Page 9 of Fated to the Dragon Alien
“That’s something I wanted to ask you,” he said. “Where exactly are you from, Cerani? Not the number on your intake record. The real place.”
Cerani watched him for a long second. He hadn’t used her designation. Just her name, like it meant something. Like she had a say in what happened next. But her fist stayed clenched. “I’m from settlement 112-1,” she said. “It’s supposed to be a farming world.” She paused. “Now I know it’s a prison.”
Stavian didn’t look surprised. “And before that?”
“There was nothing before that,” she replied. “I received my neck designation symbols as a newborn, like everyone else born at the settlements. I’d never been off the settlements until the day my friends and I were taken.”
He stepped closer to the console, like he was thinking again. “There were more of you?”
“Yes. Six of us,” she said, then shook her head. “No. Five. The overseer was able to talk the raiders into leaving Turi. But the Axis had given them permission to take us. As payment for something. They even had a contract.” She muttered the last part through her teeth.
“And where were you taken after you were abducted?” he asked.
She stared at him for a moment, confused. “Isn’t all this in my records?”
“If it were, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“Fine. We were taken to an auction of some sort.” She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around herself as memories struck fresh. “They said I didn’t…present well.” She remembered curling into a ball in that tube she was shoved into—basically naked—and burying her face in her arms. “So I was sold to you for mining.” Her eyes were hot when she looked up at him again.
His brows rose. “I didn’t purchase you. The Axis did. Or rather, they reacquired you, since you had always been in Axis custody.” A twist of his lips. Something rueful passed over his face.
It was interesting to see a flicker of…what? Regret? No, certainly not that. Cerani rubbed her upper arms and stared at him. “Either way. Here I am.”
“The records don’t state what species you are,” he said, tapping fingers on the surface of his console. “I’ve cross-matched your genetic scan. Nothing. Not even a partial tag. That’s not common.”
“I’m Terian,” she replied with a shrug. “That’s not a secret. At the auction, they called us by our species name and everyone seemed to know what we were.”
He looked at her. That same unreadable stare, sharp and too quiet.
“I want the truth,” he said. “Because either you’re someone very rare or you’re not supposed to exist at all.”
“I don’t know what you want me to tell you,” she said, getting annoyed. Had he just called her in here to question her history? It wasn’t her fault if records were lost. “If Terians aren’t in your system, maybe you need to run an update. There aren’t massive numbers of us, but we do exist.”
Cerani dropped her arms and dropped into the seat by the console. The metal was cold through her suit. She didn’t care. She was hungry. Her legs were shaking, and if this interrogation was going to run long, she might as well stop pretending she wasn’t exhausted.
He didn’t tell her to sit, but when she did, he watched. Not in a harsh way, just…watching. Like he was waiting to see what she’d do next. He didn’t speak. Just moved to lean against the console across from her, ankles crossed, arms relaxed at his sides. His wings stretched briefly, then settled on his back again.
Cerani studied him, her eyes narrowing. He didn’t look like someone who sent workers into deadly tunnels. Or ignored failing equipment. He didn’t move like a warden, or talk like one either. But that was exactly what he was. No matter how quiet he stood, how clean his uniform stayed, dying bodies piled up under his orders.
“Why do you think it isn’t affecting you?” he asked. “The radiation. The mining conditions. The exposure rate for your sector is lethal.”
“If I knew, I’d have said already,” she said. “I breathe the same air, use the same equipment. I don’t get it, either.”
“No pain? No fatigue? No cellular decay?”
“I’m tired,” she said. “But who wouldn’t be? I’ve missed meal rotation, and I’ve worked extended shifts for the past four cycles.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Well, it’s what I meant,” Cerani snapped. She leaned forward and locked her elbows on her knees. “You want to stand here and talk about how strange it is that my lungs aren’t collapsing, but you didn’t seem this concerned when Jorr was dragging himself out of the shaft, choking, two shifts ago.”
“I saw that.”
“Great. You saw it,” she said. “Did you do anything about it?”
“I pulled him from rotation this cycle.”
“That’s one,” she said, glaring. “What about Elba? She has lesions on her throat. What about Toval? He can’t pick up his tool kit without taking a stim tab before a shift. It doesn’t take a data stream to see they’re dying.”
