Enslaved Book III: The Gladiators

by Kaitlyn O'Connor

  Releasing him, she leapt to her feet and raced across the bay, nearly skidding past the lift. Thankfully, the door opened the moment she touched the control panel and she leapt inside. After searching the interior control frantically for a moment, she finally simply pressed the button at the top. The doors closed and then promptly opened again. She gaped at the bay and then looked at the panel again. That time she pressed the bottom button. The lift shot up at a dizzying speed that almost made her knees buckle when it stopped. The door opened and she staggered off, glancing wildly around.

  She was on the bridge. She knew it was, but it was filled with electronics and panic threatened to overwhelm her. She didn’t know what might happen when the space station imploded, but she didn’t want to be anywhere near it!

  After surveying everything within sight, she began jogging through the control room, scanning and dismissing each console she passed until she spied one that had a seat in front of it. Breathing a sigh of relief, she rushed to it and plopped down in the chair, scanning the controls and trying to focus. Panic was riding her, however, and she couldn’t calm herself enough to tell if anything looked even vaguely familiar or not. Finally, in desperation, she began touching first once button and then another. The computer spoke—thankfully in Unduleze! “Bay door opening.”

  “No! Close the bay door!”

  “Bay door closing.”

  A yawning hole of panic threatened to open up and swallow her whole. “Help me out here, damn it!”

  “Does not compute.”

  “Start engines!”

  “Initiating start sequence.”

  The relief that went through her threatened to rip the tenuous hold she had on her composure from her grasp. Loren dragged in a calming breath, fighting for her life and everyone else’s by trying to force her shocked mind into functioning, searching her memory for anything at all that she might have picked up about space ships—anytime, anywhere. Finally recalling that she’d watched several televised launches and they always performed a systems check, she told the computer to perform a systems check. She thought she would be eternally grateful that that had occurred to her. The computer immediately began reeling off various systems and their status.

  “Artificial gravity off.”

  “Wait! Activate artificial gravity!”

  “Affirmative. Artificial gravity on.”

  The computer went back to the systems check.

  “Alert! Cargo door open.”

  “Close cargo door.”

  “There is a crate in the cargo door.”

  Loren leapt out of her seat, whipped around the chair, and plowed into Kael. For a split second, she couldn’t even figure out what she’d hit. She’d been so gripped by panic she hadn’t realized he’d followed her up.

  “There’s something blocking the cargo door! It won’t close until somebody moves it!”

  “Where?”

  “Directions to the cargo hold, computer!” Loren demanded and then glanced at Kael. “Where’s everybody else?”

  “Still down in bottom ship.”

  “Wait! Computer, open all communications channels!”

  “Ship wide com links open.”

  She glanced around for a microphone. “Where’s the bridge com?”

  When the computer had directed her to it, she leaned closer. Kael settled a hand on her shoulder and leaned down, issuing the directions in his own language.

  “Tell them to let us know the moment they get it moved!”

  Nodding, Kael repeated the message.

  “Engine status?”

  “Engines at full.”

  “Continue the systems check.”

  It unnerved her that she didn’t know what half of the systems were or what they were for. She struggled to close her mind to possible disaster scenarios arising from that ignorance and focus on figuring out what the damned computer was telling her. Abruptly, a solution popped into her mind. “Computer—prepare all systems for launch!”

  “Checking and resetting all systems. Cargo door closing.”

  The computer had barely made the announcement when she heard Karen screaming that the crate had been moved.

  “Tell everybody to brace themselves. We’re about to move the ship out of dock.”

  “Preparing to move the ship out of dock,” the computer responded.

  Loren ground her teeth when the computer responded to her comment to Kael. “You’ve prepped all systems? Everything locked down and closed? We’re prepared to launch?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Can we get an external visual of the space station?”

  “Affirmative.”

  A holographic display appeared in front of the console and she nearly passed out when she saw the view. The space station was already crumpling in upon itself. “Go!”

  “Awaiting confirmation from space station central flight control.”

  “You aren’t going to get it! The space station is about to implode! Go, god damn it!”

  “Firing docking engines.”

  Loren slumped weakly in her seat for a moment before she recalled that Kael was standing behind her. Leaping up, she threw herself at him, clinging to him tightly. “I’ve never been so terrified in my life! Are you alright?” she asked abruptly as it occurred to her that she had no idea whether he’d come through the battle unscathed or not.

  He caught her waist between his hands and lifted her up. She coiled her arms and legs around him when he had. “Am fine. Lau-ren?” he asked, searching her face.

  She shook her head, closing her eyes to try to block out the images that immediately pelted her. She didn’t want to think about the horror of those moments when Lecur had opened her door to the men standing outside. Thankfully, much of it was a blur anyway, but too much was all too clear in her mind and didn’t bear thinking on—the terror of knowing what they intended, the pain when they’d slammed her down on the hard floor and wrenched her arms and legs into position for their assault, the weight of them, their smell …. “I’m ok.” She burrowed her face against his neck, however, and promptly burst into tears, tightening her arms frantically around his neck.

  “The ship is clear of the dock,” the computer announced.

  The announcement jolted Loren back to the present, reminding her that she wasn’t safe yet and no one else was either. Sniffing, she pulled away from Kael reluctantly and struggled for composure when all she wanted was to wrap herself up in him and believe nothing could touch her as long as he held her. “Engines full ahead.”

  “No flight plans have been logged.”

  She should’ve known it wouldn’t be that easy! Sighing, Loren wiggled until Kael set her down again and stared at the image on the screen, trying to sort her thoughts and think of something logical for the computer to perform. “Just put some distance between us and the space station.”

  “Distance required?”

  It didn’t take as much effort that time. “Calculate distance required to avoid collision with space station debris and move beyond that.”

  “Affirmative.”

  Loren swayed toward Kael as the ship accelerated. It surprised her when she hadn’t felt it before, when she’d first been taken, but then she recalled that she’d been unconscious. She looked at him. “Maybe we should sit down?”

  He glanced around and finally dropped into the pilot’s seat and pulled her onto his lap. Sighing with relief, Loren snuggled tightly against him, trying to warm herself as it finally filtered into her mind that she was freezing. “I need to try to figure out a course,” she murmured against Kael’s chest, but she didn’t move. He felt so warm and solid and safe she couldn’t bring herself to move. She was exhausted from trying to hold herself together long enough to survive. All she wanted was to shed the responsibility and enjoy a minor nervous breakdown. That thought produced a potential prospect to dump the responsibility on to. “How’s the trader?”

  “Dead.”

  Loren’s heart clenched painfully, i
mages she didn’t want to think about flickering through her mind. Despite what he’d done to her—to all of them—she felt a rise of nausea at the memory of shaking him and badgering him when he was dying. She leaned away from Kael and stared at him in dismay, fighting the urge to cry all over again. “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  She swallowed with an effort. “I guess I’ll have to figure it out by myself then,” she murmured neutrally, trying to stave off a fresh wave of panic at the realization that she didn’t even have anyone to consult let alone to shoulder all of the responsibility for getting them to safety.

  “Safe distance from collapsing space station achieved,” the computer announced. “Flight course required.”

  It was a crying shame that computers had their limitations, Loren thought. How wonderful it would’ve been if she could’ve simply said ‘take me home’ and it had done it, like a genie granting wishes! For a few moments, she indulged the fantasy, and then, like a building collapsing on her, it hit her that her home wasn’t Kael’s home.

  She struggled to picture going home anyway, but happy images didn’t fill her mind. All she could think was how everyone would panic when they saw the aliens and it wasn’t much of a leap from there to imagine what they’d do to the aliens.

  And that was assuming she managed to land the damned ship without getting shot down!

  Reluctance formed a hard knot in her belly—reluctance to give up the fantasy of returning to Earth and everything familiar and dear to her—and an equal opposing reluctance to let go of Kael and Dakaar and Bain, to take them to their own home and tell them goodbye. She hadn’t spent any time at all considering what she would do if they managed to escape, and yet she realized as soon as the thought crossed her mind that that wasn’t true.

  She’d imagined being with Kael and Dakaar and Balen. She hadn’t imagined anything in particular, hadn’t tried to erect a fantasy world where they were all together or any sort of future. She’d simply accepted that she would be with them.

  Anguish filled her so abruptly, she felt like she drowning in it. She could remember telling herself that she couldn’t afford to become emotionally attached to them, that she was going home, whatever it took, and she didn’t want any regrets.

  She was going to have regrets, she realized mournfully, whatever she decided. She would miss home, her parents, everything about Earth if she decided to stay with them and if she decided against it she knew abruptly that she would deeply, deeply regret that. She didn’t know when she’d gone from feeling as if their protection was in the nature of a business transaction between them to feeling like she might just die if they vanished from her life, but even considering it opened a bottomless chasm inside of her that she couldn’t bear to face.

  Kael cupped a hand along her cheek and pushed her face up for his inspection. His gaze traveled over her face and then he met her gaze. “No want lose mine shimone, Lau-ren,” he said hoarsely. “Tell why angry. Make better. Swear.”

  It needed only that! She felt her chin wobble and struggled to swallow against a knot the size of her fist that rose in her throat. “Nothing,” she wailed.

  He stared at her in baffled frustration. “You no tell me, no can make right.”

  How could she explain that he’d made her ashamed of herself? That she’d been angry at the reflection of herself in his eyes? Because she’d begun to admire them so highly and she’d wanted them to look at her as they always had, as if she was the most wonderful thing they’d ever seen! It had hurt to see she’d hurt them and hurt worse to see condemnation in their eyes and anger when she’d never seen it aimed at her before. She’d been angry because she was terribly afraid she’d thrown away something she could never get back, destroyed something more precious to her than she’d realized only because she couldn’t open her mind and heart and really see them for what they were. “I don’t know if it can be made right,” she managed to say finally.

  “Can!” he said firmly, almost angrily. “I make right. No can talk dis talk good, shimone, but no stupid!” he said, his voice filled with frustration.

  She sniffed. She had to make it right! He couldn’t! She had to make him understand, all of them, somehow, that she knew how very lucky she was that she’d found them.

  She didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry when the lift doors opened and she heard the sounds of the others arriving. It saved her from struggling to explain something so complex she knew it would defeat her—especially at the moment when she was still so shaken her wits were scattered, but it also deprived her of a chance she might not get again. She looked at Kael mournfully, begging him to give her a chance.

  He leaned down and brushed his lips along hers. “Talk later?”

  She nodded, sniffing again, but the offer lightened the tightness in her chest just a little. Reluctantly, she got off his lap to meet the others as they arrived.

  Dakaar and Balen were leading the group. Her heart surged with thankfulness when she’d scanned them for wounds and didn’t see anything threatening—a multitude of developing bruises and some burns and scratches, but nothing missing or maimed. After a brief hesitation, she rushed to embrace Dakaar in a tight hug and then pulled away and hugged Balen.

  “Oh my god! This looks like something out of a sci-fi movie!”

  Loren pulled away from Balen and searched for the owner of the voice. “Karen! Oh thank god!”

  Karen met her halfway. They hugged each other and wept and laughed a little hysterically before they pulled away from one another.

  “We made it!” Karen exclaimed shakily. “Where are we?”

  Loren’s smile fell. “Right now? The ship moved out of range of the debris field of the space station. Thankfully, everybody else was too focused on getting the hell out of Dodge to pay us any attention.” She swallowed a little convulsively. She hadn’t wanted to even think about the possibility of having a space battle on her hands, but horrific images had flickered through her mind regardless.

  Karen sobered so quickly it might have been comical if Loren wasn’t too shaky herself to really notice. “Who’s flying the ship?”

  “Lau-ren,” Kael volunteered.

  Karen whipped a look at him and then stared at Loren in wide eyed horror, looking as if she might burst into tears any moment. “Oh … my … god! We are so fucked!”

  Loren clamped a hand over her mouth and gave her a warning look. “Thankfully the computer is set up in Unduleze and that’s the language the trader implanted, or whatever, in us. I just wish I’d realized before I got up here that it would only be a matter of communicating with the computer. I might not have been so scared.” She considered that. “Not as scared.”

  “Trader dead,” Dakaar announced flatly.

  Loren glanced at him and then looked around at the faces of everyone who’d managed to make it on board. They all looked like they’d been through hell and back, bore the signs of their battle to break free of Lecur’s prison and the fight they’d waged every step of the way to get to the ship. They were spattered and streaked with blood and the white powder that had rained down on them from the crumbling walls, their hair wild, battered, bruised, cut and burned, and pale and shaken from their ordeal besides that. She counted seven more Hirachi, none of whom she’d actually met, and three aliens she knew were gladiators that definitely weren’t Hirachi.

  Like all of the other aliens that had inhabited Lecur’s privately owned hell, they were humanoid, but although their features were similar to humans—and the Hirachi—they would never be mistaken for a human. It was the ‘demon’ aliens that had totally freaked her out!

  Actually, she didn’t know if it was the same ones or not. She hadn’t looked at them closely enough to recognize them, but it was definitely she same species!

  They were tall, but closer to a very tall human in height than the Hirachi—with almost freakishly broad shoulders and barrel chests that tapered to narrow hips, their musculature so pronounced it looked ropy beneath their
rough looking, sunburn red skin. They had black horns that sprouted from their temples and curled like ram’s horns, forming a frame for their pointy ears.

  The Hirachi had nothing on them for scary looking!

  Shara was clinging to one of the Hirachi. She, too, was humanoid and yet distinctly alien with her bluish-green skin and hair, snub nose, and cat-like eyes.

  Loren turned and glanced at Karen and then looked at Kael helplessly.

  He studied her for a long moment and lifted his head to focus on the others, switching to his native language. “We need to secure the ship—search it from top to bottom to see what is here that might be useful—food, water, bedding, clothes—medicines. We’ll divide into groups to cover everything more quickly and take it one level at the time, starting at the one just below this.” He returned his attention to Lau-ren. “Womans stay here. Safe here.”

  Chapter Ten

  Loren gaped at Kael in dismay. In the back of her mind, she knew he was right—and not just about her being safer. She needed to stay near the ship’s controls, but all of her sense of safety was wrapped up in Kael at the moment and, like a child that only felt brave when their parent was holding their hand, she didn’t want to let him out of her sight. She couldn’t tell him that, though! He expected her to be brave and strong—like the Hirachi women! But she wasn’t! She was a weakling and a coward. Bracing herself to pretend that wasn’t true to keep from diminishing herself further in his eyes, she cast around for an excuse to stick to him as if she’d been plastered to him. “But …I’m freezing in this … thing! I thought I’d go with you—just to find something to put on!”

  Kael surveyed her and she bit her lip, realizing abruptly that nobody had anything on to speak of. The men were wearing nothing but the loincloths that covered their genitals and Karen and Shara were both dressed in the tissue togas just like her own—which was hanging off of them in tatters from their own assaults.