CHAPTER TWO

Kade

T he interior of the crate was dark. But it was not cold. It was actually quite comfortable. I stood at parade rest, feet shoulder width apart, hands clasped lightly behind my back. I had been waiting for getting on for three days, ever since the crate had landed with a surprisingly gentle thud and the interior panel had informed me that it was safe to undo the straps of my safety harness.

I had remained ready for the imminent arrival of my master for much of the intervening time. At night, I slept on a thin pallet on the floor. During the day, I diligently rolled it up and stored it neatly in a corner. Twice a day, I ate food from the supplies that had been packed into the storage crate, bolted to the corner of my little cell. There was enough water for another three days, plus a hygiene canister for my waste. But aside from those brief diversions, I simply stood and waited.

I was used to standing. I had learned to stand for long periods during my training. I had learned to do all sorts of things during my training, actually. Walking for hours. Running. Swimming. Climbing. Dancing in the Anicrian style. Dancing in the Polvron style. Cooking food for the Dologals, for the Rentrals, for the Basuba. Understanding the nuances of Fortusian sand art.

And sex. So very, very many things about sex. Judging by the descriptions from the trainers, the rest of the galaxy was thoroughly obsessed with it. And I needed to know how to please a dozen different species, in a dozen different ways.

I had excelled at my training. The trainers had been quick to praise me, impressed with how fast I picked up new skills. I should be proud of my abilities, they told me. But they were always diligent in reminding me that regardless of how impressive my education, in the end, we would not actually need most of the skills we learned. If I was sold to a Basuba, there was no need to know how to make Rentral food. If I was sold to a Polvron, there was no need to know about Fortusian art. But until I met my master, until I knew which species they were and which world they lived on, I was to learn everything .

On that note, we had been cautioned not to try and show off to our masters, wanting to demonstrate skills that they had no use for. They would tell us what they wanted, and we would do it. My role was not to question; it was to obey.

My heart rate picked up at the sound of slow footsteps from outside the container. Finally! By the stars, my master was here! I realised I had clenched my hands into fists in my excitement, and I deliberately relaxed. My breath hitched as I anticipated the moment when I would finally lay eyes on my new master, and I gritted my teeth to keep the smile off my face. Grinning like an idiot would not give a good first impression. I took a few slow, deep breaths to get my emotions under control.

The footsteps stopped, and I frowned. It was the master, wasn’t it? Disappointment crept in, as I realised it might have been just a wild animal. I didn’t even know what planet I was on at the moment, not having been given even the slightest detail about my master, so I had no way of knowing what animals might be around. The trainers deliberately kept us ignorant, to avoid the risk of us picking and choosing which skills we wanted to learn, or gloating in front of the other dimari about who had been favoured with a better sale. I would find out my master’s identity when I met them, and not a moment before.

The footsteps resumed, and I held my breath as they came closer to the door of the crate. They were here. They were going to claim me. I would have a purpose, and be able to take pride in serving them to the absolute best of my ability, and…

Oh, no, that would not do. My hardening cock was entirely unwelcome, completely inappropriate for a meeting as auspicious as this one. I thought of the ice plunges that the trainers had made us take part in, during winters on Eumad. Though they were an important part of our training, they had nonetheless been brutally cold, and the memory did the job of taming my errant libido. Control and obedience were all that mattered.

Finally, after an interminable wait, the interior panel lit up, briefly proclaiming, ‘Lock release in progress’, before abruptly going blank. The sound of the cooling fans faded out as the power shut off… and then I heard the handle turn. This was it. I was finally going to meet them.

Light spilled into the dim container, silhouetting a tall, broad-shouldered figure. With the light behind him, I couldn’t make out any of his features. I wasn’t even entirely sure he was male, but his body shape suggested he was. But even without being able to see his face, every sense I had locked onto him, memorising him, imprinting on him, making sure I would be able to identify him anywhere .

“Master,” I breathed, feeling almost lightheaded.

The man stared at me for a long moment, and then his body sagged, and he spoke two words. The translator implanted behind my right ear hummed for a moment as it sorted through the hundreds of available languages, attempting to identify the one the man had used. Two seconds later, it gave a muffled beep, then translated what he’d said. And when I heard the words, they ripped my heart clean out of my chest. He’d said “Oh, fuck…”

My body went rigid. I clamped my mouth shut, eyes locked on the floor. Stars help me, what had I possibly done in all of three seconds to disappoint him so horribly? I stood motionless, hoping that he would tell me, desperate for him to give me an order, so that I could prove I wasn’t worthless, so that I could have a second chance at pleasing him, after the first impression had gone so terribly wrong. Then he spoke again. “You’re Vangravian, aren’t you?”

For a moment, I was shocked. How could he not know that I was Vangravian? But a split second later, I dismissed the pointless question. He was my master. My only job here was to obey him. To answer him. “Yes, Master,” I replied. If I was lucky, my master wouldn’t notice the slight hesitation. Hesitation equalled disobedience. And I was not disobedient.

“Shit. Well, I don’t know who…” Anything else he might have been about to say was cut off as a gunshot cracked out of the forest and a deafening ‘ping’ echoed through the container as a bullet hit the doorway, not a hand’s breadth from my master’s head.

He moved like lightning, launching himself inside the container and plastering himself against the half of the door that was still closed. “Get down,” he yelled, waving a hand vaguely in my direction, while he drew his gun with his other hand. Or rather, one of his guns. He had what appeared to be a rifle slung over his shoulder, while a pistol was now in his hand.

I darted sideways, away from the doorway and into what cover was available. My master dropped to the ground and took a careful glance out the doorway. “Fucking assholes ruined a perfectly good fucking day,” he muttered, right before he fired three shots in rapid succession.

Should I go and help him with whoever was shooting at him? A part of me desperately wanted to. He was my master, and protecting him was as instinctive as breathing. But firstly, I didn’t know who was shooting at him. It was possible he had allies out in the… forest? I guessed, as I caught a glimpse of the greenery outside the container. And the last thing I wanted to do was inadvertently shoot his comrades. And secondly, he hadn’t yet given me any orders, aside from ‘get down’. Protected by the thick metal door, he seemed to have the situation handled for the moment, so I waited, alert for the slightest instruction from him as to what I should do next .

His focus was laser sharp on whatever was outside the door, and he lined up the next shot, leaned a fraction to the right, and pulled the trigger.

The forest went quiet, the thunder of gunfire fading out. I waited for him to give the all clear… or maybe to tell me to go and check our surroundings. But he did neither. Instead, he lifted his wrist and tapped at the comm strapped there. I didn’t have a comm of my own – few dimari ever did – but I’d seen enough of them to know what it was.

“I know who’s trying to kill us,” he said into the device. “It’s the Culrads. Over.”

There was a pause, and then some static. “Roger,” a tinny voice said. “Are you okay? Over.”

“A little deafer than I was five minutes ago. But I’ll live. I’ve taken out two of them, but there are bound to be more skulking around, so keep an eye out. Oh, and I’ve picked up a plus one. He’s Vangravian. So when I get to the rendezvous, do me a favour and don’t shoot him? Over.”

There was a longer pause. “Vangravian?” the voice asked, then added a belated, “Over.”

“One of the Eumadian crates had a dimari in it,” my master said, glancing back at me. “If we don’t run into any trouble, we should catch up with you in about three hours.”

“Understood,” the other man replied. “See you soon. Over.”

“Hill out,” my master said, then cut off the channel. He stood up, then glanced at me again. “Stay here,” he said, then eased his way out of the container. I desperately wanted to go with him, but he’d given me a direct order. But even so, I edged over to the door so that I could follow his path with my eyes as he stepped cautiously across the small plateau the container had landed on. If he was just checking for more assailants, he might need backup at short notice. But I was also aware of a far less pleasant possibility. Perhaps he’d decided I was too disappointing to bother with and was going to abandon me.

But no, he’d said – or at least, he’d implied – that he would be taking me with him to meet whoever he’d spoken to on the comm. So it would be fine. Everything was fine.

I waited. I breathed. I made an effort to relax my overly tense shoulders. Then finally, he glanced back at me and called, “We’re clear. Come on out.”

Thank the stars he wasn’t leaving me here. I grabbed the backpack that contained all the essential supplies I’d been sent with and stepped cautiously out of the container.

The air outside was humid and cool, with grey storm clouds lingering in the distance, while directly above us, the sky was clear and blue. It was a beautiful sight, after so many days inside the Eumadians’ ship. I quickly determined that ‘forest’ had been an underestimation of our location. The towering trees and swirling vines made ‘jungle’ a more apt description .

My master’s back was towards me, but I could see that he was about the same height as me, though maybe a fraction shorter, and he had the same muscular build. He was wearing military fatigues, but that was about all I could tell from this angle. He was fiddling with his comm again – perhaps doing a scan of the trees? – and I waited patiently for him to finish.

Finally, he nodded to himself and put the scanner away, then he turned to face me… and my breath caught in my throat. Stars above, he was beautiful. Brown skin, dark brown hair peeking out from under his cap, and eyes that I could just drown in. I felt a rush of desire, followed rapidly by a wave of shame. He’d taken one look at me and found me lacking. But then he spoke, and the soothing tone of his voice caught me off guard.

“Are you okay? Are you injured?”

Such care and concern for someone so far beneath him. My heart stuttered as I fumbled for an answer. “No, Master. I’m well,” I told him. I kept my gaze on the ground, not wanting to displease him any further with unintentional insolence.

He nodded and took a deep breath. “Sorry about the rough introduction. We’re in the middle of a mission that’s going sideways rapidly, so I guess I wasn’t quite prepared for running into you. These bastards killed two of my teammates earlier today, so I’m not having a great day.”

Relief washed over me. Oh, thank the heavens. He wasn’t disappointed in me . It was the whole situation that had him on edge. And if Culrads were trying to kill him and his team, then I could certainly understand why.

“My condolences,” I said, not quite sure whether it was the appropriate thing to say, but not willing to leave that sort of news unacknowledged.

“I’m Lieutenant Aiden Hill, Alliance Military,” my master introduced himself. “What’s your name?”

“Kade,” I replied. “I have an operations manual, if you’d like to see it?”

He looked momentarily taken aback. “Yeah, that would be great.”

I pulled the small, electronic device out of the front pocket of my backpack, handing it to him. “You can transfer it onto your comm, if that’s more convenient.”

He nodded, but merely pocketed the device. “I’m not ignoring you,” he said, a moment later. “We’ve just got bigger problems to deal with right now.” He looked me up and down… and once again, his earlier comments suddenly made more sense. He’d asked me if I was Vangravian... and I’d been too distracted by his arrival to have considered the fact that I was standing in a dim box, and he’d been out in the bright sunlight. Of course he wouldn’t have been able to see me.

But his perusal made me suddenly aware of the differences between us. His skin was brown, while my colouring was bright blue. “My apologies,” I said hastily, aware that I was being rude. A moment of concentration was all it took to change the pigment, and my scales darkened, then reddened, until my colour was a fairly close match to his. A shade or two darker, perhaps, but not far off. Unfortunately, there was a limit as to how far I could push the pigments, so that restricted exactly which colours I could match.

My master’s eyes opened wide. “Wow,” he said, his eyes doing another slow sweep of my body. “That’s quite a trick you’ve got there. How do you do that?”

“My scales contain a variety of pigment nodules. I can contract different ones to display different colour combinations.”

“Scales?” He took a closer look at me. I held out my arm, attempting to be helpful. He stepped towards me, and now, I could smell him. He smelled divine, of masculine sweat and something earthy, like tree bark, perhaps? The scent wormed its way through my neurones, adding to the imprint.

Then he lifted his hand, running one finger very lightly over my scales. They were tiny, only about two millimetres wide each, and under dim light, they looked like one smooth layer, much like my master’s skin. In bright light, though, or when I was displaying vivid colours, the individual scales could be seen.

He looked me over once again. My clothing was grey and my backpack was black. “Probably best you stick with the brown for now, given that something’s chasing us. On a normal day, I wouldn’t mind if you wanted to be blue instead. Whatever’s more comfortable for you.”

The statement baffled me. “I am here to serve your desires,” I replied. “I will be whatever colour you prefer.”

He nodded. “Like I said; for now, let’s stick with brown. We need to go this way,” he said, pointing to the north-west. Then he paused, glancing back at the container. “Is there anything else you need to bring with you?”

“There’s some food in a canister in the container,” I informed him. “Are we likely to need it?” I had no clue what this mission he was on was about, but trekking through the jungle would take a fair amount of energy.

“That’s actually a really good idea,” he said. I hastily ducked back into the container, carrying the sizable canister outside into the daylight. I released the seal and stepped back, allowing him to peruse the contents. “Protein bars,” he said, prodding the carefully wrapped packages inside. “Should have known. Still, it’s better than nothing.” He grabbed a handful and shoved them into his pack, then gestured for me to do the same. “We’ve got a three day walk out of here, so bring whatever you can carry.” His eyes did one more sweep of my body. “I take it you are capable of walking a good distance?”

“Yes, Master,” I replied, quickly but neatly packing as many of the bars as would fit into my backpack. Then I ducked back inside the container to grab the thin bedroll I’d been using, and strapped it to the bottom of my pack. I hadn’t anticipated needing it again, but with a three day walk, I was making the bold assumption that we’d be sleeping out in the jungle .

“All set?” he asked, once I was done.

“Yes, Master.”

That earned me a sigh and the slump of his shoulders. “Could you call me Aiden?”

Could I what? I froze, fear and confusion warring in my head. Two decades of training was loudly and insistently proclaiming that calling my master by his given name was deeply inappropriate. And yet, that same master had given me an order to do exactly that. I made a helpless sort of noise, feeling like my brain was glitching. We stared at each other for a long moment, until he finally shook his head. “You know what? Never mind. Master is fine.”

“Yes, Master,” I replied meekly, knowing I was displeasing him. But nothing in my training had prepared me for what to do if presented with an order like that one.

“We’re heading for a crashed ship about three hours in this direction,” my master said, heading off into the jungle. I fell in behind him, keeping our tracks to a minimum, and maintaining a sharp eye and ear on the vegetation around us. “We originally thought it belonged to the Eumadians, but apparently a Culrad ship has landed somewhere nearby and they’re going after the cargo, so I’m not entirely sure what’s going on anymore. There’s another Alliance team heading for the crashed ship, and we’ll meet up with them when we get there.” He stopped suddenly, turning back to peer quizzically at me. “Do you know where you are?”

“No, Master,” I replied. I didn’t, but that detail honestly wasn’t concerning me a whole lot at the moment. I had a master, we had a mission, and he was currently not entirely displeased with me. Any other details could wait until he deigned to tell me.

“Okay, fine.” He turned around and started walking again. “This planet is called Rendol 4. Have you heard of it?”

“No, Master.”

“Have you heard of the Denzogal Alliance?”

“Yes, Master,” I said, more pleased that I knew the answer to this one. “It’s a political alliance between six species and they have jointly colonised an area of space roughly fifty light years in diameter and consisting of approximately three hundred stars. Colonised planets on the outer edges of the region are more prone to attack from opportunistic species or pirates.”

“Exactly,” he agreed. “And Rendol is one of the solar systems in that fringe region. Which is why we’re constantly getting Culrads, Eumadians, and god knows who else knocking at our door. So this is just another day for us. Do you know what I am?” he asked next, swiftly changing topic.

“No, Master,” I said, feeling slightly ashamed of the fact – even though there was nothing I could have done about it. If my trainers had not taught me about my master’s species, I had no way to learn it .

“I’m a human,” my master said. “We originated in the Sol solar system, which is about four hundred light years away. Populations of humans splintered away from Earth – that’s our home planet – about three hundred years ago. We’ve had a fairly stable population living on Rendol 4 for about a hundred years, along with populations of all the other Alliance species. We’re slowly terraforming the planet to make it more habitable. Back on Earth, my ancestors apparently came from a region called Mexico. A lot of the humans on Rendol 4 did, actually. I don’t know much about Mexico, except that it was hot. A lot hotter than this place. Summer’s nice, but winter’s fucking freezing.”

He fell silent, and we continued walking. I pondered what he’d said. Given the volatile nature of space in the fringes between territories, it made sense for him to have bought me. The skills I’d been taught would be an asset to him, if battles like the one earlier were a regular occurrence here. I didn’t know much about terraforming, though. I’d been raised on Eumad, and as a class one planet with an intact native population, agriculture and fishing were about as far as anyone dabbled into biosphere science.

About half an hour passed, with nothing but the wind disturbing our surroundings. But shortly after we crossed a small stream, my ear twitched and I stopped in my tracks. I couldn’t have said exactly what it was that caught my attention, but before I’d even thought about it, I’d darted forward, pulled my master to an urgent stop, and pressed a finger to my lips, even as his wide eyes flashed annoyance at me. Seeing my gesture, his mood changed instantly, and he held absolutely still as I listened. What I heard wasn’t really a sound. Or at least, not one I could have described. The trees around us were in a constant state of motion, errant breezes rustling leaves at all levels of the canopy. But something over to my left just sounded… different. Like the rustling moved with a different cadence. There was something there. I would have bet my life on it. I pointed in the direction of our soon-to-be assailants, keeping my hand close to my chest.

With a few simple gestures, my master motioned for us to get closer to the ground, and then to seek shelter behind an outcrop of rock. The towering boulders were a regular occurrence throughout the jungle and they were one of the reasons why this trek was so time consuming. The pathway was constantly blocked by rocks, or by vines, or by small chasms where rain had dug channels into the earth. In this case, though, the rocks were going to do us a favour.

“What is it?” my master asked, his voice barely a whisper as he surveyed the wall of greenery in front of us.

“There’s something there,” I told him, in the same low tones. “I don’t know how many, or which species. There's at least two of them, but maybe more.”

He listened intently for a long moment. “I don’t hear anything. ”

Was Vangravian hearing more acute than a human’s? Without knowing much about his species, it was hard to make any sensible comparisons. I listened, trying to pull the threads of sound apart. I wished I could see into the infrared range, like the Eumadians could. Instead, I could pick out slivers of ultraviolet light, faint glimpses between the leaves, but nothing clear enough to make a solid picture.

But my master was fiddling with his comm again, and a small display popped up, using the rock as a makeshift screen. It displayed three heat signals – three clear, bipedal forms, huddled around the thick base of a tree. My master tapped a few more keys, then his mouth tightened. “Well, they’re not my team,” he said, when the results of his latest query flashed up. “They’re a good two kilometres from here. So my bet is that these are more Culrads. And given that they’ve had two goes at killing me already, I’d prefer to shoot first and ask questions later.”

It was an idiom I hadn’t heard before, but I immediately liked it. My master pulled his rifle from his shoulder, but before he could lift it and take aim, a hail of bullets sprayed into the boulder, sending up smatterings of dust and rock fragments. “Fuck these motherfucking assholes,” my master hissed, ducking for cover and scrabbling around for a better vantage point. “I am sick to death of this.” He returned fire, and I wished I had a gun on me. I hadn’t been given one when I’d been shipped out, though, and my master didn’t seem to have brought a spare for me.

I tracked the movements of the three people as well as I could through the brief glimpses between the trees, while at the same time assessing the ground and vegetation around us. There was a low rise to the left, growing thick with some type of fern-like plant, where I might be able to avoid detection and get closer to the Culrads.

But before I could come up with a solid plan, my heart jolted in my chest as I caught sight of a fourth assailant. This one was coming up on the left, and very soon, he would have a clear line of sight to my master, around the edge of the boulder. This wasn’t just a gunfight. It was an ambush.

But not if I could do anything about it. I tapped my master once on the leg, then gestured over to my left. It was as clear an explanation as I could give him under the circumstances, but I didn’t have time for anything more. I slipped silently into the undergrowth, an excellent and innate spatial awareness making it easy to keep track of exactly where I was in relation to the last spot I had seen the fourth assailant. He’d been heading south, so I compensated for his movements, edged around where he was going to end up, and came up behind him. A short knife slid soundlessly out of my boot, and then just as silently, it sliced through the man’s throat. He never knew what had killed him.

Well, that was all well and good, but there were still three men shooting at my master, and that was unacceptable. I backed up and traced a way around until I was behind the three men, having to spend a few extra cautious seconds making sure they couldn’t see me as I crossed the gap between one patch of ferns and the next. My master was still trading shots with them, but I was betting on the idea that these three were a mere diversion. The fourth man had been the true threat, and if the first three didn’t know he was dead, they would wait a while longer for him to complete his part of the attack.

One of the three men was already dead when I got within sight of them. My master had landed a perfect shot between the man’s eyes, and he was now staring sightlessly at the sky.

The second man was easy pickings. He was sheltered behind a tree, his attention fixed on my master’s location. It was a simple thing to creep soundlessly up behind him and slit his throat as well.

But that was where my luck ran out. The spray of blood from his throat splattered against the tree, and the sound of it got the attention of the third man. He looked around and spotted me instantly.

Acting on pure instinct, I flexed my scales, turning my entire body jet black. It wouldn’t help me hide in the jungle, not when he’d already seen me, but I’d learned from long experience that the colouring tended to scare the shit out of people, particularly if they didn’t know what I was. Sure enough, the man yelped, scuttling backwards until his back hit a tree. He reached for his gun, but I was already moving, crossing the distance between us in lithe, efficient movements.

Giving up on his gun, he grabbed a knife instead, and then it became clear that I wasn’t the only highly trained fighter here. He was on his feet before I arrived, and then it was a competition to see which of us was quicker, who could block a blow without getting stabbed in the process, who could anticipate their opponent’s moves and end up just a split second ahead of the other. My training fights had all been with wooden weapons. This was the first time I’d fought with metal, or against metal. It was exhilarating. It was terrifying. I gave ground, drawing him away from the tree, making sure to keep enough distance between us…

One single shot rang out, and the man’s head jerked to the side. He slumped to the ground a moment later, a gaping wound in his head where my master’s bullet had exited his skull.

I waited a moment, assessing the surrounding area, then I called out, “All clear.”

By the time my master arrived in the small clearing, I was back to my previous brown colour and wiping the blood off my knife on a handful of leaves. He pulled to a stop, gaping at me in shock. It was only then that it occurred to me that he hadn’t actually given me permission to take out our attackers. His comment to ‘shoot first and ask questions later’ could well have been a figurative statement, rather than a literal one .

“Are you all right?” he asked first, and I was rapidly learning to like that question. Having my master express concern about me made me feel… Well, I didn’t know, exactly, but it was a warm, squishy feeling, deep in my chest.

“I’m fine,” I assured him. “Not injured.”

He looked around at the downed men. “That was…” He grinned suddenly, shaking his head. “That was fucking amazing. Where the hell did you learn to do that?”

I frowned. “I am a combat specialist,” I said, my elation at the praise tempered by confusion. “A full report on my skills is in my operations manual.” It would also have been in the advertising brochure that my master would have viewed, before deciding which dimari to purchase.

My master blinked at me. “Well… Yeah, I mean, obviously,” he said, gesturing to me vaguely. “But… you just took out three men without even breaking a sweat. Or getting a drop of blood on you,” he added, giving me another once over. “I mean, I’ve got military training, but I couldn’t have gotten anywhere close to what you just did.”

I really needed to stop second guessing my master. He was praising me not because he didn’t know what I was capable of, but because he was just genuinely impressed by how well I’d done it. I needed to stop being so paranoid. A smile tugged at my lips, and I sheathed my knife, to avoid drawing attention to my sudden joy.

“I believe you took out the third one,” I reminded him.

“Because you created the perfect opening.”

“Shall we call it a team effort?” I asked playfully. I fully expected him to laugh, then tell me not to be so damn cocky. Masters did not like their slaves showing them up, regardless of the fact that no one was around to see it.

But instead, my master stepped closer to me, putting his hands on my shoulders, a stern expression on his face. “Seriously, Kade… You saved my life there. We were outnumbered and my ammunition wasn’t going to last forever. Thank you.”

Pure pleasure washed through me at my master’s praise. He thought I had done well. He saw my value. He was grateful to me. And most importantly, I had successfully kept him from harm. This was turning out to be one of the best days of my entire life.