Pets in Space® 4

by S. E. Smith

  She turned to look at her profile. Though she’d grown several inches over the last few years and had lost the bit of chubbiness she carried as a child, she still didn’t have the mature figure her mother possessed.

  Kiara covered her small breasts with her hands and frowned.

  Soon.

  Soon, Kiara would be a woman, able to do as she pleased. But for now, she was a young lady with more growing to do—a young lady who’d be fourteen in a couple days.

  Excitement buzzed within her, and she smiled widely as she turned her body to face the mirror.

  What does Volcair see when he looks at me? Does he still see the little girl I was, or the young woman I am becoming?

  Her heart pounded at the thought of him. Her best friend, her first crush—her only crush. He was meant to be hers. She just knew it.

  Volcair had changed a lot over the years they’d known each other; he’d grown taller, his shoulders broader, features sharper, and hair longer. He was by far the handsomest boy she knew—probably the handsomest boy in the whole galaxy. Whenever she saw him, her belly fluttered, and she felt giddy, felt like she belonged, felt like everything was right.

  A soft knock on her door startled her. She turned toward it as it opened.

  “Kiara,” her mother said, slipping in through the open door, “they’re here. Are you ready?”

  There was something heavy in her mother’s eyes, something sorrowful in her expression.

  Frowning, Kiara stepped closer. “Is something wrong, Mum?”

  Jada cleared her throat and forced a smile. “Just come down. I’m sure everything will be fine. Volcair is anxious to see you.”

  Mention of Volcair turned Kiara’s thoughts away from her mother’s strange mood.

  “They’re early!” She squeezed past her mother and raced down the hallway toward the staircase.

  “Kiara! You shouldn’t run!”

  “I know, Mum!” Kiara shouted, but she didn’t slow down. Clutching the bannister, she descended the steps quickly. Volcair usually met her in the foyer when he came to visit; he wasn’t there now.

  Jada hurried down the steps behind her. “Kiara!”

  “Where is he?” Kiara asked.

  “Outside, but—”

  Before Jada could finish, Kiara ran to the tall double doors and pushed through one before the doorman could open it fully. Anticipation thrummed through her as she surveyed the loop at the end of the drive.

  There, standing in front of a long, black hovercar, was Volcair.

  He stood with his hands in his pockets and his head slightly bowed, dressed in a suit that was a hybrid of volturian and human fashion—it mixed the stylized volturian collar and fabric with the sensibilities and fit of a traditional British suit. Such fashion fusions had become popular over the last few years.

  And it made him look very grown-up.

  Volcair glanced up. His frown rose into a smile that didn’t quite touch his blue-white eyes when he met her gaze.

  She sped across the drive, and he spread his arms to catch her as she slammed into him, wrapping her arms around his neck. She’d take away whatever sadness he felt. They always knew how to cheer each other up.

  “You’re here!” Kiara said, squeezing him tighter. “I thought you weren’t visiting until this evening.”

  He tightened his embrace, as well. When he spoke, it was in lightly accented English. “I wasn’t supposed to, but…something’s come up, Kiara.”

  Kiara drew away from him and tilted her head back to meet his eyes. “What is it?”

  Volcair sighed, and his frown returned. “There are new tensions between my people and the sedhi. My father has been reassigned to Arthos, where they are trying to mediate peace agreements.”

  “Well, your father is a good negotiator, isn’t he? Everything should turn out fine.”

  “It means I have to go, Kiara.”

  “What?” she asked breathlessly.

  Kiara’s chest constricted, her heart froze, and her lungs seemed to collapse, starved for air she couldn’t draw in.

  He couldn’t go. He was supposed to stay here with her. They were supposed to grow up together.

  “You’ll be here for my birthday, right?” she asked, throat tight.

  He didn’t meet her gaze as he shook his head.

  “Volcair?”

  “The posting is considered prestigious.” His jaw muscles bulged for a moment; he’d nearly spat that word. “We have to leave today. The qalsarn has demanded we go immediately due to the delicacy of the situation.”

  “You can stay here.” She nodded as though that was the answer to it all. “You can stay with us.”

  “I cannot,” he said softly. “I have to go, Kiara. And…I do not know when I will be able to return.”

  “No. No, you can’t go. You can’t!” Tears flooded her eyes, blurring her vision as she turned her head to seek out her mother, who stood a few meters away. “Tell him he can stay.”

  Isaiah, standing beside Jada, shook his head. “Kiara, my child—”

  “Tell him!”

  “Kiara, he can’t,” her mother said, placing a hand on Isaiah’s shoulder. “His place is with his father.”

  “His place is with me!” Her stomach sank, and sobs racked her throat. Her best mate, her Volcair, was leaving. She turned back to him.

  Volcair had lifted his face. His features were hard, set in anger and determination. “I will come back some day, Kiara. We’re…we’re best mates, aren’t we?”

  Kiara wiped her cheeks and nodded. “The bestest.”

  He smiled, but the fierce light remained in his eyes. “Since I won’t be here, I wanted to give you your birthday gift now.”

  Those words only made her more miserable. She didn’t want a gift from him, she just wanted him here on her birthday, and the day after that, and the day after that. She wanted him here forever.

  Volcair turned away from her and stepped to the waiting hovercar. He opened the back door, and Cypher leapt out in a shape he’d only taken on a few brief occasions—the graceful form of a large-eared fox, albeit one with metal scales and four eyes.

  Cypher hurried to Kiara and stood on his hind legs, placing his front paws on her thighs. The series of clicks and whimpers he produced were more distressed than she’d ever heard.

  She knelt in front of him and placed her hands on his sides. “You’re not a zeget anymore.”

  “He wanted to change after I asked him to stay with you,” Volcair said.

  “What?” Kiara looked at Volcair. “You’re…you’re giving me Cypher?”

  He nodded, and his nostrils flared with a heavy exhalation. “I can’t stay, but he can. To be your companion and watch over you.”

  “But what…what about you? Cypher is your only other friend!”

  “I guess that just gives me more reason to get back here eventually, right?”

  Kiara shook her head and carefully let Cypher down as she stood. She ran back to Volcair and wrapped her arms around him, burying her tear-streaked face against his chest. “You can’t go. I don’t want you to.”

  He embraced her, rested his cheek atop her hair, and whispered, “I don’t want to go, either, but I must.”

  “Kiara,” her father said from immediately behind her, gently grasping her arms to pry her away from Volcair. “It’s time, sweetheart.”

  “No! Please, Daddy!”

  Ambassador Vantricar climbed out of the hovercar to stand beside his son.

  Kiara met Vantricar’s gaze as she struggled against her father’s hold. “Please! Please, let him stay with us!”

  “That’s enough, Kiara,” Isaiah said, his voice soft but stern.

  “I am sorry, Kiara,” Vantricar said as he laid a hand on Volcair’s shoulder. “It has been our greatest honor to come to know you and your family these past seven years, but duty calls us elsewhere. We must serve the will of the qalsarn, and through him, the will of our people.”

  Fury flashed in Volcair�
��s glowing eyes. He bared his teeth and cast off his father’s hand, striding toward her.

  Kiara finally shoved away from her father just before Volcair took her into his arms. She clung to him desperately as he leaned his face closer.

  When he spoke, his breath was warm against her ear. “Remember our promise, Kiara.”

  He turned his head. His cheek was wet when it brushed against hers, but he pressed his lips to hers before she could guess what the moisture was. She tasted him and something more, something salty, and dug her fingers into his back to take more of him.

  The kiss was over far too soon; he drew his head back and met her gaze. It was only then she realized the moisture on his cheeks and the salty taste on his lips had been caused by his tears.

  Her throat tightened. “Volcair…”

  “Remember.” He released her and stepped back.

  She sagged forward; it was her father’s strong arms that caught her and held her upright.

  The raw emotion on Volcair’s face, the pain and sadness, was more than she could bear to see, especially because she knew it was for her. Volcair only showed his true feelings to Kiara; he was usually quiet and reserved around his father. His open display only hammered home that this wasn’t a jest. This was real.

  This was happening.

  “I will find my way back,” Volcair said as he walked to the waiting hovercar.

  Vantricar reached for his son, but Volcair batted his father’s hand away. Qal glowing bright, Volcair looked at Kiara over his shoulder once before climbing into the vehicle. Vantricar lingered for a moment longer before following his son into the car.

  The door closed with a thunderous slam.

  Kiara’s lower lip trembled. “Goodbye.”

  She stared at the departing hovercar until it was out of sight. Her father held her a little tighter, but his touch offered no comfort.

  “Kiara,” he said, “I know—”

  Shrugging out of his hold, she turned and fled, racing back into the house, up the stairs, and into her room. Once the door was closed, she let it all out—the pent-up pain, the loss, the sense of abandonment. She threw herself onto her bed as she cried, tears flowing freely. Her throat burned, and it was hard to breathe, hard to feel anything but the growing emptiness torn open by Volcair’s absence.

  He’s gone.

  She clutched the blanket in her fists and buried her face into it.

  Something leapt onto the bed beside her. A long, warm snout nudged her arm.

  Kiara raised her head and turned her face toward Cypher. He whined, his eyes narrowing and taking on a sad tilt, before he lay against her. He settled his head next to hers.

  Kiara wrapped her arms around him and held him close. “He’s gone, Cypher. He left us.”

  Cypher produced a series of soft hums and clicks; she imagined he was trying to soothe her, trying to tell her everything was all right, that Volcair would be back.

  Fresh tears spilled from her eyes. “He will come back, won’t he? We’ll just wait for him.”

  And she did.

  She waited for him as days stretched into months, looking skyward every night to appreciate the stars that reminded her so much of his glowing qal. He was out there, somewhere.

  Years passed, and she grew into a woman, marveling at the changes occurring before her own eyes.

  How much had Volcair changed? Was he taller, broader? Had he let his hair grow longer, or had he trimmed it?

  Did he think of her as much as she thought of him?

  When she graduated school at the top of her class, the only face she wanted to see in the crowd was his, but there was no sign of him, no word. Yet she continued waiting.

  She went to university, attended parties, made friends among her peers, and excelled in her classes, never giving up hope that he’d return soon.

  Her heart broke a little more with each passing day.

  Finally, after eleven years of waiting, eleven years of silence, eleven years of her parents urging her to live her life, Kiara finally gave up. She accepted the truth she’d refused to face throughout her youth.

  Volcair was not coming back.

  Chapter Four

  Aboard the Trading Frigate Starlight

  Somewhere in the outer fringes of Entris Dominion space

  Terran Year 2101

  Heart racing, Kiara ran down the corridor, keeping one hand on the blaster at her hip. Her crewman, Tekel—a large, brown-furred azhera—ran just ahead of her, while Cypher kept pace at her side.

  The Starlight quaked.

  Kiara threw out her free hand, catching herself against the frame of an open door. If not for her quick reflexes, she would’ve stumbled face first into the wall.

  “What was that?” she demanded, clinging to the doorframe as she righted herself.

  “They just docked with our aft entry hatch,” Umae, the Starlight’s pilot, replied through Kiara’s commlink earpiece.

  “Bloody hell!”

  Cypher skidded to a halt a few meters away and turned to face Kiara, staring at her with anxious, glowing eyes.

  “Are they still blocking your signal, Cyph?” Kiara asked.

  Cypher clicked and nodded.

  “I want you to go hide and keep trying, got it?”

  The inux narrowed his eyes and bared his fangs, clicking angrily as his scales scintillated and flowed like an angry ocean current. Kiara had no doubt that, were Cypher a person, he’d be telling her where she could shove it right now.

  “Don’t argue with me, Cypher. If anything happens, you’re our only hope of getting help.”

  Cypher growled and stared at Kiara for a few more seconds before releasing a frustrated huff. He darted away.

  “They’ve breached the airlock,” Umae said, her husky voice panicked.

  “That quickly?” Kiara asked, drawing her blaster.

  Tekel was positioned at the closed door ahead of her, his long tail flicking back and forth as he stared through the door’s small viewport. His blaster looked child-sized in his large, clawed hands.

  Kiara fell into place opposite Tekel and leaned back against the wall. “How many?”

  “Too many,” Captain Mason Snider said through the comms. “Kiara…”

  Growling, she adjusted her hold on the blaster and lifted her left arm to activate the control unit on her wrist. She flicked through the holographic menu until she accessed the ship’s security feed.

  Tekel had called them pirates, but their armor, weapons, and numbers were reminiscent of a small army. At least fifteen had already entered through the airlock, with more following. They advanced down the corridors with weapons readied.

  There was no way the Starlight’s small crew—six people if Kiara counted herself—could fight off such a large, well-equipped force.

  She had to make a choice.

  “Mason, you’re in command of this ship,” she said, “but I think we should stand down.”

  “What?” Tekel snarled, glaring at her.

  “I want you all alive. If we fight, they’ll kill us. If we surrender, we have a chance.”

  “Better dead than taken,” the azhera said. “Do you have any idea what they will do with us?”

  Kiara clenched her jaw. The Starlight was the first ship she’d purchased when she started this business venture after university, and it remained her favorite. It had made the run between Earth and the Entris Dominion dozens of times, and she’d personally traveled on this ship for a good eighty percent of those trips, even after she’d expanded her merchant fleet. She’d always known piracy was a potential hazard of intergalactic trade, but her ships had remained untouched.

  Until now.

  “They’re probably just after the cargo,” she said, as much to convince herself as anyone else.

  “Kiara, we are part of that cargo,” Tekel replied.

  “We will find a way to get help. Cypher is working to get a distress signal out, and if he can reach someone, he can act as a homing beacon. Still, i
t’s your call, Mason. You know where I stand.”

  “Boss is right,” Mason said through the comms. “Everyone fall back to the bridge immediately. Our only way out of this alive is by cooperating with our new guests.”

  Tekel cursed—Kiara’s translator offered no understanding of the guttural words—and slammed his fist into the wall. He pushed away from the door and ran alongside Kiara back to the bridge.

  The rest of the crew was already gathered inside, fear in their eyes. Even fierce Umae seemed subdued. Kiara’s heart ached; these people were her friends, her family. If anything happened to them, she’d never forgive herself.

  Please find help, Cypher.

  She met Mason’s gaze; he’d been with her since the beginning, and she trusted him to make the right calls when it came to the Starlight and its crew.

  Though he wore a deep frown, he nodded to Kiara and said in a firm voice, “All right, everyone. Weapons away.”

  Kiara dropped her blaster into its holster. She didn’t miss the crew’s reluctance as they complied with Mason’s order. Tekel and Umae seemed particularly riled—they both hailed from peoples with long-running warrior traditions.

  Moments later, pounding footsteps sounded in the corridor outside the room.

  “We surrender!” Mason shouted in universal speech, the most widely spoken language in the known universe. “We won’t resist.”

  The door slid open, and the pirates stormed onto the bridge two at a time with blasters raised. They spread out around the edges of the room, partially surrounding the Starlight’s crew, who stood with their backs to the ship’s control consoles.

  A large, four-eyed tretin stepped through the doorway. He was like a demon out of an old story, with two horns rising from his forehead and two more sweeping outward from the sides of his skull. Black spikes jutted from his chin, matching the color of his long, greasy-looking black hair, and his lips were parted to reveal a mouth full of sharp teeth. His long, powerful tail swayed behind him. He lowered his blaster and chuckled.