“We need to go?” Steve asks. “You’re not coming with us?”
“I’ll stay behind and make sure you get away. Take the money you got for the discovery and run. Please. The guardian of this planet, Captain Volt, he’s merciless. He’ll kill you and he’ll make an example of you as he does it. Trust me. I’ve been in his custody. You wouldn’t survive it.”
Kurt and Steve look at one another.
“We have cashed out massively,” Steve says. “And I don’t know about you, but I didn’t get into this business to fight wars.”
“We could cancel the war and spend the money on a landscaped asteroid. Retire in peace. Instead of pieces,” Kurt agrees.
I miss these two so much I could cry, but I have to stay stoic as they talk themselves around to the points I’ve already made several times. It’s best if they think this is their idea. There are millions invested in this planet already, but wars are expensive, and they know as well as I do that they could end up not only dead, but poor. And that would be utterly unacceptable.
CHAPTER 9
Penelope
“Where are the humans?”
That is a question I knew I would have to answer, and yet for which I have absolutely no answer. Volt just came bursting through the bunker doors in a way I can only describe as impressive and awesome just to discover it is empty besides me. I don’t know if he is more annoyed at not getting to kill people, or at the anticlimactic turn of events.
He strides toward me and takes me in his hands, his clawed fingers curling in the front of my suit to lift me aloft. My feet leave the floor and I feel a curious mixture of excitement and fear. I knew he wasn’t going to be happy. I had no idea how incredibly hot he would be at the moment of being denied his prey. Before I respond, he starts tearing the suit he gave me to make my appearance on the planet off my body, his claws rending the material right off my shoulders and hips until it falls to the floor, leaving me absolutely naked all over again. This seems to be my natural state when it comes to Volt.
“I don’t know.”
It’s not a lie. I don’t know where they went. I saw them run out the back of the shelter, all hurrying for what I guess are their getaway ships. Every expedition has at least one. If that is what happened, then Volt knows exactly where they are because he already saw them take off.
I only know that they are gone. They are gone and I am once more in Captain Volt’s possession. I have sacrificed my freedom to protect both my old crew and the wild ones. It’s supposed to feel like a noble and correct decision. Right now, beneath his rough stare, it feels like I just fucked up. Badly.
“Where. Are. The. Humans?”
“I really don’t know.”
He draws in a deep breath and looks at me with an intensity I can barely stand. “You do understand eradicating the humans was the aim. If they’ve fled, they could return.”
“They won’t return,” I say. “I promise they won’t. They’re terrified of you.”
It is easy to sell that because I am terrified of him.
He gives me a long, searching look that makes me feel as though he is reading my thoughts directly from my brain stem.
“You helped them flee, didn’t you, human?” He asks the question softly, almost gently, but I know better than to answer that in the affirmative. He would consider it a betrayal, when in reality it was my only option I could ever live with.
“I didn’t help them. They smelled you on me. They saw the might of your ships. They did not want to do battle with you.”
So many of the things I am saying are basically true, which means I am essentially telling the truth. What I’m not telling him is that this planet is on the radar now. Which means eventually people will return. Maybe not Kurt and Steve, but others.
I should tell him that.
“Uhm.”
“Uhm what, Penelope?”
“I just. This planet. It’s been discovered and registered. So…”
“So other humans will come with a sense of entitlement.”
“Maybe, yes. There’s a chance. You probably need to lodge an application to dissent and have the planet removed from the register.”
“Paperwork!” He curses the word.
“Yes. And it has to be lodged in person in Buffalo, New York.”
“You want me to fly a Vulpari destroyer to your home planet and… lodge a form?”
“I don’t want any of this. But that’s the way to do it.”
He laughs and laughs and laughs, and none of it in a remotely pleasant way. He laughs as if I just told him the worst joke in the universe and his mirth is caused by the sheer nerve of me having told it.