Chapter 17
Lieutenant Gigi, as I was calling our hostage, was silent as a church mouse, crammed comfortably in a now empty supply closet with a pile of trash in front of it.
If he somehow untied himself and broke down the door, there was no way we’d sleep through the commotion of him swimming through the garbage pile barring the way.
After he’d cooperated by giving detailed instructions on how to close and bar the heavy outer door, we’d had him explain where everything in the officer’s lounge/panic room was and then closed him up in the empty closet.
The contents of the closet were spread out in front of me on the floor as I tried to figure out what everything was without opening it and compromising the contents.
“I probably should have kept Gigi out here until this was figured out,” I admitted, glaring at the metallic baggy that crunched but felt suspiciously light to be any sort of ration. Unless it was like astronaut food?
I grimaced at the thought. I had a distinct memory of my parent’s buying me freeze dried cheesecake from a museum gift shop when I was a kid. That shit had been nasty.
“That is not how you say his name,” Carn said, eyeing the closed door like it was going to burst open at any moment.
The sound of fighting had passed by us several times, but no one had tried to break in and I had to trust the door or I’d never calm down.
“I know,” I said, ripping open a blue container and spilling what looked like tiny dried flowers all over my lap. “Is this supposed to be tea?”
Carn looked over and frowned. “It’s a medpack. Gorvun flowers make a powerful poultice when boiled.”
“Oh,” I awkwardly stuffed a few handfuls of the flowers back in the shredded bag. “I hope there’s more because I think I ruined this one.”
Carn didn’t say anything and I peeked up to see him staring into the space between us.
“Is something wrong?” I asked, praying he didn’t have a hidden head injury that was just now making itself known.
His black, fuzzy ears flopped forward but he didn’t meet my eyes.
“I don’t know what to do now,” he admitted. “I’ve never needed to plan for anything. My life has been nothing but immediate danger or endless waiting. I have no experience with anything like this.”
I forced myself to shrug casually. The last thing Carn needed was to feel like I didn’t trust him.
“I’ve never done anything like this, either. But so far we’re out of your cell, we’re both alive, we’re safe.” I gestured at our secure surroundings. “We have a ton of supplies and a handy dandy hostage. I think that’s pretty good for a couple hours of work.”
He sighed, but his gloomy expression faded a bit and he snagged a long tube wrapped in yellow plastic from the pile.
“These are sweet,” he said shyly. “I was given one by a scientist when I was very young.”
I tried not to think about how sad it was that he was probably thinking of such a shitty memory fondly.
“Sweet sounds good,” I said, crawling towards him, pushing supplies out of my way as I went.
“It can be our celebration dinner.” I settled on my knees beside him and patted the floor.
A tiny smile twitched at the corner of his mouth and he slowly sank down until we were cuddled up with our backs to the long couch.
The ‘sweets’ turned out to be some sort of mild, and cough-inducingly dry, digestive biscuit. They didn’t taste bad, but any flavor was too subtle to pin down. I choked down three of the flat brown disks out of hunger, not enjoyment, and abandoned the rest of the tube to Carn.
He was more than happy to devour the crumbly fiber biscuits and I felt my heart twist a little at the sheer contentment on his face.
Carn was covered in blood, I could spot a dozen bruises and cuts on his naked body and he was sitting on the floor eating shitty food.
.. and he looked like a kid in a candy store.
This was the first taste of freedom he’d had since childhood, the first treat in years, crappy treat though it was. It made me want to wrap him up in fuzzy blankets, sit down in front of a silly cartoon and binge eat real snacks with him.
I wanted to give him a taste of the childhood that had been stolen from him but even if we made it off this ship, all I could offer was a planet ravaged by the same beings that had enslaved him. But there was real sugar down there, assuming it hadn’t all been looted.
Maybe the planet was destroyed, civilizations toppled and the power out, but I’d find a way to make this adorable monster of a male some no-bake cookies. He’d earned a double batch, with marshmallows on top.
Plus it was the only dessert I knew how to make.
I sighed and stared at the chaotic pile of supplies.
“I hope there’s water in here somewhere.”
The door to the supply closet rattled and Gigi’s muffled voice came through.
“The sanitary facilities will be fully functional as long as the ship has life support.”
“Where’s that?” I shouted back, hoping he couldn’t hear everything we said through the door.
“The door just past this closet.”
“Thanks,” I yelled, pulling myself up the couch and hopping toward the tiny hallway that led to the comm suite Gigi had pointed out earlier.
“Wait!” Gigi yelped. “Take me, too!”
I groaned and let my chin hit my chest. I should have realized that keeping a pet alien meant taking it out for potty breaks.
“Carn?” I looked over my shoulder and attempted some version of puppy dog eyes. “Help me let Gigi out to pee?”
He was on his hooves before I finished asking.
“You do not need to ask me for help, female,” he grumbled as he dragged the limp, sweaty syto out of the stuffy closet. “I would not ask you to guard our captive without me.”
I blinked at that. Somehow, Carn’s burly presence had lulled me into such a sense of security it really hadn’t occurred to me that I shouldn’t babysit Gigi alone.
He was half Carn’s size and nowhere near as muscular but he was a trained soldier who knew this ship well and had a solid fifty pounds on me.
Despite my jokes, Gigi was a threat, not an inconvenient pet, and I needed to remember that before I did something stupid and got us both killed.
I shook my head. “I think my brain is broken,” I muttered, waiting outside the tiny cubicle bathroom while Carn glowered down at Gigi as he peed in the weird sunken cubby that functioned as a urinal.
From the look of things, Carn was going to do some intense yoga if he planned on using the tiny slot, it was barely at his knee level and would not accommodate his constant, gargantuan erection.
My attention snagged on exactly that as Carn frogmarched Gigi back to his closet.
I knew he wanted that from me, he’d come right out and said it after all. He hadn’t brought it up again or pushed it at all, leaving the entire thing in my hands. That was part of the problem, I realized.
I couldn’t fit all that in my hands. How had the logistics of sleeping with a ‘roided-up alien gladiator never occured to me? Weren’t performance-enhancing drugs supposed to shrink men’s junk?
Or was that freaking meat tower the small version of a turoch dick?
I wasn’t sure I wanted an answer to that question. Back in his tiny cell, it seemed ridiculous to start a relationship when we were both prisoners. There was no future for us on this ship, how could I try to explore romantic feelings when our lives were on the line?
Now I was seeing things differently. Maybe we’d make it back to Earth, find Carn’s turoch buddy and start building a life in the wreckage of a once familiar planet. Or maybe a squad of guards would blast into our little haven and kill us both while we slept tonight.
If I knew for sure I only had a few hours left to live, did I want to die knowing I’d held off on something with the potential to be great because of nerves?
I sighed, wishing being kidnapped by aliens was a little less complicated. And I really wished Carn had found a pair of pants.
After I used the facilities, I found a shelf of small, green-tinted tablets. Gigi said it was a dissolvable disinfectant. Skin safe and strong enough to prep for surgery. From the look of Carn’s gore-covered skin, I needed a soap strong enough to keep sepsis at bay.
I scrounged up a mostly intact bag from our stash of supplies and used it to carry some water back to the lounge area.
“I’m going to clean you up before you start to stink,” I announced.
Carn’s eyebrows raised but he didn’t resist when I manhandled him until his back was a few inches from the couch and his filthy head was in easy reach.
Arranging myself behind him, I balanced my bag of water beside me and eyed the task ahead of me.
He was disgusting and I didn’t feel bad admitting it.
There was blood, and chunks and dried sweat coating every inch of his skin and he needed a comb like the desert needed rain.
I combed my fingers through his tangled, coarse hair and cringed as I picked bits of dried someone away. Oblivious to the grossness of my task, Carn’s massive shoulders slowly relaxed and his whole body slouched forward like someone had let the air out of him.
He might be huge and scary and alien, but a little petting and he turned into a puppy.
Smiling to myself, I twisted as much of his hair as I could into a knot at the nape of his neck and used a stylus looking thing as a pin to hold it in place.
Sadly our alien overlords didn’t seem to keep a stash of hair ties, but I guess elastic bands wouldn’t work great for fleshy tentacles. The thought made me a little gaggy and I focused on cleaning Carn up.
I dropped the disinfectant tablet into my makeshift bowl and watched as it fizzed up like a bath bomb. A smell somewhere between menthol and tobasco filled the air and I wrinkled my nose as I tried to decide if it was gross or not. Hopefully this stuff didn’t burn like acid.
A scrap of the dead officer’s uniform served as a rag, and as I wiped the first smear away, I tried not to think about how gross my life had gotten in the last few weeks.