Chapter 3

Harper

I rolled to my side on the hospital bed and sighed as I looked around the room. It seemed interesting and inviting earlier, but after hours of staring at the walls, I was revising that opinion. It needed a more personal touch; all the doctor had were research projects and notes. Nothing that said anything about him, and I was supercurious now that I was feeling stronger.

What kind of alien was he? And how had Mandy gotten here? Had she gone through the same thing I had, or had she arrived in space of her own volition? She'd been by earlier to bring me breakfast and a stack of clothes. I was incredibly happy to get rid of the medical gown and wear something as normal as leggings and a shirt again. The clothes were comfy, and they made me feel like I was almost ready to step out of bed and have a look around.

Only the figure of Dravion, the tentacled doctor, kept me in bed. He'd warned me firmly that I was not ready to walk around yet, and he was in the glass room next door as he worked on something. He might notice it if I climbed out of bed and snuck away.

I wished someone was there to talk to me, or that I could at least have a book to read. Mandy said I was safe, but where was I? And were they going to take me back home? I didn't like the not-knowing; curiosity was always my most powerful character trait. It's why I'd settled on journalism at college; the profession fit me to a T.

The door swished open just as I was ready to make a break for it, and Mandy entered with a wide smile on her face. With my leg already over the edge of the bed, it was clear what I was up to, but she didn't comment. "Hi, Harper! I figured you were ready to climb the walls, so I brought entertainment." She waved a tablet-like thing in the air and I latched onto it eagerly.

She sat on the bed with me to show me how it worked, but it was intuitive and much the same as what I'd seen the aliens on the ship use before. There was a note-taking app and plenty of news feeds to browse. Mandy set me up with a stream of endless Aderian Medical dramas that she adored watching herself. Helpfully, she'd set the tablet to display everything to me in English so I could follow along. Now I suddenly had plenty to entertain myself with, but still no answers.

"Please, I feel so much better. Can we stop dancing around the truth? Where am I? Can I still go home? What's going on?" My serious questions were met with a solemn gaze before she tilted her head and glanced over her shoulder at Dravion. To my surprise, the strange alien was standing (did you stand when you had tentacles instead of legs?) in the doorway to his research room. His arms crossed over his wide chest and a thoughtful look on his face.

"Sure, I'll answer your questions," Mandy said when she looked back at me. "To start with: no, there's no easy way to get home. And depending on when on Earth you lived, no way at all. What year was it? What do you remember last?" Her words caused an uneasy pit to open up in my stomach. When? What did that mean? How long had I been in a stasis pod?

As it turns out, several hundred years at the very least. Just like the small woman sitting on the bed with me. She explained what she knew about a slaver ship that had managed to find Earth and steal thousands of humans before returning to the Zeta Quadrant. That ship had gotten lost, and over many years, only handfuls of humans had been recovered.

"Wow, you were an archaeologist? That's so cool!" I asked when she casually mentioned her old life back on Earth. Mandy was older than I was, maybe early thirties. It made sense that she'd been deep in her career, while I'd just been starting mine. But even though I itched to ask her all about cool stories from her work, I needed to focus on what mattered. Where I was; she hadn't told me that yet.

"The Zeta Quadrant. It's like, super far away from the Alpha Quadrant, and that's where Earth is located," Mandy answered. That made sense; Zeta and Alpha were completely opposite letters in the alphabet. I still couldn't wrap my head around how far until Dravion helpfully pulled up a star chart on the tablet. He showed me how much time it would take a ship to travel from Earth to where we were. Several years , he said.

"And this is the Varakartoom," the doctor added kindly. "A mercenary vessel captained by Asmoded, home to the finest crew in the entire quadrant. Once you have recovered, we will take you to a sanctuary where you can live safely with other rescued humans." Those words might be kind, but I didn't like them one bit. That made me feel like I was going to get shunted off to some shelter and live the rest of my life in captivity. No thanks.

"And you?" I asked Mandy, "Are they taking you there, too?" A familiar face at my side would be nice, but I still wanted to dig up everything I could about this supposed sanctuary before I was willing to go there. The shuttered expression on Mandy's face wasn't helping much, it was clear that the mention of the sanctuary wasn't inciting happy thoughts for her either.

"No, I'm staying on the Varakartoom," she said. "Asmoded is my mate, my husband, if you will. So the Varakartoom is my home now." She gestured at the ship, then gave the doctor a warning glare that made him shove the tablet back in my hands and slither away. When the door shut behind him, she turned back to me and clasped my knee. "And if the sanctuary isn't what you want, we will figure out something else, okay? There are options. I refuse to take your choices from you."

She sat with me some more and at my request shared stories about the ship and its crew. Then she told me a little about the sanctuary, all in very neutral tones. She was clearly trying to be honest without influencing me before I'd seen it, but I could read between the lines. Mandy had been to this place, and she hadn't liked it.

It shocked her when I just asked her why she disliked that place; her eyes grew wide in her pretty face. "Wow, you don't pull any punches, do you?" When I shook my head, she sighed and glanced at where Dravion was hunched over his desk in the other room; he seemed oblivious to everything around him. His tentacles writhed softly against the ground, one twirling a pencil-shaped object casually like he was unaware he was even doing it.

"Okay, look. I'll admit I didn't enjoy my time there. The Kertinal took in thousands of humans, not the ones stolen from Earth, but an entire ship they rescued that came from the present time. And I just didn't fit in well with all these modern humans. They were all people convicted of crimes they did; Earth nowadays executes everyone they find guilty, there are no prisons. Only, they lied, and they sell their convicts to other quadrants instead."

That sounded horrifying and also frightening. To go to a ‘sanctuary' to live with criminals was the last thing I wanted. That didn't sound safe. Mandy instantly understood what I was thinking, and she rushed to reassure me. "Most of them are innocent. They all say that, but I believe it! The way they explained the Earth's justice system these days makes me think it's extremely unfair. Everyone was really nice, actually. It just bored me to death to live somewhere where everything was provided for me. I needed more."

She left the med bay not long after, leaving me to rest, though I wasn't tired. I had a lot to think about, my thoughts spinning with all this information. With my stomach full and water in a huge pitcher on the tray next to me, I settled back against the pillows. I needed to do some research on this tablet. There were news feeds that were going to be an excellent source, I hoped.

I searched for this human sanctuary on the Kertinal home world Ker. There was quite a lot of news about it, but none of it really told me much. It seemed these alien reporters were far more interested in how many there were, and the salacious circumstances of their arrival. I was starting to get frustrated when a page suddenly jumped open that showed me actual images of the sanctuary.

A utilitarian gray building surrounded by tall fences. It looked exactly like a prison until you looked a little closer. Then I noticed the flowerbeds that someone had been putting time and effort into, and I saw a mural in progress on one gray wall. There were simple explanations like "The human compound" and "Humans are creative creatures." That was all.

There were pictures of the humans too, of my people, and they all looked healthy. Some were even smiling, and from the way people stood around outside together in one image, it looked to me like they were having a party. There were couples, people standing arm in arm, or embracing, which the bylines noted with obvious curiosity.

It made me smile; humans were so resilient. They had bounced back in that place, and while it didn't look inviting, these pictures definitely made me feel like it wasn't nearly as bad as it looked. I wanted to talk to them, hear what they thought about living there. I wondered if I could do that from aboard the ship, or if I'd need to visit them.

That's when I noticed the little blinking light at the bottom of the page and without thinking, I tapped it. A message window opened, and my eyes grew wide. Was it that simple? That seemed crazy. The next moment, dots appeared, blinking at me for a few seconds before they changed into words. "Hi, how are you?"

Guiltily, I looked over my shoulder at where Dravion was working, but he did not look up, completely engrossed in what he was doing. My fingers hovered over the symbols, wondering if I should reply. What if it was some kind of ad thing? It couldn't possibly be a chat window for the human compound. Why would they do that?

The dots had turned into a string of symbols, a screen name maybe. Only some of it was legible and I thought it might say Nick was that their name? His name? Nick was a human name; could I have just stumbled onto someone else that easily? Pressing my tongue against the roof of my mouth, I hesitated only a second longer, and then I started typing back. It was just a chat window; it was just questions. What was the harm in that? If this Nick said anything creepy, I'd just leave. Simple as that.

***

Mitnick

Identifying myself by name in my username seemed stupid; if she mentioned it to Dravion or Mandy, they'd know it was me. If the Captain found out what I was up to, he'd be furious, again. But I didn't want to lie to her. I wanted her to know me. She was my mate, there should only be truth between us.

Harper was the perfect distraction, and it was easy to focus all my attention on her. Well, not all. It was not exactly simple to ‘type' a message when I had no real keyboard to work with, but I managed with the tangle of cables and the circuitry I'd pulled from the wall. For a screen, I had hijacked the one on the wall across from my cell. It would hold work until someone came to bring me food or check on me, but I was counting on the fact that the Captain wanted to let me stew on things. There wouldn't be any visitors for a while yet.

I narrowed my eyes at the distant screen. My vision was far sharper than a human, adapted to spot prey on the ground from high above. "Tell me about yourself," she was demanding and I could picture her as sounding impatient, with her mouth pursed. I had the feeling that my mate was both inquisitive and driven. All her questions to me had been about the compound on Ker, and I knew very little of it. Only as much as the article with the pictures, I'd dug up and shown to her. The Kertinal government was keeping a tight lid on its location to keep the humans that lived there safe.

I bit my lip as I contemplated what to say. The truth, but how much could I reveal? If she learned I was in the brig right now, that might make her end the conversation, and I did not want that. I settled for telling her I worked with computers and that I loved to fly. That was a normal response, wasn't it?

She replied with a flurry of words, a story about how she'd once taken a flight above the Grand Canyon and nearly thrown up because the ‘chopper' was so noisy. I hurried to assure her that flying with me would be nothing like that. I would never allow her to puke if I took her up into the air. The idea of flying with her was exciting; it made my crest rise fiercely, and my wings ache to take off. I'd take good care of her. A Mithrakon in flight was a near silent, skilled winged apex predator. She would be the safest, happiest creature in the entire galaxy when I took her into the skies.

Time passed too quickly when I talked with her, words coming easier and easier as the two of us conversed. We spoke about the human compound first, then she asked me to explain the Zeta Quadrant and I did my best to outline all the major players, the crimelords, the empires in power. I didn't want to cut our conversation short, but I had to hide the evidence of what I was up to when dinner time started to roll around.

Dinner was brought by Jaxin, the Weapon Master of the ship. The Rummicaron male was always easygoing and rarely without his portable cannon, which he called Bex. To see him carrying in a tray made me uneasy. This was a task for a simple grunt, not one of the ship's officers, even if I was one of the Varakartoom's officers. I would have expected to see Tas or Flack. I had hoped it would be Thatcher, our lone human male, so I could question him for information on what human females liked.

"I see you're calmer," Jaxin said when he stopped in front of the force field that locked my cell. That was just appearances. I'd already worked on the shield so that I could disable it at a moment's notice. Right now, I didn't want to break out when I knew that Harper was okay. I would get to know her first, and then approach her when the Captain let me out. No need to anger him further.

I raised an eyebrow and flicked up the crest of feathers on my head, their brown and red tips slapping against the metal wall at my back. Jaxin huffed, "You're going to stay put while I open this?" I nodded, and he lowered the force field to put the tray of food down on the floor inside my cell. He expected me to move, but I stayed put, not even getting up to grab the food.

It smelled good, it always did because our chef Brace was a fantastic cook, but I wanted him to think I was no threat. He cocked his head to the side, his huge maw stretching wide to display his many teeth. "Hmm, I was expecting more of a fight. Aren't you eager to get to your mate in med bay?" He looked around the brig in suspicion, dark eyes lingering on the metal panels closest to where the control panel for the force field was located. Clever of him, but I'd covered my tracks.

"That would achieve nothing," I said coolly, though my mating heart pounded fiercely. I did want to go to Harper. I wanted to hold her in my arms, I wanted to tell her she was mine, and I wanted to take her flying. Now that I'd calmed down, and talking with her had helped with that, I knew that I had to play the long game. I had to convince Asmoded that I had control of myself, and that I was safe to leave the brig. An escape attempt would land me in more hot water, and that wouldn't help Harper.

Jaxin's grin grew wider. "It wouldn't," he agreed with me. "But when we're ruled by mating instincts, we aren't always rational." The way he said that made me sit forward; my curiosity piqued. Was he talking from experience? Jaxin had been on the Varakartoom longer than I had been, and I'd never seen him with a lady friend for more than a night of fun. Some of the crew had a girlfriend in port they returned to each time, but not him.

Rising to my feet, I flared out my wings before settling them against my back again. "I wasn't before, but I am now." He didn't believe me, and I realized I'd balled my fists at my sides. Forcing them to relax took a moment, but then I calmly stalked to the food and returned with it to the cot. "I am in control."

"I see that," Jaxin agreed again, but his eyes were still full of suspicion. If he was here to assess my threat level, he wasn't going to give positive advice yet to Asmoded. How did I convince him? I feared that only time would make them more amendable. I was a cool, reasonable person, but Mithrakon were notoriously territorial and possessive with their mates. They wouldn't know that my behavior was normal, well within the species' parameters. Mithrakon weren't native to the Zeta Quadrant any more than humans were.

"Want my advice?" Jaxin said, already half-turned to leave but clearly decided to share some last-minute information. I flicked up my crest again, and he laughed, "The whole ‘she's mine, I claim her' thing? That's not what Asmoded wants to hear. Humans don't work that way. Makes them feel like possessions and all that…" He rolled his beady black eyes, his snout wrinkling in distaste. "So emotional."

Rummicaron had no feelings, or rather, they worked hard to eradicate them as they matured. Some were better at it than others. Jaxin could act warm and friendly for a guy with that many teeth. Most Rummicaron had no understanding of what mating was truly like, what love was, or caring. They tended to be cool and analytical, and if emotions did get hold of them, it was sooner anger or vengeance.

"You need to make it clear you will respect her boundaries. Right now, everyone thinks that letting you out of the brig means you'll swoop down on med bay to steal her away." He didn't wait to hear my reply, but stalked from the brig without a backward glance; he'd said his piece, and now he was done with me.

Right now, I wasn't so sure that if I had the chance, I wouldn't do exactly that. That's why I'd left the force field up, a barrier for my instincts should they overtake me. But I ached for her, my body tense with desire and a sustained adrenaline rush that made my muscles primed and ready for action. To protect, to pleasure, and yes, to steal her if that's what seemed right. It felt very right to do that.

With a sigh, I planted myself firmly back on the cot and focused on my food. Brace would be offended if I didn't eat what he'd prepared, and I didn't want to hurt my friend's feelings. The only reason I could restrain myself this much was because I knew she was just a chat message away. Just a few yanks and twists of the cables and I was back in the med bay with her through the cameras.