Challenged by the alien.., p.6
Challenged by the Alien Captain, page 6
I’m one step closer to my goal.
I’m coming back for you, Maya, I think, wishing she could hear the silent promise. It’ll be done soon. We’ll both be safe. I won’t abandon you.
The thought of my sister is the only thing that subdues the guilt clawing at my stomach as I slip out of the room and back toward my own quarters, forcing myself not to think of Siro. I don’t want to remember the kisses we shared, or the way he showed me around, patiently answering my questions and proudly giving me a tour of his home.
A home that I plan to help destroy.
I keep Maya in the forefront of my mind instead, skipping dinner and opting to go to bed early. I’m exhausted from the adrenaline of the day, and I want to get an early start tomorrow with plenty of time to look for the next hub.
One down, three to go.
When I wake up the next morning, I snuggle deeper beneath the blankets, still half asleep. For a suspended moment, my sleepy brain doesn’t remember where I am or what I came here to do, and I just feel… peaceful.
Then someone knocks at my door, and the sound brings me fully awake. Everything that’s happened over the past days bursts back into my mind like a rubber band snapping, and I sit up abruptly, shoving away the covers.
“Um, hang on a minute!” I call, scrambling out of bed and throwing on the borrowed clothes I got from the Zivonians when I was brought on board the ship. I’ve figured out how to tie the dress so it fits me a bit better, and I make sure the small case with the remaining three chips is well-hidden, tucked against my ribs along my right side and held in place by the wrappings of the dress.
Once I’m sure it won’t slip out, I walk over to the door and press the button on the panel beside it to open it. I blink in surprise as a familiar, too-handsome-for-my-own-good face comes into view.
Siro.
He smiles at me, and before I can stop it, my heart leaps in my chest, skipping a beat before starting to race faster.
“Hi,” I say awkwardly, trying to figure out what’s brought him to my door this morning. It can’t be that he’s figured out what I’m really doing here, since his demeanor is relaxed and easy.
“Good morning.” He dips his chin in greeting, his deep voice sending a pleasant prickle up my spine. “I thought I would offer to show you more of The Oasis today, if you’d like. I’m planning to do a walk-through of the ship to check for any mechanical issues before they become problems, and you’re welcome to join me.”
My pulse picks up again, and I try to keep my expression neutral. I don’t want to let him see just how excited I am at the prospect of getting access to more of the ship.
“Yes, thank you,” I say, pretending to consider it for a second before nodding. “I’m still getting used to the idea of being on a spaceship at all, so this is all fascinating to me.”
“Good.”
He smiles, seeming pleased about spending more time with me, and I hate that some part of me likes that. It shouldn’t mean anything to me one way or another, beyond the practical aspects of making my mission easier, but somehow, it does.
He takes me to the commissary first, and we join the other Zivonians and the human women for the morning meal. Once we’ve eaten, we leave the large cafeteria-style room and make our way toward the far side of the ship.
I glance over at Siro as we walk, taking in the strong line of his jaw and his confident stride. I could almost forget he’s an alien, except for the fact that I’ve never seen any human man move with the sort of natural, predatory grace that this one does. That, and the fact that his skin literally changes color like a chameleon’s. Definitely never seen a human do that, either.
Siro turns his head slightly, glancing down at me, and I flush and shift my gaze to the hallway ahead, realizing he’s caught me staring at him.
“Do you have family on the ship?” I ask, just to say something. I’m not sure it’s a good idea to find out more about this man, considering that I’m already so deeply intrigued by him, but it would be awkward to walk around in silence. “Brothers or sisters? Parents?”
“Neither,” he says, gesturing for me to turn left into the corridor up ahead. “I never had any siblings, which is somewhat unusual for my kind. But I was close with my parents.”
“What happened to them?” I ask, fearing the answer. Did they die in the attack on Zivon?
“My mother became ill when I was a youngling.” Siro’s voice is still calm and even, but I can hear a hint of pain in it. “Despite the natural remedies and powerful medicinal plants that flourish on Zivon, along with the advanced medical tech that we’ve developed or traded for, no one could save her. My father died not long after she did, during a hunt.”
I find myself looking at Siro’s back as he finishes speaking, and I realize belatedly that I’ve stopped walking. He glances over and realizes it too, coming to a halt and turning to look at me.
“I’m sorry,” I say, twisting my hands together. “That must’ve been so hard for you.”
He strides back to meet me, coming to a stop when we’re less than a foot apart.
“It was,” he admits in a low voice. “But I’m grateful for the time I had with them. And the rest of the Zivonian community banded together to raise me after my parents died. I was never without love and support, never without food or a place to lay my head. The whole village became my family, in a way.”
“That sounds incredible,” I tell him. And it truly does, although it’s not something I can relate to at all. My mom is still alive, but when we finally cut her toxic presence out of our lives, Maya and I were on our own. No one in LA banded together to help take care of us or make sure we found our footing in the ever-shifting landscape of the city.
“It was. I’m lucky, despite the losses I’ve endured,” Siro murmurs. “I became Ryven’s second-in-command after the attack on Zivon, dedicating my life to helping him as he leads our people. I owe so much to each and every one of my fellow Zivonians, and I want to take care of them the way they’ve all taken care of me.”
He gives me a small smile, gesturing for us to keep going, and I fall into step beside him again, my mind racing. Every new thing I learn about Siro only makes me like him more—which only makes me feel worse about the situation I’ve found myself trapped in.
We continue to make our way through the ship as Siro asks me questions about my own family and my life back on Earth, and time seems to pass quickly as we each share stories of our pasts.
It’s only when he drops me back off at my room several hours later that I realize I became so invested in our conversation that I was only searching for the hubs with half an eye.
You need to do better, Darcy, I chastise myself, leaning my head against the door as I close my eyes. You need to stay focused.
My plan to use Siro as a way to get access to more parts of the ship is a double-edged sword. He can definitely take me places I might not be able to get to otherwise, but I’m so drawn to him—both attracted to him physically and intrigued by the kind, daring man he seems to be—that it’s hard to focus when I’m around him.
And that could be a very big problem.
10
Darcy
It takes me a few more days to locate the second hub. There’s more relief than guilt when I place the second chip, a distinct feeling of I’m halfway there. All I have to do is finish this, and then I can go back to Maya and we can leave the Kruul, the Zivonians, and all of this behind.
Eventually, I tell myself, the guilt will fade. Maya is my family, and that’s more important than anything else.
I keep trying to sneak around, to locate the last two, but I know I have to be careful not to act suspicious. I don’t want to draw attention to what I’m doing or raise any red flags, especially since I’m spending more time with Siro every day during breaks in his duties and when he’s off of his usual shifts.
I’m careful not to kiss him again, and he doesn’t try to kiss me either. I try not to think about how that makes me feel, about the slight disappointment every time I go back to my cabin without feeling his lips on mine again, or his hands on my waist as he pulls me close to him.
The unspoken attraction between us hovers over every conversation we have and every moment we spend together. Now that the boundary has been crossed, even just a little, I can find it in every glance, every shift of his body toward mine, every time he “accidentally” brushes against me as we walk down a hallway together.
He makes me feel things I’ve never experienced before, and it’s awakened something that I didn’t even know existed inside me—a hunger I don’t quite know what to do with.
I’ve told myself that I’m just spending time with him for information, to try to find the locations of the hubs, to get into places that I might otherwise get caught trying to sneak into. With Siro, I can ask questions about the workings of the ship, and he seems to genuinely enjoy showing me around and teaching me about spaceships in general, which means that he takes me into rooms I know would be off limits to me if I were alone.
But there’s one major problem with this plan of mine.
I like him.
It’s more than just the physical attraction that crackles like electricity between us. As it turns out, Siro is sweet and kind. He’s surprisingly optimistic for someone who was torn away from his home and left to float through space with the last survivors of the Kruul attack for years.
He hasn’t spoken a lot about his past, but the other women have told me a decent bit about the Zivonians’ past. It makes me feel that much worse about what I’m doing here, knowing what the Kruul wreaked on them and their planet, and that I’m going to be responsible for destroying the only home they have left, before they can find a new one.
The thought of what the Kruul will do to Maya is the only thing that forces me to keep going. And even so, I find myself lying awake at night, staring up at the ceiling as my stomach turns over and over, knotting itself with dread.
I wanted the Zivonians to be just as bad as the Kruul somehow, or evil in their own way. I wanted a reason to hate Siro and the others, to think that the other women were stupid or weak for staying with them, falling for them, mating with them. But from everything I can see, the Zivonians are good. They cherish their women, adoring and protecting them. And Siro especially seems to have a kind heart and a genuine hope for the future that clearly nothing, not even the genocide of his people and the destruction of his planet, can quell.
I can’t hate him. I have no reason to.
And the more time I spend with him, the more I realize how impossible that would be.
Because he’s one of the best men I’ve ever met.
He doesn’t talk often about what happened before, but he does talk to me about the future, about his and Ryven’s hopes for the planet they’re searching for, about how they hope that the children born to the human women and their mates will be born on a new a world that they’ll make their own. There’s so much enthusiasm in his voice that it crushes me every time, knowing that if I succeed, they won’t ever make it to the new planet. Not them, or the other women, or their future children. That last part makes it harder than ever to keep going.
Maya. Maya. Maya.
Her name is a constant chant inside my head, a mantra. It’s the only thing that keeps me from confessing everything or just stopping altogether, giving up my mission and letting myself be happy here.
Because I can see why the other women are happy here. I can see what it is that makes them want to stay, to put down roots, to never return to Earth and their old lives.
Sometimes I can almost lose myself in the lie, forgetting for a few moments that I’m not just another rescued human woman who’s building a home for herself among these alien warriors.
It’s easiest to forget the truth when I’m with Siro. Despite my admonishments to myself to keep my head on straight around him, he has a way of disarming me, of making me feel comfortable and at ease. But every time I think about trying to distance myself from him or stop seeing him, he invites me to explore the ship with him or something, and I can’t say no to that.
Today, he’s taking me to an area of the ship I’ve never been to before, near the large hanger where their smaller vessels are docked. As I follow him down the hallway, we push past a tangle of vines that are trying desperately to take over the entire corridor, rather than sticking to their wall.
“This place is like a jungle,” I murmur as I duck under the vines.
Siro laughs, a deep and genuine sound that makes my stomach flutter. “It is, a bit. That’s how we like it.”
His skin shifts slightly as he speaks, turning almost the exact same color as the vine as he moves under it.
He really is like a chameleon, I think, and I have a sudden image of what it must have been like to see him on his home planet, moving through a real jungle of vines like this, almost imperceptible as his skin changed. As alien traits go, the color-shifting is one of the coolest I could imagine.
I tell him so as he joins me on the other side of the vines, and he grins.
“I’m glad you think so. It comes in handy for hunting too, although we don’t get to do much of that these days. I miss it, though.”
“What kinds of things would you hunt?”
“Oh, many different types of animals. Some were smaller herd animals, like the jeera. And some, like the hulengu, were predators in their own right. You wouldn’t want to meet a hulengu on your own while out foraging in the woods.” His smile widens, a proud expression passing over his face. “Although Tyrek and I once took down a male hulengu between the two of us. It nearly took my head off at one point with its horns, but we managed to best it.”
He looks almost boyish as he recalls his days back on Zivon, and I’m gripped with a sudden urge to kiss him again, to back him against the tangle of vines and climb him until my lips are on his.
But before I can either follow that dangerous impulse or talk myself out of it, we’re interrupted by the sudden, stark sound of an alarm blaring through the ship.
Siro stiffens, cursing under his breath.
“Vreck,” he mutters, glancing back down the hallway. “I’m sorry, Darcy. I have to go. I need to get you somewhere safe first,” he adds, looking down at his communicator. “There’s something wrong with the ship, and that’s a code five alarm. That means everyone who is non-essential crew is supposed to take cover in their rooms.”
I stare at him, momentarily stunned into silence. My first thought is that it’s my fault, that what I was sent here to do is happening, but that can’t be true. Nothing is supposed to happen until the last chip is inserted, and I still have two more to go.
A knot of fear tightens in my stomach, making me feel slightly dizzy as my stomach pitches sideways.
What’s happening? What’s wrong with the ship?
In all my imaginings of how this might go, I never considered that The Oasis might simply have something fail on its own, or have a different kind of accident.
“Your cabin is too far away,” Siro says, cutting through the tangle of my thoughts. “We’re closer to my quarters, so I’ll take you there. There’s not enough time to get you back to your room.”
“Okay.”
I feel vaguely nervous going to his room, but I can’t find a reason to argue. All I want right now is to be somewhere safe—a very hypocritical urge, I’m aware—and I follow Siro blindly straight to his room. The moment we reach it, he opens the door and urges me inside.
“I’ll be back,” he promises, reaching down and squeezing my hand reassuringly before stepping back. “As soon as it’s safe again, I’ll come and let you know. Just stay here until I do. Promise me.”
“I promise.” I can barely manage the words, and my heart feels like it’s lodged somewhere in my throat. “I’ll be right here.”
“Good.”
He looks as if he wants to kiss me, his gaze flicking to my lips, but instead he just turns on his heel, shutting the door firmly behind him as he leaves.
I pace the room, gulping back nerves every time the ship shudders, wondering what could be happening, worrying about the other women and about Siro.
Could the Kruul be responsible for this? I think, pacing to the bed and sitting anxiously on the edge of it. I can’t help but feel nervous and guilty, wondering if this is still my fault, even though it can’t possibly have anything to do with the chips themselves.
What if the Kruul got sick of waiting for me?
What if they’ve come up with some other plan to attack, tired of waiting for me to complete my task?
What if they’ve written me off, and Maya is already dead?
That thought makes me so sick that I bury my face in my hands, trying desperately not to panic and hyperventilate. It feels as if everything is spinning out of my control.
I expected—hoped, really—that Siro would be back quickly, but he isn’t. Hours stretch out into each other, and I spend most of that time pacing the room, trying not to imagine worst-case scenarios. My frayed nerves aren’t helped at all by the alarm, which blares off and on periodically to remind me that the threat, whatever it is, isn’t over yet.
Eventually, I force myself to lie down, very aware that this is Siro’s bed. It even smells like him a bit, his familiar, distinctive scent clinging to the pillow, and I turn my face into it. When I breathe it in, I feel oddly comforted somehow, some of the panic softening and blurring as I let the scent of him fill my nostrils.
It reminds me of being held by him, kissed by him, and even though I know those are things I shouldn’t let myself think about, it calms me. And I’ll take whatever I can get right now.
Somehow, it calms me down enough that I fall asleep curled around Siro’s pillow, my face still half-smashed into it. But the dream I have is anything but calming.
In the dream, the last chip is in my hand, small and too innocuous looking for such a powerful thing, waiting for me to slip it into the last port. The Kruul are standing there, holding Maya in chains, and she’s pleading with me to finish it, to rescue her, to take her home.
