Mrax Read online

  Mrax

  The Galaxos Crew: Book Five

  Layla Nash

  Juno Wells

  Copyright © 2019 by Layla Nash

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  50. Sneak Peek

  Also by Layla Nash

  Chapter 1

  Rowan

  Rowan frowned at the tangle of wires, transformers, and various bits and bobs that made up the propulsion system on the Galaxos. They’d been docked at a rebel base for what felt like forever—really only a few weeks—waiting for information on whether another ship would be prosecuted for piracy and treason against the rebellion. Which normally she would have been fine with, since it gave her plenty of time to improve the Galaxos’s antiquated technology.

  But after seeing the different ships arrive and depart from the base, she grew more antsy about just finding a new ship. She liked fixing things and improving them, but at a certain point they just needed to upgrade the whole ship. If she couldn’t get the propulsion system to give them more juice, the Galaxos wouldn’t be able to outrun the Alliance Fleet ships that were literally light-years ahead of them in design and technology.

  She ignored the Xaravian warrior pacing around the engineering bay floor while she clambered higher to examine the centrifuge attached to the propulsion system. She’d seen images of that kind of system in some of one of the old engineering textbooks at the Fleet library, but never in real life until she boarded the Xaravian ship. Rowan frowned at some of the frayed connections and a quantum bridge that didn’t look right.

  Adhz, the communications officer and the Xaravian who’d drawn the short straw to keep an eye on her as she worked, folded his arms over his chest and craned his neck to watch her. “Do you really have to be all the way up there? Kolzz should be back and can—”

  “Can’t fix it from down there,” Rowan said. The last time she’d been jolted a bit by the internal workings of the Galaxos, Isla freaked out and convinced her mate or husband or whatever, the captain, to leave a babysitter with Rowan whenever she was working. Which wasn’t a problem when the Xaravian sat back and took a nap. But Adhz took his job seriously and was more nervous than a mother duck when a crocodile surfaced.

  Rowan peered down at him. “You can go get lunch, you know. I’ll be fine.”

  “I’m not going to leave,” he muttered. “You Earthers are crazy. Whatever you’re going to do up there, you should wait for Frrar. He’s familiar with how the engines work, and—”

  Rowan adjusted the ropes on her harness and pushed off the side of the main stack of the propulsion system to swing around to an adjacent structure where some of the bridges terminated. Imagine having to use a harness system to work on something as high tech as the propulsion system. In the Fleet they had hover packs and floating lifts and all kinds of things that enabled easy maintenance and upgrades. The Xaravian ship was downright barbaric.

  She scratched her nose and ignored the Xaravian’s mumbled curses about dealing with crazy females, and instead removed a few panels from the setup. The whole thing looked like one of the baling wire and duct tape monstrosities she and her brothers rigged up on the farm to keep the tractor working and the dishwasher washing and the truck driving.

  “It’ll work just fine, Adhz. And the ship will be able to reach at least two more drive states. Just see.”

  “It’s too dangerous.” He picked up a comms handset and shook his head. “I’ll tell them to cut power and then we can—”

  “It’s not that dangerous,” she said. “And if there’s no power, I can’t see what isn’t working. Besides, I thought you Xaravians had a well-honed sense of prudent risk.”

  “Prudent must mean something different to Earthers than it does to us,” he said.

  Rowan laughed and hauled herself up to the top of the power cell so she could see where the quantum bridges linked in. A buzz of static was the only warning as power discharged and a bright flash filled her vision.

  She vaguely felt herself flying, launched backward into the wall, as the harness ropes snapped and burned at the same time. Her head slammed into something hard and everything went dark.

  Chapter 2

  Mrax

  Mrax pondered some of the medical equipment the pirates “liberated” from an Alliance hospital and passed on to the Galaxos under threat of arrest. He was supposed to sort through it to find the most useful technology to replicate and deploy onto other rebel ships. The only problem being, of course, that pirates had stolen the tech and thus didn’t know what the hell they’d taken and what important pieces they’d left behind. Like power packs and basic information panels.

  He muttered under his breath as he untangled a jumble of regeneration scanners from what was obviously a treatment system for deep space sickness. Completely unrelated, and yet the pirates dumped it in a crate to transport and left it at that.

  Mrax had just begun to catalogue the first of the regeneration scanners, which looked like an interesting version of the standard pack with specialty settings for invertebrate species, when the sick bay doors flew open and Adhz ran in, carrying a limp bundle that looked like one of the Earthers.

  Except it was blackened and smelled like burnt metal.

  Adhz’s scales paled to colorless as he dropped the body on one of the medical tables. “The engineer got… shocked or something. Fix her.”

  Mrax switched into doctor mode and gathered his equipment to stand over the limp body. He’d watched the Earthers with a touch of admiration and a gallon of disbelief. They took unbelievable risks in their incredibly fragile bodies but didn’t seem to recognize their vulnerabilities. They just plowed ahead and did things.

  At least Xaravians understood their limitations before taking suicidal risks. The Earthers were generally surprised to learn they couldn’t do something.

  And the engineer was the worst out of all of them.

  Mrax placed the life support package on her and hooked up the rest of the systems as Adhz paced nervously near the door. He had good reason to worry, too—the captain’s mate was a fierce little Earther who guarded her friends and crewmates closely. It was at Isla’s demand that Vaant started assigning the Xaravian crew to keep an eye on the Earther females duri
ng port calls and on the engineer whenever she was “working.” The fierce Xaravian captain did anything and everything his mate demanded, much to Mrax’s amusement. And since the Earther engineer seemed incapable of walking anywhere without breaking or trying to “improve” something, she always had a chaperone. They would have to find a different solution once the Galaxos got underway, as the crew would have actual work to do and would no longer have the time to monitor the Earther’s activities.

  Mrax cut away the Earther’s uniform so he could see the extent of the burns. It looked as though something covered her with a flammable gel. “What happened?”

  Adhz’s scales flared orange and yellow with worry and a little irritation. “She was climbing all over everything and ended up poking her nose into one of the centrifuges, I think, even after I told her not to. Frrar could explain it, maybe Kolzz. There was a flash and then she flew across the room and smacked her head into the wall. Dropped like a dead haugmawt and stopped breathing.”

  Mrax grunted and locked a pressure sensor around Rowan’s head to verify her skull and brain functioned properly. He wished he could have gotten through the equipment the pirates brought over to see if anything in the pile would have helped. “I thought Vaant’s mate talked to her about this.”

  Adhz shrugged, glancing over at the door as if he expected the fiery redhead to storm through the doors and accost him. “This one listens about as well as you do.”

  Mrax shot him a dark look but continued to work on getting the Earther breathing again without the life support pack to do the work for her. He pulled away the tatters of her uniform, revealing a thin, soft undershirt that left her arms and a great deal of her chest exposed, though it strained against the generous landscape of her breasts. They were usually hidden by the bulky coveralls or uniforms that the Earther favored; Mrax never imagined she concealed such feminine anatomy. He made a thoughtful noise and glanced up in time to see Adhz’s eyebrows arched in surprise as well as he noted the female’s… abundance.

  The younger Xaravian’s reaction irritated Mrax enough he snapped, “Go fetch one of the Earthers. When this one wakes, she’ll want to see one of them.”

  Adhz ducked and disappeared out the still-damaged doors, and Mrax got back to work. The medical equipment hummed and covered her in a dim blue light as it scanned for damage and started to project a healing slurry into her burned skin. He couldn’t understand how the Earthers survived so long as a race without scales or some kind of protective armor. They favored clothing made of flimsy materials, too, so there was no additional defense there. The species should have learned basic survival instincts, and yet there seemed to be no caution at all within their brains.

  He shook his head and retrieved more healing packs from the crates bolted to the back wall. Their skin was distractingly soft, though. He moved the shirt she wore so he could examine the burns that left holes in the cloth and marked that delicate skin underneath. Soft, smooth skin, warm to the touch, and ribs that felt like twigs under his fingers. She looked like she would snap apart in his hands if he just held onto her waist.

  Mrax shook himself out of the intriguing thoughts and turned away. Females of any species were trouble, and he didn’t have the time nor the energy to deal with finding one appealing enough to mate with. His past relationships had all ended badly; he had no reason to revisit that kind of entanglement. He could make do with occasional trips back to Xarav to visit old friends with… accommodating attitudes.

  Before he got too wrapped up in when his next trip was, Mrax turned the settings on the life support pack up. The engineer coughed and moved her legs, heels digging into the bed, though her eyes remained closed.

  He’d treated her for all kinds of injuries after the Earthers were brought aboard the Galaxos. He’d seen the rest of the crew only a few times, and most of those visits were from Griggs, Vrix’s mate, whose acknowledgment of danger and injury bordered on the nonexistent, just like the engineer.

  Rowan. What kind of name was Rowan? He’d been told it was a type of tree on Earth, though she certainly didn’t look much like a tree. Mrax found himself studying her torso with a great deal of attention as the burn regenerators worked to repair her singed skin, even with the odd drift of his thoughts. Perhaps he’d been too long in space, too long among only males. He could find a job on a transporter or back on Xarav; they always needed doctors. A break from the rebellion and chasing down pirates would have been relaxing, particularly when there were no Earthers around to drive the crew crazy with their escapades.

  Not that Vaant, Vrix, Trazzak, or Frrar seemed to mind the Earthers’ shenanigans. He couldn’t believe all four managed to convince an Earther to mate with them. And the warriors had all changed—gentled, almost. Learned to listen and not bluster or shout, even though they reacted with immediate violence if anyone got too close to their females. So he supposed it was a good thing that Rowan, one of the unmated Earthers, had been injured, as opposed to one of the mated ones. Mrax would have immediately lost his arms and head if he’d taken the clothes off another Xaravian’s mate.

  Rowan coughed and groaned, starting to move, and he disengaged the life support pack so she could breathe on her own. She tried to pull off the rest of the medical equipment and he pinned her arms, frowning down at her. Her wrists disappeared in the circle of his fingers, soft and tender against his palms, and he eased off the pressure before he crushed her bones by accident.

  Her forehead wrinkled and she tried harder to move. Mrax held his breath. Hopefully Adhz returned quickly with one of the Earthers so he didn’t have to wrestle a half-naked Rowan just to keep her alive. Her shirt began to tear, revealing more of her, and he stared at the wall in determination. He definitely wasn’t going to look. Definitely.

  Chapter 3

  Rowan

  Rowan’s brain tried to escape her skull through her eyes. At least, that’s what it felt like when she woke up in sick bay and forced her eyelids apart. She smelled barbecue and roasted meat; her stomach growled in hunger, and she tried to lift her head to figure out where the smell came from.

  Her uniform had disappeared and only her undershirt remained, singed and tattered, and she frowned at herself. A skin regenerator still clung to her side, where hints of a few burns remained. Hmmm. Maybe she was what smelled like roasted meat.

  Gross.

  She’d hardly moved before someone said, “Hold on a sec.”

  And then Jess appeared over her to help adjust the bed so Rowan could sit partially upright and see around the sick bay. Mrax, the gruff medic, worked on the other side of the room on a pile of equipment that looked really intriguing. Her attention strayed from Jess to the tangle of different devices. “What’s going on over there?”

  “The guy who saved your life is trying to make sense out of pirate booty,” Jess said. “That’s not important. What the hell were you doing? You almost got killed.”

  “But I didn’t,” Rowan said cheerfully. Even though her brain pounded in agony and static made her nerves twitch. So clearly the quantum bridge was still function, just… misdirected. “Just a bit of a shock. Happens all the time. I think it resets my heart, gets my adrenaline pumping, and—”

  Mrax snorted and glanced back at her. “You’re lucky Adhz ran you here, otherwise you wouldn’t be breathing.”

  Rowan shrugged and tried to take off some of the equipment so she could get up and keep moving. The propulsion system wouldn’t have repaired itself while she napped. “I’ll bake him a thank you cake.”

  “What is a ‘thank you cake’?” The Xaravian looked both curious and irritated at the same time, which was an expression she hadn’t seen before on anyone.

  “It’s a cake you give to someone to say thank you.” If he hadn’t just saved her life, she might have questioned his intelligence. “What else would it be?”

  “Can we focus?” Jess caught Rowan’s shoulders and pushed her to lie back in the bed. “Girl, this is the fourth time you’ve been seriously in
jured in the last two weeks. You have got to be more careful.”

  “Maybe if this rusty bucket was less archaic, there wouldn’t be as much to shock me.” Rowan frowned down at herself. What happened to her uniform? Had it burned up along with the rest of her? “We should get a new ship. Then I can tear this one down to use the parts. We should take that pirate ship, the Sraibur. It’d be perfect.”

  “This ship is fine, if you’d stop breaking it,” Mrax said.

  Rowan frowned at him. “I’m fixing it. Making it better. Just because you can’t see that from your little nest in sick bay doesn’t mean—”

  “Okay, we’re going to stop there,” Jess said.

  Mrax’s scales reddened as he watched Rowan, though she wasn’t about to be intimidated. She had seven older brothers and just as many uncles, all of them tough from a lifetime lived on a hardscrabble farm in the middle of nowhere, with no money, almost no education, and no fear. The universe hadn’t created anything as scary as her pack of brothers and cousins when they got on a tear.

  Jess gave her a hard look and Rowan sighed, folding her arms over her tattered undershirt. “What?”