by Kate Rudolph
Brax picked up his stick and stood. “I’ll see you at dinner.” And then he followed his instincts back into the house and closed the door behind him. Odds were good Shayn and Naomi would be all over each other in a matter of minutes, and that was something he didn’t need to see.
Chapter Two
MEETING HIS FELLOW Detyens went fine. Deke had been bouncing in his seat, watching as Brax made small talk, and that had made him self-conscious. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say. Many of the people in the room had been raised in the Detyen Legion, a fabled group of soldiers who had only recently come to Earth after chasing down the people responsible for destroying Detya one hundred years ago. What did a mechanic from Honora Station have in common with soldiers?
Deke had no trouble fitting in. After their months on the planet he was old friends with a few of the men. One of them, a gold Detyen named Toran, even had a human mate of his own. But after an hour Brax had to call it quits. Deke might have felt a sense of camaraderie with those Detyens, but Brax was too aware of his half-Oscavian, Honora Station-raised background. Would he go to another meeting? Maybe, especially since he knew Deke would beg. But not right now.
He and Deke had taken the shuttle from their small town in the outskirts of Washington D.C., the capitol of the country they’d landed in and one of the hubs of new Detyen life. But another shuttle wouldn’t come for hours, and if Brax lingered at the shuttle station he was sure Deke would find him and try to make him do even more Detyen bonding.
Not today.
Walking through the city wasn’t like walking through the woods, but it had its own sense of adventure. Earth was populated mostly by humans, and aliens had only started moving to the planet in the last half-century or so. It wasn’t quite as diverse as he was used to seeing on Honora Station, but he recognized a few different species, a green man with antlers coming out of his forehead, a tentacled beast, a four-legged bug creature, and more. Some of the humans gave the more alien aliens strange looks, but most ignored them and went about their day, living in peace, if not exactly harmony.
That was home.
He passed by the shop and didn’t even pause on his first circle round the block, but the buzzing of saws rang in his hears and the scent of wood chips tickled his nose. He made another lap around the block and slowed his steps, taking in the giant woodworking shop. Half the room was filled with shelves and furniture along with delicately crafted statues. The other half was taken over by large equipment and a tall woman with a dark apron who was wearing a mask as she worked a large piece of wood against a lathe.
Follow your instincts.
That was what Naomi had said. And while his fears were telling him to get back to the shuttle station and ignore what he wanted to do, some other force was pushing him inside the building.
Brax kept walking. But he couldn’t stop from taking another turn around the block. And this time when he ended up in front of the store the woman was no longer working the lathe. She looked up and met his eyes, raising an eyebrow and silently challenging him to come inside.
He couldn’t resist.
Brax took his time, checking out the small pieces on the shelves and admiring their craft. Wood was hard to come by on a space station and the prices it commanded could have made him cry. On Earth it was plentiful. There’d been a period in history when the planet hadn’t appreciated its natural resources, but they’d turned that around a long time ago. Of course, he’d heard there were still parts of the planet that were uninhabitable due to pollution and climate change, so clearly they hadn’t fixed things quickly enough.
“Can I help you?” the woman asked. Now that he was in the room she seemed younger, maybe only a few years older than him, though he was terrible at telling age with humans. She had deep mahogany skin with blonde hair, struck through with a darker grain. The sign over the door said Neera’s Woodworking and Brax assumed this was Neera.
He didn’t know how to answer. He’d researched woodworking and had done what he could manage on his own but the trinkets he’d been able to carve were nothing compared to the pieces of artistry on display here. “What kind of wood is this?” he asked, holding up a bowl inlaid with a beautiful swirling design.
He couldn’t decipher the look Neera gave him. “It’s teak. Just like everything else on that shelf.”
And when he turned back he saw the little information card that said the same thing. Brax put the bowl back down. “Why do you hand make plates and bowls when I can buy ten of these for a third of the price at the store down the street?”
Neera crossed her arms and leaned a hip against the desk. “If you’re not interested in shopping, you can take yourself to the store down the street. This is art, even when it’s functional.”
Brax knew that. But he still couldn’t get past the question. Functionality surpassed all things in importance back home and there was almost no room for decorative bits. And certainly no money to afford it. But the bowl was beautiful. He could almost ignore that something synthetic would last longer and resist rot better.
“Let me guess,” Neera took pity on him and stopped glaring. “You’re pretty new to the planet. And since you’re holding that like it’s going to disintegrate if you breathe on it too hard, I’m thinking they didn’t have a lot of wood where you’re from. Generation ship? Space station? Poorly terraformed colony?”
“Space station,” Brax confirmed. “I spent the last few years on a space station.” And the years before that hadn’t had a lot of room for personal creativity. “How would I learn how to do this? To make these things?”
Neera circled back around her desk and produced a small piece of paper from a folder. “We have a class at the beginning of every month. You should join us.”
Brax studied the sheet and asked himself if it was worth it. Money wasn’t the problem. Just time.
“Motherfucker,” Neera sneered and for a moment Brax thought she was talking to him, but she’d turned away to look at a small printer hidden away in the corner of her desk. “I will melt you down and shoot you into space if you don’t start working.” She smacked the device and it beeped angrily.
Now would be a perfect time to make his escape, but Brax had been around enough malfunctioning devices to know a trick or two. “Can I try?”
Neera shot him a doubtful look but moved to the side. “I got it third hand at a thrift shop. It’s never quite worked right. I should probably just throw it out and get something that actually works.”
Brax pulled the device out of its cubby. “Do you have a screwdriver?”
One clanked down onto the desk next to him as Neera produced it from somewhere.
He removed the control panel and looked at the tangled mess of wires that should have been sorted neatly. “Someone tried to repair this. The job is not—”
“Yeah, I screwed it up,” she muttered.
Rather than respond, Brax unhooked two wires and reinserted them into the correct sockets before checking what else he could see. “That should help.” He replaced the panel and turned the machine back on. It beeped happily and began printing.
“Did you seriously just fix that in thirty seconds?” Neera’s eyes were wide and she looked ready to hug him. “It hasn’t worked right in three years.”
Brax shrugged. “It’s really not a big deal.”
Neera was shaking her head. She pulled something out of one of the drawers and scribbled on it before shoving it his way. “This is a certificate for a free set of beginner’s classes. We start at the beginning of the month. I want to see you there, got it?”
He took the certificate and wasn’t sure what to say. It couldn’t hurt to take a beginner’s class. “I’ll be there.”
IT WAS STRANGE TO SEE so many humans in one place. Strange because it was just like home. Except not.
Vita was from the Consortium, a cluster of three planets populated by humans who had been abducted from Earth and eventually dumped there when their captors had found them
too troublesome. They’d been a dumping ground for two millennia, and while the architecture and style were sometimes influenced by their ancestral homeland, the divergence was so far back that it was hard to believe they had once shared a culture.
And the Consortium had a lot more non-humans. Earth was still basically a backwater. Abductions had been fairly common until they discovered space travel and aliens on their own, and even now she heard stories about crafty slavers snatching the unsuspecting. It was a lawless place, at least when it came to intergalactic crime. This wasn’t like the Oscavian Empire or one of its vassal states. Earth sat completely on its own, protected only by a fairly primitive planetary defense system and the fact that it was a bit out of the way of most trade routes.
It was a terrible place to hide out if you weren’t human. And Braxtyn NaZade definitely wasn’t. This asshole was a weird looking Oscavian who’d cheated Roski out of nearly a million credits and run when it was time to pay up. It was hard to believe that someone younger than her could manage to take on that much recreational debt, but she’d long ago learned that gamblers were all reckless idiots.
She’d tracked him to the eastern coast of the United States and a lucky break tagged his ID on a shuttle into Washington, D.C. Vita had been hanging out in orbit, just waiting for her chance, and now was the perfect time. She had to hope he’d be in the city long enough for her to grab him. And as she tracked his ID through a shuttle ride, a coffee shop, and a security checkpoint, she had to wonder what in all the hells was up.
He wasn’t trying to obfuscate his path at all. Was he so arrogant that he didn’t think anyone would track him to Earth? It was a backwater, that didn’t mean it was completely cut off. Anyone with a hint of sense knew to stop using IDs and credit accounts when they were on the run, so why did Braxtyn NaZade think he was so special?
She finally caught sight of him as he ducked into a woodworking shop. What was the point? Nothing in her file suggested he’d go to a place like that. But the glimpse she’d gotten had looked like the photo she had and ID didn’t lie. He was in there long enough for her to wonder if he’d snuck out the back, but before she gave up he came back out.
Those are some nice arms.
The thought came out of nowhere and Vita had to shake her head. Was she seriously admiring the features of one of her marks? Really? That wasn’t going to happen. The piece of shit she was chasing had stolen money from Roski and fled; he clearly couldn’t be trusted and was no sort of match for her, not even for a night.
But he did have nice arms. And legs. And that ass.
Clearly she needed to release some of this tension or her performance was going to suffer. But a little ill-timed lust was hardly the most difficult thing she’d ever had to deal with and she pushed it aside. She could admire him when he was locked up on her shuttle. Admire him from a distance. She wouldn’t touch him, especially not if he was her prisoner. That was every kind of wrong and a line she’d never cross.
Braxtyn looked from side to side as if he could sense her eyes on him. Her prey might not have been smart about hiding where he was, but he could sense danger when it lurked right around the corner. The control cuff was a familiar weight in her pocket, but Vita didn’t pull it out just yet. She didn’t want to give away the advantage too soon.
Whether he sensed her presence or not, Braxtyn seemed to shrug off the danger and moved, heading away from her. Vita adjusted the helmet on her head and tapped at her visor. Under other circumstances she might have worn something else, but Earth was a big fan of facial recognition technology and she didn’t want to be clocked absconding with a resident, even if they wouldn’t be able to do anything about it once she was out of the solar system. Besides, it was always a good idea to keep her identity obscured from the people she retrieved. A few were repeat offenders and she didn’t want them to see her coming.
Her outfit was as subtle as a full body suit and face masking helmet could be. It would most likely be interpreted as protective gear, whether for riding one of the gravity bound vehicles that were popular on this planet, or because she might appear to be an alien whose biology was not compatible with the Earth’s atmosphere. It didn’t matter what anyone thought as long as they let her get on with her job.
But she had to stay far enough back from NaZade to make sure he didn’t spot her. Few people wore helmets in this city, something she’d have to keep in mind if she ever came back.
Her blaster hung heavy on her hip and it would be so easy to pull it out and stun her prey. Easy, and yet it would call down the local authorities and have her placed in some terrible Earth prison. She’d been behind bars before, she wasn’t going to risk that again.
NaZade made a sharp turn and Vita followed, but she must have miscalculated where they were. Instead of a street, he’d lured her into a long and narrow alley that eventually terminated at a busy street. Under her visor, Vita smiled. She would have preferred a dead end, but this could work.
“Why are you following me?” NaZade demanded. He had a nice voice, one that made her insides thrill. The crazy, reckless part of her that she kept under the tightest control wanted to rip off her helmet and see if his lips tasted as good as they looked. Up close she could see the hint of strange dark markings climbing up his blue skin, the dark triangles and squares forming a hypnotic pattern that she wanted to trace with her tongue. She’d never seen an Oscavian with markings like that before, or a blue one, but her records wouldn’t lie.
“If you come with me, I’m sure we can sort this whole thing out.” Now would be a great time to be brandishing her blaster, but not yet. Not if she could talk sense into this all too handsome man.
“Sort what out?” he asked. And he genuinely sounded confused. Usually when she cornered her marks, they’d known what they’d done. If she didn’t know better, she would have said NaZade wasn’t putting on an act. But he had to be.
“Roski wants his credits. You don’t get to run out on him. But he’s fair. He’ll let you work something out. And if I put in a good word...” It wouldn’t do much, but he didn’t need to know that. For some reason Vita really didn’t want to shoot him. She would, of course. But her hand was cramping up like it refused to reach for the holster on her hip.
“Who’s Roski?” Again he sounded genuine. Maybe he’d been an actor once.
“You are Braxtyn NaZade? Last residence Honora Station?” He looked just like his photo, but she didn’t want to take in the wrong man.
“How do you know my name?” He shook his head and took a step back. “Never mind. You’re crazy. I don’t know you and I don’t know any Roski. Stay away from me.”
She meant to reach for the blaster, but the cuff somehow ended up in her hand. And NaZade made a mistake. He turned around and walked instead of running.
Vita could move on swift, silent feet, and she did so, clearing the distance between them and slapping the cuff onto NaZade before he knew what was happening. He managed to pull his arm away, but not before the cuff took hold.
“Stay still.”
He froze, but his dark eyes flashed an impossible lightning blue, as if a storm of anger brewed, ready to burst if given the slightest change of wind.
“What is your name?” There was protocol, and though her heart hurt to bind him for some deranged reason she wasn’t about to hold back now.
He clenched his jaw, and for a strained second she thought he’d manage to resist the command, but the words tore out of him. “Braxtyn NaZade.” Her ID scanner confirmed that he matched with the man in her file. She shook her head, though he couldn’t see the disappointed look on her face. Maybe he would have been a bit of fun if he weren’t a gambling thief. But he was, so there was nothing she could do about that except return him to the man he owed. Roski would get his money, she’d get paid, and she’d be able to put thoughts of this enigmatic blue man behind her.
It wasn’t necessary, but she couldn’t resist placing a hand on NaZade’s shoulder and physically turning him arou
nd. Her hand was warm, even through her synth-leather gloves, and the feel of his flesh imprinted against her skin.
“Follow me, don’t make a fuss.” It came out harsher than she meant, but he followed. This job couldn’t end soon enough.
Chapter Three
BRAX KNEW WHAT ARTIFICIAL gravity felt like. For half a moment between sleep and waking he believed he was back on Honora Station for some reason. But he couldn’t hear Deke or Shayn, and he couldn’t hear the familiar humming and clanking of the station living all around him. It was still noisy, wherever he was, but the noise was all wrong, whispering and fizzing rather than the assertive bangs that Honora dished out.
He cracked his eyes open and his last memories of Earth came back to him. The person following him, the alley, the strange device that made it impossible to fight back. He’d heard of control collars, but that cuff was something else entirely. He rolled his wrists, but the cuff must have been removed, thank the stars. He pushed himself up off the floor and looked around. The light was so dim he could barely make anything out. Reaching out with both arms he was able to touch the walls on either side of him, but he could stretch out fully while laying, which was a small mercy.
Had that masked person been a slaver?
No, that didn’t make sense. First of all, why would a slaver come all the way to Earth to abduct one person who wasn’t even human? And she’d mentioned someone named Roski. Brax couldn’t remember ever hearing that name before, but Honora Station was a busy place so their paths could have crossed. Even if they had, he certainly hadn’t taken money or anything else from the man. Woman. Being. He didn’t even know what Roski was. Would Roski let him go when it became obvious that the masked woman had captured the wrong man?
Brax wasn’t that optimistic.
How long had he been gone? Did Shayn, Deke, and Naomi know? Had Naomi seen this coming and refused to tell him for some reason? Were they worried?
