Chapter 3
MARDOK
Gods damn it, I think I just shot her keffing pet.
I put my blaster away, tucking it back into its holster as the strange, nearly naked woman sobs over the furry herbivore.
I’m disgusted that I overreacted. Now that I have a moment to catch my breath, I realize that the thing is a four-legged plant eater, shaggy, ugly, but harmless.
I just saw it charging toward us and reacted like a soldier.
But I’m not a soldier any longer, and I keffed up. Bad.
The woman sobs over her pet, stroking its nose as the creature wheezes its final breaths. There’s blood everywhere, and I have the awful, terrible sensation that I’ve messed this up, bad. I shouldn’t have shot first. This strange, wild girl clearly loves her animal, and she wanted to be my friend.
I think of the look on her face as she put my hand on her breast, full of need and longing.
Yeah, she wanted to be a lot more than friends.
And now my cock hurts in my pants, and my heart hurts because I just murdered something she loved out of a knee-jerk reaction.
I need to fix this, but how? I move closer, edging forward.
The creature isn’t getting up. His head is in her lap, and he breathes shallowly, making little sounds of pain as she cries over him.
He’s been gut-shot, and while he’s bleeding a lot, he’s not exactly dying fast.
Keffing awful.
If it was just me and he was an enemy soldier, I’d give him a second blast to the head to ease his suffering. But I don’t think the strange, beautiful female would like that. Not in the slightest. So…what?
I’m full of remorse. Not that I shot the creature—because any soldier wouldn’t hesitate to take down a charging animal—but that it clearly means something to her and I’ve destroyed that.
She tosses a look in my direction, and her face is wet with tears.
She spits words at me, and I don’t have to speak her language to know what she’s saying.
How could you?
I rub a hand over the bristle on my skull. All right, what now? Wait for it to die? Put it out of its misery? I think of the way she smiled at me, putting my hand on her breast, the trust and happiness in her face. I haven’t seen that in…kef, who knows how long.
And I want it back. I feel a violent surge of possessiveness toward the woman.
I saw her first. She’s mine. I think of Trakan heading out of the ship to smoke one of his carcinogels.
Would she approach him with her smiles and nakedness?
Put his hand on her breast and invite him with her eyes?
I clench my hands so tight I can almost hear the metal creak in my bionic arm.
All right. If she’s mine, then I need to fix this. I slap my communicator on my wrist, turning it on, and lift it to my mouth. “Niri, head to med bay, would you? I’m coming in and you’re needed.”
She immediately clicks back. “Are you all right? Did you hurt yourself?”
“Just go to med bay,” I tell her, and move forward.
I head to the other side of the smelly, furry creature and heft him into my arms. He’s enormous and probably weighs twice what I do, with long, dangling legs and so much fur that I’m going to be pulling it out of my molars for weeks to come.
But he’s not fighting me, and his head is limp.
I tilt so the majority of his weight falls on my bionic arm, and then stagger toward the entrance of the ship.
The woman follows after me. I almost expect her to shout in her angry, babbling language, or to hit me with those delicate hands of hers, but she doesn’t.
She hovers at my heels, her sniffs the only sounds she makes.
The hatch opens automatically, and I head inside, turning sideways to go through the narrow entrance.
The creature’s bleeding all over me and all over the floors, but right now that doesn’t matter.
What matters is making sure it doesn’t die, because I don’t think I’ll be able to stand it if this strange woman looks at me with hate…
or worse, disappointment. Hate can always be flipped back to friendship, but disappointment lasts forever.
“What is going on?” Niri calls as she enters the ship’s main narrow passageway. She gasps, flattening herself against the wall as she sees me with the furry, bleeding monstrosity. “What the kef is that thing?”
“This planet?” I growl. “It’s not uninhabited.”
“Is that one of the locals?” Niri asks, her eyes wide as she hurries back toward med bay. Inside, I can hear the hum of her computers as they power up. “Did he talk to you?”
“No. It’s complicated.”
“I see. I don’t know if he’s going to fit on the diagnostic bed.
” She moves to the control panel and taps a few buttons, and the metal bed rolls out of the compartment with a soft hiss.
I heft my burden onto it and stagger backward the moment he’s out of my arms. Gods, that thing was heavy.
I glance down at my enviro-suit and it’s covered in blood.
I unzip it and begin to unbuckle my way out of the cumbersome thing.
Niri busies herself with the creature. When the legs don’t tuck into the bed itself, she gives up on sending it through the diagnostic scanner and takes out a handheld, moving it over the creature.
“I can tell you what’s wrong,” I say gruffly as I pry the insulated boots off my feet. “I keffing shot him. He was charging at us.”
“Us?” Niri turns and frowns at me. “What are you talking about?”
“The girl.” Her brows go up, and I turn, realizing that my new friend didn’t follow me into the med clinic. “Shit. Be right back.” I shove the filthy enviro-suit aside and race back into the hall, looking for her. If Trakan sees her…
But there she is, standing near the doorway that leads to the bridge.
She’s admiring one of the wall panels, touching a light as it flashes up on screen.
It’s a weather reading of the outdoors, and I’m pretty sure she can’t read what it says, but she seems fascinated by it.
I move to her side, and she jerks in surprise at the sight of me.
Must not hate me too much, though, because she immediately starts purring again, and that makes me feel better.
“Tisik,” she says, pointing at the screen. “Vo?”
I have no clue what she’s saying. “Do you like the lights? Or do you want to know what it says?”
She sighs heavily and gives her head a little shake.
“Ne vo.” She gazes at me, frowning as she studies my chest. I rub a hand over it, wondering if there’s something wrong with my crew jumpsuit.
It ain’t much to look at, but considering I spend ninety-nine percent of my days in space with only three other people, I don’t much care what I look like.
And it’s not like a naked chick’s gonna be a fashion critic, right?
She pats my chest, and then looks up at me, frowning.
“Are you wondering where my clothes went? They’re still here. Speaking of…” I untuck my shirt and pull it over my head, then offer it to her.
She takes it and raises it to her nose, gently sniffing it.
After a moment, she pets the fabric and gives me another curious glance.
Her fingers reach out and she touches my chest, the scars over my heart-plating, and the line where my flesh meets the bionic arm.
It’s making my body respond, and I need to shut this shit down fast before I remember that it’s been well over three years since I slept with a woman.
I take the shirt and pull it over her shoulders, then help her work her arm through the sleeve.
She giggles, the sound light and achingly sweet, as I button her into it.
Once I’m done dressing her like a toddler, she’s, well, she’s covered at least. My shirt hangs off her like a tent, but at least she’s no longer naked. I’d say I’m glad she’s warm, but I don’t think cold has been a problem for her, period.
Her hand touches my arm, her fingers stroking my skin. “Chahm-pee?” She wiggles her nose and then mimes galloping with her hands.
“Is that your pet? Come on. I’ll take you to him.” I clasp her hand in mine, and she squeezes my fingers. Hate that she feels so keffing right with her little fingers tucked against mine.
I lead her to med bay, and she sucks in a breath at the sight of her animal laid out.
Niri’s put away her diagnostic machine and has a screen in front of her face, directing the surgery manually.
“You blew a hole right through his keffing guts, dumbass,” Niri tells me as I return.
“Lucky for you I could remove the part of the liver that you blew up without him going toxic, though it’s tricky given that he’s an animal and our machines aren’t prepped to—” Her words trail off as she sees the girl with me. “Who the kef is that?”
“I don’t know,” I say bluntly. “She came up to me outside.”
Niri studies her, then sets the machine on automatic as it works at stitching up the wound in the unconscious hairball of a creature. “She’s wearing your shirt. She naked under that?”
“Loincloth.”
“In this snow? Is she crazy?”
“I…think she lives here.” Something tells me she’s not crazy, just…wild. “Didn’t Trakan say this place was uninhabited?”
“According to planetary surveys, yeah. You think she’s a shipwreck survivor? She looks like us. Clearly mesakkah.”
“Sa-khui,” the girl chimes in, misinterpreting Niri’s words. She taps her chest. “Sa-khui.”
“Is that your name, sweetie?” Niri asks, pulling the girl away from me and moving her to a seat. She takes out her hand scanner and begins to run it over her.
“Sa-khui,” the girl repeats again, and taps her chest. Then she pats Niri’s arm. “Sa-khui.” She gestures toward me. “Sa-khui?”