by KD Jones
“I’m not sure. According to our digital records, he hasn’t been released by the healers yet.”
“Show me where he’s supposed to be,” Corey ordered. If the injured man was still there, he might be able to give them information on where Nix had been taken.
There were two large open areas with beds lining the walls, five beds against each wall. Corey spotted a man laying down on his side with his back to them. As they got closer to the bed, he couldn’t tell if the man was sleeping or not. Corey kept his hand close to his blaster just in case.
One of the healers walked closer, then stopped short. “He’s not hooked up to his monitor.” The healer leaned over him then glanced up with shock on his face. “He’s dead.”
What the fuck? Corey moved around the bed to get a look at the man. “He has the same build of guy we’re looking for, and he has the same injuries as one of the three men that attacked us. We need to get that search party going right now. If the resistance has no problems killing one of their own, they won’t hesitate to make an example out of Nix.”
“Come with me,” Warrior Davens said, moving quickly back down the hallway.
Corey followed Warrior Davens into the healer’s office. Davens looked over at Corey as he took a seat. “Do you have a computer?”
“No, we came down with limited equipment, and when we were attacked up top, our communicators got messed up and we lost our computer.”
“You were attacked aboveground?”
“Yes. Nix wanted to proceed with our mission by trying to locate the men who attacked us first. Then we would examine the progress and issues in rebuilding the tunnels. She had planned to notify Commander Estro after we had more information for him.”
Davens handed Corey an extra computer. “I will contact the commander to let him know what has happened.”
“Wait on that until we find out where Nix is.”
“I must report any altercations with the resistance. It’s protocol.”
“Damn the protocols! We don’t have evidence yet that the people that attacked us were with the resistance. They could be just a couple of humans who decided to rob us and got overzealous.”
“I don’t like this,” Warrior Davens said as he pulled up the feeds. “There’s quite a bit to go through. I’m sending some to your computer. With both of us watching, we should be able to get through more faster, hopefully catch something that will help.”
Watching the feeds from the surveillance cameras felt like it took hours, though the clock confirmed it had only been minutes. Corey wanted to throw the computer down and storm out to search for Nix himself. So far, the tribespeople weren’t stepping forward with any information. They were definitely scared of the resistance. He couldn’t blame them. Though the Drastans have done a lot to help improve and save their lives, they would eventually leave Earth, and the humans remaining would have to learn to deal with one another. It was a difficult position for all of them.
Why had he allowed Nix to go off on her own? Granted she was the lead on the mission and more than competent, but it was still too dangerous for her to move around in the tunnels without help or support from a human. That was the whole purpose of him being there on the mission with her. He was supposed to be her human guide. He had failed her. The thought of what might be happening to her ate at him as he sat here, unable to do anything.
Corey watched the feed, rewinding at any point where he thought he saw something. He paused when Warrior Davens leaned across the desk. “Where does this lead?”
Corey leaned forward to look at the other man’s screen. The video feed was frozen on an image of a man in a hoodie opening a door with no handle. The door wasn’t marked.
“I think it leads to a maintenance corridor. With the new Drastan power technology, the old wiring areas are no longer needed and were supposed to be blocked. This door must have been overlooked because it blended into the tunnel wall. Did you see Nix being taken through there?”
“No, but if you rewind, there is a short period of time that there was a flash and the lights went out around the camera. When the lights came back on, it caused the images to blur temporarily. This image was caught a little before the lights flashed.”
“What area is this door in?” Corey asked.
“I’m not sure. There are several locations this could be. It’s one of our older cameras that we had not set up a designation for.”
Corey stood up. “We need to get as many warriors as possible to spread out and look for that door. Let me speak with the tribe leader to get a few trustworthy humans who might know this area better. I don’t want this to spread and cause more panic among the humans in fear of retaliation.”
“Agreed, I’ll organize the warriors while you contact Commander Estro and the tribe leader. The commander needs to be aware of the situation and possibly use his contacts to get assistance from the dome leaders.”
He had to admit that Warrior Davens was right. Commander Estro needed to be made aware of the situation. The resistance had struck a healer facility, which was supposed to be neutral territory. The Drastans wouldn’t take that well, certainly not along with one of their warriors being kidnapped. The shit was going to hit the fan.
“Fine, get me someone to take me around this area so that I can help look for her when I’m done.”
The warrior handed Corey a communicator as he stood to leave the room. “I’ll take you myself. I’ll be back in five minutes.”
Every minute counted. Corey just hoped that they weren’t too late. He activated the communicator. “This is Corey Nash. I need to speak with Commander Estro.”
Chapter 13
Nix’s face pounded with pain as she came back to consciousness. She was laying flat on her back on the hard ground. Keeping her eyes closed and trying not to move, she listened to the sounds around her. She could hear the drip drip drip of water close by and there were faint echoes of people talking, but she couldn’t tell in what direction the echoes came from.
What gave her chills were the voices of two men yelling at each other—much louder and closer to her than the echoes. They were clearly not the only people in the room, either. Footsteps moved on either side of her and one of them stumbled tipping something over. That movement made it clear she was outnumbered, so she did the only thing she could: she kept quiet and listened.
“You idiot! What part of being discreet do you not understand?”
“Sir, I...was as discreet as I could be. No one saw, I’m pretty sure.”
“Pretty sure? You walked into a healing center, killed a man, and then carried an unconscious woman out over your shoulders. There’s no fucking way someone didn’t see something! What the hell were you thinking? You could have led them straight to my doorstep!”
“No one followed me. I was—”
There was a loud smack. Nix assumed that the leader hit the other male. Cautiously, she opened one eye and tried to survey her surroundings. It was difficult to do without moving her head and giving herself away. She worked on keeping her breathing steady and keeping the rest of her body completely still. Unfortunately, she was still caught.
“Put the woman in the chair, she’s been faking being asleep anyway. Make sure her bindings are tight as well. Did you at least remove her weapons before you dragged her down here?”
“Of course I did,” the man who had hit her said.
Well, damn! She opened her eyes fully and tried to get to her feet but they were tied together with rope. Her hands were tied together as well. Why hadn’t she noticed that before? Her head had been a bit fuzzy when first waking up and she hadn’t wanted to move to give herself away. That was her only excuse for such lack of awareness.
She glared at the males that picked her up roughly by her arms and dragged her over to a chair and plopped her in it. She almost slid right back out of it but caught her balance and managed to straighten herself up. When she tried to get up, though, one of the males shoved her back in the seat. He yanked the
hoodie back, revealing her face and hair fully. He pointed a human weapon at her. “Move again and I’ll kill you.”
“Step back, Gerald, let me see what we have here,” the male in charge said.
The big bald male called Gerald stepped back and her eyes focused on the other man: short brown hair, brown eyes, a few inches taller than her, thin but with some muscle to him. He wasn’t altogether unattractive but uniquely unmemorable. He could blend in well with any of the tribe or with the people at the dome, but she could see why some might consider him handsome. She wouldn’t let his appearance deceive her. She knew that even monsters could be considered beautiful.
The male approached her with confidence and looked her over with an appraising eye. Lust showed on his face and it made her uncomfortable. “Leave us,” he ordered.
“Sir, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Gerald tried to argue.
“I don’t pay you to think! Go into the other room until I call you back,” the leader said, keeping his lustful gaze on her. She did her best to ignore him.
Once they were alone, she could see a little better. They were in some kind of washroom with lockers. The dripping water she had heard earlier must be coming from one of the showerheads. She inhaled and almost coughed at the musty smells.
“If this is your home, it needs a lot of work,” she told him nodding her head at the room.
He laughed. “This is only one of many homes I have. I move around a lot for safety reasons. I’m sorry, my manners have slipped a bit since the nuclear disaster. Let me introduce myself. My name is Frazier. Who, may I ask, are you?”
She noted that he didn’t give her a last name and she suspected that the name he gave was a false one. “Lieutenant Nix Saber of the Drastan nation. A highly respected warrior, whose absence will be noticed. Let me go and perhaps my people will spare you your life. I can’t promise anything for the asshole who took me.”
“Poor Drew, he means well but he doesn’t have an ounce of intelligence to serve him. He’ll pay for taking you like he did. He always acts so impulsively, but perhaps in this situation, his impulses may have worked in his favor for once. He’s tied my hands and now I have to make a decision on what I should do with you.”
“Like I said, you can let me go. I’ll walk away and you’ll have a chance to survive.”
He shook his head and circled around her chair, undressing her with his eyes. “Sorry, that’s not an option. Originally, you and your companion were to be stopped before reaching the city. The dome leader would have been blamed and it would have caused a break in the relationship between the dome leaders and the Drastans.
“When that failed, you were just supposed to be killed, but poor Drew screwed that up, too, and brought you here alive. Now that I see you, I’ve decided that you get to live...for a little while longer. The extent of your life will be dependant upon your usefulness and my good graces. The more you please me, the more lenient I will be.”
She sneered at the intent in his gaze. When he turned his back on her, she pulled at the bindings. She had to get herself free. Once free, she could reach for the blade she kept hidden in her boot. Then she could get the hell out of here.
Swallowing, she resolved to keep him talking while she looked for a way to escape. There was a doorway to the left that the other males had left through. It looked like it was the only way in or out. She might get past one or two of them, but not all of them, and they had weapons. All she had was her blade; she could tell they had taken her blaster. Her attention returned to the human standing too close to her. She felt his hand moving to her ponytail, removing the holder to run his hands through her hair. His touch made her feel sick to her stomach.
“I have to admit, I never expected to find one of your kind so...beautiful,” Frazier said, taking her chin in his hand and lifting her face up for him to view.
She jerked back out of his grip. “You tried to kill me and probably still will. Why should I believe that you suddenly find me appealing?”
“My dear, my orders were nothing personal. I just want what both the humans and Drastans truly seek: for the Drastans to depart and the humans to remain in control of Earth. This is our world and I won’t stand by while a bunch of aliens take over.”
“We only came here to help your people, not take over your world.”
“Really? You came here out of the goodness of your heart?” He placed his hand over her rapidly beating heart.
“Yes,” she answered, trying not to flinch. His hand was too close to her breast and she very much wanted to avoid drawing his attention down from her face.
Frazier removed his hand as he pulled up a chair to sit down in front of her, a little too close for her liking. “Let me ask you something. Have your people ever assisted any other worlds?”
“Of course we have.”
“What have you demanded of those people for your assistance?”
“Nothing.”
He quirked a disbelieving eyebrow at her. “Nothing? What about their unwavering allegiance in case you ever come across another enemy?”
“Well...of course they offer allegiance.”
“So you would use us as foot soldiers to fight your enemies?”
She shook her head. “We have no enemies.”
“I find that hard to believe. Didn’t you guys just come back from a war on another planet?”
How did he know that? That wasn’t something talked about outside of high-level Drastan leadership. “We were asked to assist another race that was under attack.”
“And for your assistance, they gave their allegiance. If you ever needed them, they would feel obligated to come to your aid. Isn’t that right?”
“Your world had allegiances as well. I believe you called it the NATO. If an enemy attacked one, the others would support and attack that enemy.”
“Your people expect allegiance and will withhold future help if it isn’t given. Isn’t that the truth?”
She looked away, not feeling the need to fight with him over it. Her people wouldn’t turn their backs on anyone, even if no allegiance were given, but this guy wasn’t going to believe it. She was shocked to feel his fingers caress her cheek. Jerking away from his touch, she moved back so hard that she almost tipped the chair backward. “Don’t touch me!”
“Honey, you’re going to have to get used to my touches if you want to live.”
“What do you want from me?”
“Well, I admit my first intention was to kill you and those traveling with you, sight unseen. Now that I see you, though, my plans have changed. I’ll take you with me when I leave, and then convince you to tell me everything I want to know about your people.”
“I have nothing to say to you.”
Frazier tucked a piece of her hair back behind her ear, caressing the soft flesh behind her lobe. She moved but couldn’t get out of his reach completely. “You are so soft. I have ways of convincing you. Don’t worry, we’ll come to an arrangement beneficial to...well, mostly beneficial to me, but you’ll get something out of it, too. You’ll get to live.”
“I would rather die than to have you touch me!”
He leaned forward and kissed her on the lips. She hadn’t expected it and felt immediately disgusted that she hadn’t been able to block him from doing it. “Death is not in your immediate future. Be grateful for that. You sit here and look pretty while I go tell my men what to do when your friends come looking for you.” He snorted. “You Drastans are so particular about females, so I have no doubt they will be sending people out for you. Now that I’ve met you myself, I know I would do anything to get you back and keep you.”
She watched in dread as Frazier walked out of the room. All kinds of thoughts ran through her head of what this guy might have planned for her, and none of it was good. Nix had trained for many things, even for the rare situation in which she was caught and tortured. She just wasn’t sure her training had prepared her for such a personal attack, if that was what Frazier had in sto
re for her. She had to do whatever it took to get free. Killing him on the way out would be her second objective.
Chapter 14
Two hours later
“Where the fuck did they take her?” Corey demanded as he slammed the door to the locker room where they had tracked the man who took Nix. This was the second locker room that they had come to. They had been tracking the ones that took Nix for over two hours, and every time they thought they finally had them, the group of resistance rebels would evade capture. It didn’t help that the bastards had led them in the wrong direction more than once. He had to admit the rebels were experts at evasion. The deeper they traveled the tunnels the harder it was for them to be found. Drastan technology wouldn’t do a damn thing if they kept going deeper into the back maintenance corridors.
Corey had had no idea there were so many hidden turns and he had lived in these tunnels for years. When living in the tribes, it was safer not to travel too far away from the others and take only known routes. Each time that they had to backtrack too away critical time they needed to find Nix and it could cost Nix her life. He glared at the Drastan warrior with frustration.
“Our infrared heat sensors registered body heat signatures from at least six people. It still resonates here.”
“What does that mean?” Corey wasn’t familiar with the equipment the warrior was using.
“Their residual traces indicate we must have missed them by maybe twenty or thirty minutes.”
Corey wanted a more definitive estimation than that. “What do we do now?”
“We can track the residual heat signatures through the passageways, but they will fade quickly, so we need to follow them immediately. This should lead us to them as long as nothing interferes with our readers,” Warrior Davens said.
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Corey asked impatiently.
“I’ll have my warriors with heat sensors move in either direction to pick up the signatures and confirm their heading.”