12. How Do We Do This?
How Do We Do This?
They drove into the desert for fifteen minutes, the furthest the Giuk vehicle could go and return on the remaining charge.
As the primary moon rose, Nicole helped Krir pull the bodies out of the vehicle and…
left them in the middle of the desert, close to a rock formation.
With any luck, critters would venture out once they left and help themselves to the smorgasbord.
She used sanitizing gel when they were done, but there was something about the whole thing she could never sanitize.
She should never forget what Krir had done for her.
Killing another person couldn’t have been easy on him.
He was kind and gentle, a fucking geologist for chrissakes.
But he hadn’t hesitated when it would save her, save him. She owed him her life.
“Are you all right?” He waited for her to strap in before he put the vehicle in gear.
Nicole hugged her arms around herself after buckling the harness. An excellent question, one she hadn’t bothered to ask herself yet.
“I don’t know.”
He glanced at her before focusing on the desert wasteland, deftly dodging rocks and clusters of spiky plants in the light of the moon.
After the adrenaline had worn off, the exhilaration of still being alive, still being free, she’d felt…
nothing. No anger, no sadness, no fear, no guilt. Uncomfortably numb.
“It’s not your fault. I was the one—”
“You did it for me.”
“Yes. And I did it for me. They could have chosen to let you go. I am not an expert in interstellar law, but before we're sent to other planets to research, we’re required to take a basic course. What the Giuk did is against at least three major provisions of the treaty that most spacefaring species have signed, the one my people have signed. One of those major provisions is to leave sentient species alone until they develop interstellar capabilities. The other signatories are within their rights to enforce the law, so preventing a kidnapping is well within regulations, even if it means using lethal force.”
“Oh, seems…I dunno, both fair and extreme at the same time?”
Krir chittered a laugh and held out a hand, keeping his eyes on the terrain.
Nicole studied it a moment. Instead of his aqua scales and blunt claws at the tips of slender fingers, his hand was the reddish brown of cedar with stubby digits.
Too many times, hands like those had hit and hurt.
But Krir was not Giuk, though he might resemble them at the moment.
She took a steadying breath and slipped her hand into his.
The texture was much smoother than the ridges of his natural form, more human. Yet it reminded her of how his touch had felt on her body this morning. How he’d looked at her with both wonder and desire. How his—
She jerked her attention from their sexy times and back into the present.
There’d be plenty of time once he returned to his normal self.
His current form had her head spinning—he was still Krir, but she couldn’t get over the fact he looked like her assailants.
Right now, she needed comfort, so she squeezed and tried not to think about it.
They rode in silence, taking solace in each other’s presence. One of her favorite things about Krir was he rarely spoke without thinking. The weight of his silences was a comforting blanket, wrapping her in his serenity, his care. And once he did speak, he meant every word.
The second moon peeked over the horizon, washing out the stars twinkling on the edges of the night sky as they stopped at the tail end of the Giuk shuttle.
“So how do we do this?” she asked.
Krir exited the vehicle and tapped some buttons on the outside of the shuttle. A door lowered, creating a ramp. He returned to the truck and drove it onboard. The cargo area was barely big enough for the vehicle. Lockers lined the walls, labeled in Qilfirran script.
“I am not sure. I am a scientist, not a military strategist. My disguise is a good start.”
“Can you even fly this thing?” Nicole undid her harness. Krir opened a locker and pulled out some straps and a couple shiny tools. She helped him tie down the vehicle for transit, threading the straps through anchors on the floor and under the running boards.
“It has autopilot. All I have to do is tell it where to go.”
“Well, that’s disappointing. For a minute there, I thought I’d caught myself a flyboy as well as a nerd.”
When he looked over, though, she smiled brightly. He rolled his eyes and chittered softly.
“Another joke?”
“Another joke.” Making light of the situation helped her cope with being back onboard a Giuk vessel. She finished tightening the first strap and moved to the next. “How far is the Giuk ship?”
“Excellent question. I don’t know why I didn’t think to check.”
“We’ve been a little busy.”
He flashed her another smile, but this one was tinged with sadness. Imagine that, a Giuk looking sad.
“Why is it important?” He straightened and returned his tightening tool to a storage locker.
“Well, if it’s far enough away, we can plan en route. We don’t need to have everything figured out right this minute, and time is of the essence.”
Nicole gave her tool a final tug. The strap was as taut as she could make it, and the truck wasn’t going anywhere should they encounter difficulties during flight. She replaced the tool, and Krir secured the locker.
“True. Let’s go to the cockpit and find out, shall we?”
Krir waved his hand at the hatch, allowing Nicole to go ahead.
They walked through a multipurpose cabin, with beds folded against the walls and a small galley, then finally another hatch into the cockpit.
She settled into the seat on the right. Krir tapped a few buttons, a frown creasing his Giukan forehead.
How many times had she seen the same expression, but with bumpy aqua scales instead of this smooth red skin?
“According to the autopilot, their ship, the Yindir, is in the next solar system. It will take most of a day to transit.”
“See, plenty of time to hatch a plan that won’t end with us being dumped in the middle of a desert.”
He winced. Too soon, Nicole. Way the fuck too soon. And all too likely to boot.
“Sorry, I’m worried our window of opportunity will close before we get there. What if they’ve already killed all the other humans?” Her voice was a bare whisper, but his translator was as sensitive as hers.
“They were too intent on recovering you. If they had already killed the humans, they would have killed you rather than risk taking you back.”
That was something. But she didn’t like it.
“You’re right,” he said after a quiet moment. “We have time to plan. Put on your harness.”
He slid his arms through the harness on his seat and pressed a few buttons.
“I thought you couldn’t read much Giuk.” She repeated his motions, tugging on the adjustable straps until snug.
“I can’t, but the controls, this little shuttle, is Qilffiran. We make some of the best small ships in this quadrant, and many spacefaring species buy from us. Some, such as the Giuk, rarely update to their own language, learning Qilffiran instead. I don’t know why.”
“I have a guess,” she mumbled angrily.
“What is your guess?” He slid his fingers over the touch screen and the engine rumbled to life, sending vibrations through the shuttle, rattling her teeth.
“Plausible deniability.”
“Is that some sort of disease? Have they made a bioweapon—”
“No. It means if someone catches them committing a crime, they can deny it’s theirs because why would Giuk be flying a ship using controls not in their language?”
Krir scratched his nose. “You may have a point. I must admit, most Qilffirans don’t think highly of Giuk intelligence.
We see their apparent lack of interest in science and the arts as lesser.
But you’re right, they couldn’t be running an illegal operation of this magnitude if they were as ignorant as we assume.
Thank you for the reminder we face an adversary with as much technological knowledge as us. ”
“As you. Remember, my species hasn’t stepped foot on another celestial body in over fifty years.”
“You’ve proven yourself capable, Nicole. Are you ready to fly?”
“No.”
She stretched out her hand for him despite the skin he still wore. After all, he’d proved he was still Krir. He squeezed and pressed a big red button. The shuttle lifted off slowly, then faster and faster.
Holy shit, she was going to space. Again.