Page 20 of My Alien Bughead (Supernova Casanovas #4)

Chapter 20

D’Aakh

Lucía is waiting for an answer and I… I don’t know what to say. I want to tell her everything but it hurts so much. Then again, I deserve the pain, and I’ll be gone soon. Isn’t it good to confess to your sins before you die? So that your soul can move on unburdened or some karli crap like that?

I’m not sure if I have a soul. I’m not even sure if there’s an afterlife. What I am sure about, however, is that my life will end soon. I can already feel the tremors running through my body, and it’s not the good kind of tremors like when I came in Lucía’s tight, hot pussy. It’s the “I need my drug, NOW!” kind of tremors and they’re only going to get worse, fast.

I might as well bare my non-existent soul in front of Lucía while I still have some cognitive abilities.

I push her up and off my cock, earning myself a frustrated sigh. “D’Aakh, please, talk to me.”

“I will, I promise but…not like this.” I can barely deal with my guilt as it is. Talking about Mzr with my cock inside another female feels too much like defiling her memory.

“Fine.” Lucía sighs, using her underwear to wipe herself before slipping back into her coveralls, while I do the same. Once we’re somewhat appropriately dressed, she sits down by the wall and pats the spot beside her. “Sit. Talk.”

A smile fleetingly graces my face over Lucía’s inherent bossiness but it’s gone as soon as I’m settled beside her, preparing myself for the upcoming confession. Sigh. Where do I even begin? “We had a medic on our team. Her name was Mzr. She was a Xy, which means that she was—”

“An empath,” Lucía finishes for me. “I’m guessing she was kind and sweet and gentle and everyone loved her, right? Our station doctor and his mate are Xy and they’re the sweetest people I’ve ever met. Most of their race is apparently like that.” I nod in agreement. “That doesn’t make any sense, though,” Lucía continues. “How could a Xy become a Voidstalker? Don’t you…kill people for a living?”

“We protect people for a living,” I correct her, even though she’s not completely wrong. “Sometimes it involves killing others, but that was not part of Mzr’s role. Her job was to keep everyone alive. For a Xy, she was incredibly stubborn. I think that’s about the only thing you two have in common.”

Lucía chuckles softly. “You haven’t even seen my stubborn side yet. What you saw was just the mild version of me that I show to strangers so as not to scare them off right away.”

“Oh? Throwing wrenches at people’s heads is the mild version of you? Humans are seriously weird,” I tease, loving that she’s trying to cheer me up.

“That we are,” she returns, reaching for my hand and giving it a gentle squeeze. “So, what happened?”

Eyes closed, I rest my head against the wall and let the scene replay for the millionth time since it all happened. “It was a hostage rescue situation. A gene modification station was taken over by anti gene modification fanatics. A simple job, really. Go in, rescue the hostages, neutralize the terrorists. We’ve done it dozens of times before.

“We split up. Mzr was only allowed on scene once it was secured, so I waited with her in the entrance of the facility while the rest of our squad went in ahead. Then, shots were fired nearby. A terrorist we’d missed during the initial perimeter sweep, because the bastard had been sleeping instead of standing guard, shot a terrified scientist he’d found hiding.”

“Mzr rushed over to help the scientist?” Lucía asks quietly.

“Of course she did. It’s who she was. One minute we were standing at the entrance just talking, joking about…” A kiss. I’d been joking about kissing her, praying she’d say yes. “...things. Then the scientist screamed and Mzr just bolted off in that direction, heedless of the danger. I was too slow. Too slow to stop her, too slow to see what was happening, too slow to…” I shudder as the memories flood in, “Anyway, the terrorist shot her before I…”

Tears stream down my face and I wipe them away in a futile attempt to get myself under control. I yank at my other hand, trying to loosen it out of Lucía’s grip, undeserving of the comfort she’s offering me but she doesn’t let go. For a human female, she really is exceptionally strong.

“This wasn’t your fault, D’Aakh,” she whispers.

I snort at her audacity. “Of course it was my fault! It was my job to keep her safe and I let her get shot. That’s not even the worst part. I tried to save her. I scooped her up and ran back toward the ship, knowing that if I could get her into a stasis pod she’d have a good chance at surviving. We’d bring her home and then UGC doctors would fix her right up. Then we got stuck in a malfunctioning airlock.”

“Oh, god.”

“There is no god,” I sneer. “No god would let someone as gentle and caring and pure as Mzr die. I tried to keep her alive, did everything I could think of to stop the bleeding but she just…” Sobs wrack through my chest as I remember her lifeless body laying limp in my arms. Her blood on my hands. Her eyes. “It’s her eyes I remember the most. How that beautiful spark that had always been there just…dimmed.”

Without a word, Lucía pulls me into her arms. Curling in on myself, I cry, finally releasing the pent up pain and anguish that has been eating me up inside. “I didn’t…didn’t even get to tell her… I-I loved her and… I didn’t tell her.”

Lucía holds me securely in her warm embrace. I’m grateful for this moment of silent comfort. Without her arms around me, I think I’d shatter into a million pieces. “She was an empath, D’Aakh,” she says. Lucía’s tone is warm but I hear the hint of tears in her voice. “I’m sure she knew how you felt. I’m also sure she wouldn’t want you to grieve for the rest of your life.”

Probably not. But how do I explain to Lucía that I can’t simply go on with my life? That every time I feel even a sliver of peace, let alone happiness, I feel like I’m betraying Mzr’s memory. “I deserve it,” I grunt.

Lucía smacks me upside my head. “Now you’re being stupid again. You might deserve a kick in the nuts for the way you’ve been acting but not eternal suffering for something that wasn’t even your fault.” She pauses momentarily, gently running her fingers over my smooth head and circling her fingers around the bases of my ahni. “Did you find out what caused the airlock malfunction?”

I growl. “I did. The technician at the facility preferred online gambling to facility maintenance. Plus, he was totally incompetent. It was entirely his fault the airlock doors became stuck when we were inside.”

“Oh, that’s terrible. I hope he got fired.”

“Something like that.” I won’t tell Lucía I found the male later and introduced him to another malfunctioning airlock. This one, unfortunately, opened to the cold vacuum of space. “That’s why I was…skeptical about having you or anyone else on the ship.”

“Uh-huh. Skeptical. That’s one way to say you’ve been acting like a complete asshole. I’m used to people not believing in my skills but they usually change their minds once they see me work. With you…” Her fingers slow their caressing. “You didn’t even give me a chance.”

No, I didn’t. “I don’t doubt your skills. Well, not anymore. I just wanted to do everything myself because then I could be sure it was well done properly and no one would die because of malfunctioning equipment. Also…I was attracted to you.”

“And you felt like you were betraying Mzr,” Lucía continues my unspoken thoughts. She sighs deeply, “I guess I can understand that. Doesn’t mean it was okay, though.”

“No, it doesn’t. I’m really sorry.” I’m even more sorry that I won’t be able to make it up to her in the future. I should help her escape this tunnel, at least.

Extricating myself from Lucía’s arms, I switch my flashlight to a stronger setting and look around. “An old mining shaft?” I guess.

“Probably. It would have been abandoned because it got too close to the station’s infrastructure. The regulations are pretty strict about mining under our own asses.”

Light green vein sparkles in the wall when light hits it. “You abandon veins this rich?”

Lucía smirks. “This is nothing. Just scraps of what we normally mine, and that was before we found the new deposits.”

“FrenCorp was lucky to claim this place,” I muse, sliding my fingers over the raw crylonite. I’ve never actually seen crylonite before it’s processed and I’m surprised by its ethereal glow. “Where would such a shaft lead?”

“Nowhere, apparently.” Lucía is right. The tunnel ends abruptly a few hundred feet down from us, as if whoever had been drilling it just up and left. “Like I said, they probably got too close to the station and had to abandon this place. The other end would have led to a connecting vertical shaft, but…”

We shine our lights back to where we came from. A massive pile of rubble blocks the tunnel, likely leading all the way from here to where the train fell through the ceiling.

There’s no way we can dig ourselves out of here. We’re trapped.

Growing desperate, I scan the walls again and notice a small hole near the ceiling. “What’s that?”

Lucía frowns. “I’m not really a mining expert, but I’d say it’s probably a utility shaft. You know, for cables, ventilation, and such. Lift me up?”

I hoist her up so that she can peer into the hole.

“Yep, definitely a utility shaft. Horizontal, only about thirty feet long. There must be another tunnel behind this wall. Too bad the shaft is too narrow for us to climb through.” When I set her back on the ground, she looks around with uncertainty. “So, we’re trapped in this tunnel, we have no food or water, and it’s a little cool in here. On the upside, we can survive a few days without supplies, the cold isn’t going to kill us, and lots of people will be looking for us. They’ll find us and dig us out, right?”

She doesn’t sound too convinced and frankly, neither am I. I’ll be long dead before any kind of rescue gets here but how do I make sure Lucía will survive long enough? I doubt she’d want to eat my corpse, even if it would be the logical solution.

“Hmm,” she hums, her attention once again drawn to the crylonite vein. “They make weapons from this stuff, right? I know it’s not very reactive in this form but could we somehow use it to blow a hole in this wall? The other tunnel should be—”

“No. Absolutely not.” A full body shudder runs through me at the thought of blowing anything up while we’re trapped in this already highly unstable tunnel.

Lucía cocks an eyebrow. “No, it’s not possible, or no, it’s not safe?”

“It is possible,” I admit, not wanting to lie to her. “But we’re not doing it. Best case scenario, we’d just end up in another dead end tunnel. Worst? This entire tunnel comes crashing down around our heads. It’s not worth the risk. I think we should wait for rescue.”

“You don’t know if the other tunnel is a dead end. Perhaps it could lead us up. But fine, whatever. We’ll wait.”

Grumbling quiet curses, she paces the tunnel back and forth several times before huffing out in frustration then sitting down. “This is boring,” she complains. “I’m not good at sitting still and waiting.”

“Yeah.” With a sigh, I sit down next to her. “That makes two of us.”

The silence stretches on as we sit and contemplate our predicament but it’s not uncomfortable.

“You know,” Lucía starts, “I keep thinking about the saboteur and how what they’ve done doesn’t make any sense.”

Tucking my hands under my armpits to hide how badly they’re shaking, I do my best to focus. “What do you mean? What else was sabotaged?” Perhaps if I keep my brain active, I’ll be able to forget about my body’s growing discomfort.

“The furnaces were sabotaged. All four of them, apparently. Now the train. Why? If someone is coming to take control of the station, why destroy infrastructure?”

She has a good point. “I agree, that’s strange behavior for a corporate spy. Let’s go over what we know from the start. FrenCorp owns the mining rights to this asteroid belt. You’ve been mining for years with a steady yield. Recently, you find massive new veins, which means the value of this place will skyrocket.”

“Yes, hugely. Enough for another corporation to want to take us over despite any punishment the UGC will issue for a hostile takeover.” Lucía shrugs. “At least, that’s what Arnik said.”

A skull shattering headache swells into full bloom inside my head. Doing my best to ignore it, I focus on solving the mystery in front of us. It’s all I can do right now. “So, your current theory is that another corporation has heard about your discovery and has sent a spy to disable your defenses, allowing them easy access to the station once the time for invasion comes.”

“But we don’t have any defenses! There are maybe five pulse rifles on the entire station. Nothing else. We have no fancy defense satellites or systems, no blast gates or shields. There’s nothing here to disable. And damaging the mining infrastructure would go heavily against another corporation’s interests. So what the fuck is this person doing?

“They arrive at the station, probably hidden on that cargo hauler that brought supplies a few days ago. Seeing a completely defenseless mining site, with no real weapons or soldiers, and they just decide to fuck it up for the fun of it?”

Rubbing my pounding forehead, I desperately wish for the headache to go away even though I know it’s here to stay for however long I still have left to live. But in spite of the headache, I’m still able to make the connection Lucía missed. “They didn’t see a defenseless station, Lucía. They saw a cruiser in your dock and a whole crew of mercenaries that might be tempted to help you defend the station if offered the right reward. What I don’t understand is why they thought damaging your station would be the best way to get rid of us.”

“Because it is,” Lucía replies, suddenly picking up where my thoughts left off. “Don’t you get it? Arnik thinks you are the saboteurs. He’s about to kick you off the station. Plus, most of our people are getting suspicious. They might not be trained warriors or have any weapons, but there are over three hundred people here. If they truly believe your crew is threatening their livelihood, they will stop at nothing to make sure you’re gone. They won’t hesitate to damage you or your ship if they have to.”

My whole body is trembling from withdrawal now, a layer of sweat coating me everywhere yet, a deeply terrified chill runs down my spine. “They couldn’t possibly hope to defeat an entire Voidstalker squad manning a fucking cruiser.”

“I told that to Arnik but desperate people do desperate things. They might start a fight even if they know they can’t win. Fuck! We need to get out of here before something terrible happens to anyone up there.”

“It’s f-fine.” Damn, now I’m shaking so hard I can’t even speak properly. “Zarkan won’t let anyone get h-hurt.”

“If you say so…” Lucía frowns at me. “Are you okay? You’re shaking all over. Are Krestilians more susceptible to cold? D’Aakh?”

I manage to shake my head. “I’m f-fine.” A lie. I’m not fine. “Just…stay alive, Lucía. P-promise me you’ll stay alive.”

“What? What are you talking about? We’ll get out of here together.” She wraps her arms around my pathetically trembling body. “Dammit, you’re burning up and your heart is racing. Did you get hurt in the crash? Are you sick? Fucking talk to me, D’Aakh!”

She won’t let this go and I don’t want to lie to her anymore, not after she listened to my confession. A confession which, to my surprise, has eased a little of the guilt I seem to always carry around with me. Or perhaps, that’s just because I’m about to die and nothing matters anymore.

With a heavy heart, I admit the truth. “I’m dying.”