Cosmic Captain: Chapter 26

The white, horned face of Qwexil filled my vision, and for a few long seconds I simply gaped at him, at a loss for words. There was a stupid moment where I thought maybe he’d gotten to me before I reached Torvan, that he was here to save me.

But he’d apologized. Nothing personal.

I sat up quickly, scrambling away from him to the top end of the box. Even if it did no good, I wanted whatever distance I could get. “What…why…what the fuck, Qwexil?” Helpless anger battled with betrayal and hurt. Qwexil had been my friend, a confidante, and the biggest campaigner for my release.

“Like I said, nothing personal.” Reaching out for me, he easily manhandled me out of the cargo box. A brief glance around told me I was not on the Event Horizon, but in the hold of some other, much smaller ship. Anything I could use to my advantage was out of reach, and Qwexil dashed any hope of lunging for anything by wrenching my hands behind my back.

Talisaar, I might’ve stood a chance against. He was bigger than me and had serrated teeth, but his skin was also fragile and he couldn’t be away from a water source for long. Qwexil, while not a fucking massive unit like Kryn, was still built with impressive muscles and he was at least an entire foot taller than me.

Brute force would not be my way out.

“You voted not to take me to Torvan, I don’t understand!” That much was true, but the frightened wobble in my voice was for dramatic effect. I was actually so angry I was shaking, and I itched to find a weapon and give Qwexil what he god damned deserved.

“Yeah, you drekked that up, huh? Had to go and let the captain put his dick in you.” An eyeroll was evident in his tone as he walked me towards the slow-opening landing ramp and it pissed me off. I hadn’t asked to be ripped from my home and sold as cargo. I hadn’t asked to fall in love with an alien.

“You say that like I planned it.” I snapped, forgetting to put on a fearful facade. Sure, I was scared, but unfathomable rage was making me stupid. “You were my fucking friend!”

He snorted. “I’m everybody’s friend. I voted to keep you because if I got outvoted we all got credits. Whatever. If we decided to release you, then I could just give Torvan your location and get all the credits for the job. Felt like a win either way.” The casualness with which he discussed selling me to Torvan made my blood boil.

How could I have trusted him so deeply that I hadn’t even considered it might be him who took me? I’d been convinced it was Talisaar because out of the entire crew, he was the only one who didn’t seemed thrilled to have me on board. I’d dismissed Qwexil immediately because…

Because I was a trusting idiot in a galaxy that chewed you up and spit you out for it. “Lovath will—”

“Do absolutely nothing.” Qwexil scoffed. “I gave the entire crew enough gas to knock them out for a century. They wake up when I want them to, and they’ll believe what I tell them.”

Was that true? My heart thumped hard in my chest, the first true traces of fear turning my blood cold. Even so, Lovath would look for me, and Torvan would have to be the first place he looked, right? “And you think Torvan won’t be the first place he checks? Whether he suspects you or not.”

“Not if he thinks you’re dead.” The words were spoken so casually that the severity of them didn’t sink in at first. What would Qwexil do to convince Lovath I was dead? My jabber was untraceable to most except Talisaar who knew the signal for mine and everyone’s on board.

The moment I thought it, Qwexil released both my arms in favor of grabbing only the one that had just had the jabber implanted in it. One of his hands was wrapped so tightly around my upper forearm that it would probably bruise, and I tried to jerk away when he pulled out a knife with his free hand.

“What the fuck—Qwexil, this is barbaric!” Despite twisting and pulling, I couldn’t get free of his grip. I knew I was weaker than him, but being unable to escape when he was only holding me with one hand was fucking pathetic.

“Barbaric for a person maybe.” He answered easily. “You’re just an exotic.”

The knife dug into the back of my wrist, and I screamed through gritted teeth, desperately trying to escape. White hot pain seared up my arm as the blade twisted, digging deeper until I started to feel sick. My knees buckled and I sagged to the floor, dangling by the arm Qwexil was still holding.

Yelps and moans of pain left my mouth that didn’t even sound like me, and I cried out again when there was a tearing sound and it felt like all the nerves in my arm lit up with a horrible burning sensation. A small metal chip—the jabber—clinked to the floor and Qwexil crushed it with his boot.

“No vitals. Tal can’t track you. Boss’ll believe you’re dead.” He released my arm and I dropped fully to the ground, and I knew this was my chance to find a weapon. But blood dripped down all over the back of my left hand and I couldn’t really feel my fingers. That arm just throbbed up to my elbow and stabbing nerve pain came and went.

Qwexil’s hands were on me again, and the wet cloth he dragged over my arm didn’t provide any relief. Then he was wrapping it in some sort of gauze and yanking me to my feet again by the very same arm. When he pulled them behind my back to start walking me forward, I couldn’t help the tears that pricked my eyes at the pain.

I tried to take in my surroundings, that we were walking down the sloped landing ramp into the belly of another ship. That were were two traakians that looked like some sort of security detail waiting at the bottom. But it was all so hazy and the voices were fading in and out.

My left arm spasmed, pain shooting through my fingers, and I let out a weak sob. Qwexil made an annoyed sound in the back of his throat like my pain was irritating to him. He could’ve tried not cutting out my fucking implant if he didn’t like how I was acting.

I needed to push through this, I couldn’t solely rely on the hope that Lovath would wake up and figure all this out. No matter how much I wanted to be saved, I had no choice but to figure something out myself. Taking shit as it came wasn’t an option anymore.

My left arm was useless, but my right was fine—and conveniently my dominant side. So I had to think. Qwexil had cut my jabber out with a small knife, no longer than my palm. I could hide something like that.

As he continued to walk me, now with the two security guards flanking us, through the halls of an unfamiliar spaceship, I tried to remember where he’d procured the knife from. Qwexil wore a utility belt at all times—a mechanic thing, I figured—so it had probably come from there.

But from the left or the right?

It didn’t matter. Any way that I cut it, I’d bet there was something in his belt I could grab. Having anything was better than nothing. So I waited for the right moment, waited for that stabbing pain to permeate through my useless left fingers.

When it happened, I yelped, letting my knees buckle. Qwexil cursed when I pitched forwards, letting go of my hands to wrap an arm around my chest and drag me back up. His full front was pressed to my back and for just that moment, my hands were free.

Feeling blindly, I was able to slip, well, something out of his belt and hide it in my closed hand. The pointy end of it jabbed at my skin, and I breathed a sigh of relief that I’d acquired something sharp. It felt metal, and I didn’t care if it was a knife or a screwdriver or a pen.

“Come on, get yourself together.” Qwexil hissed as I got my feet under me and he secured my arms behind my back again. I wanted to scoff at his audacity, but I held it in. He thought I was struggling to get myself together? He was lucky I wasn’t in total panic mode.

I carefully made sure to keep my hand loosely closed in a way that wasn’t suspicious but also wouldn’t make it readily apparent I had a weapon the moment Qwexil wasn’t behind me. For once, I was going to be smart about something, because I had someone to go back to. Maybe I couldn’t escape by force, but I would fight tooth and nail, try every trick in the book, to get back to Lovath.

No more Grayson that sat in a cage for months without a single attempt to escape.

We rounded a corner and came face to face with a large door, and as it slid up, I prepared myself for whatever was behind it. More traakian guards lined what looked like some sort of bridge, with a large window out to space and consoles and a captain’s chair. But standing in the center, facing us, was a hooded figure.