No Words Alone

As the only woman in a team of marooned
explorers, whom do you trust; your friends...or your enemy?

When Xera is stranded on a desert planet with
a hostile crew and a cadre of murdering aliens, her friends aren’t
who she thinks they are. As the translator, she’s the only one who
can forge a truce. As the only woman, she’s the prize they lust
for, and when her captain turns on her, she’s going to need the
help of her enemies to escape his wrath.

Because on this inhospitable world, the
warlike Scorpio were her only chance. Looking into the fiery eyes
of their handsome leader, Xera saw a nobility and potency she’d
never before encountered; a reaction she knew her fellow humans
would despise. A future with Commander Ryven was…something to
consider. But first they had to survive.

No Words Alone

by

Autumn Dawn

PUBLISHED BY:

Autumn Dawn on Smashwords

No Words Alone

Copyright © 2012 by Autumn Dawn

www.autumndawnbooks.com

All rights reserved. Without limiting the
rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication
may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the
prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above
publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the
author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author
acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various
products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used
without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not
authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark
owners.

Chapter 1

“Looks like they want to talk.”

Xera’s gaze followed the engineer’s to the
cadre of silent aliens. The shifting tones of their black and gray
uniforms made them hard to focus on, almost as if the cloth itself
repelled the eye. She didn’t see any wounded among them, but they’d
probably left their injured aboard ship.

She wiped at some ooze above her left eye,
smiling grimly as her black and tan uniform sleeve came away
smudged with blood. Two ships had crash landed on this planet,
crippled from the battle they’d just fought, but Xera’s craft had
done more crash than land. Her ship’s crew’s casualties were heavy,
and they were down to less than twenty able-bodied personnel. She
counted sixteen men in the enemy group.

“Why don’t they do something? They’re just
standing there,” the engineer, Cort, muttered. Stocky, more
comfortable with machines than men, he gazed at the aliens with
distrust.

The captain of Xera’s group said nothing,
just stood there in a sweat. She knew better than to mistake the
fierce frown on his face for courage under fire. The man was a
coward.

“Captain Khan? Do you want to talk to them?”
Cort persisted.

Captain Khan’s bulldog face contorted with
rage. Vietnamese, with a round head and meaty body, he’d clearly
worked his way to the top by intimidation and bluff. It certainly
hadn’t been because of his massive intelligence. “Shut your mouth,
Cort. I’m still captain here.” He looked back at the aliens for a
moment then gestured to one of his officers. “Genson. Go see what
they want.”

Genson gave him a wild look. “Sir, perhaps
the translator…”

Xera, the translator, braced herself.

Captain Khan sent her a scathing look. The
two of them had butted heads often enough that he didn’t trust her
to slide under his thumb on command. Those he couldn’t dominate, he
pushed to the side as useless. “You’re an officer; they’ll
recognize that. Get moving.”

Xera looked away to hide her disgust. Genson
didn’t know a word of Scorpio, which she herself had been learning
for the past two years since graduating from the academy. Whenever
the Galactic Explorers uploaded new findings on the language and
customs of the race known as Scorpio, she’d been on top of it. So
little was known about the alien race, and she’d been fascinated.
Unfortunately, the GE didn’t share her curiosity; or at least not
her professional reasons for it. It hadn’t taken long for Xera to
realize her employer was a planet-hungry entity bent first and
foremost on keeping the worlds it discovered under its control. In
the Scorpio, they’d found a powerful race intent on maintaining
their liberty and the privacy of their territory.

The humans had named the Scorpio for their
home planet’s position in the sky, in the belly of the human
constellation of the same name, but also because of the alien
race’s stinging reprisals. Scorpio were known to shoot first and
not bother with questions. Everything known of Scorpio language and
customs had been decoded from damaged ships and survivors of small
clashes. The fates of these captured prisoners rarely came up,
though the GE maintained that they were traded back to their people
in return for certain concessions. The two groups weren’t involved
in a full-scale war yet, thanks to the Interplanetary Council’s
diplomatic intervention, but this little skirmish might change all
that.

Not that the IC had much control over the
GE’s actions, no matter their official position as peacekeepers.
Officially a forum for government representatives from different
planets to work toward peace and harmony, it lacked the funds and
support to accomplish much. The governments and cultures involved
rarely agreed on anything for long, which made it ineffectual in
controlling conglomerates like the GE.

Genson walked reluctantly across the dun
sand, probably swearing to himself with every step. He halted about
two paces from the leader and spoke. The leader shot him down.

Xera’s group jumped and pointed their guns at
the aliens, who looked back at them with arrogant unconcern. A few
bursts of gunfire bounced harmlessly off some unseen force field.
The Scorpios made no move to return fire.

“Hold! Hold!” Captain Khan shouted, waving
his hands. “We don’t want to provoke them.”

“But sir!” someone protested.

“I said hold it! Let me think.” His thoughts
must have been rapid, and full of self-preservation, for he turned
to Xera. “You. You’re the translator...you go talk to them.”

She looked at him for a moment. Voicing the
thoughts in her head would get her thrown in the still-smoking
brig. This wasn’t the first time he’d queered a deal then sent her
in as translator to try and salvage it. Unable to quell a trace of
mockery, she asked, “Any special messages for them, sir?”

Khan’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t screw this up,
Harris-d, or I will bust you down to kitchen help. Find out what
they want.”

“Yes, sir.” She gave him a jaunty salute and
strode toward the alien line with her usual high energy. Fully
expecting to die, she figured she might as well look proud doing
it.

As she got closer, though, her stride slowed
in surprise. She hadn’t expected the leader to look so,
well....

He was tall, his black hair cut close with
military precision One of his ears was pierced with a golden
starburst, and there was a hands-free communication set around his
ear. This close, his uniform ceased shifting colors, remained dull,
gray-black combat attire.

Coldly handsome, he had a strong face, a
piercing expression. His eyes were what threw her, though. Three
paces away from him, she could see his irises were flame orange,
tinged with gold at the edges.

Brimstone eyes.

Genson’s body was in her way. She spared him
a brief look, enough to see that he was very dead, then stepped
around him, refusing to talk over his body. Since that brought her
face to face with the man at the leader’s left, she raised her
brows inquiringly and glanced between them.

The leader finally growled in the Scorpio
tongue, “Why do you look to my second? I am the leader here.”

She adopted a polite expression and answered
him in his language. “I don’t know your customs. It seems you kill
those who speak to you first.” She contained a flash of rage at
Genson’s death. Of course, her captain was as much to blame as this
man. If he’d followed protocol and sent her in first, this might
not have happened.

“I will not speak to an underling. Bring your
captain back or don’t come at all.”

She inclined her head, then bent her knees
and grabbed Genson’s wrists. He outweighed her by fifty pounds at
least and was dead weight besides, but she managed to drag him
twenty feet before some of the guys from her side broke ranks and
ran to help. She would have liked to drop him right at Captain
Khan’s feet, but knew she’d have to settle for letting the men
help. By the look on Khan’s face as she walked up, she’d made her
point anyway.

“Sir,” she drawled, adopting her mildest
expression. “He won’t speak to underlings.”

Her captain’s face turned red. “He spoke to
you!”

She shrugged. “That is what he said.” She
could almost see Khan’s mind work: Stuck on a barren planet, half
his crew dead, finite supplies and no way of knowing when or if
they’d be rescued… They knew nothing about this place, except that
the GEHQ wanted it. If the aliens were willing to make some kind of
alliance, they needed to accept.

He stared at the Scorpio. “You’ll need to
translate.”

At last, a sensible command. After all, she
didn’t want to die, either. “Yes, sir.”

They crossed the sand halfway, then stood and
waited. The alien leader and his second approached.

The leader glared at Khan. “What is your name
and rank?”

Xera translated then waited. Khan surprised
her with a nudge when she didn’t volunteer the information in
return. The word for
captain
escaped her, so she said
haltingly, “He’s the leader of those in our ship,
Captain
Khan. My name is
Lieutenant
Xera Harris-d.”

“He has no other rank?”

She frowned over that, then asked her
captain, “You don’t happen to be a prince or something among your
own people, do you?”

Khan moved as if he’d like to hit her but
thought better of it when he saw the alien leader tense. “Just ask
him his name!”

She looked back at the Scorpio. “He asks your
name.”

The alien didn’t look satisfied with this
reply but said, “Commander Ryven Atarus, of the High Family.”

She passed this on, then spun out her
captain’s curt, “What do they want?” to “Commander Atarus, you
wished to speak to us?”

The Scorpio’s eyes narrowed. “This planet
becomes a death trap after dark. There are nocturnal creatures here
that would feed on all of us if we stay. The ships are not strong
enough to safeguard anyone. The danger is great enough that we will
ally with you long enough to reach shelter. If all go, some will
survive.”
Captain Khan didn’t like that news. “What kind of creatures can get
inside a closed ship? Solid steel should keep them out.”

“We need to seek shelter anyway, sir. If
there is water where…”

“Your job is to translate,” Khan snarled at
her. “Do it!”

Xera sighed and faced Atarus. “What kind of
animals can get inside a sealed ship?”

The commander’s eyes traveled to their
damaged spacecraft. “What’s left of
that
will not keep them
out.”

She rather liked his tweaking Khan’s tail,
but she needed an answer that would move her captain, so she
guessed, “Small winged creatures, and very large animals...I’m not
sure how to translate.”

Now Khan looked worried.

“We must leave now. If you are coming, come.
If not, stay and die.” Commander Atarus walked away.