My hand instinctively tightens around the blaster on my thigh. “Are we sure they’re good guys?” I don’t have time to be sold into slavery again.
“They’re… Wow. Okay. This is odd.” Lyri stares at the screen with her mouth agape. “They’re Wehdi. Huh. I’ve never actually met one.”
I haven’t even heard of them, but with the number of unique alien species scattered across the galaxy, it’s no surprise. I haven’t been off Earth that long. “Does them being Wehdi mean they’re likely to help us or kill us on the spot?” If they’re anything like the bone-mohawk Ataxi assholes, I’m not setting a foot on their ship.
“Oh, they’re definitely with the UGC. Good guys. I don’t think they tend to be criminals, let alone slavers. There aren’t that many of them and they usually keep to themselves, but they’re known to be really smart. Like, genius-level smart. A lot of the inventions we use come from them, I think.”
“Okay…” I draw my brows together and scrutinize Lyriana’s face because her expression doesn’t match her words. “There’s a ‘but’ here, isn’t there? Why do you look so worried?”
“I’m not worried. I’m just…” With a sigh, she turns to me. “Well, the Wehdi aren’t very popular. You know how most intelligent life looks roughly the same? I mean, there are obvious differences.” She points to her horns while my gaze is inevitably drawn to her triboob. Laughing, she smacks my thigh. “My eyes are up here, asshole. So we all look pretty much the same, right? Well, the Wehdi aredifferent.”
“People don’t like them because they look different?” I ask incredulously. I wouldn’t expect something sobasicfrom advanced species. “What do they look like? Balls of slime?”
Lyri quickly shakes her head. “No, not just because of their appearance, though I suppose it’s a part of that. Damn, that sounds really speciesist, doesn’t it? And they don’t look like ballsof slime. They’re basically eight-legged lizards with a lot of teeth. The problem is that they’re rumored to turn feral. Like, one moment you have a brilliant astrophysicist or something, and the next,” she snaps her fingers, “there’s a feral beast tearing you to shreds. Again, this is just a rumor. I’ve never actually met any of these guys in person, but—”
“There might be a grain of truth to it,” I finish for her. “So we might be greeted by a bunch of lizard Einsteins who could help us fix the ship or even locate Jaime, but they could also try to kill us? Ah-may-zing.”
Laughing, Lyri nods. “Pretty much. Grab your gear. We’re about to dock.”
Minutes later, we’re standing by the airlock, both wearing combat armor and carrying laser rifles. At Lyriana’s signal, I open the airlock door and immediately take aim at whoever is waiting on the other side.
The alien reels back when he notices the weapons pointing in his direction, his three eyes blinking as he watches us. He looks like he used to have four eyes, but there’s an ugly scar running down his face, slashing through an empty socket. Other than the scar, there’s nothing threatening about him. He’s wearing a dark red jumpsuit tailored to his eight limbs, four of which are raised in surrender. “Um,” he clears his throat, his eyes jumping between our weapons.
Lyri lowers hers first. “We’re not pirates. We just weren’t sure what kind of greeting we’d receive.”
“Ah. Understandable.” Casting a nervous look at me, the alien slowly lowers his arms. “We’re peaceful, so…”
“So are we,” Lyri says. Under her meaningful look, I also lower my weapon. “We’re just looking for a ship that might have passed through this system about two weeks ago. Might have…” “Might have…” She hesitates and looks at me before continuing, “crashed here.”
The alien sighs. “It is a dangerous system. I’ve already filed a warning with the UGC, but it will take time before it’s distributed to all navigation computers.”
“Yeah, a warning would have been nice. How long have you been here?”
“Have you seen my brother?” I ask impatiently. Lyri gives me another look I don’t know how to decipher, so I shrug. “What? They’re clearly not some feral lizard monsters. We might as well ask them right away instead of wasting time with pleasantries.”
“Ancestors…” She sighs and rubs her face, and I get the distinct feeling she thinks I’m an idiot. “My apologies…?”
The alien smiles, which is quite a disturbing sight. “Rokesh. And no apologies are necessary. I’m well aware of the rumors going around about the Wehdi. Sadly, they aren’t exactly unfounded. But you’re safe on this ship. I can guarantee that. Everyone is tested regularly. Please, follow me.”
Shaking her head at me and giving me a look that promises a sexy punishment later, Lyri takes off after Rokesh, leaving me with no choice but to follow. “I don’t mean to pry,” she starts carefully.
“But you’re curious,” Rokesh says. “It’s a natural reaction. In short, my kind suffers from a genetic disease we were unable to eradicate or cure. It affects random people at random stages of their life, taking over their higher brain functions until there’s nothing left but the individual’s primal instincts. Eat, sleep. Fight. Kill.” Absently, he touches the scar on his face. “We call it the red fog. Anyone affected is isolated and placed in stasis in the hope that one day a cure will be found, but… It’s been centuries, and no one has even been able to identify what’s causing the red fog. Various potential cures were tested, but no one has ever improved.”
“That’s terrible,” Lyri says.
I agree, but keep my mouth shut to prevent myself from saying something stupid. If Rokesh is telling the truth, the shift into ferality isn’t instantaneous, and we should be safe here, which means I don’t really care to hear more about it. Finding Jaime takes priority over discovering weird facts about aliens.
Lyri seems to have a different opinion. “I take it you have a…personal experience with one of the affected?” she asks softly, pointing at Rokesh’s scar.
His shoulders slump. “More personal than you think. Here.” He brings us to the cockpit where two other Wehdi work on their stations. “We’ve been scanning the system for several days now. If your brother’s ship passed through here, it must have been before we arrived, because we would have detected it. The interference makes long-range scanners nearly useless, so we’re sending probes to the planets and moons that allow it, but there are three gas giants here.”
I’m not well-versed in astrophysics, but I get what he’s suggesting. If Jaime’s ship went to one of these planets, there would be nothing left for us to find.
“These are not scientific probes,” Lyriana notes as she looks at the data. “They’re search and rescue. You’re looking for someone here?”
Sighing, Rokesh nods. “My brother. Five years ago, he took off in a shuttle and disappeared. We’ve scanned hundreds of systems in our search for him. This is one of the last ones within the shuttle’s range.”
“He’s the one who gave you that scar,” I say. “He went feral, didn’t he?” Five years. Rokesh has been looking for his brother for five years. Jaime hasn’t even been missing for two weeks, and I’m already going crazy. I can’t imagine what it must feel like for Rokesh.
