The half-male, half-machine — my captor — bounds up into the white room with a female in his grip. He’s holding her by the shock of red hair cascading around her bare body. She’s completely naked and screaming. She’s crying, too.
I straighten up to the best I can and square my shoulders to face him. “What are you…”
But he barely even registers me before he takes his metallic hand to my face first and then to my stomach. He backhands me before his open palm forms a fist and finds my stomach. He punches me hard, grabs me by the hair and tosses me and the other female into the corner.
We land heaped on top of one another, my red and brown skin clashing against her skin, which is a far lighter color. Her hair…she has so much of it. It’s all I can touch. It’s in my mouth, underneath me, waves and waves of orangey red that’s a much rougher texture than my own curls.
“Are you…alright?” I ask her, coughing as I try to speak through the pain spreading through me. My face feels like it’s been hit by a lightning strike. I cup my right jaw and cheek and chin. Already my eye is starting to swell shut.
She says things in a language…but it isn’t one I speak. Igmora always said that the males want their females to speak to them in their own language without the use of a translator — that translators are unnatural and that males should always feel at ease. So I was never equipped with one. Instead, I spent my whole life learning dozens of languages, with particular focus on Meero, Lemoran and Egama. None of that helps me now.
“Shoooareeyooo!” She shouts, scrambling madly to get away from me, like I’m the bad guy.
I groan, trying to roll onto my knees, but the ship lurches wildly beneath me as its engines power up. I brace myself, but the female beside me must be unused to small space crafts such as these because she flies into the wall, her skull crashing against it with a loud thunk.
I crawl to her, trying to get her to calm herself, but she’s got her hands up and is panicking at my nearness. And then a horrible screech fills the chamber and I look back up at our captor to see that the male has returned to his seat but he isn’t sitting. Instead, he’s standing with both hands braced on the edge of his control dock staring at the black sand which rises and falls in time to the screeching.
The female with me claps her hands over her ears and though every instinct I have tells me to do the same, I try to resist because the longer I listen, the more I think I can make out word patterns in the chaos.
And it sounds Eshmiri.
“…don’t…what…” Another painfully loud screech, but then words rocket through in clarity all at once. “Tintin, get those shields back up right shroving now!” The voice is female and sounds distressed. “How could you lose them! Gibli, get over here…” And then the sound screeches out again.
Our captor’s hands fly over the control dock and the ship takes another wild turn that sends the female crashing into me. I try to steady her, but she’s terrified — beyond terrified. It’s like she’s a youngling completely inexperienced with creatures outside of her own species.
Perhaps, I briefly consider, she’s from another planet where there is no access to inter-Quadrant travel. The thought horrifies me — the poor thing must be in shock and I know what it’s like not to have freedom. I know what it’s like to be submerged all at once.
I had Raingar to hold my hand, though. Even if he let go once or twice, he always came back to steady me. Because he’s the mate I never knew I could have. I squeeze my eyes shut tight as a foreign and unfamiliar sensation washes over me. I miss him. I’ve never missed anyone. I’ve never had anyone to miss.
A green light comes on overhead and a voice I recognize in every one of my bones radiates throughout the small chamber. The sands shift, forming pictures that bounce to life with color. I don’t expect to see his face. I never expected to see his face again, but…there he is. Tyto, in the flesh. Not quite, but far, far too close for comfort.
“Where are you?” He hisses, his forked tongue sliding out between his small, sharp teeth as the sand comes together to form his shape with devastating accuracy.
My — our — captor doesn’t respond. I know I should be more worried about the female hyperventilating beside me, but since his voice was conjured into existence, I haven’t been able to move. I’m plastered against the wall, like my co-prisoner, but unlike her, I’m not breathing. Meanwhile, she’s breathing far too hard.
“I forgot your Sky rules about speaking,” Tyto huffs, sounding livid. “Do you have her with you?” Sky? Our captor is Sky!
My skin loses all feeling. The pain recedes, becoming nothing in the face of my terror. Sky. The stories Igmora told me. That’s where Igmora threatened to send me if I didn’t behave. She told me that on Sky, I’d be butchered or used for breeding new monsters in this world. And even though I did everything they ever asked, she and Tyto have sent me there anyway.
Why here? Why now? Why are they doing this? Why didn’t I try harder to escape from the beginning? From the moment I was a youngling and I began to understand the differences between right and wrong? The moment I knew that the way I was being treated wasn’t right, so it had to have been wrong? The first time I was denied food, I should have tried to escape. I should have run the first time Tyto beat me with his tail.
Our captor nods and when Tyto licks his lips, I look away. “Let me see her.”
A few switches of the controls and a black spark flashes, blinding me momentarily. Tyto hisses louder, his tail emitting a faint rattle that I can hear all around me. “You’ve punished her?”
The nameless male nods.
“She was misbehaving?”
Another nod.
Tyto’s voice thickens with lust. “She will need more correcting when I receive her, then.”
Even though it wasn’t a question, my captor — the male who beat me — shakes his head. He only shakes his head once, though. Perhaps, he misunderstood the question.
Tyto doesn’t seem to notice. He says, “You’ll meet me this lunar in Wasteland, as planned?”
Wasteland? I hope to the stars that isn’t a place…and I hope against hope that he doesn’t mean to take me there even though I know he does. Maybe I always knew. The moment I cut my hand on the window, I knew I’d never really escape him.
I touch the cut across my hand, fingering it for strength, as I watch my captor nod. Just as quickly he brushes his fingertips over the controls and the sands fall down, taking the picture of Tyto with them.
A few touches later, the sounds of that distressed female voice returns. The male above the controls closes his eye. His nostrils flare. He takes a deep breath in and on his exhale, his shoulders relax down his back just a little bit. Relief or something more maleficent? I’m not sure. I don't know who she is, either. Is she another victim for Tyto and Igmora? I wonder why Igmora isn’t doing the talking with this Sky savage. She always does the talking.
“Any luck, Tintin?” Banging, loud clanging, and what sounds like metal boring against metal. “Shrov! Don’t do that. Give it here. Wait, wait, wait… Do you have my stash?” Our captor flinches. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen any emotion in him at all.
“Ontte, I want it…ontte! The timing does call for it. You see this dot here? That means he’s closing in on us! Shrov!” The female’s curse cuts out at the same time that the ship beneath us smashes into something else. Or latches on.
I don’t know much about ships or space travel, but I know that this must be a rare piece of technology for it to move as quickly as it does and to be able to fly undetected. It must be, otherwise Raingar would have found me by now. Our captor goes to the hatch. He will come for me. He throws it open. I’m his Xiveri…
“Hey, Jer,” comes the friendly quip in a female voice before…BOOM!
A beam of green light flashes into the chamber, hitting the male in his metal shoulder and taking him off of his feet. He spins through the air and hits the ceiling before falling down just a few paces from me. He a
mbles slowly onto his feet, almost lazily, like he doesn’t care at all about the Niahhorru pirate bursting through the port hole in the floor or the Lemoran male that follows him in.
And that Lemoran is one I know with every fiber of my being.
“Raingar!” I scream.
He turns to me immediately and, seeing me, his eyes widen. Some of the fight that had inflated the bloated muscles in his arms and powerful thighs deserts him. He pivots away from the half-metal, half-Drakesh threat and stomps angrily to me and, before I know what’s hit me, he’s crouching at my feet and slamming both palms flat on the wall on either side of my face.
“Khaneyetooshyo,” he says in a voice too gravelly to understand. He chokes to clear it. “Can I touch you? Are you hurt? Where did he touch you? Did he hit you here?” His fingers are so delicate, so soft as they stroke my forehead, leading down to my injured cheek. I don’t wince, not at all, and I recognize this for what it is — a departure from the male who once wanted only pleasure from me.
This male is, just maybe, ready.
And I am more than ready. I’ve been waiting.
I throw myself into his chest and wrap my arms around his neck. In the meantime, more and more creatures have flooded the space and they’re of all kinds.
The first Niahhorru pirate is joined by three more and Raingar is joined by Merquin and Tana. They form a protective barrier around us, so I only spy through their legs, spread in defensive stances, the Eshmiri reaver horde that floods what little space that’s left. There must be over twenty of them even though this ship clearly holds no more than one creature comfortably — or three, if two are imprisoned and ignored.
I glance over to my mystery co-prisoner, certain that she’d be screaming by now at the onslaught of seeing so many interstellar faces…and I’m not wrong. She’s shaking violently, tears wetting her cheeks, her pink lips are quivering and there are goosebumps all over her pale body. But she’s also in the cage of a pirate’s arms.
He’s whispering to her frantically, but she just keeps shaking her head again and again until eventually, she gasps one more time and faints. The pirate catches her and the heat radiating off of him is only rivaled by the heat flashing off of Raingar’s skin like solar flares.
“Look at me, Essmira,” he whispers, grazing just one finger along my jaw to turn my attention back to him. I meet his gaze, suddenly remembering the pain in my head, left cheek and right ribs. I try to uncurl myself, because the terribly condensed way I’m wedged is no help. “What are you…”
“Help me stand, please? My ribs. They hurt in this position.”
“He hit you,” he whispers so softly and so darkly he strains the language.
I cringe, pain exploding through me in small doses. “Yeffa.”
Raingar bites his teeth together and closes his eyes tight. He plants both hands back on the wall beside my face brutally, but when he touches me again, this time my shoulders, his grip is soft. He gently pulls me onto my feet, making sure to keep my entire body beneath the cage of his. Shielding me, like a clan chief would do for his miriga.
“Raingar, I love y…”
“Is he contained?” Raingar barks over his shoulder. He doesn’t hear me and my cheeks burn hot. This is clearly not the time for bold pronouncements of love.
“Ontte,” comes the Meero response from a pirate I do know. Rhorkanterannu. Everyone knows the pirate Rhorkanterannu of Kor.
He owns the trading port. He commands the pirates. And he’s here. I never thought the pirates would assist the Lemoran with anything. And what’s even wilder? The Eshmiri! They’re known to lie, cheat, and steal and never out of chivalry. I wonder what Raingar offered them in kintarr and a flash of new guilt ruins me.
“Ontte, my ass,” comes a female voice. I recognize this one, too. She was the voice on the other side of the screeching that my captor was listening to so intently.
I strain around Raingar to get a glimpse of her and, when I do, I’m floored. Meanwhile, she doesn’t look half so stunned as I am. Instead, she dismisses me with her bright white gaze just as quickly as it settles on my face.
She dismisses me even though she has the same dark brown skin I do and none of the red. Her hair is a shock of white curls that frame her face and her eyes…her eyes swirl with color, but only fleetingly, before that color dies and returns to a blank white slate. Stunning. Fascinating. I can’t decide if the female terrifies me or if I find her terrifyingly beautiful. In either case, she’s fortunate that Igmora and Tyto never got their hands on her. They’d have pulled the fire right out of her and there’s no doubt that she’s an open flame.
She lifts a weapon — some kind of blaster — and points it across the tiny chamber. I follow the motion and my gaze locks on the male who took me from my home. He has his arms locked in a type of manacle that I’ve never seen before. Radiating blue energy pulses and zaps. It looks like a live wire, like it should be causing him physical pain as it encircles each of his wrists and links them together.
Similar shackles hold his feet apart and nail them to the floor. But he just stands there without an ounce of anything at all concerning him. He just stands there like this is already over and he’s won. Or like…he doesn’t even care if he loses.
And still every weapon in this tiny chamber is trained on him.
“Jerrock is contained,” Rhorkanterannu says.
But something gives me the impression that I should believe the female, rather, when she laughs, “Right. Yeah right…” I wonder, distracted, if she’s a hybrid…if she could be human? Her skin is just like mine. But then, maybe not? She didn’t look at me like she recognized me among her same species. Maybe, I’m just looking for humans everywhere now.
“I want his head,” Raingar seethes, turning so that his back is to me. He keeps his arms spread to either side, like the male Rhorkanterannu called Jerrock still might be able to get through all of the others to find me.
The Eshmiri reavers all start speaking at once. Short, squat creatures with thick, muscular chests, they wear rags, leathers, and hides draped all over their ruddy brown forms and speak in a way that sounds like high-pitched giggling.
The white haired female joins them and I’m shocked because she speaks Eshmiri like an Eshmiri. She’s one of them. “Eshmiri are only male,” I whisper.
Raingar chokes out a bitter laugh, “All except Ashmara. But don’t let that fool you. She’s one hundred percent reaver. More psychotic than the rest combined.”
“Well, you can’t have it.” The female — Ashmara — swivels her blaster around to point it at Raingar. Tana and Reyna flash blasters of their own and the Eshmiri all start trilling. “We had a deal, Raingar. First Tyto’s kintarr and then heads will roll. Any head you want.” She shoves her blaster into the leather on her belt and holds up both hands.
She brings something to her mouth and chases whatever it was with a swig from a hard leather flask hanging on her belt.
The chains on the opposite side of the tight, hot chamber, sing. A horrible smell fills the space and it comes from the sizzle around his wrists. Burning flesh. But then Jerrock settles just as quickly.
But not quickly enough.
“Awww,” Ashmara croons in a cloyingly sweet voice that I don’t like at all. It makes her sound monstrous. Heartless. “Are you worried about me, Jerry Berry?” Jerry Berry? I’d bet my red stripes that is not the bounty hunter’s preferred moniker.
He doesn’t reply. He just stares straight forward at nothing.
A moment of silence. Nobody moves. All in all, the situation starts to feel rather unnecessary. Tana breaks the mounting tension and the quiet, “So…what now?”
“Now,” Rhorkanterannu says slowly, “we need our new friend here to tell us where the rendezvous point is with Tyto.” He whips out a lightning stick and spears the male’s stomach without warning.
Jerrock twitches, but doesn’t even buckle. Ashmara, the psycho, laughs, “Rhorky baby — is it alright if I call you that?�
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“Centare.”
“Rhorky baby,” she says, not really listening as she picks her way forward around the crowded Eshmiri to reach Rhorkanterannu’s side. I notice as she walks that she’s swaying slightly even though the ship isn’t in motion. “Jer bear has been getting used to torture for longer than you’ve been marauding. Pain is his best friend. You’re not going to get through to him like that.”
Rhorkanterannu sighs, as if exasperated. He pivots towards Ashmara behind him, but doesn’t let Jerrock out of his sight. “Then, what do you suggest?”
She sticks her tongue out of the side of her mouth and squints. Her eyes slit, but I still make out the bright flare of blue that swims across her eyeballs fleetingly before it vanishes. “We could tickle him.” She shrugs one shoulder.
“TICKLE HIM!” Raingar, in front of me, roars so loud the ohring ship shakes. “You suggest we tickle the Sky assassin to extort information from him?”
All of the Eshmiri start talking at once. I glance at the female clutched against the pirate’s chest beside me. She’s still out like the dead. I worry for her, but the male with his arms around her doesn’t seem to be willing to release her for anything.
“Raingar,” I say. I tap him on the shoulder. He’s still shouting though, waving both arms now, so he doesn’t hear me. “Raingar…RAINGAR!”
All of the pirates in the room buckle slightly, but gratefully shut up. I clear my throat. “Thank you. I was going to say that Ashmara’s um…inventive methods of interrogation won’t be necessary. I know where they’re going — where they’re supposed to meet. Tyto and Jerrock communicated and I heard Tyto tell him to meet him at Wasteland. Does that mean anything to you all?”
“Wasteland?” Ashmara grins, leaning one elbow on top of a nearby Eshmiri’s head. He doesn’t seem to mind and trills with what I think is true laughter. “Isn’t that your female’s territory, pirate?”
Taken to Lemora Page 22
