Hotbloods 6: Allies

“No way, man. Just wondering what was taking you so long! You’re getting slow in your advancing years.”

“Advancing years my ass! Yer just jealous, Alfa, ‘cause you know no matter how old we get, I’ll always be the better lookin’ one.” The pair of them cackled, and Lauren smirked at the exchange.

“Is Ren with you?” Alfa asked, turning serious for a second.

“Aye, she’s over there. Safe and sound.”

“Glad to hear it, pal. We want everyone to come home to roost, you know?”

He nodded. “I know it, Alfa.” There was a hint of something strained in his voice, like he was trying to force down an emotion he didn’t want to feel.

“So, we getting out of here, or what? You wanting us to ride in both ships?”

“There’s been a change o’ plans,” Stone explained. “I’ll tell ye all the new course o’ action when we’re all together. For now, follow us through the shield and we’ll meet ye all on the surface. I hate doin’ the debriefs over these screens.”

Alfa grinned. “Me too, pal. See you down there. We’ll take your lead.”

“In a bit, Alfa.”

With that, the screen flickered off and the speakers hissed into silence. Stone lifted his gaze to the windshield, watching the patchwork ship wheel around us and come up to the rear of our vessel. I could see it blinking on the controls.

“What do you want me to do?” Ronad asked.

“You just head fer the shield, Ronnie, and I’ll do the rest.”

With a nod, Ronad surged the cruiser forward, a grimace creeping onto his face as we neared the glowing blue shield that surrounded Glossa. I shared his trepidation. What if we couldn’t get through the barrier? What if this was all a ruse to trap our ship and take everything we had? It would certainly be the perfect place to do it, though I was just starting to believe Stone could be trustworthy. I hoped he didn’t prove me wrong.

Holding out his wrist, he sent out a shield of his own, the light pouring from the nudus. The blue energy bristled upward, surrounding our ship and the junkyard ship behind us, until we’d both been drawn into the protective embrace of the nudus shield.

As Ronad brought our ship to the very edge of Glossa’s barrier, the hull eased through like a hot knife through butter. It let us through without any problem at all. I wondered what it might have been like if the shields hadn’t worked, but fortunately we didn’t have to find out. We’d passed through, and soon enough, we’d have Stone’s crew on our side, bringing us one step closer to returning to Earth.

With the potential of the nudus on my mind, I felt a renewed sense of hope for Earth’s safety. If we could protect it, then maybe, just maybe, we could do this thing and win.





Chapter Thirty-Two





As soon as we broke through the blue barrier, the shield’s haze faded, revealing a surface covered in pocked craters of all shapes and sizes… and not much else. It was like old pictures I’d seen of the moon back home, the landscape barren and eerie. Instead of being gray and slightly dull, however, Glossa’s surface was a shimmering shade of ivory that gleamed when the light hit it, glancing in from the nearest star.

After what Stone had said, I’d been expecting to see these nudus everywhere, but there wasn’t a single one in sight, just endless barren rock. I supposed I’d forgotten there might be places like this in the universe, after getting lucky with the exciting planets we’d been to—Zai, Wander, Pulsyde, even Vysanthe. Here, there were no people wandering around, or exotic new animals to look at.

Ten minutes later, we set the cruiser down on a flat part of Glossa’s surface, a puff of dust rising as the junkyard ship settled beside us. Bashrik and Angie had been roused from their usual morning adventures, and Lauren and I had briefed them as we’d descended. Now, with everyone gathered together, we plucked up a few weapons for safety purposes and walked toward the front hatch of the cruiser. Glancing around for the famous parasites, we headed down the gangway, setting foot on Glossa for the first time.

“Where are the nudus?” I asked, as Stone’s crew began to emerge from their ship.

“They’re in there.” Stone pointed toward the nearest crater, which seemed to have some kind of mossy vine circling the base of the indentation. It was the closest thing to a plant I’d seen on this planet, though it wasn’t much to look at, the moss-like fronds a mix of dull red, blue, and violet.

I peered over the edge of the crater. “I don’t see any of them.”

“We probably scared ‘em a bit. They nest in there. They’ll come out when they’re good and ready.”

“Can’t we call them out?”

Stone shrugged. “They won’t answer ye—ye gotta be in the know; they sometimes like a vibration, though they’ll still only come at ye if they want te.”

“They’re very intelligent beings, Riley, but they’re not capable of language,” Lauren explained, stepping up beside me. “They thrive off sensory communication, responding to aura and emotion instead of words.”

“I suppose we can’t ask them to choose us, then?” I joked.

Lauren smiled. “Afraid not, though I’m sure they’ll deem you worthy.”

“I won’t hold my breath.”

Up ahead, Stone’s crew were making their way toward us, looking puzzled. Lauren moved to greet them, too, though the rest of us stayed back, keeping our distance until Stone had bridged the gap between us. They eyed us with suspicion, and I couldn’t blame them. The last time they’d seen us was in the clearing outside the Salty Siren, when things had gone south for everyone involved. Even now, they were peering over Stone’s shoulder to get a better look at us, and they didn’t seem too pleased.

“Stone, my man, what are you doing hanging around with this lot?” Alfa asked, striding up to wrap his friend in a bearhug. “Aren’t they the ones that almost got us all killed?”

The Darian nodded. “Yeah, ain’t they the reason we lost some of our wares?”

Stone smiled. “These are Ren’s pals. They were only tryin’ to capture me so they could get their mate back. These are the ones I took ‘er from, way back when.”

Only, it wasn’t way back when. To us, it was still pretty fresh in the memory, though I wasn’t about to remind him of that fact—not when he had the full force of his crew to support him.

“Ren, good to see you in one piece!” Alfa cried, moving on from Stone and pulling Lauren into a tight embrace. He picked her up and whirled her around, his furred muscles rippling as she laughed.

“Better than a million pieces, right?” she replied.

“You’re damn right!”

Lauren grinned and turned back to the rest of us. “I suppose we should make some introductions if we’re going to be working with each other,” she said, beckoning for us to move forward. I took a tentative couple of steps, ending up at her side.

The lycan narrowed his eyes. “Working with each other? What’re you talking about, Ren? You been out of the ship too long—you’ve lost your mind.”

“I haven’t lost my mind, Dio, but we’ll get to that. First, I want you all to get to know each other,” she continued, gesturing at me first. “So, this is Riley, and this is Angie—they’re my best friends from my home planet. This is Bashrik, Navan, and Ronad—they’re coldblood friends of mine. And this is Xiphio, a new merevin friend.”

I noticed she kept out the part about Xiphio being a Fed agent, and he appeared to have the sense to keep his mouth shut. Undoubtedly, Stone would reveal Xiphio’s true identity to his crew, especially given Stone’s ties to the merevin. But right now, the last person a scavenger probably wanted to meet was a member of an intergalactic policing force.

“Guys, these are my crewmates,” Lauren ventured, gesturing toward the other side. “This is Alfa, my Rexombran buddy. This is Niniver, my Darian pal and only female partner in crime. Dio, my lycan friend. Kip, my Carokian friend. And you all know Stone already.”

“He not your pal?” the lycan teased, getting a punch in the arm from Lauren.