Craving Maul (Star Joined Book 1) Read online

  It’s no secret that even though Earth is technically a protected planet, we’re struggling with illegal poachers. Ever since we made first contact, men, women, and children have been disappearing by the droves.

  A multi-national bureau was formed in response to the growing threat, the International Human Protection Bureau, or just ‘the Bureau’ for short. But given our lack of advanced technology, and our inability to retrieve those that are taken off-planet, we’ve been mostly ineffective.

  Unable to do more than record those who have disappeared.

  That is until Yarrel started spilling the beans. Exchanging info in return for not being handed over to the Tribunal. Through him, we’ve learned about serenity and the illegal slave rings the alien poachers control.

  My superiors contacted the Tribunal, sharing the information we received while claiming it came from an anonymous source. But without any physical evidence, the Tribunal has so far been unwilling to act on our behalf.

  They’ll only act if and when we present irrefutable proof.

  Jack’s fingers in my hair tug, pulling my head down.

  I will provide the irrefutable proof.

  With Yarrel’s help, I’ll infiltrate one of the many illegal slave markets, and everything I want the Bureau to see and hear will be transmitted back to Jack through the telepathic connection of our transmitters.

  Jack pushes my head down until I’m at eye level with his groin. Now that he’s no longer holding me with his eyes, I run as hard and as fast as I can deep inside myself. But my fog has thinned into a wispy mist. There’s not enough to block everything out. It’s like looking through a frosted window. I can still see and hear.

  And feel.

  Jack takes a deep, shuddering breath and then the hand holding the back of my head guides me forward.

  “Suck me off,” Jack rasps.

  “Oh, fuck!” Yarrel cries out in disgust.

  My nose bumps into the crotch of Jack’s pants and I reach out to brace myself. I want to hesitate. I want to stall and give him a chance to change his mind. But even a split second will give him all the ammo he needs to call the mission off.

  My hands move, sliding up.

  Finding the button of his pants, I begin to open them.

  My movements are steady, almost robotic.

  I feel nothing.

  This is nothing.

  I gather what little fog I have left and wrap it around myself.

  Jack has always been like a brother to me. A friend I could always count on. We’ve been through so much together.

  So much.

  Jack’s breathing quickens as I pull his zipper down.

  When I first learned he was in love with me, I tried to reciprocate his feelings. I tried to make myself feel more… but I just can’t. There’s literally a lifetime of platonic feelings to overcome.

  Maybe now he’ll stop me, I hope as I pull his pants down.

  I know he doesn’t really want to do this. He’s not excited at all. He’s just trying to psyche me out.

  His pants pool at his feet.

  I reach up.

  This is nothing. This is nothing, I repeat as I pull down his boxers.

  He’s soft, his flesh limp against the dark nest of hair covering his groin.

  This is only a means to an end. When it’s all over, I’ll find a way to forget.

  I reach for him and he shoves me away, cursing out, “Fucking hell!”

  I tumble backwards and then Yarrel is there, catching me. “It’s okay, Lexi, it’s okay,” he murmurs, and I feel a sharp prick in the side of my neck.

  My chest swells. My veins flood with warmth and my eyes cloud over.

  Bliss washes over me. Warm, bubbling bliss.

  Angry voices float above my head. Bursting into golden, glittering sparkles.

  “Are you happy now?” Yarrel snarls. “Did she pass your fucking test?”

  The waves lap at my toes, pulling me closer.

  “Yes,” Jack answers angrily. “She passed with flying colors.”

  I’m sinking.

  Sinking.

  “Good,” Yarrel mutters. “Then the mission is a go?”

  “Yes, it’s a go,” Jack reluctantly confirms.

  I won, I realize just before I slip under.

  He tried to psych me out but I psyched him out.

  Chapter Two

  Maul

  “Maul, are you sure you want to anger your father like that?” Marketh’s voice annoyingly floats through my mind.

  “I care very little how angry he is. He holds no power over me, Marketh.”

  “You say that, but I’m the one monitoring your body’s vital signs.”

  Shaking my head, I continue down the dim corridor. He’s right that my vitals have risen. I may be able to control my outer emotional appearance, but my anger on the inside is not so easily hidden.

  Not from Marketh.

  The moment he was implanted on my brain, the symbiote has been a part of my life. From the start of my training, the rise through the common ranks, and now as a head investigator of the Tribunal.

  “I could have you removed you know,” I growl quietly.

  “There is a one in three hundred and forty-one chance it would lobotomize you. If you were stupid enough to take that risk, I would have never chosen to be placed in you.”

  “You didn’t choose that, Marketh. You were assigned to me just like I was with you.”

  A gravelly laughter fills my head. “That’s what you think. While you are on the narrow path of righteousness, I myself wasn’t the least bit afraid to intercede on my own destiny.”

  Marketh could be joking, then again I know him. He might play innocent to the Tribunal when he is scanned, but I can read him like he does me.

  “Now that you’re blocking me out, would you mind telling me what you have planned?” he asks as we come to a row of elevators.

  “I need to finish packing then we need to make sure our cover is solid. Have you connected to the Central Net yet for any updates?”

  “I will as soon as we get out of this building. They had no forethought when it came to connecting to anything that wasn’t hardwired.”

  The Citadel is the largest structure and perhaps grandest on Rathturia. It is the showcase of our ascent to the Tribunal. We, the Rathturia, are a proud race, as we should be. We sit in the highest chair of the Tribunal.

  But as Marketh has so succinctly put it, the ability to transmit data through the thick walls is less than optimal.

  The elevator opens silently as I watch one of the two occupants get out and head in the opposite direction of my father’s office. The woman remaining in the elevator is one of the guards.

  Nodding my head, I step into the enclosed box.

  “What level, sir?”

  “The hangar.”

  I shift to the back of the elevator as I feel the almost weightlessness sensation of us traveling down three hundred floors. The hangar isn’t on the lowest floor, but with how wide and long the building is, it’s placed on a floor where there is enough space to house the vast amount of vehicles of those who work or live here.

  The falling sensation ends as suddenly as it began. The doors open and I step out into the controlled chaos. Walking up to one of the parking attendants, I give him my space number and climb into an open-air shuttle car. We speed out to the outer confines of the hangar, reaching my slate gray bullet.

  All around me are the large and small personal craft used by my race, though the large sized ones are in far more use than the small ones like my own. My two-person bullet is shaped to almost the same dimensions of a spear tip. The front view station slides up, away from the cockpit.

  Climbing up into the front seat, I pull the straps of my harness over my chest.

  “Marketh, get us out of this congestion.”

  “Doing so. Maul, you still haven’t shared with me what you’ve been planning since we went to see your father.”

  “The plan is sti
ll the same. We fly out to the Archlean System and use our cover to buy our way into the private auction. Once there, we gather the evidence we need. Then we come back to the Tribunal with said evidence in hand. Then we go on to the next case.”

  “You sound so sure of yourself, Maul, I almost believe you. Your heart rate is telling me that’s not all.”

  “Marketh… I’m warning you. Do not pull this shit on me.”

  We enter a short silence as we slowly gain traction in the long line of vehicles exiting the hangar. Even with all the modern advancements my society has made, traffic jams still plague our existence.

  “One in three hundred and forty,” my symbiote says after we shoot up into the crystal clear pink sky.

  “You said forty-one earlier. Are you forgetting your own load of bullshit, bud?”

  “I’ve connected to Central Net. It seems someone was in the middle of trying the procedure...”

  Shaking my head, I say, “Let’s go home.”

  I use to reside in the barracks at the Red Masks’ headquarters. That ended the day I gained the first black stripe on my Mask. It would be, as I was told, unheard of to live such a spartan lifestyle now that I had risen from the rank and file. Buying my home brought me little pleasure, though. It now meant I had to travel to work instead of simply opening my door and walking to my office.

  Pulling the hardened metal away from my face, I turn it towards me. The blood red color of the metal is stricken with four black stripes. Each one was a badge of honor and a rise through the ranks. Being on the last tier of officers, I’m finally in a position to choose my path, to do the things I most want. To work directly for the Tribunal.

  To be their arm of order.

  One more damnable stripe, though, and I’ll lose it all. I’ll reach past the top of my castes’ rung. I will be of the ruling class, a bloody fucking royal.

  Sliding the mask back into position on my face, I fasten the retainers. Looking out the window, I see my silver skin reflected back at me. Only my eyes show on my face, my nose and mouth are covered completely by the blood red mask.

  I reach up and rub my eyes. My day only seems to lengthen as I look out across the city. The sun is slowly rising from the east but I’m certain I will be working long past the close of the business day.

  “Marketh, what’s the ETA on the information requested for the cover identity?”

  “I have two ready for you, Maul.”

  “Two? Why in the stars do I need two?”

  “One is from the Commission, the other I have… designed.”

  The Commission is our branch of the Tribunal. While the Tribunal is the overhead figure, there are different branches of the castes. The Red Masks are the intelligence and military branch. Above us are the Royal Politicians and beside us are the Merchants. Down below us are the lower castes, the laborers and such.

  “What do you mean ‘designed’?”

  “The Commission has one built for you. Would it pass a standard check through our systems? No. Through another branch of the Tribunal? Probably.”

  I roll my eyes and just know the little symbiotic bastard is waiting for me to ask him, “And your cover?”

  “Unless someone has met you before, you would be a completely new person. I even have the identification chip ready to be changed to your new identity…”

  “That’s illegal, Marketh,” I loudly hiss out as my claws pop out of my hands. Taking deep breaths, I force them to retract.

  “Technically it’s not, Maul. As per article four, subsection fifteen point sixteen, paragraph twenty-five states that during an undercover investigation, if an officer feels that there is a clear and mortal danger to his person, they may change the identity of oneself in order to save himself and his current investigation.”

  “I’m willing to bet that there’s a large amount of words you didn’t just include, Mar.”

  “That may be true, but in essence, and more importantly our safety, what I’ve said will keep us in the clear.”

  “Why do you think we need that deep of a cover?”

  “For the same reason I think your father could be right on not needing to kick the whole nest of rabid howlers. I like my continued existence. If you die, it’s quite possible I will not be able to be implanted into another person.”

  Fucking self-aware symbiotes. “That’s not explaining the deep cover…”

  “Look at it like this, Maul, if we go in with the very thin cover they’ve currently provided you, who’s to say it isn’t accidentally too thin… Or even accidentally leaked?”

  I nod my head and say, “And the cover you have for us will get us off-planet? Get us past the Tribunal’s galactic defense systems?”

  “Yes, and I’ll tag your commission-based cover on some other traveling Rathturian. He goes out towards the eastern annex, while we head west.”

  “Marketh, mind popping out of my head? Do this the easy way.”

  “Easy for you,” Marketh says as a small floating orb of ever-moving silver liquid detaches from the personal computer attached to my wrist. The voice has the same sound as in my head, but this way I don’t feel like I’m arguing with myself.

  The orb circles around my head before settling itself two feet in front of me.

  Conversations with symbiotes are a complicated mess of very theoretical science that even I don’t fully understand. The gist of it is that we can block each other off or be a completely open book.

  Most are like Marketh and I. We are blocked to certain degree so that we can have some semblance of privacy.

  While he can stay in my head with me, I normally speak out loud instead. Internally feels very different than out loud. For some reason, our brains are wired in a way that internal communication is much more personal and open. From what I can understand, it allows our more hidden feelings to be exposed. It’s also a bit harder to keep secrets.

  That’s the Rathturian race though. Marketh is an S.I., aka Symbiotic Intelligence. He has his own secrets and desires, I guess.

  When we say S.I., it isn’t in the computer sense. They’re not computers, they’re organic intelligence that lack a body to house themselves in. S.I.s are a symbiotic race of beings we encountered several thousand years ago. At first, we hunted them for the abilities they gave if we ingested them.

  Then some intelligent guy decided to see what would happen if they were to touch our brains.

  That was when we first discovered these little bastards were sentient. We went from hunting the little jellyfish-like creatures to shoving them inside ourselves. We gave them a place to live and the ability to travel past their star, and in return they gave us powers beyond anything we had ever known.

  These little gel buggers are inserted into a hole that has been drilled into the base of our skull. It slithers in and then it enmeshes itself to our very brains.

  I watched a video about what was about to happen when I first entered the Academy. It turned my stomach pretty quick. It didn’t look natural or even remotely like something I wanted. That didn’t matter though, it was part of the process, and like in life, we all do things we don’t want to so that we can be what we want.

  S.I.s gave us the powers that allowed us to take our position at the top of the Tribunal. The Crima may think they are close to being our equals, but they aren’t. Being the second tier only means they are the first of those who are not first tier.

  “While we travel, Maul, I believe we should continue with your exercises. You have put them off long enough. Just because you are investigating…”

  “Leave it alone for now, Mar.”

  The silver orb vibrates for a moment before I hear a flat tone say, “As you wish, Investigator Asshat.”

  Growling at the orb, I raise my left hand. Concentrating with my mind, I push hard at the little orb. Watching it shoot away from me and slam into the front window gives me a tiny bit of pleasure.

  Marketh’s silvery orb comes shooting back at me and attempts to slam into my eye.
>
  Only the force of my will stops the little ball from blinding me.

  “Well done, Investigator Maul,” Marketh says happily.

  “Remember, if you take my eye out, it’s you who will be punished with me.”

  “I do, Maul, but if you would practice more I wouldn’t have to push you.”

  He has me there. I’ve been slow to learn the full functions of the powers Marketh has given me. His race are incredible beings, really. They formed their own way of fighting long before we gave them large bodies to use. Anything from telekinesis, to ESP, to body altering. They can even affect small areas with different atmospheres. Such as making it rain inside of a room.

  The more difficult powers such as ESP and atmosphere changing, however, are very rare. The S.I.s who can do that will rarely, if ever, bond to someone. The telekinesis that Marketh possesses is also rare but not quite as rare. Most S.I.s possess powers that give their hosts the ability to alter their own body in a way that’s beneficial, like increasing one’s metabolism or hardening one’s skin.

  The gray bullet slows quickly as it shuttles to a landing port outside my home. I live further from the city than most. It allows me to continue the lifestyle I need.

  Climbing out of the transport, I head into my house. The decoration here is kept to a bare minimum. The dining room is a single table big enough for two chairs. The bedroom is a bed large enough for two, maybe. No pictures hang from my walls; no carpets warm my floors. Here the walls are a slate gray and the windows stay closed.

  Marketh floats before me as he says, “When should I tell your mother to expect you? She has called three times in the last day to speak with you. I don’t feel like blowing her off anymore, Maul.”

  “Then don’t answer the call.”

  “You can’t hide from her forever, she wants to see you.”

  “Why? So she can sob over the misfortune of having a son who is unmated? So she can tell me how, if I just tried harder on finding my bondmate, that I would be so much happier?”