by Ava Ross
Passing the hall she’d used to sneak up on the other aliens, she rushed Kral around a corner, and they raced down the next passage, aiming for the stairwell at the end. The lighting in this part of the station sucked, but it would work in their favor. They’d be harder targets to hit.
More laser blasts smacked the floor and walls around them, sending tile and concrete flying. They were crazy! They’d destroy the station and everyone on board if they weren’t careful.
Her lungs on fire, she slammed through the door to the stairwell as more firepower slammed into the wall to her right. Good thing they had crappy aim.
Fliers roared toward them with Taser sticks in their hands.
“Watch out for those babies,” she panted out. “They’re lethal.” The memory of being hit and slumping down the wall, unable to move her limbs or even think, would haunt her dreams for the next few weeks.
Kral spun and engaged two Al’kieern with his sword, severing a head from one guy’s shoulders.
Mila darted around Kral and slashed out with her knife, slicing deeply into the other Al’kieern’s arm. While the blue guy spun away from her, shrieking, Mila grabbed Kral’s arm and tugged him toward the stairs.
Kral snarled, probably wanting to stay behind and take on the ten or twelve aliens racing down the hall toward them, but he’d be dead in seconds.
Running could be their only chance.
She flew up the stairs with Kral behind, urging her on. His limp had become more pronounced, and she hated that he might be in pain, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it. Soon.
Unless they were captured first. No. She had to believe they’d get away.
Anxiety raked down her spine, and she tightened, expecting a laser beam to slam into her back.
They raced around a landing and flew up the next flight of stairs.
One more flight. Bangs and grunts below told her the Al’kieern were not far behind.
“This plan better work,” she huffed out.
“It will.”
She loved how confident he was. But shit had hit the fan, and it was spraying all over them.
They reached the next landing and barreled out into the hall, not bothering to look first. The goose was caught, and the wolves were snapping at their heels. It hardly mattered if they ran into more aliens on this floor.
“The airlock is halfway down, on the right,” she said. Her leg muscles screamed, and her lungs were on fire. She promised herself she’d start running on a regular basis, assuming she got out of this alive.
He tapped her back. “Keep going. I…will remain here.” He gave her a curt nod. “Once you get inside the airlock, you can hold them off.”
And what did he plan to do while she hid inside the airlock? Remain behind and hold off the Al’kieern fliers shooting laser guns? Even with his sekairs shooting poisonous darts, he’d be killed in seconds.
She grabbed his hand and tugged. “Come on.”
“Mila.” His voice held a warning she chose to ignore. No way. They were doing this together.
“You’re not sacrificing yourself for me. I won’t let you.” Her steely gaze met his.
“I will do what I must to protect you.” He shook out his shoulders, and his naanans flared. His sekairs stood at attention, glistening on the tips.
“You can hold them off at the airlock,” she said. She gnawed on her lower lip and tried to make her legs pump faster.
“And then what?”
“While you’re doing that, I’ll find a way around the lock.”
His lips twisted, and she knew he might not be mocking her, but he was coming close. “Will you do this with your knife?”
“With this.” She held up the laser pistol she’d taken off one of the Al’kieern lying dead on the other floor.
His arm went around her waist, and he gave her a quick hug. “Clever.”
Her low chuckle rang out as they ran down the hall. “I’m resilient.”
“You did not need me to rescue you. If I had not arrived, you would have done this yourself.”
Maybe. She couldn’t fly a shuttle. Short of stowing onboard a craft that put in to deliver supplies, her options were limited. She’d seriously considered finding a way onto a foreign ship, but the only one to arrive had been heavily guarded. And she worried doing something like that would flip her from the frying pan into the fire. At least on the station, she has some semblance of safety. Onboard a foreign vessel, she’d be at the mercy of the crew and captain if she was caught.
They ducked into the recessed area outside the airlock, and she peered through the small window in the door. A short corridor waited if they could find a way inside, followed by another door with a larger window. Beyond that, she spied the loading platform with shuttles parked like taxis waiting for passengers at the airport.
If they could reach a craft, they’d still need to find a way to open the hanger doors to fly outside. Then they’d have to deal with the station shooting missiles at them.
They were toast. There was no way out of this.
Turning, she gave Kral a weak smile, and the answering grim look he shot her didn’t boost her confidence.
She nudged her head toward the keypad on the wall. “I’ll work on the lock while you…”
How the hell was he going to hold off a bunch of aliens with only a sword and his sekairs?
She pressed a bunch of numbers, but the glass above kept flashing red. Figures even in space red meant no. More numbers resulted in the same result. It was hopeless. She’d tried in the past and gotten nowhere. Why had she thought now would be any different?
Stepping back, she leveled the laser gun and blasted the lock. Sparks and smoke erupted from where the keypad used to be, but the door remained ominously closed.
And the damn panel flashed more red symbols.
Shit.
Yells erupted as the Al’kieern stormed down the hall. By the number of cries, a full battalion had joined the chase. If they had enlisted the military droids, she’d only encountered once—and barely escaped—their battleship was sunk. They’d never get away.
Her chest ached as if squeezed in a vise. She should have led Kral through her obstacle course. Once they’d lost the Al’kieern, she could have brought him up here and they would’ve had time to work on the lock.
There should have been some other option. She’d done this to them. She was to blame.
But after seeing him limping, she hadn’t been confident he could run the course with his bum leg. She hadn’t wanted to hurt him further by making him crawl under cabinets and shimmy through the ceiling.
Stupid. He’d proven he could keep up. No, he’d proven he was as good at this as she was.
Her shoulders collapsed, and it was all she could do to remain on her feet. Tears stung her eyes, and she girded herself for the final battle. She wouldn’t let them take her. She wanted to be with Kral; being sold as a breeder wasn’t an option.
A blast took out a chunk of the ceiling above them. Hunks of tile rained down, stinging where they hit.
“I am sorry, Mila,” Kral said, his sekairs shooting darts. Cries from the Al’kieern told her they’d been hit, but more rushed forward to take the place of the fallen. “I wish I could kiss you one more time. Touch you. Have time to court you properly and propose. I wish we’d had a lifetime together.”
“It’s not over yet.” Though their odds were not good. “But I wish for the same things, too. Samesies.”
“Samesies?”
“When we get out of this, I’m kissing you. Touching you. I don’t know how I’ll court you, but I’m going to try. And if you don’t propose, I will.”
He watched her face as if he worried she was teasing, but she meant it. She’d only recently met him, but it felt like they’d lived three lifetimes together already.
Too bad they were about to lose everything.
“Lay down your sword, Vikir warrior,” the lead Al’kieern said, floating forward under wing-power. Hi
s heavy gaze fell on Mila. “We will take the breeder now. Customers are eagerly waiting to bid on the holodeck.”
Kral shot darts at the Al’kieern, but the blue guy lifted a shield, and the poisonous missiles deflected in other directions. Losing their momentum, they fell to the ground, spent.
Mila snarled, wishing she could sink her knife into the leader’s throat. Tears smarted in her eyes. It wasn’t fair. After days of hiding then meeting Kral, and after getting a glimpse of the future they might have together, it hurt to think it could be stolen.
The other Al’kieern jeered—at least twenty of them—and poked their Taser sticks toward Kral, who snapped his fangs and slashed out with his sword. The Al’kieern only laughed and darted away.
She leaped forward and threw her knife at one of them, impaling him in the chest. A perfect strike, but now she had only the laser gun to fight with. Lifting it, she focused it on the leader’s head. “Back off. You’re not selling me, and you’re not killing Kral.”
The leader hissed and ducked behind one of his companions. Coward. “As for the Crakairian male, we have use for him on Yarris.”
For what, labor? They’d work him hard until he dropped. They wouldn’t care that his leg was injured, that he needed therapy for it to get better.
It shouldn’t be like this, but there it was.
She refused to go down without a fight. Better to die here than be sold to the highest bidder who’d rape her to produce children.
“I don’t have any more tricks,” she said to Kral out of the corner of her mouth. Her laser pistol was ready, though, and she’d take at least one of them down before they dragged her to the floor and tied her up. Would they stun her first with their Tasers?
Tears streamed down her face, but she sniffed them back. Be strong. Fight. Show them what you’re made of. Words her father had said to her more than once when she was young. She missed him so much. If he was standing beside her, he would have charged forward with a bellow and head-butted at least three of the Al’kieern, sending them all the way to Yarris.
But she stood with another man instead. One she admired and cared for. Kral had shown her his strength, his honor, and his kindness.
Her chest ached for all the other parts of him she’d never have a chance to discover.
Kral.
Overhead, the lights started flashing. She frowned.
The Al’kieern peered at each other, as puzzled as she was about what was going on.
Al’kieern Space Station Destruction Sequence has been engaged. Repeat, Destruction Sequence has been engaged.
Shit. Who had done something like that?
The tall green guys she’d seen earlier. Were they somehow involved? Silly to think they were, but… She’d been confident they’d been Crakairian.
Kral’s ship had exploded.
Now the station?
Almost universally, the Al’kieern’s eyes widened. A few backed up, looking around as if they worried the place would explode around them. They might not be far off from that thought.
Fear wicked up her spine like a flame chasing a line of gunpowder, heading for the bundle of dynamite at the end. Tension built in the air.
“We have to get off the station,” Kral shouted as he engaged an Al’kieern in battle. His sekairs continued to shoot. How long until his body was depleted of whatever made up the poison? His supply couldn’t be endless.
“What does Destruction Sequence mean?” she shouted, though she already had a sickening idea.
Station implosion in nine hundred seclars, the voice announced overhead.
The mechanical voice started counting down from nine hundred.
Mila didn’t stop to add this up. Nine hundred was too few seclars.
With his sword lifting, Kral bellowed and rushed forward. Mila followed with her laser gun blasting. She hit a flying Al’kieern in the thigh. Like a plane with a blown engine, he veered to the right and crashed into a wall. Blue blood coursed from the wound and onto the floor.
More laser shots took out two more Al’kieern, but then she was out of charges. In frustration, she tossed the gun at an Al’kieern flying toward her with his four arms extended.
Prepare to abandon the station, the voice said overhead. Eight hundred and fifty seclars. Repeat. Abandon the station.
The light flickered again.
Would they be plunged into darkness?
As the Al’kieern gathered to charge at Kral and Mila, odd shapes fell from the ceiling onto the Al’kieern’s heads.
Mila’s mouth dropped open.
The Al’kieern started spinning around and screaming.
Twelve
Kral
Kral’s sword arm dropped, and he stood motionless as numerous lizzers dropped from the ceiling and plastered themselves on the Al’kieern’s faces.
“Get back,” he shouted to Mila over the Al’kieern gurgled shrieks. “Stay away from the lizzers.”
Heille. How was he going to save her from this new threat? The creatures would be on them in seclars, and it would be over.
At least thirty lizzers slunk across the ceiling, but the rest had latched onto the Al’kieern, who reeled and spun, smacking into the walls. While the lizzers dug in, the Al’kieern tried to pry the light creatures off their faces, but even four arms would not make a difference. Once attached to a being’s face, a lizzer could not be detached. An inner limb would extend toward their prey, and the appendage would work its way inside, drilling through bone, seeking brain matter to consume.
It was a gruesome way to die.
As if the lizzers weren’t a big enough threat, the door to the stairwell smacked open, and a sizeable pack of meerdregs scampered out, rushing toward where he tried to protect Mila in the small chamber outside the airlock. One of the meerdregs limped, but the others flashed eyes full of fire. When the meerdregs reached the Al’kieern, they leaped into the air and overran the blue-skinned aliens, dragging them to the tiles. Their claws dug in while the Al’kieern writhed and struggled. The lizzers were bad enough, but meerdregs, too?
What a nightmare.
The injured meerdreg broke off from the pack and hobbled toward Mara.
Kral would die before he let the beast touch her. As long as he stood on his feet and held his sword in his hand, he would defend her to the death. He tightened his grip on his weapon, prepared to take on the threat. A meerdreg’s claws could inject a toxin that immobilized their prey within minars, as was evidenced by the Al’kieern lying motionless on the floor while the lizzers feasted.
“Chee-chee,” Mila cried, stooping down and holding out her arms. “I’ve been worried about you.”
Kral gulped as the meerdreg flung itself upward and wrapped its arms around Mila’s neck.
“Hold still,” he said softly, turning. He reached for his knife, preferring a smaller blade in close combat. “Do not move and whatever you do, avoid its claws.”
Mila nuzzled her face against the meerdreg’s, ignoring Kral. “Where have you been, little guy? I was hoping you were okay, that you’d stayed free. How’s that leg? If you give me a chance, I think I can fix it for you.”
Kral’s jaw dropped further as the meerdreg rubbed its face against Mila’s and purred. He’d never seen anything like it. Meerdregs attacked. They did not cuddle.
Yet this one did.
“Looks like my friends came through for us,” Mila said, smiling up at Kral.
A glance at the lizzers showed Kral they’d left the Al’kieern and were oozing across the floor toward him and Mila. Would a direct assault on his part make any difference? How could his mate control creatures that had never cooperated with anyone outside their species? If he wasn’t seeing this with his own vision, he would not believe it had happened.
“I freed Firefly the first day I arrived,” Mila said, smiling at the single lizzer that had left the swarm and oozed along the floor, close to her feet. Shifting the meerdreg around to hold it on her hip like a harmless youngling, she held ou
t her hand to the lizzer.
Kral hissed. He ached to pull her backward, to put himself between her and the numerous threats, but from the minar he’d met her, he knew he should trust the woman he ached to claim as his forever mate. “There you are, Firefly. Thank you so much for your help. Kral and I are eternally grateful.” As she stroked the lizzer’s back, she looked up at Kral and winked. “Right?”
“Most definitely,” he said quickly, giving the pack of meerdregs and the swarm of lizzers a deep bow. “I am very grateful to the lizzers and meerdregs for their help.” Could he be any more shocked?
She rubbed the lizzer on the underside of its belly, where its appendages projected after it had latched onto someone. He’d never seen a lizzer quiver from someone’s touch. He’d never seen anyone give a lizzer affection. How would anyone believe a lizzer would welcome it from a person?
The creature appeared to adore Mila.
He could understand that. He was well on his way to adoring her himself.
Six hundred seclars. The call coming from overhead jolted through Kral like lightning. Abandon the station. Abandon the station. Destruction Sequence is in progress. Repeat, Destruction Sequence is in progress.
“We need to leave the station,” he said.
“I messed up the keypad,” she said. After giving the lizzer—Firefly—one last pat, she stood. The meerdreg continued to cling to her. Would it wish to come with them?
The other meerdregs gathered behind the lizzers, and more poured from the door at the end of the hall, joining the ones crowding behind him and Mila. The lizzers clicked and snapped, and the meerdregs cheeped, as if the two species communicated and came to some sort of agreement.
Shrugging the creatures off, as there was no way he could defeat them if they attacked, Kral took in the smoldering ruin that used to be the keypad. Mila had made the right decision trying to shoot her way through, even if it hadn’t worked.
“Can you get it open?” she asked, moving up beside him. She shifted the meerdreg on her hip. Its fingers clung to her shirt. He wanted to remind her to beware of the claws, but it appeared the creature was being extra careful. “I think our time is—”
