Chapter 50 Burn
BURN
The air inside the docking bay hit him like a punch to the gut.
Hot, greasy, metallic—the place smelled like engine oil, unwashed alien funk, and the faint scorched stench of fried electronics. Burn wrinkled his nose and blew out a breath through flared nostrils.
Gods, what a fucking pit.
The docking enclosure was massive—cavernous enough to hold the kind of shuttle that only a narcissistic, three-headed monstrosity would commission.
Grayish-blue metal beams arched overhead like the ribs of a dead beast. Panels of dented sheeting lined the curved ceiling, some blinking with embedded green or amber lights.
A handful of high, square windows filtered in dusty beams of yellow light, illuminating the alien clutter that filled the room.
The shuttle sat like a gaudy, overweight king on a concrete platform stained with oil, fuel, and other fluids Burn didn’t want to identify.
It was a tacky monstrosity—twice the size of a Kindred long-range hauler and painted in lurid, clashing colors—shimmering gold and deep royal purple—with a pattern of jagged lightning bolts down the side.
Fucking hell, it looks like someone dipped a cargo ship in carnival puke, Burn thought.
But it could fly and that made it their only way out of here. They didn’t dare try to escape on foot—they wouldn’t get far enough away before Thune came looking for them. No, they needed to fly out of here and put a massive amount of distance between themselves and their three-headed captor.
Burn stalked into the bay, heavy boots echoing against the corrugated metal floor.
The walls were lined with racks of tools and mechanical odds and ends, none of which looked familiar.
He passed a row of hanging implements that looked like a cross between bone saws and tuning forks…
a bucket full of stiff, bristle-covered rods dripping some kind of greenish goop…
and a wall-mounted case with rows of what looked like transparent vacuum hoses curled like tentacles.
A circular device the size of a dinner plate pulsed with red light in the corner. When Burn nudged it with his boot, it emitted a high-pitched squeal and scurried away on spindly legs.
Okay, that was new. Some kind of cleaner bot? He didn’t know.
He scanned the cluttered shelving for anything resembling a key. A biometric dongle…a crystal transmitter…even a simple ignition fob—anything at all that might start the shuttle.
But all he found were more tools and a shit-load of garbage. Crumpled food wrappers with cartoonishly grotesque alien faces…a few severed tentacles that looked recently deflated…and what might have once been a sentient plant now dried and curling in on itself like a corpse in the corner.
Fuck. Nothing useful.
He turned to the shuttle and stepped up onto the platform. The stench of Trollox body odor intensified. It was a full-on assault of sour musk, rotten onions, and something gamey and wet that made his throat clench.
Fucking disgusting. Smells like someone stuffed a carcass with old cheese and left it out in the sun.
The ramp was down, so he climbed inside.
The moment he stepped onto the floorboards, they crunched beneath his boots.
Layers of trash blanketed the interior—crushed drink containers, mummified food bits, a soggy fur coat, and—bizarrely—a bent soup ladle.
What in the Seven Hells was the fucking Trollox doing in here?
There were also wrappers with teeth marks, a used fry basket, and what might have once been a sentient wig, now curled up in the corner and softly mewling.
He sighed and bent to start clearing up the trash. Every new item he picked up seemed worse than the last.
A fucking diaper? Is that a diaper? No. Nope. Not thinking about it.
He tossed it aside with two fingers and kept working.
The shuttle’s control panel stretched across the curved console at the front of the cockpit.
The layout was strange, but not incomprehensible.
Rows of pulsing glyphs blinked in alien script and a few analog dials and switches were mixed in with the holographic controls.
A wide viewscreen ran the width of the panel—cracked slightly in the upper right corner.
In the center of the panel, bold and unapologetic, sat a single oversized red button with the Trollox glyph for "home" carved into its surface.
Burn narrowed his eyes.
Well, hello there.
He knew what that was—a homing return—a typical drunkard's fail-safe. Press the button, and no matter where you were in the universe, the shuttle would autopilot itself back to the source of the signal—in this case, this house.
Thune's lair.
It was lazy, but effective. If they could flip the signal, maybe even jam it, they might be able to reverse-engineer the direction and fly the hell away from here instead. Or if not, he could still pilot it into space where they could call the Mother Ship.
If they found the key.
Burn grunted and went back to work, opening compartments, feeling along the inside edges of the seats, even pulling out the filthy rug in the cargo hold. Nothing. Not a single fucking thing.
Where the fuck do you keep your key, you triple-faced bastard?
He thought about the Trollox—big and stupid but also sly. Someone like that probably carried the key on him. Either that or he kept it close enough to protect. In his bedroom, maybe? On a chain around one of his throats?
Gods, if it’s under his pillow I swear I’ll slit all three of his fucking necks in his sleep and take it, Burn thought to himself.
But the main thing was, it wasn’t here.
Burn exhaled, closing the cargo bay and stepping out of the shuttle. The air in the bay was thick with heat and stink, clinging to his skin. Sweat rolled down his spine, making his trousers stick to him uncomfortably.
They were still too tight in the crotch, rubbing every time he crouched. The fabric didn’t stretch enough for a Kindred his size. He adjusted himself with a muttered curse.
Another fucking thing to fix.
His mind flickered back, unbidden, to the night before.
Noelle spread out like a goddess in heat, her soft body trembling beneath his mouth.
The taste of her still lingered on his tongue—salt and sweetness and something more, something that made everything they’d done together so much more meaningful.
He and Bright hadn’t just pleasured her—they’d healed her. Made her whole.
I want to do it again.
The thought came unbidden, fierce and raw.
Gods, I want to taste her again. I want to be inside her. I want to make her come so hard she forgets her own name!
But most of all, he wanted to share her with Bright.
Burn scrubbed a hand over his face.
Stop it. Get your fucking head on straight—you don’t have time for fantasies.
They weren’t out of danger yet—not by a long shot. And they wouldn’t be until they got the fuck away from here.
He looked back at the shuttle.
They were so close. If they could just find the key, they had a chance. A real chance to leave this hellhole, take Noelle with them, and get to safety.
He just had to be patient.
Burn exhaled again, slow and controlled, then turned and stalked back toward the main house.
They would find that key. It wasn’t here, but it had to be somewhere. They wouldn’t stop looking until they found it.