CHAPTER 4
Tormik
The space suit did its best to be comfortable, but the thick, skin-tight material chafed and pinched in the worst places.
I was not a man who was built for compression around my groin.
I was used to wearing the previous model of Program-created space suits that were much roomier and, while I could see how that may have been a hindrance to some, were necessary for me.
I was not a small man in any manner. Regardless, this was the required attire for the mission and the only space suit available, so I would just have to endure it.
Artemis grabbed our attention right as I was picking a wedgie out of my ass and struggling to adjust my balls into a more comfortable, less squished position.
Her brows rose, amusement dancing in her earthy brown eyes that made any embarrassment I felt wither away as joy replaced it.
For the first time in a long time, I had given her something to smile about, and I was ridiculously pleased with myself.
She rolled her eyes and looked away, a small smile tilting up her lips when I puffed out my chest, and I preened.
Until I caught Cadmus’s eye, a knowing smirk twisting his lips in an expression that dared me to do something about my feelings.
But now wasn’t the time.
I shoved down my annoying need to posture in front of my mate to focus on more pressing matters.
I could try to win back her favour when the captives were free and we had a moment to breathe.
‘Let’s go over the plan one more time,’ she said, dragging us into a huddle with only her words.
‘We shield the ship, blast the enemy ships to pieces, then land on the rogue planet.
Once planet-side, we will be the only ones to exit the ship, separate into two teams.
Tormik, Reece, and Gwym, you’re with me. Cadmus, Stanson and Hum’Rit, you’re with Xander. We split up and hunt down the captives. Pirates and scientists kill on sight, but don’t go out of your way. Our main objective is freeing the captives, and then we can blow them up when we leave. Hopefully, there will be no survivors, but they are not our priority. Understood?’
‘Yes, Captain,’ we all parroted, eager to get the ball rolling.
Personally, I was preparing to throw myself into the line of fire to keep Artemis safe if needed, though I doubted it would come to that.
She could protect herself better than I could, but it was her bleeding heart I worried about.
She had a habit of taking in strays, so I would need to ensure she remained on track. No distractions.
My eyes met Xander’s on the opposite side of our circle and he dipped his chin slightly as an understanding passed between us, an action I mirrored to acknowledge our deal.
‘Who’s on weapons?’ Artemis called out to where the unfamiliar bodies sat around the console.
Two hands shot into the air, one green and the other yellow, their long, webbed fingers giving away their Griknot heritage since they were both female, the telltale beards missing from their faces.
‘We are, Captain.’
‘Power up.
We shoot down the enemy as soon as we’re in range,’ she ordered them, and they got to work without delay.
Artemis then turned to the mutt that was piloting the ship.
‘Keep us steady.
I don’t want any movement until the ships are destroyed.
Only then can we descend.’
‘You got it, Captain.’
The ship suddenly seemed to go quiet then, all sounds muffled as if something were pressing in on us.
It was uncomfortable, and my ears felt like they needed to pop, until they did and sound rushed back in again.
Still, it was as if anything beyond the ship was cut off from us, unable to penetrate our walls.
‘That would be the shields, then,’ Cadmus grimaced and wiggled a finger in his ear to remove the lingering ringing.
My hand twitched as I fought the desire to do the same.
‘Now we wait for a visual,’ Artemis mused, her intent fully focused on the mission.
Dave Junior whined from his perch on the captain’s chair, rubbing at all four of his purple, pointed ears with his paws.
Apparently, we weren’t the only ones affected by the shield popping into place.
‘That reminds me,’ Stanson started from nearby, his helmet down to keep his face exposed.
‘What are you going to do with him?’ he asked Artemis while throwing a thumb in Dave Junior’s direction.
She merely shrugged, completely unbothered.
‘Take him with me.
You might recall that he doesn’t react well to me leaving him behind.’
The reminder of how he trashed the hangar bay on Nova Station alongside the two ships made a few of us and some surrounding officers flinch.
Xander, specifically, eyed the Kikshrut with a wariness that spoke of personal experience, though he tried to hide it behind his usual fa?ade.
With a short, shrill whistle, Artemis called her deadly pet to her side.
As he closed the distance, I had to force myself not to take a step back out of fear.
My people had grown up listening to the horror stories of Kikshruts, among other creatures from our original planet.
There weren’t many things Tornus were afraid of as a race, but the creature before me was one of them. The deeply ingrained terror of something that I never believed would exist in such close proximity made it hard to concentrate on anything else. At least when he was minding his own business at a distance I could pretend he wasn’t in the room, but with him planting himself right at our feet, his crimson eyes that warned of his deadly bite eyeing all of us as warily as we were eyeing him, I couldn’t help but shiver in revulsion.
‘Enough of that,’ Artemis chastised, and at first I thought she was talking to the Kikshrut, only she was glaring us down with her hand resting protectively on his head.
Long, strong fingers scratched between his ears which made him melt into her side, his size almost dwarfing her despite his young age.
‘He’s just a baby.
He’s not going to hurt you unless you provoke him first,’ she reminded us, and not for the first time.
He seemed so docile beside her, but his youthfulness wasn’t a comfort.
The stories passed down to me talked of how the young ones were even more dangerous, their immaturity leading them to make brash, reckless decisions that usually resulted in something’s death. Something besides itself.
We didn’t have time to waste on bonding with the creature of death, however, because that was the moment the enemy ships came into view.
Through the holo-screens, we watched them appear as we rounded the last asteroid that obscured our view to take in the sight before us.
About half a dozen ships had mobilised and were spread in a protective formation in front of the rogue planet.
Our systems dinged, alerting us to their intent to contact our ship.
‘Do we answer?’ the ruby red Drakfern officer I now recognised as Colonel Gwym asked on my right, a malicious smile tugging up the corners of his lips.
Fury and injustice blazed behind his eyes, and I knew he was just itching for a fight.
I wondered then if he’d caught sight of his own family inside those cages behind Xander’s sister.
If so, I hoped his bloodlust didn’t compromise our mission. I was going to have to keep a close eye on him since were had been assigned the same team.
‘Ignore their attempts at making contact and shoot them down,’ Artemis ordered, her tone hard and unyielding.
She may have looked calm and composed, but I knew her.
Her mask was in place, her impenetrable walls fully erected, but she was using that to hide the burning fury coursing through her veins.
She was angry, and her focus was deadly.
Without delay, our ship discharged a volley of ammunition that struck the first ship with fatal precision.
Within a few ticks, the enemy ship was pulverised, debris scattering through the void of space in all directions.
It wasn’t until some pieces encountered the asteroid field and were further shredded that the rest of the enemy ships shook off their shock and reacted.
As one, they shot at us, only for the plasma beams to splatter uselessly against the invisible force of our shields.
One by one, we systematically shot them down.
Even when the last ship remaining attempted to escape, choosing to flee now that they knew we weren’t going to let any of them live.
We trailed it for a few beats, allowing them to believe we were allowing their escape, toying with them to appease the bloodlust of those who weren’t joining us on the mission beyond the ship before we blasted them out of existence.
With the shields up, it was easy to navigate through the debris to land on the planet.
It was an interesting experience since there wasn’t much of a gravitational pull, easing our passage until we settled down gently onto the surface, just beyond the pirate settlement.
Artemis began spouting orders while our planet-side teams congregated around the door, more than ready to leave.
‘The shields are staying up.
Nobody leaves this ship besides us.
If an enemy attacks then shoot them down, but otherwise do not engage. Prepare to cover our backs as we bring the captives on board.’
Everyone confirmed her instructions and went back to work.
Only then did she return to our group and lead the way toward the hangar bay, Dave Junior in tow.
Bromm and Adara came running, intercepting us before we could get very far.
I blanched at the way only one of their eyes was normal, alert, while the other glowed blue and stared off into the distance, seeing something the rest of us couldn’t see. Artemis studied the ability with a curious tilt to her head, taking note, likely to try the same thing in the future.
‘We’re heading out,’ she told them, though she didn’t move to keep walking.
Instead, she reached for Bromm as he approached her while Adara headed for Xander.
While the tiny pink Griknot female was swallowed up by her partner’s larger frame, Bromm was still very visible as he pressed a hard, short kiss to Artemis’s lips.
It may have been short, but it was no less passionate. I felt like I should have averted my gaze to give them some privacy, but I couldn’t help but watch on, longing to be in the prince’s place crashing through me in a turbulent wave.
‘Come back safe, my love,’ he whispered against her lips, pressed another, lingering kiss to her forehead, and then finally released her.
Her hands reached for him momentarily, not wanting to let him go, but she quickly shut down her emotions, her mask slamming into place with enough force to cause me whiplash.
I knew now wasn’t the time, but I wanted that unfiltered emotion back on her face.
Suddenly, I wasn’t so pissed at the Griknot prince being the one to touch her like that if he succeeded in putting that lover-up look on her face.
Cadmus, apparently not one to be outdone, swept in to imprint his own lips onto hers.
She pushed him away with a quiet chuckle and, once again, re-donned her professional mask.
‘Right.
Enough of that.
Let’s go.’
‘Hang on!’ Adara shouted, extricating herself from Xander’s grip to zip through us and into Artemis’s arms.
The women clung to each other for a brief moment before separating, Bromm and Adara stepping away to let us through.
I cast a side-long glance at Artemis as we headed to the hangar bay, and my heart squeezed almost to the point of pain when I saw that she couldn’t quite hide the smile she was trying to force back down.
Three people had shown her affection, publicly, which was more than she had ever had before.
That was three, then.
I wasn’t sure why the tiny Griknot female was such a surprise, but I supposed I really shouldn’t have been.
We had never talked about her interest in anyone.
Even with me, that was more of an unspoken elephant in the room.
I vowed then and there to be more open and honest with her about my feelings.
I had dropped the ball in more than one area, and even if she never fully forgave me, the least I owed her was the truth.
We stood around one another in a loose formation of our two teams while we ensured our helmets were secured and our suits were turned on.
When we had each confirmed we were in the clear, the air lock doors hissed as they shut, then the outside world was revealed as the door slid open.
We didn’t exit immediately, taking in our surroundings and the strange quietness that none of us had expected.
Instead of being assaulted upon the first sign of our arrival, we were greeted with the eerie silence of the dry, dusty landscape.
It was a stark contrast to the chaotic skirmish we had expected, and it felt like a trap.
I wasn’t the only one who felt that way because Artemis’s voice crackled through our suits’ comm systems to express her own instincts’ warnings.
‘Proceed with caution.
Something isn’t right.’
We disembarked, each step measured and cautious, ready for the ambush we were sure was coming.
The settlement loomed before us beneath a giant translucent dome that shimmered as it emitted heat waves at seemingly random and intermittent intervals.
We could see through to a maze of tattered tents and packed pathways from the pirates’ frequent foot tracks, but my blood chilled when I noticed no sign of life.
There were no people going about their days. No sound travelled through the bio-dome, and I wasn’t sure if that was due to the dome itself blocking the sound waves or the fact that there seemed to be no one there.
Surely they hadn’t all been on the ships that we’d destroyed…
‘Do you think they’ve gone underground?’ the Griknot instructor, Colonel Hum’Rit, asked with no small ounce of trepidation.
Griknots could be vicious, no doubt, but they weren’t exactly known for acts of violence.
Not like Tornus, or even Drakferns and Yu’Roms.
The only other race that seemed to keep the violence to a minimum were Terrans, though recent events proved that to be nothing more than a carefully curated falsehood.
We filed through the dome without any issue, the suits absorbing any negative effects and ensuring the dome never faltered.
Once inside, we didn’t bother removing our helmets.
There was no saying what substances were being filtered through the air, especially considering the lack of life.
‘Do you think it’s a decoy settlement?’ Cadmus asked, and I had to admit he could have been onto something.
‘I doubt it,’ the older Yu’Rom male, Colonel Stanson, responded seriously.
‘These bio-domes aren’t easy to get a hold of outside legal avenues, and they cost a pretty credit.
If this one was a decoy then there would be more.’
‘Aren’t there more, though?’ Cadmus reminded him.
‘There were two,’ Artemis confirmed.
‘They cover the two main exits for the underground tunnels.
There are signs of life everywhere, which means that they’re just not home right now.
They were either on those ships, in the other settlement, or underground. My guess is they’re underground.’
‘Then let’s get underground and take back the people they took from us,’ Xander snarled, already striding off towards the visible hole in the centre of the settlement.
The tents had been placed in a circle surrounding it, making it the settlement’s focal point.
Not the brightest idea if one was trying to keep it a secret, but I supposed pirates weren’t known for their brilliance.
Plus, they probably didn’t think anyone would run into them on their little rogue planet.
No one argued, hurrying after him as he descended into the ground.
There was a steep slope interspersed with hastily made steps caged in by safety railings that I had a feeling had been provided by The Program.
Or the military.
As far as I was concerned, though, they were no one in the same.
We pushed forward for a few clicks, our footsteps silent and sticking to the shadows, though that wasn’t difficult with the little light that was provided by the sparingly hung lamps.
We travelled for so long without intercepting anyone or anything that I was beginning to wonder if we had been lured into a trap and the kidnapped families weren’t even here.
But then we hit a dead end.
To the naked eye, it looked like nothing more than a wall of rock that hadn’t yet been chiselled into a tunnel, but the breeze that blew softly through some unseen crack told us otherwise.
‘Spread out,’ Artemis ordered.
‘Look for some way through.
If we can get it open without calling attention to us, then we can continue to utilise the element of surprise.’
We complied.
Even Dave Junior joined in, sniffing at the wall as if he could scent the way through.
Perhaps he could.
The only sounds were those of our steady breathing and our hands brushing against the wall.
Since Xander and I were the tallest, we headed to opposite sides to work from the top and allow everyone else to search lower.
I was pleased that the ceiling was high enough that I wasn’t scraping my head, but not so high that I couldn’t easily reach up to fun my fingers around the seam where the wall met the ceiling.
A few of the others were pressing, poking and prodding, trying to find some hidden latch or button to open it up, but I focused on searching for the crack that the breeze was escaping from. If we could outline the opening, we could narrow down where the mechanism was that allowed entry. Luckily, not all features of The Program’s suits had been changed, but it seemed they had been improved upon. When I pressed the button that I thought would unlatch the gloves on the suit, they split instead and rolled up so it was out of the way but still attached.
Just when I was about to give up and move on, I felt it.
It was slight but definitely something.
Coolness touched my fingertips, though it wasn’t quite a breeze, and I knew I was getting closer.
‘Over here.’
I was surrounded in an instant.
‘What did you find?’ Xander asked eagerly.
‘The opening is around here,’ I replied, waving my fingers over the cool spot.
Cadmus removed the covering over his fingers like I had as he moved to my other side, then lifted his hand a little further along.
Just as quickly as he’d reached out, he snatched it back as if something had bitten him.
‘I’ve got a breeze,’ he confirmed, the suit already reforming around his fingers.
A shout of excitement came from Cadmus as he waved his hand over what turned out to be a hidden electronic pad.
The only reason we saw it was because a white light flashed upon the detection of his movement, the device’s camouflage so realistic it otherwise blended seamlessly into the rock.
Suddenly, the wall slid away to reveal a more well-lit tunnel, the dirt floor jarringly switching to smooth concrete while heavy-duty doors lined the walls on each side.
I was the first to step through, but I suddenly hissed in pain as my bare hand scratched against something sticking out from the doorway that I hadn’t noticed before.
I quickly reformed my suit, cutting off any chance of my blood from dripping to the floor and leaving a trail.
Not that it mattered, because the other end of the tunnel was no longer vacant.
Pirates came tearing from around a corner we couldn’t see from here.
They charged at us with a battle cry, weapons raised and wicked grins splitting their faces.
Even from here I could see the rot inside their mouths, and my nose wrinkled in disgust.
I would be keeping my helmet on if only to avoid their undoubtedly rancid smell.
Artemis pushed in front of me, throwing up a shield to block the wild hits from their plasma guns.
Green and yellow splattered against the invisible shield, momentarily blocking our visibility and theirs, and Dave Junior growled, the threat putting him on edge.
She took the brief moment of reprieve to pointedly glance down at my hand.
‘You good?’
I grunted.
‘Just a cut.
I’ll survive.’
She turned back around, satisfied with my answer enough to focus back on the threat.
Not that they were much of a threat.
Within a click she had pushed out the shield and crushed each and every one of them, leaving nothing behind but a bloody mess of flattened bodies.
Bones protruded from their flesh at odd angles, though most of them crumbled to pieces when she pulled the shield back. Even their weapons were shattered from the force of the impact as if they had been crushed by a giant boulder.
It was a grotesque sight, but it only made my heart pump harder with awe for the woman who held it in her palm.
I knew coming into this mission that we were only here to help the captives escape.
Artemis was the one dispatching the assholes, her abilities cutting them down with a swift efficiency that allowed us to forge ahead at a faster pace.
I had a feeling she would allow Xander the opportunity to end the bastard pirate that had raped his sister, though. And the ones that stood by and watched with lecherous leers and cheers.
As we rushed down the tunnel, taking turn after turn, killing pirates, scientists and guards along the way, we delved deeper into the rocky terrain of the planet’s cave systems.
And all the while I ignored the way my hand throbbed more painfully by the tick when it had been nicked.