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  She hit the fire control.

  “The crystal?” he grumbled, shaking his head.

  Missiles streaked away from the Kawl Fergus, headed for the visible ship.

  The scout fired and vanished.

  “Is that it?” she asked. “Are they reading the crystal? Read the Kawl Fergus’s energy signature! Does it match theirs?”

  “Or do you suppose this is revenge for the fact that I put a contagion alert out for Silver City?”

  “You did what?” Damen squawked, stunned. A contagion alert on Silver City would bring the station to its economic knees. Was that what Jay had meant when she’d told Tiassale she was in the process of destroying the people responsible for harming his family?

  Jayleia smiled. It looked grim.

  Their missiles reached maximum cruise range and destructed.

  She swore.

  “How did UMOPG get cloak capacity?” she choked.

  “Or that kind of power for weapons,” Damen responded. “Ore scouts are supposed to be set up for station keeping and sample grabbing. Would you look at that! You called it.”

  “What?”

  “Our energy reading,” he said. “It isn’t an exact match, but it’s close.”

  “Damn. I can’t target them, much less hit them,” she groused.

  Another explosion rocked the Kawl Fergus. They’d hit something vital that time. The power to the shield flickered and died.

  The proximity alarm whined to life again. They started and stared at the view screen.

  Damen sucked in a sharp breath, something cold and slimy wriggling through his gut.

  He looked at Jayleia.

  Staring at the ships visible on their screen, she paled.

  “Chekydran,” Damen confirmed, his voice sounding dead to his ear.

  The UMOPG ships all fired at once, undoubtedly meaning to finish them. He hoped they would.

  Beside him, Jayleia drew an audibly ragged breath. “I can’t protect either of us from Chekydran.”

  He clenched suddenly burning eyes tightly shut for a moment, then forced them open. Shooting her a glance as he banked the ship hard to avoid the shots from the scouts, he said, “Medical. Tranqs. Massive doses. I won’t let the Chekydran have you.”

  The hard shine in her eyes hurt him.

  She shook her head. “I gave everything to Vala. Unless you resupplied the ship, I can’t even make you sleepy.”

  “Baxt’kal Twelve Gods.”

  With so much power gone, he couldn’t wrest the Kawl Fergus out of the line of fire. He watched the Chekydran cruisers fire on the three UMOPG ships, the cloaking that confounded his instruments no apparent impediment to them.

  The first UMOPG shot took the Kawl Fergus amidships and blew out life support. The second exploded the view screen.

  Damen flung himself to one side as part of the panel blew inward.

  Jayleia cried out.

  Something struck the right side of his face. Agony seared him. He couldn’t see, couldn’t feel the blood, but he tasted its metallic bite on his tongue.

  The ship shimmied.

  Guidance beam?

  UMOPG ships didn’t have guidance.

  One last thought arrowed through Damen’s awareness before pain and darkness claimed him.

  The Chekydran had them both.

  There would be more excruciating pain between them and their eventual deaths.

  COLOR. So much color. It surrounded her, engulfed her. She breathed it, tasted it. She heard it. Cascading, swirling, humming. More color than had ever existed. Some couldn’t be seen, only experienced via all the other sensory inputs, several of which, she was painfully aware she did not possess.

  “Come to us,” the color whispered. “Help us. Save us. We will save you.”

  Jayleia woke from the odd dream a tiny piece at a time. Smell registered first. The scent of sun-warmed soil, and the sharp, green-sweet tang of plants throwing off volatile oil compounds with abandon wafted past her face on a warm breeze. Her ears picked up the chur of insect and wildlife mating songs.

  She sighed. Her side and neck hurt. Her feet had gone numb. When had she gone to sleep? Why was she strapped to her seat?

  Gasping, Jay tried to straighten and had to bite back a groan. Muscles cramped. How long had she been hanging slack in her restraints?

  Stirring her brain to sluggish life, she forced her eyes open and frowned.

  Dark. Not a glimmer of light from the panels, no star field on the view screen. The only light filtering into the cockpit came from behind her.

  She managed to trigger the release to her restraints and slid sideways out of her chair onto the debris-strewn deck.

  Debris? What?

  Her heart bumped hard against the inside of her ribs.

  They’d been attacked.

  Where was Damen?

  She peered at his chair. In the bluish light penetrating the cockpit, the pilot’s chair seemed wrong. Planting her hands, she levered herself to sitting. Pieces of charred detritus crunched beneath her palms. She propped her back against the base of the nav console.

  Damen’s chair looked like some giant creature had taken a bite out of the backrest. The first tremor of fear walked down her spine.

  Sweat prickled her forehead. She shrugged out of the long-sleeved shirt, tugging it free of her equipment belt and dropping it beside her. That helped.

  Get it together, Jayleia.

  She recalled three UMOPG ore scouts she hadn’t been able to see until they’d fired weapons. And fire they had.

  Remembering the pain of hundreds of tiny molten bits of electrical panel branding her skin, she touched her cheek.

  No pain. No scars.

  Two more ships had appeared on-screen, she recalled. They’d fired, but not upon the Kawl Fergus.

  A tendril of ice slipped into her belly. She’d known the ship configuration before Damen had said the word.

  Chekydran.

  She shuddered, tamping down a quiver of panic. She wasn’t in a prison cell and couldn’t hear or feel the hum of hundreds of Chekydran enclosed on a ship.

  Where was Damen?

  Why was she alive and still in the Kawl Fergus?

  She buried her head in her hands and wracked her brain. As far as she knew, the Chekydran ships hadn’t fired upon them. Only the guild ships had.

  Their last volley had taken out the Kawl Fergus’s view panel. She’d ducked as it had exploded. Shrapnel had hit her shoulder blade with such force, she must have blacked out.

  No further images or impressions responded to her prodding the memories.

  She tested both shoulders. Had she dreamed the injury? Frowning, she retrieved the shirt and held it up to the weak light.

  No. A tattered, bloodstained rip in the back of the shirt validated her recall. She’d been in a healing trance, then. How long?

  No motion or vibration under her tailbone. Had they made planet-fall? Were they prisoners?

  Where the Three Hells was Damen?

  She accessed the emergency panel set into the base of the pilot’s chair, ripped open a packet of chewy, tasteless field rations and forced it down, followed by the contents of a hydration packet.

  She found and activated an emergency light.

  The beam lit the brown, flaking remnants of a pool of blood.

  Jayleia’s heart stumbled and she stared, unable to draw breath, as she played the light over the trail leading out the cockpit door into the corridor.

  Someone, or something, had dragged Damen, injured and bleeding, out of the cockpit.

  Jayleia’s brain and body kicked into gear. She yanked the rest of the rations out of the compartment and stuffed them in her empty handheld holster. The remaining hydration packets fit into a pouch that had so long ago held laser triggers for kuorl traps. The woefully inadequate-looking first-aid kit attached directly to her belt.

  She climbed to her feet. Energy and resolve surged within her as the calorie- and nutrient-dense field ration hi
t her system. Sweeping the weapons panel with the light, Jay shook her head.

  If the damage to the rest of the ship matched the destruction in the cockpit, the Kawl Fergus would never fly again. The thought opened a sore spot in her chest.

  She tried to swallow the lump in her throat as she retrieved her handheld from beneath the pile of blackened rubble that had blown out of the panel above the weapons station.

  Jayleia hit the power on her abused device. It flickered to life. A hairline crack ran diagonally across the screen and pocks marked where hot debris had melted portions of the casing.

  Hands and heart trembling, she switched the unit to read bio-signs.

  One humanoid life sign. Hers.

  Whispering a curse, she forced herself to follow the trail of smeared blood out of the cockpit and down the corridor where she stopped short.

  They’d landed.

  The Kawl Fergus’s door stood open, the ramp down. Diffuse blue light shone through the open hatch.

  The dwindling trail of blood led to the open door and disappeared. Jayleia studied that final print.

  Another pool of blood had dried in the doorway, smaller than the one in the cockpit. Rivulets had dried in lines all going the same way as if blown by strong wind. Prints she couldn’t identify tracked the blood a few steps down the ramp.

  Her handheld still registered no sign of humanoid life. She blinked hard against the fear burning her.

  A warm breeze blew past her, dusty smelling. Negative ions and a coming rainstorm? Or was this planetary morning and dewfall?

  She peeked out the open hatch.

  The Kawl Fergus sat on the edge of a massive plain. Ochre and brown soil smeared with green stretched as far as she could see. Hundreds of low, fuzzy-looking yellow mounds dotted the ground. Smooth, black rock outcroppings broke up the plain. Bits of spiky yellow, green, and red foliage poked up, as high as her shoulder. The plant life looked sharp-edged and malevolent.

  She glanced at the sky. Thick, striated blue and gray clouds obscured the planet’s sun. Given the warmth, she had reason to be grateful for the cloud cover.

  Nothing moved save the breeze. She could still hear the buzz of insects or animals, but hadn’t yet spotted any of them.

  Wishing she had the gun Damen had given her on Silver City, Jay edged out of the shelter of the Kawl Fergus, down the ramp, and into the faint shadow cast by the ship and stared into a deep, forested canyon.

  Another meter to starboard during landing and the ship would have fallen into the kilometer-deep gorge.

  An updraft brought a whiff of cooler, moist air, colored by a hint of unfamiliar spice. The faint echo of animal life hooting and calling drifted up.

  She turned back to survey the plain and to walk to the nearest fuzzy, yellow mound. The yellow fluff looked like thin filaments of . . . something. A web of some kind? Plant life? She studied the regular placement of the mounds and frowned. A crop? Or burrows?

  Her handheld beeped. It sounded disturbingly off pitch. She glanced at it.

  Life.

  Humanoid.

  Right on top of her.

  CHAPTER 30

  JAYLEIA spun.

  Damen crouched atop the dented, scorched hull of his ship.

  Giddy and grinning with relief, she stumbled in his direction.

  He jumped from the ship, landing no more than two meters in front of her. The breeze stirred at her back, lifting his hair from his face.

  She squeaked, then clapped her hands over her mouth in horror.

  A deep, jagged cut on the right side of his face ran forehead to cheekbone. It had destroyed his right eye. The ruined socket was dark with crusted blood.

  Her breath coming in dry, wracking sobs, she stood frozen as Damen paced back and forth in front of her. He lifted his head as if searching for a scent.

  “Damen?”

  He ranged closer, apparently oblivious to his injury. Why didn’t he seem to recognize her?

  Awful instinct whispered within her. Infected. Drawing her hands from her mouth, she clenched her fists. What made her think that?

  The facial expressions that denoted conscious thought processes had evaporated from his face and body. He moved in the rangy, sinewy way she recognized from observing wild predators. When he paused, he crouched, tipping his head first one way, then the other, studying her.

  Sweat beaded his forehead.

  Fever?

  She activated her handheld, accessing medical readings. Yes. Fever. Increased respiration. Blood pressure higher than normal, indicative of pain response.

  Her heart slid into an uneasy rhythm.

  “Damen? Let me . . .”

  His head came up, tension and purpose in every line of his posture. He smiled, pure feral intent.

  Despite the worry for him consuming her, liquid heat rushed into her belly. She stomped on the urge to rush into his arms.

  Jayleia admired the coordination, the loose-limbed stride, the flow of red gold hair, even as he stalked her. He coiled and sprang, trapping her in contact with him. He wrapped his arms hard around her and fastened his mouth on hers before she could blink.

  Her handheld dropped.

  She tensed, expecting the metallic bite of blood on his lips, or the sour tang of illness. She sensed neither. He tasted clean, like spring rain, warm and sweet, filled with promise. Still, she clenched her teeth when he sought to push into her mouth.

  Because it wasn’t Damen kissing her. Some vital piece of him was absent. She was being assaulted by a puppet wearing his face.

  Jayleia stiffened her spine. When trying to loosen his grip had no effect, she changed tactics, leaning closer, pressing tight, wrapping her arms around him.

  He shuddered at the touch of her hands.

  And for a moment, she heard it.

  Humming.

  She’d heard it before. Her pulse beat loud in her head.

  Chekydran.

  It sounded so like the dream she’d woken from, Jayleia strained to listen. She started when it resolved into something comprehensible.

  “. . . no harm. Have no fear. Help us.”

  Her heart squeezed hard.

  Damen was infected, somehow, if her medical readings could be trusted, and had been reduced to serving as a vector.

  Someone needed her infected.

  Why?

  With what?

  Had her healing trance prevented them from infecting her the same way they’d infected Damen?

  “Help us.”

  Damen gained access to her mouth and invaded.

  She’d expected him to release her the moment he’d achieved his objective. He didn’t. Neither did his attack ease, but the tenor shifted. No longer concerned with transferring a pathogen to her, it felt like someone relinquished control of him. He was present, arms tightening, mouth demanding a response from her.

  Something about that perceptible shift, as if he’d suddenly been given back control of his body, touched off a superheated chemical reaction in her blood.

  Until the pain hit, taking her breath.

  Damen broke the kiss, but refused to release her.

  Hurt sliced through her body.

  “Gods!” she yelled. “Does nothing have an incubation period? Ow!”

  The illness ripped apart her insides, shaking vital bits of her out, and rearranging them. The impression of being remade stabbed violent nausea through her middle.

  Damen clasped her to his chest, running his hands over her back as if she were a child in need of soothing.

  Maybe she was.

  The nausea and discomfort eased.

  She breathed a sigh of relief and leaned back to look him in the face.

  He closed the gap and took her mouth again. The gentle strokes of his lips against hers felt like an apology.

  The hum intensified. She heard it and sensed it vibrating through her body. Coming from him? Or from her? Approval. Encouragement.

  Desire gathered at her core, burgeoning, eroding though
t and identity until it erupted.

  She gasped and shuddered.

  Damen gasped and shuddered.

  They broke apart and collapsed in unison.

  JAYLEIA came to, warm and comfortable. She felt sinfully good. Hell of a kiss if it could—memory kicked her in the gut. It hadn’t been the kiss.

  Chekydran.

  She knew of at least one other case wherein the Chekydran aural network, the hum the insectoid creatures used to connect to one another, had excited sexual responses from human prisoners. Up to now, she hadn’t thought the Chekydran had known they could affect humanoids in that fashion.

  There’d never been any indication that the Chekydran cared how they affected other species.

  She forced her eyes open and tried to banish the glow still shimmering through her veins.

  Where was she?

  Alone. Wrapped in pale yellow strands of—what was this stuff?—web? Light bled through layer upon layer of strands wrapped around her.

  Too tight.

  Too close.

  Fright wrapped around her chest. The air grew heavy in her lungs and her vision hazed.

  Heart racing, she thrashed against her bonds. The web loosened and gave as she fought, easing her initial burst of panic at the enclosed space. She struggled for a deep breath, found she could get it, and that the air felt fresh.

  She gasped, momentarily spent. It took a long time for her runaway pulse to approach normal.

  Comfortable, and not confined, or at least not bound. This did not mesh with what she thought she knew about Chekydran prisons.

  She couldn’t feel the vibration, but Jayleia caught a strain of hum. Chekydran.

  Check that. They were prisoners.

  Memory handed her a snippet of tactile sensation, Damen’s mouth, hot and demanding on hers, and a hum. She’d imagined she’d understood that nonverbal, low-level vibration. “Help us,” it had said.

  Think, Jayleia.

  Given: Chekydran cruisers that didn’t fire upon the Kawl Fergus, even though the Chekydran and the Claugh were at war. She was captive on a planet rather than aboard a war cruiser. The Chekydran seemed to know they affected humanoid emotional and physical responses via their aural network. A warm, cozy cell made of webbing that gave way as she moved. What if she and Damen weren’t prisoners per se?