Ferexian Raider Read online

  He sensed her before he saw her. The feeling was instant and as strong as though he’d been plugged into a power cable. Energy surged through him, pure and white hot. For a moment, bathed in the overwhelming sensation, he wondered what the hell had happened, and then his body told him.

  A female...

  Zan was so scrambled that he thought a Ferexian woman had somehow appeared on Terra. His kind could sense each other, to a certain extent, and after living so long among alien species, the connection felt like a high keening note that refused no to be heard. His senses were probably very sharp, given that he didn't see his own kind so very often.

  He sent the rest of his crew back with a growl, and he pushed into the darkness. When he found the source of his undoing, a raw hunger overtook him.

  She had been crouching in the woods like a small scavenger, hunched over, reminding him of one of the rodents on the far planet Azaria, watching the ship's repair. He could have spied from the shadows for hours, but his instincts forced his hand. She was a female, unclaimed, unprotected, and though he was meant to the upra of Clan Mordra, he had been a raider far longer than he had been a ruler.

  He seized her up in his arms, and her shocked cry caused a stirring in his loins. Zan marveled at how small she was, almost two full heads shorter than he, but how similar as well. Her hands flailing in front of them looked like far more delicate versions of his own, and the sounds she made, though less words than shouts of surprise, came from a throat he knew could shape his language.

  In that moment, carrying his prize in his arms, Zan wanted nothing more than to bear her to the earth and to bury himself into her womanhood claiming her as his female.

  Fortunately, sense reasserted itself, and he heard her shocked cries.

  “What the hell are you doing? Hey, get your hands of me, buddy! What do you think I am a throw toy?”

  “I certainly do not think you are a toy to throw.” He really had no idea what would make her say such nonsense. When she stared at his lips, it was obvious right away that she couldn't understand his language. Instead, she shouted louder.

  He responded by tossing her over his shoulder and striding back to the lights. The Terran woman kicked and shouted all the while. Ancestors, but she was light and small. He had been a size bigger than her when he was barely eight planetary revolutions. As he brought her closer to the light, he swung her off his shoulder and cradled her in his arms so that he could study her visage. Her face was heart-shaped and delicate, her eyes a large and luminous hazel green. When her lips parted, he saw how full they were, and the natural instincts of an upra to defend, protect and claim his female, so long dormant in the raider, at last arose in him.

  The powerful tide of exhilaration that rolled over Zan was indescribable and, as he entered the clearing, threw back his head and released a long and loud howl of victory.

  The first thing that Stella thought when she saw her captor was that he was gorgeous, and not just in a hard, masculine way, although he was that. His skin was smooth and hairless and a lovely shade of purple. Whoa. Stella gasped, and for a moment, instead of fighting her captor, she clung to him.

  In short order, they were surrounded by a ring of aliens that dazzled her with their strangeness, their very foreign nature. Did that one have black and white fur? Did that pair have on breathing apparatuses? Was that one actually two, just wrapped together by loose root-like tendrils?

  Okay, okay, let's just stay calm. It wasn't the first contact she’d always dreamed about in my head, but...

  The purple alien man who held her roared something to her that sounded like a sibilant hiss, and the alien covered with black and white hair scuttled forward, moving far faster than Stella thought it could. It's many jointed hand held up something that looked like a cross between a tattoo artist's gun and a tablet, and it handed the device to the man who was holding her. The man shifted her to one arm as if she were a troublesome infant, and before she could protest, he slung her so that he had clear access to the back of her neck.

  “Hey! What the hell!”

  There was a soft thwock sound, and a feeling not unlike a pinch at her nape. Stella yelped more out of surprise than pain, and her free hand, the one not hanging onto the alien dude for dear life, flew to the offended area. There was a slight warmth there, and for a single horrified moment, she could feel a lump under her skin before it disappeared.

  “What was that? What the hell did you do to me?” she shouted.

  The alien holding her turned her around and set her gently on the ground, and she pushed away from him so hard she stumbled. There were a ring of curious aliens watching her, and for a moment, she could barely catch her breath. It would be too easy to imagine herself at a theme park with exceptional animatronics coming to surround her, if the things didn’t move so fluidly.

  “Stay back,” she warned. “I... I'm really not someone you want to mess with.”

  “I assure you we have no desire to mess you,” rumbled the large purple dude who had carried her from her hiding place.

  “You speak English!” she squeaked. “I mean...does this mean that you've been to Earth before? Are you... are your people from Earth? Oh my gosh, I have so many questions!”

  “She talks like a little bird,” grunted one of the tall figures with what looked like a breathing apparatus surrounding a hole where a mouth and nose would be on a human. Its voice came out with a radio static-like hiss from a speaker located on its chest. “Are you sure you want to claim this one, commander.”

  To her surprise, the alien who had grabbed her, the commander, stood up straighter. The air seemed to grow heavy with some kind of static electricity, the space around all of them a little smaller and more threatening.

  “Do you think you have a claiming right, Oroch?”

  The alien with the breathing tubes took two hasty steps back, shaking its head submissively. Stella absently noticed how some body language was apparently universal. Honestly, she was simply surprised that her mind could grasp at anything. With so much adrenaline pumping through her system, she was on the verge of a complete meltdown.

  “Good,” the big purple guy growled before turning his gaze to Stella. Something about the way he looked at her sent a bolt of warmth through her, she began to nervously fidget with her hands. Until she reminded herself that she was the sole representative of Earth, at which time she lifted her chin proudly instead. It probably would have been a little more imposing if she didn't have leaves in her hair and dirt and grass stains on her knees, but she had to work with what she had.

  “What is your name?” the purple guy asked, his voice brusque. Even if it was hard enough to sharpen knives on, she could sense that there was something underneath it, something that seemed to pulse in time with the warmth in her. Had whatever it was they implanted in her caused that warmth to happen?

  “First, I want you to tell me exactly what you did to me,” she said, her voice firm and mostly steady. “What did you do to my neck?”

  The crew fell back warily, and the big guy looked down at her from his vast height, eyes narrowed. There was a tension in the air until, at last, a smile curved his lips into something shockingly sensual. She was still trying to figure out how she could be so attracted to someone who was not even the same species when he responded.

  “What I did to you is nothing in comparison to what I would like to do to you,” he said in almost a whisper, his voice was soft and drawling. “But that was just a language implant that we gave you. We're all speaking our own languages, and the chip allows us to understand each other. I trust it’s working well.”

  Stella’s breath caught in her throat as she momentarily marveled at the technology. “Oh, yeah…yes, it's working well.”

  She began to feel a little light headed. Aliens were real. They had technology that might as well have been a magic wand to her, and they were all wonderfully, beautifully unique. She tore her eyes away from the big guy, because she could not hold his gaze without ge
tting all hit and bothered. Instead, she found herself looking down at a smaller figure, mottled in black and white with mottled fingers.

  “So, you can understand me?” Stella asked, and the small figure hopped up and down.

  “Oh I can! Isn't it splendid? I still remember when I received my first chip. The world seemed to open up right then and there in front of me.”

  “First chip? There are more?”

  “So many! Some provide written words floating above for those who do not use sound waves to communicate. Others take in information from the surrounding world and give summary reports.”

  “That sounds amazing. Overwhelming, but amazing.” Stella was still processing that new information when the commander cleared his throat.

  “Terani will now escort you aboard. If you wish to see the heart of the ship, the power that allows us to leap between galaxies, I'm certain that Terani will take you there. She's headed that way anyway to secure the engine.”

  For some reason, the black and white alien—Terani?—looked surprised, but she bobbed up and down after a moment.

  “Do come with me. It's beautiful, and if you've never seen one before...”

  Stella stepped towards Terani, but then she turned back towards the big purple guy, hesitating. He tilted his head at her, and she bit her lip.

  “Thank you,” she said softly. “I've never seen anything like you and your crew before. It's all... all so astounding. I’m honored, and I'm just a no one from St. Paul...”

  He looked startled by her words, and then to her surprise, he took her hand. He was unexpectedly warm, and he smiled at her.

  “What are you called?” he asked, his voice a velvet rumble.

  “I... I'm Stella. Stella Courtland. Um. Just Stella is fine.”

  He smiled as if he were charmed at her stuttering delivery.

  “Stella. Like the stars. I am Commander Zan of the Righel. You are safe aboard my vessel, this I vow.”

  She started to thank him, but to her surprise, he swept down low to place his lips upon her hand. This was no courtly peck, however. Instead he turned her hand so that her palm faced upward, and the soft warmth of his lips sent a tingle into the very core of her. It shocked her so much that she jerked her hand away from his, looking up at him with wide, hazel green eyes.

  “Um... I'll just head out with Terani now,” she said softly, and he smiled. What did he have to look so triumphant over anyway?

  “Good. Go with Terani. I am sure that we will talk later.”

  She might have been more suspicious, asked a few more questions, considered her safety, but Terani took her by the hand and tugged her excitedly towards the ship. It was too much of an honor to be worried as she took her first step onto an alien ship.

  Zan had to remind himself to breathe as he watched the Terran woman board his ship, and even then it took him a moment of effort.

  Ancestors, why had no one ever mentioned that Terran women were so dainty and attractive. The women of his kind were slighter than the males, but just as tall and lean-muscled, slender swords to the heavy bludgeons of their male counterparts. This woman was positively tiny and looked so soft.

  Still though, if there had been any doubts in his mind as to whether the old myths were true, his howl had laid them to rest. The places where she had touched him and where she had rested against him still tingled, as if his body remembered her and still craved her.

  An upra-sa, he thought, his mind still reeling. He thought of her hair, as black as the abyssal night, and her eyes as green as the lights that danced in the skies of his childhood.

  He realized that his crew was still staring at him, but a low snarl hurried them back to their duty. They had worked fast for the past ten hours, and he reminded himself that bonuses were due all around. They had served him well and faithfully in their bloody line of work, and soon he would part ways from them forever.

  “Get ready to lift off,” he ordered curtly. “I want to be in interstellar space in two hours.”

  3

  The solar heart of the ship pulsed with a soft golden light that took Stella's breath away. It was a beautiful thing, easily the size of a small backyard shed. It was so bright it hurt to look at, and it was encased in what looked like a black steel cage.

  “This is it, the heart of the ship.” Terani voice radiated pride. “This is what powers the ship to the speeds that it needs to cross wide spaces. I know some other engineers call them little suns, and they are so beautifully perfect.”

  “It feels as though it's alive.” Stella was truly awed.

  “According to some ancient beliefs, it is alive, a child of the stars that reeled away from its appointed dance through the darkness. By some, it’s considered a great sin to cage one like this.” The deep, husky voice behind her ran shivers up her spine.

  She turned to face the commander, twisting her hands together in a sudden fit of nerves. Stella had never been tall, but standing next to the commander of the Righel, she felt positively tiny. It was as if with his immense height, powerful build lovely lavender skin, an entirely different order of being. And, realistically, he was, but he was also so like her. Humans. So like humans.

  She knew that she should say something. Preferably something clever, charming and representative of the human race, but instead she blurted out the first thing that came to her mind.

  “Is that what you think?” she asked.

  A flicker of surprise crossed the commander 's face, and he shrugged slightly.

  “I suppose I do not think of it at all. The solar heart has never indicated to me that it was suffering or that it needed or wanted to be free.”

  He shook his head slightly, and then he smiled at her. Except for the purple hair, the size and the purple tinge to his skin, she mused, she might easily have mistaken him for a man. A gorgeous, stunningly handsome one.

  “I have come to request you join me on the gunner's deck. I can assure you the views are amazing.”

  She blinked in surprise, and to her distress she blushed. It sounded oddly romantic, and she knew that that was silly. God, for all his near-human looks, for all she knew, his species might reproduce through budding off smaller versions of themselves.

  “I, uh, yeah, sure, I would like that,” she said, after she realized that the commander and Terani had been watching her in confusion for a moment.

  The commander smiled, showing teeth that were straight and white enough to rival any male model on Earth.

  “Good, come along. I can show you now. Terani, open the baffles, and wake up the ninevan circuits. Get them good and hot.”

  Terani made a chittering sound that seemed to indicate surprise, but she bobbed quickly.

  “Aye Commander.”

  Before Terani could turn, Stella wrapped her arms around the smaller alien. Terani's black and white fur was stunningly soft, her frame surprisingly delicate.

  “Thank you so much for showing me the engine. It's amazing, and so are you.”

  Terani made a soft sound of surprise, and then she wrapped her long arms around Stella as well.

  “I am so glad you are here,” Terani said warmly.

  She might have said more, but the commander was clearing his throat. Stella smiled a little and stepped back, falling into step with the commander. She was startled to realize he was slowing his steps so that she could keep up with him more easily. He seemed to take two strides for every three of hers, but she kept pace with him as he led her through the wide passages of the ship.

  “You must be very careful doing that,” the commander said casually. “Embracing beings you are unfamiliar with, I mean.”

  “Oh,” Stela winced. “I guess I didn't think of that. I'm so much bigger than Terani, and she might not have liked it.”

  The commander chuckled, a surprisingly rich and warm sound.

  “No, I meant that if you tried that with, say, the Twins, you would quickly find yourself stabbed. They consider that kind of embrace an attack of the most intimat
e kind... or a marriage proposal.”

  “Oh…kay,” Stella said, realizing again how very far from Kansa she was. “I never even thought...”

  The commander shrugged. He wore a dark close-fitting black tunic of some kind of slick, matte material over trousers that looked like military-issue fatigues, and the sleeveless top left his muscled forearms bare. When he shrugged, she couldn't help but notice the ripple of muscle.

  “The Twins are rare, you probably won't ever see others of their kind even if you wandered all over the galaxy. And that's a pretty universal gesture on most planets. For example, I would welcome it should you choose to wrap your arms around me.”

  She blinked at the slight smile she heard in his voice. Okay, maybe budding is out. “Would it mean that, I don't know, I was proposing marriage or something?”

  He threw his head back and laughed deeply. “Not at all.”

  They reached a short metal ladder, and he showed her how to climb up, unbarring the hatch at the top for her. With only a fraction of a second’s hesitation, Stella climbed up into the gunner's deck. She looked around in fascinated curiosity. There were two seats facing in opposite directions, each one with a panel of controls wired to two sliding guns outside the barred glass surrounding the small chamber. Beyond the glass, she could see the vast and beautiful night sky, and she smiled.

  “It's breathtaking up here, Commander,” she said softly, and he grinned at her.

  “You know, you're not a member of my crew. Call me Zan.”

  “Zan,” she said, testing the name on her tongue. It suited him.

  “And you're Stella, like the stars. I consider that a good omen.”

  “Why is that?” she asked, but he was stepping closer before turning towards the window.

  “Can you see that faint star there? Look straight to the right of the three gleaming stars in a row.”

  “Oh, I can, I think,” for some reason she lowered her voice to a hush. “It must be so far away. It's amazing to think how far away it might be.”