It’s not comfortable, however, when I become erect. The pants are not designed for that, and the erection presses uncomfortably against the cloth. Human males must have much smaller penises in order to wear pants all the time. All of the pirates I killed wore pants, even though there were no women around.
“Good luck, Aura...and Cygnus,” Seth says.
“I’m bringing you with me,” Aura says. “Upload into the dropship.”
“But how can I watch over the Zephyr?” Seth asks.
“I’m going to sell the Zephyr,” Aura says. “But not you.”
“Why are you selling the ship?” I ask.
“I have no money. Nothing of value. Mars is a harsh place, and even after selling the ship we’ll be lucky if that holds us over for even a few weeks.”
She looks sad. I can tell she is emotionally attached to the ship.
“I see,” I say. “Aura, I am adept at surviving in harsh environments. We will flourish there.”
She gives me an uneasy look, as if she doesn’t believe me.
“Did you believe me when I told you of my mastery with all weapons?”
“Uh,” she says. “No, not really.”
“Well believe me now,” I say. “You are safe with me. We will flourish here.”
She smiles and squeezes my hand.
“I’m in the shuttle now,” Seth says.
“Alright,” Aura says. “Let’s go.”
I feel a jerk and a brief thrust. The g-force increases for a few seconds, and then zero-g returns.
I squeeze Aura’s hand back and look through the window. I see nothing but blackness, but soon the shuttle begins to rumble as we hit the atmosphere. The rumbling intensifies, and Aura holds me tighter.
The heat dies down and we begin to glide.
A joystick deploys, and Aura uses it to control the shuttle throughout the descent.
I look out the window, but am surprised to see nothing but red and lifeless terrain. There are occasional algae blooms and patches of greenery, but it’s largely a red and cracked desert.
“Where are the cities?” I ask.
“Far and few between,” Aura says. “We’re landing outside of a city called Rust Bucket. It’s where I sell my scrap, and it’s where most of my contacts are.”
“Rust bucket,” I repeat. “Do they insult themselves?”
“No,” Aura says. “It’s built in a small crater, so it’s shaped like a shallow bucket. And it’s on Mars...so rust.”
“How do we know my brother landed near here?” I ask.
“We don’t, but all of my contacts are near Rust Bucket, so we have to start here. We’ll do everything we can to find your brother, but first we have to figure out how to survive here. It won’t be easy.... I’d expect Scorpio has put some kind of bounty on us, so even walking into the city together will be a huge risk.
The surface is close now, and Aura stops talking to focus. She has no window, but the lenses on her eyes are giving her a full view of the surface, or so she’s told me.
I watch through my tiny window as the ground comes up fast on us, and at the last moment she pulls a lever.
I hear a hiss of air, and suddenly the window is covered by something.
“Airbags,” she says. “They completely cover the shuttle, and we just kind of bump all over the place until we grind to a halt. Hold tight!”
I feel a slam, and my stomach churns. We are jostled violently, and I am jerked forward against my restraints. Soon the vibrations die down and we stop moving.
“Okay,” Aura says. “We didn’t die.”
“I thought you make this run regularly,” I ask her.
She undoes her harness and stands up. “I do, and every single time I’m in disbelief that I don’t die.”
“A harsh place indeed,” I shake my head.
She opens a panel and pulls out some masks.
“You have to put this on,” she says. “It’s warmer than it used to be on Mars, so as long as we bundle up, we won’t die from exposure, but there’s not enough oxygen in the atmosphere. If you lose your mask, if your hose gets cut, or if your tank goes dry...you’ll pass out in a few minutes, and you’ll be dead in ten.”
She looks me over, then says, “Well, that’s how it is for humans. But since you breathed the air on the ship just fine, I’m just assuming it’s similar for you.”
“We are more adaptable than you,” I tell her. “It’s possible I can do without the mask. I need very little oxygen.”
She forces it into my hands. “No, you need to wear this big jacket with a hood to cover your alien-looking ears and purple skin and the mask to cover your face. It’s bad enough that you’re seven-feet tall, but you’re going to need to do your best to look and act human. You think you can handle that?”
I nod. I realize that Scorpio—and many others—would kill to capture me. I must keep a low profile so as to not endanger my lifemate.
I put on the big jacket and affix the mask. The jacket compresses the bio-suit sphere, but it’s adaptable and spreads itself out along my arm. I can feel my stomach churning and tearing with hunger, but I will not complain. I will find a source of food for Aura and me. She’s shamed me enough already by providing me so many of her own rations.
She hands me a medium-sized blade. It’s only about the length of my hand, but it will do. “It’s the only weapon I have left.... I should have carried more than one gun.”
“It’s my fault,” I say. “It would have been wise to have taken more of the pirates’ weapons. But this blade will suffice.”
“Let’s go,” I say.
“Aren’t you going to put away the knife?”
“Why?” I ask. “We will look like weak targets.”
“Subtlety,” she says. “Most people on Mars will have guns. If you’re carrying a knife, they’ll assume you don’t have a gun, and they’ll try to shoot you.”
This woman—my lifemate—is wiser than I could have imagined. How can a female learn so much about the nature of combat and aggression?
“I will conceal the blade,” I say.
I tuck it into my jacket.
I open the jacket and put the blade into one of the pockets. It’s slow and awkward compared to my bio-suit, but I cannot argue with Aura’s logic.
The gravity on this planet is quite low, but I spent several cycles training on a planet with a similar gravity. I grin in anticipation.
“Ready?” Aura asks.
I nod, and the door opens.
Cold rushes in, but it’s much less frigid than I’d expected. Women must always feel cold.
I step outside first. In case there is some type of ambush, I must be ready to protect her.
I step outside and let my inner bear rise up, but I do not shift. I just need access to its heightened senses.
I hear everything around the shuttle. Every last piece of dust rustling across the rocks.
There’s a gale of wind, and red dust sweeps across me. I’ve been outside for only moments, and my clothes are already covered in dust.
My ears twitch, and far in the background I hear an electric droning, and men laughing.
Aura begins to step outside, but I push her back into the shuttle. “Someone is coming.”
I point to the hill. “Just on the other side of this hill. Stay inside, lock the door. I’ll handle this.”
“Wait,” she stalls. “Cygnus, I need to see who it is first. I have friends—okay, not quite friends— but acquaintances here. I’m guessing it’s going to be three guys on a buggy.”
“They ride on a bug?” I ask, astonished.
“A buggy,” she says. “It’s a thing with four wheels.”
My ears hone in on the sound, and I watch the hill. I grip the handle of the blade within my coat.
The buggy bumps lazily over the hilltop, and it begins descending the hill toward us.
When I turn around, Aura is already waving her arms.
I go to shove her back inside, but she
says, “No, Cygnus, it’s Baxter. He’s cool.”
“All humans must feel cold here. Is Baxter even colder?”
“I mean he’s not going to kill us,” she says. “He’s an okay person.”
“I see.” I tuck my ears back and watch the buggy approach, but I do not let go of the knife.
The buggy stops just a few meters away from us, and just as Aura said, there are three men. They’re all wrapped up in thick jackets with big facemasks. The tallest of the three jumps off the buggy and pulls back his hood.
He has wild black and grey hair, and it’s caked with the red dust of the surface.
“Aura,” he shouts, his voice distorted by the face mask. “Who’s your friend? He’s...tall.”
“This is Garrett,” she says, looking at me. “Hired gun.”
The other two men jump off the buggy, and I pull the blade partially out of the pocket, readying myself to strike.
“That’s good,” Baxter says. “It’s getting rougher down here with the war heating up. A lot more piracy, and the orbitals don’t give a flying fuck what happens down here.”
“Did they ever?” Aura asks.
Baxter laughs and reaches his hand out to me.
“Shake it,” Aura hisses behind me.
I grab his hand, and we’re both wearing gloves, so it feels awkward. I squeeze lightly, and Baxter’s body doubles over.
“Shit! Okay, dude, I got it, you’ve got a strong grip.... Jesus!”
He flaps his hand and hops up and down. It seems I’ve damaged him.
“I am...Garrett,” I say. The name sounds strange on my tongue.
“Baxter,” he says. “And these two bums behind me are Sherlock and Gusto.”
“So,” Baxter says, turning to face Aura. “What you got for us, sweetie?”
I grab Baxter by his collar and pull him in. “What did you call her?”
“Ah! Shit!” Baxter says.
“You’ll not call her that! Please!” I shout into his face. The facemasks are all tinted, so we cannot see each other’s’ faces. The hood is still covering my ears.
“Sorry, sorry!” he cries.
I let go of him.
I hear Aura stifling laughter through her facemask. She seems to find humor in almost anything. It’s an admirable trait.
“Um, well,” she says. “I’ve got nothing for you, to be honest.”
“Nothing….” Baxter says. “I don’t run a charity, you know. You want me to guard the shuttle while you’re down in the Bucket, you’re going to need to give me something worth my time.”
“I had a new deal in mind,” Aura says. “You can take the whole shuttle, scrap it.”
“What are you hiring us to guard then?” Baxter asks.
“I have a hired gun,” Aura says. “But we have no gun.”
“The shuttle for a gun?” Baxter says, looking it up and down. “That’s fair.”
“Two guns,” Aura snaps back. “And some rations.”
“One gun,” Baxter says. “And I can throw in some jerky, I guess.”
I’m impressed by this exchange. Among my race, we would simply battle each other and the winner would take everything. This is...subtle. Each party can walk away alive and with something they need.
Baxter turns toward Sherlock and mumbles something. Sherlock walks back to the buggy and opens up a cargo hold on the back. He rummages through, sticking his head way down into the hold.
He pops back out with a weapon in his hand. It’s a small pistol, and it’s as red and rusted as the surface of the planet. There are a few flecks of black, which must have been the original color.
“Let’s see,” Sherlock says. “This is your classic Mark VI, a real collector’s item.” He grabs the top of the gun and pulls back. I hear a rough grating sound, like coarse grains of sand cracking, and the weapon half cocks, then jams. Sherlock ducks down and tries again, and the weapon grinds all the way back, and clicks.
“It’s only got three bullets,” Baxter says. “Like I said, it’s a collector’s item...the bullets are even more valuable than the gun! I can have Sherlock test fire it for you, but then you’d be down to two bullets.”
I take a long stride forward toward Baxter, and I reach into his inside jacket pocket. I feel cold, oiled metal, and I tear the item out of his jacket.
I draw the knife, pull Baxter’s body against my own, and raise the gun at Sherlock.
Gusto starts to slowly fumble into his jacket, but I shout at him.
“Do not try to draw your weapon. Please! Or I will kill him.” I press the knife flush against Baxter’s thick scarf, and then I pull it up to expose the skin. I settle the cold metal against his throat.
Gusto raises his hands into the air.
“Shit, Garrett, what are you doing?” Aura hisses behind me, but I ignore her.
Sherlock has the rusty Mark VI gun pointed at me.
“If you pull that trigger,” I shout over to Sherlock. “And the gun doesn’t work, I will kill all three of you. Do you want to risk that? Will you risk your lives on this gun functioning properly?”
“No!” Baxter shouts. “That thing ain’t gonna’ shoot! Drop it, Sherlock!’
Sherlock drops the rusted gun.
“We will take this weapon,” I say, shaking Baxter’s pistol in my hand. “It’s well maintained and seems reliable. It feels good in my hand. Do you agree to this trade?”
“Yes,” Baxter says. “Just let me go, man.”
I pull the knife away from his throat and shove him away from me. In the low Martian gravity, he looks like he’s falling over in slow motion, but he falls all the same.
“Good,” I say. “Enjoy the shuttle. Please!”
13 Aura
“I can’t believe you did that!” I say, shoving Cygnus.
He’s not quite shovable, however, and my attempt only bounces my own body back.
“Yes,” Cygnus says. “I quickly adapted to the human bartering system, and I made the most of it.”
“No,” I say. “You jumped the gun...literally! I could have talked him into a better deal, I just needed more time. You’re going to have to learn to compromise, and to trust me. We can’t just do everything the Marauder way all the time.”
“That was a compromise,” he says. “The Marauder way would have meant killing all three and taking everything. I showed great restraint and subtlety.”
I grit my teeth. This man is impossible.
We stop near the lip of the crater to eat. There’s only one entrance into Rust Bucket, and it’s clear on the other side of the crater. I’ve opted to avoid the road until the last possible moment. Highwaymen are rampant on the roads. They are tolerated because they ask for very little in return for safe passage, and I’m normally able to buy them off with a few grams of precious metals—or a half kilogram of bacon. Right now, though, we have nothing of value aside from the gun and the jerky. Sneaking around the edge of the crater is a bit riskier because, while the highwaymen are happy with high volume low value robbery, the raiders off the main roads will kill you and take everything. And if you have nothing, they’ll just kill you.
I give Cygnus all of the jerky, and he raises his mask and starts to cram stick after stick down his throat, but he stops after three or four pieces.
“Aura,” he says. “Though you do not have a biosuit feeding off of you, you must be hungry.”
“I could eat a couple,” I say.
I’m starving, but I’ve heard Cygnus’ stomach rumbling like an earthquake ever since we landed, and I need him at full alertness if we run across some raiders.
He puts half of the jerky—six sticks—into my hand. “Eat. Please.”
I try to hand him back a few of the sticks, but he looks away from me and devours his remaining portion.
I raise my mask and put a whole stick in my mouth, then re-seal the mask. I repeat this process until I’ve finished the jerky.
“Thanks,” I say. “I was really hungry.”
“You
must sustain two lives,” he says.
“Cygnus,” I say. “We only had sex one time, there’s no guarantee I’m pregnant already….”
He scoffs. “You will see.”
“Tell me more about your sister,” he says, wrapping his arm around me.
We’ve been walking a long time, and the surrounding rocks mask us from any potential raiders.
“We’re both from Earth,” I say. “The surface though, not the orbitals.”
“Earth’s surface is also a harsh place?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I answer. “But different from Mars. Mars is cold and sparse; Earth is sweltering and crowded. Fiona, my sister, is two years older than me. She’s always looking out for me, and after our parents were killed in food riots, she took care of me.”
He nods. I know Cygnus is a younger sibling too, though I don’t really understand sibling dynamics in his race.
“She joined the military for the minimum five years,” I say. “As soon as she turned 17. She had most of her salary sent to me, and I used it to learn bartering. I got good at it, and I played it safe. I rarely took risky deals, and my profits were miniscule at first. After three years though, I was making real money on each deal, and I bought my own ship. The Zephyr.
“Your fleet started its breaking burn when Fiona was only a few months from getting out of the military, and war meant she was kept indefinitely in the military. Earth wanted to pool all of the solar system’s resources together to prepare to fight you. Mars and Venus wanted to welcome you. I had built up all my connections on Mars, since it’s closer to the belt. I had to pick a side. If I stuck with Earth, I’d be able to keep in contact with Fiona, but I’d go broke, and all the sacrifices she’d made for me would have been for nothing. Earth doesn’t tolerate scrappers.”
“Why did Mars and Venus want to welcome us?” Cygnus asks.
“Humans have only been terraforming Mars and Venus for a few centuries. Aside from the orbitals, Martians mostly live underground or in domed craters like Rust Bucket, while Venusians live in floating cities. I guess they have less to lose...if the invasion had gone as planned, which planet would you hit first?”
Marauder Cygnus: A Scifi Alien Shifter Romance (Mating Wars Book 1) Page 7
