Chapter 21
Trust Your Instincts (and Strike)
Lily
It is no surprise that, despite their pride, Corvus individuals struggle with the lack of recognition they believe they deserve. The author of this volume therefore advises anyone seeking any form of relationship with them to proceed with the utmost caution.”
Excerpt from Ner’fol Vas Gorg, Universal Dating Guru: Love with Another Species
Lily had been thinking for some time about the small, inexplicable malfunctions that kept occurring on Helios whenever Khar was around.
In the end, she decided to change Khar’s status from guest to administrator.
She could have granted him user access, but something in her told her it was time to commit.
Yes, they had known each other for a very short time. And yet Khar felt as though the universe itself had shaped him specifically for her.
The frightening part was not the idea of spending her life with him. That felt almost like a privilege. What frightened her was how right it all felt. Happiness like this never came without consequence.
She shook her head, as if she could physically dislodge the thought.
No. She deserved good things.
She was issuing a command to Helios from Vitro’s control room when the main display showed Horos waiting at the entrance. Lily opened the access gate and announced her location through the speakers.
Horos looked tired, as far as she could tell from the alien face. In that moment he resembled a wraith grafted onto a raven more than anything human. Perhaps that was why the impression struck her so strongly.
Maybe that is just my human perception.
Maybe he is perfectly healthy.
“Hello, Horos. How can I help?” she said as he stepped into the control bay.
“Hi, Lily. We need to leave immediately. Vegrun’s orders. Can you undock?”
Horos sat down in Khar’s usual chair.
Lily frowned. Technically, the chair did not belong to Khar, but seeing Horos in his place felt wrong. Almost insulting.
“I am alone on shift,” she said. “I will call Khar back so we can depart together.”
“No. We leave now. Vegrun’s directive. Vitro is expected at the Kharm-2 cruiser.”
Reluctantly, Lily reached for the control panel. Then she stopped.
She hit the quick-access key to Vegrun’s private channel.
Horos sprang toward her the instant he saw the hesitation.
Lily jumped aside, but this was not an attack she could evade.
Horos leaned toward her and before she could strike him, a sound tore from his throat, sharp enough to feel like shattered glass.
Every muscle in Lily’s body seized.
She hit the floor as if in a convulsive fit.
Everything hurt. Everything burned.
It felt like being trapped in an endless spasm, except her awareness remained painfully sharp. Time stretched into something unbearable, seconds dragging under the crushing weight of the agony.
Horos stepped over her, cut Vitro’s outgoing signals, then knelt beside her.
“How clever of you to sense danger immediately,” he said. “Your species is still closer to animals than civilization. Your instincts have not dulled yet.”
The convulsions stopped.
Lily lay limp on the floor, drained, barely able to breathe. She wanted to fight, but her muscles refused to answer. Horos calmly removed her personal console and replaced it with thick, solid-looking metal bands around her wrists, then her ankles.
He spoke as he worked, half to himself, half to her, his voice hoarse with delight.
“I could watch this forever. Such beautiful, sweet suffering. I will admit, you surprised me, Earth whore. Only species with the most complex nervous systems tremble like this. You humans have barely stepped beyond your filthy little planet, and yet you are like this.”
Lily could not speak. She felt control slowly returning, like circulation creeping back after deep cold. She could not lift her arms, but the familiar ache began to pulse in her fingers.
Horos fetched a cargo-grade antigravity cart and, with no gentleness at all, rolled her onto it.
“Damn high-gravity dwellers,” he muttered. “A Corvus would think you would be lighter in moments like this. You never are.”
A hundred sharp retorts flared through Lily’s mind, but she could not even lift her head.
Horos noticed.
Concern flickered across his face.
He pushed the cart quickly to Suite B and dumped her unceremoniously onto the floor. He pressed a rounded device against the wall near the entrance, never once taking his glittering eyes off her.
As soon as the cart released her, Lily tried to rise.
She failed.
She collapsed forward, then forced herself up again, managing to get one knee under her.
Every movement cost her.
“Your end… is coming… Horos.”
She lunged toward him, swinging her arm with everything she had left.
If she missed, she would grab him. If she grabbed him, she would bite. Or claw out his eyes. Anything.
She was slower than usual, but it should have been enough.
It was not.
Horos pressed a button.
The metal bands on her wrists and ankles snapped together instantly, slamming her into the floor beside him. The restraints were magnetic, locking her immovably to the metal deck.
Horos knelt again, smiling.
Only now did Lily truly see him.
The parchment-thin skin. The black, pupil-less eyes. The long, sharp beak-nose. The fetid breath behind razor teeth.
How had she ever thought he was harmless?
He was not a predator. Predators confronted strength. Horos hid until the last moment, fearful of those stronger than him, but he struck without fail when he scented weakness.
An alien vulture.
An anthropomorphic scavenger.
A medieval plague doctor who claimed benevolence while delivering death.
He brushed her dark hair from her face.
“We are leaving, my sweet.”
The sickly sweetness of his voice clashed violently with reality.
Then he rose and left her alone.
Alone in the suite where she had once been trapped for galactic days with Khar.
But this time, Khar was not here to solve her problems.
The restraints released her minutes later.
It appeared automatic. Horos did not return, and the suite door was thick enough to block all external signals except those connected directly to Vitro’s network. The small spherical device he had activated was not part of that system.
Lily leapt up and examined it.
The palm-sized device seemed fused seamlessly into the wall, as if it had always been part of the ship. She recognized the class of technology, but not the mechanism. There were no protrusions, no markings, just like the restraints.
Which meant Horos carried something else to activate it.
That would be her first target next time he came close.
The restraints themselves were impossible to remove. They did not even damage each other when she tried to force them together, and they were too tight to pry apart even at the cost of dislocating a joint.
A perfect space-age trap, dressed in a form medieval humans would have recognized.
Magnetic cuffs.
Without her VoidBrace she could not interface with Vitro, and Horos had disabled voice commands. She knew where the visible and hidden service panels were, but without tools she could not execute even the simplest command.
Weapons existed in the suite. She was certain Horos had accounted for that.
She would need something small.
Small, but lethal.
She was effectively in a beautiful prison. She could drink, eat, wash, even sleep if her pounding heart allowed it. A luxury cell.
Rage threatened to tear her apart, but she forced herself to breathe.
Think.
Horos was larger, but weaker. In close combat, she would win if she could reach him. The restraints were the problem. And the sound. That horrifying weapon she did not yet know how to counter.
Stuffing her ears might not be enough. But she would try.
His hoarse voice suggested he could not repeat the sound endlessly. She would not escape the next attack, but maybe afterward, when the effect faded, she would have a chance.
Information would help even more.
What did Horos want?
Why this sudden shift?
She knew only that they had taken Vitro somewhere without Vegrun’s knowledge. Khar would alert him the moment he returned to the dock and found the ship gone. But by then, it would likely be too late.
Vitro was fast. Advanced technology, with undetectable cloaking system.
Space was vast.
Like searching for a needle in a haystack.
A million haystacks stacked atop each other.
Lily fought back tears.
She had to stay strong.
Khar could not save her.
She would have to save herself.
Horos had left her alive for a reason. When she was writhing on the floor, he could have killed her easily. Instead, he came prepared with restraints.
That meant something.
First, she tore the suite apart.
The search ended quickly.
Large objects were locked to the floor by gravity anchors. The bed, couch, and chairs were buried in soft fabrics. Useless.
The stasis pantry held only foods safe for most species. No allergic sabotage there.
The bathroom yielded her only success.
In the guest grooming kit, she found a few sharp implements. She hid them by pressing them into the space beneath her wrist restraints, concealed by her sleeve.
She would use them.
She also found a waxy compound suitable for ear protection. She shaped two small pellets and placed them on the nightstand, hidden by the lamp, ready to grab the moment Horos appeared.
After that, there was nothing left to do but wait.
Waiting was agony.
She replayed every interaction she had ever had with Horos, searching for meaning, but most of the time she had been too lost in her own thoughts to notice anything useful.
Eventually, exhaustion won.
She showered, letting the hot water calm her trembling body, and finally allowed herself to cry. When the tears ran dry, she dressed again and sat cross-legged on the bed, waiting.
She would not attack physically first.
Horos would expect that.
No. First, she would make him talk.
She was almost certain he was running. She did not know what had happened with Vegrun, but Vitro was worth more than most beings earned in a lifetime. Even selling it for a fraction would make Horos unimaginably rich.
And he could do it.
Horos was a full administrator in Vitromium. Above him stood only Vegrun as superadmin. Khar and Lily held only limited administrative rights. Horos could erase them from the system entirely.
Only Vegrun could erase Horos.
Which meant Horos could assign new limited administrators to anyone willing to ignore legality.
So the question remained.
What did he want with her?
She knew Herion systems. She did not know alien psychology.
She began to drift into a light, restless sleep, waking at every sound.
When she woke again, she scanned the room instantly. Nothing had changed. She felt slightly stronger.
She went to the bathroom.
She was brushing her teeth with disinfecting gel when the suite door opened.
She saw the panic in the mirror.
She clenched her fists. Released them.
And stepped into the common area.
Horos was already by the wall, one hand hovering over the restraint control.
A warning.
She leaned against the doorframe and looked him over without speaking.
Horos, however, was eager to talk.
“Lily. That is a good place for you. I would prefer not to hurt you unnecessarily. Keep your distance until I can be sure you will not do something foolish.”
She tilted her head, mirroring a gesture she had seen him use often.
“If I knew the plan,” she said calmly, “it would be easier not to do something foolish. What do you want, Horos?”
Horos threw back his head and laughed, his neck bending in a way that would have broken a human. Lily forced herself not to react.
“How long do you think I worked for Vegrun?”
“I have no idea.”
“Ten chrono-years. Long even for a Corvus. And that bloated, useless sack fired me without a word. Yes, I did things. And so what? He did not become wealthy through kindness. I will not spend my life in another’s shadow.”
He slammed his clawed hand onto the table.
Greedy.
Miserable.
That was something.
“I understand,” Lily said softly.
Horos looked startled.
His thin lips curved into a smile, exposing sharklike teeth.
“Perhaps you are not as hopeless as I thought.”
He stepped closer, then stopped just outside arm’s reach.
Lily’s body coiled instinctively, ready to strike, but she forced her face into the polite, professional smile she had worn so often on Earth.
“Horos. Why am I here? You have Vitro. That alone is a greater insult to Vegrun than anything else. You do not need me.”
Horos shook his head slowly, sinuously.
“Yes, Vitromium will be valuable to me. Vegrun will never lounge on it again with his damp flesh. But you are valuable too. Do you know what a genuine Earth female is worth?”
Lily stared at his enormous black eyes.
“You want to sell me too?”
He laughed again, closer to the shrieking sound that had broken her before.
“I considered it. You have had offers. But you are lucky. I am keeping you. You should be grateful.”
Rage flooded her.
She forced it down.
One chance. One.
“Poor little Lily,” Horos continued. “Escaped slavery once, only to nearly fall into it again. When you think about it, you are a very fortunate creature.”
“What are you talking about?” she hissed.
“You do not think a kind researcher took you from Earth, do you? Herion-class ships belong to the elite. And smugglers. And syndicates. The universe has a sense of humor. You ended up owning the very thing that took you.”
He leaned closer.
Before she could strike, he opened his mouth and released the sound.
She hit the floor, convulsing.
Horos watched, rapt.
“So beautiful,” he whispered.
When it ended, Lily lay sobbing on the floor.
“It hurts,” she rasped. “You said you did not want to hurt me.”
He stroked her hair, her back.
“I do not. This is not harm. This is instruction. You must learn who holds power here.”
His hand slid to her waist, then her hip, squeezed once, then pulled away as if even that was too much.
“I have to go. We cannot use the navigation network. Vegrun would find us instantly. Manual plotting takes time, but this way we are invisible. Vitromium earns its price.”
He stood.
“When I meet the fences and receive my payment, I will move you to another ship. No one will ever find us. We will have all the time we want.”
He left her alone with the fading pain.
She could endure the physical agony.
The thoughts were far more dangerous.