Behind her, the third fantasy-making male with the entirely too yummy lips spoke. “How many people do you think we’ll run into?”
Of them all, Miragin looked the most nervous. Poor man, he’d been through so much. Elisa wished she could make it up to him.
She shook her head again, trying to concentrate on the task ahead. Elisa checked the chronometer on the office wall. Had it really been only five minutes since she showed up here to deliver their meals? Oret hadn’t even tasted the liver and onions she’d made especially for him.
“Elisa?” Zemos prodded. “How many crew would you say we’re going to come across on our way to the captain’s quarters?”
She considered. “It’s right after shift change. Everyone who just got done working is probably in the mess hall, and the others are running the ship. I know some corridors that almost never get used, plus the transport tube is just down the hall. It will take us almost to the doorstep of where we want to go.”
Oret asked, “Where are we most likely to be seen along your route?”
Elisa felt a stab of impatience. If they’d quit with the questions already, she could have them where they’d enjoy some privacy in a matter of minutes. “In the officers’ quarters area. Are we going or not?”
Oret quirked a smile at her terse tone. “Yes, we are going.” He grabbed her chin to make sure she kept her attention on him. His commanding touch made her stomach execute a slow flop. If he kissed her right now...
Instead of the wished-for kiss, Oret said, “Let me offer you a word of warning, Elisa. While I don’t want to harm you, anyone we come across may shoot first without checking his targets. If you try to lead us into a trap, you are every bit in as much danger as us.”
Elisa snorted, though she felt a renewed wave of warmth at his concern. Protective man. She told him, “I am well aware of the danger I am in. It’s you who doesn’t know the half of it.”
She smirked at his raised eyebrow. She loved surprising the Nobek, especially since he had such vast experience compared to her. However, she knew damned well he had no idea of how much trouble he had landed her in. Getting killed by a percussion blaster shot might be the least of her worries.
As much as Elisa hated losing contact with the man, she pulled her chin loose from his grip and leaned forward to check the corridor again. She reported, “We’re clear. Come on.”
To her delight, Oret’s warm hand cupped the nape of her neck, his grip firm but careful. With Zemos still holding onto her arm with one hand and his blaster at the ready in the other, Elisa led them out.
As she had suspected, even the most often trafficked corridors that led from the brig to the tubes were empty of people. Many of the halls on their route smelled musty from lack of use. They got to the lift without encountering anyone.
Elisa pointed to the closed door of the ship’s in-house transport system after punching the button that would summon the next available car. “This will take us within a few feet of where we’re going.”
The door slid open, and she got on board with the Kalquorians crowding close. “Officers’ living quarters level.”
The door closed and there was the telltale feeling of movement as the car swept through the tube to the level they wanted. Elisa frowned up at Zemos.
“You didn’t rescue the rest of your crew.”
He looked down at her. “It doesn’t make any sense to release them until we know the best way to do so. Not only that, a rescue isn’t a rescue if you get immediately get caught again. Or killed. We need a plan. To have a plan, we need information on this ship and how it’s operating.”
Elisa nodded. Zemos had a point. Damned if he hadn’t thought of everything.
And I’m helping him. I’m turning traitor on my own people.
Elisa frowned. She was helping the Kalquorians escape. They might attack and harm Earthers. It had been wrong to take them prisoner to sell them into slavery, but still, she was committing a heinous act. Wasn’t she? It was so hard to think past the pleasant wash of euphoria that coated her brain. The happy buzz in her skull made Zemos’ hand on her arm and Oret’s on her neck feel pleasurable to the point of dizziness.
Before she could puzzle any further on her situation, the lift’s door opened to the officers’ level. It took all Elisa had to focus on the task at hand, so she let go of the more confusing aspects of her situation to do so. She leaned out of the tube and peered about the corridor outside.
She reported, “All clear. We’re almost there.”
They got out and headed in the direction she tugged her captors. “The former captain’s quarters are located at that door at the end of the hall.” A new thought occurred to Elisa, one that she hadn’t thought of in all the confusion of the intoxication. “It will be locked, you know.”
Oret sounded unconcerned. “I suspected as much. Coombs’ field disruptor will take care of that with a few adjustments.”
“You’re pretty smart, aren’t you?” Elisa kept her eyes on the door straight ahead, but Oret’s features floated across her mind’s eye. He had the look of an utter barbarian with his heavy brow and hard-jawed looks. She wondered if most sold his intellect short with that primitive aspect he wore. Elisa never would. She’d seen the man display far too much intelligence in the past few weeks. Hell, in the past few minutes Oret had shown just how resourceful he was.
He replied to her comment. “Hopefully I’m smart enough to get us out of here.”
They reached the door. Oret slipped the blaster he’d taken from Coombs in his knee-high boot and released Elisa. He began fiddling with the disruptor.
Seconds later, voices sounded from a bend in the corridor behind them. Zemos’ hand on Elisa’s arm tensed, and she heard Miragin’s intake of breath. She froze in sudden fear. Oret was the only one who seemed unaffected, continuing to play with the disruptor he held.
Miragin’s low voice strove to be lighthearted. “Now would be a good time to get that door open.”
Oret answered just as jovially. “Yes, it would be nice, wouldn’t it?”
Zemos tugged Elisa behind him, putting her between his back and the door to the captain’s quarters. He grabbed Miragin too, pushing him to one side. The Dramok aimed his blaster in the direction of the approaching voices.
Elisa’s heart hammered. She might be confused on a lot of things right now, but she did know she didn’t want to see Zemos killed. She leaned forward on her tiptoes to whisper in his ear. “They might not shoot if I’m in front of you. You could use me as a human shield.”
The Dramok didn’t look at her, keeping his attention on the bend in the corridor. The shock in his tone was apparent, however. “By the ancestors, woman. What kind of monster do you think I am to put you in harm’s way like that?”
Behind Elisa, the door to the private cabin abruptly hissed open. Oret moved fast, grabbing both Elisa and Miragin and shoving them into the darkened room beyond. Zemos backed in after them, still watching for those who would no doubt be rounding the corner at any moment.
The door closed, shutting the four in darkness. With a relieved sigh, Elisa said, “Door lock.” A barely perceptible click announced the mechanism’s compliance.
“Lights.”
At Elisa’s command, dim illumination revealed the room they stood in. She smiled up at the Kalquorians before she remembered she was a hostage and supposed to be resisting them. It was damned hard to do so when her mind insisted on warm, soft feelings.
She sighed. They had intoxicated her senses, making everything hard to figure out. It didn’t help that she adored them every bit as much as they frightened her.
At a loss to figure out exactly how she was supposed to act, Elisa waved at the overhead lighting grid. “I hope that’s good enough for you to see by. Everything is rationed now: food, power, water, the works.”
Thinking that was enough and deciding she needed say no more to the escapees, Elisa wandered over to the sitting area at the back of the room. She sank onto the c
ouch and tried to order her thoughts.
The Kalquorians stared at her for a moment before having a look around the quarters. The former captain’s living space was much nicer than Elisa’s. It boasted a small dining area with a table big enough to accommodate four, a kitchenette that was small but adequate enough for one to cook a meal, plus the sitting space Elisa now occupied with two chairs and a table besides the couch where she perched. The closed door would no doubt open to a bedroom and bath facility. The lodgings smelled musty from disuse, but they were still nice. She particularly liked the colors of dark blue, white, and beige that predominated in the space.
Between the sitting area and dinette was a computer station. After poking his head in the bedroom to investigate its environs, Oret sat down at the computer with a satisfied sound. The chair groaned at his weight. Elisa had a hard time quashing a snicker to see the tremendous Nobek sitting in it. It made her think of a father attending his young daughter’s tea party, squatting on a child-sized chair.
Oret didn’t comment on how uncomfortable he must be. Instead, he began tapping uncertainly on the computer’s keyboard, bringing the machine to life. “It might take me a little while to access what we want. I’m a bit rusty on my written Earther English. It looks as though this computer is voice-command protected, so spoken orders aren’t going to work.”
Zemos stood behind him, though his gaze ran over the room rather than what his Nobek was doing. “These quarters are huge. Two rooms and a bath facility?”
Miragin went in the bedroom and came back out, his expression saying he was impressed. “It’s not nearly as cramped as a destroyer. No wonder these battlecruisers are so huge.”
“Wasted space,” Zemos snorted dismissively. He turned his attention to Oret’s work.
Miragin came to sit next to Elisa on the couch. He eyed her with what looked like a mixture of concern and dismay. “You didn’t really think we’d use you for a shield, did you?”
She shrugged. “Why not? I’m of no use to you beyond what I know about this ship and maybe as a hostage. Kalquor can’t use me for breeding. I’m beyond childbearing, you know.”
The Imdiko shook his head. “A woman is worth so much more than her ability to have offspring. Really, Elisa, I’m horrified to hear you say such a thing. Offended, actually.”
Her eyes widened. “I thought the clans of your Empire were only interested in women who can continue their bloodlines. Am I mistaken?”
Zemos’ resonant voice answered her from his position behind Oret. “It is our desperate need as a race to bring lifebringers to Kalquor. However, older men and clans not in the best position to be fathers are not averse to finding female mates who are no longer viable for motherhood.”
Elisa looked at the Dramok to find him regarding her with intense interest. Her heart stuttered. No, she couldn’t think about the possibility Zemos had been alluding to his own clan. She shoved such thoughts away.
Remember, you are in danger from these men right now, her mind whispered through the cloying fog of intoxication.
Elisa rubbed her forehead, trying to dispel the sense of well-being and arousal that Zemos’ bite had engendered. She worked to keep up her side of the conversation.
“Clans not in the position to be fathers? You mean, infertile?”
Miragin smiled, making her heart double beat again. “Not necessarily. Take our clan, for example. We are a bit older than those looking to father children. At 126, I’m the youngest of this unit. I’m not ancient by any means, but I’m not young anymore either.”
Elisa shook her head. “I keep forgetting you’re all over one hundred years old. For heaven’s sake, you barely look my age.”
Miragin chuckled. “I am much older than you, and rather set in my ways as you might imagine. But that is not the real hurdle to my being a father. I am perfectly capable of siring offspring, as are Zemos and Oret.”
“So what’s the real problem?”
“Zemos and Oret have worked for the Kalquorian fleet nearly their entire lives. It’s what they do, and it means they do not come home often. I am sometimes separated from them for weeks at a time. I can’t travel about in their destroyer because I’m not military.”
Elisa pursed her lips. “You were on it when it was taken.”
“I came aboard temporarily with special permission for a new book I’m writing. I had to get a lot of security clearances to be on that destroyer, even for the mere week I planned to stay. My being captured was a matter of me being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Zemos added, “Miragin often travels to visit us. We only get home to Kalquor once a year. During the war, we didn’t come home at all. We were separated for the entire duration.”
Elisa noted the warm look the Dramok gave Miragin. The affection was clear on his expression. She got the idea they missed each other a great deal when they were apart.
She ventured, “That must have been hard.”
Miragin nodded. “It was, but I knew what I was getting into when I agreed to join a clan with two military men. But back to the issue of this clan taking on fatherhood: can you imagine bringing up children with the majority of their fathers missing most of the time?”
Oret finally weighed in on the matter. His gruff voice rumbled, “Such a situation is unthinkable. Babes and younglings need their parents.”
Elisa blinked at him. “I didn’t have a father, not really.”
The men regarded her with surprise. Even Oret turned his attention from the computer to look at her for a moment, his brows drawn tight together in an expression of disapproval.
The silence was heavy, too heavy for Elisa to not continue. “Well, he wasn’t always gone, though he wasn’t around that much. He left for good when I was fifteen. The other kids were still little, one less than a year old.”
Miragin’s expression was blank, as if he couldn’t quite understand what she was saying. “Your father left you?”
“He had a lot of girlfriends, I think. It would explain why he was missing so much. We couldn’t talk about it since extramarital affairs meant a death sentence, and Mom and us kids needed his income to survive. I guess in the end he wanted to marry another woman. He divorced my mother and disappeared from our lives.”
Miragin shook his head, still unable to come to terms with the idea. “But he left? He was allowed to do that? Your laws didn’t make him assume responsibility for his children?”
Elisa almost wanted to giggle at the horrified looks the clan gave her. She knew Kalquorians clanned for life, but she’d never realized how seriously they took such matters.
She told them, “My father still paid the required amount towards our support. It wasn’t much, but he did what the court told him to. He had a new life with another woman. A year later, a new baby came along. He chose to devote himself to that family.”
The men didn’t mask the aghast expressions on their faces. Miragin looked revolted; Zemos and Oret seemed angry.
The Dramok’s voice was nearly a growl when he spoke. “Such behavior is despicable. Money aside, there is no excuse to not be available to one’s family. If a man cannot take care of his children nor find those who will, he has no business making them.”
Miragin asked, “Did your father do at least that? Did he find a man to be your father in his absence and a mate to your mother?”
Elisa almost did laugh out loud at that idea. The expressions on the men’s faces kept her from doing that. “Outside of financially, my father abandoned his responsibilities to us.”
Oret went back to working on the computer. His face dark, he muttered, “Madness.”
Elisa peered at Miragin. “That has never happened on Kalquor?”
The Imdiko grimaced. “I suppose it has a few times, but it’s rare. Men are expected to take care of the children they father, even if they are not clanned to the mother. They only relinquish all responsibility to their offspring if the mother clans with others and it’s in the best interests of the lit
tle ones.”
“But it does happen where the father sometimes walks away from his children, I’m sure,” Elisa prodded.
“Hardly ever. Such men are not thought well of by the majority of Kalquorians. If they try such escapades, they are often shamed into behaving appropriately.”
“Accidents happen, don’t they? Like unwanted pregnancies?”
Miragin shook his head. “As far as our people are concerned, no pregnancy is unwanted. In the cases in which an unclanned woman has a child, she has no shortage of clans begging to be the babe’s fathers.”
Zemos called for her attention. “Why is it you never clanned, Elisa?”
“Married,” Miragin corrected him.
“Right, married.” The Dramok looked at her with that piercing stare he got so often. “You are a good person. Lovely and intelligent. You are a joy to be around. Your voice is spectacular. Surely you’ve had many offers?”
Elisa wanted to squirm with pleasure at Zemos’ compliments. She managed not to, but she couldn’t help the smile that visited her lips. Did he really think so highly of her?
She got herself under control to answer him. “I was the oldest of five brothers and a sister. My mother and I worked all the time to help make ends meet. I wanted my siblings to go to college and make something of their lives. After I finished high school, I kept right on working to help pay for that. Between that and my own studies to get my dietician’s degree, I didn’t have time for dating.”
There was much more to it than that, but Elisa felt too good at the moment to remember the sadness and shame, the real reason she’d never pursued the dangerous option of falling in love.
Instead of revisiting the ugly past, Elisa said, “By the time the others didn’t need me anymore, I was almost forty. There didn’t seem to be much point in trying to be someone’s wife by then.”
She was suddenly glad Zemos had bitten her. She was too intoxicated to reflect on missed opportunities and dreams that never panned out. Relatives had ceased to be a real part of her life by the time she’d left Earth on board the battlecruiser. Her brothers and sister seemed to have forgotten her once they had their lives in hand. Elisa had received perfunctory invitations to weddings, baptisms, birthdays, and holiday celebrations. Otherwise, the younger Mackenzies had found no time for the elder sister that had been such an embarrassment in their small hometown.
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