End of the Line

*Please note, this SHORT STORY is set in the same world as the Jit'Suku Chronicles - Arcana stories.

Enemy Captain Fedroval – Val for short – shoots down a one-man fighter out near the Galactic Rim, but the pilot, much to his surprise and horror, is a human woman named Lisbet Duncan. The alien warriors have a strict code. In their culture, making war on females is a shameful stain on one’s honor. The captain doesn’t quite know what to do with Lisbet, but he can’t let her die alone in space. He orders his men to tow her life pod into their battle ship.

Val is the last of his line – heir to a doomed legacy – because no respectable jit'suku woman will have him after the destruction of his family. He has put all his considerable resources into building his state-of-the-art battleship and joining the fight to take the human galaxy, hoping to restore his honor in some small way. This is Val’s first foray into human space and his first encounter with a human female. He finds her strangely alluring and altogether irresistible.

Lisbet is attracted to Val as well. When he puts the moves on her, she can’t resist his masculine charm, but she doesn’t like being a prisoner – even if she is being kept in a gilded cage, treated more like a guest. She doesn’t know a lot about jit’suku culture and it’s pretty clear they don’t understand much about humans. It’s going to be fun educating her captor about just how headstrong, fierce… and loving… a human woman can be.

The hangar bay had a giant force field at one end, keeping the air in. Nice. On most human battleships, the hangar bays were kept at zero atmosphere. Pilots loaded into the canopies above and were dropped down and secured to the fuselages below via a small chamber that was sealed, then evacuated of its precious air before opening to the hangar deck below.
The pilots who had caught her pod and brought her here climbed out of their cockpits and moved closer to investigate. One made the sign for her to pop her lid and she shook her head, refusing. They went on like this for a few minutes, arguing via sign language through the window until suddenly everyone on the flight deck jumped to attention.

At the far end of the long deck, Lisbet could see a giant of a man—even among the very large jit’suku warriors—coming toward her at a fast pace. He looked absolutely furious. And handsome.

Damn. Why did she have to notice how handsome he was? She should be completely immune to men after what she’d been through. But this guy—this angry guy—flipped her switches in all the right ways.

He grabbed something as he went, nearly tearing the piece of equipment out of a tech’s hands. It had to be magnetic because it clamped onto her canopy the moment he stopped and touched the device to her hull. He held something on a wire up to his mouth and suddenly his voice boomed through the internal speakers in her canopy.

“Stop playing games and come out of there now or I’ll have you cut out.”

Lisbet sighed. She would have to open the hatch sooner or later. She admitted to herself that she was scared. These jit’suku were all huge and everyone she could see so far was male. She had no idea what they had in mind for her, but she wasn’t looking forward to finding out. Still, she couldn’t hide in here forever. The time had come to take her punishment. Whatever that would be.

Releasing the hatch, the canopy popped with a hiss of equalizing air. Whirring gears indicated the hatch was rolling up and back the way it had been designed to do and as it cleared, she got her first good look at the glowering man with the captain’s insignia on his uniform.

Oh, boy. The captain himself had come down to get her. No wonder the crew had all jumped at his entrance. Lisbet wondered what she’d done to rate the captain’s attention.

Pushing herself out of the seat, she stood within the canopy. She should have been taller than anyone on the deck a foot or more below her, but she hadn’t counted on these giant jit’suku.

The captain’s eyes met hers and time stood still for a breathless moment.

His eyes were dark. The dark of space with a hint of golden brown that made them warm. They would have been inviting in another setting. As it was, she could see the flare of gold in his gaze as his expression tightened.

He held out one impatient hand and she took it before she could think better of it. He assisted her in the big step over the canopy lip and down onto the deck of the cruiser. She was truly in enemy territory now. Goddess help her.