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“Do we know the vessel’s name? Or who dares to attack a ship flying under the protection of the Interstellar Trading Fleet?” another said.
In their panic, the enforcers had started raising their voices. I don’t know if they realized we were listening, but I was hanging onto every word.
“It’s the Black Ranger,” one of them said nervously, and Mari sucked in a breath.
“What?” I asked, turning toward her.
“I know that name. It’s a pirate ship that soars the stars, captained by a man of such renowned cruelty that just his name inspires fear in anyone that travels through space. If anyone catches wind of his last known location, they avoid it entirely. They change their route, no matter the cost,” she whispered.
“What’s his name?” I asked next, feeling a ball of nervousness begin to grow in my belly.
“He goes by Vane. No one knows his first name because no one ever survives to ask,” she replied, dread clearly apparent in her tone.
“Fuck,” I whispered. At least a dozen more enforcers entered the cargo hold and the ship shook hard once again. Then again.
The ship hauling us to Kryoan must be taking fire.
“What do we do, Nina?” Vicky asked, her voice shaky. She was very timid, and she looked up to me. I gritted my teeth and pondered my answer. I wasn’t sure myself, which meant I definitely didn’t know what to tell her. The enforcers moved out in a formation through the room, evenly spaced around us Aberrants, likely in a measure to protect us.
We were expensive cargo. They simply wanted to ensure that the government’s investment in us was repaid. If they lost us, they’d lose the extra income that they gained from our sale to the aliens on Kryoan.
The ship dropped and I felt my stomach fall. I gripped the bars more tightly and slowly lowered myself to the floor. The others followed suit.
“If anything happens, you fight. Got that, Vicky? Don’t let them hurt you. Don’t let them take advantage of you, no matter what,” I growled, and I could feel the women around me begin to build themselves up. I looked around, seeing the tense lines of their lips, the rigidness in their muscles as they mentally prepared themselves for what was to come, and I knew they’d be ready.
But we weren’t. We couldn’t have been ready for what was to come.
The ship rattled hard and I was suddenly afraid that it was going to be torn apart. The enforcers started yelling, their comm devices in their ears flickering as they relayed orders to each other. It didn’t take long for their panic to settle on the rest of us.
They started untying the cargo and pushing it in front of the entryway. The metal door lifted up at an angle when engaged, so it appeared that they were trying to prevent anyone from coming into the cargo hold from the other side. That meant that we were in the process of being boarded or Vane and his men were already on the ship.
Shit.
I heard men screaming from beyond the cargo hold. I’d never heard that kind of fear before, that kind of pain. There was no doubt in my mind that I had heard the cries of a man in the throes of death. The sound stayed with me for a long time, haunting in the brutal implications of what that meant to the men outside.
More screams. Something wet slammed into the cargo hold door on the other side and I shivered with fear. Mari, Vicky, Monica, and I moved away from the bars and huddled together at the back of the cage. The Aberrants in the other cages did the same.
The sounds of bullets ricocheting off the walls was deafening. The screech of twisting metal and crying men got louder. Footsteps echoed on the metal gangway beyond the cargo hold and I knew it wouldn’t be long now. The screams outside grew quiet and I feared the worst.
“Vane doesn’t leave anyone alive, does he?” Monica whimpered.
“That’s what the stories say,” Mari answered, her tone crestfallen.
I pressed my hand against my ankle. Some time ago, I’d lifted a small dagger from one of the enforcers who hadn’t been paying attention and gotten too close to my cage. It had been dark, and he was doing his usual patrols, so he hadn’t noticed. Everyone else had been asleep and I’d decided to keep that information to myself because it had been safest that way. These girls may look up to me, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t turn me in at the first sign of danger.
Something scraped against the metal door. The squealing sound was so incredibly loud that I had to cover my ears. I stared at the door and in the following moments, I saw something that terrified me. There were claw marks forming on the other side. Whatever was coming for us had claws that were strong enough to mangle solid metal.
Holy fuck. This was bad.
I watched in abject horror as more claw marks scratched the door. I bit my lip when those claws punctured the metal and I stopped breathing as those same hands began to peel the steel apart. Whatever was outside the cargo hold was a monster. That much I was sure of.
The enforcers inside with us abandoned their posts along the walls and instead clustered together in a haphazard fighting formation. They lifted their laser weapons and trained them on the entry door, or at least what was left of it. Jagged holes in the metal quickly transformed into bigger ones until it was large enough for someone to fit through.
A single man pushed forward into the cargo hold. He stood up and I whimpered softly at the sight of him.
He was huge. Maybe seven feet tall and solid fucking muscle. His biceps were huge, at least as big around as my waist, and his thighs were thick like tree trunks. Everything about him was terrifying and massive. It was obvious that he was alien, but his overall form was human-like. He had two arms. Two legs. Two eyes. His skin seemed to glow a dull golden color and was textured with what looked like soft scales. Over his left shoulder and across his chest was a fiery, burning red tattoo. It looked like glowing coals in a fire, radiating with brilliant colors of a blaze that refused to be put out.
There seemed to be no pattern to it. It appeared to be of tribal origin maybe, but the swirls and connected lines didn’t come together in any sort of intentional design. It looked like it continued down his back but as he lifted his head and stared out at the enforcers and then us, I quickly forgot about it once his eyes connected with mine.
