by Reagan Woods
“Wha –” She woke in utter darkness, shivering.
Was she still in the reconditioner?
Another deluge drenched her. Nope, she was definitely not in the reconditioner any longer.
The unrelieved darkness pressed in on her, suffocating in its wet thickness. Her heart-rate kicked up, adrenaline crashed through her system clearing the cobwebs from her sluggish brain. She panicked, lungs screaming for oxygen, there was a bag or a blindfold of some sort over her face.
Had the rogue Doranos Tiron warned of found her?
“Don’t kill her,” a melodic voice spoke in Corian Standard. “They need her for the rally.”
Mouth gaping wide, she focused on calming, on sucking oxygen through the sopping material cutting off her air. Her sense of hearing was the only tool available to her, and she needed to engage her brain.
What could she glean from the situation? Her attacker wasn’t Doranos that much she now knew. What rally were they referencing?
“Yes, my Lady,” a male said deferentially.
She heard footsteps coming near and someone pinched her upper arms hard causing her to cry out. She sucked in some of the wet material and gagged.
“Ahhh….good. You’re awake,” the male said jovially. He pinched her once more, laughing at her screaming, hacking response.
“Oww! What - Why are you hurting me?” She complained incoherently, struggling to pull her body into a sitting position.
Too late, she realized her brace was gone. Legs flailing, she over-balanced. Gravity pulled her to the floor with a tooth-rattling crash, her head bouncing on impact.
“There’s someone here who’d like to speak with you, Earther,” he spit the last word, not bothering to pick her up.
Luckily, the material over her face was drying out, air flowed easier into her struggling lungs. At least, it did until something, probably a foot, slammed into her ribs.
“Mphhhh,” Willa’s muffled cry became a gasp, as she struggled for breath.
“Dodd, remove her hood.”
The covering ripped away from her head, a large handful of her hair going with it and she yelped again. Momentarily blinded by the light, she missed the goon’s exit, but she knew his name. Dodd was on her shit list now. So much for the vaunted Corian honor.
“Well, that is much better, isn’t it?” A tall, richly attired female loomed nearby, studying Willa with a coppery glare.
Other than Liania, Willa hadn’t seen a real, live Corian female before. A detached part of her brain noted the Amazon’s beauty.
Her fine-boned face bore exquisite stripes of palest mocha and dark tan. Black hair in twisty ringlets cascading to her waist, she stood nearly six-and-a-half-feet tall. She wore a finely tailored tunic that shimmered a coppery gold over black leggings. Shiny black boots made of lizard-like skin reached almost to her mid-thigh.
“I asked you a question,” she snarled, viciously baring her even, white teeth.
Hurting and frightened, Willa recognized there was no hope of avoiding this female’s malicious intent. A shiver racked her wet, naked body.
With her hands bound awkwardly beneath her against the chill stone and a shoulder throbbing from impact with the floor, her options were limited. She was in a stone cell that reminded her of some medieval dungeon. There was no one else around and nothing she could use to signal her distress to the outside world.
Incensed at Willa’s inattention, the large female strode closer, leaning down to smack her with an open palm, “Answer me when I ask you a question!”
This bitch was a bully – she was ballsy now that she’d ascertained the extent of Willa’s helplessness. Luckily, Willa had a lot of experience with over-confident tormentors. She might not be in control, but she knew how to get under this prissy female’s skin.
“I’m sorry, I don’t speak bitch,” Willa said, feeling blood trickle from the side of her mouth.
A backhand caught her other cheek causing her teeth to gash her cheek painfully. Willa waited for the blood to pool in her mouth before spitting it on her assailant’s expensive-looking boots.
“You hit like a little girl,” Willa affected a bored tone.
“I will not tolerate your impertinence.” The female appeared shocked and disgusted by Willa’s actions, but she backed off.
“What do you want with me?” Willa demanded fiercely.
“It’s what I want without you,” the alien answered with an unholy sneer.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“She’s what?” Tiron asked, dumbfounded.
“Gone,” came Giaon’s flat reply. His eyes slid away from Tiron’s.
“I spoke with her a few rotations ago,” Tiron said in disbelief, his apprehension mounting by the second. “She promised not to leave on her own.”
“You finally deigned to speak with her? How generous,” his brother growled so ferociously the com screen vibrated.
Tiron didn’t recognize his suave, cultured brother in the hard-eyed male before him.
“Giaon, Willa…she carries my child,” Tiron said quietly.
Giaon’s face paled and his jaw clenched tight for several long seconds. Finally, he asked, “Did you force her?”
“No!” Tiron answered vehemently. “I would never do that.”
Something kept him from telling Giaon that he hadn’t needed to coerce Willa into his bed. He was already behaving strangely, and Tiron didn’t want him to test the seductive effects of Corian pheromones. At least, not on Willa.
Tiron had been unable to bring himself to tell her that she would be on Cor II indefinitely. It was too dangerous to send the pregnant females anyplace as a group. If the enemy located them, they would be an easy target.
“Whatever your issues with me, we must find her,” he continued. “She wouldn’t leave. Unless…”
“Unless what?” Giaon prompted his tone dangerous.
“She wanted to return to Earth. I refused. She was not happy.” Tiron wished he had found more time to allay her fears, to discuss their child, but his time was not his own. He’d thought she understood that.
“It’s possible that she left because she felt abandoned,” Giaon surmised. “You need to be prepared to handle your responsibilities here once I find her.”
He cut their connection.
Tiron was torn, his heart urged him to abandon his post, to go and search for Willa and make things right between them. But General Darvan needed him here. The loss of the Horizon was not only a personal tragedy, it was a logistical nightmare. The armada wasn’t the well-oiled machine it had been.
Unpalatable as it was, he’d have to trust Giaon to start the quest. But, if his brother didn’t locate Willa in short-order, Tiron would find a way to get to Cor II and find his female.
∞ ∞ ∞
“The security feeds have been wiped,” Viro reported after assessing the small console next to Willa’s door.
Giaon scratched his head, perplexed. “Would she know how to do that?”
Willa had hated hiding and trying not to draw notice, but she had admitted to living covertly on Earth for many years. Perhaps she’d decided she’d rather take her chances among the discontented populace.
He shouldn’t have offered to take her away, especially since she was pregnant. If he had just held his own council, she might not have felt the need to run away.
“I don’t think so.” Linron peeked over their shoulders to study the ominous findings. “She wouldn’t have left like that, either,” he added firmly, watching Viro work his magic on the security system.
There wasn’t much the reclusive Viro couldn’t do with tech systems. He would figure out how Willa had left and where she had gone.
Moments later Viro spoke, “She was abducted. Whoever wiped these logs must have thought we wouldn’t look too hard for her. These images were just a few layers beneath the wiped feed.”
Three figures in hooded robes walked unhurriedly down the corridor away from Willa’s room. One of the intrude
rs carried a rolled mat over a broad shoulder. Giaon was certain Willa’s body was inside the roll.
“No!” Linron exclaimed emotionally. “Who could have known about her? We were so careful to keep her out of sight.”
“We can address that later,” Giaon answered. “First, how do we find her?”
“That’s easy.” Viro pulled up a live feed of the protesters in the main market square. “The real question is: how do we get her back alive?”
Giaon swallowed hard against the bile that clawed up his esophagus. The screen showed a naked, badly beaten Willa in a cage moving through the agitated crowd, tiny form huddled low against the foodstuffs and other debris the abusive horde flung. Four hooded individuals bore her toward a dais that rose from the center of the melee.
“They’re going to put her through smarsma,” Linron’s voice cracked.
Smarsma, an ancient ritual involving purification through pain, was a method of publicly torturing enemies of the Corian people. The torturer, or smarsmaster, exacted retribution for whatever offenses had been committed.
Such a sentence came down from the High Council perhaps once every five hundred years. There had been no formal charges brought against Willa, but it would appear the court of public opinion had sentenced her to death.
If Tiron were here, he would know what to do. But Tiron wasn’t home, seeing to his duties; he was playing Warrior half-a-universe away.
Giaon felt impotent and terrified, but he had to figure out a way to save Willa. He would never forgive himself for what he’d almost helped do to her.
∞ ∞ ∞
“You Earthers are worthless!”
Willa ducked another wad of refuse flung at her by the livid Corians. She was covered head-to-toe in putrid organic matter. Her breath came in shuddering gasps and her teeth chattered together uncontrollably. The primitive portion of her brain urged her to flee, to run, just leave this godforsaken place.
Escape was impossible. Instinctively, she’d known she would die if she allowed her captors to put her inside this contraption. Fighting until she was bloody hadn’t helped her avoid the energy cage. Four giant males against one female didn’t exactly make for a fair fight.
Her litter-bearers had donned hooded black robes before taking up her portable jail and marching out into the streets. Initially, she’d attributed their cloaks to a cowardly desire to remain anonymous. Seeing the masses in action, she realized that the cloaks were a means of protecting them from muck missiles.
“This Earther is an unauthorized alien found on our planet. It shall face smarsma in place of the traitorous royal slave who endangers our Warriors and aids our enemies!” Another hooded figure announced from above, his voice bouncing off of the high cavern walls.
His enraged audience howled their agreement.
The emcee stood atop a large, circular stage that thrust up from the press of bodies. A metal chair adorned with ominous looking straps and buckles glinted dully in the spotlights that highlighted the awful pulpit.
Above the mounted lights, the glowing stone cave trapped the noise of the mob, amplifying their irate shouts. As the cacophony rose to thunderous proportions, the reverberations buffeted her body like an angry wind. Garbage continued to pummel her, catapulting through the spaces in the energy fields that formed the bars of her prison.
Willa ducked her head, curling her body into a tight ball as her cage came to rest on the stage. The emcee powered the field down and produced a long, sparking wand from his robes, much to the crowd’s delight.
As the electric prod came closer, all of the hair on her body stood on end. Using every ounce of upper body strength she could muster, she slipped and slid out of the psycho’s path on her hands and knees, barely avoiding him. The bloodthirsty Corians drank in her terror, their taunting cries redoubled, assaulting her ears.
Willa didn’t know which way to turn. The ringleader pursued her slowly, toying with her as he spouted his anti-Earth rhetoric.
Her slime covered body was hard to maneuver across the stage, and, without her brace, she knew she wasn’t strong enough to gain her feet or try to run.
“Smars-ma, smars-ma, smars-ma,” the throng shrieked out their chant, enjoying her desperation.
Willa stopped, holding her position on the stage, she was done running. It just egged them on. If they wanted to make her pay for something someone else had done, there wasn’t anything she could do about it. There was no place for her to go.
This was how she would die?
Images of her battle to endure on Earth, of every time someone had shunned or discounted her rushed through her mind. Next, the memories of Balcar’s friendship and of her short, happy time with Tiron shoved their way to the surface and she calmed.
For a brief moment, she stepped out of herself, out of time, divorcing herself from the nightmare. Here, everything was clear. She could envision her life behind her, flowing like a tumultuous river to this point.
Right now, she was at a crossroads. Her river didn’t have to end here. She could all but see the water that comprised her life rushing forward from this point, violence unchecked, foaming and swirling at a break-neck pace.
That life didn’t seem worth living, and Willa was ready to give up. But, then, she watched a small stream branch off and begin its own journey.
Willa had spent so much time being angry and scared and trying to get through this difficult time, that she’d almost missed the miracle of it all. She and this little spark of life were already a family. No one was going to step forward and fight for her family. She couldn’t just give up. Her baby needed her.
Decision made, she snapped back into reality in time to duck another swing from the hooded figure’s scepter of death. It was time to enlighten these Corians.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Careening through the Connects, the traffic routes of Ri, piloting the banned high-speed skimmer, Giaon tried to keep tabs on the discussion unfolding in the passenger compartment.
Linron had corralled their busy parents, unceremoniously interrupting their lavish last meal, and ushered them to Giaon’s waiting skimmer. Viro had gone in search of Sorin and would join them in the city market as soon as possible. Sorin’s popularity might be leveraged to an advantage, if they could stall the angry public.
“Giaon,” his mother’s frightened voice screeched. “Darling, what’s the hurry? Please slow down.”
“Mother, are you listening to me?” Linron’s voice took on a hard edge. “I’m trying to explain. Please, take your seat.”
“Do not use that tone-“
“Mother,” he interrupted with a shout. “Sit. Down.”
“The Earther has been taken,” Giaon called over his shoulder, draining some of the tension. “We’ve found her, but the rioters have decided to subject her to smarsma.”
“I forbade her from going out on her own,” Liania retorted haughtily. “If she chose not to listen, she must suffer the consequences.”
“Did you not hear what Giaon said?” Linron pressed. “Someone took Willa. From. Our. Home. She didn’t leave on her own. Will you really stand by and let them kill her?”
“Of course this is a tragedy,” she snapped. “But I don’t see how we can prevent it.”
Giaon didn’t know how they could turn the tide of the mob, either, but they had to try. He slowed the skimmer, frustrated by the glut of traffic at this late hour.
The closer they flew to city center, the more animated the smooth, glowing tunnel walls became. It was common practice to holoproject advertisements and noteworthy happenings along the thoroughfares. He glanced absently at the projections out of habit. What he saw turned the blood in his veins to ice.
Larger than life, Willa’s face, void of all expression, didn’t flinch as the smarsmaster’s energy prod arced with deadly accuracy towards her.
“No!” Giaon cried out as, milliseconds before the prod hit its target, the projection feed cut out.
They were too late.
“It looks like you’ve gotten what you wanted,” he growled, turning to pin Liania with his accusing stare.
“I never meant…watch out!”
Narrowly missing a clog of smaller dart-craft, he took the skimmer up high over the congestion. There’d be hell to pay when the Enforcers got wind of his reckless flying, but he didn’t care.
Right now, Giaon had to find a way to access the inner mall of the market and retrieve Willa’s tiny body before the smarsmaster rendered it unrecognizable. Some part of him knew he was in shock, but he just couldn’t believe Willa was dead. She’d been so full of life, so magnetic. And so very defenseless.
The five-hundred acre plaza was unreachable for air traffic, and a conflux of people clogged the pedestrian gates. The melee looked impassable. Even inside his insulated cockpit, he could hear the savage roars of the observers.
Landing his skimmer with more speed than finesse, Giaon disembarked, running for the nearest gate. He didn’t have a plan, he simply knew that he had to get to Willa.
Curious on-lookers made way the moment they recognized him. As he persevered through the agitated masses, the attitude of the rioters changed markedly. These Corians were shoving at one another, vying for a closer look at the spectacle unfolding above.
“You know,” rasped a familiar voice. “I find you people very offensive.”
∞ ∞ ∞
A chorus of alarm greeted Willa’s statement as the frenzied multitude realized she’d outmaneuvered their spokesperson. In a complete role reversal, the intimidating alien was now her hostage.
Unashamed of her nudity, Willa stood before the angry Corians. She was a filthy-hot mess, yes, but they had done this to her. If they wanted to parade her around naked, she’d let them see all of the Earther who held the life of one of their own in her hands.
He’d swung his weapon at her weak hip, expecting her to cringe away. She’d surprised him by flattening her body and rolling under his foot when he stepped forward in anticipation of her retreat. Down he crashed when she kicked out, sweeping his leg from beneath him.
The bigger they are, the harder they fall, held true on this alien world. Head smacking with a sickening crunch against the hard floor, the giant Corian sprawled there, unconscious and vulnerable.