Chapter 1

1

- Maeve -

"Are we done here?"

The Interspeech words roll off my tongue with some effort. It's an easy language to learn, but the sounds can be tricky. Most aliens in space speak it, and nearly everyone understands it.

The human trafficker counts the credits carefully, inserting the red crystal into a device held in his three-fingered hand and making sure I'm not trying to cheat him.

I don't know which species he's from. His upper half is green jellyfish, and the lower half is more like a pair of moveable cactuses. He has five arms of various lengths, but I'm not even sure if he has a head. With Earth occupied by the Bululg aliens and their various crony species, nothing surprises me about him. I've seen worse.

"What else do you have?" he growls with a strangely squeaky voice. "This is not enough."

I take a quick glance around. It's a dark, dirty, and narrow corridor on a small space station with a bad reputation and a worse smell. It's sufficiently far from Earth that the Bululg aliens have no influence here, but it's also run by constantly feuding crime syndicates. This guy was the only trafficker the Resistance could get to pick me up from Earth and transport me away. I had no choice about the destination.

"It's the agreed amount," I tell him firmly. "Sixty credits for passage from Earth to the Pranst space station."

He focuses one milky eyestalk on me. "The price went up."

I let my hand drop to my belt, where I'm carrying a very obvious gun in a holster by my side. The trafficker is clearly trying to get more money for his already extortionate price for getting me off Earth. And he has judged me well. The last thing I want is a fight right now. I don't want to attract any attention in this run-down space station where no Earth girl like me would have any friends at all. Except maybe one.

I was hoping the very first interaction I had in space wouldn't go sour, but here we are. "The price is the same . Sixty credits. Take it or leave it."

The credit crystal vanishes in one of his three-fingered hands, looking like it simply sank into his skin. "I will take this. And then we will take you. "

The alien splits in half down his length, and another identical one steps out of the first. The sight makes me want to puke, and I have to avert my eyes to not overwhelm my brain.

I spot movement to the side, too. And I sense someone stepping into the corridor behind me, cutting off my escape to the spaceship hangar I just came from. Yeah, they must have been planning this all along.

Having practiced similar scenarios, I quickly back up into a wall and draw the gun. "I don't think so."

There's four of them. Two are the split-in-half jellyfish, while the two others are much larger, towering over me. They swell with fat-covered muscles. Hired goons, probably. They have little rat-like heads and bodies like big, hairless chimpanzees. They have long arms, but short fingers that slide along the floor as they waddle closer.

"Stay still," one of them brays. "Not move."

The two trafficker twins are quickly putting more distance between them and me as the two others approach from both sides. They stretch their long arms out towards me as if to grab.

I aim my gun at one of them. "Stop!"

He falters as if he hadn't seen the weapon until now.

That gives me the opening I need. Spinning in place, I catch the other one at the knee with a kick that doesn't hit as hard as I want it. But my light, comfortable boots have metal parts on the outside, and the alien gives off a muted scream as his knee bucks under him. He has to support himself with both hands to not fall.

They're not scared of my gun. They must have grasped that it's mostly for show. But not entirely. I press the trigger and shift my grip as the alien-sourced memory-foam turns it to a metal stick as long as I am tall. It's cold in my hand, with a part of its surface crosshatched to provide a good grip. That part changes with where I hold it, by some miraculous alien tech that Earth is still decades from developing. I always have a good grip on the stick.

The first alien comes at me and swings its arm back, preparing to punch me. I've practiced this, so I pull the stick back and then ram it forwards as hard as I can, so that the massive fist only hits the screwdriver-thin end of it. The alien howls in pain, probably having broken at least one finger.

"You're lucky it's only flat and not needle sharp," I seethe in English as I spin around to whack the other goon. The stick goes heavy in my hands as I swing it, to make the impact harder. It connects with the alien's face with a sickening splat . The goon's head whips backwards, and the body slumps against the wall.

The two worst dangers dealt with for now, I focus on the traffickers themselves. They're still pulling away, but they must have been born in a very different gravity and environment, because they move slowly and with ungainly movements that would make me laugh if things hadn't turned so bad.

"Give me my credits back," I demand as I stride towards the pair, the fighting stick light again.

But it's a mistake — more goons are coming towards me from the hangar area. And I don't need the credits that bad.

"The price went up," one of the traffickers squeaks in barely understandable Interspeech. "We will catch you and sell you to cover the added cost." Both of them pull strange weapons out of their belts.

"Still not giving up," I mutter. "They're out of their minds."

But their threat is real enough — Earth girls are a prized commodity in space. The Bululg invaders have abducted thousands and sold them at auctions. That's a fate I have to avoid, and I don't like the looks of those weapons.

They can keep the sixty credits. I have more of those weird crystals that are used for money in space.

I abruptly turn and sprint down the corridor, leaving the two goons groaning on the floor. More of them are coming from the hangar area, and I don't think I'll catch any of them by surprise like I did the first two.

Hard zaps echo from the walls. They're shooting at me now, seeing their profit evaporate. I'm not all that surprised. This kind of thing was always a possibility, and I have trained for it.

I zigzag down the corridor and turn a rounded corner. At the same time I pass through a weak force field into the station proper, and the air is suddenly full of sounds like from a crowded street or a sports event. I fold the fighting stick into a small, light cylinder that fits inside my fist.

I'm in a star-shaped space with corridors leading off in all directions. Stalls and booths are placed along the wall and all over the floor without any rhyme or reason, or indeed any plan. There's a lot of chaotic life and vibrant energy. Alien vendors from all kinds of weird species are hawking their wares in a cacophony of Interspeech accents. The air is thick with mingling scents of alien foods, exotic spices, and strange, fragrant blooms.

Colorful banners and signs hang limply from poles, barely moving in the weak breeze from the overtaxed ventilation system on the station. Brightly lit screens are flickering with writing I can't read and images I don't want to look at. The whole thing is a riot of colors and activity, and it's exactly the kind of place I have to avoid.

I pull the hood further forwards on my head and quickly drape the shawl across my face, hiding my Earthling features. My shape should be hidden by the loose strips of fabric that hang down from my shoulders. Those traffickers back there aren't the only ones that would like to capture and sell someone like me.

"My art history degree never prepared me for this ," I mutter to myself. "I should be able to sue that school. ‘Failure to prepare graduates for escaping aliens engaged in human trafficking on space stations in space.' I'll be rich."

Keeping my head down and staying by the wall, I make my way past the bazaar-like market and find a narrow corridor that I can duck into and gather my wits. I sense eyes following me as I sneak along the wall, but nobody bothers me.

It turns out to be the restrooms, which suits me fine. It's all shiny metal pipes and terrible stenches, but it's also a little bit of privacy. I lock myself in a stall big enough for an elephant and steady myself on the wall, ignoring the metal contraptions in here and the many interesting stains all over it.

"Shit," I seethe. "That was not the best start."

I recall what the colonel said when he sent me on this mission: Don't get caught up in anything else. Focus on the mission.

Okay. I can do that. It was always a possibility that the traffickers were going to try more than just taking me into space for a fee. They were the only ones we could get to do it, so we had no choice. And I got out of that pickle.

So far, anyway. This station is known for being rowdy and seedy, way out on the fringe of galactic society. But it's just a stepping-off point to where I'm really going. Now I have to find the agent that's going to meet me here and help me get a ride out of here.

I straighten up, peel the wrapper off an energy bar, and eat it without much of an appetite. At least I knocked out two of those jerks back there. All the hours practicing with the stick paid off already.

I find a spot on the wall that's not too dirty and take a look at my reflection. Big, haunted eyes with perpetual dark rings under them. Nose too big, chin too wide, everything just out of proportion. Mousy hair kept short because it just won't take a style. Chubby in the places I least want to be, bony where I should be meaty. It's the same old Maeve, just against a different backdrop.

"What the hell have you gotten yourself into?" I ask my reflection.

But it's fine. I'm the obvious candidate for a mission like this. Gray and unnoticed. Invisible.

"And expendable," I add to myself. "Best combination."

I don't expect to survive this. And a part of me is worryingly fine with that.

Of course, if I fail in finding Tara, or I find her dead, then my life probably won't be worth living anyway. They say twins develop unusually strong bonds, and I think they're right.

The energy bar helps me chase the darkness away for now. I still have a few of them left, all laced with a fine cocktail of pharmaceuticals that I never asked too closely about.

I cover my face back up with my shawl, leave the bathroom, and get back to the main hall of the station, then choose another hallway at random.

It's promising — I see icons on the wall that could mean it's another hangar ahead. Good, that's where the contact will probably wait for me. In a hangar full of spaceships. That's what I need to get away from here.

I walk quickly along the corridor, hoping not to meet anyone. There's some kind of commotion ahead, angry alien voices and pitiful whimpering, as if someone is abusing a puppy.

I clench the fighting stick. I can't get involved in anything. That's not why I'm here.

Passing a turn in the hallway, I see a group ahead. It's tall, thin aliens in a circle around a small creature with pink fur.

One of them looks at me with three small, slitted eyes. He turns to face me, sending me an obvious message: stay out of this .

I keep my head down and walk on, determined to pass them and get on with my day.

Then one big alien kicks the little pink creature, sending it hard into the wall. It bounces off the dull metal and squeals thinly in pain.

It's probably the stupid energy bar that does it. But I can't resist. Anger flares up in me, and I extend the fighting stick to its full length.

"Stop that," I tell the aliens flatly as I approach.

They turn to me. "Mind own biz," one says in heavily accented Interspeech. "Walk on."

I stop just out of stick range. The little creature sits on the floor, looking up at me with two clear brown eyes that are cartoonishly huge and adorable. I know I can't leave without knowing that thing is out of harm's way.

"Run away now," I tell it, eyeing the three aliens. They're tall and spindly, with dark skin and disordered, gray robes that remind me of the wrappings of a mummy. I spot long fingers with curved, yellow claws. They may not be as silly as they look.

The creature trots over to me, blinks and wags a little tail hesitantly.

The aliens talk to each other, making a strange humming noise.

One of them pulls a weapon and makes sure to show it to me. "Last chance. Keep going."

I squat down and give the small alien animal a quick glance. At the back of my mind I'm aware that this is not very smart — I don't know what kind of alien creature this is. But the treatment those jerks gave him makes me defiant. "You're not too injured, looks like. Run along now. Go on!" I reach out to push it, feeling the soft fur against my fingertips.

But the thing doesn't seem to see the danger. Well, I can't stay here.

As I straighten back up to keep going, the little creature jumps up onto me and clings to my shawl.

I yelp, thinking it's attacking me. The shawl and the creature drop to the ground, and my face is left uncovered.

The aliens lose interest in the little animal, all staring at me with their three eyes each. Their humming gets louder and more urgent, and they move as if to assault me.

"You are Earth female?" one of them asks.

I lift the fighting stick to make sure they see it as I pick up the shawl. "I have no business with you. Leave this creature alone, and let me pass."

They come closer, seeming to float without much movement of their feet. "Earth female?"

They tower over me, and my skin starts creeping. I twirl the fighting stick, getting ready to use it. "Stay where you are!"

Their ugly, throaty humming increases in intensity as they discuss me in their own language. "Come with us."

"I'm not coming with anyone," I tell them, raising my voice. "Stay away."

But they come closer, quickly surrounding me while staying at a safe distance from my stick. Metallic objects appear in their hands, clearly weapons of some kind. It looks like I'll have to fight?—

Pop.

A sticky net engulfs me, restricting my movements as I try to whack the nearest alien with the end of the stick.

I'm still catching my bearings when the aliens get in close and reach for me with their clawed fingers. "Come with us."

I go to the final option I've practiced for situations like this: go crazy.

I windmill the fighting stick as well as I can, trying to hit the aliens. The stick senses the net around me and gets shorter to still be usable. I manage to get in one hard hit on the nearest alien, but my attempts at kicking are hindered by the net, which is now quickly shrinking around me.

"Help!" I scream as the really final option. "I'm being assaulted!"

My voice echoes from the walls of the corridor, sounding desperate and thin.

The mesh of the net shrinks, and I can't even push the thin end of the stick out of the holes. I start to worry about being able to breathe if it keeps shrinking.

Two of the aliens calmly lift me as if I were a sack of cement, their lidless eyes staring at me. "Female?"

"Let me go!" I yell, my voice cracking because this is starting to look really bad. "Help!"

The aliens move quickly through the corridor towards the hangars. If they have a ship there, and I can't get away before then, their abduction of me will be successful. And nobody will know where I went.

I guess I'll have to activate the very final option and hope it works.

I just manage to reach my right wrist with one finger of my left hand. The implant is a hard square right underneath the skin, where the Bululg population control chip has been replaced with something even more nasty that the Resistance offered me.

The aliens suddenly freeze in place.

"Leave that little thing right there, friends!" a bassy voice booms through the corridor.

With one finger resting on the implant, I raise my gaze.

Something huge and immensely colorful is coming towards us. It's a parade, like something you might see at the carnival in Rio de Janeiro, all feathers and movement and ostentation. It fills the corridor from wall to wall and floor to ceiling. All that's missing is the deafening sound of samba drums.

In the middle is a man, muscular and blue, dressed in some kind of shiny, metallic leotard. It looks like a humanoid alien, a really big one, with a huge grin on his face.

The aliens are as stunned as I am by the newcomer. It takes me a good few seconds to realize it's not a carnival parade at all — it's a single alien.

My brain locks up in protest. Surely one person can't fill a room and grab all the attention like this, to the point where my deadly peril fades into the background.

"I will unburden you," he booms in smooth Interspeech as he comes towards us. "These little females are all trouble anyway."

"Not," one of the mummy aliens finally manages to bray. "Not take. Is ours."

"Of course," the parade says soothingly like a father to a toddler. "Was yours. Now is mine. And I will make sure she is put to good use. Make no problems for me here, friend." The last words have the merest hint of an edge to them.

"We found," another alien says. "Is ours."

The net has stopped contracting, and there's not much I can do except to take in the newcomer. He's taller than the aliens, wider and stronger. His skin is an iridescent blue. Enormous wings grow from his back, as colorful as a fireworks display and seeming to glow and change like a kaleidoscope. They are what makes him look like a parade. He's topped off by a shiny comb of feathers on his head. He's the most extravagant, over-the-top thing I've ever seen. And it's not a costume. That is him .

It's completely impossible to take my eyes off him. He's a caricature of a peacock, all colors and spectacle and beauty. But where a peacock on Earth is always faintly ridiculous, you'd never laugh at this guy. He may be all ostentation, but he has a deadly center that I sense with the most primitive part of my brain. That part also signals something else that I'm not even going to acknowledge, but which has something to do with procreation.

My gaze drops to his midsection. He's wearing pants, tight and shimmering in a silvery white that complements the rest of him perfectly. Whatever it is they're hiding, it's something pretty big.

" Are you theirs, little female?" the peacock asks, coming to a halt with an elegant flourish that sets his feathers rustling. I swear it sounds like tiny bells playing a dainty little melody.

"No," I manage weakly. "They're trying to abduct me."

He tilts his head, yellow eyes shining as his humanoid face takes on a puzzled expression. I notice that apart from his wings and feathers, there's nothing bird-like about him.

"She says you gentlebeings are trying to abduct her! Surely that can't be right?"

"We found her," the mummy leader tries again. "She ours."

"Ah!" the peacock exclaims, his face brightening. "You found her. But now I have found you , and so you are all mine. Come, I will take you to my ship." He steps to the side and raises his fine eyebrows, gesturing as if to usher the aliens ahead of him.

And such is his sheer force of personality that they take a couple of steps before they catch themselves and stop. "No own us! Not found us. Get out of way. We go now."

The peacock fills the corridor again, and his feathers have definitely gone darker, less cheerful. "I am confused, gentlebeings. You say you found the Earth female, and so she is yours. But I have found you , and so you must be mine."

The mummy leader waves his spindly arms. "Not yours! We traders from Krunku. This Earth female without owner. But now we is owner."

The feathery alien frowns and manages to make it heartbreakingly attractive. "You own her . And I own you! So I own her , too. Yes? By your own reasoning?"

"Yes… no! Not own us, alien! We own us! And the Earth female."

The peacock gives me a little glance and sends me a lopsided smile as if to say can you believe these guys? "And I say I own you. And her. What do you say, little female?"

His gesture gives me the tiniest little bit of hope. He's not quite as alien as these Krunku guys.

"I own myself."

He gasps theatrically, one hand going to his massive chest as if clutching his pearls. "She says she owns herself! Did you hear? This is a complicated business… oh ." The peacock looks to the side and does a double take as he spots his own reflection in a metal panel of the corridor. He gives himself a satisfied smile, runs one hand down the side of one wing, and picks out a tiny, blue feather that's come loose. Bringing it to his face, he sniffs it and strokes it lovingly against his perfect nose while reluctantly returning his gaze to the Krunku mummies. "The more I think about it, the more certain I get that it's better if I just take her. No need to pay me! I do it freely. But next time there will be a fee. Why, I can't keep going around and taking on livestock like this for no compensation!"

The Krunku go quiet as they consider their offer. Then they start humming among themselves, clearly ready to protest in a more violent manner. Weapons are being raised.

"Do not defy me," the peacock snarls, his voice suddenly icy and his feathers a deep black with fiery orange tips. The corridor has gone dark, only illuminated in pulsating red, like the gates of hell. "Go now. Leave the female."

The alien that carries me drops me from the sheer shock of the changed mood.

I hit the floor with my bony butt and immediately start fighting to get out of the net.

The pink little ball of fur that got kicked around scurries over and bites into the net, growling and pulling at it as if to help me.

There's a loud thwack , and then one of the Krunku aliens is on the floor and the rest of them are hurrying away.

The net snaps, and all the tension goes out of it. I pull the opening wider, but before I can crawl out, a big hand grabs the mesh and lifts me high up.

Clear, yellow eyes stare at me from up close. "I suppose you're mine now."