Adverse Effects Read online

  Dade nodded. “Ready.”

  The door dissolved, and a high-pitched cry vibrated Yaseke’s shypsoid bone. Dade sank down to one knee.

  “Oh God.”

  He rushed into the room. Yaseke couldn’t wait this time, and he stepped into the open doorway. Two younglings huddled together naked in the corner. A female lay in the middle of the floor, one hand reaching toward them as far as her chains would allow. Her claws and fangs were covered in green blood.

  The hole in her throat was so big, Yaseke could see the floor under her. He gagged again, but there was nothing in his stomach to come up.

  Dade was checking her. “Yaseke,” he said quietly. “The children.”

  Shaking himself, Yaseke took a few steps toward the terrified younglings. They couldn’t be more than a turn and had nearly identical faces with wide yellow eyes that tracked his every move. The boy held the girl tight against his side.

  “It’ll be okay,” he said quietly. “The bad aliens are dead. We won’t hurt you.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “She’s gone,” I said. The poor woman had fought back, but it looked as though a fist had gone straight through her throat. She must have been the cause of the scratches on two of the Vlrsessiums I’d killed in my rage. My head still throbbed with the aftereffects, but I was trying to ignore the pain. I had no time to be weak.

  My tziu knelt in front of the two tiny kids. Yaseke looked over his shoulder, and then stood up. He spoke quietly, “They’re Caeorleian younglings.”

  He reached for them, and they began to scream in unison. I cringed and Yaseke scrambled back. “Shit,” I said. “Don’t make them do that again.”

  “We need to get them out of here.”

  “I know.” I squatted down beside him, making myself smaller. “Let’s just be calm for a few minutes and see if they get used to us.”

  “They have yellowish eyes, Yaseke. Kinda like yours.”

  “I know.” Yaseke chewed his lip. “I don’t know these younglings though. My family died when I was small, and we were never close to most of the family, but my father told me that Grandfather and Buphet had a sister that was joined.”

  They had to be related to Yaseke. There was no other reason for two children who shared his coloring—a rare one, he’d said—to be on the ship. “He’s getting rid of your entire family. That’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  Yaseke’s eyes shone, and he blinked rapidly. “But why? Why hurt a female and young? They’re supposed to be protected.”

  “Buphet’s after power. What would happen if he managed to depose the current Toleral, Seral’s father?” I asked. “Who would get power after him?”

  He didn’t have to say it. Buphet had never joined, or he never would’ve tried joining with one of us. So, if he’d gotten rid of the rest of the family, and really, what were the odds he just went after this poor woman with younglings and Yaseke? He would have been the only Caeorleian left who was so compatible to me. He’d also attacked Ryker too, once. He kept acting like he needed one of us. But why?

  “He must have found out about us joining, which is why I was targeted too instead of him leaving me alone.” Yaseke ran a hand through his hair, shoving it back behind his ear.

  I shook my head. “We didn’t even know how close we’d become before the first attack.”

  Yaseke ducked his head. “I knew we were compatible,” he said softly. “I talked with Seral about it when he asked me to assess you, but he wouldn’t have said anything. Maybe someone overheard us. But you’re not a tziu. Buphet’s an isit, like you. He couldn’t join with you.”

  “I don’t know. But if he’s going after someone with Seral’s blood that means he’ll go after Nicklaus. If he’s after someone with hybrid blood, Nicklaus is the only one that isn’t joined already who carries similar markings.”

  “He has Fieo, though. Eventually those two will join; it’s inevitable.”

  I sighed. What the hell was going on? “Well, Buphet’s motives aside, we’re still in danger. I don’t know if I can figure out how to fly this ship, but I do know it’s taking us nowhere we actually want to go.” We’d kept our voices low, trying to inch closer to the kids without them realizing it. It wasn’t going too well.

  “We need to get the younglings out of here.” Yaseke glanced at their dead mother again, and I nodded. “We’ll have to take them with us. I can take one, but I can’t carry both.”

  “Okay.” I set my weapon down and put my hands on my knees, fingers relaxed.

  Keeping his voice soft, Yaseke met the wide eyes staring at us. “Hey, little ones.” They curled up tighter, their little fingers clenched together. Their faces were wet with tears. “Please don’t scream again. I won’t hurt you. Neither of us will. I know you have to be scared right now, but the mean aliens are gone. You don’t have to worry about them. I think I might be your cousin, so we’re family. My name is Yaseke, and this is my isit, Dade. We want to help you get home.”

  “Home?” The little boy’s voice wavered in the air, a barely audible hum.

  “Yes.” Yaseke reached out. “Can I carry one of you? We need to leave this place.”

  I stared at them and tried to send out waves of comfort as he hummed softly. If I was able to send rage, maybe gentler emotions would work too.

  The little boy hugged his sister, whispering in her ear. She nodded, biting her lip with tiny fangs. “My name is Pira,” she said.

  “I’m Maerit.”

  “My name is Yaseke, and this is my isit, Dade,” Yaseke said again. “We’re going to take care of you until we get you home.” He held out his arms to the little girl. “Can I hold you, precious?”

  They both crawled forward tentatively. I braced myself, expecting the little boy’s fear and sadness to consume me, but as he let me slide my hands under his arms, nothing happened. I pulled him in close to my chest, and he snuggled against me.

  “You’re warm,” he said. “You feel good.”

  “I’m glad.” I reached out with one hand toward the little girl, who was a bit slower accepting Yaseke’s hug. I slid my hand down her knobby back.

  Nothing.

  Was my inability to pick up emotion from them something to do with Yaseke’s bloodlines, then, not just him specifically? I’d felt Larede’s. I shook my head. Just when I thought I knew what was going on, a whole new slew of questions about my ability struck me. I filed that thought away for later. For now, we had more than enough on our plate.

  I picked up my weapon with my free hand, holding the little boy with the other. He wrapped his arms around my neck and put his head on my shoulder.

  “I’ll go first.” I didn’t care if we’d checked the ship I needed to take point. Yaseke and the kids needed to be protected. I angled my body to keep Maerit from seeing his mother as we left.

  We made our way carefully through the ship. I was tense and waiting for the next attack. We’d searched for others before, but I wouldn’t feel easy until we were in a more secure location. Who knew what kind of shit the Vlrsessiums had on board?

  The cockpit area of the ship was big enough for the four of us to each have a seat. “You going to be okay sitting here, Maerit?” I asked.

  He nodded solemnly, and I set him down carefully. Yaseke tried to put Pira down in a chair of her own and she refused, crying out and clinging to him.

  “I have to help Dade, precious.” Yaseke looked at me helplessly. Maerit held out his arms. “Will you sit with your brother?”

  She nodded, and Yaseke put the little girl in next to him. They snuggled together.

  “I guess we can web them together if we need to.” Yaseke followed me over to the controls. They didn’t seem complicated, but there was no way we could read the screens. “This might be the communications area.”

  Yaseke looked at that while I looked at what I hoped was the navigation controls. There were four depressions on each side of the screen. I tapped it and a map of a star system lit up. A nav course had
been plotted. I wasn’t familiar with this area of space. Caeorleia was the farthest distance from human-inhabited space we’d ever flown. Humans were only now just reaching out to this part of the galaxy. Spread and destroy—our specialty.

  I shook my head to clear it of the negative thoughts. I wasn’t human anymore, not really. I had a new home and someone to share it with. I just had to get us back there, in one piece preferably.

  “Do you think you can reach anyone on that?” I asked Yaseke.

  He shook his head. “It’s not like our com systems. I think I can launch a distress beacon to travel back along our nav path. It should reach Caeorleia, but it might take some time; they don’t move as quickly as ships do.

  “We need to get the young back as soon as possible, though. I’m really worried about them.” Yaseke frowned as he watched the two huddle in the chair.

  “Do it. Then I need you over here. I don’t know the star charts for this area, and I’ve never flown anything like this. I’m going to need your help.”

  I watched as Yaseke pressed his finger inside several depressions as he wrote a simple message and programmed the beacon. “I hope that goes to the right people,” he said. “There’s no way of knowing if it might be intercepted by Buphet’s males.”

  “We’ll just have to trust Seral has discovered what’s going on since we were taken from the residence.” Yaseke stepped up next to me, and I put my arm around him. He leaned his head against my shoulder, and I rubbed my cheek across his soft hair. “We’re going to be okay. I’m sorry I screwed up and let them take us, but I’ll get you home, I promise.”

  Yaseke looked up at me. “You didn’t let them take us, Dade. This isn’t your fault, you know. You couldn’t fight off a stealth attack launched by violent aliens and fucking traitors.”

  “I opened the window. I let them in.”

  My tziu rolled his eyes. “Yes, because a window lock would have stopped them. You might have shaved a minute or two off their time getting in, but you didn’t expect to be attacked in the Toleral’s residence any more than I did. Now you’re going to stop blaming yourself for what happened, okay? It won’t help us right now anyway. We must focus on what we need to do, not what has already happened.”

  I rubbed his shoulder. “You’re right.”

  Pointing at the screen, Yaseke then gave me a basic overview of their galaxy, including pointing out our destination—the Vlrsessiums’ home planet.

  “This is a galactic map?” I’d thought we were in the same solar system.

  “Human weapons are very refined, but most species’ space technology far outstrips any of yours that we’ve seen.” Yaseke shrugged. “It takes us much less time to travel through space than it does for the human ships. I can’t say as I know why, though. I’m far from an expert on it.”

  “Hey, you know more than me about this stuff. Maybe with my pilot skills and your knowledge, we can get home sooner than I thought.” I stretched and wiggled my fingers. They’d have to splay pretty wide to fit into the holes on the screen.

  “Hold on, let me web in the young first.” Yaseke went over to the two kids, who were blinking sleepily. “Hey guys,” he said softly as he crouched down. “We need to do some stuff with the ship now, and to keep you safe we need to web you into your seat. You don’t have to be scared. We’re going to go home.”

  He worked deftly at the straps when Maerit nodded for both of them.

  “You can sleep if you’re tired.” Yaseke ran a hand over both their heads. “It’s going to be all right.”

  I could see how sad he was when he came back. I leaned down and kissed him. “Ready?” He nodded. “Okay, I’m going to see if I can turn this thing around. Hit that button in the center for me.”

  I was pretty sure the autopilot would stay off when I started to steer the ship, and we couldn’t stay on the plotted course. Yaseke pushed the button, and I began trying gentle taps and shifts of my fingers, trying to figure out the navigation. The ship shuddered and dropped under us, making me stumble to stay on my feet. Yaseke slammed into me.

  “Go strap in by the kids.” I fought the controls to right the ship, but it wouldn’t stabilize. We were tumbling about in space. There had to be a way to fly the damn thing. Yaseke had confirmed we were headed toward the Vlrsessium’s slave planet. If we landed there, we’d never make it back off. Nothing I did seemed to change the ship’s navigation, or complete lack of it.

  I took one hand out of the depressions when a light began flashing. I tried tapping the nav screen, but it wouldn’t stop, and the ship began veering off the plotted path. There were only a few safe lanes marked on the map between the gravitational wells in space, and with every second passing we were drifting farther from safety and closer to disaster.

  I tried a rapid shift to the right to bring us back on course, but nothing I did worked. I was completely unable to steer. Worse, a yellow-lit planet showed up on the nav screen. Our new heading was taking us directly into it.

  We were going to crash, and at the speeds we were traveling, I had no idea how to stop it or ensure our survival. I should have known that I wouldn’t be able to fly the ship. I was a soldier, not a pilot. I put my life, my tziu, and two innocent kids at risk.

  Taking my hands off the nav screen depressions didn’t make a lot of difference. We continued to bounce, our flight irrevocably captured by the large gravity well surrounding the planet.

  “Yaseke.” He was trying to calm the kids from his chair next to theirs. I crouched down on the other side of him, holding on to his webbing to stay up. “The ship is going to crash onto a planet,” I said in a low voice. I hoped all the vibrations from the ship would mask what I was saying from the kids. “You need to stay with them, but I need to get some supplies. The cockpit is the safest place on a ship usually, but there might be more weapons, food, and clothing I can find and bring back here.”

  Yaseke shook his head violently. “No, you need to stay with us.”

  “Tziu. We’re going to crash. If we survive, we will need things like food and water, or clothes for warmth or bandages. We could be hurt. The children will get hungry, and I don’t know if we will be able to eat anything on that planet. I don’t know if it is safe, or full of predators.

  “I’ve been on a lot of planets in my lifetime. I might not have been able to fly us home, but if we survive, I plan to keep us together, and safe, until help can find us. You know they will come looking.” I stroked his hand, gripping mine to the strap of the arm webbing. “Your beacon might be the only thing that gets us home in the end, but you said it would take time. If we want to make sure we have that, I have to do this now.”

  His eyes were wider than I’d ever seen them, and his markings were faded to a pale blue hue barely noticeable against his pale white skin. “If you’re not back before we enter the atmosphere, I will come looking for you.”

  “You have to keep the kids calm. I’ll be back, I swear.”

  I fully intended to keep my word. I failed once; I wouldn’t again. I hurried through the ship, moving methodically but quickly. I found some blankets in the crew quarters. They stank, but having them would be better than freezing if we landed on a cold planet. I used one blanket like a bag, throwing clothes, food, water, what looked like a medicine kit, and some portable lights into it. I hurried back to the cockpit and put it all in the spare chair Pira had refused to sit in.

  “I still need to look for weapons.”

  Yaseke said, “Check outside the hold area. They might have a weapons cache there outside the cell area.”

  He was right. I found a metal cabinet with a palm lock. “Fuck!” Sweat dripped down my naked back as I grabbed one of the Vlrsessiums and dragged it. I was shocked I was able to do it on my own, but I didn’t have time to waste; I just got it done. I slapped the stinking alien’s hand down on the lock, and it buzzed and then opened. Mother lode. “About fucking time.” The Vlrsessiums had a huge stockpile of weapons. Most were unfamiliar in specifics, but I c
ould guess their use. Projectile weapons, more laser pistols, what looked like some bombs, energy pulse capsules… I grabbed as much as I could carry. There were holsters and other straps in the locker, and I grabbed some of those too. I would have to modify them, but they might work in a pinch.

  “I wish we had some rope,” I muttered. Anti-grav was great, but there were many planets where good old-fashioned rope had gotten me through the challenges I faced better than any of my modern technology. We’d just have to make do.

  I shut the locker but didn’t lock it. If the ship held together, we’d be able to get more weapons. If not, I had enough to keep us safe.

  I hoped.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  How the ship managed to not break apart when we crashed, I’ll never know. None of us came out of it unscathed; bruises from the webs laced our torsos, and Yaseke ended up with a bloody nose. It didn’t look broken, fortunately. The kids wouldn’t stop crying, but I let Yaseke deal with them. A jagged piece of metal had barely missed me when we slammed into the ground and tumbled around before we came to a stop. I was able to pull the broken metal sheet out of the corner it was wedged into with only a few cuts on my palms so I could escape.

  Fashioning a couple of bags was my next goal. I had no idea what was on this planet, but staying at the site of the crash was a bad idea. Who knew what the commotion would attract?

  I had to hope the atmosphere alone wouldn’t kill us. Of course, if it was going to, we were probably already screwed. I could hear the hiss of the shuttle’s atmosphere escaping, indicating fuselage damage. Shearing the safety webs off the chairs, I tied the edges together quickly to make pouches and then sliced a few of the inner loops to make shoulder straps.

  We would all have to work together, so I made small bags for the children. They could carry a bottle of water, a few ration bars, and a blanket each. If we became separated or we had to hide them, they’d have enough supplies until I could get back to them. I tested one of the bars. It appeared to be edible, though extremely bland.

  Our luck seemed to be holding out. We were alive; we had food, water, and some blankets. The extra ones could be used as makeshift wraps. The heat was building in the ship. I wiped sweat off my forehead with the back of my forearm.