Taken by Tryon Scavenger

by Alyx X

  I reached down and grabbed a gun from the guy’s hands then straightened and took in the remaining two guys. They walked backward, eyeing us warily, until they were each pressed against a wall, their vantage points good, their ability to maneuver limited. I smiled inwardly, these men weren’t as accustomed to their prey fighting back, I’d wager.

  “Think you know how to use that thing?” One of the men called out.

  I shrugged. “I think I know where to aim it.”

  He didn’t say anything, just raised his own gun and pointed it directly at me.

  “Down!” Lyx didn’t even finish speaking before he dropped us both to the floor. We rolled out of the way as light pulsed past us. “Those things are lethal.”

  But he didn’t need to tell me that. “Tell me something I can’t work out for myself,” I muttered, because of course they were lethal. Space was just fucking dangerous. “Show me something in space that isn’t trying to kill me.” I kept my gun trained on one of the invaders, while Lyx took the other from the second corpse. Seems we were in a stand-off.

  “Then now might be the time to let you know the raiders”—raiders, pirates, it’s all the same to me—“aren’t just wearing pretty gloves. They have spike-like claws that they can extend from the ends of their fingers, so watch out for those. They inject a venom into your system.”

  Of course they did. I sighed as I watched the raiders. “I bet they haven’t experimented with their venom in a human yet.”

  “Hey bitch, we’re lovers, not fighters,” one of the raiders called. I couldn’t see his mouth, but I was sure it was a leer as he watched me. “Now we won’t get to fuck you while he watches, either. That wasn’t very nice.”

  Lyx growled from his protective position above me before springing toward the man like he couldn’t control his reaction to the insult. I sighed and leapt up, grabbing my length of chain again. They were right—I knew how to point a gun, but not how to use one. We didn’t have anything that used ammunition we couldn’t replace back home, so this weapon was foreign to me.

  I watched Lyx and horror rose through my body at my inability to offer aid. Then I relaxed. He had this. In fact, it looked like he was about to take the invader out right about…

  The invader farthest from Lyx reached into his pocket and pulled out a small black box with a screen in it. His fingers flickered over the screen and my feet suddenly left the ground. Did this fucker just turn off the gravity?

  The guy with the box chuckled as he floated through the air. “Play time.” He moved his arms, pulling himself through the air toward us. “Sorry, but you still gotta come with us. And things are gonna be bad for you now that you took out four of my team members. I’m not gonna lie ’bout that.”

  Lyx looked around, but the man he’d been about to pounce on grappled with him and raised his gun.

  “No.” The one headed my way barked the command. “Orders are to take them both alive. We don’t get to finish them here.”

  I shivered. When he said it like that, it sounded far worse than the alternative.

  I spun in the air, my reflexes quicker than his, and knocked his box from his hand with my foot. Apparently I was pretty good at this, gravity or no.

  “Bitch!” He caught me around the ankle, but his box bounced, and we all hit the deck. I had turned the gravity back on, but with how bad that landing was I wasn’t sure it had been the right decision. I groaned at the pain across my entire body, but was pleased to feel no broken bones.

  Lyx groaned from where he lay, and I glanced in his direction, but I didn’t have time to check on him. The raider who’d grabbed me was crawling my way again, and I reacted, landing a swift kick against his knee and smashing the dense armor around the joint.

  He howled in pain.

  “Nice shot, Piper!” Lyx yelled as he struggled to subdue his own raider. “You got him in the balls!”

  “No, his knee,” I responded as I took advantage of his injury to bind him with my chain. I hooked it under the heaviest furniture I could find, which turned out to be pretty heavy. This space and gravity shit was doing quite the number on my strength and endurance. Maybe there were some positives to being up here.

  Lyx laughed, the sound loud, out of place, and genuinely amused. “That’s where these guys grow their balls. I always thought it was fucking dumb.”

  “Well, he’s out of action for a while.”

  The raider glared at me, and a slicing sound filled the air as his claws extended. He made a quick swipe at me, but my reflexes were faster and I smashed him over the head with the loose end of the chain he was restrained with.

  Who knew I was such a badass? I grinned. Well, maybe I knew. I deliberately hunted desert lions. I could cope with some over-armored bully pirates, right? Especially with my new space powers.

  A thumping sound started from farther down the corridor, and Lyx groaned. “Fuck. They sent more.”

  “They what?”

  “That’s right, bitch.” The one Lyx was still trading blows with ground his words out, trying to sound tough. It just sounded fake.

  “Finish him, Lyx!” I yelled as I rushed over to help.

  “I only have two hands.” He shook his head and widened his eyes briefly, as if asking what I expected him to do. “I can’t just grow new ones!”

  “You have a fucking tail.” I told him before I punched his opponent square in the jaw. “Use it!”

  As Lyx released the guy to drop to the floor and remove his weapons, skittering them across the floor to the corners of the room, ten more raiders flowed through the door in a torrent of black and shiny armor.

  “You’d better use that tail, now.” I glared at him.

  His jaw hung open.

  “We only have four hands between us.” I glared at him as the raiders fanned out around the room.

  They wanted us alive, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t rough us up first. I wasn’t as scared of their guns as I might have been, though, and that gave me a mental advantage.

  Lyx backed right up against me. “My tail, it’s… It’s for us now,” he said, and he gazed at me meaningfully.

  I laughed. “Okay. One: we don’t have time for this right now. Two, I’m fighting with everything on display. My tits are out, and I’m pretty sure one of these assholes groped my pussy before.”

  His face changed, and he made almost a snarling sound. “He what?” he roared.

  Immediately, the raiders around the room sprang into action, as if Lyx’s change in manner had galvanized them back into action. What had they seen that I hadn’t?

  “I’ll kill them, I’ll kill them all,” he roared.

  Then it clicked. The raiders now knew how he’d react if he thought I was in danger. Seems I was now the center of attention.

  He raced around the edges of the room, and he was fast, but I was faster. As all eyes moved to Lyx’s movement, I ran around the room to the other side, punching raider faces as I passed. I’d never been so powerful, and it felt great.

  As I reached the last raider, he turned and slammed my jaw with his gun, flinging me across the room. I watched space rush toward me before I hit the thick glass of the huge windshield and crumpled down its height to the hard, metal floor beneath. Ouch.

  However, that alien was pretty fucking dumb. Did he know he was dealing with a spaced-up human?

  I didn’t even lie in place for a few seconds. Instead, I rolled over and jumped to my feet. The raider watched my quick recovery, his eyes wide.

  I shook my head. Oh, I was going for him. He’d regret that slam. I rubbed my jaw and pushed my tongue over the inside of my cheek. It stung a little. I could get used to this quick recovery shit. Space really did suit me.

  I let out a wordless yell of anger and vengeance and charged at him. He stood his ground, and pain shot through my upper arm as I reached his side. The fucker had scratched me.

  Simultaneously, my fist met his temple and I clutched my other hand over the pain in my swinging arm,
glancing down to the fresh beads of red blood spilling from between my fingers.

  “Mother fucker.” I grimaced. “That hurt.” I brought my closed fist down on the top of the alien’s own like I was wielding a mallet, adding a kick to his knee-balls for good measure.

  Lyx arrived next to me, breathing hard. “You get him?”

  “Of course I did.” I grinned and nodded. “And the others?”

  “Out of action,” Lyx confirmed.

  I glanced about, barely able to believe what I’d done. If I’d had skills like this on Earth, I could have rebuilt buildings, never mind managed to feed my tribe. Power flowed through my every movement, and I was precise and surefooted. I didn’t doubt myself, and I was quick. Maybe I needed to get my whole tribe up here somehow. We could all develop new skills and abilities, but I laughed as I pictured the Elders kicking the shit out of aliens in a fight. Perhaps this wouldn’t suit everyone.

  “Are they all dead?” I couldn’t tell. They all had their armor on, but there was plenty of green blood across the floor, and smeared across my body.

  Lyx shrugged. “Mine are. Yours?”

  “I think so. They went down pretty heavy.”

  “I’ll check them soon.” Lyx pulled me to him and wrapped me in his arms. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so worried.”

  I rested my head against his chest as I surveyed the carnage in his control room. His heart thumped fast in his chest, and I brought my palm up to rest alongside my face, feeling the movement as well as listening to it.

  “Did you use your tail in the end?” I grinned and tried to look up at him, but the room shifted, and I closed my eyes against it.

  The green skin of his cheeks darkened for a moment, and I felt the change of temperature in his chest. His embarrassment was cute. “No comment,” he murmured.

  I laughed and tried to meet his gaze again, but the room shifted further, throwing me off balance. I pushed away from him, opening up a gap between us as I drew in a long breath.

  I stumbled back a little.

  “Are you okay?” Concern threaded through his voice, but it seemed to grow fainter as the room spun around me.

  I brought my hand to my forehead as pain began to throb behind my eyes and the lights seemed to flicker faster.

  My knees began to weaken, and my fall happened in slow motion until Lyx moved in a rush of air and caught me in his arms.

  “What are you doing?” A smug smile spread my lips. “I’m clearly awesome.” I waved vaguely around the room. “I’ve turned into a machine.”

  I struggled to be let down, squirming in his arms, and he shifted me to a more manageable hold. Then he extended my arm, and I opened my eyes to see him peering at it.

  “What’s this?”

  “Just a scratch.” I shrugged, but I was getting drowsy. Made sense. I’d just been in the fight of my life, and now I needed to sleep it off. “Put me down. I still have enough energy to rip your cock and balls off, you know.”

  He chuckled. “And if I promise you can, will you at least let me take you to the sick bay to suck the Urdruck poison out of your bloodstream first?” He kissed my forehead, his touch soft and gentle, and strode from the room of bodies as I closed my eyes and rested against him.

  14

  Lyx

  I held her close, like something delicate and fragile, as I walked to the sick bay. Of course, she was no longer delicate or fragile—she’d proven that by taking on so many Urdrucks without flinching or blinking. It was the same warrior I’d seen inside her in the ruins of that Earth city as she hunted the big creatures. She didn’t shy away from danger.

  I laid her on the same bed I’d initially used when I brought her on board, and I started cleaning her skin, part of me unable to stop admiring its beauty even as I ministered to her health.

  “Stop it.” She tried to bat me away, but it was clear the poison was already starting to work on her system. She was drowsy and slurring her words. “Don’t make my scars go away again. I…I need them.”

  I pressed my mouth into a flat line and ignored her efforts to prevent me from helping her. “We have to do this or the venom from their claws could overwhelm your system.” I had to be firm. I’d only just found her. I couldn’t lose her to Urdruck raiders. “I’ve been sliced by their claws once before, and I had hallucinations, shakes, and sweats. The infection started to take over my body very quickly.” I spoke matter-of-factly, but lightly, as I wiped the last of the green streaks of blood from her skin.

  Some alien species reacted to a toxin in their blood, too, and I exhaled a sigh of relief that humans didn’t seem to be among those. “How many infections have you had to fight?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Some, I guess.”

  “But none like this. Your body has no idea what to do with this one.” The idea she might get sick made me terse as I spoke. “You have to let me help you.”

  She opened one eye then allowed it to fall shut again as she tried to curl her lip, but the venom was fast-acting and it was making her sleepy. “Like I’m weak enough for an infection to take me.”

  I wanted to keep her awake and talking. “How are you feeling?”

  She ignored my question, and her eyes moved beneath her eyelids like she was trying to look around. “Who were those guys, anyway?”

  I sighed, but this subject was as good as any for a distraction if she was interested in it. “They were Urdruck raiders. The Urdrucks are basically a race of…” I hesitated. I wanted to say scavengers, but that was me, and I was in no way like the Urdrucks. “They take everything they want, and they use force to get it.”

  “I kind of got that.” She nodded, but just barely.

  “They usually stick to boarding ships and taking the cargo. They take the ship if it’s valuable enough and the mood strikes them.” I allowed the moisture extraction system in the room to dry her skin as I spoke to her, then draped a clean sheet across her. More for her dignity than because I believed she’d be cold. “I’ve never worried, because I don’t carry much of value on this ship.”

  Until now.

  “They don’t target old ships like mine, and they certainly don’t target scrappers who aren’t making any money.” I cleared my throat and she jumped at the change in sound. “If I had to guess, these raiders were sent to take you.”

  Her eyes flicked open at that, and she was the most alert she’d been since the battle. “Me?” Confusion lurked in the depths of her deep brown gaze.

  “Yeah.” I looked away and pretended I was still busy prepping her skin for treatment. “Yeah they said they’d intercepted a message between me and…your buyer.” I could barely choke those last words out.

  I no longer believed any of that story, anyway. No, the more I thought about it, the clearer it became that Satyan had set me up. And, like a fucking dumbass, I’d let him. Helped him, even.

  I’d taken his money and outfitted the ship for human transport, taken a human female on my first run out. In order to get both of those things, he only had to kill one guy: Me.

  So yeah. I could tell myself this ship was the same worthless hunk of junk it always had been, but it wasn’t the same ship. It had a different purpose now, and I’d proven it had the capability to perform that purpose with ease. In fact, it would be possible to transport multiple females in all the rooms I had. For the wrong kind of businessman, my ship was now a floating wet dream of a business opportunity. I shuddered at the thought.

  I shook my head. I should have seen right through Satyan’s smooth talk and his haste to trust me and send money to my account. That hadn’t been trust. It had been cunning. But my hunger and need had made me desperate, and I hadn’t been diligent enough in my decision making. I’d made myself into an easy target.

  I took a med sleeve and wrapped it around her slender arm, noting the muscle definition as I covered the scratches the Urdruck had clawed there. “This med sleeve will heal you by using Tryonian technology to clean and repair damage.”
/>   “What? All damage?” Already, her speech sounded clearer, which meant the venom hadn’t penetrated as far as I’d feared. Maybe infection from the cuts hadn’t taken hold yet.

  “Yes. You won’t even know it happened once I take the med sleeve off.”

  “And it works the same for humans?”

  I hesitated. “I guess so. The med sleeves aren’t programmed for a particular species. My parents used them on any travelers we took onboard.”

  She nodded but didn’t respond to me about what I’d said. Instead, she spoke about something else. “When I was younger, my aunt was out hunting, and one of the desert lions shredded her arm. She lingered for days, but eventually she just went to sleep. Could a med sleeve have saved her?”

  “Yes.” My response was immediate. I didn’t even need to think about it. In my experience, the med sleeves had never failed. “Torn limbs are trickier but not impossible, and if she died of an infection—” I broke off and looked meaningfully at Piper as a healthier color seemed to return to her cheeks, “—then they would have destroyed that before it took over her system. If you had this technology, she needn’t have died.”

  Her eyes clouded with sadness, but then she scoffed as though used to the hardships of her world. I could understand that. There was little point in considering what might have been or living life thinking about ‘if only’ situations.

  “I still don’t need your sleeve thing. I’m strong enough to fight a little infection. Didn’t you just see me fight those big armed aliens?” She widened her eyes to convince me.

  But my muscles tensed, and I turned away like I was going to alter something on one of the various monitoring machines I was setting up to check her vitals. Really, I just wanted to hide my face.

  “This space effect is amazing. Is it to do with the gravity? I’ve never experienced energy like it.”

  “I…uh…” I trailed off.

  What could I say? I mean, I’d noticed. How could I not notice? But what the hell? If she thought this was just an effect from space, how did she explain not being able to rip her restraints from the walls before now? I shook my head and looked closely at the readings from the monitor tracking the progress of the cleanse and disinfection program. I leaned a little closer, hiding myself in hyper focus on the machine, wishing I could avoid this particular chat.