Page 9 of Crash Landed: The Daranthiki

Daisy glared daggers at the male’s back as he turned and walked out of the cargo hold without even a drop of concern for her. Un-fucking-believable.

Chapter 7

Zil scanned the flight deck, impatience twisting within his belly. He did not understand why he was here. Why was he even indulging this foolish female? She knew her choices; he should have left her to figure it out on her own while he continued to strip the engine. He was wasting his time, and he could not figure out why he was even bothering. This was not his concern.

Exhaling heavily in annoyance, he scraped his claws along his neck and wrinkled his nose at the captain’s remains while Daisy grunted in her attempt to drag one of the male’s boots free from his feet. Despite the fact that her mouth produced an unending stream of words and far too much attitude, she was at least amusing to watch. At the moment she was providing vast amounts of entertainment just by her struggle in stripping the human. Naturally, first she had tried to order him to do it and that had been entertaining, too—especially when he declined. Now, however, he was trying to decipher exactly why she was struggling so hard to remove the uniform.

Of all the crew, the captain was closest to the female’s small build. It should not have posed so much difficulty. And yet the female was weaker than a juvenile Daranthiki. Every little task seemed to be accompanied by a great deal of tugging and a surprising amount of cursing coming from her pink lips. Those same lips twisted into a grimace when she suddenly looked up at him.

“You are really just going to watch, aren’t you?” she demanded, her voice scathing.

He glanced down at the body dismissively before meeting her eyes. “I do not wish to touch it.”

Zil just barely restrained his laughter when her mouth fell open to gape at him in disbelief. “Wait, after all the crap you gave me about not wanting to touch a badly decomposing body, you are refusing to help me for the same reason?”

“That is not entirely accurate,” he corrected in an impassive voice. “I just refuse to follow the orders that you feel far too free to dictate to me. You are not my superior, and I do not owe it to you to shoulder your burden, however you may feel about that. Besides,” he wrinkled his nose with distaste at the corpse, “it is disgusting and not at all hygienic.”

Daisy scoffed angrily as she gave one last vicious tug to the boot and promptly fell over back onto her ass when said gave with a sucking pop. She gagged a little at the boot before tossing it to the floor beside her with a scowl. One that she quickly focused on him.

“I can’t believe you’re concerned with whether or not something is hygienic. Aren’t junkers supposed to laugh in the face of dirt to make a quick credit?”

He lifted his brows at her surly comment. She was certainly riled now. It was interesting to watch as her cheeks grew red, her lips darkened and trembled even as the flesh around them grew paler, and her eyes flashed with anger. He could not quite decide if it was attractive or utterly hideous.

Perhaps it had been too long since he had been milked by a fem-bot. That would certainly explain his uncharacteristic indulgence.

“One,” he replied, lifting a finger, “assisting you does not earn me credits. Unless you have some available to transfer immediately via comm, then nothing compels me to do anything for you.”

Her lips pressed together angrily, but she shook her head so violently that he guessed that she was highly displeased to admit it. “No,” she ground out. “Because of the high risks in space, my bank will not release funds unless done from an official branch on an Earth colony. I brought credits with me, but—”

“But they were with your luggage,” he supplied, his amusement growing. Poor little female had not even begun to figure out how screwed she was.

She gave him a jerky nod and swallowed nervously as reality finally began to dawn. Strangely, his amusement subsided, and an uncomfortable feeling of sympathy for her replaced it. He immediately pushed it away. Softer feelings never did a Daranthiki any favors, particularly when it came to small, ridiculously fragile humans who had a tendency to stab their generous lovers and mates in the back at the first opportunity.

“What’s two?”

Her grumbled question caught him by surprise, and he felt the corners of his mouth hitch in response.

“Ah, two is simple—I am not a junker. Salvaging is at the bottom of a long list of things I would undertake to support myself. I believe murder and thievery are right above it, in fact,” he added with a dry chuckle.

She blinked at the sound of his laughter, and for a moment he wondered if it was true that humans spread bizarre rumors about his race. Did they think that Daranthiki could not laugh? Her eyes lowered, a look of confusion briefly coloring her expression before disappearing completely. He was suddenly very curious as to what was going on in that head of hers. It was not fear. That he would recognize. No, she was not afraid, but he had surprised her, and he wanted to know why. Despite the fact that her constant talking exhausted him, he had to admit that he was impressed that her mind had so much verbiage to spew at him. It was as if it did not slow down for even a moment. He begrudgingly admitted that it was perhaps a little fascinating. It was still highly irritating, however.

“I see.” Her small pink tongue darted out and slicked over her lips, and Zil felt a sensation of pressure drop through his belly. He had gone far, far too long without female companionship. Her green eyes rose to peer up at him, her lank brown hair framing her face in soft tendrils. “What exactly do you do then?”

He peered at her for a long moment, assessing, but finally shrugged. There was no reason not to tell her.

“I am a Daranthiki first-class mercenary,” he replied in a flat voice. “My ship required considerable repairs, and when I saw this vessel floating dead in space, I merely seized the opportunity.”

He was not exceptionally proud of it. His family would have disowned him for following the mercenary path if they had survived the famine that had laid waste to his homeworld during the Daranthaknar-Earth war. But a minor Daranthiki colony planet mattered little in the larger scheme of things. It had been enough to make him abandon his ranking position in the military so that he could go home to bury his entire line. It had not been a difficult decision, especially considering that his family had heavily protested when he accepted the recruitment offer. Leaving had felt like shucking off an unwanted weight that he had long regretted. It was unfortunate that it was too late to recover what he had lost with his family. He also could not divest himself of all the battle modifications that he had reluctantly consented to over the revolutions that he served. In retrospect, it was not surprising that Daisy confused him for a battle droid. Some days he felt like one as he went through the motions of living.

He still could not believe that he was the last. His familial line would die with him.

“O-oh, that means you can fight well, right?” she stammered, no longer looking at him.

Zil frowned in confusion. “Naturally. As you have noted, I am highly modified. Why?”

Her hand shook as she lifted it, her finger pointing toward the viewing screen at the front of the deck. Slowly he turned toward it, and a curse fell unbidden from his lips as a ship rose parallel to his own. Zil dove for the female, covering her small body with his at the exact moment the other ship fired. The entire transport ship rocked violently as small explosions illuminated the flight deck command center. He stared in shock as his ship lit up from the blasts, destruction sweeping its insides before culminating in complete darkness as its lock to the freighter lost power and disengaged, and the fighter began to drift from the freighter as the larger vessel drew nearer.

Shock turned to fury, and Zil’s jaw clenched as he watched the vessel lock onto the freighter in turn.