“What’s at Galax One?” Ruush asked.
“You don’t really care,” I said. My brother waited there, along with my future and my freedom, but none of that would matter to the Fremmian smuggler.
“Does Yvar know you ran away?”
“Calmness is dead,” I said.
Ruush’s eyes went wide again but there were no marks of surprise on his face. Curious. “Calmness Yvar was your master.”
“He died today. Gentle and Swift weren’t going to be too happy with the medical care I provided.” I did, essentially, kill their father.
“Are you free upon your master’s death?”
“Does it matter?”
He shrugged. “I like to know the reason why a beautiful doctor thought hiding in a crate in an unheated cargo hold was a good idea.”
“It was the better of two bad choices. I’m free, but Gentle and Swift would never have let me leave.”
Ruush reached for the side of my face. I flinched. His hand paused but then lifted the hair behind my ear, exposing my slave mark, two upward slashes in red ink. “And was that your only chip?”
I nodded.
“We’ll have to alter that tattoo.” A down stroke in black ink would change the mark from slave to a freed slave. “Until we find a tattoo shop, you can use eyeliner or greasepaint.”
“You’re not going to return me to Gentle and Swift?” Please don’t.
“We’re too far out now to return. Besides, I hate those two psychopaths.”
I giggled. Stars, it felt so forbidden to laugh at Gentle and Swift’s expense. I’d seen Gentle gut a man for not groveling “sincerely enough.”
“We’re not headed in Galax One’s direction, so settle in for a long journey. You’ll earn your passage,” Ruush said, his serious expression returning. “But let’s get you settled in your cabin before we talk business.”
“I’d rather talk business now, before you…”
“Get you alone in a cabin?” The leer was back.
“Yes.” I made my tone as frigid as possible. It worked well enough on henchmen who fancied they could grab my ass as I dug bullets out of them. Amazing how clumsy I could be when things like that happened. Oops.
Ruush folded his arms over his chest. “Fine, well, let’s consider that I want equal value for what I’m giving you. You need passage to Galax One but also to get away from two deranged murderers, fast and with no questions asked. You’re highly trained and skilled, therefore valuable. The Yvar brothers will want you back, so now I need to consider the safety and security of my crew, in addition to the extra fuel, oxygen, water, and food stuffs you’ll consume while on my ship. And you’ll want clothing.”
“That’s a lot to consider.”
“I’m running the figures in my head. Normally, the average runaway scrubs the floors and whatnot. Manual labor is cheap without a huge return on investment. You, however, sweet kitten, are worth far more to return than keep, so I need a little time to find us an equitable solution.” His finger traced the cords on my neck with the softest touch.
“Equitable?” I swallowed the lump in my throat.
“I’m going to need something of equal value from you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
A furious blush overtook me. I swore, I was going to burst into flames. Whatever plan he was concocting, I assumed it did not involve me serving as the ship’s physician for a turn.
“Follow me.” He grasped my hand and helped me off the exam table. Without a word, we were back in the flying-through-the-clouds corridor. The molded plastic gleamed. Not a smudge. I could easily see a battalion of runaways needed to maintain the flawless finish.
Ruush stopped outside a door labeled Four. “We’ll arrive at Kile Moon Base in four hours. We’ll discuss our new job then.”
Chapter Five
Ruush
I returned to the Bridge. Jonee was more than capable of piloting this rig but I needed somewhere to pace and my mind just plain worked better when my crew was around. They inspired my mischievous side.
“Captain,” Jonee said, not taking her eyes from the monitor.
Resolve, a Tal female and my second in command, approached me. “Captain, what’s the situation with the stowaway.”
I stroked my chin.
Taking the Terran woman aboard is risky.
I liked risky.
But was Meyet more trouble than she’s worth? I knew Calmness Yvar by reputation only. There are the shady and vicious bastards who I’d happily shake hands and take their credit, and then there’s so shady and so vicious that I won’t do business with them. I stayed away from Calmness and his two mad sons. But a part of me, a large part of me, regretted that my aversion to murderous psychopaths kept me away from the gorgeous Meyet.
And just like that, the idea of being without Meyet was unacceptable.
“Runaway,” I said.
Could I afford to take on this much risk? Since the incident on Blackborn, business had been slow. Leading the Fremm military, even inadvertently, to a smuggler’s depot made you unpopular. I didn’t exactly lose the cargo, but the client wasn’t able to retrieve their goods, either. And the abandoned colony of Blackborn was no longer usable by my crew or anyone else. So yeah, business had been slow.
At the moment, I was running legitimate cargo to Kile Moon Base to keep us afloat. The less legitimate cargo was also going to the base, but that’s for family. I wasn’t making a fortune running bootleg liquor to my brother, but Dashle had a way of sniffing out rumors and clients. I couldn’t afford to keep the Terran doctor on board, but I didn’t want to let her go, either.
Those green eyes, so sad and yet sparkling with fire, occupied me. I wanted more time to plan, and more of her attention. A woman like her wouldn’t give me the time of day, rightly. Clever. Stunning. Resourceful. Determined. She was a doctor, for crying out loud. The personal doctor to a criminal overlord.
My open hand rubbed my chest, a frown of concentration on my face. This was an opportunity.
“You’re wearing a hole in the floor, Captain,” Resolve said, pulling me away from my obsessing. “And you’re not going to enjoy replacing expensive, vintage parts.”
I slouched in my chair, unconsciously running my hands along the fabric. My ship was older, but well maintained. This was my home. I spent more time inside the Promontory than out. The gripping traction of the floors was more familiar to me than dirt under my boots. It wasn’t cheap keeping this bucket of bolts flying.
Meyet said Calmness was dead. That wasn’t common knowledge, so it must be a recent turn of events. Did Meyet really murder Calmness Yvar? She was so desperate to leave, she must have been fearful of reprisal. She lived under Calmness, thrived even, so why run away from Gentle and Swift? She must have been deeply afraid.
I needed time to devise a plan worth the risk of keeping her around. And I really wanted to keep her. Not sure why. She was pretty, but this was more than attraction, although there was plenty of that.
I needed time. I needed to get an idea of who she was and what she was capable of. I couldn’t squander this opportunity.
“Jonee, how long until our rendezvous at Kile Moon Base?”
“Three hours, Captain.”
Good. I needed to see if my old friend Adram was up to his old tricks. “Resolve, in my ready room. Vex and Rise, too.”
***
I stretched back in the chair, arms folded behind my head, and feet on the table. Resolve cocked an eyebrow at me. What? It’s my ship. I’ll put my feet on the furniture if I want.
“You are a petulant child,” she said, voice a low rumble, barely audible.
I removed my feet and threw my hands in the air in a gesture of surrender. “Going to tattle to my mother?”
Resolve was a deep chocolate brown and her form the trim, lean build of the Tal. I wasn’t creeping on my second in commander. She was older than my mother. Good friends with my mother, too. Plus, she came with the ship. Resolve would gut me wit
h her claws and send sincere condolences to my mother if I ever crossed her. It’s hard not to admire a woman with skills like that.
Vex’s tail lashed against the back of his chair. His dark grey face was serious. He was always serious. Vex had two emotions: grim and grimmer. “It is too risky, Captain,” he said. “Are you sure we can trust this Terran?”
Rise, Vex’s twin, casually examined his claws. His nature was overly serious, too. He just did a better job at hiding it. “If we cannot, we can just kill her.”
“No one is killing the Terran,” I said. No one was harming a hair on her precious head.
“But we need to guarantee her loyalty,” Resolve said.
“I figured the crew could have drinks at Dashle’s and sound out our new Doc,” I said.
“And if we don’t like what we hear?” Vex asked.
A possessive need to keep the blonde-haired Terran gripped my chest. No. I wasn’t letting her go. She would stay on board no matter what the crew decided, but I declined to tell them that.
“Then we leave her on Kile,” I said. My first fib of the day.
What do you know? I must be going soft in my old age.
Vex shrugged. “As long as you’re buying the drinks.”
Chapter Six
Meyet
Narrow and drab, I didn’t give my dismal cabin much consideration. I climbed into the bed and fell into an exhausted sleep. The day’s events swung from panic to terror to worry and back again, wearing me out.
A gentle chime from the ship’s AI alerted me to imminent landing. I needed to secure myself but found no straps or a chair. Vintage ships. No safety gear. Amazing anyone survived rattling around in these things. I settled on the bed and felt a small push against my chest as the ship decelerated, then a barely noticeable bump. We landed.
I washed my face and tried to pull my hair back into a ponytail. My clothes were a rumpled mess. I needed fresh clothes and a shower. I had a long day before Calmness died. Since that snake ended my former master’s life, my existence had been panic, running, and hiding.
I needed a lot of things. I needed to get to Galax One. I needed to get there fast, before Swift and Gentle caught Malik.
I folded the cartilage of my left ear forward and turned my head in the mirror, barely able to make out the slave mark. First things first. That needed to go.
All at once, the door chimed and Ruush entered.
“It’s rude to barge in,” I said. I smoothed down the front of my blouse and skirt out of habit.
“I knocked,” he said.
I frowned. He wanted to catch me undressed. The way his eyes swept over my form confirmed that. My shoulders stiffened. He was so gross.
“Come on,” he said. “We have a few things to take care of before the staff meeting.”
We exited via the cargo ramp. Parked in a cavernous hangar, neighboring ships dwarfed the Promontory. I tilted my head up. A large glass dome separated us from the black of space. A dark brown Tal woman spoke to a bot. She didn’t seem too happy, her tail thrashing behind her. Cargo containers moved down the ramp.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“Kile Moon Base.”
I travelled frequently with Calmness but I’ve never been here. No surprise. Kile was a decommissioned military base and now a mining colony. Military types still hung around and the entire base was far too law abiding for Calmness. The base stank of the Interstellar Union.
Exiting the hangar, I got a better view of the base. A series of domes and buildings clustered together in a perfect grid, and walkways connected individual domes. This was clearly a military base.
“Where are we going?” I hurried behind Ruush, trying to match his quick pace.
“You ask a lot of questions,” he said.
“Just expressing a healthy concern for my own well being.” Excuse me for asking.
He pivoted towards me. His hand brushed back the hair from my face before going to my ear. Damn me if I didn’t want to lean into his hand and close my eyes.
“We need to get that taken care of,” he said.
Right, my mark. Right.
The structures of the base were of Terran military origin. No other planet had such a uniformly brutal and cost effective design aesthetic. Since being decommissioned the base was worse for wear. The mining outfit that operated on the moon wasn’t spending any unnecessary money on repairs or maintenance. The buildings were a worn grey. Cracked and patched poorly, the walkways were well past retirement. I tilted my head up to examine the dome. That looked solid, at least.
As Ruush lead me deeper into the base, the buildings grew shoddier. We passed private living quarters, then group barracks, and finally hit the seedy bars and establishments that didn’t ask too many questions. The tension in my shoulders finally eased. This was my element. I knew the types of people who lived and worked here. Still dangerous, completely dangerous, but exactly the social circles Calmness worked in. My people.
We entered a building without a sign or name above the door. Classy. People at work stations looked up as we entered, but didn’t say anything. This was a body modification parlor, judging from the equipment and the illustrated menu on the wall. The parlor offered a wide arrange of body modifications, from traditional tattoos, piercings, and implants to easy organ transplants. Always wanted blue eyes? Or the ability to see in the dark? Pick up a fresh pair… just don’t ask about the origin.
“You take me to the fanciest places,” I said.
Ruush growled. He steered me to the back of the parlor with his hand on my neck, towards an unhappy looking Terran man.
“I told you never to darken my door,” the man said. “Do you not know that means? Are you simple?”
“Human idioms go right over my head, Gerry,” Ruush said, his voice warm and friendly.
“You are such a liar,” Gerry said. I liked him. He was sharp.
Gerry noticed the smile on my face and for a brief moment he mirrored my own grin. Then he realized he was supposed to be upset, and quickly frowned again. “You’re not going to distract me with a pretty face. Whatever it is, the answer is no.”
“Show him your mark, kitten,” Ruush said, pushing me forward. I turned my head and lifted my hair. Gerry sucked in his breath.
“You don’t play fair, you blue bastard.”
“You recognize it?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Gerry said. He tugged down on the collar of his shirt, revealing a similar mark on his shoulder. His mark had been modified, indicating his freedom. “Whoever did that to you, didn’t want you to get away.”
“Well, he’s dead now, and I wasn’t hanging around to find out what my new owners had planned for me.”
“Let me look at the ink.” Gerry stood close. As I held up my hair, his fingers prodded at my mark before he took a scan with a handheld device. Slave marks used a specially blended ink with nanite sensors. Hard to match. Harder to forge. Anyone could add regular ink and pass a cursory inspection, but a forged mark would not stand up to being scanned. Finally, he pulled away and scratched the stubble at his jaw line. “Fine. The blend is common enough and I just so happen to have it in stock. But you owe me, Ruush.”
Ten minutes later, my mark was modified. I was a free woman.
“Let’s celebrate,” Ruush said, giving my shoulders a squeeze.
My hand rubbed the numbed area in astonishment. Since I was a small child, I’d had that mark. For the last two days, I’d been running from my masters but I never really felt free. Now…
I wasn’t sure what to think. My eyes turned towards the Fremmian man next to me. He gave this to me but there was a price. There was always a price.
Chapter Seven
Meyet
The bar was crowded. And loud. And filthy. The floor was sticky under my shoes. A tall Fremmian man raised a hand in greeting as we entered. Along the back wall was a series of hoops anchored high on the wall. Faded hand painted lettering proclaimed “The jarhead that completed the hoop
challenge drank for life.”
“What’s a jarhead?”
Ruush ignored me and instead slapped shoulders as we worked our way through the crowd.
At the back, I spotted a Terran man with his feet propped up on the table, chugging a beer. He wore a pilot’s jacket. The man lifted his head, sensing my gaze. He dipped his chin in a slight nod.
Since Ruush didn’t want to credit to bring me to Galax One, perhaps that pilot would be interested. Credit was credit. It all spent the same and enough made any problem go away. I rubbed at the tender spot behind my ear.
Well, most every problem.
Ruush did not need to get my mark removed. I could have used makeup to cover up the tattoo and do whatever job he had planned just fine. Maybe running off with the first pilot that caught my eye was a poor way to repay such a kindness.
Mark removals were not cheap. Gerry never mentioned a price but I’m sure Ruush will add it to my bill. Nothing was free in this universe. I owed it to Ruush to stick around and pay off my debt.
At the bar, Ruush picked up two glasses of beer and then ushered us into a backroom.
“These glasses are clean, right?” I asked, looking at the beverage suspiciously. I’m not fussy, normally, but I was gonna fuss.
“Clean enough,” a Tal woman said. Her chocolate brown coat was nearly invisible in the dim room. “Come sit next to me, Terran.”
“Meyet,” I said. Her eyes widened and then she nodded. Yeah, the significance of my name wasn’t lost of her. I hated my slave name but I’ve had it so long, I can’t even remember my birth name. Did I even want to know? After all, my father sold me. A gnawing worry in my gut pushed me to pick a new name. A proper name.
“I am called Resolve,” she said. “I am the Captain’s second and do all the real work on the Promontory.”
I believed it.
Resolve made quick introductions around the table. The blonde Terran woman was Jonee, the pilot. The dark Terran woman was Hilly the engineer. The two Tal twin males were Vex and Rise. Their jobs were “Security,” which could have meant several things.
Alien Rogue's Price: Alpha Alien Romance (Alpha Aliens of Fremm Book 4) Page 3
