Page 1 of Healer Hunted

Chapter 1

Luka

There was a pool of dread in my stomach, writhing anxiously whenever I realized just what a dangerous stunt we were pulling today. Raiding this smuggler’s hideout? Smack in the middle of the Jihari system? I knew how many risks were attached to that for me, but with innocent animal lives on the line? I wasn’t going to tell Fierce we couldn’t do this.

I’d identified the location with Thorin, on a moon orbiting Jihari. Right next to an Aderian outpost on the planet. A planet I was only too familiar with. Except for a small scientific outpost, it was run, owned, entirely by my family.

Being this close to them was a risk, but I trusted Kitan’s piloting skills, and our ability to pull this off in a stealthy manner. My mother was the type that always seemed to know everything that was going on but I couldn’t imagine that she’d know about this kind of smuggling post. She was still Aderian, a rather unscrupulous, greed-driven one, but our kind didn’t tend towards the sociopathic, she wouldn’t know about animal suffering of this magnitude. Wouldn’t condone it. At least, I was firmly trying to convince myself of that, but a part of me had this niggling feeling of doubt. What if she did know? What if she was part of it?

While Camila was helping Hina with her spacesuit, making sure all the seals were good and her buckles tight, I tried to center myself, and do a quick meditation. Regardless of whether or not I feared my mother’s involvement in this, I needed to bring my A-game. There were going to be a lot of strong emotions, and sadly a lot of animals in pain, if my mental shields weren’t at their strongest, this was going to be rough.

I was so focused on my shields, and on being ready for when I needed to jump into action, that I barely paid attention to what my friends were up to as we boarded the old abandoned mining facility. It was derelict, with orange emergency lighting flashing eerily across the walls. It was uncomfortable to my sensitive eyes so I made myself focus on following after Snarl, the big Ferai beast that had bonded with Fierce.

As we stepped into a large chamber I spotted the many stacks of crates and cages that filled the space. They were all empty as far as I could see, I even heard my friends say so while they headed for the room beyond this place. Just to be sure, I pulled my handheld device from my belt and scanned the area. Something was tickling at my brain, something that almost felt like… There!

My scanner picked up a small life-form in the corner, beneath a stack of crates. It wasn’t in the best of shape, so getting to it was extremely urgent. I barely paid attention as my friends continued talking. I started pulling empty crates from the stacks, making my way to that little blip of life I’d spotted.

The closer I got, the better I sensed it. Fear, pain… I felt sorry for it, no one should have to go through something like this, not my gladiator friends, nor any animal. It kept astounding me, just how evil people could be.

I spotted a tuft of white fur and slowed my movements, trying to be quiet as I shifted crates so I wouldn’t spook the poor creature further. “Hey there, little one,” I said in a soothing tone, “It’s okay, I’m here to help you.” I shifted the last crate to reveal something that looked almost humanoid, with two arms and legs, there was a slender prehensile tail, and a little face with large frightened eyes.

“There you are,” I said softly, going down on my haunches to carefully scan it with my handheld. This was a type of primate, intelligent, and its genes had been edited in some manner. What was shocking was that this primate was definitely from Earth, my scanner indicated it was something called a pinche monkey. Or at least, it most closely resembled that species before it had been gene-edited, what it was now… That would be entirely unpredictable.

The little monkey stared at me with its dark eyes from beneath the impressive mane of white fur. Its face and shoulders were black, but its arms and belly were white again. It wasn’t quite so scared now, so I held out a hand to it, kicking my aura into gear, sending soothing, inviting vibes. It worked, the little guy crawled from its hiding spot, took my hand with two chilled little hands, and everything about him told me he wanted to trust me.

Tucking my scanner away, I gently picked him up and curled him against my chest. He came trustingly, but his body was weak. Holding him with one hand, I scanned him again, relieved to note that he was not as dehydrated as I’d expected, this one was not in a cage, he’d managed to scavenge some fluids from somewhere. “Here, I’m going to give you something that will perk you right up,” I told the little guy.

Pulling free a high-calorie tube of sticky sugary fluid, I tore open the tip with my teeth and offered it to him. He snatched it from my fingers, suckling from the open container in greedy gulps. “Good boy, take what you need,” I soothed. It would need better care aboard the Vagabond, but this would tide him over until he could get more food and drink. This would replenish most of what he had lost.

“Let’s go find the others, shall we?” I asked my little find. He blinked his dark eyes at me and continued to greedily suck on his snack. There was a shuffling noise behind me, the sound of a crate sliding across the floor. I turned, expecting to see one of my friends approaching, instead, I was greeted by two men in unfamiliar spacesuits. Their black face plates hid their faces from me so I couldn’t tell what species they were.

I stood up, turning to fully face them, “Woah, who are you?” Their auras were filled with nothing good, aggression, anger. I dropped my handheld scanner and grabbed the laser pistol Camila had had me strap to my hip that morning. “Stay away, I’m armed.”

There was no reply, the two just suddenly leaped for me with outstretched arms. I tried to get the pistol up, to fire at them but I was too slow. We slammed into the stack of crates with a clatter, one I fervently hoped my friends had heard. I tried to curl my body around the little pinche monkey to protect him and ended up knocking into more empty cages.

A sharp pinch hit me in the back, on the left side, and then everything went black.

*

Noa

Oh, great. Dumb and Dumber were back. I cringed as I saw the two Aderian males walk down the subbasement corridor. They still had spacesuits on and clearly came from the direction of the private vehicle bay of the resort. I ducked out of sight into the laundry room as they passed me, hoping they wouldn’t pay me any attention, that they wouldn’t notice me.

Aderians were freaky though, it was really hard to hide from their senses. At first, I thought it was because they just had a good sense of hearing, or a great sense of smell, but I’d discovered that wasn’t true. It was a relief to know that not every damn alien in this quadrant was better than me, but that still didn’t explain how they always knew how to find me.

Pass me by, I’m not here! You can’t see me! I chanted in my head as the two huge, muscled men thudded through the bare hallway in their clunky space boots. One of them had long hair in a braid dangling over a shoulder, with a chiseled jaw, and a large scar over one eye. I called that one Dumb because he was the brightest of the two, he’d also never introduced himself so I had no way to know his real name.

Dumb didn’t look at the door opening to the laundry room, he just stalked past it with a purposeful stride and a baleful look on his face. He was rather ugly, despite the fantastic jawline, and tended to use his looks purely as an intimidation tool.

Dumber however… He paused, his pointed ears twitching at the sides of his shaved head, his eerie black eyes darting from left to right. He turned on his heels, facing towards me, and his far too attractive face broke out in a huge grin. “Hey wait up bro, look what’s hiding between the laundry!” he pointed a finger right at me.

My stomach turned to ice, and my hands went clammy with fear. I was trapped and alone down here with these two, and no one at this damn resort would give a single fuck about what these two would do to me. As long as I showed up and did my job afterward. “Leave me alone asshole!” I managed to say, interjecting all of the anger I felt into my voice and none of the fear.

Dumber cackled a sound that was anything but beautiful. It grated down my spine, telling me of the pain in store for me. I could already feel his touch, like a thousand fingers crawling all over my skin. I didn’t know how he could always make me feel like that, that icky, that scared. I didn’t even need to be alone and cornered to get this sensation. Even if I stood in the crowded lobby, Dumber just had to look at me to make my skin crawl.

He didn’t approach yet, just stared at me with a malicious snarl on his beautiful face. Seriously, if not for the eerie black eyes and the disgusting personality… He was catwalk handsome, all pretty boy, and crazy sexy muscles outlined in his snug spacesuit. With anthracite-colored skin that in this glaring white light still managed to glitter and glimmer like he was brushed with silver.

I backed up a little more, my back bumping into the hovercart already stacked with clean sheets and hotel room supplies. I slipped my hands behind my back while I tried to frantically locate something heavy or sharp in the tray of bits and bobs, the things I used to fix up minor issues.