Out of Orbit- The Complete Series Boxset

by Chele Cooke

  He scoffed.

  “If you think he would step back, or ignore an assault simply because I ask, Olless, you are even more of a vtensu than…”

  “Use that word again and I will cut this communication this instant.”

  Rolling his eyes, he sneered back at her.

  “Well, it was a ridiculous suggestion.”

  She shook her head in a wave of red hair, striding back through the table. He slid down onto the edge of a chair.

  “We are not ready to move, there are too many elements in play. You know this.”

  “That, Olless, is your duty, not mine.”

  “If you gave me more information, perhaps?” she suggested. “Your cryptic messages do not help your cause. You say the Belsa will attempt an attack, or that the Adveni will destroy them, but what proof do you have?”

  “There is none.”

  “And yet you claim they move.”

  He rubbed his hand across his face in frustration. She grinned in triumph.

  “There was… There was one thing,” he murmured.

  “Yes?”

  “Two dreta escaped.”

  “Hardly something of note,” she drawled. “But since you think it important, how?”

  “They were organised and had people waiting. The thing is, there are rumours that they took information with them.”

  Her grin slipped into curiosity. She turned her head this way and that, and in that moment, he knew that she was not seeing the surroundings he’d brought her into.

  “What information?”

  “Unknown, but they belonged to Maarqyn Guinnyr. He took up the Tsevstakre commander position after Jolq was killed.”

  Olless looked practically giddy at the news. Her smile burst too wide across her face and she leaned over him, her semi-translucent face inches from his.

  “Well, I would suggest that you find these dreta and ensure that we know what they know before anyone else does.”

  He leaned back in his chair, putting as much distance between them as possible.

  “There is no chance that I can get near them. They’ve gone underground… quite literally.”

  “You know the location of the Belsa?”

  “Somewhat.”

  “Yet they haven’t been rooted out yet?”

  “The commanders are planning it, but those tunnels are a maze,” he explained. “They won’t move until they have every exit blocked. Until then, they are hoping the Belsa are ignorant enough to believe that they remain undiscovered.”

  “You have to get in there.”

  He was on his feet faster than she could back away from him. The projection of her hair swished through his chest.

  “You are kidding, right?”

  “We need those dreta!”

  “Impossible!”

  “Nothing is im…”

  “This is!”

  “We need to know what they know.”

  He sank back into the chair, rubbing his hands across his knees. Olless remained silent, a projected sentry to his thoughts. Finally, he lifted his head.

  “There is one way.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “There was a capture during their escape, a medic.”

  “You think this medic knows them well enough to get the information?”

  He nodded, a plan alight in his eyes.

  “I know she does.”

  The sharp intake of breath did not register as Georgianna awoke with a jolt. For the briefest moment, the nightmare that had plagued her filled her every thought and she didn’t realise that the surprised gasp had not been her own. However, a shift of weight on her bed and a warm hand against her skin brought her back to her senses.

  The lamps had been extinguished in the prison block yet through the dank grey of the night, Georgianna could see the man hovering over her. He perched on the edge of her bed, his hand frozen against her stomach.

  His long, lank hair was pulled back in a tight braid that hung between his shoulders, brown eyes gleaming. Leaning over her, he pushed his hand harder against her skin, her shirt rumpled just under her breast. His fingers slipped under the material and his lips pulled back into a predatory snarl as he shifted his weight, holding her against the bed.

  Georgianna screamed, forgetting reason as she kicked and hit out. The man, a prisoner she had seen around the block but never actually spoken to, bared his teeth and clambered onto the bed. Wrestling Georgianna against the mattress, he pinned her thighs with his legs.

  “Shhhh!”

  She gnashed her teeth as his hand came down against her lips. Thrashing beneath him, she stared fearfully up at him with wide, brown eyes, thrusting against his chest.

  “Get off!”

  She wriggled, trying to find any way of upsetting his balance and toppling him onto the cell floor. Squealing and thrashing, she squeezed her eyes shut and hit out, catching him in the shoulder and bringing forth a grunt of pain.

  Without warning, a large hand clamped down on the man’s neck and hauled him off. Georgianna opened her eyes. Squirming up the bed, she sat up. The newcomer, Dhiren, was glaring at her attacker as he held him captive.

  “Vtensu!” Dhiren snarled at him. “You’re fucking filth, Hallun.”

  Struggling to free himself from the hold on his neck, Hallun could barely turn his head to look at the other man. Dhiren was stocky, and tall too. Despite how hard Hallun struggled, it was clear that he stood little chance of freeing himself.

  “Get off, Yote!” he sneered.

  “You calling me a coyote, Hallun? Nothing more than a dog?”

  There was a whisper of amusement in Dhiren’s voice. Georgianna stared back at them, too scared to move, but she could almost believe that the second man might be enjoying himself. It wasn’t the first time Georgianna had heard Dhiren called a yote within the Lyndbury Compound walls. The other prisoners saw him as a savage attack dog, only controlled by the brothers who ran the block.

  Since her incarceration for her involvement in the escape of two dreta, slaves to Adveni owners, Georgianna had learned the way things worked in the compound. Having visited the compound regularly as a medic, she knew that the guards rarely entered the prison blocks, but she quickly realised that there was a strict hierarchy within the block walls. The laws within the block were to be followed unless inmates wanted to suffer at the hands of those in charge when the guards were not around. Dhiren, fortunately for her, had a high place in the hierarchy, second only to the brothers, Ta-Dao and Vajra.

  Tugging Hallun towards the door of the cell, Dhiren stopped short as he realised that the way had been blocked. Georgianna sat up a little straighter, wrapping her arms protectively around her stomach at the sight of Ta-Dao.

  “Dhi?” he murmured.

  Ta-Dao’s stance in the doorway, the way he lifted his hand and rubbed it blearily over his face, gave the impression of a man who had been woken by the commotion and stumbled into it by accident. However, even in the dark, Georgianna could see his alert gaze dart from Dhiren, over Georgianna, before finally settling on Hallun.

  “What’s going on here?”

  “This vtensu thought it was alright to sneak into the med’s cell and…”

  “And you saw it as appropriate to fight her battles for her?” Ta-Dao taunted.

  Dhiren hesitated. He glanced at her before a grim frown tightened his lips. Georgianna pushed herself further against the wall. Ta-Dao had given up all pretence of having been woken by the commotion. The way Dhiren looked at the man who controlled his fate felt wrong, as if there was something he had just figured out that she had not been told. Ta-Dao had reached the cell a little too quickly.

  “Would you have me leave her here?”

  Ta-Dao rested his elbow against the cell bars and lifted a single finger to place it idly against his lip as if in thought. The motion was meaningless. He had the answer worked out. The only question was whether this pause was for Dhiren’s benefit or hers.

  “We have offered the m
edic protection already, have we not?” he asked.

  Dhiren’s expression hardened, his brow creasing as he let out a snort.

  “Yes,” he said. “But that doesn’t m…”

  “And the medic turned us down, didn’t she?”

  Dhiren glanced at Georgianna, his expression livid.

  “Yes.”

  Ta-Dao pushed himself off the bars and grasped his hands together. He was clearly enjoying his position of dominance over the other inmate. He was having trouble keeping the gleeful smirk off his face. Hallun, too, seemed much more relaxed and, as Georgianna looked from one to the other, she realised what she had missed.

  She wondered if Ta-Dao had noticed the ease with which Dhiren spoke to her, unlike the other prisoners, who kept their distance. Perhaps he had spotted them enjoying time together in the yard. Either way, she knew that Ta-Dao had guessed that Dhiren would come to her aid if she were ever attacked.

  “Well, I see no reason to intervene,” Ta-Dao said.

  Georgianna’s hands trembled. Would Hallun retreat after Dhiren was forced to let him go? Or would he see it as permission to do whatever he wanted? What if other inmates heard the commotion? She’d screamed. It wouldn’t have been surprising for other inmates to be woken. If they knew that the brothers had no intention of stopping an attack, would Hallun simply be the first of the inmates who would want to take their turn?

  Dhiren, however, showed no sign of releasing Hallun. If anything, his grasp tightened on the man’s neck. The inmate winced and tried to wriggle from the vice grip.

  “Dhi…” Ta-Dao warned, the previously jovial smirk replaced with a hardened grimace.

  Hallun was released with a shove. Ta-Dao’s grin returned in full splendour and he gave an approving nod. Turning to leave the cell, Ta-Dao was almost past the bars before he glanced at Georgianna, a predatory gleam in his eye. She froze, knowing in that moment that he had planned every moment of this, that he had every intention of letting the scenario play out.

  She didn’t have anything to offer. Hallun had proved that he could pin her down and that she was not strong enough to fight him off by herself. She glanced at his expectant expression before looking fearfully at Dhiren. The brothers controlled his every move. He didn’t have a choice. Despite surviving this long in the block without their help, as it turned out, she didn’t have any choice either.

  “Alright!” she cried. “I’ll do it! Ta-Dao, come back!”

  His face appeared around the bars before the last word left her lips.

  “I’m sorry?”

  Georgianna stared at her knees, bringing them up to her chest and wrapping her arms tightly around her legs.

  “I said I’ll do it. I want protection.”

  The frown was instant, his brow furrowed.

  “The world does not turn on wants, Medic.”

  “I’ll answer to you. I’ll… I’ll not help anyone without your permission. Whatever you want. Please.”

  She knew that Ta-Dao and his brother, Vajra, could take whatever they wanted from her in exchange for their protection. They’d offered it many times since her arrival in the compound and she’d always refused. She supposed it had only been a matter of time before they tipped the scales in their favour. Now that she was in a worse position than ever, her desperation had pushed her straight into their hands.

  Ta-Dao’s frown disappeared.

  “I’m glad to hear that, Medic,” he said cheerfully. “Why don’t you come by in the morning and we’ll discuss your… arrangement.”

  Georgianna’s eyes widened as he turned to walk away. With Hallun standing in her cell looking confused, and Dhiren uncertain as to what he was supposed to do, Georgianna launched herself along the bed.

  “Ta-Dao!” she cried. “You can’t…”

  He turned back, an innocent expression of surprise on his face.

  “Oh, yes,” he nodded. “Dhiren, take care of that, will you?”

  He waved his hand absently in Hallun’s direction, as if the man were a mess to be cleared away.

  Hallun took a step back as the man advanced. Panic laid itself over every inch of his face and he swung out. It wasn’t enough. Dhiren blocked the attack with ease. Sweeping his arm out, he turned the smaller man until his back slammed into the wall. The inmate’s throat was easy for Dhiren’s skilled grasp to find. Georgianna remained frozen in place as Hallun was dragged from the cell and hauled over the balcony railing.

  A cry knotted in her throat. The thud echoed from the floor below.

  Even as a flurry of motion began sounding around the block the next morning, Georgianna didn’t move from her place, curled in the corner of her bed. She couldn’t move. She was sure that the moment she appeared from her cell, it would be expected that she go to see Ta-Dao and Vajra. She wasn’t ready for that yet. She wasn’t ready to see Ta-Dao’s triumphant smile as he claimed his price for her protection.

  Other inmates were moving around the block, some passing her cell. They each glanced in with expressions of varying degrees of pity and hatred as their gaze met hers. Most had heard the commotion and heard her crying out for Ta-Dao’s protection. They had probably jolted at the thud of Hallun’s body hitting the ground. They knew that, like Dhiren, their medic was now in the brothers’ grasp. She would act as ordered, even if that meant leaving someone to die in pain.

  The women looked more sympathetic. They knew the fear in her voice as she’d screamed for help. Maybe they had been that woman screaming in the past. She didn’t know whether someone had come to help them the way Dhiren had rescued her, but she doubted it.

  Slipping her hand beneath the wilted pillow, Georgianna ran her finger along the edge of a piece of folded paper, a note that Keiran had managed to pass into the compound. Her relationship with Belsa sergeant Keiran Zanetti had been complicated to say the least. They had both agreed that they didn’t want anything serious, and neither was ready for the Veniche tradition of joining, but the longer she had spent with him, the more she had realised just how much she liked him. The fact he’d helped organise the escape of two of her friends from their Adveni owner had only strengthened their connection. One of the things Georgianna felt worst about was that before she’d been caught during the escape, Keiran had already agreed to have a discussion about what their relationship meant to them.

  No one had admitted to putting his note in her cell, and no free Veniche had stepped onto the block since her arrival. When Georgianna lay alone in her cell, wracked by nightmares of Maarqyn buying her as a drysta, or of spending the rest of her life in this hole, the note felt like her only comfort.

  She pulled it free from its hiding place and unfolded it. The paper was crumpled, the writing faded. Repeated readings and keeping it close at all times was taking its toll.

  I have too much time on my hands.

  Be ready.

  K.

  It had been weeks since its arrival, left on her pillow while she helped Dhiren with an injury. Keiran had said that she should be ready and given the impression that he was working to get her out, but she’d not received any more information. In each quiet moment, she prayed that whatever he was planning would happen soon, but the longer she waited, the more she feared that something had already gone wrong. Had a note with instructions she was meant to follow not been delivered? Had Keiran been captured? Was he dead? If he’d been captured, was it because he had been found to be a member of the Veniche rebel group, the Belsa? That alone was a crime punishable by death. Or was it because he had tried to help her?

  The walkway groaned outside her cell. Georgianna folded the note and shoved it back under her pillow. She still clung to it, waiting for the next look of pity or thinly veiled disgust.

  “He’s not coming back.”

  Dhiren stood in the doorway, rubbing his jaw thoughtfully. Georgianna twitched and grasped the note tighter.

  “I know that.”

  He nodded and stepped into the cell, taking a seat on the foot of her bed. Georgi
anna pushed herself up, pressing her back against the wall and bringing her knees up to her chest. She wound her arms around her legs, pressing the note against her shin.

  “You haven’t slept.”

  She didn’t know what to say to him. She couldn’t go back on her word to Ta-Dao without consequences. Would Dhiren be the one to carry it out? She looked back at her knees.

  He pushed himself back, laying his legs out across the bed, his boots waving casually in the air, looking thoroughly unconcerned about her fear of going to sleep again. Yet he didn’t know that her fear had been there long before Hallun had entered her cell. Maarqyn constantly crept through her dreams and when he appeared, her loved ones usually ended up dead.

  Up until a few months before, Georgianna had not known the name Maarqyn Guinnyr. Commander of the elite branch of Adveni military, the Tsevstakre, Maarqyn was a cruel, important man who had owned two dreta, Alec Cartwright and Nyah Wolfe. While helping her friends escape their slavery, Maarqyn had cornered Georgianna in an abandoned shop where their broken cinystalq collars were found. Under the torture of electrical shocks from a new cinystalq that he clamped around her neck, Georgianna had admitted that she’d been involved in planning the escape, and she had been arrested and sent to the compound.

  Maarqyn had been very clear about his intentions before she’d been delivered into the compound. Seeing as she had helped in the escape of his two dreta, she would be the one to make up for his loss. He had promised her that he would buy her the moment she was put up for sale as a slave herself. Since she’d walked through the door into the block, she hadn’t been able to stop wondering when that day would come. She had spent every day hoping that it would be put off just a little longer.

  “What… What will happen now?”

  “You mean with Ta-Dao and Vajra?”

  Georgianna picked at a loose thread on her shirt.

  “Yeah.”

  “They’ll tell you what they want from you and you’ll do it,” he explained bluntly. “You’ll regret it if you don’t.”

  “They’ll hurt me?” she asked, glancing up just in time to see him nod. “For how long?”