Page 94 of Journey to the Forbidden Zone

“Look at you. Running yourself ragged for a crew that can’t fix a fucking thruster. Risking everything for a piece of alien tail you can’t even keep, because guess what, sweetheart? She’s going home – not to her planet, back to her master. Where she belongs. All this pathetic defiance? It’s just you getting highon her pheromones. You’re not saving her. You’re just her next john, too stupid to see she’s playing you.”

Each word was a scalpel, cutting away her defenses, revealing her deepest fears. The doubt surged again, amplified by the exhaustion, the stress, the terrifying silence from Zed.

Her stomach churned. She felt exposed, raw under his merciless gaze.

“Shut up,” she hissed, the words escaping before she could stop them. Weak.

Corso saw it. His eyes lit with predatory satisfaction.

“Hit a nerve, did I? Truth hurts, does it? You think shewantsyou? A broke, desperate smuggler captain with a death wish and a ship held together by prayers and Mechan spit?” He laughed, a harsh, grating sound. “She smells your desperation, Díaz. She smells the pheromonesyou’repumping out. Fear. Despair. It’s like catnip to her kind. She’s using you for a ride home. Nothing more. And you’re lapping it up like a lovesick puppy.”

The image flashed – Mila’s claws digging into her hips, the possessive growl, the obliterating pleasure. Had it been real? Or just a predator exploiting prey?

The doubt crystallized into a sharp, stabbing pain in her chest. She could feel Letitia’s worried gaze burning into her.

Then it vanished. Mila never asked to go home. Not once. That had solely been Carmen. She’d insisted on it being the right thing to do. Mila had recommended they sell her. She’d claimed it was her purpose to help them.

And that meant that what had happened in Engineering – and the things Mila had said – were real.

“You don’t know shit about her,” Carmen said, a smile creeping slowly up her face.

“I know she’s property,” Corso spat, his own control fraying. The veneer of amused contempt vanished, replaced by pure,venomous rage. “Paid for. Lost due to a fucking clerical error your incompetent ass benefited from. And I’m done talking.”

He slammed a fist down on the arm of his command chair.

“Prepare for boarding, Díaz. I’m coming over to collect what’s mine. You try to stop me, you try to hide her …” His lips peeled back in a snarl. “I’ll space your crew one by one and make you watch. Starting with the frog.”

Sark whimpered audibly, shrinking lower in his seat.

“You touch him, you touch any of them—” Carmen started.

“And you’ll what?” Corso roared, surging to his feet on the viewscreen, his face contorted with fury. “What are you gonna do, Díaz? Huh? Bluster? Swear? Your shields are tissue paper. Your weapons aren’t even charged. Your fuckingengineeris a god-damned paperweight clinging to a satellite! You have NOTHING!”

He pointed a finger, jabbing it towards the screen, towards her.

“You think I forgot? You think I forgotanything? The way you looked down your nose at me onThe Buccaneer? The way you dismissed me?

“Well, look at us now, Díaz. Your place is on your knees, begging. And mine is taking what I’m owed.” His chest heaved. “Including that fucking Xena.”

He paused, drawing a ragged breath, his eyes burning with manic intensity. Then a cruel smile slid up his face.

“But I can see you need a demonstration. Proof I’m not bluffing.” He turned his head slightly, barking an order not meant for the comm. “Target that debris clinging to the satellite, the Mechan. Reduce it to slag.”

“No!” The scream tore from Carmen’s throat, raw and primal. She lunged forward as if she could stop him.

On the viewscreen, the image shifted. The view pulled back slightly, showing theStar Shrike, sleek and predatory, hangingin the void. One of its ventral plasma cannon glowed a vicious, building azure. It swiveled with chilling precision, lining up on the tiny, dark shape clamped to the satellite – Zed’s motionless chassis.

Time slowed. Carmen saw the cannon’s aperture flare. A searing lance of plasma, brighter than a star’s core, streaked across the black.

It struck Zed’s chassis dead center.

There was no explosion. No dramatic fireball. One moment, the blocky, familiar form was there, clinging to the dark wedge of the satellite. The next, it was simply gone. Vaporized. A brief, intense flare of light, a puff of expanding superheated gas and molten fragments that glittered for a microsecond against the starfield before winking out. Utterly erased.

Silence. Absolute, crushing silence on the bridge. Carmen stared at the empty spot on the viewscreen where Zed had been. Her mind was blank, her body numb.

Gone. Just gone. Part of her crew obliterated solely to prove a point.

A deep, penetrating cold seeped into Carmen’s bones, frostier than the void outside. It started in her gut, a leaden weight, and spread outwards, numbing her limbs, icing her veins. The fury was gone, extinguished as thoroughly as Zed’s body. In its place, a yawning chasm of horror opened. Nausea rose, sharp and acidic, clawing at her throat. She tasted bile.