Page 10 of Defiance (The Intersolar Union #7)

Yaspur’s sky had always felt heavy to Novak.

There was only one city on the little moon, a few larger research stations, a handful of villages and resorts… But despite the minimal light pollution, the night was velvety black and thick.

Big Blue was the culprit, its attitude as toxic as its vast oceans.

It cast an eerie teal light over the darkness that kept the stars from shining and turned the red jungle black in the night.

It took up one third of the sky from Renata’s vantage point, and the only other bodies that glowed were two distant planets: Chabdi and Viqa, distant blue and yellow twinkles.

Neither of them were hospitable.

Too far from Surya’s dim light, too toxic, too unstable… Hjarna and shilpakaari efforts to study them were limited to, how much distance should we maintain for the safety of our equipment and crews?

Novak stared up at them with envy from his perch on top of the hangar.

If only he knew how to maintain distance when he and Charlie would be joined at the hip.

The chances of success were low.

He’d sat up there for hours, even watched Charlie walk home with her arms crossed over her chest and a large bag slung across her shoulder.

Sated though he was, the obsession with her whereabouts was all-consuming.

So he sat like the night sky, just a velvety splotch of black on the roof as she took her time, picking across the footpaths in bare, muddy feet, encased in a glow so bright it dimmed the world around her.

If he moved an inch, he would shadowing her in a breath.

Scent burn was more burn than scent, it turned out.

Novak rubbed his muzzle for the dozenth time, eyes flicking down to her footprints, to the chemia trail that clung to the path back to the southern-most home tower.

Since her glowing spectre had disappeared into the distance, he’d gone back and forth between believing if he’d spun for her or not.

The intensity of it felt like a hallucination, and perhaps parts of it were… Perhaps she’d been screaming in pain rather than ecstasy.

Perhaps she’d never said yes to begin with.

May you find me anywhere, anytime.

Novak took a deep breath. She’d definitely said that before the scent burn took them both. Besides, humans didn’t know about advenans. Charlie said yes to him—a man she’d just met and would trust her life to—rather than the erotic danger that followed his species like a shadow. It was somehow both a comfort and a tragedy.

And he didn’t have time for it.

Novak slid down the side of the hangar and landed with a soft thump next to the tarmac door. When he opened the hatch to the prison cells below, raw cut rock and damp stairs greeted him.

“It can’t be morning already,”

came a rumbling murmur that echoed off the walls.

“If not, please let it be an assassination. I’ll even open the cell door for you, ah?”

Novak’s plume mail adjusted itself as a tingle of unease rolled down his spine. Lokurian sounded just as mercurial, but somehow sour. Sharp.

“If you could open your own door, you wouldn’t still be here,”

Novak hissed in a neutral tone, his tail sweeping down the stairs after him. He left the hatch open for the meager teal light, breathing in the brig to get a feeling for the layout. His eyes weren’t quite as sharp as a venandi at night, but impressions pressed against his sense of smell like furniture covered in sheets. A decaying Rosie doll to the right, sealed away in an airtight body bag that still smelled like an industrial printing bay. A young venandi girl—Aelia Lokurian, no doubt—and a human that accompanied her. The lingering exhaust of biognostics and UV bulbs overhead.

Then Roka Lokurian to the left, of course. In the main cell.

A pair of glowing red eyes appeared four steps away, Lokurian’s talons clinking on the bars as he wrapped his fingers around them. Novak hadn’t heard him move. He was treacherous, the commander. Convincing everyone else that he languished in his cell. Novak wouldn’t fall for it.

“What are you doing here, Gaul?”

“Dr Ahlberg invited me as an honored guest,”

Novak jabbed, hoping to bring up guilty memories. Lokurian stared at him, stone cold.

“Can’t tell now that Ezra was on the brink of death by internal bleeding or that she suffered such horrific head trauma. They’re the picture of happiness and health.”

“Yes, you’ve always been such a socialite,”

Lokurian purred in a casual tone that suggested he was bitter.

“I must be the side attraction, then. Come one, come all! See the rotten turncoat you sniffed out.”

Novak’s smile remained.

“This is your last chance, Roka. Give me intel on Guei. On anything.”

Roka’s shinier plates caught the predawn light from above now, accentuating a sneer through his cheeks and brows. His white fangs glinted on the side missing a mandible. Vin had ripped it off not too long ago, and without reconstructive surgery, the scarring was severe.

“Now? Aren’t I irredeemable? I certainly wouldn’t believe anything that came out of my mouth.”

Novak shrugged.

“Depends on what you tell me.”

“Well then, you’re an idiot.”

The agent couldn’t help but chuckle, tasting the air with his forked tongue. Roka had that earthy, crickety taste that venandi developed when they couldn’t see the sun. UV lights lined the ceilings, but it just wasn’t the same. He smelled nutrient bars and old pastes hidden among some musty fabric, wax, and dried tree pulp.

“Ah, but Aelia’s here. You wouldn’t let anything happen to your little girl. Isn’t it in her best interest to protect Renata now? Since she lives here and is bonding with the humans.”

Lokurian snapped his one good mandible in disgust. It was the ailing rattle of a man who had no options but to bend and break.

“My bionics have all been confiscated. Ask the biognostics to give you what they’ve found.”

“I’m not looking for data, I’m looking for gut instinct.”

Their eyes locked and Novak held out his long fingers in a sign of surrender.

“I’m an advenan, aren’t I? I’m better suited to improvisation than calculation.”

Roka’s chest vibrated in thought. His glare dropped to Novak’s groin with an understanding glint. He dragged in a deep breath and expelled the air with a snort. Novak let him look, willing his shoulders to soften and his tail to sway, even if the venandi could mark the frantic pounding of his heart.

It had only been hours since—

“Aelia has friends here,”

he blurted, trying to cover up what Roka had probably already figured out.

“The humans are starting to have families and define their lives. And they’re accepting.”

He swallowed, thinking of Charlie.

“I saw Aelia playing with Pom Pom this afternoon. She seems happy.”

Roka squinted at him, his red eyes shining bright.

“You have good acting chops, but that’s laying it on thick for a species that doesn’t form families. Might want to tone down your performance next time.”

Novak’s tail smacked the ground.

“Just because we don’t know our neolates doesn’t mean we don’t want to,”

he snapped back.

“What a shriveled, brittle soul. You used to be one of my closest allies, Roka.”

A bit of the fire died in Lokurian’s glare. He clenched his fangs and let go of the bars.

“You should always assume Guei knows every piece on the board,”

the venandi offered quietly.

“And the people working for her don’t always know which piece they are or if they’re even in the game.”

“So be wary of everyone,”

Novak surmised. Roka gave him a slow nod.

“That’s nothing new.”

“It’s not hyperbole. Assume you’re making every move out in the open.”

Novak’s plume mail skittered across his back warily.

“Understood. Any other gems of wisdom?”

Lokurian looked him up and down with a crease between his brow plates.

“Ground Sakharel fruit will cover the scent. Put a satchel in your bags and rub your hands and skin with it. The blue one upstairs can print it for you.”

Novak blinked, his ears and stare pinned on the venandi’s face.

“Sakharel.”

Roka gave him the ghost of his old, smooth smile.

“Make sure she uses it too, ah?”

Then he sat down on the floor with his back turned as the morning lightened, staring up at colorful drawings taped to the wall.