The Mercenary's Dawn Read online

  ‘I’m sure. We’re happy to pay. I don’t want you going without.’ He seemed to consider turning her down for a moment. She had seen this a hundred times, though this world wasn’t in Protectorate space, he would sell her the slaves. The Protectorate always got their way.

  With a laboured sigh, the Teyas turned to retrieve Alethia’s purchase.

  Dairon and Makios flanked the slaves as they made their way through the market and onto the shopping street beyond. Stalls surrounding narrow walkways gave way to shops abutting narrow streets. Aliens flowed towards and away from the market. Dairon and Makios closed the gap between them, and Alethia fell back a few steps until they were walking in a tighter unit through the streets.

  Even though she was small and unintimidating, Alethia walked in front, her chin raised. She looked at every alien who cast a curious eye in her direction. She had learned long ago that slaves lowered their gazes, bowed their heads; those with power and strength looked others in the eye. If she couldn’t be stronger, she could pretend to be stronger. That was usually enough to make others hesitate.

  The Aavani and Mvari didn’t know they were free. They walked between Makios and Dairon, their heads lowered, their body language defeated. If the two of them had ever had any fight, it was long gone. It hurt Alethia to see it, but there was nothing she could do about it, for now, they would learn the truth in time. Alethia needed them to be slaves for just a little longer, or they would draw attention to their group. They were still chained to avoid unnecessary questions and would have to remain that way until they returned to Invictus.

  It was hard not to look like a tourist in the city. Because of Alethia’s size, it was too dangerous for her to leave their homeworld often, but it left her with a wanderlust. Occasionally the urge to explore became too much and she forced the issue; this had been one of those times. So far, she wasn’t regretting it.

  Despite being a technologically advanced race, the Tinar believed in tradition so lived simply. Though Keyal was their principal city, the buildings were made from the local clay. The Tinar didn’t shun more advanced building materials, they simply didn’t want them. Their traditional clay buildings caught the oppressive heat during the day and released it during the cold nights, maintaining the indoor temperatures throughout each day-night cycle.

  The smell of clean clay filled the air. It added to the spices, street food and sweaty bodies of a hundred different races as they milled about. Because of Tinar’s location and reliance on the slave trade, they were a hub for other industries. It meant the Tinar could live the way they liked; they had taken advantage of that to change very little of their home and culture.

  Alethia fell back into step with the two females. ‘What are your names?’

  ‘Niada,’ the Aavani said. She was attempting a strut but didn’t seem to have the heart for it. Aavani, like humans and Ualha, were primarily sold as pleasure slaves. Like most of her race, she had been raised in a facility for the purpose. The Teyas had been sure to give her Niada’s papers to prove that she came from a well-bred line. Alethia would keep them until Niada had begun to process her life and asked for them. They always asked for them. She studied the Aavani briefly. Niada looked to be in her mid-thirties, past what most would consider her prime as a sex slave, which was why she was sold. She attracted fewer clients at her age and was no longer considered worth the upkeep even though she was a stunning female.

  ‘Idila,’ the Mvari said. Her tone was flat, lifeless, her eyes listless. Some bought Mvari as sex slaves, but for the most part, they were used as a workforce. As a Ledaan slave, it was likely she had been subjected to abuses few would survive.

  ‘Let’s get them to the ship,’ Alethia said to Dairon, who nodded in answer.

  The Aavani and Mvari homeworlds were in Bentari space. The Aavani had barely expanded from the home plains on their world when the Bentari claimed them as slaves. They built facilities to breed them, creating breeding bloodlines based on the Aavani’s colourings. The Mvari were in the grip of their industrial revolution when the Bentari arrived and claimed their world.

  Alethia’s thoughts turned to her mother's planet of birth. It was only Earth’s defences that kept the Bentari and the Fedhith, another slaving race, from claiming them. Three hundred years after The Violation, slavers still made semi-regular attacks on the exit paths of Earth and Mars, allowing them to bring back a small but steady stream of humans. It made humans the most desirable slave because of their rarity. Only the Zavi competed in price, but Zavi slaves were sold by their own people. The final slave race, Ualha, had been claimed by the Fedhith, their planet falling within the borders of Fedhith space. Not much was known about them except that the Fedhith deliberately held them back to inflate their price.

  ‘Where’s the rest of the crew?’ she asked Makios, turning to him and putting events she couldn’t change out of her mind.

  ‘On the other side of the planet, in Dalgan, selling the Amot,’ Makios said, his eyes restlessly moving from one potential threat to the next.

  ‘Dairon, you get them off-planet, Makios will bring me back to Tessa.’ When there was no answer, Alethia turned to find Dairon’s eyes were fixed on something in the distance.

  ‘There’s a human.’ He nodded up the narrow street they were taking back to the port. It took a moment, but when the crowd parted, Alethia saw a cage, sitting outside of a small shop. There was something… no, someone, inside.

  Breaking away from the group, She was halfway to the shop when she was finally able to make out the mostly naked human form inside.

  His red, sunburnt skin was covered in bruises and blood. He lay on his side, unmoving; one leg sat at an unnatural angle. Though he looked muscular, probably from the work he’d been used for, his skin was loose, like he hadn’t eaten a decent meal in a while. For a moment she wondered if he were already dead, then she saw him draw a shallow, laboured breath.

  Alethia stopped walking; the air escaped her lungs in a silent sob. She couldn’t understand how sapient beings could treat others like this.

  Dairon pulled her to him. ‘Alethia.’

  Feeling Dairon against her, his hand on her shoulder, instantly grounded her. Looking around, Alethia was relieved to see no one had noticed her reaction. She took in several, long breaths. When she felt calm again, she squeezed Dairon’s hand in silent thanks and led the group into the shop.

  Inside, a Tinar male with black striations, hair and eyes was standing in the back of the workshop planing a piece of wood. The spicy aroma filled the small domed shop and pricked her nostrils. Carefully, she picked a path through the handcrafted, dark red furniture, hearing Dairon follow behind her. She glanced over her shoulder, to see Makios by the door, with the Aavani and Mvari.

  Alethia reminded herself that the Tinar weren’t intentionally cruel. He most likely hadn’t abused the human intentionally. His people simply didn’t take the differences between races into account. They could carry great weight, so if any individual carried less, it was laziness, not strength. This belief caused them to act with careless brutality, which occasionally resulted in injury and death.

  ‘The human.’ Alethia stopped before reaching the Tinar. ‘How much?’

  The Tinar ignored her and looked at Makios over her shoulder. ‘How much for that human?’

  It cost Alethia energy to not sigh.

  ‘I am representative Alethia of the Protectorate,’ Alethia said, staring the Tinar in the eye. Her anxiety tried to rise once more in the face of confrontation, but she was determined not to let it rule her. Ignoring the tightness building in her chest, she drew in a slow, calming breath and focused on the task ahead.

  The shopkeep turned back to his work and placed the plane down on the wood. He rinsed his hands in a bowl of water standing on a counter at his side. ‘The human’s damaged, dying, can’t sell him to you in that state.’ The Tinar’s voice growled deeply.

  ‘His state is perfect for my needs,’ Alethia lied. ‘If you’d like t
o give him away…’

  ‘Twenty-thousand credits.’ He picked up a cloth and dried his hands.

  Alethia laughed.

  ‘Even at full health, he wouldn’t be worth that much. Two thousand,’ she countered. ‘That’s me being generous.’

  The Tinar looked over Alethia’s shoulder. She followed his gaze, which was fixed on Niada.

  ‘I’ll give him to you and pay you two-thousand for the Aavani.’

  She heard a whispered prayer and turned to find the Aavani staring at her with pleading eyes.

  ‘The Aavani and the Mvari are not for sale.’ Alethia turned back to the Tinar and stepped towards him, pulling his attention back to her. ‘I’m willing to pay good money for a human you left outside to die. Are you willing to take the money or not?’

  The Tinar stared at her for a moment, then shrugged.

  ‘Four-thousand.’

  ‘Two-thousand,’ Alethia said through gritted teeth. ‘You can make two thousand profit from him now or make nothing and bury him in a rote or two. It’s up to you.’ Alethia turned on her heel to leave and came face-to-face with two Huan males who stood watching the exchange with curious faces. Alethia stepped away from them, feeling her features twist into instant dislike. The eyes of the Huan followed her.

  How many times had Colvin and Daninca beaten her mother? How many times had Alethia had to tend her mother's wounds before she was even six years old?

  She took in the dark-red and sapphire skin of the Huan closest to her, her eyes moving to the stepped V-shaped ridges that ran from the bridge of his nose and up his bald red head. The point of each V was topped with a small, horn-like bone protrusion, while the red on his skull blended into a darker sapphire around his ears, shoulders and neck. She could see the same blue on the back of both hands. He had pink swirled irises and no sclera. His oval pupils watched her every move. The irises of the other Huan were swirled red. They turned to track her movements as she inched around them, looking for Dairon.

  ‘Two-thousand, Protectorate.’ The Tinar’s voice followed her towards the street. Alethia glanced back at the Tinar, then turned to watch the Huan. Dairon appeared in front of Alethia and they moved away.

  Feeling a little safer, she turned once again to face the Tinar.

  ‘Two thousand,’ he repeated. Either he wasn’t interested, or he hadn’t noticed her reaction to the Huan.

  ‘Dairon, pay him.’

  Dairon moved towards the Huan, forcing them to retreat towards the back of the shop, giving Alethia a clear path to join Makios at the door. With one last look of warning, Dairon stepped forward and took over the transaction.

  Alethia walked over to Makios, who glared at the Huan but hadn’t left his post, guarding Niada and Idila at the door. They left the shop and she approached the cage.

  She squatted and looked at the man she had just purchased.

  He had muscle; working for the Tinar had probably done that to him. They expected their slaves to work just as hard as they did; lift and carry just as much. But as Alethia had noted earlier, there were early signs of severe malnutrition. He looked like he’d lost a lot of weight quickly. If not for the beating he had undoubtedly taken, he probably would have lasted for some time to come. Still, she didn’t doubt he’d been faltering for a long time before the Tinar finally broke him.

  His dark brown hair was messy around the nape of his neck, which matched the stubble on his face. His breathing was shallow and his face pained. There was a smell coming from him that Alethia didn’t want to examine too carefully.

  She was spending two-thousand credits on a dying man. Perhaps they could save him, though the journey would probably kill him. If they could get him back to Tessa, then he would die a free man surrounded by other humans. That was the best she could offer him unless he proved to be a fighter.

  A few moments later, Dairon appeared at her side. A grimace appeared on his face when he took in the state of the man before him.

  ‘Let’s get him back to the ship.’ Alethia nodded. Dairon opened the cage and in her mind, she heard another cage open twenty years earlier.

  Thanesh and the Tinar leader Kidaal stared at each other across the open floor of Kidaal’s home. The Tinar’s jaw was clamped shut. Despite his position, reclined in his seat, with his feet up, in the aftermath of Thanesh’s question, Kidaal had become tense and glared at him with open hostility.

  ‘You think I work with your enemies?’ the Tinar growled. He shifted in his seat.

  They sat in the main room of Kidaal’s house. Tinar didn’t believe in municipal buildings, preferring to do business in the comfort of their own homes. Thanesh appreciated that, though he preferred the separation of home and work. He could see how a species like the Tinar were less concerned with how things worked than they were with getting them done.

  The building was one of the larger homes in the city. The room they were in was around the same size as the average Keyal home. The red-tiled floor was covered in roughly spun orange rugs, giving the floor the appearance of molten lava. The walls were washed with a pale yellow pigment which gave the impression of sky.

  The tables and frames of the seating were made from the planet’s red wood topped with orange and yellow cushions. It made the furniture appear as though it were on fire.

  ‘I have to ask the question, Kidaal.’ Thanesh sat forward, returning his gaze to the elected leader of the Tinar. ‘Thirty of my males went missing on your planet. I have to question how that happened without your people being aware of it.’

  The Tinar’s black eyes narrowed. Kidaal had grown silent and still. He reached out, stroking the hair of a young Ualhan girl who sat at his feet like a pet.

  ‘I’m more concerned that you say you can protect my people from our enemies, yet you can’t even protect your own.’ Kidaal’s nose had been broken in the past, giving his voice a nasal quality.

  Though Thanesh had expected this argument, he thought it would at least take the Tinar a while to get there. That it came this early, attested to the male’s character.

  ‘We are not in Protectorate space, Kidaal,’ Thanesh reminded him coolly. ‘You came to us asking for membership yet seem to be in more need of it than you initially told me.’ Thanesh paused for a moment before continuing. ‘Unless you are not.’

  Kidaal’s lip curled. He scratched his bared stomach, moving his thick, coarse black hair out of his way. ‘I have nothing but respect for your people Thanesh, but if you continue to question my honour…’

  ‘You have honour?’

  With a huff, Kidaal pushed himself to his digitigrade feet. Not allowing him a moment, Thanesh stood and pushed against the Tinar’s broad chest, sending him abruptly back into his seat. With a small yelp, the Ualha girl scrambled across the floor, away from the two males. There was a moment of surprise on Kidaal’s face before he reoriented on Thanesh.

  ‘Stay down Kidaal.’ Thanesh felt his top lip curl back over his fangs.

  ‘We’re not like some civilisations that have observation everywhere.’ Kidaal’s voice was low and gruff. ‘I don’t know what happened to your men. My investigations turned up nothing.’ Kidaal pushed himself into the same position he had been in before his aborted attack. After a moment, the Ualha girl returned and stood uncertainly next to the giant male. ‘I’m not lying, Thanesh. I don’t know where your people are.’

  This wasn’t the answer Thanesh had come all the way to Tinar for. He grunted an acknowledgement at Kidaal. ‘Negotiations are on hold until I have my people back. Until I know for sure, you did not have anything to do with this.’

  ‘What if you don’t get them back?’ The Tinar pushed the Ualha away from him. She landed hard on the ground.

  ‘Then you will never join,’ Thanesh said as he left Kidaal’s house.

  Alethia sat in the chair next to the human they had rescued and waited for him to come around. His condition was so bad, they had been forced to take him to a Tinar doctor to save his life. The dice were still in th
e air about whether or not he’d make it back to Tessa.

  He hadn’t awakened during treatment, but the doctor had given him a sedative anyway when he set his leg. Even from outside his treatment room, she’d heard the bone snap back into place. She shivered, sickened by the memory.

  Makios was on the bridge, talking to his crew. As soon as they were off the ship, Dairon was heading back to the colony. Alethia, Makios and Tala’s crew would visit the morning’s slave market, see if there was anyone they could rescue, then leave. On the way home, they would divert to Horran space to get some much-needed supplies for the colony. Alethia went through a list of things she needed to buy for the colony’s two villages. In her room, was a list of goods she was bringing back for some of the residents. Life was simple on Tessa; her people worked hard and had few luxuries. She loved arriving home from a supply run and seeing everyone's faces when they got things they needed, or very occasionally, something they wanted.

  The man stirred. A pair of cold blue eyes opened and found her. The pupils dilated, shifting through different sizes as he tried to focus. She could see him beginning to panic.

  ‘You’re safe.’ She stayed back from him; not wanting to frighten him further by crowding his space. ‘You’re safe.’

  After a moment, his pupils settled and fixed on her.

  Alethia held out the cup Dairon had left for him. ‘Take this, it will help your throat.’ Alethia showed him the ice chips inside. With a shaking hand, he took one and dropped it in his mouth. He closed his eyes as he sucked on it. Alethia’s eyes looked up at the bag that was attached to his arm; he was severely dehydrated.

  Alethia continued to feed him ice chips for a few minutes until he held his hand up. His eyes were brighter now, though his features were still etched in pain.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asked.

  ‘Alethia Wilkinson,’ she said.

  ‘How did I get here?’ He looked at the medical bay. Alethia followed his gaze and looked around. Alethia’s mother was the last person to decorate it. The walls were yellow and had faded in the eleven years since her parent's deaths. The room was small, clean and well-stocked. Clean counters had sparse equipment bolted to it.