Jaxar
Chapter 22

Jaxar:

Jaxar grabbed the impertinent male and threw him against the vehicle. The fiberglass shell flexed from the force and the shrill alarm of the vehicle's collision detection sounded. "Warning. Do not lean against the vehicle. Any damage will be charged to your user account."

He ignored the robotic voice and held the curved karambit to Havik's gut. "Do not touch Vanessa. You do not have her permission." She was his mate, not Havik's. The intensity of his outrage got the best of him. "She begged me to claim her a moment ago. She is my mate. Mine."

"Yes. I heard and I can smell. Unhand me." Havik brushed off his jacket and tugged at the cuffs. "I spotted a known associate of my quarry. I need you to follow."

"Not my mission. Not my concern," Jaxar said. He turned back to the vehicle only to have it pull away into traffic.

"I am too easily spotted." Havik pulled out three comm pods to be placed in the ear. "It is important."

Jaxar huffed. He doubted that. The male only wanted to impress Vanessa.

"It is related to the females aboard your ship. Your warlord will want you to follow," Havik said.

Vanessa gave her former mate a dubious look before accepting the comm pod. "Fine, but I don't trust you."

Neither did he.

Jaxar placed the pod in his ear. He had no reason to trust the male and the fantastic tale of betrayal and loss he spun, and he had even less reason to assist the male in following a target.

"Do not worry. We will maintain our distance and disengage if the situation appears risky," Jaxar said to Vanessa. He took her hand as if they were enjoying a casual stroll.

"If this is about who abducted those women and sold them, then it's important," Vanessa said. Jaxar warmed at her words. His mate had such a compassionate heart.

He glanced over his shoulder and his top lip curled back at the sight of the red male. Vanessa's heart could be too compassionate, in his opinion.

The pod chirped and hissed with static before Havik's voice came through. "Stop making faces at me. You need to go faster. The target will soon be out of your visual range."

"No. Dashing after your target will make us conspicuous, which is as good as having your giant red hide run them down."

"Plus, I don't run," Vanessa added. "So who are we chasing and why? Are they dangerous?"

"Are they?" Jaxar asked. Placing Vanessa in a hazardous situation was unacceptable.

"The male with the overly coiffed hair and gold caps on his horns. Yellow and green striped tunic. I recognized his face. He was apprehended last year for trafficking sentient beings, but he struck a deal to avoid imprisonment," Havik said. "Okay, that's bad, but-" Vanessa started to say.

"You vanished from Earth," Havik said.

"I really didn't."

"There were no records of you leaving, at least under your name and identifier. Other females have similarly disappeared. The Earth authorities recruited me to discover who was taking their citizens and why. My sources led me here," Havik said.

"You thought I had been taken by traffickers?"

Jaxar rubbed a hand on her back to soothe her.

"How else would you explain your disappearance?" Havik replied.

"Fine. I did want to vanish." She fell silent. Jaxar knew the story about the government contractor who pressured her into volunteering again and how that made her feel threatened.

"How many females have disappeared from Earth?" Jaxar asked.

"Enough to warrant investigation," Havik replied, which was no answer at all.

"Not enough for the general public to notice but enough to form a pattern," Jaxar mused. "They will be vulnerable, perhaps without family or close friends. They will not have children of their own, because their absence would be noted immediately."

"Oh shit. If they're not mandated to report for testing, they could go years before anyone noticed they were gone," Vanessa said, echoing his own thoughts. "Who would do that?"

Indeed. Since discovering the smuggled females in the stasis chambers, the warlord had been asking the same thing. The buying and selling of sentient beings was illegal in every planet holding an alliance with the Mahdfel. Jaxar's people had been created to be slaves. They would not tolerate such atrocities and actively disrupted such trade when they discovered it.

For such an outrage to happen on a planet under Mahdfel protection went well beyond an outrage.

It was an open declaration of war.

Vanessa:

A short walk led them back to the spaceport. The area hummed with activity. Shuttles left in a steady stream to the orbiting station. Vehicles made deliveries to warehouses. Small cargo vessels skimmed above the buildings, on their way to planetside destinations. Workers on breaks lounged outside, enjoying the late afternoon sun, and others loitered in taverns. Automated bots rolled by, laden with packages.

Nothing stood still and nothing closed, as ships laden with cargo and passengers arrived at all hours.

Van loved the energy of the docks, even though the smell left something to be desired. Exhaust choked the air, barely covering the unmistakable stench of rotting produce and spoiled food.

She pulled away from Jaxar, noticing that people did not take a lackadaisical stroll through the spaceport. They walked with purpose. They had business to take care of, to work a shift, catch a flight, or have a drink.

Jaxar paused at a drink vendor where Van ordered the largest iced concoction she could. The heat had been pleasant at first, but the humidity made her shirt cling to her and she felt sticky everywhere. They took their time perusing a flower stall. A bouquet with tiny little red buds on a stalk, shaped like lavender, enchanted her.

As their quarry led them deeper into the neighborhood, the respectability of the storefronts faded as the buildings grew shabbier. The lane became narrower and the sun dipped behind the buildings, casting everything in gloom. The guy they followed finally went into an old warehouse that looked ready to fall over. She and Jaxar continued to walk past and circled around to rejoin Havik in an abandoned building that overlooked the back of the warehouse. Water damage warped the floor and the interior smelled musty, like a fungal infection waiting to happen, but the building was otherwise clean. No refuse, signs of drug paraphernalia, or rodents. That didn't seem right. He watched the building through a pair of specialty lenses. "Activity inside is minimal."

"Is this location secure?" Jaxar asked.

"Yes."

"Because I have only one small blade. That is not enough to protect my mate."

Havik made a grumbly-annoyed noise, then pulled out a pistol from his jacket pocket. "Use this if you must bolster your sense of inadequacy." Growl, growl. Snarl, snarl.

Boys.

The unmistakable click and hum of an energy blaster readying to fire brought their posturing to an end.