a solid minute as the signal punches its way through static and finds a path to stretch through. And then, just when the static cuts off into nothing and I feel a sigh rise in my throat, Vince’s voice cuts through.

  “Who the hell is this? And how do you have access to a private channel?” He sounds irritated and only half awake. I wonder what time it is on the planet he’s currently occupying.

  “It’s me—” I say. “Tessie.”

  “Owens? This isn’t your usual comm ID. You in trouble?”

  I wince a bit. “Heaps,” I say shortly. “Listen, I’m in deep shit. I don’t have a location to give you for myself, but I’ve got something just as good. There are some Velorian soldiers in a damaged ship between Morda-6 and my current location. It was quiet run; we saw no other ships and they probably haven’t run across any help yet. I’m sending you their last known coordinates, but you’ll have to calculate for drift, alright?”

  “…Right. Where are you calling from?’

  I hesitate. “Smuggling ship of some sort. The one the cult is flying.”

  “Shit, Owens.”

  “Just find the ship full of Velorian soldiers. You find them, they might be able to give you information on which way this ship was headed. Bring a ship big enough to haul eleven soldiers. I’m with their commander. We’ll figure something out. Just don’t risk your ass for me.”

  I hang up before he can say anymore, having said what I need to help Jari’s men. Jari gives me a relieved nod. “Thank you,” he says. “But if he finds them, and if they’re still alive, you know they’ll only be able to guess at our current position.

  “I know,” I answer, and I am thinking of streets covered in ash and screams clawing at my ears. I give him a smile. “But we’ve gotten out of worse scrapes than this one.”

  The door opens, and I realize I am still holding the comm device in my hand.

  6

  Jari

  Tess fights them because everything with Tess must be a fight. They tear the comm device f
rom her tightly clenched fist. She allows them to take it, to crush it underfoot, but when they go to drag her to her feet, bending down to reach her, she slams her forehead into the nearest face, heedless of her own safety. The next grabs her while the first is still doubled over, wiping blood from his nose.

  To leave Tess to fight alone, even in a useless fight, feels like a betrayal of her trust. She grins when she sees me standing, throwing elbows as one Velorian and another vaguely humanoid alien attempt to subdue her.

  I manage to kick one in the chest without losing my balance, sending him flying back through the door he entered through. Tess catches my eye and grins. It is wild, like the feral baring of teeth one might see from a predator, but also joyful. It is brief and brutal.

  My injuries from my capture keep me from doing much more. The cuffs activate before I can do much more, and I realize that the sight of Tess being struck in the face hard enough to stun her has brought my dragon closer to the surface than I usually allow it to rise without my permission.

  She drops like a ton of bricks, and I drop with her, my entire world becoming pain for a single burning instant. They stun us both with blasters for good measure, which is a familiar feeling, though still unpleasant. I’m still bleary when they pull us to our feet. This time, Tess is unresisting for the most part, though she does make a show of forcing herself to be dragged rather than walking forward willingly.

  Halfway there, she gets sick in the hallway. The Velorian pulls back in disgust, but manages to keep his hold on her arm. She is ahead of me, and I cannot get a good enough look at her to see if she is badly hurt. A well-placed punch is often enough to injure a human’s brain, and I had seen a Velorian fist strike her face. They pack more damage than a strike from a smaller species. Tess is walking though, Tess is standing, and I tell myself that the sickness is merely a residual effect of the hangover she’d woken with. I have seen her take far worse and still find a way to keep going.

  They lead us up several flights of stairs. The distance that we walk does not surprise me. Large ships always seem larger still from the inside. We are taken to a bare room, shoved inside, and left alone. It will not be for long. There are voices coming from the outside. There are two chairs behind us, one tailored for Velorians, but we remain standing without an agreement being made between us.

  “Are you alright?” I ask.

  “Had worse,” she answers, which I should have predicted. Her stance is a bit off, and there is already a bruise rising on her jaw. She catches me staring. “Lucky he didn’t dislocate it,” she says.

  “You did break his nose,” I remind her.

  The door opens, and a fire Velorian steps inside, flanked by several others. He stands in front of us, looking us up and down. He seems somewhat satisfied by our disheveled appearance. He also looks to the chairs behind us, as though curious as to our choice to remain standing.

  “Why isn’t she restrained?” he asks, eyes going to Tess.

  Beside him, a guard holds up the useless pair of handcuffs. “They’re the only ones that were small enough to fit a human. She clean broke them, Seldyn.”

  The Velorian that I assume to be the leader, Seldyn, blows a huff of irritated air through his nose. “For a civilian,” he says, “you’re sure causing an awful lot of trouble.” He takes a step forward and reaches out to lift her jaw up with one finger, examining the damage himself.

  I have to bite down on the growl rising in my throat. It is only the knowledge that the cuffs I wear might knock me to the ground again that keeps me from attempting to shift and threaten him properly. I settle for giving him a glare that states in explicit detail just how much I would like to kill him.

  As he touches her, Tess turns her head away as if his skin is truly hot enough to burn. Her hands are trembling, and she bites anxiously at her lip. If I didn’t know her as well as I do, I would assume she is fighting back tears of fear. It is a good act, one I’ve never seen her put on, and I find myself impressed with it. I understand her motivation. If they think her a civilian, they may be lenient enough that escape remains a larger possibility than if they realize just what she is.

  “Who were you calling?”

  “My brother,” she answers, without any sort of hesitation that might make them think she was spinning a story.

  “What did you tell him?” he asks.

  “I don’t know,” she answers. “I don’t know anything. I don’t know who you are, I don’t know our location.” Her words come quick and her breathing comes shallow. The leader takes the bait and swallows it whole. He dismisses her as baggage, and turns to me.

  “Identity yourself, brother,” he says with a nod.

  The familiarity makes my blood boil almost literally. I cannot fathom calling him the same. He knows who I am. Even if I hadn’t just recently been mixed up in their schemes, I’m sure they have the name and profile of every soldier that is in any way close to the prince. To lie to them about my identity now will only antagonize them, and with the fight Tess only recently instigated, we have likely pushed our luck in that avenue more than enough already.

  “Jari,” I say, “of Veloria. I hold the rank of commander and often advise Prince Takkan in military matters.”

  When I say the prince’s name, he spits onto the ground.

  “And what is your mission, Jari,” Seldyn answers. His voice is rather mocking. I stare at him, doing my best to memorize his face. They will not let us go. We know far too much for that, now that we have seen each of their faces up close, now that we can testify to the truth of their crimes. Still, if we manage to escape, somehow, I want to know that I can find him again.

  “My mission is to gather intelligence on the movements of your organization, to kill or capture members if I can, and to dismantle your infrastructure and destroy your cells.”

  “Honest,” Seldyn replies, even as Tess cuts me a glare. “I like this one. I think we will allow you to live. I’m in charge of this group, and several other ‘squads’, you might say, like the ones that you command. But I am not the leader. We will take you with us to meet him, because I think he would enjoy meeting you.” The fire Velorian gives me a slow smile. It stretches wider as he speaks, growing more sinister. “Even if he doesn’t, I’m sure there’s something we can learn from a personal friend of the prince.”

  Tess bristles. “He won’t tell you shit,” she says. Her voice shakes around the words in rage. I recognize the emotion in her voice, but the Velorians are unfamiliar with humans, and likely assume that she is still too frightened to keep it steady.

  “We have our ways,” he says.

  Tess and I are soldiers, and we both know that what he speaks of is torture. The specifics don’t matter. Apply enough pain and you can make anyone tell you anything—even things they weren’t sure they knew. Velorians feel pain and fear as keenly as anyone else; we are not exempt from such horrors. If anything, the fact that we can withstand more traumas before dying would be a negative in such a situation. I know things about the prince that would be useful ammo in their campaign against him. In accepting this mission, in agreeing to help Takkan rid Veloria and the surrounding planets of their influence, I never realized that I would placing his secrets in danger.

  The fact that I will be meeting the leader cheers me a little. If we are to live—if we are to escape—perhaps I can do so with some useful bit of information. Perhaps they’ll take us to a hidden location where—

  “What are you smuggling?” I ask.

  The leader huffs and looks to his men as though sharing a joke. The wordless transmission of emotion between captain and crew makes me feel a sharp pang of worry for my own soldiers and their current situation. They are smart, they are resourceful, and they are strong. They will be alive when Tess’s friend finds them. I repeat the words in my head, hoping this makes them more likely to be true.

  “We ask the questions here.”

  I want to point out that only one of them seems intelligent enough to formulate quest
ions, but Tess has always been the mouthier of the two of us. I’ve had quite of enough of being stunned today. Tess is still shaken from the same, as well as the blow she sustained to her head. There are few humans that withstand a stun without being knocked fully unconscious by it, but I’m guessing this is just another fact about humans that the cult is not privy to. I can tell from the sheen of sweat on her skin, and the pallor visible beneath the usual, warm, dark shade of brown that she is still sick and hurting.

  “What was this human doing aboard your ship?”

  “She needed assistance,” I answer. “Her fuel tank busted and she hailed us for help patching it. I was just about to tell her it was no good and offer her a ride to the nearest station, when you and your men fired on a civilian vessel.”

  “We fired on the bridge,” the Draxl throws out defensively. “Completely different.”

  “It’s a lie,” Tess breaks in. She is still using her frightened voice, but there is hardness, determination in her tone that wasn’t there moments before. Seldyn looks interested at the shift. “I’m his mate.”

  First, I feel a flash of anger that she has thought to undermine my story, one meant to keep her safe, with one far more dangerous. I cannot fathom where she is headed with this. Second, I feel a spark of undeniable pleasure at hearing her say such words, though I know they are not true.

  “His mate?” The leader lifts a brow, looking between the two of us.

  “Yes,” Tess says, letting her voice drop lower. “I wanted to come on the mission, just to tag along.” She looks to me as she speaks and her eyes do many things at once—I see the love and regret, and a hint of buried playfulness. I also see Tess hiding beneath it, begging me with her gaze to let her keep going. I have little choice. To trod over her story now would make us both look suspicious, whereas now, it simply looks as though I was trying my hardest to keep the bulk of the negative attention on myself, as any good mate would do. “He told me it was dangerous, but I … I came anyway.”