The Spider Queen (The Space Merchants Book 5)

by Wendie Nordgren

  I concentrated on Eric and sent feelings of love, calm, and safety to my cousin. The jungle around us had gone silent. Dr. Savelli had cut away Eric’s pantleg, revealing a deep knife wound from his hip down past his knee. Eric squeezed my hand as the spray hit the wound and it bubbled before the numbing agents made him relax his hold.

  “They are too full of berserker rage to hear us,” Zared said.

  “Then, perhaps it would be wise to shoot any of them who come into view,” I said angrily as I used a sterilization wipe to clean Eric’s face of the sweat threatening to sting his eyes.

  “No, Teagan. That will make peaceful relations even harder,” Eric said weakly.

  “Captain Alaric, had I not insisted on coming out here, you might have bled to death,” I said in a strained voice.

  “Part of the job,” he said as his teeth started to chatter.

  I watched as Dr. Savelli applied pressure bandages. “Gurney,” he ordered. A soldier snapped together one of mesh and metal, attached an anti-grav unit to it, and brought it down beside Eric. Dr. Savelli took Eric’s legs. “On the count of three. One, two, three,” he said as they lifted Eric onto the gurney. Eric tried not to cry out, but I knew how much effort it had taken. “I’ve stopped the bleeding, but you could use a transfusion. You may be sore for a few days,” Dr. Savelli said as he smiled down at my handsome cousin.

  I remembered that Dr. Savelli preferred men and imagined that he would enjoy caring for Captain Eric Alaric if given the opportunity.

  “Can we get back to the transport?” I whispered.

  “Eyes open, shoot anything that moves, fall back. We’ll let their own people explain it to them,” Kane said.

  Xavier took a position to my right as we turned to go back. Eric’s blood drenched Xavier’s right side. Seeing it made my eyes swell up. Turning my attention from Xavier, I listened as Thunderdrop chittered in my ear. I looked down at Eric whose hand I still held.

  “Dr. Savelli!” I whispered as loudly as I dared. Eric was shaking, even with the blankets the doctor had tucked around him. “He’s going into shock, isn’t he?”

  “Chitter chitter!”

  Suddenly, I was knocked from my feet, and Eric’s gurney dropped down low to hover over me. Pinned to the ground beneath the gurney, all I could see were black boots as they struggled and fought. Now and then, I saw long, bare, tan feet with black claws instead of toe nails. The Patagee were everywhere. Xavier was fighting at least twelve of them. They darted down from the trees and then leapt away. I could hear the rip of a knife through fabric and see arches of blood splatter against skeletal tree roots.

  A sharp pain tore at my scalp as I was dragged by my hair from under Eric’s gurney. A vine whipped out and cinched my arms painfully tight against my sides as a sickly-sweet smell overpowered my senses and threw me down into a darkness from which I couldn’t escape.

  “I can if you want me to plow them down,” Eli said.

  “Enough of them have died,” Eric said through chattering teeth. “Try again to communicate with them.”

  The voices around me got louder and then quieter in a strange way that made me feel like I was wavering. I groaned as my head began to pound.

  “They want proof that we didn’t shoot down their life ship,” Xavier said.

  “Then, tell them to follow us back to our emergency aid stations and their women and children,” Kane said.

  My head rested on a black jacket.

  “Are you feeling any better, lady wife?” Yukihyo softly asked.

  “My head,” I complained as I hid my eyes against his neck. Yukihyo’s big strong arms were around me, and I was sitting on his lap. “What happened?”

  “A Patagee tried to take you from me. He was not successful.”

  I exhaled and relaxed more against him.

  “They think we mean to trap them,” Xavier said.

  “Tell them to send a scout to follow us. Then, he can speak to one of their leaders and report back to them.”

  “I need you to do whatever you are going to do fast,” Dr. Savelli stated.

  Worried, I sat up and looked back at Eric. “I’m fine, Teagan,” Eric said tiredly. He didn’t look fine.

  Yukihyo calmed me through our bond before I could panic.

  “They can’t get inside. We can wait until their government representatives arrive and order them to disperse,” Eli suggested.

  “No, we need to hurry. Kane, look at our cousin,” I pleaded.

  Something felt wrong. While Kane continued with his attempts through Xavier to placate the Patagee, I was tempted to drive through them for Eric’s sake. Something nagged at me. I began looking around trying to figure out what was wrong. Drawing in a terrified breath, every muscle in my body tensed up as I felt my head and searched the full cabin.

  “Thunderdrop? Thunderdrop?”

  “Teagan, he’s alive,” Zared said.

  “Where is he?” I asked frantically. “Where’s my spider baby?” I asked as my panic hit the cabin’s roof.

  “He is in the trees hiding from the Patagee,” Zared said.

  “I have to get him!”

  “No,” Zared said.

  “No? But, those big leather-winged birds might get him. They frightened him.”

  “Teagan, be still,” Zared ordered.

  Irrational fury at Zared consumed me.

  “I will not allow you to risk your life for a pet,” Kane said in agreement.

  “A pet?” Seething rage consumed me and was felt by Yukihyo, Eric, Zared, Xavier, and Kane like a hot wave. “Open the hatch and let me out. That is an Imperial order. I will find my bonded Arachnean Silk spider, calm the Patagee, and await their emissary and translation device while you take our cousin to get the treatment he needs.”

  “Teagan Probus, one word from me or a doctor declaring you mentally unfit is all it would take for your orders to mean nothing. You were just drugged,” Kane said firmly.

  “One word from me and you are relieved from duty for being emotionally compromised. What kind of admiral lets feelings get in the way of saving a Galaxic Militia Captain and several alien lives?”

  “The kind who has vowed to protect the Emperor’s daughter,” Kane said hotly.

  “Teagan,” Yukihyo warned.

  Pressing my hands to his face, I kissed Yukihyo’s lips. “Save Eric. Take care of the children.” Xavier was infuriated. I ignored him. “Eli and Zared, come with me,” I said as I stood from Yukihyo’s lap and stepped over to the hatch.

  Chapter Nine

  No one helped me open it, but no one tried to stop me. I stepped out and was surrounded. I held my hands out to my sides as the Patagee King had done. Unfortunately, they had knives pointed at me from every direction and refused to let Eli and Zared out of the large land transport.

  “Just go! Get Eric out of here!” I yelled.

  The Patagee trilled and whistled, pleased with their hostage, and moved out of the way of the transport. As I stepped onto the thick interconnected root system, I felt a moment of light-headedness and lost my fight not to faint. Clawed hands grabbed my upper arms from each side and hauled me up.

  The Patagee surrounding me wore short pants, low on their hips so as not to interfere with their patagium, belts for their sharp knives, and nothing else. The transport had begun its trek back the way in which we had come.

  “Thunderdrop!” I called out. “Here, boy!”

  A clawed hand gripped under my chin breaking my concentration. The Patagee male was my height and angry. He made several angry noises at me that I didn’t understand. Then, another angry male made angrier sounding noises, but he pointed to my nifty new spider tiara and seemed to ask questions designed to prolong my life. I tried to look at him, but with my face captured in the leader’s surprisingly strong grip, I was not successful. They hissed and whistled at each other some more.

  Then, the one holding me by my face began drawing a knife. First, I panicked. Then, I cleared my mind and let my training tak
e over. I lifted my arms between us and up, breaking his hold. Then, I raised my knee and kicked off against his chest. My white boot left a dirty footprint on his stomach muscles. I fought with everything I had, but they were smarter than the wolves of Chione, and there were more of them.

  Soft trills filled the air along with several huffs of sound. A clawed hand came at my face, and I shrank away as much as I could, but a claw tapped at one of the red jewels that dangled from my spider tiara. The alien made another huff of sound before seizing me by my shoulders while another tied my ankles with vines from the jungle.

  Their leader again came at me with the knife, but the others held me so that I couldn’t budge. Gathering all of the force of my psychic will, I shoved against his mind. It made him pause for a moment, but then he shoved back at me with his own mind, making my head loll forward. I heard a series of hisses and then the sound of ripping fabric. Once my thoughts had cleared enough, I realized that he was cutting off my jacket. I attempted to free myself. He tossed pieces of it aside. The others checked it for weapons.

  “No!” I yelled furiously as he began cutting away at my shirt.

  One of them grabbed me by the hair and pulled my head painfully back preventing me from headbutting or biting their leader. The cool jungle air hit my skin and raised pebbles on my flesh. A few sharp trills from one of them, and then my blaster and my belt had been taken from me. I shrieked at him loudly enough to have made Neema and Niklos proud when he cut through my bra straps.

  “Stop it! You are a sorry, no good, squirrely piece of shit!”

  He and the others made the odd huffing sound again which I realized was laughter. Tossing my ruined bra aside, he used his claws to peel away one of the adhesive bandages. He peeked under it for an injury. Trills and whistle sounds emerged from him as he tugged the bandage off and sniffed it. Then, he tossed it to the jungle floor, ripped off the other one, and left me to drip embarrassingly onto the tree roots that they gripped with their clawed feet.

  My wrists were bound in front of me. The leader sheathed his knife, grabbed me around the waist, and leaped up into the trees. My face burned at the trail of milk that I left behind. The Patagee took no notice of the leaves and bugs as they climbed high up into the branches. I was terrified he would drop me. I couldn’t hold onto anything. In horror, I watched as other Patagee climbed as high into the trees as they could go, and then jumped. They spread their arms wide, the air caught in the thick folds of skin at their sides, and they glided.

  “No, no, no, no, no! You can’t do that with me. We’ll fall, or you’ll drop me. Take me back down. I’ll walk.”

  He made huffing noises at me as did the others who were with him. It seemed that they glided the air currents in packs. Then, we were falling. I screamed as we rushed through the air until a bug hit the back of my throat making me choke. Then, we stopped as his clawed feet gripped a thick branch, and he began to climb. He froze and trilled. Sharp blades were draw all around us. I screamed yet again when I saw the creature with whom we shared a branch.

  I didn’t know if it was an animal or a bug, but it was almost as big as me. Its brown and green coloring hid it among the large leaves. On the top of its round head was a single, dark, glassy-looking eye that was protected by one of its sets of tusks. It had two long legs, each ending in three clawed fingers that gripped the branch. It began shaking a long stinger on the back of its bulbous body at me.

  With my hands tied before me, my ankles tied so tightly together that I could feel my bones grinding against each other through my ice bear boots, and topless, all I could do was scream. I was afraid if I struggled the Patagee leader would drop me. We were so far up in the tree that I couldn’t see the ground. Terror made milk shoot from my swollen breasts, and one stream hit the creature in its eye. It backed off and jumped to another branch.

  Trills and loud huffs surrounded me. The one holding me let go of me to switch his hold. When he did, he cupped a clawed hand over my right boob and then licked his palm. More huffs and trills ensued.

  “I have firmly decided to kill you at my first opportunity, you, insufferable cretin,” I vowed coldly.

  The huffs got louder. Empathically, I could sense his amusement through his touch. I assumed he could feel my anger and that it had caused his joviality.

  Eventually, the band of aliens set down on the jungle floor. Trying to count them as they moved had been impossible. From behind, the Patagee looked like short, bald, muscular men, as long as they kept their arms down. When they turned, their chests and shoulders looked normal, but their ears, noses, and oddly shaped mouths ruined my attempts at familiarity.

  The band of a hundred or so who had attacked us had left more than twice their numbers in the jungle. From ship salvage, they had begun building shelters. I watched from where I had been laid on the ground as a flat platform of supplies was pulled up with a trolley system into the branches of a large tree. That was when I noticed they were building several tree houses, and they were making them quickly. From around their sprawling camp, fires burned, and various Talpan creatures and insects had been spitted and were slowly roasting. Closing my eyes, I fervently hoped Thunderdrop was safe.

  Overcome with the exhaustion of the battle, my own attempts at fighting the Patagee, and the stressful climbing and gliding through the jungle, I allowed my head to drop. My eyes drifted shut to the sounds of trills and whistles. Moments later, I was hefted up onto a shoulder. Huffs of Patagee laughter sounded around me. Too tired to care, I dozed while he sank his claws into the trunk of a tree and climbed.

  How long I had slept, I didn’t know. What I did know was that I had to pee, and that it was long past Niklos’ feeding. The same Patagee who had been giving the orders, destroying my clothing, carrying me around like luggage, and sampling my breast milk sat staring at me. He lifted an arm and pointed to a small room behind him.

  Worried about the stability of the floor, I carefully stood, kept as much space between him and myself as I could, and looked around the curtain that had been attached with metal rings to one of the branches above us. A waste unit and shower, obviously salvaged from their wrecked ship, had been braced, secured, and made operational. Tubing from the shower had been attached to the tree trunk and went down through a small opening in the floor and away to its source. Rather desperately, I unfastened my borrowed pants and sat on the waste unit. I sighed in relief and seemed to pee forever. My head ached. Reaching up, I felt the tiara and had to untangle it from my hair. I pressed the button on the waste unit.

  “No matter our differences, waste unit technology is pretty much the same,” I said to myself.

  I heard mechanical trills and a few huffs. I was trying to wrap the colorful cloth that Queen Spectra had given me around my boobs as I looked around the curtain.

  “Here. Clean. Drink,” the box translated as my captor handed me a cup.

  I sniffed at it and then thirstily drank. “Where did you get that device? Is your king here? Have my people come for me?”

  Once the box had translated my words, he spoke into it. “Our king as you call him is my father. This device and the ship you destroyed are mine.”

  The box slowed us down, but it was better than nothing. Afraid of being so high up in a tree, I sat on the floor and put the crown down in front of me. “We did not fire upon your ship. One of your fighters set off a chain reaction with the mines. I was establishing diplomatic relations with the King of the Patagee when it happened. We exchanged gifts. He took shelter with us in our vessel.”

  He sneered at me. “Patagee is what you call us? It is disrespectful. Shall we call you the opposable thumbs? You remind me of creatures we kept as pets on our home world, but you can talk.”

  “Well, you remind me of squirrels, but since you don’t have fluffy tails, you look more like bats.”

  He huffed at me and picked up the crown. Turning it over in his clawed hands, he said, “Without a doubt, I know my father gifted you with this. I will keep you as my h
ostage until I am assured of my peoples’ safety and the truth of your words. We can’t afford to lose any more of our race.”

  I looked down at my boots in shame as guilt overcame me. “The man your father held on his ship is like a brother to me. I feared he meant to kill him. We thought your people meant to destroy our ships.”

  “My people are desperate.”

  “The box seems to be getting faster.”

  He nodded. “We are builders and had much time to create various gadgets as we drifted through unknown space. We were not certain we would find a hospitable planet, but here we are and none too soon. I am Farowyn of the Eloneave.”

  “I am Teagan of the Parvac.”

  “My father named you the Spider Queen. The spiders on our home world were deadly.”

  “Well, the spiders of Arachne are sentient and loving. My spider is lost,” I said sorrowfully as tears fell from my eyes.

  “Your little spider is smart. He will survive. You stink. Go.”

  Affronted, I stared at Farowyn. He huffed at me and motioned me into the bathroom. “I will find you something clean and some food. Try not to fall from my house.” Farowyn lifted up a trapdoor and climbed down the tree.

  There wasn’t a rope, ladder, or anything. It was so far down to the forest floor that I couldn’t see it. My skin itched, so I took off my boots, socks, pants, undies, and swath of fabric. Carefully, I stepped into the shower. It was an upright, rectangular box with holes at the top and bottom. Warily, after sniffing myself and realizing the necessity of a shower, I pushed the button. Water shot out from the top and bottom, drawing from me an unintentional jump and giggle. There was no escape from water hitting my private areas. I scrubbed at my scalp while trying not to die from laughter. The shower shut off automatically once the water had to recycle. Since I was clean and drying quickly, I assumed they used cleaning enzymes.

  I struggled to untangle my hair. I sat on the waste unit and peed again while finger combing my hair. At least Farowyn meant to keep me alive. Since I didn’t need to worry about myself, my thoughts returned to Thunderdrop.