Celestial Beauty (2 page)

This ship was different from her captors’ wrecked
ship, bigger, and could pose more of a threat to her than anything on this
alien swamp planet.

She sat back against the red rock chewing on her
bottom lip as she contemplated what the newcomers could possibly want. She
glanced back into her cave home, at the supplies she’d gleaned from her ex-captors’
ship. Her chest ached as guilt swamped her, and she swung her gaze down the
slope towards the broken ship, and the graves she’d dug.

Why had she survived when everyone else perished? The
constant guilt never lifted. It was fitting punishment she was alone. Even
still, the human instinct to fight for survival was strong.

She glanced back at her food supplies, guessing they
would last her another day, two, tops. She would be forced to hunt, or find
what was edible before she starved to death. She’d need to draw on her
knowledge of everything she’d learned in the past few weeks of being on this
planet. Her life hung in the balance, but her luck wouldn’t last forever.

She watched the ship set down with a loud
fawamp
on one of the higher hills,
billowing up a dust cloud around its landing spot, just above the swamp area.
She noted she was now almost right in between the newcomers and the wreckage of
the crashed ship. Its engines whined and spluttered before it slowly died,
leaving only the dust clouds billowing from the force of its abrupt landing.

Humm, ship
troubles, maybe
? The possibility flashed
through her mind that they weren’t here to find or capture her. She turned and
crawled back into her cave, gathering the clothes and alien weapons that through
trial and error she had taught herself to use. She decided it was best she stay
hidden and simply observe until she knew exactly what kind of creatures she was
dealing with.

****

Zeb grit his teeth as every bone in his body shook as
the ship finally set down, harder than he’d anticipated.

“
Welcome to our new home for the next few weeks.” Loc
smiled. With a cheerful grin, he unbuckled himself and shoved to his feet,
moving over to sit next to Kue, who was still pressing at the controls. “I’ll
leave auxiliary power running for basic functions, food, and bathing. Oh, and
while we’re here we might as well do a clean out of the external thrusters.”
Loc glanced at his older brother with a smirk.

Raz groaned. “Fuck the Ice Plains, do I have to?”

“
Kue and I will be working to recalibrate every sensor
on the ship, so yes, we’ll help as soon as that job is done.”

“
It’s a Jorval ship!” Kue’s head snapped up, glancing
at each of his brothers.

“
Really? They’re not known for crashing, and they
always retrieve their own ships.” Zeb pushed out of his command chair, moving
to stand over Kue’s shoulder, staring down at data read-out.

“
They also have technology our government and many
other planets have been trying to get a hold of for years,” Raz noted. “But
what were they doing so far out here?”

Kue shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine, unless…”

Zeb didn’t miss the concern flickering in his
brother’s eyes. He felt it as well. It was hard to miss all the news reports
from their home planet. More than a dozen human women now lived on Galafarax,
and all had been rescued from Jorval slave traders.

“
With the new agreement signed, Jorvals are no longer
permitted to abduct human females and sell them, and they are protected under
our laws,” Raz said, moving from his own seat.

“
You really think a treaty will stop them from doing it
and taking the trade underground? Jorvals value profit over laws.” Loc shook
his head. “Greedy self-serving fuckers.”

“
Not every species can be as perfect as I am.” Raz
shrugged with a smug smile. All three of his brothers rolled their eyes.

“
From the scans, I am sure this wreckage is more than a
few days o
ld
, so I seriously doubt there would be survivors.” Enraged at the poor
treatment all those precious and delicate human females had suffered, before being
rescued by their race, Zeb stood up straighter. If the Jorval had been on an
abduction mission, any human women, due to their fragile structures, no doubt
perished when the ship crashed.

“
Let’s get this over with. We’ve got a lot of work to
do.” Zeb nodded, hardening his resolve, just as he had several years ago. The
thought of any kind of female dredged up old painful memories. Zeb shoved them
back down. Never would he let a female do to them what
she
had done. He never wanted another
she
raz
. Her betrayal had left a deep scar in their hearts
and minds. “We’ll go and scout the Jorval ship before starting on the external
thrusters. If all goes to plan, this set down could turn out to be very
profitable indeed.” Zeb tapped at the screen bringing up an image of the
wrecked Jorval ship.

“
Enough to get us a new damn ship I hope. While you’re
out there see if the Jorval ship has a
Reisin
coupling, as otherwise we’ll be here a lot longer while I try to make one.” Loc
waved dismissively before disappearing through the door, no doubt his head
already lost in the work he had to do.

“
Okay then.” Raz rubbed his hands together. “Hip
cannons I think, who know what dangers lurk out there.”

Zeb rolled his eyes. “And since when has that ever
stopped us?”

A gleaming shone in Raz’s gaze at the prospect of a
bit of danger and adventure. Zeb already knew the answer to his question.

Nothing ever.

****

Raz’s keen eye surveyed the area round them, but there
was nothing he could spot or pinpoint. Retirement from the Demos army hadn’t
dulled his senses in the slightest. He glanced in silent communication with
Zeb, who walked beside him as they made their way down the slope of the glassy
highlands and into the swamp, heading towards the Jorval wreckage. Raz knew Zeb
felt it, too, the acute awareness of being watched.

Zeb nodded, and they continued. “Native do you think?”

“
Was nothing on the sensors to suggest there was
intelligent life dwelling here?” Raz placed his hand over the top of his blade,
his senses alert for any threats. Life in the Demos’s Special Forces had taught
them not to jump too quickly, unless immediately necessary.

“
Stay alert.”

“
Yes, oh mighty commander.” Raz’s tone mocked, but Zeb
didn’t have to tell him what was needed. Once a commander—always a commander.
Zeb was eldest of their brothers, accustomed to being in control and leading
them.

Raz followed Zeb as he picked his way through the
swamp, before stepping up, out of the murky water. The Jorval craft was half
embedded in an embankment.

Side by side, they stared down at the ground a foot
from their position. “I’m now starting to suspect a survivor,” Zeb said, as
they both surveyed several mounds piled neatly with rocks. Clearly someone had
buried the dead. Zeb pulled a bio scanner from his pocket standing at the foot
of the first pile. “Three Jorval remains.” He moved to the next, and the
scanner beeped. “Three unknown species.”

“
What do you think this means?” Raz moved in closer to
examine the pieces of salvaged metal roughly tied together, forming a cross at
the top of each unknown graves.

“
It means something to the one who buried them. These
grave indicate someone with a sense of empathy, but I have no idea the meaning
of these cross
es
.” Zeb pocketed his scanner and headed towards the ship.

“
Either that or they did it so not to attract
predators,” Raz added as an afterthought.

Empathy and intelligence. Raz pulled his own scanner
out and studied the readings. “Do we have the current patches to our scanners
with the new species data?”

“
No,” Zeb called, almost at the broken back section of
the Jorval ship, which lay on its side. The whole underbelly had been ripped
open.

“
So our scanners couldn’t tell if the unidentified
species was a human?”

Zeb paused, turning back to face Raz. “Two ways to
find out, check the Jorval logs or…” Zeb nodded towards the mounds.

Zeb knew Raz wouldn’t want to dig up the burial
mounds, nor did he. Zeb turned his attention to the Jorval ship. Zeb had
vanished around the aft side. He needed to find the Jorvals data logs to tell
them where they’d been and what they’d done.

Ignoring the lingering sensation of being watched, Raz
rose to his feet and hurried after his brother.

Chapter Two

Red men? Celeste set down the zoom goggles. They
looked tall, at a guess, over six-five. Extremely handsome with clean cut,
symmetrical faces, full lips, and aquiline noses. Their bodies were built
strong. Their black tops did nothing to hide the well-defined shoulder and arm
muscles. One’s black hair hung longer than the other’s, but she could clearly
see they were identical twins.

An air of lethal danger hung about them, with weapons
strapped to their belts, as they looked around with gleaming intelligent,
golden eyes. They stopped and appeared to run some sort of device over the
graves she’d dug. Yes, she’d even buried her abductors, not wanting anything
left to attract any kind of planet scavengers. Plus, it was the right thing to
do, even if she’d been the cause of their deaths.

The one with the longer hair stopped to lift his gaze
and glance around. Celeste held her breath as his gaze passed right over her.
If he’d spotted her then he showed no sign of it, and he moved after his twin
disappearing torn open gaping underbelly of the wrecked ship.

She picked up her alien goggles again and looked back
at their huge ship. Were there others like those two? Indecision filled her.
Would they harm her if she revealed herself? Could she go on living on this
planet alone?

They vanished into the ship for a long time, before
remerging, talking to each other. The one with the longer hair pulled something
from a pocket on his pants, ripped open some packaging, and took a large bite.

Celeste’s stomach growled at the sight of the red man
eating what could have passed for a chocolate bar. They had food, and she
needed food. New possibilities emerged in her mind. Maybe she could persuade
one of them to give her food? Together they were more dangerous than apart.
Find out why they are here and if all else
fails?
She’d simply cut and run, hide until they left.

Nothing much left to lose and she needed to survive,
didn’t she?

She checked her mixed patched clothing and her
makeshift belt, lifting what she’d learned was some kind of alien tranq gun.
She had lots of stuff she’d pulled from the ship to the cave trying to figure
out what they were and what they did. So far this one had come in most handy,
keeping her safe from this planet’s more dangerous creatures, and it looked
like it would again as a plan formed in her mind.

****

“
Good news.” Raz shoved at Loc’s leg. Their brilliant
engineer and mechanically minded brother was flat on his back under the
panelling on the bridge, and Kue was on the other side, where the high pitched
whine of the calibrator flicking on and off could be heard. “The Jorval ship
has a shiny
Reisin
coupling.”

Loc pulled out from under the panel to stare up at
Raz. “So where is it? I swear by all we hold holy—”

“
Still on the ship,” Zeb interrupted. “We’ll get the
laser cutter and head back out. There wasn’t enough power to retrieve the
Jorvals’ records.” Zeb waved the little chip in his hand.

“
I’ll have to wait for a few more hours until I can get
this part done.”

Raz and Zeb looked at each other and knew there was
something else going on. “What is it?”

“
There is something else out there, hard to miss the
feeling of being watched.” Raz flopped down on his chair. “Are the food
modulators working at least? I’m starved.”

Everyone ignored Raz. “There were burial mounds.
Someone or something buried them, and that someone or something is watching
us.”

Loc’s sigh was one of taxed patience. “I’ll get the
main scanners running within the hour, and then we can scan for other life
forms.”

“
Ah, but we need to update our alien species database,
too. Three of the dead were unknowns.”

Loc scowled at Raz’s comment. “We can’t do that until
I have the long range comms working again. I can only do so much. I said this
is going to take days to repair. And since when are you two scared of eyes?”

Loc hid his grin at Zeb’s annoyed growl.

“
I’ve got my hope set on a malfunctioning sex droid running
around.” Raz jumped from the chair. “Come on, commander. You can go scouting
while I get the coupling. Demos up, big brother.”

Yeah, they all wanted to beat on Raz at times, but he
always got the job done. “The sooner I get the coupling the sooner you can
start on the outer thrusters.”

Raz groaned.

“
You heard him.” Zeb smirked at Raz. Zeb was getting
far too much enjoyment out of tormenting Raz. “We’ve got work to do, and I’ve
got a mystery to solve.”

Raz took it all in stride. “I think we need to get out
of the scrap business and follow big brother’s lead into mystery solving across
the galaxy.”

Loc again rolled his eyes as Zeb shoved Raz towards
the door. Loc turned back towards his work. “I’ll give you one fucking mystery
to solve,” Zeb grumbled. “When you wake up, you can solve the mystery of which
one of us knocked you out for being an idiot.”

Raz’s laughter echoed through the ship as they again
headed out.

****

Zeb thumped the Jorval control panel. There was no
power in any of the systems. He pulled his portable power supply and attached
it to the controls, and it lit up. Quickly, he found their travel records and
downloaded it before searching for that elusive piece of technology the Jorvals
guarded. It was a mystery how the Jorval came up with such an advanced piece of
tech, which allowed them to fold space and head into other galaxies, far beyond
their own. One such galaxy contained the planet in which those human females
had come from, and it made Jeb wonder what else the Jorval had been up to. Yes,
they were the
Hellious Galaxy
’s main
traders, but no one knew a lot about who they really were other than greedy,
self-serving thieves. But the galaxy was filled with similar creatures,
self-serving and deeply cruel. He and his brothers had seen some of the very
worst of the
Hellious Galaxy
, as
their old job sent them to sort out the worst of them, and it had left Zeb
feeling more than a little jaded and pondering if there was any goodness out
there at all.

The panel beeped demanding access codes, and he tapped
the power supply pack and sent a simple jolt through the system to short out
and override the internal security. He half smiled as the data flowed into the
chip, also pinpointing where in the ship that elusive piece of tech was kept.
If the Demos could control this technology it would help in their efforts to
put a stop to Jorval interspecies slave trading.

Something clanked just outside the ship. Instantly
alert, Zeb moved back through the bridge to the big open hole of twisted and
torn metal. The high whine of the laser cutter started up, telling Zeb Raz was
busy with his job. The ground was soft under his black boots, and he noticed
someone had scraped an arrow. Not subtle. If whoever was out there was playing
games, Zeb would soon put a stop to it. He unsheathed his blade, keeping it low
and un-threatening as possible, deciding to take the bait and followed the
arrow.

“
Show yourself. Do not play games, or it will not end
well for you.” He moved up the hill towards an outcropping of tall rocks. He
glanced around, noticing a piece of yellow cloth sitting on one of the knee
high boulders to his right. He moved over and picked it up, examining it. He
realized too late that it was a distraction, which cost him.

Zeb spun at the sharp sting in his neck. His hand
gripping and yanking out an object, he registered the markings of a Jorval
neutralizer dart. Fuck an Ice Demon, not only was he getting old, but too
fucking slow. They’d sprung the trap faster than he thought they would.

There was no way to stop the drug invading his system.
His knife clattered against the rocky earth. The drug acted fast, his knees
buckling under him sending his bulk crashing to the ground. He tipped sideways
as he battled against the sluggish effect. He blinked rapidly, as a figure
moved into his line of sight.
Am I
hallucinating?
A pair of pale skinned, rather delicate feet came into his
dimming vision, and he glanced up to see a pair of the most beautiful pale blue
eyes, staring down.

“
You know the bigger they are, the harder they fall…” a
soft feminine voice said, but his vision was too blurred to make her out
properly.

Female.

Fuck, I always
knew a female would be the one to bring me down
.

He blacked out.

****

Instant regret flooded Celeste, her hands shaking as
she lowered the alien tranq gun. The technology had saved her life, so she
always kept it on her belt. A week back, while exploring more of the land
around her, she’d been attacked by a huge, half furry, half scaled lizard
beast. Knocking it out she’d run back to the safety of her cave shelter.

She was no one’s dinner or slave for that matter. She
gazed down at the big red man, and she picked up his huge knife glancing over
the delicate scrollwork on the handle. It was a beautiful blade. She shook her
head. It was sensible to be armed out here. She was the least of the dangers
running around on this fucked up planet. She slipped the blade into her
makeshift belt, before crouching down and moving carefully closer, in case he
was playing possum.

Fuck, he was going to be one big pissed off alien once
he woke up. No doubt his twin brother would be, too, when he realized something
was wrong and came after her.

You’ve done it
again, you idiot!
Throwing her head
back she cursed the sky.
Why don’t I ever
learn? Leave him and run.

It was one of the better thoughts she’d had today.
Instead, she lifted her trembling hand and placed her fingers against his
throat. Heat seared though her finger, tingling up her arm. She ignored it,
hoping his similarities to humans were more than on the surface. Heaving a sigh
of relief at the feel of his strong pulse she removed her hand. She stared at
his clean cut, handsome face, relaxed in his unconscious state. He was more
handsome up close, and his black eyelashes were full against the high angle of
his cheekbones. Her gaze moved to his full, sensual lips. She bet these twins
were a hit on a lot by their women on whatever planet they were from.

Figures.
Finding the most attractive man she’d ever seen and
she’d knocked him out. She shook her head.
Don’t
let his looks fool you. He’s a dangerous alien, so better him than me.
It
wasn’t hard to miss the way he and his brother had moved with lethal grace
across the marshland, prowling with awareness in their every step as they’d
headed back towards her crashed ship. No doubt aware they were being watched,
by the way they kept scanning their surroundings. She was half surprised he’d
fallen for her little setup. She guessed her success was due to the fact she
had used some of her torn clothing to distract him. She’d kept hidden until the
last second, quickly aiming at his thick neck. Scared out her mind, she’d felt
she had no choice but to strike first and bring the big red man down.
Right, pat him down and tie him up. Safety
first.

****