by Lynnea Lee
“Plasma cutters,” Sala whispered. “Someone’s cutting my lock!”
“Holy shit, are we getting robbed?”
Mia regretted that last drink now. They scanned the room, looking for a way to delay their attackers. The only thing Mia could think of was to block the door with furniture. She scrambled off the couch and started to pull the couch away from the wall. Sala understood immediately. She added her strength and helped block the door with the heavy sectional. They piled more furniture in front of the door, just in case.
They sat on the floor, backs against the couch.
The whirring sound stopped. Whoever was outside pushed against the door. When they met the resistance of the piled furniture manned by the two females, they swore. In English. The two kept quiet and listened.
“Why is it taking this long to get a stupid door open?” a whiny voice asked. Mia recognized that voice. Daniel Ives rhymes with hives was outside their door.
“Something is blocking it from the inside,” another voice answered.
“Well, break it down, you idiots!”
A crash sounded, and the couch jerked. They dug their feet into the ground and pushed back against it. A few trinkets from Sala’s collection fell from the shelf.
“Fuck, my comm is in the other room,” Sala swore. “We need to call for help.”
“I’ll hold the couch, go get it.”
Sala hesitated.
“Go! I’ll hold it for a moment. I’ll be fine,” Mia urged.
“I’m stronger and weigh more, I’ll hold the door,” Sala decided. “My comm is on the nightstand.”
Mia dash into the bedroom, bashing her foot on the doorjamb on the way. Again, she wished she hadn’t taken that last drink. She made her way to the nightstand, the room spinning somewhat. No comm.
Shit! Think fast, think fast!
Another crash against the door reverberated through the room. Sala swore again.
She opened the drawer. No comm there either. Mia knelt and peered under the bed. Bingo! She reached under the bed, fished the comm out, and raced back to the couch. She tossed the comm to her friend, glad that her aim wasn’t horrible.
As Sala commed the security office for help, more crashes thudded against the door.
Then it went silent. Footsteps shuffled on the other side of the thin barrier. They held their breath.
“What’s the holdup?” ask a rough sounding voice in Tallean.
“They blocked the door,” Daniel complained.
“Move aside, weak, useless humans.”
A moment later, a force hit the door so hard it shoved the couch a few feet back, taking the two females and all the other furniture with it. A chair they had piled on top of the couch clattered to the ground. The wall shelf holding Sala’s knick-knacks loosened from its anchor and fell, scattering pieces of Sala’s life all over the floor. They tried to push the couch back, but now that the men had gotten the door open, they didn’t have the leverage.
A short struggle later, men pushed into the room. There were six in total: one Tallean male, Daniel, and four other humans. One man held a blaster. Another brandished a plasma cutter like a weapon.
“There she is. Grab the girl!” Daniel ordered. “Shoot the alien bitch!”
The man with the blaster pointed it at Sala. Time seemed to slow as Mia launched her bodyweight towards her friend, hoping to push her out of the way. She wasn’t fast enough. The shot hit Sala on the shoulder.
“Shoot her again!” Daniel shouted.
Another shot, and Mia watched as Sala clutched her belly and dropped to the ground.
No! Mia fell to her knees and clung to her friend.
“Your alien lover deserves that for tainting what is mine,” Daniel cackled. He had all the look and sound of a movie villain down pat, as if he practiced for the role his entire life.
Men closed in around them. One grabbed Mia roughly by the arm and jerked her up to standing.
“This should be easy, I think she’s drunk,” he said.
She screamed as loudly as she could. She hoped the neighbors would hear. With the banging at the door earlier, they were probably already on alert.
She rammed her shoulder as hard as she could into the man holding her. She wrenched her arm free. Aiming for the doctor, she charged, trying to knock him over. She knocked him back. His head hit the wall with a thud. They would not take her without a fight.
A hand grabbed her by the hair and jerked her head back. She thrashed wildly and kicked at the men closing in. She kneed one in the face as he reached in to grab her legs. Blood spurted from his nose. But there were too many of them. They dragged her kicking and screaming out the door.
“We are making too much noise. You humans can’t get anything done right.”
The Tallean male came forward. He wrapped a gag over her mouth and bound her hands. Then he picked her up and threw her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and walked away.
Looking back into the room, Mia saw Sala’s chest rise and fall. She was still alive! Next to Sala’s prone form was her comm.
Had they gotten a comm through before the group broke in? She prayed that help was already on the way.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The sound of people talking and music playing faded into the background as Arus downed another drink. He urged the alcohol-induced numbness to take over his brain more rapidly. He focused his eyes on the stained table in front of him. He hardly noticed when Vore plopped down next to him. His friend blew out an agitated breath of his own.
“Stars! Look at the two of us getting fucking drunk on our last night here instead of in a female’s bed.” Vore gulped down his own bitter brew.
“You know my story, but what the fuck happened to you?” Arus asked. Maybe Vore’s troubles would distract him from his own.
“I took that security job to watch over Scarlet. Where I stand guard, she has to walk by me every time she leaves her room. I think she’s avoiding me. She hasn’t left her room the entire day. Not even for food.”
“You made that bad an impression on her? Maybe I should be the one giving you advice on females instead. At least mine stayed for two nights.” Two wondrous nights that Arus would cherish for the rest of his pathetic, lonely life.
“Got a call from Director Ryek, he doesn’t need me on guard now that they’ve caught most of the perpetrators messing up the fence. So here I am, getting drunk with you.”
“Stars!” Arus cursed, mirroring Vore’s first statement. “We are a pathetic lot.”
They ordered another round, and he proceeded one more step down the narrow road to drunken oblivion. Another step towards the morning-after headache. Another step towards a life without his mate.
A few more drinks later, a buzz slowly pierced through the din of his self-indulgent misery. He looked around, trying to find the source of the sound. The buzz hummed again. It was coming from Vore’s comm. He elbowed his friend.
“Whad’ya want?” Vore demanded rudely into his comm. Then his face turned serious.
“It’s Ryek,” Vore mouthed.
It looked like the night was about to get worse. Judging by Vore’s body language and sudden serious tone, something big was afoot, and they would have to deal with it while still tanked. As Vore conversed with the director, Arus asked for some bread and water to help soak up their inebriation.
“Trying to get sober fast, I see?” The bartender noted, “Better not be trying to drive your transport home shit-faced.”
“No, I think we just got called in for work.” Arus nodded to the comm in Vore’s hand. “Director’s on the other end.”
“Shit, that sucks. You are the mercs helping us figure out the fencing problem,” the bartender realized. He put down a strange-looking soft bread. It was twisted up into a loose knot. The top was lightly glazed and salted.
“It’s an Earth recipe. They call it a soft pretzel. My customers love them.”
Arus passed one over to Vore and took one for himself. The texture was soft and fluffy yet still satisfyingly chewy. The sprinkle of large-grained salt on top complemented the rich yeasty flavors. He mentally added it to his to-make list.
Vore ended his comm with Ryek, looking unnerved. He gave Arus a quick rundown of the situation while he held his head to stop it from spinning.
“There’s been several more reports of missing females, all of them human. Also, someone just called in a home invasion. Two females were in the home. One of them commed security just as the males broke in, and guards listened in on the attack. Attackers spoke both English and Tallean. They believe one victim was shot and the other one abducted. The director is sending us the list of missing females and the address to the break-in now. He believes they are related.”
The comm buzzed again. A list of names and descriptions showed on the screen.
“Fuck,” Vore swore. There, third name down, was the clear reason why.
Scarlet (Lettie)
Human Female
Late 20s
Dark haired
4’10” Earth Height Units
Bespectacled
“We need to go find her.”
“Yes,” Arus agreed. “Let’s get the info on the break-in. If the incidents are related, it may bring us to her.”
They pulled up the address. Vore cursed again.
“That’s Sala’s place.”
Mia!
“I’m so sorry, Mia dear,” Bianca apologized again as she struggled to untie the bindings on Mia’s wrists. Her hands were shaking something awful. “I had no idea they were this crazy.”
“I could have told you that the second the idiot opened his damn mouth!” It was Isabella. She pushed Bianca over and tried her hand at undoing Mia’s binds. “You okay, girl? Those monsters didn’t touch you, did they?”
“No ma’am, they didn’t.” Mia looked around. Where the hell were they? It looked like the inside of a spaceship, but unlike the gleaming interior of the Second Chance, this one looked like it had seen better days. “Where are we?”
“That crazy reverend and the doctor made a deal with some Talleans. They sabotage the fences, and the Talleans will bring them back to Earth. I think the Talleans were using the fence outages as a decoy for something else. But then again, I’m full of conspiracy theories,” Isabella explained. “They roped as many willing and unwilling women into their plan as they could. So now we are all locked in the cargo of a Tallean ship. Again.”
“Back to Earth?” Her mother sounded hopeful.
“Phsh, don’t tell me you are that gullible!” Isabella chided.
The knot finally loosened, and Mia rubbed at the marks on her wrist.
“Mom, we can’t go back to Earth. The Dominion owns all the space from here to Earth. We would never make it back. Besides, anyone willing to do it would probably be more likely to sell us into slavery themselves. To make a profit.” Mia couldn’t believe she had to explain this to her mother. Had she been covering her ears this whole time?
A man sitting off to the side spoke, “We can’t trust the owners of this ship. I’ve met them. They remind me of the Dominion. Something don’t feel right. I trust them as far as I can throw them.” Bruises covered his face. It took Mia a second before she recognized him as the one who had saved her from the stray rock.
“Christ!” Mia exclaimed. “What happened to you?”
“I was stupid. One of them convinced me to listen to their idea,” he admitted. “Then, I met the Talleans involved, and my gut told me to run. I noped out of the plan. I tried to warn everyone else, but Daniel called me a traitor. So here I am.” He ran a nervous hand through his hair. “Fuck, why was I so dumb.”
“None of that now, Gary,” Isabella said. She put a nurturing hand on the young man’s shoulder. “You can’t change what’s done.”
“Besides,” added a woman sitting across from him, “you tried to warn us. Whatever happens to us now, it’s not your fault.”
Mia sat down next to the only kin she had left. Quiet tears streaked down Bianca’s face. Defeat permeated through every part of her body.
“I’m so sorry, Mia,” she repeated. “I was so scared of everything that was happening. I tried to tell myself it was all a dream, and I just latched on to the one thing I had here. You.” Bianca wrung her hands repeatedly. “I really thought I was trying to help.”
“I know, Mom, I forgive you.” She did. “Just, if we get out of this, don’t do it again.”
“I just wanted you to be happy. I wanted you to have someone to stand by you in this crazy place.” Her mother’s voice cracked.
“I did, Mom. I found someone I loved and who loved me back. But it’s too late now.”
“You did? Was it the lady you work with? I know you’ve been staying with her. Someone overheard you talking in the office. It’s okay if it is. I thought I wanted you to have a normal life like your daddy and me. That’s why I pushed you towards men. But if you like women, you are still my daughter. I just want you to be happy.”
Mia sighed. “No, mom. Sala’s just my friend. I was seeing someone else. A man. A wonderful man.”
“Oh!” Bianca’s mouth stayed stuck in an O shape.
The very thought of Arus and the way they had parted made Mia’s stomach churn. She would never get the chance to right things now. Tomorrow, when the Defiant docked at Reka 5, he would leave thinking Mia didn’t love him. He would leave thinking Mia ghosted him, not even bothering to say goodbye.
“Please.” Her voice trembled as she said, “I can’t talk about him. I messed it up, and now I may never see him again.”
Arms wrapped around her, the same arms that had comforted her after her first fall from a bike, the same arms that had supported her after her first break up. For the second time tonight, Mia cried.
“I miss your father,” Bianca admitted, releasing her. “I miss him so much. I kept telling myself this was all a dream. A joke. And I would wake up next to him in the morning.”
“I miss him too.” Mia rubbed the tears from her eyes.
“I wanted to believe we could get back to Earth so badly. I didn’t think things through. I see how silly this is now. I messed things up for us.” Bianca wrapped her arms around her own body, rocking herself.
“Maybe one day we will find Daddy again. But until then, we need to survive.”
A deep rumble spread through the ship. Mia recalled a similar sound on a similar ship. It seemed like a lifetime ago that she was taken from Earth. The rumble which had stolen her from her home the first time, now threatened to steal her from her only chance at love and happiness.
Sometime later, after Mia had let it all out and recomposed herself, the locked door to the cargo hold clicked open and a certain whiny asshole walked through the door. Behind him were his lowlife lackeys and a haggard looking Reverend Jon. Before Mia could look for a weapon to attack him with, two Talleans walked in. They wore ragged looking Dominion uniforms and had weapons trained on Daniel and his group of thugs.
“You promised you’d bring us to Earth.” His voice grated on Mia’s nerves. How could someone sound so pathetic?
One of the Tallean bellowed a laugh.
“And you believed us? Humans must not be as smart as they say. Why the fuck would I help you when I could sell you on behalf of the Dominion and earn myself a promotion? Maybe they’ll send me on a better assignment than watching this shitty colony.”
He shoved the last human into the room.
“And don’t even think about trying anything stupid. We are already well away from Reka 5. Anything happens to us, and you’ll all die starving in space.”
He slammed the door shut. The click of the locking mechanism echoed in the stale air.
The sight of Dr. Ives’s pompous face sent her blood boiling through her veins. This monster was the reason they were all stuck here. He was the one who had ordered Sala shot. H
e left her bleeding out in her home. Red clouded her vision.
Without thinking, Mia stomped towards the vile excuse for a man, fists clenched and ready. She was small, but the anger clouding her vision told her she was ten feet tall. She just wanted to see him bleed.
When she spoke, the voice didn’t sound like her own. “You useless piece of shit.” Her voice was too calm, too calculated. It didn’t reflect the red-hot rage she felt inside. “This is all your fault. You fucked us over.”
Gary stood to join her as she advanced on her target. “I’ll hold him down, and you can beat on him.”
“Deal,” she agreed.
Daniel backed up and looked towards his goons for help. One of them put both hands in the air and stepped away. “She’s right. You fucked us over.”
Desperate, he looked around frantically for help, but his men had all turned on him. They looked ready to finish the job Mia intended to start. Only two people still stood by the doctor, Reverend Jon, and one other. Mia recognized him as the one who had shot Sala. Good, she wanted to deck him too.
Gary lunged in and tackled Dr. Ives to the ground. He went down easily. Mia let the rage control her as she fell on the man, hitting him again and again in the face. She wasn’t very strong, and she was sure she didn’t do much damage, but it felt good.
She only got a half dozen strikes in before someone pulled her off the man. She struggled for a moment before she realized it was Isabella and her mother holding her back.
“Let me at him!” Mia insisted. It sounded so lame, but those were the only words that made it to her lips through her angry haze.
With Mia pulled away, Gary now attacked the man. It placated her to see that Gary was doing more damage than she had. But soon, more arms came to pull him away as well.
“Stop!” Isabella yelled. “If you kill them now, they will get off too easy! Let them live. Let them die in a mine somewhere, knowing they brought it on themselves.” Then softer to Mia, “You don’t want his blood on your hands, he’s not worth it.”