Snowed in with the Alien Beast

by Kate Rudolph

  Or bluff.

  It’s for Arest.

  “Welcome back, Miss McDonald. Glad you got in touch.” She gestured to a chair and pulled out a tray with two steaming mugs of tea from her food processor. Faragan took a seat and Stella followed suit, heart pounding like mad.

  “I’m glad to be alive.” Her nerves were on fire, but when she took the tea, the cup didn’t shake. Maybe facing a bunch of monsters had put things in perspective.

  “Report says that you brought on another party. Non fleet.” The captain liked to make statements more than ask questions, but it didn’t mean that a person could refuse to answer.

  “A fellow survivor. I offered him a lift.” She sipped the tea and didn’t flinch as it burned her tongue.

  “Hmm.” The captain gestured to the comm screen beside the table and Arest’s picture showed up, but unlike what she’d come to know of him. His eyes were dead, flat, and that electric blue she was growing to love dull. His skin, on the other hand, seemed even more purple, dark and mottled with strange patches of something she couldn’t identify. Her cup shook as she put it down, and from the horror she could feel on her own face, she knew she couldn’t fool the captain.

  “A bounty has been placed on information that could lead back to this... man. Do you know anything about that?”

  Stella shook her head, unable to speak. Her fingers curled into fists and she pulled them off the table so they couldn’t give her away anymore.

  “The call went out just this morning and the fleet was notified as a courtesy.”

  “We aren’t bounty hunters.”

  “The bounty is for 400,000 Oscavian credits.”

  Stella sucked in a breath. That was a fortune. Beyond a fortune. It was buy a villa on a pleasure planet money. Just for information about Arest. “We aren’t bounty hunters,” she repeated with more force. “Fleet code forbids it.”

  The captain sipped her tea. “Doesn’t it just. That being said, welcome home. I’d suggest you find papers for your new friend sooner rather than later. This company that wants him... there’s something wrong there. Even if we talked to them, I have a feeling they wouldn’t pay. Or the credits would be delivered in las fire.”

  Stella recalled the clean up crew. “They don’t like witnesses.”

  “Then I don’t like them.”

  Tension had been riding high since she woke up, and almost all of it dissolved as the captain spoke.

  “You’ve been recalled to Earth in light of the accident. I can authorize your new friend for transport back, or give him passage on a ship out of Honora. Your choice.” With another gesture, the shot of Arest dissolved, leaving the normal screen’s resting pattern swirling silently.

  Stella licked her lips nervously. “We’ll go to Earth. I think... I think that will be best, for now.”

  “I’ve never seen something like this before,” said Faragan, concern heavy in her eyes. “You be careful. With money like that...” she shook her head, “there’s no way this isn’t part of something bigger.”

  From everything Arest had said, Stella knew that. But Earth was light years away from trouble and she and Arest could deal with it when it came. “I will.”

  And like that, the meeting was done and Stella dismissed. As the countdown to departure boomed over the loudspeaker, she practically skipped down the hallway back to her room.

  She opened the door and the last of the tension she’d been carrying dissolved. He lay on her bed, feet propped up and glowing eyes opened, waiting for her to come back. She grinned at him and locked the door behind her. “You’re a wanted man,” she said. “Lots of money out there for your safe return.”

  He sat up in a smooth motion and studied her, saying nothing.

  “Luckily for you,” for us, “the captain is a good woman. And you’re safe for now.” The room wasn’t large and she crossed to him in two steps. Arest opened his legs so she could step inside. “You’re a free man now. What do you want to do about it?”

  She saw the intent in his eyes a moment before his hand wrapped around her hips and he scooped her up, laying her gently on the bed behind him in a feat of flexibility that gave her ideas. Arest held himself over her and looked down at her body like she was a tasty morsel. All for him. “Safe, really?” he asked.

  “For now.” She traced a finger down his neck and saw him shiver. “And if they find you, we’ll fight, or stop them, or run. But they can’t have you back.”

  “You’re mine.” He took the words right out of her mouth and gave his lips and tongue in exchange. Stella wrapped her arms tight and gave herself over to his kiss and to her Arest, the beast. They’d escaped. He was safe. And together they’d be free to love one another for a very long time.

  About Kate Rudolph

  KATE RUDOLPH NEVER knows when to stop. Whether it’s riding her bike down the busy streets of Austin, Texas, fixing computers, or shooting off answers to trivia quizzes, she is doing something. She began writing at a young age and now has a stack of projects as tall as her.

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  More titles from Starr Huntress authors:

  Starr Huntress & Kate Rudolph

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  Also by Kate Rudolph: Ruwen

  Chapter One

  THE PLANET WAS CALLED Polai and it sucked.

  When Lis Janyx was eight years old, the idea of traversing the universe and seeing everything it had to offer had sounded great. But now, at twenty-five, Lis hadn’t chosen to come here. Nor had she chosen to leave Earth. They said living in the Wastes, a slum near the hollowed out husk of Old Cleveland, lead to death, dismemberment, or disappearance. Lis had never believed that.

  Not then.

  She’d been coming home from a late night of busting heads and tracking cheating husbands when a mountain of a man had literally appeared in front of her and knocked her out with one blow. At the time, she hadn’t realized they were aliens. Aliens didn’t come to Cleveland—no one did if they could help it.

  But the next thing she knew, she was coming to aboard a spaceship, being examined by the most threatening medical bot she’d ever seen. They’d done tests and... stuff. She didn’t want to dwell on the stuff. It had been bad, some of it really bad, but it could have been a lot worse.

  In the weeks she’d been aboard, she’d only seen the inside of her windowless cell and the little med bay. Day by day, she could feel he
r sanity and her belief that she’d make it out alive start to fade. She didn’t know what they wanted to do with her, whether they’d make her a slave, eat her, or worse.

  And then one day when she’d lost count of how long she’d been a prisoner, she woke up on Polai with a small pack of supplies and a note written in English.

  Apologies. Wrong girl. Humans can survive on Polai.

  That was it. No explanation, no directions on how to get home. Just five energy bars, a canteen filled with water, and a thin jacket that didn’t do much to guard against the cold nights. Lis had taken to wearing it at all hours despite the lack of warmth. Polai’s sun did something strange to her skin, leaving painful bruises on every inch that she left exposed.

  On her second night it had begun to rain and Lis found shelter under the broad brown leaves of the squat trees that dotted the land. For a few moments, it seemed like the foliage would be strong enough to protect her from the worst of the rain, but then the large leaf directly over her head collapsed in the center and poured all the collected water down over her arms, like a spout.

  Since then her left forearm had been covered in small welts. They were getting better, but Lis refused to risk drinking from the small stream that ran near the woods where she’d been camping.

  Humans in general may have been able to survive on Polai, but she wouldn’t last for long.

  Lis didn’t want to live here. She just wanted to find a ship and get on the first freighter or cruiser headed back toward Earth. And that was going to be harder than she’d first thought.

  Her ever-benevolent kidnappers hadn’t fitted her with a translator, and nothing indicated that Polans could understand English. She’d scoffed at learning Interstellar Common, the language of trade in space, in school, but she’d memorize a freaking dictionary of it if it meant she could get home.

  And the Polans weren’t friendly. Lis had taken shelter in a small swath of woods about two miles north of a small town. She’d tried to approach a pair of Polans once she’d gotten her bearings on that first day. They looked almost human in shape, though they were smaller, shorter than five feet tall. Their skin was a dark green and none of them seemed to have any hair.

  She’d hoped that raising her arms and looking pathetic would give them pause. Instead, both of the aliens had shrieked and charged at her, chasing her out of town and up a tree. Once they’d lost interest in her, Lis had decided to steer clear of the town during daylight. She wasn’t going to risk getting hurt by a lucky hit.

  One night she’d stolen back into town, trying to find food. Nothing looked familiar in the small shop off the main street. It could all be completely harmless or extremely deadly. More out of spite than survival, she’d swiped a small bottle of a bright green liquid. There was an advert on the wall that showed two Polans drinking the stuff.

  It wasn’t poison to them, but she hadn’t been brave enough to try it herself.

  So here she was, nearly a week on the planet, her stomach tied in knots of hunger and her mouth as parched as the desert.

  She clutched her jacket closed across her chest and kept her head down as she walked through the woods. Before, she’d been afraid that if she walked in too deep, she would get lost. Now, she needed to get anywhere. The day before, she thought that she had heard a vehicle coming from somewhere within the forest.

  There could be people, or a house, or a conveniently abandoned spaceship. She didn’t expect the last one, but a girl could dream. While the leaves on all the trees were brown, the trunks themselves were a yellowish-orange. When the sun was up, they soaked up the light, and at night, they glowed faintly.

  It was night now, but those trees gave her just enough light to see by. Lis hadn’t seen any Polans out after dark, and she was fairly certain they were a diurnal people. All the better for her. She’d always been a bit of a night owl.

  After a bit of walking, the woods came to an abrupt stop. The trees had been cleared for a hundred or so yards up to a large gray building in the middle of a field. But the vegetation around the building was overgrown, with yellow grass as high as her knees, weeds, and vines crawling up one of the walls.

  Abandoned. Perfect.

  Lis spared a quick look around, but she didn’t hear or see anything. As far as she could tell, she was completely alone.

  She made her way through the high grass, stumbling over the uneven ground underfoot. Her head spun, but she regained her balance without falling over. There had to be food in there. Hopefully energy bars that she knew were safe to eat.

  Lis made it across the clearing and found a door. Of course, it was locked, but she wasn’t going to let a thing like that stop her. She just needed a crowbar or something like it and then she was in.

  The hairs on the back of Lis’s neck stood up and she froze where she stood. She looked back around to check that she was still alone, as if some primal instinct had sensed danger. Lis looked around again, but it was still quiet and she saw no one.

  But when she looked around for something to pry the door open, she moved with extra care. It felt like something was out there, coming for her. Something big and dangerous that could end her in an instant.

  The apprehension she now felt was different than what the Polans had brought up. Lis felt exposed, and she needed to get inside quickly. In her gut she just knew that whatever was coming was coming for her.

  Chapter Two

  RUWEN NANARAN MADE landfall on Polai in the bright sunlight of morning. It was nice, as far as inhabited planets went, but he wasn’t there to sightsee. His small cruiser sat hidden under cover of dense foliage, fuel cells recharging and cloaking system resetting itself. He’d be grounded here for a week.

  More than enough time to get the job done.

  He was a Detyen mercenary, contracted out to an anonymous client in need of a piece of information that only the Polans had access to. Getting onto the planet hadn’t been difficult. His ship had one of the most advanced cloaking systems available and Polai had a lax incoming defense system.

  He expected that getting out would be another story entirely. Polans let people in, but all ships and transport off the planet were heavily monitored. Anyone caught fleeing without authorization was summarily executed by targeted rocket.

  That fact had greatly limited the number of mercs willing to take this job, and had greatly shot up the price. At first, Ru hadn’t planned to take it when it came up on the private merc forum where he found his jobs.

  54% chance of failure. 41% change of death or permanent injury. 100,000 credits if completed before the end of the month.

  Only a Detyen—a twenty-nine year old Detyen—could like those odds. He’d be dead in a few months anyway, so what was the harm in taking the risk? If he cut his time short in the universe, at least he’d go down in a blaze of glory.

  And if he survived, 100k would go a long way on Hedonia, the planet dedicated to pleasure in all its forms. There, he’d go out with a bang.

  Some called it the Detyen Curse. Others said it was the denya price. For the longest time, Ru thought it was the biggest bunch of bullshit in the galaxy. How could a species survive if anyone who didn’t find their mate—their denya—by thirty perished?

  A hundred years ago, that would have been a silly question. The planet Detya flourished, the crown of its solar system and a principal planet in the Regek Quadrant. There’d been systems in place to match potential denyai to one another. Less than four percent of Detyens had succumbed to the curse back then.

  Now Detya was an uninhabitable husk, its oceans poisoned and all life extinguished. The only survivors had been the small percentage who lived off planet or had been traveling at the time of the attack. There had been no declaration of war, no warning of violence. One day Detya had been a happy place. The next it was dead.

  Now the survivors had scattered throughout the galaxy, most living in refugee cities on welcoming planets. And the curse took its toll, picking off Detyens one by one as they reached thirty. Only th
ose lucky enough to find their mates survived.

  And women were a scarce resource.

  As a boy and young man, Ru hadn’t liked to dwell. But the numbers didn’t lie. There were at least three Detyen men to each Detyen woman. Sure, some found themselves matched to multiple denyai, but it was so astronomically rare that he’d be luckier trying to garden on a star.

  With less than three months until his last birthday, Ru refused to contemplate the unfairness of his lot for long. There would be dozens of beautiful aliens on Hedonia to ease any suffering he might feel in his final days.

  But he needed to earn the coin to take his place there first. There were no poor men on the pleasure planet.

  He’d been given a map to the Polan outpost and a rough schematic of the building’s layout. It was late summer now, and the building was only used in the winter. It relied on an outdated security monitoring system and physical locks to keep out intruders. For most people, there was nothing to find. The Polans stored no weapons here and few supplies.

  The computers, however, remained in this location even when those manning them left for their summer rotations. This was a government outpost and that gave him access to government servers. The tech-stick he’d been given would do most of the work. All Ru needed to do was plug it in.

  He’d been able to pick the lock on a door on the south side of the building. It was too dark to get a good look around outside, but he hadn’t heard any guards or animals. His own bio-scanner didn’t pick up any Polans, though he did scan other alien life in the area.

  It was too big to be an escaped pet, and he’d heard of the large felines that stalked the Polan highlands. It was possible one had come down from the mountains looking for food. His blaster would be defense enough against any wild animal, and as long as the Polans didn’t catch him, he’d be fine.