Chapter 4 #2
The crew deck was most interesting. It was not a particularly large ship—large enough when faced with it buried beneath the sand—but this was no warship or cargo hauler.
This was a ship built for speed and only needed a small crew.
Its quarters were all empty, though personal effects indicated people had been using them.
There were four to each room, and only four rooms; no exception appeared to have been made for officers or a captain.
Then I found the med bay, and I halted in surprise at the sight that greeted me there.
Stasis pods. For a moment, I thought perhaps that meant the crew had survived after all, but I was quickly disillusioned of that idea.
The pods all had their transparent lids slid down to midway, exposing the occupants to the stale but oxygen-rich air.
I approached to peer inside the first one and was met with a macabre sight.
Dead and mummified in the dry air. A human male, from the looks of it, dressed in a military uniform with ranking along his shoulder indicating he was a medical professional—a doctor, or perhaps a stasis pod technician.
The next pod held more of the same, a female with a colorful scarf around her head.
“Poor bastards,” I drawled, feeling nothing at all.
From the looks of them, they’d been dead for dozens of years, perhaps even centuries.
This made it highly unlikely there was a threat aboard the ship, and I was tempted to turn back to the bridge.
My eye fell on the next pod, then, and I winced. That was a Talacan female.
Against my better judgment, I looked at the next pod, then the next, and then the next still.
My suspicions were confirmed when these all held Talacan males.
A female and her harem. Disgust made me curl my lip at them—stupid bastards, sharing a female like they had no other choice.
It made me ache with memories I did not want to consider.
Val grew thicker around my chest, feeding on my dark feelings now, growing stronger because of them, they were that strong.
My feet took me from one pod to the next, as if that would make it better.
More dead humans, one after another, and a Terafin too, his pointy ears giving him away, even in death.
One pod, much to my surprise, was empty, though.
It was the last in line, and I brushed my hands over the controls to get a read on its status.
Had it never been used, or had its occupant managed to rise alive, and then died somewhere else on the ship?
What if this person was still alive right now?
Or… had they managed to slip away with an emergency pod before the ship crashed on this planet?
If it was even a crash that had brought it here—they could have also chosen to land. ..
Then my eyes caught an open doorway and another pod beyond it.
That must be the captain, perhaps. I wondered if there was a dead body in that pod too.
Oddly enough, that made tightness grow across my chest again, and Val whined soundlessly in the back of my head.
She slipped from my body, all her silver sleekness dripping into the shape of her favorite Gracka form.
Then she trotted from the med bay into that next room, tail whipping behind her.
Damn it. Maybe that was just my obstinate character, probably part of the flaw that had messed up the bond between Val and me.
I didn’t want to go in there now. Really didn’t.
With a growl, I jogged after her, but after only two steps, I froze.
My hand reached out to grip the doorway so tightly the metal groaned beneath my armor-clad fist. That scent…
it was very faint, so faint it only hung here, in this room like it was an afterthought, a hint of a memory long forgotten.
Val was already at the stasis pod, raised on her hind legs while she pressed her front paws against the plex glass.
Her snout was so close to the pod that I could see the translucent panel fog up with her breath.
Her tail wagged back and forth in excitement—in a way I hadn’t seen before.
She panted, tongue lolling, as she twisted her head to look over her shoulder at me, silver eyes piercing me with a look that said, “Well, what are you waiting for?”
“No,” I told her, and I didn’t even know what I was saying no to.
Just that the alluring, sweet, floral scent that clung faintly to the air—stubbornly refusing to fade away—was making my belly tingle.
It was making my damned cock hard, and that was absolutely unacceptable.
I never lost control that way. Never. This scent, though, it was all kinds of temptation.
“There’s probably just another mummified corpse in there,” I said to Val, and to myself, to make it clear how inappropriate my response was.
It didn’t help, and Val growled at me like I was an idiot.
I stepped closer, slowly, because, for some reason, I was absolutely dreading this.
I did not want to find out what was inside that stasis pod, dead or alive.
I didn’t want it to be dead, and, at the same time, I really, really hoped that it was.
It was a reaction I had no explanation for, and I couldn’t bring myself to put it into words.
Perhaps I did not want to look too closely at these feelings and what they hid.
Then I saw what Val had already known. She was smug about that, the feeling prickling through my veins like barbs.
“Alive…” I said, and my words dripped with the awe that washed through me.
The occupant of this pod had somehow, miraculously, survived.
She was human and breathing slowly while she slumbered.
Her chest rose and fell beneath the plex glass, electrodes stuck to her pretty, tan skin.
She had black hair curling about her shoulders and long lashes that feathered against her cheeks.
No wonder my cock was growing hard inside my armor.
It wasn’t just her scent that was alluring; the rest of her was, too.
Nipples pressed against her thin shirt, hard points that drew my eyes and made them linger.
Her arms lay at her sides, but I could tell she had long, slender fingers and a curious dot along the side of her wrist. The rest of her disappeared into the pod’s nontransparent half, depriving me of a look at her hips and legs.
Would she be as scantily clad as her upper half was?
My mouth watered at the thought of testing that out, sliding my fingers into the pod to touch her skin. Would it be soft?
Val whined, her paws sliding toward the control panel, ears pointed attentively forward.
Even without knowing exactly what she was feeling, I knew she wanted me to open the pod.
My denial was immediate and vehement. “No,” I snarled.
“We are not opening that pod. It’s none of our damn business.
” I began to back away again, and my back collided with the wall.
My symbiont gave me this look that said she thought I was being an idiot.
I shook my head. “And then what? We can’t haul a human around on our mission.
We’re here to assassinate people, remember?
This planet is supposed to be as deadly as they come.
She’d be a liability.” And a distraction, but I didn’t say that.
Val huffed, her breath fogging against the plexiglass, her front paws spread against the control panel.
Then she shifted like liquid. It was too fast for me to do anything about.
There was a beep, a hiss, and then the transparent glass panel began to slide down.
She’d started the waking sequence, opened the pod.
“Damn it, we’re out of here right now!” I said.
Spinning on my heel, I stalked off, not once looking back to see if Val would follow.
I was not sticking around for a human, no matter how pretty or innocent.
She could find her own way off this planet; maybe she could make her ship’s engines work and fly off.
She’d be fine. If not, she could always go back into stasis. Blazing stars, I didn’t need this.