Femme Metal Read online

  “Two hundred thousand credits.”

  So this man, this Sekmeth Meroh, was worth a lot of money. He had to be a wonder.

  Two hundred thousand credits. That’d make her ID card burn a hole in her pocket.

  She could retire with such an amount, could have a nice house on some rim colony far from Interworld’s reach. She could have her garden.

  “One last job,” she said through her teeth. That was it.

  Now, she’d better get to her cabin and finish what the Yithian had started.

  Chapter Two

  “Wait ‘til its engaged its thrusters,” Alex said to Kim as the young woman maneuvered the Femme Metal out of the docking station.

  In front of them, hundreds of kilometers beyond the rectangular porthole floated the cargo ship with their target onboard. The huge ship lumbered away from Land’s End at an excruciatingly slow speed. The rubber cocks under Alex’s fingers felt clammy with sweat.

  Sekmeth Meroh. That sounded alien. Mers, perhaps? Or Naray?

  “It’s engaging its thrusters.”

  Alex leaned forward and grabbed the control sticks harder. If they’d been real penises, she’d have bruised them. “Wait.”

  The wide behind of the cargo ship loomed large in front and over the Femme Metal, obscuring the rest of the sky. A wide cavity gaped between its two main thrusters and Alex maneuvered her tiny ship right along the cleft. Like a giant, metal butt crack. She grinned.

  “Nice and steady,” she said, twisting both cocks in her hands and banking the ship to the right. A slight roll brought it right along the crack. “Now.”

  Kim clicked furiously on her computer. The whole ship, from computerized engine room right down to the lavatories, was accessible by the lump of twisted wires and polymer board she held on her lap. It might have resembled an old portable computer of eons past—Alex thought it now looked like a creepy plastic squid.

  A series of clangs and clunks sounded overhead. The grappling hooks had found their target. When the cargo ship opened a jump point, the Femme Metal would tag right along with it. Otherwise, they’d never be able to open another point right behind and expect to land in the same place. Plus, it would have been dangerous for both ships. Dead targets brought no credits. And this one was worth a fortune. She’d not risk him by doing something reckless.

  A short while later, a space rip opened in front of the cargo ship. Kim and Alex followed its progress through the view screen on the control panel. A lurch then the Femme Metal slipped into hyperspace along with the cargo ship. When normal space surrounded them again, Alex ordered the grappling hooks be released. They’d follow the cargo a few kilometers behind and stay in its heat signature so as not to be detected.

  “We’ll board it when it’s down time over there.”

  “We could get the can opener and make it real quick,” Kim replied with a hopeful grin.

  “As a last resort only,” Alex replied with a smile.

  The “can opener” as Kim called their latest addition to the ship was one large, ass-kicking pulse cannon planted aft on the Femme Metal’s hull. One burst of it could perforate the thickest armor plating. But since it was illegal to even buy a small one, the mammoth Kim had rigged would get them all in a world of trouble. She wouldn’t use it unless survival depended on it. And right now, it didn’t.

  * * * * *

  “Everything ready?” Alex asked the three women by her side.

  Ebinay, still glowering from all the toilet cleaning she’d done in the past hours, nodded silently. Annabelle and Eva both rechecked their anchoring harnesses and stunners. Because cargo ships always ran with systems down to a minimum, the women wore night-vision goggles. The narrow strip of tinted plastic on their heads made them look like skiers. Anchoring harnesses might be useful to navigate the zero gravity lower decks. According to her customer’s stolen schematics of the cargo ship, the handful of passengers were housed with the crew on the upper deck, the only one with gravity.

  Alex buckled her harness, tightened the clip holding her stunner then lowered the NVG over her eyes. “Let’s go.”

  From the bridge Kim unlocked the airlock, equalized the pressure then hacked inside the cargo ship’s systems. A grin pulled Alex’s lips when the green light flickered on the access panel. It opened with a loud hiss, making Ebinay curse. A black hole gaped in front of them when the hatch had swung completely inside.

  Steam poured out the airlock when pressure escaped into the zero-G cargo ship’s hold. Ebinay floated in front, pushing herself off the floor and other objects. After activating her NVG, Alex followed with Annabelle and Eva behind.

  “Check this out,” Eva said from above. The diminutive redhead spun several times, tucked her legs then landed feet first on the ceiling. After a mock bow, she hovered down.

  They crossed the entire length of the huge cargo hold without tripping any of the detectors. Kim is a genius, thought Alex as she braced her legs on crates and waited for Ebinay to force the door.

  “Let’s see who’s quicker,” the dark woman said with a grin. She pulled a small, handheld blowtorch from her pant leg. It emitted a blazing blue light as it sliced through the thick steel plate. But then the access panel clicked and a green light indicated it had been unlocked.

  “Looks like Kim got there first,” Eva put in. Ebinay’s venomous expression sobered the little woman and she fell silently behind Annabelle.

  Faint kitchen smells filtered in through the doorway. Alex put a gloved finger to pursed lips and gave a big push, which transported her across the wide passageway. The other three followed. They leapfrogged the span of the passageway and up two decks through circular holes in the floors before finally reaching the transfer chamber. Good thing this ship’s in good shape, Alex though as the chamber soundlessly transferred them to the normal gravity deck above. No one will hear a thing.

  “Single file. Come on,” Alex subvoiced into her comms.

  With display unit in hand and stunner in the other, Alex led her team along the dimly lit passageway. Thick doors pierced the steel bulkheads on either side. Storage rooms, electrical rooms, no cabins yet. This ship could withstand most conventional weapons, she was sure of it, though it sorely lacked in armament and proper sensors. Otherwise, its crew would have seen the Femme Metal coming and would have blocked all systems. Even Kim wouldn’t have been able to bypass blocked systems.

  “According to this, his cabin’s the one by the captain’s.”

  Ebinay swept her stunner in the other hand. “Stupid place to be. No privacy.”

  “That’s damned close to being dangerous. What if the crew sees us? They’re armed.”

  Alex nodded to Eva. “We’ll have to be extra careful. Get—”

  A man had just turned the corner. He froze when he spotted them. Too quickly for any of them to react, he turned tail and dashed through a doorway.

  “Get the target!” Alex snapped as she flipped the NVG off her face and took off running.

  Leaving her team behind, she devoured the ground with powerful strides of her long legs. She might be forty, but she could still make most people eat her dust. As she rounded the corner, she glimpsed his silhouette in the darkened passageway. He wore coveralls, so this was no passenger. He was making a straight line for a panel glowing on the opposite bulkhead. The guy was about to sound the alarm. Shit!

  She leveled her stunner but before she could fire, the man punched the panel. A loud signal ripped the air. She fired twice. He collapsed on his front and jerked as electricity coursed through him. Poor bugger would be out for a while with two shots into him.

  Alex sprinted back to where she’d left her team and followed her display’s directions to the target’s cabin. She met two more downed crewmembers and knew her girls had come this way. Things were turning to shit!

  A voice raised in pain made her veer sharply into another passageway. There, she spotted Eva on her knees, cradling her chest with both arms. A form Alex couldn’t identify stood ov
er the small woman. It raised something high over its head. Alex fired three times in rapid succession. She must have missed for the object came crashing down on Eva’s head. She went down without a sound. The person bolted away before Alex had reached the prone Eva.

  “Hurry, get up,” Alex urged as she pulled on the woman’s harness. Eva rolled onto her back. Blood glistened between her eyes, which stared vacantly up at the ceiling.

  “Shit!”

  Quickly, Alex pulled the stunner out of Eva’s lifeless hand and ran after the attacker. A male voice boomed somewhere ahead. A voice as a tenor’s, but amplified three times. He yelled something she couldn’t get. Then the already dim lights went out.

  Ebinay’s voice could be heard. Alex fiddled with her NVG but gasped and fell on her ass when a great weight crashed into her. Her stunner discharged, creating a flash of blue light that blinded her.

  “Cap’n, we got him,” Ebinay called from her left. She panted heavily.

  Feeling around for her NVG, Alex cursed. “I can’t see a damned thing. Are you with Annabelle?”

  “Yeah, we got him here on the floor. He’s something else, Cap’n.”

  Feeling with her hands, Alex finally closed a fist over someone’s hair. Neither Ebinay nor Annabelle had long hair. This must be the man. It was long, that hair. Damned long. “You sure it’s not some chick we got?”

  “No, Captain, it’s the man.”

  Annabelle’s voice never failed to shock Alex. It was so gentle for someone her size. But she had to scream now to be heard above the siren.

  Between the three of them, they managed to drag the man back to the transfer chamber. Alex couldn’t wait to reach the zero-G decks. The guy was huge. She had him by an arm and could swear it was four feet long. Some light would be nice, too. She bumped against the bulkhead again and cursed. That siren was driving her insane!

  Suddenly, Ebinay swore and fired twice. By the stunner’s flash, Alex only had time to make out two silhouettes running their way. Two other shots popped and blinded her.

  While the black woman fired, she let go of her side of the man and he slumped against Alex, pressing her against the plate. A faint smell emanated from his skin, like lemons, but more peppery. Silky hair spilled over her face. She brushed it away. She couldn’t see a damned thing! With blind fingers, she felt for the inhibitor around his neck. A man this size would make purée of her, the other two as well. His weight was lifted from her when Ebinay announced the coast was clear.

  “Kim,” Alex subvoiced, “we’re in deep here. Can you lock all the other hatches except our own?”

  “Already done.”

  “Good girl.”

  After they reached the airlock and crammed all four of them in, Kim transferred them to the zero-G deck. The way was easier afterward as they simply pushed off bulkheads to go forward while keeping the man in tow behind them.

  A sliver of light from the Femme Metal’s outer hatch pierced the darkness, for which Alex was extremely grateful. Warm liquid dribbled down over her cheek. She bled from somewhere on her head. No wonder after all the bumps she’d suffered.

  By the tiny ray of light, she could see their guy wore all dark garments and gloves, and his hair seemed blond. His head hung on his chest. Even slumped as he was, he towered over Annabelle and Ebinay. Alex reached a hand to push the curtain of hair from his face when the airlock hissed closed and pressure was equalized. Sudden gravity slammed them all hard against the deck. Only one of her ears popped. She worked her jaw. Somehow, they managed to deposit the man relatively gently on the floor between them.

  “Where’s Eva?” Kim asked after she slid off the ladder.

  Alex coughed and wiped blood from her forehead. “She’s gone. Someone bashed her head in.” Don’t think about it. Forget the blood, the surprised expression on her face, the vacant eyes.

  “Gone?” Kim shoved her hands in the pockets of her coveralls and stared at her feet.

  “It happens, baby,” Ebinay offered tentatively. A nasty bruise was spreading over her right eye.

  Now that she could see clearly, Alex noticed both women sported various bruises and cuts. Annabelle stood slightly bent. Both her hands were raw around the knuckles.

  “He gave you trouble?”

  Annabelle nodded emphatically.

  “Took us all we had just to slip the damned inhibitor on him. Stunner didn’t work shit.” Ebinay angrily wiped the spit and blood from her chin. A long string of words in Afrikaans followed.

  Alex ripped the harness off and glared at the man lying there on his side. Some skin showed above his collar and through his hair. And it was pale blue. Holy hell…

  “Yeah, he’s a Yithian.” Ebinay rolled him onto his back with the ball of her foot. “A large Yithian.”

  It was him! The same Yithian at the club who’d come to her table and done something to her mind. Alex could only stare in shock at the massive alien lying half on his back and half on his side. As if her body remembered him as well, her clit began to ache and throb annoyingly.

  “I thought your customer didn’t want Yithian males. Too much trouble.” A look of hostility flashed across the black woman’s face.

  So it wasn’t their customer anymore but hers. Alex shrugged. “They’re paying us two hundred thousand for him. So we’ll deliver him. No questions. Is that okay with you?”

  Ebinay glowered but said nothing.

  “Just put him in the tank so we don’t have to deal with him,” Alex said, not even trying to smooth the edge in her tone. They knew the kind of business the Femme Metal conducted. They’d had an attack of morality now, after all this time?

  “We can’t.”

  Alex rounded on Kim. “Why not?”

  Turning around, the girl shrugged and threw over her shoulder, “Because he won’t fit.”

  Chapter Three

  Alex woke with a massive headache. She needed coffee. Lots of it.

  The galley was deserted this early in the shift. She poured a hot cup of coffee from the chrome canister and slumped in one of the decrepit chairs. She’d just kidnapped one huge Yithian for two hundred thousand credits. She should feel proud. They had the reputation—totally earned—of being fierce and quick. She still remembered fighting against them before the Interworld declared every species should be one happy family. She’d buried a lot of good soldiers because of the Yithians. Frankly though, good thing the Interworld had intervened because she wasn’t sure humans could have lasted another two years against the Yithians.

  Two hundred thousand credits. Alex grinned and took a sip from her cup. She’d have that garden now, weeks from now, maybe months if red tape became an issue, but she’d have her house on the rim.

  “He’s been asking for you,” Ebinay said from behind.

  Alex gripped the mug tighter to keep from showing her surprise. “For me?”

  “Yeah. He wants to see ‘our leader’.” Ebinay shrugged and sat across from Alex. “What happened with Eva?”

  “Like I told you, she got her head pounded in. Nothing I could’ve done.” Then why is guilt gnawing at me? I lost another one. Another person under my command died because of me.

  Ebinay merely nodded but something in her expression didn’t please Alex. “If you have a problem, say it, don’t give me those eyes!”

  “With her gone, it’s one more cut of the profit going back to your ID.”

  “If I wanted to keep the credits for myself, I’d have fired her right away. But you know what—” Alex stood, spilling coffee on the table “—next time we dock, you can take your ass off my ship. That’s another five percent back to me.”

  She left before she did anything Ebinay would regret. Like pounding a few good ones in the bitch’s face. Of all the things to say. Alex’s heavy tread rattled the metal grill under her feet and she reached the brig just as Annabelle was leaving it. She hooked her thumb over a shoulder and shook her head. Bruises and cuts made her look like she’d taken a dive through a pane of tempered glass.<
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  “I know. He’s been asking for me,” Alex snapped.

  Annabelle shook her head. “No, that’s not all. He’s one of them.”

  “One of them what?”

  “Hunters.” With a shrug, Annabelle left.

  Alex had to lean against the bulkhead to keep her balance. A Hunter. Could things get any worse?

  She ran a hand over her face. Hunter. Shit. Like she needed to have one of those onboard. Yet her customer had specifically asked for that Yithian, not just any male of the species. Did they know he was one of those few elite Hunters from his home world, one of those who prized themselves in always catching their prey? No wonder they were ready to pay two hundred thousand for him. Any brothel-ship would die for the sheer glamour of displaying a Yithian Hunter among their escorts. She’d never heard of anyone catching a Hunter. They usually did the catching.

  She remembered during the war how Yithian Hunters were being paid to infiltrate human ranks and either kidnap for ransom or dispose of the higher-ups. Anyone above major was fair game. The human military had had to hide its brass on Old Earth, for Christ’s sake, to keep them safe, which had left foot soldiers and low-ranking officers like her to fight the damned war. Even if Interworld’s propaganda called it “trade disagreement”, she called it war. People fought in uniforms. People died with weapons in their hands. It was a war, dammit.

  Alex leaned in so she could see inside the locked compartment. Through the narrow tempered-glass opening, she studied him. He looked positively gigantic inside the tiny compartment. Not heavy and muscular. He was long, sinewy and too damn sexy. Sitting on the narrow cot, with his long legs crossed in front at the ankles, he exuded confidence. Boots with several metal straps hugged his calves. He had discarded the black gloves and jacket, showing a tight-fitting gray shirt zipped up to his long neck. His hands must have been ten inches long. The ring was there, looking as if a black beetle was clutching his finger. It didn’t glow either—the ring—not like she remembered in the trance. Alex flushed.