I can’t hear him, but I know what he’s thinking, and it’s something like, ‘I will protect you, but I need more jerky. Much more.’
We’re floating in zero-g, and I’ve already felt the shudder and vibrations of my cargo pod being locked into the pirate ship.
And now the airlock is hissing.
I eye the crate of jerky. I feel the hunger flaring up in my stomach. The bonding process must have used up a lot of calories.
I start to float toward the crate. Jerky is hungry, and he’s propelling us together toward the food. I can’t say I object.
I pull out a stick, tear off the wrapper, and start to eat. I eat as fast as I can, but my human biology is no match for how fast Jerky was able to eat before, and even before I can finish the first stick of jerky, I see the wheel on the hatch begin to turn.
I fight Jerky for control, and I imagine myself propelling back toward the door. When I think it, it simply happens. The suit is somehow able to expend energy to propel me around in zero-g.
I’m facing the hatch now head-first, as if it were below me and I was going to swim through it like a hoop. I reorient myself as if I was going to walk through it. I have no idea which kind of orientation is ideal for fighting off three deranged, alien pirates, but something about having my head pointed toward those three with their big blades doesn’t sit well with me.
The hatch begins to open, and I steel myself.
It pops open quite suddenly, and the three pirates are floating just on the other side.
The big Marauder is on my left, and he’s no longer holding the big sword, but rather a small little blade.
The Seraph woman is looking at me wide-eyed, and all hint of malice is gone from her face. She’s gone from a vicious cat to a curious one.
And the handsome Seraph? He’s staring at me, his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open. He’s still holding that giant blade, but he’s barely gripping it. His ears perk up like a dog seeing its owner come home after a long day at work, and I see his tongue run across his lips as his eyes run up and down my body.
And he’s still shirtless, and in person he’s not just handsome, but breathtaking. He no longer looks like he wants to grind my bones to dust...he looks like he wants me to grind his bone.
I begin to raise a hand. Maybe I can just wave ‘hi’ to them and defuse the whole situation –
The big Marauder kicks one of the handholds on the wall, propelling himself toward me. He lets out a terrifying roar that echoes and reverberates through the corridor and into my cargo pod. I feel that roar vibrate through my bones, and it pierces down into my heart. Fear overtakes me and adrenaline surges through me as the giant mass of alien muscle barrels toward me like a runaway truck.
I point my hand at him, and then Jerky takes over.
Orange melted biomass shoots out of my hand in thick strands – tendrils, as Marauders call them – and they slam into the horrifying alien pirate.
“Ramu, no!” the Seraph shouts.
I get the feeling that the two Seraphim don’t really mean me any harm. The big Marauder definitely wants to kill me, but I’m not a killer.
“Go easy on him, Jerky.”
The tendrils wrap around the Marauder’s ankles and wrists and begin to harden, which stops his forward movement. He’s held floating in mid-air just in front of me.
His muscles bulge as he fights against the tendrils, and I will them to stay solid, to –
My stomach churns, and the most ravenous hunger I’ve ever experienced completely overtakes me.
I lose focus on everything but my stomach, and the tendrils soften and fall away.
The big alien is floating dead-center in the corridor now, and he has to reach for another handhold to come at me again, but I’m already floating back toward the crate of jerky. I’m not eating to power up the suit this time, I’m eating to survive.
“Ramu!” the female Seraph shouts, and I see her grabbing him from the corner of my eye as I reach for more jerky.
“She’s not going to hurt us,” the male Seraph, Captain Kronos, says.
I bite into a stick of jerky, shoving the whole thing into my mouth so that I can start to unwrap the next one as I chew the first.
“She’s reloading!” I hear Ramu shouting. “We gotta’ kill her now! Let me go, Delphie!”
“Are you going to hurt us?” Kronos asks.
“No,” I try to say through a mouth-full of jerky.
“What do you want?” Delphie asks.
“Food!” I say, swallowing and pointing down at the crate.
I see Ramu’s foot press into Delphie’s stomach, and he pushes her off and down the corridor. And then he’s flying toward me again, but Kronos launches himself after Ramu. Ramu kicked off Delphie, and Kronos kicked off a solid handrail – Kronos is moving faster.
I hold my hand up in hopes of stopping Ramu, but Jerky seems deactivated. He’s out of food.
Kronos catches hold of Ramu’s foot, and then Kronos hooks his own foot against the outer rim of the airlock. Ramu stops dead just in front of me, but he throws the blade right at me.
“No!” Kronos shouts, and the giant sword flies forward. Are they fighting to see who gets to kill me?
I stare in dumb and useless disbelief as the tiny blade floats point first toward my face. Fear paralyzes me, and my first instinct is for Jerky to propel me away...but he’s not responding to my commands. By the time I think to use my own legs and kick off the ground, the blade is right on me.
But Kronos’s sword hits it at the last minute, knocking the small blade off-course and into a rapid spin. Both weapons clatter uselessly, many dozens of meters behind me at the end of the cargo bay.
The two men are grunting now and punching each other.
Delphie floats forward and rams into both of them. They try to ignore her and punch each other, but she grabs Ramu by the hair and pulls, hissing.
“Shit!” Ramu grunts. “Ahhh! Stop, Delphie!”
“You taught me to fight dirty, you big dumb bastard!” she screams.
She swings her foot, and she connects solidly right into Ramu’s balls.
He lets out a horrendous and pained wail, like a bear caught in a trap...and then stung by hundreds of bees.
Finally Kronos grabs the handrail and shoves Ramu, sending him floating down the corridor.
Kronos looks at me and grins.
I’m still too scared to smile, so I just look at him with a dumb expression.
“Strip off the suit,” he says, his voice suddenly serious.
“We just met,” I say.
He points at me, and his ears flick back and forth. “You gotta’ get it off!”
Oh, the biosuit. Jerky. Not my clothes.
“It will eat you alive from the inside!” He’s already floating toward me, his arms outstretched.
He slams into me and wraps his arms around me. The impact sends us into a spin, almost like a dance, as we both float through the cargo bay. He’s holding me tight – no, he’s pulling at my skin.
I try to grab him back to get him off me, but he’s shirtless so my hands just grope his huge back muscles. They slip and slide off his sweat, and his masculine scent fills my nostrils like a powerful aphrodisiac. I try to ignore that stupid and totally inappropriate desire, but it’s got my heart thumping and my cheeks flushing hot.
My hands slip off his back and settle onto his huge, strong arms.
He hits the wall back first, then clutches a handrail, which stabilizes us against the wall.
In the distance, I see Delphie giggling and stroking Ramu’s hair. Ramu doesn’t look happy, but he’s no longer trying to kill me.
“I can’t get it off!” Kronos says.
I imagine that I met him in a bar, and that we hit it off with some heavy flirting. I then imagine he took me back to his place, and that he wants me so badly that he’s fighting furiously to unclasp my bra, but failing.
“Shit, why can’t I get it off?” he shouts.
&
nbsp; I start to laugh.
“It’s going to eat you alive from the inside!” he says, voice dead serious.
He’s running his hands along my back, and even though the biosuit is covering my clothes, I can feel his hands as if they were touching my bare skin. He has strong hands that are well-calloused, and they are so damn warm and nice against my skin. He was pinching gently at first, but now he’s almost tearing at my skin, and it starts to hurt.
“It’s deactivated,” I say. “There’s no danger.”
He meets eyes with me then, and his green eyes express true concern and confusion.
“Biosuits eat humans alive,” he says. “It shouldn’t be possible for it to go dormant.”
I look at him with a level expression. Should I tell him what I know? That this isn’t a regular biosuit. Just because he’s hot and kind-of-sort-of saved my life – after kidnapping me – should I trust him? He’s still a fucking pirate who attacked me.
“It’s not a regular biosuit,” I say. “I’m safe.”
Idiot. I shouldn’t have said that. Any information is too much, but when I see the relief wash across his rugged face, I feel much happier than I should. And when he smiles, oh God, when he smiles I feel something much worse and much stupider course all through my body.
“I see,” he says.
“So you can let go of me now,” I say.
He looks down in surprise at his hands. One is still pressed tightly and warm against my back, and the other is wrapped gently around my arm.
He lets go.
“Is he going to kill me?” I ask, pointing down the corridor toward Ramu.
“No,” Kronos says. “I’m the captain of this ship. No one disobeys my orders.”
“Then how come he still charged me and tried to kill me right after you said, ‘Ramu, no!’”
His face scrunches up, and his ears pull back. “That’s...that was...he’ll be reprimanded for that.”
“So, um,” I say, “what is going to happen to me?”
“We can dump you off next time we dock somewhere,” Kronos says.
So he’s not going to kill me. That’s a start.
“I need to get to Venus,” I say.
Kronos laughs.
“What’s so funny?”
“What you need doesn’t factor in here. I’m the captain, we go where I want us to go.”
“But I’m broke,” I say. “Everything I owned was on that ship, with those assholes who ran away and left me for dead.”
“Can you cook?” Kronos asks.
“Cook...what?”
“Food. Can you make food?”
“Of course, but what does that have to do with anything?”
“Delphie thinks she can cook, but she can’t. And Ramu is a mercenary, so he sure as hell won’t. I could pay you if you cook well.”
“Why can’t you cook?” I ask.
“I’m the captain. How do you think it would affect morale to see the captain slaving away in the kitchen?”
I sigh. “So...if I cook for you guys until we make it to the next planet or station, you’ll give me some money and drop me off?”
“This is a pirate ship, not a charity,” Kronos says. “We’ll be docking somewhere in like...a few days to sell off your biosuit. You can’t expect a huge paycheck for a few days’ worth of – ”
“Wait! You can’t take my biosuit!”
Kronos scrunches up his face at me. “Of course I can. I’m a pirate.”
“But...it’s my biosuit.”
“Yes,” Kronos says. “And I’m a pirate. My job is to forcefully steal things from people. I’m sure you understand.”
“No. You need to understand. This biosuit is special, it’s….”
“Special?” Kronos says. “To me that just means valuable.”
“You’re an asshole,” I snap.
“An asshole would have ripped that suit off you and killed you. I’ve offered you a job on the ship and free transport to safety. That’s why I’m a pirate with heart.”
“A pirate...with heart? You actually call yourself that?”
He grins at me. “Now take the biosuit off. I don’t want you getting attached.”
“I don’t know how,” I say.
He glares at me. “Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not lying,” I say. “This is the first time I’ve worn it.”
He narrows his eyes and says, “Truth or not, you’ll need to figure out how to get it off.”
“And why’s that?”
“Because,” he says. “Remember how Ramu came at you?”
I shudder.
“Yeah,” Kronos says. “You know why he came at you like that? He wants your suit. He’s a mercenary, and he’s greedy.”
“Greedier than you?”
Kronos puts a hand on his chest, and sucks air in through his teeth. “Come on, that hurts. I have heart, remember?”
I roll my eyes at him.
“Ramu will have zero interest in you once that suit is off,” Kronos says. “But so long as it’s all tight against your skin like that, you’ll want to sleep with one eye open.”
He looks down at my body, his eyes lingering.
“I thought you were captain,” I say. “And that your crew does nothing without your order.”
“Well,” Kronos says, “I want you to get that suit off so I can sell it, so let’s just say I’m not going to order Ramu one way or another. Consider him a force of nature. Test him at your own risk.”
“You’ll protect me,” I say, locking eyes with him.
“Don’t count on it,” he says.
“I saw already,” I say, pretending to have more confidence than I feel, “You won’t let him lay a finger on me.”
He steels his face against me, trying not to show any emotion. After a long pause, he simply says, “I’ll show you to the kitchen.”
7 Kronos
“Captain!”
It’s Ramu’s voice. He’s limping awkwardly into the command room. Delphie got him good.
We’re accelerating at .5g again, so gravity is back.
I point down to his balls. “Looks like you trained Delphie really well in just one session.”
He grits his teeth and glares at me. “I just saw the human woman in the kitchen. She’s still wearing the suit.”
I hold a hand up to my ear, and I pull it up taut and straight, flicking it back and forth.
“Captain,” Ramu says icily.
“Not your problem,” I say. “I just transferred the other half of your payment into your account. Did you want to work another job for me? If not, I can drop you off at the next station.”
“You’re firing me?” Ramu asks.
“No,” I say. “I just remember when I first hired you. At that time, it sounded like you had other plans after this mission.”
“No, Captain,” Ramu says. “I...I’d like to be full crew.”
I grin and lean back in my chair, throwing my feet up onto the console. “Oh?”
“Yeah,” Ramu says. “It’s just, uh, the pirates with heart thing. That, uh, appeals to me.”
“Really, Ramu?” I ask. “Of all the things you could have made up, that’s the absolutely least believable lie you could have told. If you had told me you wanted to ‘keep training with Delphie,’ I might have bought it. Maybe.”
“All right!” Ramu snaps. “I want that fucking suit!”
I nod. “Yeah, no shit.”
“I thought it all out,” he says. “All the economics and shit. So normally for a ship this size doing standard pirate business, you’d want at least three more Marauders, or like six more humans. That’s the minimum you’d need for solid raids – like real raids where you have to fight – not ones where you trick ‘em like we did last time.”
“So what are you getting at? Are you my business manager now?”
“No,” Ramu says. “You can sell that suit for a huge paycheck, sure, but whoever you sell it to is gonna’ use it. Let’s say you
sell it for two years’ worth of bankroll. After two years, it’s gone. But if you use the suit, it will profit you for the rest of your life.”
“I don’t know,” I say, leaning so far back in my chair that I’m basically laying down. I crack my knuckles. “If I’m wearing the suit, I can’t help but feel like I’m a huge target. Once everyone knows that Kronos, the pirate with heart, has a biosuit, I’ll just draw trouble. You think the peacekeepers will leave me alone when I have the most illegal weapon in the solar system? And when I’m using it to raid and steal shit from people?”
“Harmony is flexing her muscles too much,” Ramu says. “The insane A.I. dictator of Earth, that’s what the peacekeepers are worried about. Not some dickhead pirate...no offense, Captain. But you don’t gotta’ draw the fire. You give me the suit, see? Now you don’t gotta’ hire a bunch more crew, I’m all your muscle. You just pay me the normal split of the profits – whatever you give Delphie you give me – and boom, the suit pays for itself.”
“Right,” I say, looking down my raised feet at him. “And you get to become the most feared pirate in the solar system.”
Ramu shrugs.
I nod my head and pretend to be deep in thought. “Well, it’s worth considering, Ramu. I’ll let you know.”
“Thanks, Cap,” he says, and limps out of the room.
I smile when he’s gone. I’m definitely selling the suit, but this will motivate Ramu to scare it off Minna’s skin.
And once that suit is off her, maybe I can convince her to keep working for me as cook. I’ll drop her off if she really wants me to, but I have to admit I’d much rather have her close by my side. The closer the better.
Minna is the last to arrive. She’s put a regular crew’s jumpsuit on over top of her bright orange biosuit. It leaves much more to my imagination than the skin-tight biosuit.
I’m standing straight with my shoulders back in the center of the command room. My small crew of three is standing before me, not at rigid attention as I’d prefer, but looking at me with weariness and skepticism.
“You’re standing before your captain,” I say.
Delphie slouches even more. “So?”
Marauder Kronos: Scifi Alien Invasion Romance (Mating Wars) Page 3
