Right.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
NIKI
By the time I get to the tree house, the myza, my crew is staying in, news of our arrival has spread. Suevans, mostly male, save for a handful of much older females, line the streets, watching our progress.
Draz nods to them, greeting them here and there with words of greeting or the strange fist thumps that the Suevans do out of respect.
Many of the Suevans openly stare at me, curiosity clear in their gazes.
It makes me worried about what, exactly, my crew has been up to, if humans are still such a rarity here that I’m gawked at. Have they stayed inside the whole time? Are they allowed out and about?
What the hell has been going on while I was stuck recuperating in the Suevan jungle?
The skirts of the dress flutter around my legs with every step, slits up both sides showcasing a whole lot more skin than I realized when Draz helped me get into it back at his myza. Our tree house.
“Ready?”
I nod once, throwing my shoulders back and steeling myself.
Draz presses a seam on the outside of the house my team’s been bedding down in, and a door swings open.
The six women who made it to Edrobaz lounge around the interior. Food stretches across a long table made from a halved log, and velvety, moss-covered couches dot the floor. Everyone stops as I enter the room, and we’re silent as we regard each other. I count the faces in front of me, trying to figure out who’s missing.
“Oh thank God,” Bex screams. “Captain Jacks is here, and she’s dressed like a total skank!”
Okay, then.
Relief floods me. My crew seems healthy. About half of them are wearing dresses like mine, though a couple wear flowing pants and crop tops. Bex has a jagged wound down her side, and I move toward her instinctively.
“What happened?”
“Dergoz happened,” she says acidly.
“Dergoz?” I glance back at where Draz is attempting to melt into the brown walls.
“The brute. The warlord I’m apparently married to.” Bex peers around me, narrowing her eyes at Draz. “How’s married life treating you?”
“Draz, can you give us some privacy?” I ask, and he nods once before slipping out of the house.
All the women in front of me give a silent sigh of relief, and I soak them in. Their faces are upturned to me like flowers seeking sun, and I’m so fucking glad to see them all that I just take a minute, scanning each of them.
“Has anyone else been hurt by the Suevans?”
Six heads shake, and I narrow my eyes at Bex.
“Didn’t you just say that Dreg—” I stumble over the name.
“Dergoz didn’t mean to. They call him a brute, but he’s not one,” she says quickly, and Michelle, our analyst, rolls her eyes.
“How fucked are we, Captain Jacks?” Michelle asks quietly, and as soon as I meet her eyes, her tired, angry eyes, I know she’s already figured out the answer to that question and has likely been waiting for me to deliver the news.
“You look like shit,” Bex adds unhelpfully.
“I had an encounter with a toxic alien species. And as far as I see it, we’re only as fucked as we want to be.” I wince. That didn’t come out right.
A few chuckles and sidelong glances go around the room.
“Here’s how I see it, and how I bet Michelle has already figured, too. Earth sold us out.”
No murmurs, no shock, nothing.
“The Suevans are dying out. Some kind of virus mutated their genes, and females stopped being born. They reached out to Earth, and Earth promised to send compatible humans in exchange for their tech, which, after being here, I can agree we need desperately.” I clear my throat. “The Suevans didn’t know that we weren’t informed about our purpose here.”
“How do you know that?”
“Have none of you talked to your—” I pause. “Your Suevan?”
“You mean our accidental husbands? Our arranged marriage spouses?” Bex provides sweetly. I glare at her, and she winks at me.
“We can’t talk to them,” Michelle says. “Our translators failed.”
I open my mouth. Close it again. “What?”
“Our translators didn’t take,” Tati, our medic, repeats. “The tech failed. Have you been able to talk to them?”
“Fucking hell,” I mutter, running my hand through my hair and pacing. “Yes, I’ve been able to talk to them.” No wonder my crew’s holed up here, and the Suevans I saw this morning look at me like the circus came to town.
Fuck.
“They’ve been communicating with us through binary,” Carmen says, patting the curly pouf on top of her head. She’s wearing a pretty coral top and pant set that looks gorgeous against her skin. “It takes a long ass time for us to translate it, though.”
“They’re trying to find us tech that will work or update the receivers we already have.” Tati’s nimble fingers dance across her long, glossy black hair as she braids it off her face. “But as far as the wedding shit goes, we haven’t bothered asking about any of it. What’s the point? They think we belong to them.”
“Did your… Are you sure none of you were hurt? At all?” I ask again, putting on my no nonsense face.
Despite the seriousness of my question, Bex snorts. “I’m sorry. But that expression and that outfit do not match.”
“It’s not funny, Bex,” one of my crew pipes up, and several nod in agreement. “Just because you tried to fuck your alien doesn’t mean the rest of us want to.”
Bex’s smile disappears, and she crosses her arms over her chest.
“When can we get back to Earth?” someone calls out.
Michelle meets my eyes, her expression grim.
Yep. She already figured it out.
“We can’t get back to Earth.”
Conversation explodes, angry words and shouts slamming against my ears. I wait for it to die down, to explain.
“They’ll kill us,” Michelle says softly, and half the room shuts up.
“What?” one of the crew in the back says, glaring at Michelle. “What did she say?”
“She said they’ll kill us,” I tell her. “And she’s right. Think about it. They sold us out. It’s fucked up, but that’s what they did. Earth is desperate for the tech, and…” I grit my teeth, exhaling as I decide to tell them everything. Michelle’s eyes grow even more alarmed. “And they should be. Earth is going to be enslaved or worse if they don’t get it. And even if they do get the tech they need, we can’t just show back up.”
“Why not?” It’s my surly mechanic talking, her hands on her hips and her face a rictus of frustration.
“Because no one can find out the truth of what the Federation did, selling us to Sueva. If we go back and they think for one minute we’ll talk, they will kill us. That’s what will happen. As soon as we got into Suevan space and took part in that ceremony, we became persona non grata to the Federation. So unless you want them to take us all out as collateral damage, we can’t go back.”
Stunned silence greets this, and the mechanic buries her face in her hands, another crew member drawing her into her chest to comfort her.
Tati’s face is drawn, and Bex looks murderous.
I glance around for Gen, waiting to hear her rant and rave.
Shit.
“Gen’s the one who didn’t make it back,” I say softly.
Michelle nods, and Carmen pinches the bridge of her nose.