Escape by Blaze Ward

Author:Blaze Ward [Ward, Blaze]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781644701294
Publisher: Knotted Road Press

Chapter Twenty-Two

Aileen

She didn’t like people. Noise. Chaos. Overload.

That was why Aileen liked cargo. Simple problems. Simple solutions. Cure the ship’s emptiness with the fewest number of moves now or tomorrow.

The rest of the crew understood that about her. Left her alone most of the time. Let her assemble and disassemble her cargo bays her way, just putting their muscle to work when she needed to change the configuration on an evolving basis.

She’d been dead nervous about Lazarus. That size screamed predator to her subconscious. Male didn’t help, especially coupled with bulk.

The shower had been a trap, to see how the human would react to her nudity. Her perceived vulnerability. With Wybert and Remahle armed and hiding close by, in case they needed to get involved and zap him with something.

Nobody had mentioned anything to Addison. Wasn’t any need. Lazarus had mopped the deck without complaint. Scrubbed her back without comment, even though she knew from the look in his eyes that the female human form must look substantially like her, presumably without the whiskers and fur, but similar shape.

And they had breasts. He had stared at hers more than once, but never stayed even within arm’s length longer than necessary. Never let his hands wander to where his eyes might have strayed. Behaved himself around total strangers.

The human was an officer. Had been one in command of his own ship before this, from his stories. But he also took orders without complaint. Listened to Kuei, Khyaa’sha, and the Loadmaster without any of that male guff. Took orders, executed, waited for more.

Asked to borrow a book politely, read it, and returned it with a speed that told her how literate he really was, moving on to the next book.

Addison had him back on the ship now, buttoned up against any of the locals deciding to capture him for a circus or something. She was in charge of Thadrakho and a shopping list, at least until the Innruld dipshit in charge got over himself and lifted the cargo isolation on them that he had slapped around an unknown species.

Nothing in the bays was time-critical. Addison had already built slack into the schedule because he had needed to go somewhere without the Innruld being any the wiser.

They’d be cleared by tomorrow, if the locals held to form, and she could get rid of two of those six boxes along with about a third of the rest. Then move on and get loaded for the run to Aceanx and the next two boxes.

She’d be glad when the stuff was gone. She wasn’t a rebel in any hard sense of the word, but didn’t like the Innruld any more than the rest of the crew. Those boxes would destroy lives when the contents made their way into those oh-so-delicate salons in the Skycity above her, or the others around the universe.

Maybe break the Innruld. Or just give them something else to do instead of breeding the next generation, and they could kill themselves off and make the galaxy a better place.

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