Chapter 4
FOUR
ARTURE
Drok na. What did she smash into my face? And we were getting on so well.
“Clever girl, I suppose,” I say, but it comes out as a mumble. The ringing in my ears drowns out my groans, and something hard presses along my left side. Perhaps it's the floor.
The ship lurches, sliding me into the wall of vials. The wall of smashable, all-kinds-of-dangerous-drugs-in-hideous-doses vials. And I can't make my body move.
Which clone is best for getting rid of a poison?
It has to be a Selthiastock, Gara makes a variety of compounds for the human Arra-bellah in his system.
With the last vestige of my energy, I shove myself into a Selthiastock form, shifting and changing as I slide back the other way.
My vision dims, tunneling as if I’m looking through viewfinders, only stopping when I’m left with a small pinprick of sight.
It doesn't get any better, and that droning still rings in my ears.
Through the torpor, my shoulder aches. Someone’s yanking on my right arm.
“Come on, get up,” Nic-coal shouts in my face.
“I would… only someone smashed me in the face with a Parthiastock-grade sedative.” Sitting up, I hold my head in my hands. “The room’s spinning.”
“Yes, because the ship's going crazy.” The tiny human heaves me to my knees despite my legs not wanting to comply. I didn't know she was so strong. With my head hanging loose, rattling my brain in my skull, I try to focus on something to push back the darkness surrounding my vision.
Her face swims into view. Small, with high cheekbones and long lashes that kiss her cheeks each time she blinks. The whites of her eyes show all the way round her dark brown irises.
And there's blood on her forehead.
My Selthiastock abilities rev up to a hundred klicks a second, demanding I drop everything to treat her. I grab her chin to immobilize her, ready to treat the superficial laceration across her forehead.
She rears away, pulling her chin back from my fingers. “Stop it, get on your feet.” The panic in her voice clamps invisible teeth around my chest.
The ship dives again and we're lifted into the air as the gravity system temporarily flickers off.
Nic-coal's mouth drops open and her arms windmill.
I grab her with my left arm and telescope my right out to grasp the examination table.
Her scent fills my sensitive Selthiastock senses, earth and musk as sweet as the hay bales in El-len's barn.
I need to focus, but I can't help taking in a deep breath.
If she had an element, it would be the earth itself, grounding and solid.
The grav system reasserts itself and we crash to the floor. Fuck, she's right, the ship’s going crazy.
“We're under attack.” I roll to my feet, catching her as she slips on the floor of the med bay. Vials and bottles tip and clatter all over the floor, a few smashing and throwing up noxious scents that overwhelm my Selthiastock sinuses.
Drok na. Tugging Nic-coal behind me, I run through the ship to the pilot's chair, my scales hardening as I confront the view screen, flashing with all kinds of read outs.
“What do those mean?” she pants.
I point. “Bad, worse, and we don't have enough alcohol for this disaster.”
To her credit, she doesn't balk. “What do we do first?”
My fingers drag across the glaring red symbols, my body still fighting the sedative. “The ship’s taking evasive maneuvers for some reason…”
My hand hovers over the proximity warning alarm.
Drok na.
“There's someone behind us.” With a woozy slap to the compupad, I bring up the visualization capability. In sketchy patches from what the sensors have been able to grab as we buck across space, the computer projects a junker of a spacecraft. Bright spots flicker. Guns.
“We've got someone firing on our flank, coming up fast, so we need to strap in.”
She doesn't hesitate, leaping into the nearest chair and belting herself in. “What do they want?”
“I don't really want to stop and chat to find out.
If the size of the maneuvers is any indication, the ship barreling toward us has significant firepower, and it's applying it with enthusiasm.” I take the pilot's chair with a lot of internal screaming, flicking on auxiliary systems and authorizing the computer to fire back.
Hopefully that'll make our attackers back off.
The comms chimes. “Incoming transmission,” the computer burbles with a cheery chirp. “Permission to connect the call?”
“What's it saying?” Nic-coal asks.
I forgot she can't speak Olorian. “Our new friend wants to say hi. Let me do the talking.”
She gives me a dirty look, but I turn my attention to the computer and give the order. “Let's hear it.”
A grating voice rings out around the cockpit. “Vessel of stealth, scans indicate there is a fertile female aboard.”
My scales go cold.
Oh, fuck. A Nexas.
“What's he saying?” Nic-coal whispers, but the microphone catches it.
“Ah, female.” His voice booms, practically shaking the cockpit. He's switched immediately to Nic-coal's modified trade standard, so he must be somewhat familiar with this region of space.
Nic-coal lifts a hand in greeting before curling it around her belt, knuckles white. “Er, hi. Why are you firing at us?”
“You and your crew see my armaments. They are many, and I haven't even used the biggest booms.” His voice turns breathy. “You like?”
I have to clamp my teeth shut or I'll burst out laughing, even though my Selthiastock brain chides me, convinced there's nothing funny about imminent destruction.
Once I master myself, I hiss to her, “Tell him they're very nice, but you're fine and perfectly content in your stealth ship, thanks.”
She shoots me a glare. “You mean locked in isolation?”
Our interloper pauses, then roars, “Female is kept locked away?”
Double drok na. I rub my throbbing temples.
“I'm coming, sweet female,” the male growls, snapping off the connection.
I turn as far as my straps allow to face her.
“I thought you’d muted the microphone.” Nic-coal presses her palms to her cheeks.
“Nope. And now we have a house guest.” At least he's stopped firing. Our only chance is if I—fuck—become a Pranastock and outfly him.
I grind my teeth, taking hold of the wheel. “The things I do for my mistress.” Then I close my eyes and bring forward the Pranastock.
My hearts, already beating far too fast, race faster as I slide into the shift, pummeling against the smaller rib cage of the thinner clone.
Mathematics shower over me, noting the precise angles I'm holding my elbows and wrists. Sol is two point nine seven light years away, and our flight path angle has been significantly altered by the ship’s evasive tactics, but at a velocity vector of about eight nine from that local horizon, we would be… would be—
Darkness slides over my mind, quietening it. Usually I'd be glad of that, but this is too much. “Drok na, the sed…seda…”
I can't hold onto the yoke, my grip slipping. My only hope is to shift back, back to a… a something.
“Arture?” Nic-coal shakes my shoulders. She's out of her safety restraints; that's against regulations and represents a major issue onboard.
“Sit… down…”
“Arture!” Her voice chases me down into the cold emptiness of space.
Arture.
Somehow, I know who I am, even before I open my eyes.
I can't see much anyway, it's all blurry, hazy. Underwater. I breathe deeply through a tube pressed close to my scales. It's my link to life.
My life.
A handprint presses on the plascreen right in front of my eyes, real and solid. An anchor. My magnetic center.
Her voice is blurry, half heard, but I know who she is.
My mistress.
“Arture.”
I startle awake enough to shift into a Selthiastock. Panting hard, I swallow back the waves of nausea tossing me around like a Timbol salad, waiting for the healer clone’s superior metabolism to kick in.
I nearly failed my mistress.
“Oh, thank fuck.” Nic-coal sags against the arm rest of my seat.
“No, thank Selthiastocks. How long was I out?”
“Not long, but—”
The ship trembles, a terrifying screech coming from the landing doors.
“I… I think he's caught up,” Nicole whispers.
Her hair has escaped its bindings, her face flushed, and her little white teeth tear at her lip.
Worse than her fear is the bloody cut and contusion on her forehead.
It pulls at me, urging me into action: I have to fix her, soothe her pain and nurse her to health.
One touch of my lips, and I'll know exactly what she needs.
I shake my head at these Selthiastock instincts. Later. First, I've got to defend her. There's no point returning to Oloria empty-handed, after all.
Unsnapping my safety harness, I get to my feet. A Selthiastock isn’t the most physically strong clone type, but they sure are clever, brain leaping three steps ahead.
I ask, “Got any more vials of sedatives secreted about your person?”
She turns a bright guilty red as she stands, hand stealing to her pocket.
“Yes? Wonderful. Let's send our guest to sleep, shall we?” I head for the main room, long jagged betrillium claws sliding out from my right arm, glimmering a deadly blue-gray.
Nic-coal jogs to keep up with me. “Are we going to have to fight them?”
Leading the way into the kitchen, I head behind the counter. The heavy dining table stands between us and the shivering door to the outside.
I point at it. “We’re definitely under attack, and as the Nexas' ship has grappled onto ours, there's no point trying to fly now.”
Nic-coal gapes at me, but then she shuts her mouth and gives a single nod.
Again, I'm impressed by how quickly she gets to work, not wasting time panicking. She slides behind the counter, digging in her pockets and lining up several bottles of high-dose shuganitrous serum, which my Selthiastock instincts assure me will knock out a whole battalion.
“What are we up against?” she asks.