The water was dark and deep, but I had the helmet light on my spacesuit to light the way, along with the readings from thehandheld scanner to guide me. The silver shape of Val amplified the glow of the light and cast it in a wider net around me. Still, I saw no sign of life. Water plants swayed in the currents in a rough rocking motion, forcing me to adjust my course.
The current battered roughly against my ribs, and the long fronds of the water plants—a sort of kelp—tried to tangle around me. That was about the only danger I encountered, even when I maneuvered between rocky outcroppings and gray-and-black organic protrusions, plants of some kind, coral but not. It would have been the perfect environment for aquatic life to make its home in, but there was no sign of it, other than the flora.
The darkness grew deeper the farther I swam, and then there was a rapid drop in depth—a sea shelf ending in a steep cliff—and the signal was coming from the bottom of it. I hesitated at the edge for a moment, because this was not part of my assignment. Val felt strong, though, the two of us working cohesively together in ways we hadn’t in the weeks prior. I tested her and found her excited to explore. That decided it, and I spun, lancing down into the black depths below. Any other diver would have issues with the pressure that much water would generate, but Val took care of all of that.
At first, I didn’t see anything when I reached the seafloor. Just sand, some of it glittering like glass shards, most of it black. Volcanic, perhaps. Shining my light around, I saw shapes and mounds, but those could be rocks or drifts of loose sand shaped by the currents. The signal was right here, though; I was practically on top of it. If it had been here as long as I suspected it might have, it was possible that it was buried. I cursed silently—I didn’t much fancy digging around in the sand out here. The spot felt…exposed, despite a stark wall of black rock rising at myback. The dark water showed nothing, my light only reaching so far.
The sensor I held was my best tool now. I tweaked its settings until I got the vague impression of a shape beneath the sand. It was big, and I began to have some idea of what I was dealing with: a spaceship. The shape was distinct enough that it couldn’t be anything else, long hull, thruster bays. It was not a sea ship or a submersible. This thing had flown; I was certain of it. The question was, where had it flown from? And if a signal was coming from it, did that mean someone was still alive aboard? Or were these just the dying pangs of a slowly rusting wreck?
Only one way to find out. I checked my oxygen levels, determined they were sufficient for at least another hour, and began searching for a way in. It didn’t take long; the ship’s layout wasn’t entirely unfamiliar, tickling at the edges of long-ago memories. A hatch to an airlock was aligned along the side of the ship where I expected it to be. I was in luck, too, it appeared the ship had rolled just a tad to its side as it had gotten buried in the sand. The airlock was pointing diagonally up, and only a few minutes of digging uncovered the manual controls to open it. I hesitated, then, because something about the door’s shape was definitely pulling on memories from a very long time ago. Did it really matter? It was very unlikely anyone had survived this, whether I knew who they were or not.
The airlock hatch didn’t want to move as I yanked on it, possibly corroded with rust. I tested the surface with my fingers, but I was no Terafin metallurgist. I couldn’t know for sure until I opened it up. Val tried to assist me as best she could, shaping herself into sharp, thin blades along my fingertips. I dug them into the frame, and she thickened like wedges, it did the trick.
“Thanks,” I muttered, and she responded with something that felt like barbs stabbing into the back of my skull. It was a feeling followed by instant guilt and contrition, so I knew she had not meant to harm me with her excitement. “Don’t worry about it,” I told her, my focus on the interior I’d opened. Sand was slipping in, large air bubbles escaping and slapping apart against my body. I did not hesitate or wait; I slipped inside and yanked the airlock door shut against me. It didn’t want to close with sand in between, but a little brushing, with Val’s help—quickly solved that problem.
I was enclosed in a small, dark room then. The floor tilted sideways. Artificial gravity was on, and that made sideways feel like upright. If the AG was functioning, the ship still had power, parts of it still functioned. I tested that theory by searching the wall for a control panel. The second, interior door would not open unless the water was pumped from the room.
The panel flickered to life when I pressed some buttons, and then I was confronted with standard UAR text blinking across the screen. This was a human vessel. How had a human ship come to be here? Unease flickered through my veins as I appraised the airlock once again. With the light from the screen and my headlamp, there was plenty to see: a red cross indicated a panel with emergency medical supplies, and the door was labeled with a name. TheLancing Light;that had to be the name of this vessel.
“What a mystery,” I muttered out loud. “What business would humans have on this planet?” The controls were simple and easy to read, and water began to pump from the airlock, swirling away through vents in the floor and along the walls. Perfect, it still worked. This ship was in better shape than I’d assumed,given its buried status. If it was human, it was very unlikely to be any kind of threat. It was so buried, it could not go anywhere, and hadn’t for a long time. Longer than Jalima had been alive. Curiosity got the better of me now, though; I wanted to know why it was here.
Once the airlock completed its sequence, breathable air filled the chamber. Val slid back from around my helmet, exposing my face. With a flick of a latch at my throat, the space suit helmet retracted as well, and I took a few deep breaths of slightly stale air. “Scanner indicates no life forms and no pathogens,” I said, glancing at it before sliding it into a pocket on my thigh. Val slid aside for access, then returned to her protective position. I didn’t think she had any reason to worry.
The hallway beyond the airlock was dark, save for a few emergency lights glowing along the ground. I craned my head left and right, but this was an Earth vessel, and I was certain I knew the layout. I had not personally visited Earth back when I had lived in the Zeta Quadrant, but my Talacan family had visited its colonies. I’d seen the insides of several UAR vessels in those days, before my time with the Sons of Ragnar had started. During that rigorous training, I’d seen even more ships and memorized layouts and specifics like my life had depended on it.
“Bridge first, yes?” I drawled to Val, and her affirmative rang through my veins. I strode down the hallway with confidence, searching the dark for any sign as to why this ship was here. I reached the bridge with no issues and found it dark and abandoned. It was tempting to check its computers right away, but even as invincible as Val made me, I was no idiot. I wanted to check each room and deck first for any sign of life. My scanner indicated none, but scanners could be wrong.
The crew deck was most interesting. It was not a particularly large ship—large enough when faced with it buried beneath the sand—but this was no warship or cargo hauler. This was a ship built for speed and only needed a small crew. Its quarters were all empty, though personal effects indicated peoplehadbeen using them. There were four to each room, and only four rooms; no exception appeared to have been made for officers or a captain. Then I found the med bay, and I halted in surprise at the sight that greeted me there.
Stasis pods. For a moment, I thought perhaps that meant the crew had survived after all, but I was quickly disillusioned of that idea. The pods all had their transparent lids slid down to midway, exposing the occupants to the stale but oxygen-rich air. I approached to peer inside the first one and was met with a macabre sight. Dead and mummified in the dry air. A human male, from the looks of it, dressed in a military uniform with ranking along his shoulder indicating he was a medical professional—a doctor, or perhaps a stasis pod technician.
The next pod held more of the same, a female with a colorful scarf around her head. “Poor bastards,” I drawled, feeling nothing at all. From the looks of them, they’d been dead for dozens of years, perhaps even centuries. This made it highly unlikely there was a threat aboard the ship, and I was tempted to turn back to the bridge. My eye fell on the next pod, then, and I winced. That was a Talacan female.
Against my better judgment, I looked at the next pod, then the next, and then the next still. My suspicions were confirmed when these all held Talacan males. A female and her harem. Disgust made me curl my lip at them—stupid bastards, sharing a female like they had no other choice. It made me ache withmemories I did not want to consider. Val grew thicker around my chest, feeding onmydark feelings now, growing stronger because of them, they were that strong.
My feet took me from one pod to the next, as if that would make it better. More dead humans, one after another, and a Terafin too, his pointy ears giving him away, even in death. One pod, much to my surprise,wasempty, though. It was the last in line, and I brushed my hands over the controls to get a read on its status. Had it never been used, or had its occupant managed to rise alive, and then died somewhere else on the ship? What if this person was still alive right now? Or… had they managed to slip away with an emergency pod before the ship crashed on this planet? If it was even a crash that had brought it here—they could have also chosen to land...
Then my eyes caught an open doorway and another pod beyond it. That must be the captain, perhaps. I wondered if there was a dead body in that pod too. Oddly enough, that made tightness grow across my chest again, and Val whined soundlessly in the back of my head. She slipped from my body, all her silver sleekness dripping into the shape of her favorite Gracka form. Then she trotted from the med bay into that next room, tail whipping behind her.
Damn it. Maybe that was just my obstinate character, probably part of the flaw that had messed up the bond between Val and me. I didn’t want to go in there now. Really didn’t. With a growl, I jogged after her, but after only two steps, I froze. My hand reached out to grip the doorway so tightly the metal groaned beneath my armor-clad fist. That scent… it was very faint, so faint it only hung here, in this room like it was an afterthought, a hint of a memory long forgotten.
Val was already at the stasis pod, raised on her hind legs while she pressed her front paws against the plex glass. Her snout was so close to the pod that I could see the translucent panel fog up with her breath. Her tail wagged back and forth in excitement—in a way I hadn’t seen before. She panted, tongue lolling, as she twisted her head to look over her shoulder at me, silver eyes piercing me with a look that said, “Well, what are you waiting for?”
“No,” I told her, and I didn’t even know what I was saying no to. Just that the alluring, sweet, floral scent that clung faintly to the air—stubbornly refusing to fade away—was making my belly tingle. It was making my damned cock hard, and that was absolutely unacceptable. I never lost control that way. Never. This scent, though, it was all kinds of temptation. “There’s probably just another mummified corpse in there,” I said to Val, and to myself, to make it clear how inappropriate my response was. It didn’t help, and Val growled at me like I was an idiot.
I stepped closer, slowly, because, for some reason, I was absolutely dreading this. I did not want to find out what was inside that stasis pod, dead or alive. I didn’t want it to be dead, and, at the same time, I really,reallyhoped that it was. It was a reaction I had no explanation for, and I couldn’t bring myself to put it into words. Perhaps I did not want to look too closely at these feelings and what they hid.
Then I saw what Val had already known. She was smug about that, the feeling prickling through my veins like barbs. “Alive…” I said, and my words dripped with the awe that washed through me. The occupant of this pod had somehow, miraculously, survived. She was human and breathing slowly while she slumbered. Her chest rose and fell beneath the plexglass, electrodes stuck to her pretty, tan skin. She had black hair curling about her shoulders and long lashes that feathered against her cheeks.
No wonder my cock was growing hard inside my armor. It wasn’t just her scent that was alluring; the rest of her was, too. Nipples pressed against her thin shirt, hard points that drew my eyes and made them linger. Her arms lay at her sides, but I could tell she had long, slender fingers and a curious dot along the side of her wrist. The rest of her disappeared into the pod’s nontransparent half, depriving me of a look at her hips and legs. Would she be as scantily clad as her upper half was? My mouth watered at the thought of testing that out, sliding my fingers into the pod to touch her skin. Would it be soft?
Val whined, her paws sliding toward the control panel, ears pointed attentively forward. Even without knowing exactly what she was feeling, I knew she wanted me to open the pod. My denial was immediate and vehement. “No,” I snarled. “We are not opening that pod. It’s none of our damn business.” I began to back away again, and my back collided with the wall.
My symbiont gave me this look that said she thought I was being an idiot. I shook my head. “And then what? We can’t haul a human around on our mission. We’re here to assassinate people, remember? This planet is supposed to be as deadly as they come. She’d be a liability.” And a distraction, but I didn’t say that. Val huffed, her breath fogging against the plexiglass, her front paws spread against the control panel. Then she shifted like liquid. It was too fast for me to do anything about. There was a beep, a hiss, and then the transparent glass panel began to slide down. She’d started the waking sequence, opened the pod.
“Damn it, we’re out of here right now!” I said. Spinning on my heel, I stalked off, not once looking back to see if Val would follow. I was not sticking around for a human, no matter how pretty or innocent. She could find her own way off this planet; maybe she could make her ship’s engines work and fly off. She’d be fine. If not, she could always go back into stasis. Blazing stars, I didn’t need this.
Chapter 5
