36 Tessi
Radar jumps through the portal just as it closes. He barks until I hear the peep and whir of a warming warp pulse gun. Dread tears through me.
“Radar, hide!”
I can see him processing my request, disagreeing with it, then bounding off into another passageway right as a blast goes off. I hear a yelp. My stomach turns.
I thrash in the grasp of my attacker. “What do you want with me?”
They jerk me around and throw me into a cell made of black glass. The door slams, and I can’t hear anything or see anything beyond its walls.
“Do not hurt my dog or I swear to the cosmos I will find you and fucking kill you!” I shout at the top of my lungs. I angrily punch the glass but all it does is flare pain through my hand.
“Fuck!” I clutch my hand and study the space to take my mind off of the pain. It is glass everywhere, top and bottom, even the bench looks like glass. Only the shallow drain in the floor is metal.
I sit down and think about the situation.
They’re probably outside looking in at me and wondering if I’m the one they want.
I’m pretty sure it was a Nebulous soldier who captured me, based on the short gray fur of his arm.
So they portalled onto a base and took me right out from under Mindoran noses. I hope they didn’t get Rhysan and Sky.
Based on the number of males surrounding her, I don’t think Nebs will capture either.
I sit cautiously on the bench. An hour passes. Maybe more. I check my wristband, and wonder if my ship ever made it to the base. When my patience wears thin, I get up and pace. “I don’t know what you think I can give you. I don’t have the powers you think I have.”
The door opposite the one I entered opens. A tall Nebulous soldier stalks inside. I back up, but his long arm span is impossible to escape. He draws me close, inhales a deep breath, then licks his pointed teeth.
“Munn-click-ta-ra,” someone calls to him.
His delight turns to a scowl. He grabs my vest and drags me out of the room. The hallways are dark, gritty, cold, and filled with Nebulous soldiers, but not the ones I typically see.
These aren’t covered in the same body armor.
They wear formal armor that shines with angular plates in matte and gloss blacks.
Their eyes glow a pale blue-white in the darkness.
All of them look down at me as I’m slung through the passageway and into a large room with a man in light gray armor trimmed in silver.
He gets up from a throne of black glass and walks down to me.
Munn-click-ta-ra shoves me down, onto my knees and keeps his hand on my shoulder as their leader circles me.
They talk in a series of clicks and pops. Very little of my time in college was spent on Nebulous culture and language, but it’s not difficult to see that they’re trying to decide what to do with me.
“Yai-nok-a-co-click.” The leader motions toward a pale blue glass chamber in a light gray room surrounded by windows. “Helarina.”
Munn-click-ta-ra picks me up and drags me toward the chamber.
I frantically try to pry myself free, kicking, and twisting.
The male I assume is their commander sighs like I’m being petulant. “It is not wise to fight him, human. The Vulturous are happy to run you through their circle and hand you over to the god of death in your world, which I believe is called a reaper. Get in the damned chamber.”
I get my feet under me and let the beast shove me into the chamber without a fight. “What are you doing to me?”
He ignores my question as another human eases into the light to speak with him. The chamber seals around me. The convex glass warps my view of the room outside and the human’s shapes.
But that blond hair… Those perfectly pressed clothes…
Geist is dead. Falgus and Reji aren’t interested in intergalactic games, just cash and ass.
Blue lights fill the pod, circling my body in beams. A Neb monitors a screen beside me. He speaks with the leader and nods. I have whatever it is they want.
Dread fills my bones like hot lead.
The human motions for them to open the hatch. I move to get up, but Munn-click-ta-ra points a gun at my face.
Carielle smirks. “Bingo, bitch. Finally captured you. Too bad you don’t have something cooler like blowing shit up. But whatever. I guess you can see through shields. Makes sense how you were able to find so much good stuff that the rest of us missed.”
That’s why the Nebs want me? So they can see cloaked ships?
“So just lie back like a good girl, and let them use you to wreck this fucked up universe.”
“Why are you working for the enemy?”
She picks at a fake nail covered in rhinestones. “Because my mother said I was too reckless to inherit the companies. So my stupid younger sister got them. She only pays me a pathetic portion of the profits every month. If I helped Geist capture you, he was going to give me half the bounty.
“Geist is dead.”
Her face blanches. She finds her resolve again. “Well, it’s no matter. I hated sucking his pathetic dick, anyway. There are other men.
“You just enjoy your life. What’s left of it…” She reaches in, making the motion with her hand like she’s going to flick my collar. I grab her hand to stop her at the same time that Munn-click-ta-ra does.
Making contact with both of them opens me to their emotions: her jealousy and rage because of her life, and his lust and impulsivity from being denied everything he’s ever wanted. I feel what they do. But they each sense the other’s emotions, too. I see it reflected on their faces.
Deep down, Carielle longs to be taken by the beastly monster.
And now he knows.
Munn-click-ta ra grabs her by the chest of her suit. He speaks to her with hungry need as the chamber begins to close again.
“No… What are you doing to me?” she screeches.
He gathers her against him with force and grinds into her.
“He knows you want him!” I shout. “I can also see through the shields people put up around their hearts and minds… Bitch!”
But my triumph is brief.
The moment the hatch seals, the chamber fills with pale blue light. It hums with energy until I’m sweating. Belts strap over my body with auto-securing programs, drawing me tight against the hard backrest. A visor folds down, over my eyes.
“So you can watch.” The leader’s rumbles inside the chamber are sinister warnings. “We finally have our advantage after decades of searching.”
I don’t want to know how many had to die before they found me.
The ship tilts. Gravity shifts toward my back, and I see Viriden’s ship come into view.
“I see it now.” The leader smirks and commands his underlings in his native percussive tongue.
Shots race across the sky from the ship, and I fear I’m going to be the reason my mate, his brother, and Viriden meet their ultimate fates.
Viriden’s angelic vessel blossoms with fiery hits, and I can’t tell if it’s still in one piece. There are three Neb ships in orbit, Viriden’s main battle cruiser, and many smaller ships on both sides that clash in vibrant waves of missiles and fracturing fighters.
No! I can’t cry out due to the machine’s strain on my body.
Veins rise. Pale light pulses through them to the rapid thrashing beat of my heart.
It becomes so utterly hot that I’m not sure how much longer I’ll survive.
Maybe I don’t have to in their minds. Maybe they never find one of us they want to keep, and we’re just disposable, used once in a battle and cast out to the stars as trash.
To my horror, Nebs start annihilating the Isonians.
“Stop!” I wheeze. I close my eyes and try to fight my power even though I don’t know how.
The leader shouts at someone. The ship shudders and shakes as it sways through the battle, taking down Isonian fighters.
Desperate to end the torture, I tug on the hand that’s loosest in the belts and slowly wrench it free. I work my other hand out and feel around for any way to open the chamber or for cables I can unplug or tear free. But there’s nothing except glass everywhere.
Come on! There has to be something!
I follow the pulsing blue light from ports in the chamber up and into my bed and behind my back, but can’t see a way to stop their machine or escape.
A pop of blue light distracts me.
Gunfire flickers from the shadows.
I freeze as I watch Neb soldiers fall with precision. I squint and see Radar dart through the Nebs, biting the ones that creep up on a soldier in black, eyes shining in the lightless ship. It isn’t easy to track a smoking ghost among shadows.
Bodies take bullets and fall throughout the room. It turns to chaos: thrown crates, explosions, and bodies. Soldiers running. And claws. Teeth.
Black fur.
Gold eyes.
Not silver. Gold.
My racing heart calms. Azrim?
Radar jumps up, puts his paws on the glass of my prison, and barks.
Azrim breaks one last neck, walks by the leader, dodges his swiping attack with ease, and shoots him in the head without hesitation. He rushes to me, slashes off the latch, and opens the hatch of my chamber.
His gaze fills with worry when he sees me. “Come on, Tessi. We have to go.”
I try to move but my entire body trembles, and I am so very hot that the outside air now feels frigid. “Where are the others?”
He slices my belts with a claw and collects me from the chamber.
“We separated into our slay crews. Zorin’s crew took one of the other Neb ships.
Marne took the third. When the signal came through that Nebs had taken you, Zorin’s crew was already com silent.
I was the only one who got the call. But I haven’t cleared the whole ship, just this area, so we have to keep moving. ”
Azrim carries me away from the room and sets me down in an adjacent hallway. “What did they do to you?”
“I…” My jaw bobs as I try to rationalize what’s just happened. “I can see through ship shielding. Even Isonian. They wanted me because I can unmask their enemies.”
Azrim checks around a corner where Nebs cluster down an adjacent passageway. “Shit. They found my ship.”