by Janet Miller
Five armed guards, all of whom were walking with drawn weapons, and only one had been inside the shuttle, thus taking the brunt of the stink bomb. His companions gave him a wide berth as if they couldn’t stand to be near him.
Meanwhile the women were crying, and Sonja heard one speak loudly enough to be heard over the confusion, obviously arguing with the guards.
“These robes stink all the way to Gaia. Get us to a sanitary or we’ll strip naked here!”
Sonja grabbed Roan’s arm. “Let’s get downstairs and to the nearest women’s room. If I can get inside before they get there then I can see the women alone.”
Roan caught on to her idea immediately. He hustled her down the stairs and towards a door with the silhouette of a woman’s figure. Sonja slipped inside and then into one of the stalls, standing on the stool to leave no trace she was there.
Shortly after she was settled she heard the door open, and then the most outrageous stench filled the air. Sonja couldn’t help but put her fingers over her nose to help block the scent. A man walked through the room and gave a cursory look into the stalls but apparently was in a hurry to get the women inside. He ducked out, and Sonja heard several women come inside, talking quietly. She waited until she heard the sound of robes coming off, and then she came out of the stall, one hand on the stunner in her pocket.
Four of the faces were unfamiliar but the fifth one she knew immediately.
“Suna!”
Her sister turned and blinked in astonishment. Her smile grew with recognition. “Sonja, is that you?”
Chapter Twenty-One
Suna might have been six years older, but she was just as pretty as Sonja remembered. Just as emotional as well. She blinked away tears at the sight of her older sister. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here to rescue you.”
“Rescue me? You mean keep me from going to the marriage meet?” Suna clapped her hands together. “How wonderful!”
The other women looked uncertainly at them. “The men are right outside the door. How do you think you’re going to get past them?” one said. Sonja recognized her voice as belonging to the woman who’d threatened to strip on the platform.
Her kind of woman, obviously.
“Walk out, with you.” Sonja emptied her pockets into her bag and pulled off her skirt and blouse, handing them to Suna. “We’re going to trade clothes. My guess is that those men haven’t seen your faces, right?”
The other women looked at each other. The one who seemed to have been designated leader spoke again. “That’s true. We were supposed to leave these on until we got to the marriage meet room. But why are you interfering?”
“They are making my sister go to the meet even though she’s a widow.”
“She is?”
The leader looked at Suna, who nodded confirmation. “My husband died just a few months ago in the mine.” Tears formed in her eyes. “I don’t want to reattach. I loved my husband, and it’s just too soon.”
The women looked troubled. “That’s wrong,” the leader said. “We came from Gaia to be wives, but you shouldn’t be here.”
“Then you’ll help us?”
The other women looked at each other. “Can you keep us from getting into trouble?”
“Sure,” Sonja told her. “Just follow my lead. As far as you know, I was the one with you from the time you got on the shuttle.”
Suna struggled to fasten Sonja’s skirt. “Wow, sis, could you possibly be any thinner?” She stared ruefully at her thicker waistline. “I guess I should have gone to the gym more.” Finally she pulled the top on and let it drape over the not-quite-sealed waistband.
Sonja pulled out a pair of light-colored pants she’d gotten from Roan and white top and put both on, making sure to put her weapons back into her pockets. She then took the white gown Suna had been wearing and slipped it over her clothes.
“But sis,” Suna said, “they’ll notice that.” She pointed to the wristband Sonja was wearing.
Sonja took it off, intending to give it to her sister, but when she started to hand it over she found she couldn’t. Even if it was only pretend, she couldn’t allow her sister to wear Roan’s band, so instead she slipped it into the pocket of her pants.
The sleeves of the white blouse Suna was wearing were long enough to cover her wrists, so no one would notice Suna wasn’t wearing a band right away.
The other women had made a pile of the smelly concealing robes in the corner and were using the sinks to wash their hands and faces to get rid of as much of the smell as possible. There was a knock on the door and a rough man’s voice said, “Are you almost done?”
“We’re as clean as we can be,” the woman who’d designated herself the leader said. “We’ll need a shower before the meet or no one will want to get near us, much less attach.”
“I’ll arrange that and for clean gowns. Come on out and we’ll get you to a new shuttle.”
Sonja handed Suna her black bag and told her to hide in the stall. “After we’ve been gone for a count of fifty, leave here and look for a man named Roan,” she whispered so the other women wouldn’t hear.
“How will I know him?”
“He’ll know you. That’s why I put you in my clothes.”
“Who is he?”
Sonja paused for a moment before answering. “He’s my husband.”
Suna’s eyes grew wide. “You’re married? That band was real?”
She gave Suna a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll explain later. In the meantime, don’t worry, everything is going to be fine.”
Suna threw her arms around Sonja. “I’m so glad to see you again.”
“We’d better go,” the leader said. Sonja hugged Suna back and shoved her into the toilet stall.
“Remember…”
“Count to fifty then look for Roan.” Suna grinned. “See you later, sis.”
Roan was waiting across the wide aisle from the sanitary when he saw the door open and five women dressed in white gowns come out. They had their heads down and were rounded up by the guards who directed them back towards the shuttles, so at first he couldn’t recognize anyone in spite of the women having shed their concealing robes.
But then he took another look and saw Sonja’s familiar face amongst the white gowns and he nearly walked across the aisle to stop her. Fortunately, just as he started to move, he saw Allan coming towards him. He headed for the man instead.
He grabbed his friend and stationed him next to the door of the sanitary. “Sonja has switched clothes with her sister and taken her place. Suna is inside there. You stay here and wait for her.”
Allan grinned at him. “Will do.” He held up his bag. “I’ve got my antidote to the smell so I can fix her up.”
Muttering deprecations onto the pretty but impulsive head of his wife, Roan hurried down the aisle after the party of white-gowned women and blue-uniformed men.
This might not have been the best idea she’d ever come up with, Sonja decided as the men hustled her and the other women back towards the shuttle platforms. Her original plan had been to stun one or more of the guards and slip away in the confusion, but with five men carrying drawn weapons, that wasn’t going to be so easy.
The only advantage she had was that they didn’t know she was armed, so the element of surprise was in her favor. She glanced around for a distraction. It would be best to break away from the group before they left the most crowded part of the station.
A large group of at least fifty men dressed in working clothes came towards them, faces and clothes dirty as if they’d just come from the mine. One of the bigger shuttles must have come into the station from there. As they spotted the white-gowned women, heads jerked around, and they stared at the women, eyes wide. Sonja heard the murmur of “brides” being passed around the group. The crowd of men slowed and gathered around them.
The guards stopped their forward progress and herded the women to one side of the aisle, against one of the storefronts. They
then stood in a line between the gathered men and the women. Sonja was pressed against a plastisteel window. She looked inside and saw a mannequin wearing a woman’s dress.
“Get back,” one of the guards said.
“Sweet Gaia, we just wanted to look at them,” said a man with a dirty face who was standing near the front. “Hi there,” he said to the lady nearest him. Sonja looked and realized it was the women’s unofficial leader.
“Hi yourself,” she replied. “You need to wash.”
He grinned at her. “From what I can tell, so do you. Maybe we can take a bath together.”
The woman gave a light push to the guard in front of her. “I told you we needed to clean up!”
The group of miners burst into laughter. “What did someone do, throw a stink bomb at you?”
“Is that what it was?” the woman said. She gave Sonja a look that was distinctly hostile. “I guess someone thought it was funny.”
Sonja didn’t dare crack a smile. She edged away from the window. Just to one side of her was a door leading into the shop. If while the guards were busy with the crowd she could get in there…
One of the guards lifted his weapon high in the air. “Unless you want a headache tonight, I suggest you all move along.”
There was a lot of grumbling, but the men began moving. As they did, all the guards’ attention was clearly on them and not the women behind them. Sonja edged along the wall and then in one swift move crouched low and headed through the open doorway.
As soon as she was inside she sped for the back of the shop, ducking down low between racks of clothes. When she reached the back she pulled off the thin white gown and stuffed it behind some merchandise piled next to a door marked “exit”.
That door led into a narrow, empty corridor that ran between the back of the shops. Sonja headed down it until it dead-ended at a door that was locked.
Out of her pocket came her electronic lock pick and she was through the door and out into the street again. She pulled her cap from her pocket and pulled it down over her hair, which she tucked up again into a bun.
Sauntering out into the crowd she looked back at where she’d been. The four remaining women were herded into a tight group with two men guarding them, their weapons pointed at the women as often as the miners who still lingered around them. Two of the other three guards were searching the street.
Obviously she’d been missed. Not too surprising as she expected even the company’s guards could count to five.
The last man came out of the store she’d used for her getaway, holding something white in his hands. He held it up and she saw it was the gown she’d been wearing. He then pointed to the inside of the store.
It wasn’t going to take long for them to figure out she’d gone through the back and was probably out here on the street somewhere. The best place for her was going to be someplace else. Sonja turned and headed up the street, deciding that the restaurant they had been in earlier would be a great place to stay out of sight.
She hadn’t taken more than five steps when a hand took her elbow. Sonja stiffened and fingered the dart in her pocket until a familiar voice was in her ear. “I’m not sure if I should congratulate you or shake some sense into you.”
Feeling more relief than she wanted to admit to, Sonja grinned up at her husband. “It worked, didn’t it?”
Roan shook his head. “I think that might be the scariest thing of all.”
“So where is Suna?”
“I had Allan wait for her. He’ll bring her to the restaurant.”
Jubilantly, Sonja hugged her husband around the waist. “Everything is going to plan!”
Allan felt distinctly conspicuous waiting outside the ladies’ sanitary. That was the sort of thing that married men did, and without a band on his arm he clearly had no business being there. Fortunately, no one noticed, but it seemed to take forever before the door finally opened and a woman came out.
A pretty blonde with long hair, she was about Sonja’s height although not as slender, and she was dressed in the white blouse and multicolored skirt Sonja had been wearing earlier. She was even carrying Sonja’s black bag.
This must be Suna. Allan stepped away from the wall and went over to her.
She eyed him cautiously. “Are you Roan?”
Allan couldn’t help his grin. “Nope, but I’m his best friend. He asked me to wait for you. But first—” he pulled from his pocket a small sprayer, “—I’ll have to get the rest of that smell off you.”
She sniffed her arm. “Do I still smell? I can’t tell.”
“It’s a pretty enduring odor. Fortunately a little of this should disperse it.” He led her around the corner to where no one could see. “Close your eyes.”
The sprayer emitted a fine mist that surrounded her for a moment then disappeared. Suna opened her eyes and smiled at him. “That felt nice.”
“It’s refreshing, isn’t it? I’ve thought of marketing it for quick clean-ups. But that will have to come later when I’m out of here.”
Suna stepped towards him. “So do I smell okay now?”
Much later Allan realized that was the point he made the best mistake he’d ever made in his life. At the time it just seemed the right thing to do.
He leaned in and breathed deep. She smelled so very good—
And then it was like a fist hit him, his chest heaving in the attempt to bring air into his lungs. He bent at the waist, heart racing, and his skin heated.
Below his waist his cock tingled and swelled, and Allan’s first coherent thought was that this was one hell of a way for a man to feel around a woman.
He’d never been to a marriage meet and never attached, but he didn’t need the experience to know what had just happened.
“Are you all right?” The soft, sweet voice of the woman he’d just attached to was a soothing song in his ears.
Allan sighed at her beautiful, glorious and concerned face, and shook his head sadly as the situation hit home.
“No, not really. My best friend in the universe is going to kill me.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“What do you mean you attached to her?” Allan and Suna had joined them at the restaurant, and Roan could not believe what he was hearing.
He glared at Allan. “How did that happen?”
“The usual way. I got a good whiff of her and there we were.” Allan stared over at Suna, standing with her sister, the pair of them looking as surprised as he felt. Well, Sonja looked surprised. Suna just looked with interest at Allan, who had discovered love for the first time. Between the two of them it was enchanting, lovely and totally inconvenient.
“We are here to rescue her, Allan. Not marry her.”
“Why can’t we do both? That is, why can’t I do both? What if I leave with her?”
Roan blinked at him. Allan, leave? “You can’t. You’ve got two more years on your sentence.”
“Only if I want to go back to Gaia. Which I’m not so sure of anymore.” Allan shook his head. “It isn’t like I have a family to go back to. No one would care if I went to the Outer Colonies.”
“What would you do there?”
“What I did here. I’m a good chemist in addition to my computer skills. I’ll find something.” He glanced at Suna. “I just want to be with her.”
Sonja turned to her sister, who looked undecided. “Is this what you want?”
The girl shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe.” She turned to Allan. “I know you want me. But I don’t know you, and seems like only a few days ago my husband was alive. I can’t say I can accept you yet.”
Disappointment filled his face, then acceptance. “But you aren’t saying no.”
She sighed. “I’m not saying no. I’m saying not now.”
He nodded. “I can live with that.”
Roan broke in. “So you are going to stay?”
Allan turned to him. “I don’t think I can. Not while there is a chance she’d accept me. I’m going with her.
”
“He could go with me to our parents’ farm, to start with,” Suna broke in. “I suppose. Just until we figure things out.” She gave a swift glance at her sister.
Sonja put her hand on her little sister’s shoulder. “Are you sure about this?”
“You know him better than I do, Sonja. What do you think?”
Sonja stared at the two of them for a long time, and Roan wondered what was going through her mind. He knew she’d spent a lot of time and sacrificed much to rescue her sisters. What could she be thinking?
“I think I want you to be happy, Suna. I like Allan and I trust him. But I want you to promise me to wait to marry until you get back home.”
Suna looked curiously at her sister. “Why?”
“Because it is a long trip and will give you time to know if you really are ready to be together.”
Allan nodded. “I’ve waited all my life for someone like Suna. I can wait a little longer.”
“That’s good. It will do our parents good to see at least one of us get married.”
“I guess that’s settled then.” Roan wished he could honestly congratulate his friend on attaching. It was just so inconvenient to lose his right-hand man this way. “We better get to the place where Sulla and Tron are going to meet us.”
“Are they coming too?” Suna sounded delighted.
“Sulla and the baby are,” Sonja said. “Tron is staying here.”
“Tron is coming with me.” Sulla made the announcement in a flat, no-nonsense voice that said plainly she was not going to be argued with. She also appeared exceedingly pleased with herself.
The man himself looked sheepish, but he sat by his wife’s side, had a packed bag at his feet and was holding his daughter in the last place anyone would be looking for them, Nick’s Bar. Just in case the company authorities managed to figure out which of the women had gone missing and decided to look for her at her sister’s apartment, Tron had taken his family to the bar before the rescue. It was part of the plan agreed to the night before.