Caged Bride: A Dark SciFi Romance

Chapter 1

Wick

The infinite darkness of space unrolls before me as the Lance breaks free from a cosmic cloud and powers into the outer edges of the Badlands. She’s a good ship, a battle worthy ship. She deserves better than what she’s getting, and so do I.

My guys at the console are fighting with each other, making the ship rock back and forth as they laugh and throw things. They are all drunk and I can smell something smoking in here—maybe dream crystal. There’s also a deeper, harsher sent which suggests some kind of herbal hash. 

Fystion, the current pilot, lets go of the control sticks to hurl a bottle of beer at Grenan’s head. It connects and explodes in a spectacular array of glass slivers and amber drops. Even though Grenan goes down and hits the floor like a stone, Fystion just laughs. He laughs so hard he falls of his fucking chair and Lilt and Tenar—who are supposed to be navigating—laugh as well. 

The Lance shudders and bucks and I get up, shoving the dickless wonders out of my way. I smack a few controls and level her out, snapping an elbow into Fystion’s face as I turn to head back to my chair. 

I sit down heavily, looking out the wide windows that frame my small control deck. The edges are graced with soft, phosphorescent green clouds, while ahead of us only darkness waits.

The idiots around me keep laughing and drinking. Grenan wakes up on the floor and lets out a harsh giggle when he finds himself there. He touches the blood on the back of his head and laughs even harder.

Reapers have incredibly strong bodies. This dick must have spent days wasting himself on dream crystal and hash to get this hammered. I have to say, I’m just slightly disgusted. I’m all for getting wasted, but for fuck’s sake! He’s plastered to the fucking floor and can’t coordinate his own limbs to get up.

I smack my knuckles lightly on the edge of my chair, thinking. I’m in a situation and it’s going to get very bad in here soon if I can’t figure it out.

The Lance is a small ship. I’ve been at her helm for about twenty years. I’ve held it against multiple challengers, and I won it just as I came to maturity. It was a near thing. I lost a bone spur from my right elbow and I’ve still got a scar where the old Captain, Juckus, almost took off my leg. 

I went up against him on a dare. Turns out, the ‘friend’ who dared me was hoping to become captain instead and was setting me up for a fall.

I tied that asshole across the front windows and then proceeded to travel through the Badlands at a casual pace, watching him slowly die from exposure. He was a tough prick. It took a long time.

But, like most reaper captains, I only have support while my brothers are happy. Going by the state of my command deck, they are still pretty happy. They won’t stay that way, though. Not with supplies being depleted and not replenished.

Now my fist comes down hard on the edge of my chair. I wish there were something to attack, to destroy. My fury at this situation is almost impossible to contain.

I have hung around in the Emerald Forest Nebula for at least two weeks. Back in the good old days, I would have snared a cruise ship in here within a few hours. The Emerald Forest is one of those formations the Combine folk pay good money to see and there was almost a constant run of tourists. 

Until Llyron. Until Mahresh.

“I. Will. Fucking. Kill. You.” I whisper. All my muscles tense as my rage rides me. 

We had it good, all of us. The Badlands is vast and scuffles between us were fairly rare, especially after Mahri forbidding everyone to kill each other. Yeah, I remember her, but just barely. I can’t remember how old I am, but I was at one of her meetings. They sing tales of her beauty, but she looked like a big gold stick figure to me. You can’t fuck something like that without breaking it.

No wonder reaper babies break their mothers, if they look like that.

Unable to hold in my agitation, I get up and pace. Any minute now, the reapers on my ship will go looking for food. They’ll go looking for booze and drugs. As soon as they realize supplies are limited, they’ll start to fight. When it gets desperate, they’ll come for me.

We need to hit something, badly. We have hardly ever docked, and I won’t risk going to a space port. My tactics served us just fine until Llyron and Mahresh brought their ridiculous war into our perfect lives. Now the rich ships won’t come through here, there is extra security everywhere and all the human ships are being modified to fit the new order of things.

“Get the fuck up!” I kick Grenan as I pass him, but he just giggles. Even though I’m pissed off and looking for a target, I decide to leave him. If he passes out it’s one less reaper to come after me when it finally all hits the fan. 

Even with a drunken, drugged out crew, we’ve managed to move away from the nebula and further out towards the edges of the Badlands. I can feel anxiety twisting my guts, just because if there is Combine military around here, they could blow us out of the sky before we could even detect them.

If I’m going down, I’m taking at least some of those fuckers with me!

It’s probably my worst fear. That I’ll get killed suddenly without even a chance to take down the other guy. If I have to die, I want to see the life draining out of my opponent while I’m on my way down. 

“Hey!” Fystion cries. “I see something.” He leans over and peers at his instruments. 

“What?” Lilt replies. He’s kicked back his chair and lit up a massive cigar. The bay fills with white smoke and I take a deep breath. Herbal hash. Not bad stuff. Takes a lot of it to mess up a reaper, though. It only gives me a slight buzz, but I enjoy it while it lasts.

“I don’t know.” Fystion says, answering Lilt’s question. “Little sheepies. Sheepies all in a line.”

“Fystion.” I growl so deeply that the room seems to shudder. “What the fuck are you going on about?”

He turns around to me and I see how swollen his eyes are. That’s not just herbal hash. Its dream crystal and he’s high as a fucking space phoenix en route to the sun right now.

“Sheepies boss!” He points excitedly at his screen. “A little herd of innocent white lambs, all following each other, without a shepherd or dog to guard them.”

I leap out of my seat in one sharp motion and sweep Fystion aside, making him fall heavily on the floor. He starts to laugh, and I ignore him as I look through his nav systems.

“Ships.” The word sighs out of me, pleasure tingling through me. “We’re saved!” 

It’s a small line of cruisers, all sticking together on their way back towards secure space. They aren’t in the Badlands, but they are close. 

Lucky. 

“Can anyone up here actually pilot?” I mutter.

Lilt salutes me with his cigar. “I’m ready when you are, boss.”

I sit down in Fystion’s chair and take the controls. Lilt gives me a nod, grinning through lines of wrinkles. Together we take control of the Lance and get into position behind the line of ships.

The one at the end is just a little bit slower than the others. What a pity for them.

“Run if you want, sweet sheepies.” I lick my lips, thinking about the feast of pleasures that wait within those white walls. “There’s no shepherd out here and the big, bad wolf is coming to tear out your throat.”