Jaxar Read online

  The coveralls were great at keeping out hazardous chemicals and protecting her skin, but they didn’t breathe. Nothing got in but body heat didn’t get out, either. Van only wore coveralls when she had to work outside and at the end of her shift, she felt like a swamp beast drowning in her own funk.

  “Hey, Vanessa.” A familiar waft of overpowering cologne and too much hair product leaned against the locker next to her.

  Teddy wore nothing but a towel around his waist. Oh, and a shit-eating grin, like a pale stomach and sparse chest hair was something to be proud of.

  “I’m working, Teddy,” she said.

  “I was thinking you and me should find a nice quiet corner.” His gaze focused on her chest, like his force of will could see through the white cotton fabric. He licked his lips.

  Ugh. So not interested.

  “I got an air filtration unit to get back online,” she said. “Shouldn’t you be manning the comms?” Or whatever he did.

  “Come on,” he said, brushing the back of his hand against her cheek. Van flinched. “We deserve a break. Release some tension. You know what’s great for a high-stress situation? Fucking.”

  True enough. The body released a potent cocktail of chemicals and hormones, driving people with the need to feel good after feeling afraid.

  One problem: she loathed him.

  His gaze drifted from her chest to the bite mark on her shoulder. No mistaking who put that bite there and what it meant.

  “Not interested,” she said, hurriedly zipping up her uniform.

  Teddy planted his arms on either side of her, pinning her in place. He grinned down at her with a leer, so confident that he won.

  Few things made Van as mad as a bully. She said no. Clearly. Now he tried to physically intimidate her? Like he was even the largest guy to ever loom over her or even the most dangerous. She’d been married to a red alien with tusks and a barbed tail. Teddy was a freaking puppy compared to Havik.

  Van spun quickly, grabbed the closest tool, and spun back, tapping Teddy right in the junk.

  “Hey!”

  “Oh, shush. I didn’t hurt you,” she said. “But I could have. I just want you to think about how fast I moved when you weren’t expecting it and how vulnerable your nuts are.”

  “You know what I think? I think your alien-chasing ass needs a real man to fuck some sense back into you. To remind you what a human dick feels like.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she muttered.

  “That’s what I’m talking about.”

  She moved again, tapping the wrench against his throat and bopping his nose with more force than necessary. His eyes went wide. “Hey!”

  He clutched his nose like she broke it. The crybaby.

  “And that’s how fast I can move when you are expecting it.” Dumbass, she thought but did not say out loud. “If you touch me again, I will break your nose.”

  “You bitch! I’ll report you.” He stepped back, clutching his nose as if it were already broken.

  “You go ahead and report that I defended myself when you assaulted me. I think it’ll go over well.”

  “To the Registry, dummy!” He grinned, knowing her weakness. “There’s only one reason a chick slips away to the ass-end of the universe and goes by a man’s name, Van.”

  That manipulative asshole. He deserved to have his nose broken on principle now. She wondered about her anger and how easily her thoughts turned toward violence. She had baggage and should talk to a counselor. Later, when the Suhlik finished dropping bombs on them.

  A laugh slipped out, bitter and a touch frantic. She wanted a nice glass of cold iced tea, so sweet it would make her teeth ache and a plate of hot, greasy fries, followed by a solid eight hours of sleep. What she got was this asshole thinking he could threaten her.

  “Look,” Van said, unzipping enough of her uniform to expose the bite mark. “I said no, and I was nice about it. Learn to deal with disappointment. Because we’re both stressed out, I’m not going to report this to Gabe—”

  “I bet you’re fucking Gabe.” He spat out the words, sulking.

  “But I will if you don’t grow the fuck up, Teddy,” she said. He huffed and it was not charming. At all. “You think you know something about me. Something I’m hiding? What? Maybe I’m a widow? All alone?” She tapped the wrench in one hand. “The man who left that mark on me is named Havik and he’s very much alive. We’re divorced, but if I told my overprotective Mahdfel ex-husband that some asshole was giving me a hard time, do you think he’d ignore that? He marked me.” Another tap. “He claimed me.” Tap tap. “Part of me will always belong to Havik.”

  The blood drained from Teddy’s face and he held up his hand in surrender. “Jesus! I’m sorry, all right. I thought you were stuck up, not a psycho. I don’t stick my dick in crazy.”

  Van watched Teddy’s retreat, not loosening the grip on the wrench. Finally alone, she sighed and collapsed on a bench.

  Fuck that guy.

  She would report him, but not until the crisis subsided. The locker room did not have cameras, but the micro camera built into the front of the coverall recorded their conversation just fine.

  While she hated even the idea of running to her ex-husband for help with a guy who wouldn’t take no for an answer, she knew Havik would assist her if she asked. Their parting left plenty to be desired, but Van found she felt more betrayed than angry at their divorce, which surprised her because anger was her go-to emotion.

  So, yes, Havik would help her, but she’d rather claw out her own eyes than ask.

  With a sigh, Van grabbed her toolbox and headed out. The Breathe-Rite wouldn’t fix itself.

  Jaxar

  “This is beyond ridiculous.” Rohn prowled around the fighter like that would make the craft withstand the harsh atmosphere of Val Mori’s moon. “Half of my fleet is not able to function in the atmosphere.”

  “Then do not breach the atmosphere.” Jaxar shifted through the box of antiquated tools. He needed a specific welding torch. The torches he had in Engineering used a fuel that would be combustible in the moon’s atmosphere, a situation he did not recommend. Very hard to complete repairs when the technician kept catching on fire. Fortunately, an older model would be perfectly suited for the challenges ahead. Unfortunately, Jaxar did not believe in clutter or clinging to relics, so Engineering no longer had the needed tools. Fortunately, Rohn clung to his relics, as he was a relic himself.

  Jaxar kept that thought to himself. He loved to tease his old friend, but Rohn had been moody as of late. Jaxar wanted to claim that Rohn had been moody since his mate arrived, but he knew that wasn’t true. Rohn’s default status was moody, but since Nakia’s arrival, his friend was more alive than ever—and fussy.

  Jaxar liked it. A fussy Rohn was a male who wanted to fight, and the fight had been gone from Rohn’s heart for too long. The old male shut down after events on Earth, shouldering the blame for an accident and wearing his injuries like a badge of shame. The fire in his blood cooled and Rohn had been wasting his years, waiting for his end.

  “Don’t breach? That would be like advising an engineer not to push a big red button.”

  “That happened once,” Jaxar protested. The button had been so red and inviting and unlabeled. He had to push it, for science.

  “Do not give advice on topics you know nothing about,” Rohn said. He pulled down another container and shifted through the contents. “Pilots must be flexible and respond quickly, often before their brains have a chance to realize what they are doing.”

  Jaxar snorted. “Are you suggesting that pilots have brains?”

  “There is no time to think, ‘Oh no, this craft is not rated for this type of atmosphere. I should return to the Judgment.’ It is do or do not. Anything else is a complication.”

  “You are telling me that your pilots are too simple to remember not to fly into a planet’s atmosphere because it will make their engines explode? Shameful.” Jaxar shook his head, grinning at his friend�
��s frustrated growl. “I pick my engineers for their intellect. I see that you do not share the same standards.”

  “Do not entice me to hit you again,” Rohn growled.

  Jaxar rubbed his chin and grimaced, which must have appeared properly as a chastised expression and Rohn nodded with satisfaction.

  “I believe I have acquired a suitable amount. I will send Fennec if I need more.” Jaxar placed the box back on the shelving unit.

  Vanessa

  The long day continued.

  Rubble and bits of fallen rock littered the track and Van had to stop the cart several times to clear it. The cart’s onboard navigation wouldn’t operate unless the track was completely free of debris. Normally that wasn’t such a problem, but the Suhlik’s bombing had made a mess of the access tunnels. Dirt and fallen rocks covered the safety lighting embedded in the floor. Sometimes there was enough light to navigate, and other times Van relied on her night vision goggles.

  Eventually, the cart refused to move, despite the track being clear. Van moved forward, the top of her head brushing the roof of the tunnel, and found the problem. Just out of visual range, the tunnel had caved in.

  Fantastic.

  Using her comm unit, she activated the map function. The holographic image glowed in the dark, casting a silvery light on her skin and turning the chunky comm unit a dull gray. The original color was called “flesh” but as it was Sangrin tech, that meant it was an ashy lavender. Better than beigey pink. At least the ugly lavender didn’t clash with her tawny complexion.

  Half a kilometer back was an access hatch to a biodome. She could walk to the next access hatch and hope to bypass the cave-in or try her luck with another tunnel. The safest route took her way out before finally reaching the offline purifier. Or—

  The biodome would have a rover or two parked nearby. Any employee ID would unlock a vehicle. She could just drive to the malfunctioning Breathe-Rite.

  It was such a bad idea.

  Driving overland would shave hours off her journey—she’d wasted so much time just to get to this dead-end—but it was dangerous. The tunnels were slow but safe. How much longer did they have before wearing the respirators were mandatory? Before the very air burned their lungs? The purifier needed to be operational and she needed to make that happen.

  Van grabbed her bag and hiked down to the access hatch. The ladder to the surface had been anchored into the rock wall, but two of the anchors had detached. She tugged on the rungs and rust flaked off. If she was smart, she’d move along to the next access hatch, but she was already committed to one bad idea. What was one more? The next access hatch was too far from any buildings or rovers.

  Van pulled herself up the ladder, ignoring the dangerous sway and groan. She honestly couldn’t say if it was damaged from the raid or management cutting corners on maintenance. A layer of rust coated the ladder, which made her believe in management’s unlimited greed for short-sighted profits.

  Luminous paint marked the handle on the hatch. With a bit of effort, the handle turned. She switched off the night vision on the goggles and pushed the hatch open. Rusted metal shrieked, negating any reason to carefully scope out the vicinity for Suhlik. If they were nearby, they definitely heard that.

  Evening darkness surrounded her as she scrambled over the rim and onto the dusty ground. Rocks dug into her knees, threatening to tear the coveralls.

  The biodome was a few meters away. Van grabbed her bag and hauled butt to the building. The vehicles would be on the other side.

  A boom reverberated in the distance.

  Shit.

  She pressed herself against the side of the building and glanced at the time on her comm unit. Dawn was four hours away. No way was she driving out now with the Suhlik nearby. She could crash in the biodome for the night. The filtration tower needed to be repaired, but it could wait a few hours. Probably. It could wait until dawn.

  More time had passed than she realized and driving in the dark had more dangers than benefits. The Suhlik had perfect night vision, so there was no advantage to moving under the cover of darkness. Her night vision goggles might level the playing field, but they had a limited scope and the terrain had been bombed. She’d drive herself right into a crater or an unexploded bomb. It would be smarter to stay the night in the dome and wait until morning.

  If she were lucky, the break room would be equipped as a shelter. If she were really lucky, it’d actually have functional supplies and not boxes of expired emergency rations.

  The company really was the worst. Still, spending the night on a cold floor was better than crashing a rover into a crater.

  At the door, she raised the goggles and presented her eye to be scanned. The lights blinked as the device tried to connect to the network. “Come on. Hurry up,” she said to the scanner.

  The door unlocked with a heavy thunk and partially slid open. With a sigh, she slipped through and hit the button to close the door. The gears whirled and the door jiggled but did not move. Placing her gloved hands on the door panel, she pushed, trying to muscle past whatever was jamming the mechanism. No luck. It was well and truly stuck.

  Another boom. The ground vibrated.

  Closer but still miles away.

  She didn’t need to play fix-it with the door. If a bomb hit the building, an open door wouldn’t matter. She needed shelter for the night.

  Because the outer door did not seal, the computer failed to initiate the decontamination protocol, and because she was covered in native bacteria, the inner doors would not open. Delightful.

  Van removed a service panel and flipped the manual override switch. The door unlocked.

  Finally, something on this horrible moon worked properly.

  The pungent smell of stagnant water slapped her in the face. Ugh. She knew that smell, intimately. The algae pods had sprung a leak.

  Val Mori researchers used the dome much as a greenhouse. A frame of hexagons held durable but clear glass-like panels, letting in maximum sunlight. Orderly rows of vegetation filled the interior space. Each dome held a unique research focus and specimens. There was a dome dedicated to native fungi and grew specimens as large as Earth trees. Another dome was focused on crossing crops with fungi to make a more resilient—and hopefully edible—species. This dome housed row after row of ferns, the delicate green tendrils were curled up, waiting for the sun to unfurl.

  Van pushed through the hip-high vegetation to the center, to the cluster of algae pods. A water pump had busted, and the hose flailed, spraying the immediate area with stagnant water.

  Her bag dropped to the ground with a clank. She didn’t know if she had the right tools to reattach the hose, but she needed to try. If the tanks drained completely, the pumps would seize and start a cascade of problems she’d be expected to fix. Replacing those pumps was a giant pain in the butt and the only way to do it was to slither under on your back and pray the brackets holding the tanks held. The company cut so many corners and only replaced equipment when it absolutely had to, not when safety regulations dictated that it was smarter to just plan for disaster. If the algae pods fell while she replaced a pump, they’d crush her. Game over.

  Better to do it now and potentially get sprayed in the face with alien algae than gamble on not being crushed later.

  She needed a new job.

  Van lowered her goggles and turned on the night vision. No light fixtures hung over the algae tanks as they used natural sunlight. The tanks clustered around the pump, creating a shadowy center. She wrapped an old bandana around the lower half of her face. Getting sprayed in the face may be unavoidable, but she didn’t have to swallow a mouthful of the stuff.

  Wiggling her way through the slender opening between the tanks, she got a face full of funky algae water, as expected. She reached the shut-off valve quick enough but not before the hose thrashed and sprayed her again. Once she closed the valve, attaching the hose took no time.

  There.

  The ventilation system whirred to life and the pu
mp rattled for half a minute before settling into a rhythm. Van scraped off the worst of the algae clinging to her coveralls, splattering the already splattered tanks, when she heard voices.

  She paused, hand mid-flick, and listened. The words were not English. Thankfully, her implanted chip whispered in her ear, translating the harsh sounds.

  “There is no one here.”

  “The door is opened. It stinks of meat.”

  Suhlik. The chip in her head translated the language flawlessly, but the lizards’ language was unmistakable. She had only been a child when the Suhlik invaded Earth but had never seen one in person, just what was shown on television and in government pamphlets and could have happily gone the rest of her natural life never having seen one.

  Van clamped her algae-covered hand over her mouth to muffle the sound of her breathing. Quiet. Oh so quiet. She pressed into the shadows, trying to make herself small and wishing she wore anything other than safety-orange coveralls and hadn’t heard that meat comment. She was not food, but anyone was food to a murderous space lizard.

  Their feet appeared under the rows of ferns. She leaned back, trying to hide behind a tank.

  Footsteps came closer and paused. “What is that stench?”

  Van pressed her lips closed, not daring to breathe. Suhlik soldiers had heightened senses, she had read, and she wondered if they could hear her heart thudding. Or smell that she was meat.

  The footsteps retreated.

  Minutes crawled by. The pumped chugged around. The ventilation system whirred. The door chimed a warning that it was not properly sealed.

  Slumping down to her knees, Van leaned back against a tank. Her heart fluttered dangerously, and she placed her hand over her chest as if that could regulate the beats. She had vague memories of taking her medication that morning—yesterday?—so she wasn’t in danger of heart failure. She could picture the brown bottles, sitting on the top shelf of her locker.

  She was fine.