Ryock

Izlah is upset. The man called Yarrel isn’t smiling with his eyes and whatever the hell he is saying is distressing Izlah more and more.

Growling deep in my chest, I step up from the bed, leaving the side of my mate.

My words are hard and to the point. “Bring us a translator.”

Looking from Izlah to me, his eyes harden as they flicker down to his waist. It’s a clear sign that the pistol still strapped there isn’t just for show. “Settle down, big boy. We’re all still friends right now.”

“Still friends? Right. Bring her a translator, they come in just about every first aid kit. It’s not like you wouldn’t have one of those on the ship.”

His eyes hardening even more, the smile drops from his face.

Turning to Izlah, he begins to speak in rapid human again and this time I can’t even hope to keep up. He’s intentionally trying to keep me out of the conversation. And whatever he’s saying is about me, I can tell it with the way Izlah keeps flickering her eyes towards me.

Stepping in front of her again, I stop the conversation cold.

“One shot. From this distance,” I say as I take one more step. “You have one shot and it will have to be perfect.”

“Get out of the way, asshole, and let the girl come with me. This is far better than the alternative.”

“What alternative? You try to bring in more guys to help keep me subdued?”

I motion to his pistol. “You’ve one shot to kill me with. If your stars aren’t aligned perfectly, I get my hands on you before you get the second shot off. Then we get to play.”

Speaking loudly to Izlah, who is now completely behind me, he says something and I’m able to understand the word cage.

“Don’t try to cage me, Yarrel.” I growl and slowly begin to slide my foot forward.

From here, I’ve closed in enough that Yarrel will have a tough time killing me outright. I don’t know his reasoning for trying to cage me, or separate me from Izlah, and I don’t care.

If he tries it, he dies.

I know the word cage, and I also know the galactic word for mutiny. I’ll take over this ship by sheer force if I must.

He’s staring long and hard at me as he growls out, “You can’t go home with her, you simple fucking primate.”

And then I’m brought up short. All my anger, my dominance, my feeling of destiny aligning. It all comes crashing down on my head.

Damn the stars and their sick sense of humor.

“I will talk to her,” I say quietly and relax my body. “Bring us clothing, a translator, and some food. She hasn’t had more than gruel to eat in days.”

“Will do, asshole,” Yarrel growls out before he turns his back to us and walks out the door.

I’m sure he locks it from the other side, but I don’t have the care or will to escape right now. Not when this little confinement, like our cage on the research vessel, is all we have left of each other.

Past those doors, we become separate again. Past those doors, I lose her.

Turning around to face Izlah, I watch as tears well up in her glassy eyes. She must have been arguing with him while I understood nothing. She was fighting with him as much as I want to.

But is it not hopeless?

I can’t ask her to stay with me when I have no home to take her to. I can’t ask her to leave her home planet. She wants to go home, to be with her family. I know it. How can I ask her to leave them for me? A male with no family, no home. A pauper. I have no money, no clothes, and nothing I can do at the moment to provide for her.

Damn the stars. Damn the dark eternity of fate.

“Izlah, rest now. No cage… Yet.”

Looking up into my eyes, she nods her head. She and I know the word for cage. How could we not figure it out when we had been stuck in one for so long?

Shaking her head, she stands up to wrap her arms around my chest.

Here, standing in our tiny little ship quarters, I can’t help but notice how much smaller she is than me. I’m not like her race. Even Yarrel is smaller than me in height and size. I highly doubt I would be able to sneak into her society.

Wrapping her back up into my arms, I just hold her as she shudders into my chest. I’m not going to give her up, that won’t happen. She’s mine as much as I’m hers.

But we’re going to need to figure something out.

Purring to her, I say, “Izlah, it’s okay. We will fig—”

The door slides in again and a medical kit comes flying into the room behind me. “Set it up for her, big guy.”

Before I can even turn around, the door slides shut and I can hear someone stomping away from our quarters.

Letting her go, I gently push her towards the bed. I feel just the faintest hints of fear in my stomach as I bend over to pick up the medical kit. Fear that perhaps our bond was so damn strong because I couldn’t speak to her in any meaningful way. That I couldn’t stick my own damn huge foot in my mouth.

I’m not the most eloquent of people… and what if she figures out I’m not exactly the smartest of people?

Does she want someone who can have long, stimulating conversations about why the neutron stars turn into black holes?

Opening the small fabric med kit, I look down into it. There, right where it should be, is a small metallic translator that attaches itself right behind the ear. It’s a bit painful when it first attaches. It has to sink itself into the skin, then small microscopic wires latch on to parts of the brain.

Once it’s attached, it links into the neural pathways and allows information like language to be translated into common galactic, or if need be the person’s language of choice.

That’s about as much as I know about them, which pretty much everyone knows. How it does it though, I have no clue. I’m not a scientist, and I really hope she isn’t expecting one.

Poking at the metal little dot, I frown. It’s too small for my fingers to grasp without me worrying that it might break.

Looking to Izlah, I say, “Come.”

Sliding off the bed, she walks over to where I’m standing. She looks down into the kit when I point at the metal little bud and say, “Put it on.”

She speaks in her tongue again, and I can tell she’s confused. “What?”

Motioning to the little metal bud, I mimic putting it on right behind my ear and then push my ear forward to show her where mine was attached. It’s not hard to do, they are self-implanting little machines. It will do all the work for her.

Frowning, she takes the small bud from the pack and holds it up to her eyes. She squints at the little clamps that implant into the skin and then she looks at me with trepidation.

Nodding my head reassuringly at her, I mimic her putting it on her ear and then smile.

Grumbling quietly, she moves the little bud behind her ear and then presses it into her skin.

From her shocked expression, I can tell she wasn’t expecting it to hurt.

“Ow! Motherfucker! That hurts a like a son of a bitch!” She winces as she puts her hand up to mess with the bud.

“Don’t, it will pass!” I say as my hand pulls hers away from the bud. Once attached, it needs to be medically removed.

“But it hurts! You could have at least… Wait, did you just talk to me?” she asks as her eyes go wide.

Nodding my head, I pull her into my arms. “Yes, my star, I did. Can you understand everything I’m saying?”

“I…I… Yes! We can talk now!”

“Yes… Izlah…”

“It’s Isla.” She smiles at me with those big blue eyes and comes in for a hug again.

“Isla? Can we talk about your continued use of the word fuck? It’s quite confusing when you use it. I personally wouldn’t mind doing it as often as you use the word, but I get the feeling from talking to Yarrel that you don’t mean it the way it comes out.”

“Oh god,” she says as she buries her face into my chest. “It doesn’t always mean sex… I just didn’t think about using it.”

“I was beginning to think not, especially when you used it as we were fighting. I had hoped it was maybe a… reward system?”

“No. I wasn’t exactly thinking that. But since you mention it…” Shaking her head, she slumps back down.

“You’re thinking about what Yarrel said to us,” I say as I pull her down to my lap.

Nodding her head, her eyes glisten as they peer into mine. “I don’t want to lose you.”

“Neither do I,” I say and lean down, kissing her gently.

I don’t want to lose her. Stars, I don’t want to lose her. The bond we have developed somewhere deep in our souls has formed not out of need, but out of something more. It is as if we are connected in some way that I cannot explain.

Purring in my chest, I hold her tightly. I don’t want to lose my soul.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, I hold her in my lap with my arms wrapped tightly around her small frame. She is so unlike the women of my world that it’s startling and yet comfortable at the same time.

“So why couldn’t you understand me when I was speaking if you already had a translator?”

“Because a translator only works with other translators. They sync with each other instead of trying to learn a billion different languages.”

“Oh… That makes sense.”

Slowly, I stick my tongue out and begin to groom her hair. Finding a small comfort for her and me both.

Ducking out from under my tongue, she asks, “Why do you groom me? Is it a… um… Ryock thing?”

“To clean you, I suppose, and comfort… My people do it for cleanliness, and in times of stress we find it comforting.”

“Don’t you guys know what showers are?”

“Yes, we do those too.”

Shaking her head, she says, “Well, big guy, it’s shower time, not lick time.”

Carrying her into the small bathroom, I set her down on her tiny feet. “Everything about you is so small.”

“Compared to you, I think so. You make human males look tiny, Ryock,” she says as she looks to the mirror.

Staring at our reflection, I can see now the dirt, blood, and grime that has built up on us both. I can also see how small she looks compared to me. I tower over her and my body is three times as wide.

I drop my hand down to grasp hers, and if I wasn’t careful, I could easily crush hers in mine.

We stand, side by side, looking into the mirror at each other. How very different we are.

Yet, in the grand scheme of things, our differences are probably what brought us together.

A small tremble flows through the ship. I’m not worried until all of a sudden the mirror begins to vibrate and our images reflecting back at us become distorted.

That’s not good…

A blaring claxon goes off and red lights begin to flash from our quarters.

“Shit! Can’t we ju—” Isla begins to say, but stops when she gets thrown side to side.

Reaching out to grab her, I feel the weightlessness of losing gravity.

“Fuck,” I say for the first time and I don’t mean mating.

Yarrel and Isla were right, it’s a good word for a lot of things. Especially since we’re both floating up from the floor.

Holding tightly to her hand, I shout over the blaring alarm, “We need to get out of here.”

I have to wait for my feet to reach the wall before I’m able to push us both out of the small bathroom. We don’t want to be caught in such a small space if the grav-drive comes back on.

I’m too big of a guy to drop down on top of her or slam into her. I’ll crush her if I drop on top of her.

“The artificial gravity drives will return to full function in thirty seconds. Please prepare to drop,” a computer voice comes over the intercom.

Damn.

“Isla, push off of me and try to get to the bed,” I say as I let go of her hand.

Isla pushes a bit, but it’s not enough because we don’t have a mass to use as leverage.

Growling out in frustration, I count down in my head for the drop to happen.

As soon as I feel the sickness of falling, I flail away from Isla to land hard on the metal decking.

“Ow, fuck!” she yelps as she lands partially on the bed.

Thankfully, she isn’t hurt as she stands up.

Standing myself up, I reach over to a wall as louder thumping sounds vibrate through the ship. The alarm has been silenced, but the red flashing lights continue to blink with a furious blip to them.

We’re under attack, I think, and then pause as I hear a couple of loud whoompf sounds.

And we’re shooting back.

It must be the Crima. I don’t know how they found us, but they have.

“Are we being attacked?” Isla asks with worry in her eyes.

“Yes, and while I would rather be doing something, we will only be in the way,” I growl out.

Walking back over to the bed, I sit down on its side and pull her back to my lap. “As good as a shower with you sounds, I don’t want us to get stuck in there if we lose artificial gravity again.”

We sit on the bed. Both of us carefully avoiding the painful question of what will we do next.

Time slowly passes. Thumps and whumps shoot out from the ship and the ship shakes as the shields take blasts.

We’ve seriously pissed the Crima off.

“I’m starving…” she grumbles and looks to the door.

It’s been quite some time since we last ate.

“We also need clothing,” I say.

“Do you think we could try and get out? Maybe sneak off to their kitchen or armory?”

“It’s worth a try,” I say.

The red flashing light is still on, but the longer we sit here, the more I feel the ache of inaction. We need to do something. Anything to get our minds off our current plight.

I can’t live on her world, and we can’t go back to mine.

Heading for the door, I think we’re both surprised when it slides open. I was almost certain it would be locked, but it looks like the stars might not be so pissed off at us after all.

Peeking our heads out into the hallway, we look both ways. Not seeing anyone around, we head left. There are still loud thumps, but they are not nearly as often now. It looks like we’ve either outdistanced our pursuers or destroyed enough to reach a safer distance.

I wish I was on the bridge to know what’s happening, but I’d rather not draw that much attention to ourselves. Isla is still naked, and by the way she’s walking with her hands covering her good parts, I figure she would prefer not to draw attention to herself.

We check through a couple rooms before we find what looks like an armory mixed with a locker room.

These pirates, or mercenaries if they prefer to be called, at least keep up with some standards on their ship. The clothing we find isn’t all dirty and torn. I manage to even find a pair of pants that will fit me. No boots or a shirt, but I’m fine.

Isla, unfortunately for me, finds everything she needs, even clean underwear. Damn. I really did enjoy her being naked. Perhaps if we make it out of this, I can somehow talk her into taking her clothes off again.

“Food. This girl is going to die if we don’t find some food next.”

Nodding my head, I lead her back out into the hallway and continue on the way we started. The ship is set up pretty much like any other ship, and soon the galley is being raided by the two of us.

From the food she picks from the cold lockers, it’s obvious her species eats pretty much like my own.

“It’s good that we seem to eat the same things. I would hate to try and feed you a food only to discover you solely existed on plant-based food. The gruel they fed us on the research vessel is so neutral on so many races, I doubt they had too many concerns.”

Making a face as she eats, she says, “I’ve never had anything blander in my whole life.”

“It was intentional. They wanted to keep us demotivated as possible.”

Eating real food for the first time in months, I feel almost back to normal. The Crima never allowed me to be filled. I think it was too keep me as sedated as possible without the aid of drugs.

Loud stomping comes down the corridor, and as we both turn to look at the open hatch door leading into the galley, we see Yarrel walking past.

“We’re in here,” I say loudly enough to catch his attention.

“Finally! Did I say you two could leave your quarters?” he asks angrily.

“Nope.” Isla shrugs and I can see that she could care less about what he wanted.

“What is it you need of us?” I ask.

Yarrel starts off in human speak as he addresses Isla, but she raises her hand. “You know I have a translator. Everything about me or Ryock affects us both.”

“Fine,” Yarrel says, and the slight disappointment in his voice irritates me at the very base of my stomach.

I don’t like this man-thing, and I barely trust him. I have no doubt he would push me out of the closest airlock if he could.

He perches himself on a chair across from us. “We’re far enough away from the Crima that we’re about to make another jump. We’re going to do a couple of them in a row if possible. But…”

“But?” I prod him after a small bit of time passes.

“I have to dump you both,” he says.

“You what?” I ask right before Isla says, “What do you mean?”

“You see, I promised your sister I would get you back to her safely and right now, with the Crima pursuing us, I can’t do that. You, Ryock, were not a priority or a necessity until now. If I could have, I would have left you back there.”

“What does Lexi have to do with any of this?” Isla asks after she lays a calming hand on mine.

“She went through great danger and trouble to get you back. I had my doubts I would find you, but I did promise her, even if I thought at the time she wouldn’t even know if I did… Look, none of that is here nor there. Right now, we are hurtling through space with two stolen research experiments and a shit ton of information from the Crima’s databases.”

“What kind of information?” I ask quietly. Because neither Isla or I merit the type of pursuit the Crima are doing right now.

“The kind of information that many of the other Tribunal races would kill for. Trust me, even if I wanted to come after you, my crew on this ship would have had a hard time justifying what we did for you, Isla. But the thought of hitting a simple research ship that might have some good intel we could sell? It was enough of a risk. We didn’t plan on it being so heavily guarded, though. Our losses have taken half my crew. But what we found on that ship… It might just mean every one of us can retire.”

“So… beyond all of that shit, and it all means shit to me, what do you mean you are going to have to dump us?” Isla asks with some heat in her voice.

“I need to get you off this ship. You aren’t in the way, and aren’t causing us an issue, but I did promise Lexi I would keep you safe.”

“By dumping us?”

“Sorta. You have the big guy here with you to help you survive. Right after the next jump, we are going to push you out in one of the emergency skiffs. Shoot you off to a small, out of the way, prim-planet. Look, we have to make a series of very difficult jumps with the Crima trying to follow us. When, or if, we make it to Tribunal space, we can’t be rushing off to your planet or trying to insert you both on some trader port.”

Damn.

“Prim-planet? How primitive are we talking?”

Wincing slightly, he smiles. “Above cellular, but around the primitive stages. It’s been deemed by the Tribunal as off limits until it can either be of use or primed for takeover.”

Looking between us both, Isla asks, “What does all this mean?”

Turning to Isla I smile. “We get to go rough it for a while.”

“Wonderful.”

* * *

Pushing us from behind, Yarrel hands Isla a large backpack. “That has enough survival gear to keep you both safe for a couple of months. The planet has water and food sources, no worries there.”

Nodding her head, she looks back at me then him. “How are you going to let Lexi know where I am?”

“That pack has a communications device strong enough to reach the relays in this system. It will let you know when it’s established a secure link between you and Lexi. Set it up when you get down and then wait it out.”

“You’re not being very helpful,” Isla says as she shoulders the pack.

Handing me two blaster rifles and a pistol, he shrugs. “Sorry.”

As we crossover into the emergency skiff, he leans his head in. “Just to make things clear… I’m not going to have to look for a third sister, am I?”

Looking back at him in confusion, Isla says, “No, it’s just me and Lexi.”

“Okay.” And again, there is a look of disappointment in his eyes.

Closing the emergency hatch, we settle down in the ships chairs and strap in.

“Have you ever been in one of these?”

“No. But it should be oka—” I start to say before we get slammed back into our seats and shot out of the ship.