Lily

Marcas’s tongue is in my mouth. His arms are wrapped around me, my legs hooked around his waist, and I feel weightless.

I feel… blissful.

His warmth helps me forget all about the laboratory, about Onyx, about the fact that my own past is a mystery to me.

Right now, none of that matters. It’s just me and him. And he is right — we can make plenty of new memories.

A siren blares in the distance.

The lights on the ceiling flash bright red.

And then — a shiver runs through the entire ship. The metal itself groans.

“Intruder detected,” the ship’s automated voice says.

The hair on my arms stands up instantly. I knew it. I knew Anik would rise from the grave! I knew this damn ship was haunted!

Wait — the ship wouldn’t recognize him as an intruder, seeing as its his ship and all. Then, if not him, then… who?

Together with Marcas we race towards the command center. I plop down behind the screen and it feels like a brick lands in my stomach when I see the screen.

Red dots. Everywhere.

We’re totally surrounded.

“Onyx?” Marcas says. “Did they track us?”

“No,” I say, as I bring up a visual. The ships are small and unsightly. It looks like they’re cobbled together from spare parts. It’s a miracle they are even flying at all.

We dropped out of warp, and our engines are disabled — I have no idea how they managed to pull that off. According to our coordinates, we’re only a few clicks away from the Vagreon sector. Marcas right, this ship is fast as hell!

“There’s a group of them headed right for us! They’re on the third level now!”

Marcas rises from his seat. “I’ll give them a Zoran welcome.”

“I can close the doors,” I offer. “Lock them out.”

The Zoran warrior shakes his head. “No, they’ll just disable our engines, break us down part by part. Best to face them head on. Let them come.”

His fists are balled, his teal eyes narrowed. He looks like a tiger ready to pounce on its prey.

Footsteps in the distance. My heart is racing, and I grip the control stick just to keep my hands from shaking.

They round the corner, a whole pack of them. The stench hits me before I can even see them.

It smells like a sewer.

They’re about five foot tall, with hairy bodies covered with seemingly random scraps of cloth. In their tiny paws they clutch cattle prods that spark menacingly.

“Marca—”

He’s already gone.

My Zoran bodyguard moves with incredible speed, his pink body merely a blur as he pounces on the first alien. He rustles the cattle prod from his hands, bludgeons him across the face with it and then whirls around, striking at the hairy alien behind him.

The group comes to a screeching halt as Marcas snaps the cattle prod in two on his powerful knee.

“Who is next?” he bellows.

“A Zoran?!” one of them screeches. “What’s going on here?!”

“Are you their leader?” Marcas asks.

“Yes, I am the God King!”

“Listen here, I don’t give a rat’s ass about the little criminal enterprise you’re running here.”

“Little? Little? Why I oughta — I’ll let you know I run this sector!”

“Really? Sahr run Vagreon now?” Marcas asks.

Ah, so that’s what the intruders are — Sahr. The name vaguely rings a bell.

“We do!”

“Then I have a deal for you.”

The rat-man lifts his nose up high. “Sahr don’t make deals with Zorans! You’re untrustworthy! Bad for business. Learned that the hard way from one of your silver friends.”

The man spits out the words like they’re poison.

“Silver?” Marcas says. “That means… Kane? You know Kane?”

My Zoran bodyguard runs up to the ‘rat king’ and grabs him by the throat.

“Start talking right now,” Marcas threatens. “I swear to Zora, if you hurt him, I’ll—”

“Hurt him?” the rat wheezes. “He hurt us! Yes, hurt us he did! He’s gone, long gone!”

Marcas lowers him down to the floor.

“Gone?”

“Long gone! And thank the stars for it!”

My Zoran warrior cracks his knuckles.

“We’re going to make a deal, you and I, and that’s final. I will give you this ship. I’m sure you noticed it’s an Onyx flagship, top of the line. Strip it for parts, sell it, whatever. I don’t care. All I need is a cruiser. The fastest and cleanest one you got. Type VI or higher. Deal?”

The hairy alien rubs his sore neck. The pack of them huddle together for a moment and chatter amongst themselves.

“Deal!” the Sahr leader says. “On one condition! You leave, and you leave now!”

“Gladly,” Marcas says. “Vagreon is the last place I want to be. Well, I know one place that’s worse, but it’s down at the bottom of my list for sure. Don’t worry, little man. We’re going to hightail it out of here.”