Vessa hadn’t seen the weapon in years. Seven years, to be exact. Her hand wrapped around the hilt of the Xaal-made plasma dirk, and despite the complexity of the emotions she felt,there was an undeniable rightness to it. The dirk fit in her grip as if it were a missing part of her body. The balance of it was precise and the weight of it made her mouth water with its perfection.
Beneath a protective layer of isoglass, three crystals were embedded in its hilt. Her breath snagged as she took them in. Within the jewels, the entirety of the Minad forest existed in its lush greens and rich browns. She used to run and hunt there. It used to be home.
Something that should long be dead twinged within her.
It had been a gift. Given to her beneath the perpetual setting sun on a faraway planet. She could still remember the exact patterns of the abstract skies as she held it for the first time. Could still remember the Xaal, dressed in the sleek battle armor he had earned through sweat and blood, asking if it pleased her.
Absently, she pressed her fingers into the spot beneath her collarbone where that very same Xaal had once marked her as worthy.
As she let the compartment door slide back into place, she forced her tight grip on the hilt to loosen. The cold had affected her senses. It was merely a well-made weapon. Nothing more.
An impending sense of dread settled in her stomach as the hatch to her warm, perfect ship closed behind her. Snow and ice chips whipped around her, infiltrated her lungs. She barely registered them. The weight of the weapon in her hand took up too much of her focus.
She navigated the wreckage, ducking under and stepping over debris. With a steadying breath, she powered the plasma dirk. It came to life with a burning, deep emerald light, and the power of it surged through to her very soul. Memories she’d spent so long trying to forget roused with new life.
Being gifted a Xaal-made blade was incredibly rare. The warriors born with creed and war coded in their DNA were very strict. Theirbruvya, or chosen comrade, and their mate werethe only ones who would receive such gifts—and they were the only ones who could see the Xaal’s face once they earned their helmet. As a Seken, she was neither. But Kedar of Clan Will had beenherchosen comrade, her best friend. Regardless of all the edicts and laws that tried to keep them apart, they had belonged to each other.
Until they didn’t.
Until he betrayed her.
Vessa gritted her teeth. Kedar was dead to her. She didn’t need to make this excursion any more miserable than it was by dredging up the past. As she set the plasma dirk’s searing edge to the metal to drown out any other stirring memories, a sound from outside dragged her back to the present.
It almost sounded like…
Vessa turned, peering between the gaps in the hull as she did. There was nothing to see but endless white, but she had definitely heard something. With her head cocked and her hearing strained, she waited.
“Search ship,” a gnarled voice barked over the wind.
Her neural translator dictated the words, but she knew that language. Orcru.
Damn.
This shitty planet had just gotten a whole lot shittier.
It was supposed to be uninhabited. Reports from the Halston Company and Liv’s analysis showed an extremely low probability of the existence of complex lifeforms. Liv had even told her at length about the intense snow and ice storms that occurred without warning. Hail could reach sizes larger than her head while pelting down at terrifying speeds. On top of that, the uncanny, inexplicable lightning. Death from the skies.
But the Orcru were fire-blooded. They’d always been resilient shits.
It was probably a raiding party with orders to strip the ship of anything salvageable. Which meant there would be at least thirty to forty of those violent and giant brutes out there, depending on their horde size. She couldn’t see her own ship from where she was inside the Halston vessel, but if she could get back to it, she could maybe lock herself inside. Watch an episode or two of her show. Wait them out.
Footsteps pounded and snorts echoed off the walls in the broken hull seconds before she spotted the gray form of an Orcru and his ugly, twisted face.
Over one bare shoulder, he carried a club as big as she was. Something treacherous filled his beady black eyes once he saw her. She truly didn’t want to know the thoughts that went through his smooth brain as he looked her over.
“Slave,” he said before sniffing the air. To them, everyone was either something to fight, eat, enslave, or some grotesque mixture of the three.
“You wish,” she fired back. Disgust was an understatement.
Calling for his raid members, he tried to find his way through to her. He hadn’t yet realized he was at a disadvantage; the area she was in was too narrow, thanks to the melted metal that had resolidified into immovable barriers. She could take the time to kill him, but she didn’t want to be trapped there when the rest figured out where she was. If there was going to be a fight, she wanted room for it.
Vessa climbed over a broken terminal and out of an opening in the hull. As she stood up, whipping her hair behind her, she found herself face to face with five Orcru. Despite their horde member’s warnings, they seemed shocked to see her there.
She smiled. Well, this would certainly get her blood pumping.
Tilting her head to the side, she made a quick study of them. All were broad, thick-muscled, and so unfortunate looking she knew even their mothers couldn’t love their faces. Their rough,white-gray skin was dry and cracked, and all of them had too much of it exposed. Dressed in their traditional raid gear, only their groins and parts of their hips and asses were covered. A couple wore the odd piece of stolen and ill-fitting armor. Three had clubs, two axes. One seemed to be favoring an injured shoulder. She could save him for last, then.
Their gazes simultaneously shifted to the plasma dirk as she powered it again. She darted forward, thanking her past self, who’d had the wherewithal to buy boots that kept her from sinking all the way down in the snow. The first Orcru to react earned a searing slash across his bare stomach before he could fully lift his club. He roared, but she was already turning to the next.
