The Smuggler's Radiant (Renegades Book 2) Read online

  Bringing the forward thrusters online to halt their ascent out of the Martian gravity well, Rhona swung the ship around in a quick movement, pointing the nose back at Mars and hit the aft thrusters.

  She knew they were too fast, and the angle was slightly wrong. It would hurt breaking through the Martian atmosphere, but better that than what was behind them. She wasn’t as skilled a pilot as her father, but she was good. She believed she could slow them in time to land on Mars, instead of crash.

  A moment later, the first battery of shots flashed on the ground far beneath them. Keeping Audrey Hepburn’s course, Rhona gritted her teeth and trusted the tracking systems to do what they were supposed to do. Using the transponder systems of the ships, they were designed to know friend from foe.

  Beside her, Michael switched to the rear view. Two ships were racing each other to catch up with them. Rhona hoped whatever competition was going on between them would escalate. Perhaps they would attack each other and give them the precious seconds they needed to get away.

  Around them, the black brightened to dark blue. They were so close that until one of the ships launched a grapple, she thought they might make it.

  There was a thud. On the rear viewscreen, Rhona watched the cable become taut. Rhona and Michael were thrown forward in their seats. The tea, which had been sitting on the arm of his seat, shot forward onto the control panel. The top came off and fluid spilt across it. Cursing, Rhona looked up. Both of the viewscreens had gone black.

  The momentum of Audrey Hepburn changed, and they hauled back towards the slave ship.

  Mum and Dad will never let me have my own ship now. It was the stupidest thought in the world to be having at that moment. But it was all she could focus on in the face of everything. Rhona blinked several times. She had no idea what was happening outside, except that they were still moving. The alien grapple had done something to the ship. Desperately, Rhona tried to turn the engines back on, but they were dead.

  ‘Fuck!’ She slammed her hands on the controls several times.

  ‘Rhona.’ She looked at her uncle. There was a rumble, a thud, and stillness. Her heart stopped and she looked behind her, as though she could see the aliens through the bulkhead.

  ‘Rhona?’ Michael’s voice was harder this time.

  ‘What?’ she whispered.

  ‘Weapons.’

  Michael preceded her to the weapons locker. Rhona set her thumb to it and it opened with a hiss of air. They each grabbed a pistol and rounds. Even now, she could hear thudding and thumps on the hull as the aliens drilled through the loading bay platform.

  They ran to the bay and took positions behind crates, waiting for their first sight of aliens; waiting for them to get through the hold door. Everything went still and quiet. Through the hull, they could hear the aliens chattering and arguing.

  Despite her training, despite knowing this was a reality for the life she lived, Rhona never really believed she would face this situation.

  A click, click, click reverberated through the hold. The locks were undone. The heavy platform fell as though the hydraulics were cut.

  Rhona and Michael waited for someone to show themselves before opening fire. A moment later, something landed hard on the floor in front of her. Rhona looked down and saw a semi-sphere right before an aperture in the top opened and the room filled with gas.

  Pulling her top over her mouth, Rhona attempted to protect herself, but within seconds the hold was obscured. She saw a shadow of movement beside her where Michael stood, and a few moments later, both of them began coughing from the gas.

  Feeling herself grow weaker, Rhona leaned on the floor. When the first figure entered the hold, she knew she should be bothered. She just couldn’t remember why.

  She was being walked. Rhona almost tripped over her own feet, someone kept her up. She turned to find someone was holding her arm. A red-scaled hand with long, elegant fingers gripped her. She followed the line of his arm, up to his shoulder and saw the devil gazing at her. It occurred to her that she should be panicking, but somehow, she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

  She turned around. Her mind felt like she was swimming in soup, like she was trying to see through a thick curtain of rain, but finally, she spotted Michael being led behind her. In the distance, over his shoulder, a huge mechanical arm was carrying the Audrey Hepburn across the vast floor. The back of the slave ship was wide open and exposed to the vacuum of space, but somehow, she was still able to breathe. Again, a voice told her she should be panicked, should be scared, but the function between knowledge and feeling was missing.

  The mechanical arm moved out of the ship. It was running along a track in the ceiling. The bottom of the vessel still hung open, and when Rhona looked, she could see it was on massive hinges set along the back of the room. She turned once more to the open doors. There were ships parked in spaces like a spaceship car park. The image was, at once, mundane and bizarre. When the arm was out of track, it extended into the vacuum of space and dumped Audrey Hepburn like garbage. Something inside her broke at the sight, but she couldn’t seem to access the feelings she knew should be raging through her.

  Along with a dozen other humans, faces she knew, faces she didn’t know, they were led into a lift. She looked into the eyes of several friends and saw them devoid of emotion, almost devoid of personality. The aliens holding them were a different matter. Lecherous faces watched her as she entered. When she looked at the devil still holding her arm, he was grinning at her.

  The Devil was different from how she’d imagined him. He didn’t look like a sophisticated gentleman or a booming demon. Instead, he was covered in small iridescent red scales. He had a set of horns which grew on either side of his crown, or it would be his crown if he had hair. They twisted in a spiral, decoratively and his pupils, set in iridescent yellow irises, were slits. He had full lips and elegant cheekbones and was wearing a white shirt which was undone to beneath where a sternum would be on a human. It exposed the broader, smoother orange-yellow scales of his chest.

  The lift doors opened into a room full of cages that started some thirty feet out. This level seemed to be as big as the one they’d left below.

  Alien creatures stared at her from them. Faces were filled with anger, curiosity and despair and each melded one into the other until she couldn’t identify a single feature except one. An impression of pale skin covered in red markings was seared onto her mind, but she wasn’t sure if it was real.

  The devil pulled her aside and allowed everybody else to get out of the lift. When the way was clear, he dragged her into a small side room.

  ‘Rhona?’

  She heard Michael’s voice, but it sounded distant.

  The alien spun her around and grabbed hold of her chin, his grin widening. There was a dull panic echoing through the back of Rhona’s mind. She knew what was coming but couldn’t seem to raise a protest. She couldn’t do anything to stop it. She couldn’t raise a hand to defend herself when the creature lifted her onto a table behind her and started pulling at her pants, his scaled hand touching her flesh. She thought about pushing him away, of lifting his hand off; she could only blink in response.

  A flash of red hair and denim tackled him to the ground.

  ‘Get away from her!’

  Michael’s face appeared before her. There was concern in his eyes. ‘Rhona, it’s okay. I’ve got you.’

  He tugged her pants up and cupped her cheek as he looked into her eyes, assessing her like the doctor-in-training he was.

  Almost as quickly as he was there, he was gone again when a charcoal-skinned male with long white hair grabbed Michael and threw him to the floor. A moment later he was joined by the red devil and a red and purple alien with stepped ridges on his skull. They stood over Michael, their boots landing on him over and over. The whole thing looked strange to her addled mind, but it was the slow penetration of Michael’s screams that broke the peculiar, disconnected effect.

  Rhona jumped off the tabl
e. She was unsteady on her feet but too angry to care. A rush of fear caused a release of adrenaline and suddenly, she was clear, balanced and furious.

  ‘Get off of him.’ She pushed at the devil and watched with satisfaction as he stepped three steps away from her uncle. He looked up at her with surprise, then a cruel sneer twisted his mouth. He walked over to her and pushed her across the room. Rhona crashed into the far wall and struck her head on a metal cabinet, which filled the room with a resounding bong. For a moment, the strange daze that had affected her since the Audrey Hepburn returned. Through fuzzy eyes, she could see the assault continue.

  ‘Get off him. You’re going to kill him.’ Her voice sounded distant, like it was coming from far away and possibly underwater. The fog cleared, leaving a pissed off Scottish-Viking-Martian woman behind.

  ‘Get off him.’ This time, she shouted the words as loud as she could as she struggled to her feet. The three aliens looked at her; one of them laughed before they resumed kicking her uncle.

  She launched herself at them. Michael had fallen quiet and still in the seconds she was on the ground. She knew if she didn’t stop them now… She couldn’t finish the thought.

  ‘You’re killing him!’ she cried as loud as she could. She looked around the room, trying to find something she could use as a weapon against them. Her fists would never be enough. She needed something with a swing, something with weight.

  ‘Get off of him!’ She heard something break inside her uncle. A sickening feeling pushed bile up her throat, and she screamed.

  There was nothing in the room. In desperation, Rhona threw herself at them, hitting, kicking and biting at every exposed part of them. It didn’t slow them down. When the charcoal-skinned alien became annoyed, he grabbed her by the throat, punched her stomach, back-handed her across the face and threw her to the ground. It happened so fast she didn’t have time to raise a hand in defence. She landed heavily beside Michael, winded and staring in dazed horror at her uncle. Michael’s eyes were closed, and he was barely reacting to the impacts.

  ‘Please,’ she croaked, ‘you’re killing him.’

  A dark figure appeared at the doorway. His voice was angry and commanding; immediately, the aliens stopped their attack. He entered, bright green eyes surveying the room. Behind him, several aliens followed, and with little care to the two humans lying on the floor, they grabbed hold of the three men beating her uncle to death. There was a scuffle as they tried to resist, and Rhona was kicked in the face.

  The purple alien yelled instructions in some weird language, but Rhona ignored him. As soon as the boots were gone, she crawled to Michael and checked for his pulse. It was weak, but there.

  Rhona breathed a shuddering sigh of relief.

  The dark figure crouched beside her. Rhona looked up into a beautiful dark purple face; his skin appeared almost metallic. His bright green eyes looked at her dispassionately, even cruelly. He placed his fingers over the same spot Rhona had chosen and waited for a moment.

  They had targeted Michael’s face, breaking his nose. Teeth lay scattered around him, his eyes were quickly swelling shut and he was wheezing.

  ‘You can help him, right?’

  He looked at her.

  The wheezing stopped.

  Rhona looked down at Michael. His chest, which she had watched for reassurance, suddenly deflated and stilled. She waited for him to take in his next breath, her mind refusing to accept the truth. After a few moments, it began to sink in. A sob escaped her. Almost immediately, a purple hand gripped at her throat. She was pulled to her feet and dragged into the main chamber, towards the cages.

  Rhona grabbed at his hand and tried to loosen it. She was desperate for breath, desperate to be free, desperate to get back to Michael and stem the flow of blood, but his fingers were immovable. She was sure at any moment a snap would bring an end to her.

  She heard humans calling out her name; asking her where Michael was and yelling at the alien to release her.

  He sneered at them and stopped in front of the first cage bringing her close to his face. His lips were parted in a twisted smile. He seemed to study her for a moment.

  Rhona glared back at him.

  ‘Bastard.’ She couldn’t get the word past the obstruction of his hand, so she mouthed it, sure he couldn’t understand her. The alien came to some conclusion and touched a panel behind her. The door to the cell opened and he pushed her inside. She landed hard on her ass and rolled halfway across the floor. She turned quickly to see the purple alien walking away.

  In the distance, she saw Michael’s body being thrown into an airlock along with the three living alien males who had attacked them. Tears welled and spilt onto her cheeks.

  The three aliens hurled themselves at the descending doors but were too late. She could see them screaming through the glass, though no sound passed through the airlock.

  The purple alien walked over and placed a hand on the control panel and deposited all four into space.

  Her uncle would have no grave. He would have no marker where her family could pay their respects. To the purple alien, he was trash. A dagger of pain pierced her heart and she was overwhelmed with grief.

  Her grief was cut short when she noticed movement in the corner of her eye. Rhona turned and came face-to-face with a devil, and this one was even bigger than the first.

  Tolomus threw the redheaded human into the cell. Immediately, she turned to watch the purple alien walk across the old fighter hanger. The Crucible was once an Amaran fighter carrier, rather than a ship that raided systems for slaves.

  Makios glanced from the slaver to the redheaded female before him and back again.

  Tolomus walked across the space to the airlock and jettisoned the dead human male and living aliens out of the airlock. It was a good job Tolomus killed them because judging from the female’s screams, Makios would have killed them himself given the chance.

  She blazed onto his brain the moment she stepped onto the deck. She was drugged by the gas, made compliant as Makios was when he was brought on board. But something in her drew his attention despite the conversation he and the Fedhith slaver were having at the time. Makios warned Tolomus that his men were going to hurt her, had he moved quicker; he could have saved her mate.

  When Tolomus reappeared, the redhead's delicate neck grasped in his filthy fingers, his eyes became fixed on Makios’s cell. He knew Makios would protect her.

  The slender human turned to face him, her eyes wide, and she tried to scream, but the trauma to her throat prevented more than a raspy whisper from her.

  When she quieted, Makios took the opportunity to speak.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Makios said in the most soothing tone he could conjure. ‘It’s okay, little human. I’m not going to hurt you.’

  She tried to scream again. She threw herself onto her rear, then scrambled away from Makios like an insect scuttling across the floor. She only stopped when she hit the bars.

  ‘You have a way with females, Kathen.’

  The female turned to see the Golden Aavani at her back. Another attempted scream failed to find volume, and she jerked away from him, setting her back to the bars that overlooked the corridor between the rows of cells.

  ‘Yeah, she seems really taken with you, Decimen.’ Makios was sure to keep the humour out of his face and voice, so as not to make the human think he was mocking her. Instead, he let his concern show and hoped that she could read his features enough to, eventually, understand that he meant her no harm.

  ‘She doesn’t have a translator, does she?’ Decimen eyed her.

  ‘No,’ Makios said. ‘They usually don’t until they’re bought. The owner must give them one.’ Makios looked at the Aavani. ‘Isn’t that what happened to you?’

  Decimen laughed humourlessly. ‘I was born in slavery. Trained for it. I was given a translator before I have memories.’

  The human’s eyes flitted back and forth between Makios and Decimen. Tears streamed down her face, causing
black streaks. Makios didn’t understand what they were, or where they were coming from. Alethia never shed black when she cried.

  Her skin was pale. Not as pale as Alethia, but paler than the average human he’d met. Her long, sleek red hair stood out like fire around her.

  Red was considered a colour of good fortune on the Kathen homeworld. By nature, his people were pale-skinned, as pale as Alethia or any protectorate. But they tattooed themselves in bright reds with ancient tribal markings. It was an ancient language that represented their parent's tribes, their accomplishments, their hopes, their dreams and their plans for the future. On Makios’s chest was a blank space where, one day, he would mark ancient glyphs that would represent his mate and children.

  Until he got the radiant for Thanesh, it was a moot point. He was a criminal. Until Thanesh got the Dynexium and used that as a reason to clear his record, he had nothing to promise any female except life in space, the female of a criminal, a smuggler.

  What female would want that for her family? For her children?

  He looked at the redhead. She stared at him through tears, her eyes wide with fear and wariness. She squeezed herself hard against the bars at her back, her knees drawn up to her chest. Her pants were still undone; they had been like that since Tolomus dragged her from the side room.

  If he touched her, Makios would kill him.

  ‘The Fenion dragged her in the room, right?’ Decimen asked.

  Makios looked at Decimen to find him sitting on the floor at the back of his cage, leaning against the bars that separated his cell from the one Makios now shared with the human. He was sitting as far from the human as he could get; Makios appreciated his gesture. Decimen turned to meet Makios’s eyes a moment later. ‘Do you think she believes you’re Fenion?’

  ‘No,’ Makios shook his head. ‘Kathen are broader, taller, bigger horns. Much less red.’