Pets in Space® 4

by S. E. Smith

“What is the mogha like?” Shana said.

  Images of A’rch shaking Squeak half to death flitted through her mind. “He was not very pleasant.”

  “I’ve always been fascinated by moghas.”

  Tessa’s eyebrows went up. “I’m sure we can arrange with L’Den for you to meet him.”

  Shana blinked. “Nobody told you? The Korthan left before the celebrations began.”

  Tessa felt as if she’d been hit by plasma fire. L’Den left? She didn’t even get to say goodbye. Feeling through her pockets, she pulled out the gold gemkey.

  “What’s that?” Shana said. “It’s beautiful.”

  Tessa closed her fist, squeezing the button in her palm. “It’s nothing.”

  If there was one thing being stranded on a desert planet for two years taught her, it was that life was short and if she needed to say something to someone, she needed to say it.

  Rod avoided her throughout the celebrations and was conspicuously absent now. It was clear he didn’t express his joy in seeing her alive because doing so over a Korthan monitored frequency wasn’t becoming. He simply didn’t express much of anything.

  But her heart ached for L’Den unlike anything she’d felt before.

  Pacing the room she was assigned to sleep in, Tessa pulled her hands through her short hair. Squeak sat on her pillow, watching her, head tracking with her as she moved back and forth across the room.

  She should be angry. She was angry. She deserved an explanation. She deserved something. But, mostly, she was puzzled. And the feelings she had for L’Den were complicating the situation.

  Stopping in the middle of the floor, she made up her mind. If Rod wasn’t giving her an explanation, she’d demand one. And she could stamp out whatever this was with L’Den. Her feelings for him were not real, couldn’t have been—

  Stomping out of the room, she headed to Rod’s apartment. According to the directory, he still lived in Section 12, Room 578.

  Activating the door chime, Tessa waited, head dizzy.

  Rod swung the door open, expression morphing into one of surprise upon seeing her. Pulling the door against his back, Tessa’s view of the inside of his apartment was effectively blocked. A shadow of motion flashed behind the door, followed by a slower shadow.

  “Now is not a good time,” he whispered harshly.

  Not a good time? She had been missing for two years. She almost died. She was engaged to be married to this man and now was not a good time? Anger boiled in Tessa, mouth opening to give him a piece of her mind—

  “Is that Tessa?” a female voice sounded from inside. “Let her in.”

  Hanging his head, Rod reluctantly complied, door arching open, hand and arm outstretched to usher her in.

  Two giggling babies crawled past as fast as their hands and knees could carry them, likely the source of the shadows.

  Did Rod have his nephews over? They should be a lot bigger by now— Tessa’s thoughts caught up with her brain and her mouth dropped open.

  “Hi, I’m Jane Karson, Rod’s wife.” A woman said, the source of the voice, hand outstretched. “I’ve heard so much about you. Amazing how you survived.”

  Jane Karson was gorgeous, one of the children heavily resembling her, the other heavily resembling—

  “You’re married,” Tessa’s voice cracked as she looked at Rod. “You have children—”

  Mind racing, adrenaline rushing, Tessa went through the motions of shaking the woman’s hand. But her turbulent heart wasn’t pumping ninety to nothing because her worst fear had come true. Her entire being was overflowing with emotion because she felt such immense—

  Relief.

  Dizziness overtaking her as the biggest epiphany moment she’d ever had hit her square in the face, Tessa blinked back black dots clouding her vision. Smiling, she said, “Congratulations.”

  And she meant it.

  The memory of Rod kept her alive on that desert world, but it was L’Den that gave her reason to live.

  Getting out of that apartment became top priority and she fled the scene, confusion crossing Jane’s face, but she didn’t care.

  She’d let L’Den go. Her life was over.

  Chapter Twelve

  Tessa lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling in a daze. Squeak nudged her hand, but she didn’t have it in her to respond. It was all wrong. Nothing felt right. Even that warm balm that had been caressing her mind since her rescue was gone—

  Pain exploded in her head. Gasping, she rolled into a ball on her side, eyes squeezed shut.

  Forgive me, Starlight, the inner voice said. I tried to block that.

  That warmth was there for a second, then gone again.

  What? She searched for the voice in her mind. Where did it go? Was it the source of the warmth? It called her ‘Starlight—’

  L’Den? L’Den!

  Squeak let out a squeal as she jumped from the bed, mind racing. The inner voice— It was L’Den. When he answered her question about his uniform on the promenade— He really was reading her mind!

  Anger bubbled to the surface. The explanations of how to use various things in her apartment on the galaxy-ship, things she thought maybe she’d figured out on her own and she just had an affirming voice. The voice telling her the ship was alive when she knew there was no way she could know that in her subconscious—

  What the hell? She exploded. Have you been in my head this whole time? You thought I was mad at you for watching my personal logs? This is another level!

  There was no answer and her heart sank. Oh, no, did she scare him away? That warmth—

  She wanted it back. She wanted all of him back. But reading her mind? She’d be addressing that if she ever saw him again.

  L’Den, she called through— whatever this was. Where are you? What’s happening?

  There was a chime at the inner comm next to the door and she ran to it, pressing the answering button.

  “I can’t control it,” a female voice said, frantic. “You were with them for a while. How do you control it?”

  “Control what?” Tessa demanded. “What is going on?”

  “The Hellhound is going crazy.”

  Tessa’s blood went cold. “What Hellhound? Who is this?”

  “Please come down here,” the voice pleaded. “If it kills itself, I’ll lose my job.”

  What the hell? “Where are you?”

  “I’m at Detention Block C, Cell 3. Please hurry.” The comm went dead.

  Acting quickly, Tessa threw on a protective one-piece and flew out the door.

  The mogha was ramming the walls of his confinement, blood dripping from his nose and mouth, his eyes crazed and wide. Tessa’s heart dropped to her stomach.

  She rounded on the young warden. “Where is L’Den?”

  The woman jumped, hands clasping over her mouth, eyes fearful. As they should be, Tessa thought.

  “I haven’t seen him since the Hellhound was dropped off,” she said through her fingers.

  “Mogha,” Tessa said.

  “What?”

  “It’s a mogha, not a Hellhound. And it’s coming with me. Turn off the energy field.”

  The girl’s hands dropped, though she was visibly shaking. “I can’t do that.”

  Slowly stalking towards the woman, Tessa narrowed her eyes. “You will drop the energy field right now or—”

  The young warden reached over a console and the energy field to the cell winked out. Tessa blinked. That was easy. She wasn’t sure if she was going to have to start punching.

  A’rch sniffed at the edges of his confinement, his breaths heavy and ragged. Tessa had no idea how to communicate with him or if he’d even listen if she could.

  Holding out her hand, she walked slowly towards the cell. “It’s okay, A’rch.”

  His ragged breathing slowed, antennae sticking straight back, eyes narrowed to slits as he regarded her with what she guessed was suspicion.

  “It’s okay,” she repeated. “I’m going to help you.”


  Fully aware she was about to make herself vulnerable to an infamous Korthan Hellhound, she knelt in front of him.

  “Let me help you,” she said softly, looking him straight in the eyes.

  A’rch’s antennae rose up as she allowed him to sniff her face and shoulders, heart beating so fast in her chest she thought it might explode. Then the antennae began twirling and he circled around her, tail twirling too.

  Relief washed over her as she rose to her feet.

  “I will have to report this,” the young woman said.

  “Do what you have to,” Tessa said, walking out, mogha’s claws clicking against the floor as he trotted along with her.

  Rushing to her room, she was under no illusion that troops wouldn’t be showing up at her door at any moment. She had to act fast, though she didn’t know where to begin—

  Arriving at her door, her heart fell when she saw it was cracked open. Were the authorities there already?

  Slowly, cautiously, she went to push the door open, but A’rch crashed through it with the subtlety of, well, a Hellhound.

  No one was in there and she relaxed slightly, mind a whirlwind of uncertainty. What was she going to do?

  Step 1: Grab Squeak. Then find a ship and get to T’ren. It was all she could think of under the circumstances.

  But where was Squeak? Looking under every surface, inside every drawer, she couldn’t find him. Could this day get any worse?

  Dragging her hands through her hair, she paced the floor, an all-too-familiar sense of hopelessness coursing her veins.

  A scratching sound at the base of the wall catching her attention, Squeak suddenly appeared, something square with shiny circuits built into it being carried on his back. Was that a keycard?

  Both Tessa and A’rch stared at the molk as it walked against the wall with the keycard, disappearing in a hole in the floor. Exchanging a glance with the mogha, Tessa rushed to the hole and removed the floor panel there.

  Squeak protested, standing on top of a small stack of square cards, trying to cover them with his little furry body.

  Kneeling, Tessa laid a calming hand on the molk, rubbing his chin until he was willing to let her peruse the latest stash. Looking through the keycards, Tessa found a particularly interesting one.

  A’rch lunged at the little creature and Tessa’s heart stopped—

  Instead of grabbing him and shaking like before, he flipped the squeaking molk into the air and moved under it. Squeak landed safely on top of A’rch’s head, between his antennae. Then the mogha grabbed the clothing around Tessa’s calf between his teeth and pulled her towards the door.

  Tessa and A’rch stood outside of a red door, Squeak sitting calmly on the mogha’s head. Both the keycard in her hand and the door in front of them read “Office of Hostile Korthan Affairs.”

  Taking several calming breaths, she stared at the name and title on the door: Rod Karson, Marshall.

  A’rch scratched at the door with his paw, looking pointedly at her. Snapping out of it, Tessa looked right and left down the hallway before letting themselves in. She hoped the young cell warden delayed admitting she lost the mogha, but it was only a matter of time before they were discovered.

  A large desk covered with discs, data pads, and papers sat in the middle of the room. Rummaging through the contents, Tessa looked for anything that could lead them to L’Den’s whereabouts.

  A half-covered page with the letters ‘KCC’ made her pause. Pushing aside the discs and papers covering it, Tessa picked up a bound report labeled, ‘Top Secret: Operation KCC,’ with the words ‘Korthan Cyborg Corps’ in parenthesis.

  Tessa’s mouth fell open. L’Den said he was part of the KCC—

  Several things fell together at once. Rod asked how many cyborgs were on the Korthan ship. L’Den was a cyborg. T’ren probably was too. Holy shit.

  Flipping through the report, Tessa felt the blood in her veins go cold. The Human Colony Alliance wanted to reverse-engineer Korthan cyborg technology to try to replicate it. Doing so would mean capturing and killing a Korthan cyborg, then dissecting and downloading his mind. Was it possible to do that?

  The pain she felt from L’Den— He could be dead already. But he didn’t seem concerned when he touched her mind—

  Slamming the report on the desk with a loud crack, a daily log data file with no labeling winked up at her. Perhaps something not labeled would have the ‘top secret’ location of a cyborg.

  Tessa threw the data file into the data port of the monitor sitting on the desk. She curled her lip when Rod’s face came into view. No wonder things didn’t seem right around him.

  “We received a distress message today. Ranger VI is on a desert planet in Korthan space. I think this might be our chance to acquire the first clue in replicating cyborg technology.”

  It was as if the breath was knocked right out of her. Suddenly unable to stand, Tessa fell into the chair behind the desk.

  “The plan is to modify another distress beacon to have the Korthans believe the crashed ship is one of theirs,” the recording of Rod continued. “Our leading scientist believes there is enough information from the data we’ve acquired from Korthan shipwrecks to accomplish it.”

  Hitting several buttons on the monitor, the recording ended. Prickling heat flashed through Tessa’s body, her stomach flipping violently. Leaning over the chair, she threw up on the floor. A’rch sat next to her, whimpering softly.

  Their ‘leading scientist?’ Who? And this person was willing to use a science vessel as a guinea pig for this plan?

  Another recording winked to life, Rod’s sneering face making her skin crawl.

  “I believe the subject is an actual cyborg,” he said. “He has a tattoo on his right arm that looks like this.” Rod held up a drawing of a triangle with a fist in it and Tessa sat up. She recognized that symbol.

  “It’s the symbol of the KCC.” Rod set the drawing down with glee, seemingly looking directly at her through the recording. “Never imagined this mission would be such a success. And we have Tessa Mathews to thank.”

  Tessa’s stomach roiled again, the taste of bile in her mouth.

  “We do have you to thank, you know,” Rod’s voice sounded from in front of the desk and Tessa’s head snapped up, heart freezing.

  The man she used to love most in the universe dragged an index finger across the edge of his desk as he paced around to face her. A’rch growled and he took a slow step back.

  “How long ago did you get that distress beacon?” Tessa stood, images of Britt dying flying through her head.

  “Just imagine what we can do with human cyborgs,” he said.

  “How long?” Tessa slammed her fist on the desk.

  “About six months ago,” he said. “You were in Korthan space. We couldn’t do anything.”

  Tessa saw red, so furious she thought her head might explode. A warm caress came over her mind and the heat let up, but only just so. Was that L’Den?

  There was the sound of a transmission, someone’s voice over a small comm, and Tessa realized Rod was wearing an earpiece. Lifting his hand, he spoke through a mic at his wrist. “I have it under control.”

  Ignoring that he was speaking to someone through a comm, Tessa hissed through her teeth, “You could have tried. Britt would still be alive.”

  Rod lowered his arm. “Maybe, but we need every advantage we can get over these savages.”

  Something clicked in Tessa. She knew where she no longer belonged.

  “They are not savages,” she said. “They treated me like I was one of their own.”

  “Maybe they were ordered to.” Rod ejected the daily log from the monitor. “Korthans live and die by the word of their commander.”

  Tessa didn’t think of that, but she believed their behavior was genuine.

  “What you are doing is wrong.” Tessa could scarcely believe she was once in love with this man. “Who are you?”

  “This is war.”

  Tessa grew tire
d of the conversation. This man wasn’t worth speaking to.

  “Where is he?” she demanded.

  “Where is who?” Rod said.

  Tessa’s lip curled, disgusted with a quality she used to admire. “Don’t play dumb.”

  A blur flashed between them, Rod hitting the floor in a pained scream.

  Jumping backwards, it took a second to realize that A’rch attacked him, long fingers extending from his paws to wrap around Rod’s throat. Stars above, she had no idea a mogha’s paws could did that!

  Squeak held on as if he were part of the mogha’s head.

  Rod emitted strangled noises, his face turning blood red.

  Tessa knelt next to him, A’rch keeping the pressure on. “Where is he?”

  Wheezing, Rod grabbed at the mogha’s legs, bugged eyes pleading with Tessa. She touched one of A’rch’s paws and the mogha released him.

  Curling onto his side, he coughed and gasped.

  “Well?” Tessa yelled.

  “Detention Block F,” he coughed, drawing in a pained breath.

  Jumping to her feet, she nodded at A’rch, who ran out the door. As she crossed the threshold, Rod called out. “I am the same person. You are the one that’s changed. Two years ago, you would’ve done the same thing.”

  Tessa had only one thing on her mind: rescue L’Den.

  They were going to have to fight their way off this station, but she would rather die trying than spend another day with humans the likes of Rod Karson. How many people knew of Operation KCC and the abandonment of Ranger VI? Did Shana know? Heaven forbid she was the ‘leading scientist.’

  There was no time to find out. They had to act quickly if she was going to commandeer an escape ship. Damn, she really wished she could contact T’ren—

  “I’ve already contacted him.” L’Den rounded the corner ahead of them, standing in the hallway, dark bruising under his left eye, but otherwise none the worse for wear.

  That warm balm cascaded through her mind, infusing her body, her heart bursting with joy.

  They ran towards each other, embracing in a relieved, exhilarated, fevered hug. L’Den’s lips met hers in an explosion of sensation that promised more.