by Lisa Lace
“No, Desiree.” I punched in the coordinates for Urwan and activated the auto-pilot, rolling my eyes. “The entity you refer to as an alpha male is a guest.”
“Very well. Activating auto-pilot mode. Please remain seated and keep your seat belts fastened as we prepare for takeoff.”
As I settled into the pilot’s seat, Axl picked up the bra haphazardly thrown over the passenger’s seat and flung it over his shoulder.
“Hey, watch it!” I tutted disapprovingly, buckling my seat belt. “That’s one of my good bras. They’re called delicates for a reason, you know.”
“Well, you shouldn’t have left it lying around.” Axl made himself comfortable next to me.
The floor quaked as the ship’s engines engaged and we lifted off the ground. I put one hand on the yoke, ready to prevent any mid-air collisions as we entered the upper atmosphere. Axl fastened his seat belt and looked ahead like he didn’t have a care in the world.
“I still don’t understand why you’re hitching a ride with me.” I had to raise my voice so he could hear me over the rumbling of the engines. “I can make my way to Urwan by myself. I’ve been there before.”
“The Magnum starship is in Barthan’s capable hands. And I’m not worried about your ability to get to Urwan. I’m worried about you never showing up at Urwan. I don’t want to risk a case of cold feet. Of course, there’s good company, too. Consider this a honeymoon.”
“Uh-huh.” I released the yoke as it tightened in my hands. “Yuk it up, buddy. I’m already counting down the days until I finally get to sign the annulment papers. And you better not bail on me.”
Axl grinned. Instead of relenting, he decided to pick at my scab. “I’ll be there alongside my blushing bride. I’m not going anywhere. I’m more afraid of you falling madly in love with me and having a change of heart.”
“Keep dreaming.” I rolled my eyes and laughed. “You might be a dick, but you’re a hoot, I’ll say that much.”
“I wouldn’t be so quick to run my mouth if I were you.” Axl scooped up his leg and rested it on his lap, bouncing his foot. “You claim that you wanted to get the ceremony over with quickly, but you worked hard fixing yourself for the occasion.”
“It’s just a little makeup.” I tried to reply smoothly, but I could feel my cheeks starting to heat up. “It’s not for you, anyway. It’s for the folks at TerraMates.”
“Really. I would have thought that TerraMates sees dozens of brides every day, and couldn’t tell one from the other. What about all the hand-holding and hair stroking you wanted? Was that all an act, too?”
“Well, of course.” I sniffed, lifting my nose in the air. “I was playing a part. I didn’t want any of them to get suspicious.”
“You did a good job.” Axl raised his eyebrows. “You were very convincing to me.”
“That was the idea. What’s your point?”
“I guess I don’t have one when you put it like that.” Axl’s laughter subsided. He glanced at me quickly before looking out the window in front of him. “You looked beautiful.”
Chapter Sixteen
CHRISTINE
The sun slowly set beneath the horizon, dimming the skies over the beaten-down jungle. The formerly rich bed of grass and soil beneath our feet was now dead, crumbled rock, covered in scorch marks, heaps of fallen trees, and crunching black leaves. A small stream running through the jungle was greasy and dark, polluted with dead plant life and the corpses of exotic wildlife.
“Look at this place,” I mumbled, stepping over a giant log in my path. “It’s heartbreaking.”
“I agree.” Natya walked alongside me. “This was home to the kalabaza, a rare and endangered fish. Environmentalists managed to collect what was left of the species and bring them back to a sanctuary, but there was too much damage to the population. It won’t be long before the kalabaza are extinct. My brother is a preserver, and I hear about these problems all the time.”
“That’s a shame.” I wrapped a hand around the strap of my backpack, easing the strain on my shoulders. “I have nothing but the utmost respect for preservers. When I was in university, I thought about choosing it as a profession. I decided it wasn’t for me, but I make it a point to only source my tools and weapons from reputable traders. One of my go-to guys is an Urwanian preserver. Jovine.”
“Jovine Fanuan?”
“That’s the one. Do you know him?”
“It’s not a common name, so it has to be the same person. Jovine is one of my brother’s closest comrades.” I noticed the telling dilation of Natya’s pupils. “We’ve known each other for over thirty years. He is an excellent preserver.”
“That’s what they tell me.” I decided to get some more information out of her. “In those thirty years, I bet you preserved a relationship of your own. A romantic one, perhaps?”
“We grew into each other. It lasted thirteen years.” Natya sounded wistful. “It was beautiful while it lasted, but things happened, and we had to go our separate ways. It is part of my past, and it was for the best.”
“Is that true, Natya, or are you telling a tale for the newcomer?” Barthan had been eavesdropping and inserted himself into the conversation. “How am I only hearing about this now? I had no idea there was a brother in your life, let alone a mate.”
“You never asked me.”
Barthan raised his eyebrows and laughed. “I can’t believe Christine was able to extract that tidbit of information from Natya so quickly.”
Isley pushed past us and made a beeline for Axl, who was in the front. “Chief!” She spoke loudly enough for all of us to hear. She glanced back at me, narrowing her eyes. “The human knows a suspicious amount of information about Urwan. Doesn’t it seem suspicious to you?”
“She is an explorer.” Axl reluctantly lowered his monocular at the interruption. “It’s part of their job description to know a thing or two about different planets.”
“Why is she still holding the pillar, then?” Isley shot back, her fist twisting angrily on her hip. “It’s not as if Magnum is above taking things. We should be in possession of the object. Allowing this human to keep control does not seem right to me.”
“That’s enough.” Axl spoke quietly, but his voice ripped through the hush of the jungle. The entire crew froze in their places. He cleared his throat and dropped the tone of his voice to an angry whisper. “We made an agreement with her. More importantly, I know what I’m doing. If you have any more problems, write them down on a comment card and shove it up your ass. What I said at the beginning still stands. If you have a problem with what we’re doing or how we do it, you’re welcome to sit out. What do you want to do?”
“My apologies.” Isley’s voice was like ice. She crossed her arms and tapped both shoulders with her fists. “It won’t happen again.”
“Get your butt back in line.”
The crew started moving. As an enraged Isley stomped back to her position behind me, I had the urge to stick out my leg and trip her, but I refrained. I could hear my name woven into her Urwanian ramblings, and I had the feeling that she wasn’t singing my praises.
Maybe Natya would be more pleasant. “I’m grateful for the chance to stretch my legs after that eight-hour flight, but is there a reason why we landed out here instead of at the palace?”
“Her Eminence did not want us to attract any extra attention. She believes there are still Makroid on the planet. Lord Silas is still under the impression that the last pillar doesn’t exist. We intend to keep it that way.”
Natya extended a folding monocular from her belt and pointed it at our destination, waving me over. I peered into the eyepiece. The edge of the jungle was a couple of miles away, cut off by a yawning ravine. A timber bridge suspended by a connection of metal and wires ran across the gap. I adjusted the focusing ring, bringing the jewel-studded cupola roof of the palace into view.
“If we keep up this pace, we should be there in less than an hour.”
I returned the monocu
lar. As we continued to trek through the jungle, the pillar started to feel heavy. Pins and needles began to numb my neck and shoulders.
“I hear the Makroid made off with a few tons of kysum. I’m guessing they’re looking to resupply themselves with ammunition.”
“That’s what we think, too. Isley was right about you. You seem to know quite a bit about us.” Natya sounded more observant than ominous. She put on a glove and picked up a minuscule bullet casing from the ground. It had a burnt conical shell tinged with blue. “Kysum, in its molten form, produces the most deadly bullets in the galaxy. These projectiles are only used sparingly by the Urwanian military and police force. It is illegal for civilians and businesses to possess these weapons. The law even extends to acquirers. The lightest graze on the arm could prove deadly if you don’t get an antidote in time.”
“That explains why we had to take those bitter blue capsules in the morning.”
“No one told you? They were kysum deterrents.” Natya tossed the bullet from one hand to the other. “It lasts for three hours, and it’s useful if you get grazed by a bullet. It doesn’t protect you from a direct hit, of course.”
Before the projectile fell from Natya’s fingers, her body jolted like an electric fence had zapped her. “Um...guys?” I called out to the crew, my eyes growing round at Natya’s blank expression. “Axl? Something’s happening to Natya.”
She had already snapped out of it. The bullet dropped onto the ground, landing soundlessly on a pile of leaves. Natya stomped her feet and screamed at the top of her lungs, looking around in alarm.
“The Makroid are here! Everyone get down!” Without batting an eye, we listened to her warning and dove to the ground. A hail of bullets quickly disrupted the peaceful silence of nature. A dozen Makroid soldiers in camouflage materialized behind us, armed with bazookas and machine guns. I copied people around me and started crawling, pulling out my plasma pistol.
“Keep moving no matter what. Shoot to kill!” Axl fired at the Makroid closest to him. “Barthan! Isley! One of you should alert the palace!”
Isley pushed the red button on her communicator. The palace sirens started to blare in the distance, but an ear-splitting explosion abruptly masked the noise. A spinning bazooka rocket missed the back of our party by inches and created a smoking crater on the ground.
“Christine!” I could hear Axl’s voice through the ringing in my ears. He crouched down behind half of a tree trunk, teeth bared as he fired his weapon. A whimpering Makroid fell over behind me. “Head to the bridge. We’ll protect you!”
Nodding, I fired at a prowling Makroid behind Isley and pulled out all the pellets my fist could carry, throwing them onto the ground. A mass of ink-black smoke rose from the crackling powder, sending the battling parties into blind confusion. I slipped my visor on and jumped to my feet.
I took off running, making my backpack bounce violently against my back. I felt a pistol start to slip out of my ankle holster, but I didn’t break stride. I dashed past the outlines of the boulders and fallen trees in my path, all the while firing at the red and orange shapes stumbling toward me.
At last, I left the noise and smoke behind me, emerging into open space. I took cover behind a rock next to the bridge and checked my weapon. Empty. I ejected the useless magazine and tossed it into the ravine, searching inside my backpack for a fresh cartridge. Before I could screw the glowing green rod onto my weapon, the sight of a gun barrel stopped me dead.
“Drop it.”
My stomach turned somersaults, but I kept a straight face as I lowered my gun to the ground. From this position, all I could see was a pair of pointy-toed leather boots on the ground. Moving my head up, I saw a wild-eyed Makroid with thick glasses and oily black hair parted straight down the middle. He aimed his weapon at me with trembling hands.
“Er...hello, there. Can we talk about this?”
“Quiet!” His voice sounded high, like an elaborately fake falsetto. He shivered more as I spoke, making multiple rings on his hands clink against his weapon. “You are not from here. What is your homeworld?”
“Earth.” I was surprised that my voice was steady. “I’ve put down my weapon. I can’t hurt you. Why don’t you lower yours, too? We can use our words together.”
“I told you to stop talking.” The Makroid looked around nervously. “Just let me think for a minute.”
I couldn’t take the suspense. I felt like my legs were on the verge of collapsing, but somehow I persevered and kept my hands raised. After a few more grueling moments of silence, a mighty force in the heavens heard my prayers. The hysterical Makroid started to back away from me like I was the monster. In his state of panic, he lost his footing and toppled backward, falling straight over the edge of the cliff.
I clapped a hand over my mouth, muffling my scream. A faint noise came from over the ledge. “Help!”
I should have let him fall to his death, but something made me crawl over to the precipice. The Makroid clung to a branch, and his eyes were almost coming out of their sockets. He flailed his legs, desperately attempting to swing onto a ledge by his waist but failing miserably.
“Please help me! I can’t hold on much longer!”
“Here!” I pulled out a rope from my backpack and tossed it over the edge. “Grab this.”
When I felt a weight pull from the other end, I moved behind the boulder and planted my feet on it. I grunted, panting as I leaned back and pulled with all my strength and weight. My palms started to burn from the friction of the rope, but I clenched my teeth together and tightened my grip.
It only took one more tug to reel him in. The blubbering Makroid scrambled up the cliff and rolled onto his back. He barely had enough energy to curl into a ball by my feet. Tears streaked down his face. As I grabbed the Makroid’s arm and helped him off the ground, I realized that we weren’t alone. I could hear Axl’s voice in the drone of the arriving reinforcements above us.
“Christine!” Axl grabbed me by the shoulder. “Do you have any idea what you’ve just done?”
“I know, I probably shouldn’t have shown him any mercy, but I didn’t want him to die.”
“That’s Akuza, Lord Silas’ son! This could be good.” A switch seemed to turn on behind Axl’s eyes. Beaming, he seized the petrified Makroid by the collar. “Your Highness, you’re coming with us.”
Chapter Seventeen
AXL
“Don’t hurt me!” Akuza trudged up the steps with hunched shoulders. The manacles holding his wrists and ankles rattled as they dragged against the stone porch. There were other, more modern ways to restrain prisoners, but I liked the classics. Moonlight illuminated part of his puckered face. He looked back at me with imploring anguish in his wet eyes. A snot bubble on his left nostril swelled and contracted as he took ragged breaths. The sight was pitiful, to put it mildly, but my expression remained unmoving.
“If you let me go, I swear to you that my father will never know of this.” Akuza’s words were broken up by tearful hiccups.
“Stop talking.” I lifted him up by the collar. “You’re not going to die. If I wanted to take your life, you would be gone long ago. Just keep walking, and don’t ask any more questions.”
Christine climbed to the porch and set her backpack down by her feet. She rested an arm against the metal railing, looking exhausted. There were smudges of dirt on her face, and her ponytail was limp. A large rip ran down the side of her hip and thigh, exposing a raw gash.
I had never seen a more attractive woman.
“What’s the plan?”
“Make sure he keeps his mouth shut and follow my lead. Try not make a sound unless I say so.”
“Please.” Akuza tried again. “We can pretend none of this ever happened.”
“Christine, hand me the rag.”
“No, don’t hand him the rag!” Akuza furiously shook his head. “It tastes like feet and farts. I’m sorry. I am shutting up. Right now.”
Akuza raised his hands to his mouth and
pulled his fingers across his lips. Satisfied for the moment, I unlocked the front door and slowly pushed down on the handle to minimize the squeak of the hinges. At my signal, Christine bent over and picked up the chains by Akuza’s ankles, following me into the house.
I shined my light into the darkness, showing the way to the cellar. All three of us held our breath as we tiptoed past the loud snoring from the parlor and proceeded down the hallway. I wrestled the cellar door open, yanked on the dangling chain above me, and ushered them down the dusty stairs.
“Come on. Don’t be shy.”
A flickering light revealed the dingy, cluttered interior, its neglect unspoken but palpable. The clay ceiling, marked with dripping wet spots and mold, looked like it could collapse at any minute. Small animals had made their homes in the corners of the room, forcing their way in-between the dead shells of insects trapped in glossy zupawebs. Heaps of the junk my father had accumulated over the years were piled ceiling-high against the walls. The floors were in dire need of a good sweeping.
“You live here?” Akuza yelled as I threw him up against the brick post.
“What part of ‘keep your mouth shut’ did you misunderstand?” I took the rope from Christine and tied Akuza to the post by his neck. “I know this isn’t the grand suite you’re accustomed to, but it’s the best you’re going to get. Are your restraints too tight, Your Highness?”
“Why do you ask?” Akuza’s face turned a light shade of purple. “Wait a second. You’re not leaving me here, are you?”
“I suggest you make things easier for yourself.” I slightly loosened the noose around his neck. “It’s probably best if you sit still.”
“I’m a prince! You can’t do this to me. Help! Royalty is in trouble!”
I rolled my eyes and stuffed a balled-up rag into his mouth. The gurgling Makroid fell against the post and turned away from me. Rubbing my stinging knuckles, I called to Christine. “Let’s go.” I started to climb the stairs.
