Page 65 of Taken to Heimo
“I wasn’t on the fighting list. I was a spectator. I snuck into the fray after I was sure your guy could kill that bug thing. Ugck.” She shudders. “I hate those creepy crawlies. And after I realized you were human. Eshmiri have all heard of your kind — everyone in the fourth and fifth quadrants knows about the new species discovered by the Voraxians and the Niahhorru — they just don’t know what you look like. But I knew you were like me. I haven’t seen anybody else with skin so soft.”
She rifles around in a metal bin next to her yellow seat, tossing aside wires and broken bits of things I can’t name, until she finds a bottle. She pulls the cork out with her teeth and takes a long swallow.
“That hits the spot,” she says with a long sigh. “Want some?”
It’s alcoholic. I can smell it from here. I shake my head. “Centare. Centare, thank you…”
I glance over my shoulder again at the door barely hanging on its hinges. There’s lots of small rooms aboard this ship — some large enough to accommodate humans of Ashmara’s size, but most small enough to comfortably house a few Eshmiri. The only cabin large enough to accommodate Krisxox was a storage unit they threw a few boxes out of and plopped a rickety pallet down into.
I’m terrified at the thought of the pain he’s in. I can feel it echoing all over me, as light as a breeze, but one that burns me everywhere and fills me with sick dread.I want him to live.I want it more than I’ve ever wanted anything.
“Ashmara,” she says.
“What?”
“Ashmara,” she repeats. “And who are you?”
I swallow hard. “I’m Svera.”
“Svera.” She rolls the word around on her tongue while her eyes assess me. Does she see me sweating? Because I’m still sweating, even though it’s an ice box in here. I flinch with the urge to glance over my shoulder again, seeking out Krisxox, but only after I’ve determined what she wants from me.
Or what she’ll do to us.
“You scared, Svera?”
Yes, petrified.My hesitation makes her laugh. She kicks her legs up over the beat up arm of the loveseat and rests her head against its lumpy, curved back. “You shouldn’t be scared of me, human. I’m taking you back home.” She takes another long swig from her bottle.
Somewhere in the recesses of her ship, the Eshmiri reavers on board drop something — a box of tools? At the sound of metal crashing, she shouts something so loud and tumultuous, I don’t catch all of it. Whatever she said sounded like an order, but is met by the trilling Eshmiri laughter I’m familiar with now. She laughs with them, throaty and full.
“You…you are?” My fingers tighten in the carpet, squeezing it.
“Ontte, you can relax.”
I don’t. Not even close. “Thank you,” I say. “You will be rewarded…”
She cuts me off. “Not in it for the reward. Plus, I got to collect a little of your winnings since they declared the match a stalemate.”
“A stalemate? But you won. Or Krisxox did.”
“I cheated and the rules say that you have to be able to walk out of the ring in order to qualify as the winner. Technically,youwon the derby,” she snorts. “But the Eshmiri weren’t exactly eager to hand winnings over to a little female who fought with a carpet.” She laughs. “Brilliant, by the way.”
I feel myself redden. “So then, what is your plan for us?”
“I’m not gonna get you that close. I’ll send you down in a shooter. You’ll be fine.”
“If you’d like, you could come with us to the human colony. Meet some of the others. You’d be welcomed there with open arms.”
Something flashes across her expression and she closes her eyes.Keeping me out.She takes a calming breath and when she opens her eyes there is no color in them.But something tells me there might have been.Her easy, rakish smile returns, revealing a mouth full of straight, white teeth.
“Centare. I’m alright.” She makes a clicking sound in the right side of her mouth and winks at me. “Thanks though, heelee.”
“Heelee?”
“It’s a bug. The good kind though,” she amends with a shrug. “They eat the rust off the metal parts of my ship.”
I glance around and whisper before I can sensor myself, “Perhaps you need a few more of them.”
“Watch your mouth there, heelee,” she says, but she’s laughing. “This beast’s a trooper. She’s weathered countless storms and she’ll get you back to your moon colony’s coordinates, but I’m not gonna land there. I’m an Eshmiri reaver. I don’t need any Voraxian heat.”
