Marauder Kain: Scifi Alien Invasion Romance (Mating Wars Book 5) (5 page)

Then I look down at the pack of gruel. It’s broken apart, and gruel is all over the floor.

“That gross food is all over my back, Kara,” she says. “You should have let me freeze to death!”

“Stop being a baby,” I say. “Once we are on Darkstar, getting some gruel on you will seem like nothing.”

Felicia collapses onto the acceleration couch and glares at me. “If you’re going to be optimistic, at least do it in a way that isn’t totally insufferable. At least cheer me up!”

“If we survive and escape,” I say, “we’ll be the first humans to ever come back from Darkstar alive….”

I trail off, realizing that’s even worse than my last attempt.

“Never mind,” I say.

I open my gruel packet, and a straw pops out the top. “Oh, you’re supposed to...drink it.”

“Gross,” Felicia says.

“Do you want some?” I ask.

“No, I’ve got plenty all over my back and ass. It’s staining the couch, and I’ll smell it for the whole trip.”

I take a sip. It’s awful. “Okay, it tastes pretty good though, so let me know if you change your mind.”

O
nce the initial
engine burns die down, I get up out of the chair and start to acclimate myself to the higher gravity. It’s slightly difficult to stand up, as I’ve been on planets with Earth-like gravity– Atlantis and Venus– for over a year.

“You got spoiled by the gravity on Atlantis?” Senka asks me, laughing.

I start doing body squats, getting all my muscles used to it.

“Yeah,” I say. “Spoiled. It’s so fucking cold on Atlantis that you have to walk around with a hard-on the whole time, otherwise your dick will fall off.”

Senka and Raius both laugh. “No shit?”

“No shit,” I say.

“Darkstar’s cold,” Senka says.

“Yeah,” I say, “but the suits you wear and the insulated and heated buildings are not.”

“True,” Senka says.

“You’ll want to give your brother a full report as soon as we land,” Raius says. “He’ll need to know as much as possible about Atlantis, including what was in all those books your father took with him.”

My brother? Why would I have to tell Adus
anything
? He’s been imprisoned since I was a boy.

“You mean Adus?” I ask.

“You got another brother I don’t know about?” Raius asks.

“Shit,” Senka says. “He doesn’t know, he’s been gone too long.”

I grit my teeth. “Fucking tell me.”

“Adus runs the show now,” Senka says. “Do you really think those old fogeys in High Command gave the order to obliterate Earth?”

When I was on Atlantis, our mission was simply to turn it into a staging area. We were to recruit and bring as many Seraphim as possible to Atlantis, and from there we would leave. At the last minute, High Command issued an order to backstab Harmony and blow Earth to pieces with antimatter. This order– and my father’s willingness to follow it– is what made me betray Darkstar in the first place.

And it was my own brother who gave the order.

“How did Adus go from prisoner to High Commander?” I ask.

“Someone’s jealous,” Senka says, laughing.

“He broke out,” Raius says. “He broke
all
the prisoners out.”

“And a bunch of unarmed prisoners took out High Command?” I ask.

Raius turns to face me. “Adus had begun to spread his message through the guards and up through Darkstar society. He’d not only turned all the prisoners, but many high-ranking Marauders, as well. As soon as he was out, his coup was given full access to the armory….”

“Shit,” I whisper.

Raius narrows his eyes at me. “He still speaks highly of you, Kain. You’ll likely come out of this situation favorably.”

Senka shakes his head. “Lucky bastard.”

* * *

“
I
’m
gonna go check on the prisoners,” Senka says. “See if they’re, uh, horny–”

My chest burns with anger, and I clench my fists. I don’t want to blow my cover, but if Senka does what I think he’s going to, I will risk everything to stop him.

“No,” Raius says. “I don’t trust you.”

“Come on!” Senka says, “No one will give a shit–”

“Kain,” Raius says, “Go check on them.”

I sigh in relief, but the anger doesn’t die all the way down. I want Senka’s head on a stick.

“Fine,” I say, walking out of the cockpit.

The door shuts behind me, and I take a few moments to collect myself.

Senka is an idiot. He’s driven almost purely by base instinct, and there’s almost no higher-level thinking from him. Raius, on the other hand, is cool and calculating. He acts like he trusts me, but his near total lack of suspicion is unsettling. Why, for example, would he care enough to stop Senka from checking on Kara and Felicia, and send me instead?

They don’t
need
to be checked on. They have food and water, and the computer will alert us if there are any abnormalities in their vitals.

I have to assume that Raius is giving me a lot of rope with which to hang myself. He probably is going to be watching my interactions with them, looking for signs that I am no longer loyal to Darkstar. The operation on Atlantis involved dozens of Marauders and scores of Seraphim; and even if Raius wanted to trust me, the fact that I’m the lone survivor and that I came back after almost a full year, is inherently suspicious.

I reach the room Kara and Felicia are being held in, and I steel myself before opening the door.

As soon as the door opens, I affix my angriest scowl.

They both look up at me with wide eyes, but I shout before they can say a word.

“Stand up!”

“Kai–” Kara starts.

“Up! Woman!”

She gives me a shocked expression, but then I see understanding creep across her face.

They both struggle to stand up.

“Are you really so weak?” I snap.

“We’ve been mining in microgravity for years,” Felicia says. “Even Earth would be difficult for us.”

I speak into my recorder, “The human females are weak and cannot quickly adapt to variations in gravity. They will need exosuits to make it on Darkstar.”

Kara starts to talk into her bare wrist in a voice mimicking mine. “The Marauder male is a dumb asshole piece of shit who sees a rescue beacon as an excuse to kidnap people.”

“Quiet!” I snap. “Is the food sufficient?”

“The gruel?” she asks. “It tastes like cardboard.”

“It has all the caloric content and nutrients necessary to keep you alive. It was engineered to taste bad.”

“Wonderful,” Felicia says.

I can see they are both sweating from having to stand.

“Any requests?” I ask.

They both stare at me, tight-lipped.

I speak into the recorder again. “Final report: the human females are healthy. They will make it on Darkstar with exosuit therapy. They have had limited contact with major human settlements, though they may be able to provide us with certain information about conditions on Mars.”

Kara is narrowing her eyes at me. It kills me to see her suffering like this. Her eyes should always be happy and full of joy– they should never look like this. Raius and Senka have not given me anything to work with. I’d need to kill them both to turn the ship around, but I don’t have so much as a blade. Even if I had a plasma rifle and snuck up on them while they slept, their biosuits would kill me before I could even pull the trigger.

“My brother will decide what to do with you,” I say, in a gloating voice. “He’s become High Commander in my absence, and he has no love for humans.”

Their mouths drop open, and their eyes widen.

“I’ll have a place at his side,” I say. “So don’t cross me.”

The corners of Kara’s mouth go up, but she bites her lip to kill the smile.

I nod, and turn away.

At least I gave them something. They now know I have an in with High Command. They know they have some kind of chance.

W
e become weightless again
as the ship begins docking with the Marauder’s High Command ship. I know from the history books that the original ships from the Marauder fleet– the ships that can travel at a fraction of the speed of light between stars– are massive. They are larger than humanity’s biggest habitats– larger than the floating cities of Venus– huge skyscraper-like ships that were capable of sailing from star to star, powered by antimatter.

Darkstar has only two of these ships remaining, all in orbit around Darkstar itself. Our tiny ship entering the High Command ship would be like a mosquito being swallowed up by a dinosaur.

The door opens, and I hold my breath, hoping to see Kain again. Even if he’s pretending to be an asshole and shouting at me, it will still be wonderful to see him.

But it’s not Kain, it’s Raius.

Felicia and I are floating around the room, basking in the relief of zero-g after such a prolonged period of 1.5gs.

“We’re going to bring you to a shuttle,” he says. “You’ll report directly to Darkstar. To the prison colony.”

“When?” I ask.

“Now. Follow me.”

We frown.

“I’m not asking twice,” Raius says.

Felicia and I kick off the wall and float toward the door. We grab hold of it and pull ourselves through.

I catch sight of Kain talking to Senka through an open door. He’s laughing, but only with his mouth. HIs eyes look strained and sad. I hope that Raius or Senka can’t see through him like I can.

His ears twitch, and he turns to look at me. His whole face lights up when he sees me– but only for a brief moment– but then he forces himself to look away.

Damn it. Why couldn’t I have met him under different circumstances? What if he fails and I never see him again?

Raius shuts the door, and he’s cut off from me. “This way.”

He pulls us through the airlock, which is wide open, and we float out into a huge hangar. The hangar alone is bigger than any ship I’ve ever been on, and I know it’s only a small fraction of the whole ship. There is a cable with handholds, and we follow Raius by gripping onto the handholds. He hits a switch, and the cable starts to move. We are pulled across the hangar toward a small shuttle.

Raius stops the cables when we reach the shuttle, and another Marauder salutes him.

“Take these two down to the prison colony. They are weak and will need exosuits to be at all productive. They are otherwise healthy.”

The Marauder salutes Raius again, and Raius turns his back to us, like trash he’s just discarded.

We’re brought into the shuttle, and the Marauder– who looks like he’s pushing 70 years old– smiles at us. “I’m Bala. Welcome to my shuttle. Down to Darkstar we go! You ready?”

“Not really,” Felicia says.

“The exosuits will help,” he says, strapping into his pilot’s seat.

I narrow my eyes at him. “Why do they have someone like you piloting a shuttle like this? Can’t a computer do it?”

He gives a bitter laugh. “I used to be High Command. Until Adus purged us.”

“So he let the old members of High Command live?” I ask.

“Only those who begged for their lives,” Bala says, frowning. “I owe a lot of shame debt for that, but at least I’m still alive. You can’t get revenge if you’re dead.”

“Adus is Kain’s brother?” I ask.

His ears perk up. “How do you know that name?”

“Kain was on the ship with us,” I say. “With Raius and Senka.”

“I see,” he says. “How did he treat you?”

My mind races. I don’t know if I can trust this man. He seems too sympathetic. Like it could be a trap.

“Like shit,” I say. “You’ve all treated me like shit. We’re fed gruel, and you’re shuttling us to a prison colony.”

Bala shakes his head. “I wanted to kill you all for a long, long time. But it’s too late for that, the damage is done. Most of us just wanted to see another generation of Marauders travel on to the stars. We wanted to see our old lifestyle back again...we don’t have to destroy everything here to accomplish that.”

“So fight back,” Felicia says.

“We’re old,” Bala says. “And Adus is young. We’d need a strong leader who isn’t an old fart to oppose Adus.”

Kain.

Felicia raises a finger, but I elbow her.

She gives me a pissed-off look, but holds her tongue.

Bala starts up the shuttle, and after a few minutes I feel gravity taking hold of us.

“I didn’t feel any vibration as we entered,” Felicia says.

“No atmosphere on Darkstar,” Bala says. “Just a lot of gravity.”

After another twenty minutes I feel vibrations as Bala activates the landing thrusters and slowly brings us down to the surface. From the front window, I can see what looks like the most desolate city I’ve ever seen. It’s made up of all low, wide buildings illuminated by floodlights. The ground is smooth, but all around the floodlit space are jagged mountains and ridges.

“Welcome to your new home,” Bala says. “You want my advice?”

Neither of us say anything.

“Well…,” he says. “I’ll give it to you anyway. If you meet a Marauder who treats you like you are a human rather than an animal...beg him to claim you. You might actually end up liking him.”

Felicia crosses her arms and huffs. “Are you trying to say--?”

Bala laughs. “Ah, not me! I’m too old for that. And I don’t care for human women anyway. All I’m trying to say is that you do not want to be on labor detail. It’s no way to live.”

“Thanks for the advice, Bala,” I say.

“No problem,” he says.

He hits a button, and the shuttle doors open wide.

It seems we’ve landed inside a building.

“Time for you two to get off,” he says.

We both stand up– slowly– the gravity
is
higher than it was on the ship to Darkstar.

“Jesus,” Felicia says.

“Just think how strong we’ll get–”

“Stop it,” she says.

We walk slowly down the ramp, and Bala waves goodbye to us.

“At least not everyone on Darkstar are assholes,” Felicia says.

“I don’t know,” I say, whispering. “I get the feeling they don’t trust Kain, and they’re trying to figure out if he’s still on their side. Don’t you find it suspicious that the first Darkstar Marauder we meet is smiling and talking about how he wishes they had a strong leader who didn’t want to blow up Earth?”

“You sound pretty paranoid,” Felicia says.

“I think we have to be paranoid to make it here,” I say.

“Well,” Felicia says, “I’m going to rope me one of those nice Marauders and get him to claim me.”

“Seriously?” I ask.

“I am not built for manual labor.”

“We both ran a mining ship!” I say, throwing up my hands.

“Yeah,” Felicia says. “But we got to
keep
the money. I can power through it if I know it’s all going to profit me. But I’m not going to do manual labor in exchange for bags of gruel.”

I roll my eyes. “Then let Kain claim you. You won’t have to–”

“No,” Felicia says, whispering, “he’s yours.”

I roll my eyes.

“Seriously,” Felicia says, “I’ve seen the way you two look at each other. I’m not going to mess that up for you.”

I shake my head and smile. “I think you just really do want to find your own Marauder. Sounds like you’ve got purple fever to me.”

“Shut up,” Felicia says.

Another Marauder approaches us. “Follow me.”

He turns around and starts walking away. We try to keep up with him, but it’s impossible.

The shuttle starts to lift off behind us, and I see the entire ceiling opening up.

“How does the air stay in?” I ask.

The Marauder slows down and turns to face us. “Try to walk fast. And don’t waste your breath talking to me.”

He turns back around, and we follow as best we can.

He brings us through a hallway, and finally to a smaller room filled with machinery.

“Each of you go stand on the footprints.”

The ground is cold, grey metal, and there’s a long line of footprints painted in bright yellow.

“How do we know this isn’t the recycler?” Felicia asks me in a low whisper. “What if this is where we die?”

“It’s not the recycler!” the Marauder shouts. “Now fucking do it. You’re wasting my time.”

“Of course he’d say that,” Felicia says.

“If this were the recycler,” the Marauder says, “I’d kill you right now to shut you up. Now move!”

I step onto the footprints first, hoping Felicia will follow my lead before this asshole does decide to kill us.

Green lasers begin to shoot out and move all across my body.

I raise an arm, and the Marauder shouts, “Stay still!”

He moves toward Felicia, and he grabs her shoulders, lifts her up, and plops her down onto the footprints as the lasers continue to scan me.

After several moments, metal arms burst out of the wall.

One of the arms grabs me by the waist, and then another pair grabs my ankles.

Machinery starts to snap closed against my legs, and it works slowly up my body. As the machinery reaches my torso, the arms that held my legs secure release me and grab tightly around my shoulders.

After two or three minutes, the arms let go entirely, but I’m covered by thin lines of metal– tracing my bones.

I take a step, and I feel almost as if I’m on normal Earth gravity. I look at my arm, then touch the metal with my finger. I can barely feel it, so I rotate my arm until I can see my elbow. There’s a small metal sphere embedded onto my elbow, and the metal lines from my forearm and shoulder connect to it.

“Tell her it is fine,” the Marauder grunts at me.

I look up and see that Felicia has jumped off her footprints and is backing away.

“Felicia,” I say. “It’s an exosuit. The gravity isn’t painful anymore. I can move normally.”

“How do I know that’s my sister talking?” Felicia asks. “How do I know those machines aren’t controlling you now?”

“Come on,” I say. “You sound like our parents now. Why would they put a bunch of visible machinery onto my body in plain view of you if they were going to--?”

“Okay,” Felicia says. “Fine, I’ll do it.”

She hobbles over to the footprints and stands on them.

“Fucking finally,” the Marauder says, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall.

I watch as the machinery snaps the exosuit onto Felicia, and when it’s done, she smiles. “Wow! You should have told me.” She takes three quick steps, then jumps up and down, smiling.

“I
did
tell you,” I say, “but you didn’t listen.”

“All right,” the Marauder says. “Looks like you’re both ready for hard labor. Come on.”