Resenia stone was one of the more remarkable geological discoveries of the known galaxy. It was lightweight, but highly electrically conductive, and was even capable of acting as a battery to store power, if it was subjected to high enough pressure. Scientists had spent decades studying the crystalline structure of the rock, but to a certain extent, they were still unable to explain how it did what it did. And for a city that had been half destroyed, a block this size would have meant restoring power to close to a hundred thousand people. No wonder the Culrads had been willing to die for it.
“Three of the crates contain resenia stone,” Khelesh explained. “The rest of them contain medical supplies and food. You are welcome to keepthose. But you must let us take the stone. Too many lives will be lost without it.”
Fuck. This mission had been screwed from the start, but somehow, the universe had just found a way to make me feel like an even bigger asshole. It was tempting to tell the Culrads to take the entire shipment, our deal be damned. But two things were stopping me. One was the fit that HQ would have, if they found out we’d given away such a vital prize. And with the mess I was going to be in explaining why I had a bonded slave following me around, I could hardly afford to do more to put myself in their bad books. But aside from that, there were also thousands of people on Rendol 4 who would benefit from the medical supplies here. I thoroughly sympathised with the plight of the Culrads’ colony, but were their lives necessarily more important than Alliance lives here in my own city?
“You know what?” I said, my heart thumping in my chest. “We said we would split the cargo, right? And by my calculation, that means that four of these crates are yours, not just three. So you should take this one, as well,” I said, pointing to one that had the galactic symbol for ‘medical aid’ stamped on the side. “And we’ll take the other four.” That left us with two crates of food and two of medical supplies. “How does that sound?” I was looking at Kent, rather than Khelesh, as I asked the question, and my well timed glare made him shut his mouth, rather than voicing the argument I could see brewing in his dour expression. He was going to argue that we should keep one of the resenia stone crates. And if he actually said that, I was going to punch him in the face. Even if I would break my hand in the process.
“That sounds… reasonable,” Kent conceded finally.
I turned back to Khelesh and found that he was watching me with a quizzical expression. He looked over the crates, and then back to me. “You are an intriguing man, Lieutenant Aiden Hill,” he said finally. “Perhaps we will do business again, at some point in the future.”
It was unlikely that we ever would. The Culrads in general kept to themselves, and were a little too thuggish for most Alliance dealings. “Best of luck for your colony,” I said. “You’re free to take your crates and leave. You have my word that we won’t follow you.”
“You have my gratitude,” he said simply. Then the three of them began dragging the crates away. They would have a heck of a time transporting them through the dense jungle, but that was their problem, not mine. They picked their way out of the crumbling ship, and I had the belated thought to radio through to Vosh and Nichols, telling them not to interfere with the departing Culrads. We’d explain the rest of the story to them later.
“I suppose we’d better get these wrapped up for a transporter to pick them up,” I said, already moving to drag some of the cargo mesh off the walls, where it had got tangled in the midst of the crash. We’d drag thecrates outside, then wrap the mesh around them like a big fishing net and leave a locator beacon on top of the pile for the retrieval crew.
Once we were done, it was getting close to nightfall, and I looked around and sighed. I’d hoped to be at least part way home by the end of today, but we were going to have to find somewhere safe to spend the night, and the remaining solid walls of the crashed ship were too good an offering to pass up.
“Have a quick look around to see if there’s anything else here worth salvaging, then we’ll set up camp in the old crew quarters,” I instructed the team. I didn’t have a problem with taking the lead, regardless of the fact that Kent was technically equal to my rank. On paper, we might have looked the same, but he’d been a lieutenant for only two years, while I was poised to become a commander any day now. Three years of service as a regular grunt, plus five more as an officer gave me a clear win in the rank department, and all three of my Alliance comrades knew it.
“Good idea,” Kent said, but there was a sharp edge to his voice, despite his apparently amiable words. “We can collect some wood. Make a fire.” His eyes met mine. “And then we can talk about Kade, and what the fuck you think you were doing, handing out resenia stone to Culrads like it was solstice candy.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Aiden
An hour later, I stared at the fire, chewing on one of the protein bars from Kade’s container and watching as the western sky turned from orange to black. The food was actually pretty good, less chalky than the local variety usually was, and it made a change from the jerky we’d been chewing for much of this trip. As the light faded and the gentle sounds of night set in, I was also resolutely ignoring Kent’s glare, though he’d been doing his best to mentally strangle me for the last twenty minutes.
Over to my right, Vosh and Nichols were securing a tarp to the roof beams of the room we were going to be using as a bedroom, to give us protection from the weather, since the forecast was predicting light rain late in the night. “Hey, Kade,” I said, finally deciding to bite the bullet and let Kent get his rant in, before we all hit the sack. “Could you go help the others fix the tarp? I think Vosh is going to murder Nichols if he doesn’t remember how to tie a bowline in the next thirty seconds.”
Kade gave a small smile, amused at the two younger soldiers’ antics. “Yes, Master,” he said, and I was once again amazed that there was nothing at all resentful in the way he said the words. In fact, I’d been rather startled by his mannerisms overall.
After the Culrads had left and we’d finished with the crates, I’d introduced everyone to each other properly, and Kade had somehow decided that he fitted into this motley group somewhere in the middle of the ranking. He obeyed me without question, of course, but as we’d scouted the nearby area and set up the camp, he’d asked for Kent’s opinion several times, and followed his general directions – so long as they didn’t conflict with anything I’d asked him to do – while he’d offered gentle guidance to the two younger soldiers, after having learned that Vosh was a private and Nichols was still just a recruit. His confidence in himself and his own abilities was surprising. And while he was quick to obey my orders, andeven offered suggestions as to how he could be helpful at times, there was nothing simpering or fawning about him.
Kade stood up from his place by the fire and jogged over to the others, easily hoisting himself up onto the beams. The instant he was out of earshot, Kent gave voice to the opinions he’d been holding back all afternoon. “Do I need to remind you that slavery is illegal in Alliance space?”
I rolled my eyes, swallowing my mouthful. “Well, it’s not like I fuckingboughthim, is it?”
“Oh, so you somehow just missed the giant sign on the crate saying ‘There’s a dimari slave in here’?”
I cringed at that one. Because yes, I had actually just waltzed right on past that very large, very obvious sign. “I was paying more attention to not getting shot by the Culrads,” I told him. Which, to be fair, was also true. “And the phrase ‘dimari slave’ is redundant. A dimari is, by definition, a slave.” Was I being a brat? Yes. Did I have any intention of stopping? No, not really. “And besides which, there wasn’t any other option. If I’d left him there, he’d have slowly starved to death, and I fail to see how that’s any more humane than taking him with me and trying to give him a decent life.”
“A decent life?” he scoffed. “By pandering to your every need and not having even the slightest hint of autonomy?”
“I’m not justifying the slave trade,” I snapped at him, tiring of his belligerence. “I didn’t buy him, I didn’t ask for him, and I sorely wish that the Eumadians would stop the whole barbaric practice. But the fact is, he’s here and he’d been activated to imprint on his master. As far as the Alliance is aware, there’s no way back from that. So what do you want me to do? Lock him back in his crate and tell him that the master whom he’s willing to devote the rest of his life to doesn’t actually want him? I may as well just shoot him in the head if I’m going to do that.”
Kent avoided my gaze. “You shouldn’t have given him your gun,” he said, sounding almost sulky about it now.
“He’s been trained for combat,” I stated, though I’d already told Kent that earlier. “He’s not going to shoot me, and he’s not going to harm anyone on my team unless it comes as a direct order from me. And if you recall, he’s the one who broke that standoff we were having.”
Kent didn’t reply.
“Look, I don’t like the fact that Kade’s bonded with me any more than you do,” I said, trying to find some kind of middle ground. “And I particularly don’t like the statistics about how long dimari survive on Rendol 4. I know we have this awful tendency to end up fucking them up. But I’ve got two options. I can try and look after him sensibly, or I can kill him. That’s it.”
“Why don’t dimari survive long?” a new voice asked, and I looked up to see Nichols standing on the other side of the fire, apparently having been sent away by the other two. A quick glance in their direction confirmed that Kade and Vosh were both still working on the tarp, Kade dangling upside down from one of the high beams, while Vosh tossed a rope to him.
“And what’s a dimari?” Nichols went on. “I thought you said he was a Vangravian.”
