Alien Skin Market by Lizzy Bequin

CHAPTER 36: JRAYK

Pain was the first thing to enter his awareness. Pain everywhere, in his chest, in his arms, in his legs. Every part of him hurt, from the points of his ears all the way down to the tip of his tail.

He welcomed the pain.

Pain meant he still had a body, and his body still lived.

His mouth was filled with fluid, warm and copperish. Blood. He turned his head, spat, and heard something clatter against the floor of the ship. A quick search with his tongue revealed a missing fang. One of his gold ones too. Damn.

Groans reached his ears. Some were his own, but others were not. His companions had survived as well.

Jrayk grinned.

It was the ship that had saved them. The Longshot.

Time spent at the card table had taught Jrayk many things, and foremost among these lessons was the power of underestimation. It was a lesson he’d learned the hard way. He’d lost piles of galax to gamblers far wiser and more experienced than himself. But once he got his head out of his rear and learned their tricks, he’d earned it all back and then some.

If your opponents took you for a fool, they would let their guard down.

It was a lesson Jrayk had applied to every part of his life, including the appearance of his ship. Sure, she looked like a junker, but that was just a carefully cultivated disguise. Her shabby appearance belied her durability. Underneath her exterior of rust and carbon scoring, she hid a double-reinforced alloy hull stronger than most military vessels her size. Even her name, The Longshot, was a ruse. A better designation would have been The Sure Thing.

She’d come through for Jrayk more times than he could count.

And now she’d done it again.

Whoever planted those EMPs aboard the ship had thought it would be enough to finish them. They thought the crash would destroy the ship and kill everyone inside. But they had miscalculated.

And soon they would pay for their error.

Jrayk would see to that.

Just as soon as he managed to get his aching body to work again. Goddess, he was sore. Tired too. He felt his mind sinking back into unconsciousness, and he almost surrendered to it, but at the last blip a thought, an image, flashed through his mind.

The human female. M’reen.

She was in trouble.

That thought roused him back to alertness. His pain and exhaustion all but disappeared. All that mattered was getting M’reen back, and there was no time to waste. The clock was blipping, and every blip counted.

Jrayk opened his eyes. Or more accurately, he only opened his right eye since his left was swollen shut. In front of him lay the view port of the ship. The reinforced Optimantium glass was cracked but intact. Its outer surface was plastered with wet jungle leaves, which allowed only the merest green glow of sunshine to filter into the cockpit, but it was enough. He unbuckled his harness and stumbled out of his chair. His knees wanted to buckle beneath him, but his need to find and protect M’reen was stronger, and he forced his legs to obey.

He checked on Vaul first, since he was nearer. The big Raksha was already on his feet as well. His face and chest were covered in orange bruises and streaked with glowing orange blood. He looked like muck, but Jrayk imagined he probably didn’t look much better himself.

Jrayk and Vaul known each other for so long they were practically brothers. No words passed between them. A simple nod was enough to convey what they were both thinking—they were alive, more or less, and now they had to find M’reen.

Next, they turned their attention to Tristn.

The doctor was just struggling back to consciousness. He was also covered in minor cuts and bruises and his glasses were cracked, but after a few blips, his eyes opened and he gave a weak grin.

“I thought you said we were going to die, captain.”

The doctor was a royal pain in the tail, but Jrayk was glad to see he was okay, and he returned his grin.

“I like to set people’s expectations low, doc. That way it’s easier to exceed them.”

Tristn let out a pained laugh. But his mirth quickly departed, and his face turned grim.

“M’reen.”

“I know. We’re going to save her. But first, let’s get you on your feet.”

Jrayk unfastened Tristn’s harness and helped him up. Meanwhile, Vaul was scanning his eyes around the cockpit with a worried expression.

“Where’s Rawn?”

Jrayk looked around the damaged cockpit, but he saw no sign of the shaggy creature. He was surprised at the sudden pain he felt in his chest. At first, he’d been completely averse to the idea of letting that filthy animal onto his ship. But he had to admit, the big furball had started to grow on him, mainly because of how protective he was of M’reen. Jrayk felt more than a little heartbroken to think the creature hadn’t made it through the crash.

But his mourning was cut short by another problem.

Smoke!

He could smell it drifting in through the open door at the back of the cabin. When he looked down the main corridor of the ship, he found it to be lit by the wavering orange glow of several fires.

“Fire! Grab the extinguishers!”

There was a pair of fire extinguishers in the cockpit. Jrayk and Tristn each grabbed one while Vaul charged into the galley to retrieve the third. The three of them set to work putting out the flames.

Fortunately, the food rations and the weapons closet were mostly unharmed. They were going to need all the food and weapons they could get their hands on.

The engine room had gotten the worst of it, and parts of Tristn’s little makeshift medical room had been badly burned too. When the doctor finally stumbled out of the smoldering room, he wore a stricken expression on his face.

“It’s gone,” he said.

“What are you talking about? What’s gone?”

“M’reen’s medicine.”

Jrayk groaned as the full weight of the doctor’s statement sank in. Without her medicine, M’reen would succumb to that stupid disease. Spirillum whatever. Goddess, even if they did find M’reen—and Jrayk fully intended to do so—they would not be able to save her from the disease.

Rage went off like a bomb inside Jrayk’s chest. All-consuming, directionless rage at the helplessness of the situation. He needed something, someone, to vent his rage upon, so he selected the closest target—Tristn. His newfound sense of camaraderie with the doctor vanished, and he shoved him up against the scorched wall of the corridor.

“You voiding bastard! I told you to let M’reen keep the medicine with her instead of hording it yourself. But no, you had to be a damn control freak about it.”

Tristn growled and shoved him back.

“Get your claws off me, you tatter-eared imbecile. It wouldn’t make a difference anyway. It’s not like Daggoth would have let her bring the medicine along when he captured her.”

“No, but at least we would still have it for when we save her!”

“There’s still a way to save her!” Tristn yelled back. “Protocol Two. The contingency plan.”

“What are you talking about?” Jrayk yelled, getting right in his face. “Is this another one of your government secrets?”

Vaul stepped between them and pushed them apart.

“Both of you shut up,” the big Raksha rumbled. “There’s no point fighting over it now. We need to find M’reen first. Later we can figure out what to do about the disease. Whatever this Protocol Two is, Tristn can explain it later. Right now we need to get a move on.”

Jrayk was chastened by his friend’s words, and he felt suddenly ashamed for losing his temper. Vaul was right. Their only priority now was getting M’reen back.

“Tristn, you said before it was Daggoth who stole her.”

The doctor pushed his cracked glasses up the bridge of his patrician nose and nodded.

“But how can you be sure,” Jrayk asked.

“It has to be him.” Tristn insisted. “He was there on Gilaamar Secundus trying to buy her from the market. You should have seen the look in his eyes when he lost. Only a mercenary of his caliber could arrange an attack like this.”

Jrayk lowered his ears.

“Well, he made a big voiding mistake by not killing us, and we’re going to make him pay. But if it really is Daggoth, it won’t be an easy fight. We’ll need to arm ourselves to the voiding teeth. Vaul, how does the armory look?”

“Everything looks intact, boss. The fire barely touched that section of the ship.”

“Good. Okay, first things first. Let’s get a look at the lay of the land.”

Jrayk strode to the door and used the manual release to lower the boarding ramp. He stepped out and scanned their surroundings. Dense foliage enclosed them on all sides except for a wide swath of broken branches and tattered leaves where The Longshot had gouged a mile-long wound into the jungle. Vaul and Tristn came up behind him.

“Goddess, this is going to be slow going, boss.”

Tristn’s heart sank because he knew Vaul was right. If M’reen really was with Daggoth, there was no way they would reach her in time to save her from that monster.

But they had to try.

“Come on, let’s get some weapons and—”

As he turned back to the door, an enormous mass of pale fur exploded outward from the ship’s interior with a blood curdling growl. The thing moved so quickly, Jrayk barely got a look at it except for its size. The creature was bigger than him, nearly as big as Vaul. There was a scrabble of claws as the beast charged down the ramp and disappeared into the jungle. Jrayk heard it crashing away through the underbrush. After another blip, even the sounds of the creature were gone.

“What,” Jrayk gasped, “was that?”

But he already knew the answer before Vaul said it out loud.

“I think that was Rawn…”