Chapter 12

CHAPTER 12

ALINA

T hrexin said something in Uhyreish before he passed out.

"Shit."

Alina's heart pounded up her throat and the rest of her was frozen.

A pool of blood spread underneath the uhyre on her floor, right on her green fluffy rug. Was that addictive like his exorin? Or maybe that was his exorin?

No… It's only if you ingest it… Or the other thing…

Alina jumped off the bed.

It took too long to drag the massive body into her cabin. Bit by bit, she inched him inside. He barely fit on her floor. Finally, the cabin door had space to shut. Alina braced her hands on her knees, catching her breath.

She glanced back at the alien. Threxin. He was still bleeding.

Shit.

What was she supposed to do now? Alina ran to the bathroom to grab the first aid kit there, but it was woefully underequipped for this amount of bleeding. She couldn't even see the wound from here; it was beneath him somewhere, at his front. But she could imagine how severe it must be to bleed that much.

But if she didn't try to reach it, the uhyre would die, of that she was certain. He'd die right there in her cabin, in front of her. Alina got one of her hands beneath Threxin's bulk and lodged her shoulder under his arm for a brace. She growled through her teeth as she pushed him up. She didn't know how, but it only took a few jerky attempts to flop the limp alien to his side. Adrenaline, maybe.

When Alina flopped him onto his back, the hole in his chest spit blood and rattled, bubbling. His creepy skin slits gaped in a way that looked almost relaxed, but the cyan fire within them was muted and that couldn't be good.

Alina reached up to wipe the sweat from her face again but stopped short, remembering that her hands were dripping red with a possibly addictive substance… She rubbed them off on her trousers and opened the kit. The contents were laughable in the present predicament, but she extracted the roll of skinsilk bandage there. Wrapping it around the alien was out of the question—it would never abate the flow, even if she could get it under and around his body.

Clenching her jaw as she tried to ignore her squeamish stomach, Alina did the only thing she thought might work. She grabbed the roll and shoved it right into the hole in the uhyre's heart. Watching the wound stretch tight around it made her gag. Blood seeped from the edges of the roll, but at least it helped ease the flow for now.

What was it he said? Something "k'riar thou." He had used that word, k'riar , before, when he spoke to the other alien who was often near him. The red one. He must've wanted her to get him.

Alina scrambled to her feet and made for the door, but stopped short, looking down at herself. Her shirt and hands were steeped in blood. If anyone saw her like this, there'd be hell to pay. She tapped the wall near her hydrastation, rifling through the drawer that slid open to grab one of her long cardigans. She wrapped a black one around herself and wiped her hands on another. It didn't get rid of all the red, but it was all she had time for now.

Outside her cabin, she stopped in her tracks again at the sight of a dark red trail leading from her door straight to a human body not twenty feet away. This thing that used to be alive and was now just… what? What was it now?

She glanced around. The hallway was oddly empty. Usually at least one armed uhyre was on constant patrol. There was no way anyone would miss this. Alina should probably do something to clean it up—at least use her graywater ration to wipe away the grotesque trail of evidence leading a right to her door.

But if she didn't hurry and find this K'riar, the barely living body in her cabin would look just like the dead one over there. And how was she ever gonna live with herself after that?

Something clattered as she stepped forward. A firedagger. Aside from a blaster that had to be the only thing that could make that kind of wound. Alina grabbed it, tucked it into her cardigan pocket, and walked briskly toward the command center. She had no idea where K'riar was staying, but there were always uhyre there and all she could do was hope she'd run into him or someone who knew where he was.

Was it even going to do any good? What was another uhyre supposed to do with no medical equipment? Threxin needed to be in the medbay. That wound was beyond anything they could fix in her cabin. She should send for a doctor. But a human attacked him… How could she be sure another human wouldn't just finish the job?

Fuck. Should she have finished the job?

It was too late. Alina was already outside the command center, and the door was shut.

The uhyre outside rounded on her, glowing orange eyes flicking to her bloodstained trousers. That was when she noticed the alien was also smeared with it. And behind him or her lay some sort of lumpy pile covered with a tarp. Alina stared, but there was no time to decipher the shape underneath—she turned and started banging the door to the command center with a fist.

The guard moved to action, gurgling in Uhyreish as it slammed the butt of its gun into Alina's shoulder to make her stumble from the door.

"Please… I have to get… k'riar. K'riar?" she blabbered, eyes watering from pain as she clutched her shoulder.

The uhyre—a female, Alina decided—narrowed her eyes, her head rocking to the side in that disturbing way they had. When Alina stepped toward the door again, the alien grabbed her arm and hauled her back.

Alina's cardigan fell open, and the uhyre hissed as her eyes dropped to the soaked blood stains on Alina's chest. Did she know that was her commander's blood? She gurgled words again, talons tightening on her weapon.

"Shit. Look, it's your commander," Alina pulled out the firedagger, intending to explain just how hurt Threxin was and with what. Okay, that was stupid. The female was already recoiling, then snatching the dagger from her hand and pointing the gun at her face, snarling something in guttural grunts.

Alina backed away, pinned beneath the barrel of the gun. How was she meant to communicate with this creature? Anything she said could just set the alien off and end her right there. It was almost funny for a moment—the thought of getting killed trying to help her invader. Karmic payback, maybe.

The command center door opened and Alina saw red in her peripheral vision, but she didn't dare avert her eyes from the gun in her face. The female holding it said something, and K'riar came into view .

"Oh, thank God," Alina rushed, stumbling forward but freezing again when the red one's skin slits tightened to barely visible threads and the spikes atop his skull cracked forward, then slapped flat.

"What is this?" He lowered his chin at her.

"Your commander… He told me to get you. He's hurt. Threxin."

The red uhyre was on her before she finished speaking. He grabbed her wrist in a crushing vise and wrenched her forward. Her already smarting shoulder screamed in protest as the yank threatened to dislocate her arm from its socket. He brought her bloody hand to his face and… sniffed, slitted nostrils flaring.

After a long few seconds, the smoldering crimson eyes rose to meet hers, making Alina want to shrink in on herself and never be seen by them again.

"Take me," the uhyre said.

Alina was nodding mindlessly. "Okay. Okay."

The female behind them turned to follow, but K'riar waved her off, hissing something in Uhyreish as Alina broke off at a run the way she came.

"Shoq," K'riar said as they rounded the corner toward her cabin. Alina didn't know the word, but she understood the sentiment.

If people knew she was helping their invader…

Why was she helping their invader?

"This way, K'riar," she wheezed, opening her door.

"I am not your fucking brother," he growled behind her.

Oh. That must be what k'riar means…

No time to feel mortified just then. She'd get to that later.

"Shoq," the alien who was not her k'riar repeated as they stepped into her cabin .

A bloom of crimson had seeped through to the top of the bandage roll in Threxin's chest wound. The glow underneath his skin had dulled further in her absence. Alina dropped to her knees, pressing her hand to the alien's chest and her ear to his nose.

"He's breathing… Barely. I think… I think they got his heart."

The uhyre scanned the room, eyes landing on the open medkit on the ground. "That is not where his heart is," he muttered.

"We need to get him to the medbay." Alina turned back to him and found him watching her with slitted eyes. What was he thinking? Did he think she was involved in this? Did she just sign her death warrant? Was he about to go into full on raging uhyre mode?

"No," the alien snapped. "No humans."

"He needs someone . I… I can't fix him here."

"You will go to your medicinal area. Retrieve treatment equipment."

"I'm not a doctor, I don't even know?—"

"You will figure it out, human," he hissed.

"What if I get stopped? Where is everyone anyway?"

Renza flicked his talons at her, his spikes rising like hackles. "You will run into no one tonight. Go."

She'd been trained in first aid—everyone who resided on the command deck had been. That included tending to wounds, but this… This needed a whole regen pod, damn it. Alina reeled over her options as she sprinted toward the medbay. Like the red alien said, she didn't run into any others.

Which made it the perfect time to go to Kaia and tell her what's going on. This was not her job, and Kaia would know how to handle this .

I'd be killing him.

Kaia and Orion would be the first people wanting the half-dead alien on her floor fully dead. Alina had the opportunity now to put Orion back in command of the ship. She could save them all.

Or she could damn them. The ship was teeming with uhyre, wherever they were. Who was to say Threxin's brother wouldn't slaughter them all as soon as their commander was dead?

That's not my call.

She barged into the medbay and flailed around in search of a doctor. A nurse she recognized from one of her laundry shift friends' bar nights poked his head out of a neighboring room. His eyes widened as he took her in. Alina tightened the cardigan around herself.

"Here," he beckoned, bolting into the hall to get to her.

"Not me." Alina was shaking her head. "I need… equipment. Someone's been attacked. With a firedagger."

"I'm coming." The nurse ducked back into the room, then emerged with a stretcher on rollers and a huge pack balancing atop it.

"N-no. Just the kit. Commander's orders."

It was technically not a lie. But she knew the nurse would assume "Commander" meant Orion, considering his wife was the one Alina worked for and was loyal to. Was supposed to be loyal to anyway. Another head popped into the hall behind a few doors down.

"Look, I don't know—I just have my orders," Alina snapped when the man gave her an incredulous look.

She couldn't afford to wait or argue. Channeling confidence she didn't deserve, Alina grabbed the pack from the nurse's arms and bolted, praying he didn't follow.

Back at the door of her cabin, the blood was gone. So was the body of Threxin's attacker.

Thank God.

Threxin's brother wasn't in the cabin when she entered. Another blessing. Alina crouched and opened the pack, rifling through the contents. She did mention the dagger and hoped that meant the nurse would've grabbed the relevant stuff.

The red one entered moments later, looking like he'd just taken a stroll when Alina guessed he was disposing of a corpse. She flashed back to the lumpy tarp she'd seen at the command center. It didn't… look right.

Focus.

The bandage wedge she'd applied may as well have not been there by this point. It was soaked in blood, doing nothing to stop the flow.

"Move." The red uhyre shoved his shoulder into her ribs, sending her sprawling into the wall with a wincing yelp. Pain bloomed all along her spine, and she groaned under her breath as she got herself up and into a crouch.

The brother looked like he knew what he was doing as he picked equipment from the pack.

Of course, they must have had similar stuff on the Elysian . They would be at least a little familiar.

The uhyre extracted a cauterizer from the kit, testing the trigger to evoke a dry sizzle.

"The weapon," he said without looking at her. "Is there a bullet? A blade?"

"No," Alina said from her spot against the wall. "It's a firedagger. Burns right through in a column. No trace except…"

"Except this shoqing hole," the uhyre muttered. He ripped through his commander's—his k'riar's—shirt. It did not go easily, the thick black fabric protesting even the alien's talons. It wasn't a material she recognized, and the way it stretched instead of tearing until the last possible moment was unlike anything she'd seen in their normal clothes. Alina wondered how he got that washed.

Burning flesh, the smell and sound of it, twisted her stomach. She stared at her bloodstained hands and clothes, then the smears of it on the green rug and the tile underneath. She took shallow breaths, small as she could, anything to avoid breathing in that stench.

She failed. Alina fell forward and retched, adding to the mess on the floor. At least she managed to miss her carpet.

"Come." The instruction barely broke through her ringing ears. Alina didn't look or think as she crawled over to the red one, wiping her mouth with the back of her arm. She stared at his blurry hands. They looked comically huge as he held a suturestick on one and a miniature cartridge of synthskin thread in the other. He fumbled as he attempted to operate the thing with those unsuitable paws. Alina tried to focus her vision on him—on the k'riar. She didn't dare focus on Threxin… He was too pale, and his chest wasn't moving.

"Do this." The red one thrust the implements at her, and she took them mindlessly with clammy fingers. It took three attempts to load the cartridge, but finally it was done and Alina pitched forward to lean over the body.

The bleeding had eased as the meat beneath the skin had been cauterized, but the edges of the wound were still gaping open. The synthskin thread would be critical to close the wound for real and prevent infection. She'd have to touch the ripped skin to do it. Get a firm grip, pull the edges of it together… Alina swallowed the lump in her throat. She didn't even feel her hands as they shook in front of her face, as if they weren't her own. These were someone else's hands, and she was only observing them from afar.

"Female," the alien barked. "Do it."

Her hand trembled over the ugly wound as she leaned closer. She wanted to throw up again. Shit, she might… She mi ght right fucking now … She backed away a step, but collided with the wall of the alien behind her.

"If he dies, female, so will you. All of you."

His hand on her back pushed her forward, back toward Threxin.

He sounded so calm—how did he do that?

Alina nodded, mostly to herself. She held the loaded suturestick in one hand and pinched the black-singed flesh with the other, pressing the edges together. The suturestick did the rest. All she had to do was indent the trigger and slowly run the thing along the edge right behind her thumb as she went. The thread shot through flesh with minor resistance, holding it in place in tight, closely spaced bands.

It took about a minute, but it felt like forever. When it was done, Alina leaned back on her heels. She wasn't feeling sick anymore, at least.

"Will he… Can he live?" Alina asked, staring at the unconscious alien.

"You should hope he does."

She nodded. She did hope so, even before the threat Threxin's brother issued. The nameless k'riar. He'd mocked her for calling him "brother" before. She just did all this to keep his brother alive, even though it was probably going to end up being a huge mistake. And now all she could feel was the embarrassment of screwing up in a language she didn't even know. The least he could give her was a name.

"What are you called?" she asked.

She felt the weight of his predator eyes on her back. "You were deductive with his name. Do you not know?"

Alina looked at her hands in her lap. She should have known. She was sure Threxin would have said his brother's name before. She racked her brain for a memory.

"Renza," he finally said.

"You're brothers?"

"Of a sort. "

That meant no. Made sense, since they looked nothing alike. Alina wondered what had brought them to such a close relationship.

"What was under the tarp?" She frowned, keeping her eyes on the sutured wound.

Renza was silent behind her, and she thought about asking again, but there was no need. She knew what those lumps had looked like. How many were there? Why?

"Did he kill them?" It didn't even matter. Threxin was their commander—no matter who killed them, it was his fault. She realized she'd picked the cuticle of her thumb raw when she felt the blood on her fingertip. Alina raised it to her mouth, sucking the skin clean.

Renza finally spoke. "No."

"Are you just saying that so I help him?"

"No. You will help him regardless, as you know if you do not I will kill them myself and make you watch."

Right. Alina swallowed and, for the first time, looked at Threxin's face. His eyelids shifted slightly and so he was still alive. There was more work to do. She wiped her thumb on her thigh and turned back to rummaging in the med kit. She withdrew a can of antiseptic foam and slathered it over the sutured wound. Then she applied a layer of synthskin paste on top, evening it out as much as she could with the pads of her fingers to create a flat seal.

"Shit," she muttered suddenly.

"Speak."

"I forgot that your skin is different from ours. I'm not sure synthskin will… I don't know how he'll react to it, or the sutures."

"It is good enough." At least Renza sounded confident.

"What now?" Alina asked. "You'll need a cart to move him."

"He stays here."

No way was there going to be an unconscious fucking uhyre on her bed for some indeterminate amount of time. "What? Why? He'll really be better off in?—"

"I will not have him seen. He heals here. You watch."

"I have a job," Alina protested. She was already late to check on Kaia, something she could have been doing remotely if the bastard on her floor hadn't cut off their comms.

"Your job is to make sure your commander lives," Renza said.

My commander.

Orion Halen was her commander.

But was he really, when she had a chance to make him so again and gave it up?

It was treason—that was what she'd done. Had anyone seen her in the halls? People tried to stay in their cabins when not on shift these days, and there weren't many of them left on this deck. But surely she wasn't the only one who noticed the uhyre guards missing.

"And you?" she asked. "What will you do?"

Renza rose, a glowing crimson column in her periphery. "I find out who did this."

"He's dead."

"Doubtful he was alone."

That made sense. It could have been a wider plot to regain control of the ship. It could have been Orion .

What if… what if those people under the tarp were part of a bigger mutiny?

What if she just ruined everything?