2. Wild Starter-Kits
2
Wild Starter-Kits
Ki’REMI
S urgical Theater One of the Perseus Prime was a cathedral of light and steel, a stark contrast to the void stretching beyond the dreadnought’s hull.
The walls pulsed with energy conduits, their cerulean glow threading through dark metal-like veins carrying the ship’s lifeblood.
Above, in the observation gallery, rows of med-students leaned forward, eager and silent, their faces illuminated by the translucent holo-screens projecting a magnified view of the surgeon’s hands.
Ki’Remi Sable stood at the operating table, a towering figure in sterile black scrubs, a looming presence in the polished exo-steel of the surgical suite.
He was an imposing figure, no doubt.
With shoulders so extensive, so broad, he blocked the vista of the window behind him where space rushed past in a kaleidoscope of wild streaks.
He was taller than most, clad in a medic’s white jumpsuit molded to every inch of his frame.
The light color contrasted with his dusky tones and emphasized his slim, power-driven hips and fit, muscled thighs, which eased into surgeon’s boots.
Some of the female junior doctors in the gallery sighed from afar.
His keen hearing caught wind of it, and his lips quirked.
Seconds later, he gave the unadulterated attention no mind, switching his laser-focused meta vision on his patient.
The overhead lights glowed sterile over the colossal form across the hover bed.
The Sableman rolled his shoulders, flexing his hands inside his sanitary gloves as autobots whirred around him, prepping the array of tools necessary for the procedure.
His gaze dropped to the man he was about to relieve of a brain tumor.
His subject was a myth to most: a member of the seldom spotted IniMoab tribe of Northern Iccythria and at least nine feet of obsidian-skinned menace.
Even unconscious, the mountainous entity loomed in the operating theater.
His massive arms, hanging over the side of the hover bed, were adorned with bejeweled cuffs of ancient metal.
At the head of it, his gigantic braided mane flowed to the ground, woven with golden charms glowed with embedded bioluminescence.
Ki’Remi had seen some shit.
But an IniMoabite was new to him.
Being the first surgeon to wield a holo blade, albeit an intricate three-dimensional and nanoid-guided one, to new physiology was exciting to some degree, as the surgery was pioneering.
Thus, the observation gallery and the hovering drones recording the Rider’s every move.
‘Prep for incision,’ he muttered, flicking his neural command to kickstart the op.
The anesthetist’s autobot beeped, confirming sedation levels were sufficient.
Twas a bare-faced lie.
Because the moment Ki’Remi’s virtual scalpel hovered over the marked laceration point, the giant stirred.
First, a twitch.
Followed by a jagged inhalation and a wild explosion of movement.
The Iccythrian surged up and out of the hover bed like a prodded leviathan, his roar rattling the entire med bay.
The force of his savage, drunken lunges sent droids skidding into walls and nurses scrambling backward with shouts of alarm.
‘ Fokk !’
Ki’Remi just managed to let out a curse before a mighty fist tore through the restraints.
He grunted when it connected with his plexus, catapulting him into the air. He flew and crashed into a trolley cart.
Seconds later, the hover bed flipped, colliding into the side wall like it weighed nothing.
‘The dose of anesthesia was not sufficient,’ the autobot declared blandly.
Ki’Remi’s jaw ticked, even as he rolled to his feet. ‘You don’t say.’
The Iccythrian, free from his horizontal tether, lashed out, one massive arm slamming into the droid and sending it straight through the observation glass.
Shards exploded in all directions as the beast turned, ripping IV lines from his arms, roaring and snarling as if awakening from some cosmic nightmare.
Hellfokkinnada.
Ki’Remi scarcely had time to dodge before a table went airborne, smashing into the wall where he had stood seconds before.
The nurses screamed, and the interns raced for the exits. Even the theater med bots short-circuited in pure, unfiltered panic.
The giant lumbered toward the corridor, his footfalls causing the floors to tremble with every heavy step.
He smashed through the swinging doors and into the hallway, where staff and patients scrambled for cover.
Ki’Remi leaped after him, ripping off his mask and gloves and pushing the sleeves of his scrubs up to free his movements.
He launched, noids bursting into action, forming an exo-skeletal mitt of sheer force around his fists.
The first punch landed solidly into the giant’s gut, right at the same spot marked for the incision.
Irony was a bitch, but the Iccythrian didn’t fall.
Instead, he roared again, flailing for Ki’Remi with the force of a damn meteor.
Ki’Remi dodged in time, twisting and landing a jab into the creature’s ribs.
The Rider’s velocity was faster, his metanoids enhancing his agility, but the colossus had sheer stamina and size on his side.
This wasn’t going to end with just a fist-off.
‘I need a tranquilizer dart massive enough for a freakin’ space whale,’ the Rider barked to whoever was fokkin ’ listening.
His team scrambled as the giant IniMoabite thrashed and rammed through the halls.
The Sableman’s focus honed when he sensed movement from the corner of his eye.
A blur of gleaming, glittering, freakin’ whirling cloud of speed.
He turned as a flash of wild, golden curls raced toward him.
For a split second, Ki’Remi assumed she was an assistant or a medic rushing to him the injection requested.
He reached out to receive it, but instead of handing it to him, she vaulted over his damn head.
Hell, nada .
His brain stuttered between disbelief and awe at her raw, kinetic power and beauty.
Her astral eyes locked onto his as she landed on the brute’s backside, and for a moment, time paused.
Ki’Remi’s lungs seized, breath catching as a visceral reaction twisted inside him.
A primal, unknown, dangerous emotion beyond attraction.
With a wry twist of her sensuous lips, she jammed the needled sedative straight into the Iccythrian’s thick neck.
As she did, a flash of light erupted from her hands, an incandescent flare so bright twas not of this world.
He got the sense she’d just jacked up the tranquilizer’s effect.
The colossus roared, and with a mighty groan, he fell to his knees in a loud thump.
The impact was mammoth, shaking the entire fokkin ’ deck.
He then collapsed in a slow, squealing anti-climactic slide that ended at Ki’Remi’s feet.
Silence descended upon the corridor.
Medics, nurses, and interns stared in stunned disbelief.
Ki’Remi didn’t blink nor move; he just scowled at the woman riding the leviathan’s back.
She paused and hesitated, and without a second thought, the brooding surgeon stepped forward to help her off the IniMoabite’s mountainous bulk.
One arm wrapped around her waist as she placed her hand in his.
He swung her through the air, and it seemed time itself slowed.
When her soles touched the floor, their eyes locked.
All he felt were her hands, petite, yet so searing hot, burning into his skin.
He hissed, for it twas like a flaming marque imprinting into his palm.
She pulled away the second her feet were both on the ground, and he lifted his grasp off her.
Still, the heat remained, and the scorching did not diminish. It lingered, so scalding that it singed right into his soul.
Ki’Remi’s world shifted, his entire existence whirling around him as if life might never be the same again.
He slow-blinked, his heart churning even as the unknown woman stepped away from him with effortless grace.
She tossed a look at him, an unhurried, deliberate lift of her chin.
‘Who the hell are you?’ he gritted, narrowing his gaze on her.
She angled her head, an amused glint in her eye.
‘Name? he growled in a warning whisper, his height looming over her petite frame.
He noted she locked those unusual eyes with him, sans fear.
‘Dr Issa Elaris.’
Not a misguided quack on the loose, then.
‘What the fokk was that?’
She leaned in so only he could hear, voice sultry, hella husky. ‘Me, saving your ass.’
To his sheer, unbelieving incredulity, she turned and sauntered away.
He tilted his head, eyes narrowed, blazing, still clueless about who she was and where she came from other than her title.
Not one freakin’ idea. He’d never seen her before.
Yet here she was.
In fitted scrubs that hugged her curves.
Petite frame, a straight spine, muscled limbs, and a tiny waist, leading to a shapely derriere. Below that legs for days despite her size.
Plump, round tits, those freakish stunning cosmic eyes, a cloud of thick dark gold hair.
A mouth his traitorous lips wanted to sample, given how much they and his cock were tingling.
Shiiiit.
He heard a wave of titters and realized he had an entire corridor of medics and patients staring at him.
He glared at them all, his glowing eyes flashing with fire.
In a flurry of whispers and murmurs, the spectators melded away like ashes in the wind, burned by his derision.
His nostrils flared; he had to let her go, his eyes tracking her rolling hips.
However, from what he could tell, she was trouble.
Scrap that.
She was a swaying, sashaying hatari, a freakin’ imperilment that sent him into a hellscape and maelstrom of feeling.
Sucking his teeth, Ki’Remi’s eyes raked down her retreating figure, taking in the utter ease in her gait, the way she moved with the confidence of a woman who was well aware of her magnitude.
A lurch of indecipherable emotion hit hard.
His hands clenched, his nostrils flared, and his heart pounded even as a clean-up crew and a hefty hover lifter arrived to cart the unconscious Iccythrian away.
Who and what the fokk had just happened?
He got his answer later that evening.
The notes of early-century jazz permeated The Void ’s Edge , the ship’s premier officers’ lounge.
The space was a blend of industrial steel and deep, burnished wood.
Its sleek lighting panels cast a soft radiance over the gleaming bottles lined across the long, curved bar.
Ki’Remi leaned back in his chair, his muscled arms resting on the polished table before him.
Eyes on the glass in his hand as its crystalline facets caught the ambient glow of the bar’s dimmed illumination.
The rare rum within was dark amber, like sun-scorched honey.
Its scent was rich with smoked oak and a whisper of spice and floral notes.
A drink meant to be savored, not rushed.
Fokk , he needed it.
Earlier, the IniMoabite’s thrashing had destroyed and reduced his surgical wing to a disaster zone, a battlefield of shattered shards, torn walls, and wrecked equipment.
It had taken hours to clean up the mess and restart the procedure.
After readjusting the autobot’s woefully underestimated anesthetic protocols for a nine-foot-tall Iccythrian titan, the Rider finished the op in a more secure lockup.
He’d double-checked the IniMoabite restraints, made of the highest synth alloy grade possible that the 3D processors on board managed to fashion.
The Rider left the improvised theater hours later.
As he left, he gave the nurses precise directions. ‘Summon me the second the leviathan is lucid and breathes free.’
Now, the colossus snored in the ship’s brig, oblivious to the world, his cancer a distant memory.
Still, the incident gave the ship plenty to discuss, and Ki’Remi snagged snippets from the crew in the bar as they shared the most salacious bits of the episode.
However, the most interesting fact to him was the woman who’d waylaid the giant and knocked him out.
All freakin’ day Ki’Remi restrained himself from asking his colleagues about his unexpected helper.
In a seat at the bar across from him, Dr. Alain Solano, Head of Emergency Medicine, swirled his drink and eyed the Sableman.
With a look that suggested he was still figuring out what kind of man the new Head of Surgery was.
Ki’Remi wasn’t paying him much heed because, just then, his meta-perception discerned an energy shift close by.
His eyes canted to the other end of the bar, where a shock of golden curls bounced, set off by the bar’s soft illumination in a shimmer almost like starlight.
Twas her.
His soul lurched.
She perched on the edge of a stool, glass in hand, and her body angled as she conversed with a cluster of medics.
Whatever was being said had them laughing, but her poise remained effortless, a confidence in her bearing that suggested she was used to commanding attention, even if she pretended otherwise.
Her head tilted back in levity, the movement sending those wild curls cascading over one shoulder, gleaming like liquid gold in the dim light.
As if she sensed him watching her, her gaze slid sideways and locked onto his.
Ki’Remi’s grip on his glass tightened, but he kept his expression impassive as they stared at each other across the room.
He discerned a challenge.
A flicker of amusement.
A silent acknowledgment of the other.
His heart jack-hammered because, damn, the woman’s eyes were like a nebula of scarlet, golds, and greens.
Like stars in astral conflagration.
The most stunning set he’d ever seen.
Also, hella unique because he’d never encountered any like hers before in all his time on Earth or Pegasi.
For a moment, he pondered about her progeny and genetics, resisting the temptation to access his neural node to look into it.
Just as earlier today, she turned away from him.
This time, irritation licked his spine, even as desire snaked through him.
His focus snapped back when Solano chuckled and tipped his tumbler toward Ki’Remi, having grasped where the Sableman’s attention focused.
‘Something caught your eye, Sable?’
The Rider took a measured sip of his rum, letting the burn settle before setting the vessel down with a quiet clink.
‘Who is that?’ he asked, keeping his tone casual, detached.
Solano followed Ki’Remi’s line of sight.
‘Oh, that’s Issa Elaris.’ He leaned in to whisper conspiratorially. ‘She’s so fokkin hot, I’d rock her world if she ever let me.’
The Sableman sucked his teeth. ‘I’ll ignore your last comment, Solano because you’ve been a respected colleague. Also, I know her name, but who is she? Her role, man.’
Solano smirked, unapologetic about his fawning. ‘One of our best general surgeons.’
Ki’Remi’s brows rose, but he kept his expression calm. ‘I’m Head of Surgery,’ he rasped, swirling the rum in his glass. ‘Why haven’t I met her before? Granted, I am new to the ship and unfamiliar with all the staff.’
Solano shrugged, taking another sip of his drink. ‘She was on assignment working at a pro-bono clinic on Ilyria XIV. She came in on a transport this morning, I believe.’
‘I see,’ the Rider rasped, but it didn’t explain everything else about her. ‘Tell me about her, professionally, seeing I’m her boss now.’
Solano’s lips quirked, his gaze glinting with amusement. ‘She’s a free-wheeler. A radical. One who believes in cutting-edge methods.’
Ki’Remi’s jaw ticked. ‘You’re saying she cuts corners.’
Solano exhaled a short laugh, shaking his head. ‘ Nada . She refines them. Never seen anyone work a scalpel with such precision apart from you. However, she can at times buck the trend with her ideas.’
That made Ki’Remi’s brow furrow. ‘Techniques we approve of?’
‘Not always,’ came the drawled response. ‘She gets shit done, Commander, and sometimes on a floating hospital ship of mercy with a ton of emergencies and relief missions, tis what needs to happen.’
Ki’Remi bristled. ‘ Fokk n ada . Without approval, that’s breaking the rules and bypassing safeguards.’
Solano just shrugged. ‘Maybe. But tell me, Sable, do you follow every rule to the letter?’
Ki’Remi didn’t reply.
Because, for one, at his core, he was a rebel, hell, a Rider . The essence of how they survived, heck, how they continued to kick ass on Eden II and Pegasi, was by defying the status quo and resisting corruption and evil.
Also, because Issa Elaris was on the move.
His eyes tracked her as she approached the lounge’s exit.
Her sway was poised, intentional, and self-possessed, her curves and fine thighs rolling like she was on cloud nine, her smirk like she was selling a kick-ass starter kit.
He growled under his breath as he noted that all of the men in the bar were likewise staring, some not hiding their slobbering as she sailed past.
She swiveled just before disappearing through the doorway, eyes slicing to his.
Their gazes locked, and a wry half-smile tugged at her lips this time.
Her eyes tore away in a slow, sensuous move that made him almost groan, then with a slight simper, she slipped through the doors and disappeared.
Ki’Remi inhaled, his grip on his tumbler flexing.
That was one infuriating, intriguing woman.
His heightened meta senses also told him she was up to some fokkin ’ game.
He didn’t like being played.
He lifted his chalice again, downing the rest of his rare rum in a gradual, measured swallow, the burn doing little to flame out the exasperation curling through him.
‘Sable,’ Solano drawled, amusement lacing his voice. ‘You appear irritated.’
Ki’Remi set his empty glass down with a quiet clink.
‘Never.’
So why was his skin crawling, his heart racing, and his mind churning with an emotion that ran counter to his stoic preference?