Cosmic Captain: Chapter 8

I scrambled away, backing straight into Lovath, but I didn’t care. His hands flew up to grip my shoulders as I began to breathe in short panicked gasps at the alien in front of me. The alien with smooth, gray skin and two sets of eyes.

“Hey, what—”

“Get him the fuck away!” My bare feet slipped on the metal floor as I tried to get somewhere else, anywhere else, but I was halted by Lovath’s hands on me. I didn’t even care that another alien was touching me, I just needed to escape from the gray one. He was making a sour expression at me, and I just knew he was going to drag me away, do the same horrible things to me the other ones did.

“Grayson, you need to calm down. That’s just Kryn.” Lovath’s voice was in my ear, but I couldn’t think, couldn’t focus. Part of his crew or not, this Kryn was one of them. He was one of the ones that would hurt me just like before. Tears were streaming down my face as I struggled against Lovath’s iron grip.

The other three gave Kryn helpless looks, and Qwexil offered, “Maybe Kryn shouldn’t be in the room?”

“It’s because I’m krexxian.” Kryn sighed, and maybe his face looked a little less sour and more sad. The sound of his voice made me stop flailing, and I simply trembled with Lovath’s hands still on my shoulders. Fighting did no good; I knew that. He would just use the chip to paralyze me and do what he wanted anyway.

Behind me, Lovath rumbled, “Probably right, the krexxians are the most involved in human slave trade. And their quarantine and decontamination methods aren’t exactly…pleasant. Are you going to run if I let you go?” It took a few long moments for me to realize he was talking to me, and even more seconds for me to give him one shake of my head.

His hands let go of my shoulders, and I skittered away immediately, but I didn’t run. I was still acutely aware that I had nowhere to go. “Wh-what’s krexxian?” I asked with a tremble in my voice, wiping irritably at my wet eyes.

“My species.” Kryn answered, and I retracted again, taking a step away from him and towards Lovath. I didn’t know why Lovath seemed the better option in the moment, but I almost wanted his steadying hands on me again. Which was absolutely ridiculous because he currently had his ship on course to deliver me to my buyer.

“Krexxian ships are the only ones who can get in and out of the Sol System easily.” Qwexil volunteered information. “Well, easily enough.”

“And the only ones stupid enough to risk the legal ramifications.” Talisaar snorted.

My head was swimming. “I need…I need to go back to Earth.”

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen.” Lovath shook his head. “I do a lot of illegal shtec, but messing with the Sol System isn’t one of them. We need to discuss if we’re delivering the human to Torvan or not.”

“Torvan?” Zen-something’s brows drew together. “Torvan doesn’t deal in humans. That’s why we work with him.”

“It’s probably also why he’s paying so many credits this time. In advance.” Lovath shrugged.

It sank in fully that my fate was entirely in this group of criminals’ hands. 

“Is there a reason the cargo is…out and about?” Talisaar waved over at me and I stiffened at being called cargo. Even if it was accurate, I hated it. 

“Stasis pod failed.” Kryn cut in, voice gruff and deeper than any human’s I’d heard. I couldn’t keep from shying a little farther away from him, closer to Lovath. “Would’ve probably died if I didn’t hear the box beeping. Are Torvan’s credits worth it if he didn’t even disclose we had live cargo? It’s a pretty important omission.”

“Credits are credits.” Talisaar countered. “Deliver this one since he already paid and we won’t deal with him in the future.”

“And what’s to say he won’t tell our other contacts we delivered him an exotic?” Qwexil shot back. “You can’t trust him to believe it’s a one time thing.”

Lovath’s face was riddled with indecision. “Zenkara, you’re the expert on our buyers.”

“Looks like shtec either way.” She responded. “If we deliver it to Torvan, word will spread around that we deal in exotics and we’ll have to do some damage control. If we drop it at the nearest space station, we look unreliable, even if we give back Torvan’s credits. We’ll have a lot of explaining to do no matter what.”

“Him. He’s an exotic, not an animal.” Lovath corrected, and I fought not to feel grateful. He could choose not to dehumanize me and still be a bad guy. But it also gave me a horrifying glimpse into what more could be coming for me. If I was considered more of an exotic slave than an animal, it opened the door for me to be considered as something more than a pet.

Something worse. Like a sex pet. Hadn’t I known that already though? From the drugs they’d used on me and the things they’d done to my body?

I shivered even as Talisaar said, “Sure, him. We take him to Torvan. That’s my vote.” Then he looked pointedly at Zenkara. She shifted under his gaze, uncomfortable, then shot me an apologetic look.

“Me too. I think the damage control to our reputation will be easier than if we just don’t deliver.”

“Bolshtec.” Qwexil swore. At least, it sounded like a swear. “I’m sure we can fix it either way. I say we figure out where to drop him, return Torvan’s credits, and move on. We’re still two weeks out, that’s plenty of time to come up with something. And Kryn agrees.” When he motioned to the alien that still had my head spinning with fear, he nodded. Maybe I needed to try and cut Kryn a break, but all my instincts were screaming that he’d hurt me.

Lovath sighed heavily and looked at me. I’d inched so far away from Kryn that I was right near him again. For a brief moment I wondered if he was going to put his hands on me like before, but I shook the thought away. I didn’t want any alien to touch me ever again.

“I guess it comes down to me anyway.” He did not sound happy about that, and his solid green eyes warred with indecision when he looked at me. “We took a contract, we have to deliver.” He finally said and all at once I felt like a popped balloon.

“Lo, I really think—”

“It’s final.” He cut off Kryn, who gritted his teeth then said nothing else.

It’s final. The words echoed in my head even as I was helpless to do anything. Lovath didn’t even look me in the eye as he escorted me away and I tried not to hyperventilate. I could figure this out. They couldn’t put me back in the failed stasis pod, and I’d heard Qwexil say that there were two weeks before we got to Torvan.

I had time to think of something. Even if I didn’t, Torvan didn’t sound like a death sentence. Zenkara had said Torvan had never dealt in exotics—humans—before; that meant he wasn’t experienced, and I was sure there would be opportunities to escape. I just needed to use my head, think with logic and not emotion.

“We have a few spare rooms.” Lovath’s voice broke me from my thoughts as I followed him through one of those hall doors into a small, sparse area. “I don’t know what humans require to live, so you’ll have to let me know if you need anything.”

“Underwear?” I spoke automatically, then flushed when Lovath chuckled. I didn’t love my dick just swinging around in a pair of sweatpants, though, and it had been the first thing to come to mind. “And shoes.” Meek, I tacked that part on at the end. In this little room, the floor was solid metal, but I didn’t like how the grated flooring over the rest of the ship had felt under my feet.

“Is that all?” Lovath’s lips were quirked in an amused smile, and my eyes stayed on them for a long moment.

“Take me back home?” It broke the moment, just like I’d wanted it to. Lovath’s smile dropped, and he got that forlorn look in his eyes again.

“I can’t do that, Grayson. Just let me know if you need anything.” As he left, he paused in the doorway and looked back at me. “This door locks for everyone but me. Safety purposes. Same as the rest of the crew.”

For some reason I wasn’t bothered. My body had been poked and prodded without consent multiple times, I’d had my fucking beard and other body hair forcibly lasered off, and I was on a ship making a beeline for my new extraterrestrial owner. Whether or not Lovath could enter my room without permission seemed like small potatoes.

“Okay.” I didn’t thank him, even if it almost came out of my mouth automatically. Lovath frowned, but let the automatic door slide closed behind him. For the first time since being abducted, I felt like I could relax. Which was ridiculous given our trajectory.

My room wasn’t much bigger than a closet, with a single bed welded into the wall that would have looked more like a table if there wasn’t a thin, puffy mattress rolled out over it. Inside a lone cabinet was one pillow and two blankets, and a tiny interior door led to a lavatory. I dreaded the knowledge that there was probably a communal shower I’d have to use.

Did they have food that humans could eat? If there was a whole slave trade around humans, I was sure food safe for us existed. But did Lovath’s ship have any? And what about water? There was a tap in the tiny bathroom—barely wide enough for my whole body—but I didn’t know if that was safe to drink. I had a feeling the stasis pod had kept me hydrated anyway because I wasn’t thirsty at all.

Flopping back on the thin mattress, I tried to start dredging up a plan in my head. The problem was, I knew nothing about the world I was in. My entire experience on the Krida Q-5 Station was a hallway and a room and the rest of my time in space so far had been spent on spaceships.

It came down to: I had no clue where I was or where I was going and what kind of society existed outside the walls of a ship. That didn’t make it easy to come up with a method of escape, much less how to get back to Earth. I’d need to fish for more information, then.

Then I was getting the fuck out of here.