Inherit the Stars (6 page)

Seul loathed meeting any humans on the enemy vessel. Their darker skin and body hair were grotesque, and she abhorred their lack of cleanliness. She'd met friendly ones in the merchant lanes around Tejuit, but their mangling of Meh Sattan had tortured her ears.

After shouldering a beam rifle, Seul joined her squad in the airlock bay. One by one they boarded an assault shuttle and locked their armor into standing positions within deployment tubes. Kael and a female navigator reclined in the cockpit's elasticized seats, system tubes protruding from their cryoports.

“Troopers loaded. Stand by.” Kael gave Seul a slight smile.

The navigator disengaged the artificial gravity; then the shuttle exited
Aldaar
and sped toward the human vessel. Seul clenched her abdominal muscles to prevent nausea.

“Bring us alongside and magnetize our airlock with theirs,” Seul said. “Point One, set your rifle to a fine cutting beam. Point Two, follow me with Flank Three and Four. Use your blades; no rifle fire. Auxiliaries Five through Eight, wait here for orders.”

A pop, followed by a resounding clang, heralded the coupling of their airlock with the human one. Each Trooper's deployment tube released them as false gravity activated.

“The human beacon is sending out strong signals, Captain Jaah,” Kael said. “Sarrhdtuu signals.”

Seul frowned. “It could be advertising itself beyond this small star system. Perhaps we'll discover more information aboard. Point One, on my mark.”

She stepped aside as the Trooper lowered his beam rifle. Once the shuttle's airlock slid open, the human vessel's own airlock doors greeted them. Small dents and tears pocked its surface.

“Mark.” Seul drew her polymer shortsword.

Point One cut into the airlock with the rifle's concentrated green beam. In the small space between the ships, slag cooled and hardened as soon as it peeled away from the incision.

“Go.” At Seul's command, Point One kicked aside the locking mechanism. The human doors slid open. Seul jumped through, sword raised. The other Troopers followed.

Bluish-white running lights activated along the floors. Seul's polyboots magnetized, and she clanked across the floor. Her squad discovered a hammock, some battered polyarmor, and placards of seminude humans. What ugly, hairy bodies. Ascali claw graffiti and glue-pen chits marked the walls. Grime coated the shadowed, unused corners. The bridge had only one seat and a gyro harness.

“Jaah to
Aldaar
: human vessel is secured, and could belong to a salvager. No one aboard. Kael, take the shuttle and scout Vstrunn's exosphere.”

“Acknowledged, Captain Jaah,” Kael's voice came back over her helmet speaker. The shuttle demagnetized from the airlock and flew just above Vstrunn's horizon. Seul released a tense breath.

“Squad, take positions flanking the airlock.” Seul knelt in a firing position near the hammock. On the wall, the creased placard of a human man and a young human girl with golden red hair caught her attention. The girl's smile stirred Seul's heart.

She touched the picture, wondering what her own daughter looked like now. But everything she did contributed to the return of the Vim and the safety of all Aldaakian children. Seul kept telling herself that, though her heart swelled the longer she stared at the placard.

A jagged stalagmite ripped the left sleeve on Kivita's envirosuit. She caught her breath, but her lungs demanded more. The mesa where she'd landed loomed closer, but she was even nearer to asphyxiating. Her muscles ached as if she'd been beaten by a crazed Proselyte.

Crystal shards slid down a slope on her right. Kivita pulled herself up by grasping the stalagmite. It sliced through the palms of her gloves. The envirosuit's inner layer strangled her, guarding against chill and hydrogen seepage. Her faceplate fogged over as more carbon dioxide than oxygen floated around her cheeks.

A hulking shadow cast itself over her from the crest of the slope.

As the Wraith Star set over the horizon, it revealed a figure with bulges around its arms and legs, and a bubble-shaped head. The Kith had followed her after all. As she tried to focus on what to do, her scalp tingled.

Kivita flinched as coordinates for unknown systems in the Terresin Expanse flooded her mind. Ever since touching the Juxj Star, she'd no control over what entered her thoughts. No doubt her slow suffocation contributed to these hallucinations.

The figure stood over her and extended its arms. A final ray of sunset illuminated the face beneath the tinted faceplate: dark curls above a square, swarthy jaw. Kivita laughed, no longer caring that she wasted valuable air in doing so.

“Sar?” She laughed again, then choked as her lungs rejected the excess carbon dioxide.

Firm hands lifted Kivita to her feet, and she leaned, gasping, against the body. She wobbled toward the ground. A second set of hands caught her. The ruby, sapphire, and violet landscape tossed in her sight. Sometimes it blurred into the faces of people she'd known: her father, with his trimmed mustache and adventurous brown eyes. Marsque, who'd watched her grow up between her light-year journeys.

Sar, who'd made love to her in a sweaty, cramped hammock.

For a time it seemed she floated over Vstrunn. Crystal spires pierced the night sky, where thousands of faraway stars tempted her with a new flood of coordinates, light-year distances, and unnamed star systems. Up she went, closer to the sky, closer to the hydrogen gas bands high overhead. The mesa's flat surface dragged under her feet, and Kivita's flesh chilled, as if she rested in cryostasis. The faceplate fogged with hydrogen frost on the outside. Kivita wanted to laugh again, but her lungs constricted.

Something banged behind her. A humming filled her body. Her ears popped, making her groan. Fingers forced her mouth open; then a mask covered her face.

Strength surged in Kivita's limbs. Somebody thought they could steal her salvage? Her fist connected with something hard and smooth; then her foot kicked a slim object.

Voices roared in her ears. Her lungs expanded so much her chest hurt. Kivita sucked in delicious, fresh air. Clasping the mask with both hands, she breathed deep.

“Are you well, Sar?” a musical, feminine voice asked.

“I'll live. Told you to stay on
Frevyx
.” Sar's Freen accent, with its overemphasis on the vowels, churned in her ears as if someone poured water into them.

“Humans are certainly stubborn,” the female voice said.

Kivita's eyes snapped open, and she tried, muscles protesting, to sit up. All she managed was a graceless squirm on the floor. Navy blue bulkheads surrounded her. The scent of hibiscus and jiir plants replaced the stale carbon aromas she'd sniffed for hours. Normal gravity blessed her with a freedom she'd never thought to feel again.

An Ascali female leaned over her, studying Kivita with wide russet eyes. A luxurious dark brown mane flowed over the shoulders of her envirosuit. “Can you truly hear me, Kivita Vondir? No, certainly do not stop using the oxygen mask yet.” Her Meh Sattan was more song than speech.

Kivita sucked in one last breath and cast the mask aside. “I'm . . . Oh, shit. I'm . . . fine now. But what—?” She stopped as Sar rose nearby, rubbing his right shin. Blood ran from his busted lip.

Her mouth went dry as heartbeats pounded against her shivering chest. Her stomach fluttered.

“You still have good aim with those hands and feet, sweetness.” Sar removed his envirosuit. “Still need more high-G training.”

His chastising tone kindled an eager fire within her. She wanted to kill him for so many reasons.

“Asshole.” She rose to her knees. Every muscle in her
body burned, and her damp hair clung to both cheeks. The flutters in her stomach turned to icy nausea. “You saved me out there?”

“Lucky I got to you in time. Real stupid of you, Kiv.” Sar didn't look at her, but his nostrils flared.

“I learned from the best, didn't I?” As her mind cleared, Kivita thought she recognized the Ascali from the Rector's Compound. “What the hell are you two doing here? Dunaar will be pissed.”

The Ascali yanked Kivita to her feet and pushed her against the bulkhead. “I am Cheseia. Sar and I tracked you here to Vstrunn. I truly do not serve Dunaar. We mercifully rescued you, so truly show some respect!”

Sar frowned at Cheseia. “Set her down.”

He and the Ascali shared a long, tense look. Finally, Cheseia's glower gave way to an apologetic sulk. Something passed between them. Kivita's nausea punched her in the gut. Oh, no way. This couldn't be happening. An intimacy lay between Sar and this Ascali. Furious heat rose in Kivita's cheeks.

“Yeah? Thanks. Now, why'd you trail me all the way out here?” A chill washed over her skin as Kivita shook off Cheseia's loosened grip. They knew about her mission! “I . . . didn't find the Juxj Star.”

Sar hung up the suit, his gray bodyglove tight in all the right places. “Kiv, I see the bulge in your pouch.” He tugged off her envirosuit.

“Hey, damn it!” Kivita couldn't protest much, since it took all her strength to remain standing. She did manage to wrest the pouch free.

Sar peeled the suit and its clinging inner layer down to her ankles. Her sweat-soaked bodyglove made her self-conscious in an instant.

“The crystal did not truly rupture the lining. That is most assuredly good. Did you see any Kith?” Cheseia asked, slipping from her envirosuit. Short brown fur covered her muscular curves, and only a breechcloth covered her crotch. Sar had always worked alone in the past, not with breathtaking, half-naked Ascali women.

Kivita kicked away the ruined suit and backed away from them. The pouch weighed her down as if she held a hundred pounds of copper. “At least five or six— Hell, I don't remember. Who hired you?”

Sar sighed. “Kiv, Rector Thev said you contracted for the Aldaakians. Said he wanted you returned safely. He must want the Juxj Star bad. Can't let the Inheritors have it for that reason alone.”

“What the hell? The Rector contracted me, not the Aldaakians! If you try to rob me, you risk expulsion under the Inheritor Charter,” Kivita said.

Cheseia's biceps flexed. “You must certainly bargain with us.” Her eyes begged Kivita not to bargain.

“You'd be helping others, Kiv. Name your price.” Sar crossed his arms.

“Same old story, huh?” Kivita gave a mock laugh. “Yeah, that's the kind of talk you gave me over Gontalo. Well, don't stick your nose into my life, asshole. This is my salvage.”

“And you almost got yourself killed for it. I'll double whatever Dunaar offered.”

Kivita eased toward the bridge. Maybe she could seal it off from them, then fly the ship herself—if she were quick enough. “The high-and-mighty Rector himself promised six fusion energy dumps and a nav upgrade. He already gave me a cargo bay filled with foodstuffs. No way you can top all that.”

Shoving past Kivita, Cheseia blocked the path to the bridge. “Enough of her stalling. Sar, let us surely take the gem and quickly leave her . . . in her ship.”

Sar stretched his right leg where she'd kicked him. Neither of them made a threatening move, but Kivita knew they wouldn't let her take the Juxj Star back to Haldon Prime. Had Sar lowered himself to stealing other's salvages?

“No, Cheseia,” Sar said. “Kiv, you really think Dunaar will pay that much? Soon as you return and hand it over, you'll be quartered in Judgment Square for heresy.”

“Oh, and I should trust you?” Kivita tried to maintain her tough demeanor, but they had saved her life. It didn't mean they controlled it, though. “So, how much? Those secret allies you always whispered about got deep pockets?”

Cheseia's eyebrows rose. “You definitely never said you had mentioned that to her.”

“Yeah, he's great at keeping secrets. Better get used to it.” Kivita wanted to rub his face in something, anything. Anything to make him pay for how much she'd missed and wanted him since their parting.

Sar ran a hand through his sweaty curls. “We're wasting time. Aldaakians might be around, and Kith ready to pound that airlock in. We'll discuss this in orbit. Strap yourselves in.” He sat in the pilot's seat and buckled his restraints.

“So, that's it? I'm not your prisoner, and I'm not—”

The throttle of
Frevyx
's engines drowned out Kivita's words. Her jaw tensed and she glared at Cheseia. Oh, how she'd like to punch her.

Kivita buckled herself to a bench outside the bridge.
Though she felt foolish in doing so, she clutched the pouch to her chest. It was just a Vim datacore. Sar could have it if he trumped Dunaar's offer, but her reputation in Inheritor Space had grown. She needed it, had worked too hard for it.

She sure as hell didn't need him.

Cheseia sat beside her and strapped in. She pushed the mane from her face and held it back with a jiir leaf headdress. The blue glasslike leaves from Sygma reflected Kivita's haggard, pale face back at her.

“Sar said I should be extremely patient with you. Extremely.” Cheseia studied Kivita like garbage she wanted to toss out the airlock.

“Yeah? That's sweet of you. Doing just what he says, like a good little girl. Sar? Dock with
Terredyn Narbas
. I mean it.” Her voice didn't sound as tough as she wanted it to.

Frevyx
shook as it lifted from Vstrunn's surface. The clicks and pops of burnt crystals singed by the ship's thrusters reached Kivita's ears. She breathed even easier than before, and downed a mixture Cheseia handed her. It tasted sweet but clung to her mouth.

“What's this?”

Cheseia grinned without humor. “Bellerion wood-snake milk. Sar claimed you would certainly need it after we rescued you.”

Kivita pursed her lips to spit it out, but Cheseia's scornful stare made her finish it. “So, you live on board
Frevyx
with him, right? Thought nobody kept Ascali slaves since feudal times. Do you give him baths, too?”

She hated the words as soon as she spoke them. An awful, silent moment dragged by.

As she gripped Kivita's bench restraints, Cheseia's
nose almost touched hers. “You are thinking I am probably a beast? Less than you? I could crush you terribly, but I do not. Your prickly tongue makes you the beast.”

Cold shame doused the jealousy, suspicion, and anger growing inside Kivita. A new wave of weakness made her go limp in her seat restraints. “Damn it, I didn't mean that. I just wasn't expecting . . . you know.”

Cheseia released Kivita, her gaze far away. “You have surely been through much. We all have.”

Kivita shot her a look. “Yeah. Lots of things seem strange right now.”

Frevyx
neared the fringes of the planet's atmosphere, and the cabin trembled with the last vestiges of turbulence. Sar remained cool and calm on the bridge. Kivita eyed his back, the way he sat composed and certain, how he gripped the manuals. Such a serious man, but she knew a heart beat deep inside him. Why should she care now, though?

“I do not wish enmity between us,” Cheseia whispered. “It is not the Ascali way. What you hold in your hand may change the Cetturo Arm greatly. Ponder that deeply, before you choose profit over benevolence.”

Kivita didn't look at Cheseia as the bridge viewport filled with stars. “Yeah. We'll see. Right now I just want to get back on
Terredyn Narbas
.”