“A prison?” He shoveled food into his mouth, the insipid taste not appearing to bother him. “We didn’t do anything wrong.”
She forced herself to chew and swallow the bland food. “It’s not about that.” Azsla made up a story from the information Derrek had told her. She hoped once they escaped, her words would still make sense and that her crew wouldn’t blow her cover. Again she mixed truth with the lies. “There are opposing political forces at work on Zor. Both sides want us. If we don’t wish to be used, we must leave while we still can.”
“Did you find out where we are?”
“I saw a large cafeteria and a janitor. A long corridor and closed doors. When we break out of here, we go right.”
“And then?”
She pushed aside her food. Despite her effort to make herself eat, she couldn’t stomach any more. “First, I’ll wake up Micoo. You do the same for Jadlan. Expect them to be woozy. So we’ll get some salt into them, then food.” She handed him one of the tiny salt packets she’d swiped from the cafeteria.
Turning to Micoo, she placed a hand on his shoulder. The skinny kid didn’t move. Grabbing his jaw, she opened his mouth and sprinkled precious salt onto his tongue. “Come on, Micoo. It’s time to wake up.”
Beside her Rak worked on Jadlan . . . who groaned. “We made it?”
“Yeah.” Jadlan opened his eyes and then they fluttered shut. “Oh, no you don’t,” Rak coaxed. “Here. Swallow more salt.”
“Micoo. Wake up.” His too-pretty lips didn’t move. He didn’t swallow. Suppose he never woke up? She shivered, a chill breaking out all over her skin. Azsla took some water and flicked it onto his face. Nothing. Perhaps she’d been too gentle. She clapped her hands together, but he didn’t even flinch.
Beside her, Jadlan was waking, Rak’s efforts paying off. “Eat this and I’ll tell you what’s happening.” Rak offered him food. Jadlan sat up, rubbed his eyes, looking confused but not asking questions. When Rak handed him food, he began eating. Sometimes slave mentality, the instant conditioning to obey orders, came in handy. Now was one of those times. Jadlan’s hands trembled but eventually steadied as Rak filled him in with what little they knew about their circumstances beginning with Derrek’s rescue of the pods, the Firsts’ pursuit through the portal, the Zoran government removing them from Derrek’s ship, and their incarceration here.
Jadlan shook his head but kept eating. “You guys have been busy.”
Not busy enough, Azsla thought, impatience licking through her. They needed to hurry. “Rak, Micoo isn’t responding. Can you please help with him?” Azsla requested.
“Sure.” Rak slid behind the other man, eased him up to a half-sitting position and kneaded the other slave’s shoulders. “He’s so frail. Try giving him more salt.”
She should have swiped more. But old habits from training as a slave died hard. Theft of salt on Rama meant immediate memory wipe. There was a zero tolerance policy. While it didn’t matter if a thief got caught with a thimbleful or a truckload, the less that was stolen, the less likely it was to be noticed. But she was on Zor now, and she wanted to kick herself for not helping herself to more.
“I’ve only a little left.” Hoping it would be enough to revive him, Azsla poured the remaining grains into his mouth.
Micoo sputtered, but his eyes never opened. Suppose they never did?
He was much too young to die. He didn’t even need to shave. His voice had yet to change. At first she’d been skeptical about taking on such a young man. But they’d needed his computer skills, and he hadn’t once faltered. Until now. Micoo had to wake up, because she wasn’t leaving him behind.
Azsla buried her fear under practicalities. She supposed they could carry him. He was short and didn’t weigh much. But that would slow them down and look weird. She’d hoped they might simply be able to walk out, but carrying an unconscious body would heap all kinds of attention in their direction.
Tension sharpened her tone. “Micoo. We need you. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up and see the new world.”
His eyes finally flickered, squinted, and ever so slowly opened. Unlike Jadlan, who’d seemed a bit fuzzy at first, Micoo appeared fully awake all at once. He looked around at his surroundings and cleared his throat. “Did you say new world? This is Zor?”
“Yeah. And we have to get out of here within thirty micronbits. Take five to eat.”
While Micoo and Jadlan ate, Azsla opened the backpack Yawitz had given her and slipped out a lock pick, part of the standard gear.
“Where did that come from?” Rak asked.
“I stole a backpack on my food trip,” she said, then cut off more questions with a curt, “I need silence.”
Very quietly, she went to work, her ear up against the door to hear the clicks. To squelch the sound of the lock giving way, when the lock was about to ping, she slammed her boot into the wall. Micoo jumped at the loud thump and swallowed the last of his food.
“Where did you learn—” Jadlan asked.
Damn it. “Not now.” Not ever.
That would be a shocker. Giving away her cover while she was trying to save them. Surely she could accomplish both goals, do her job and save her crew.
She wasn’t about to let this mission go down as a complete bust. His questions might make her wonder if she could pull off an escape and question her competence, but she’d trained for this mission, trained for contingencies. Reminding herself that if she failed, she’d have wasted half her life and thrown away the rest, she squared her shoulders.
You know what must be done. Take charge.
“Shh.” Placing her finger to her lips, she cracked open the door. Her nose detected the reek of sweat. Two guards were leaning over a vidscreen, watching women take off their clothes. Between the slow striptease and seductive music, apparently they hadn’t heard the door open.
That gave her a momentary advantage. But she had to move fast. Not only must she take out the guards before they shouted a warning, she needed to do so before her crew entered the corridor and saw her trained moves—if they did, they’d recognize she had knowledge and training no slave would ever have had.
They’d already questioned her earlier. She couldn’t afford to reveal anything else. But it was a risk she had to take.
Her stomach doing a slow churn job, Azsla charged through the door, her focus on the guard looking her way. Shock and fear swirled over his face. The big man’s eyes widened, and the scent of fear spiked in the corridor. He began to paw for his weapon, but his fingers didn’t touch his blaster before she lunged into the air and landed a roundhouse kick to his temple.
Down and out, but not dead, he slumped to the floor, the air going out of his lungs in an oof.
The second guard had faster reactions. Visibly swallowing fresh panic, he pulled the blaster and raised the weapon as he retreated.
Not far enough.
Mind humming like a hard drive, muscles beating in unison, she hit the wall and ricocheted. Thrusting straight at him and blocking his weapon before he’d raised it high enough to shoot, she slammed her elbow into the underside of his chin so hard his teeth clicked. His head snapped back. His eyes clouded. He wobbled, but stayed on his feet. He re-aimed the blaster at her.
Sweet Vigo. Talk about a chin as hard as diamondite.
If she hadn’t pulled the punch, she would have killed him with one blow. But her intent, to only knock him out, had failed. The stubborn idiot had no idea she was trying to save his life. So he kept fighting. Going on instinct. Refusing to go down.
Heart beating double time, she reminded herself that now was no time to admire bravery and persistence. She had mere seconds before her crew barged through that door and discovered her secret. Azsla down-blocked, the side of her wrist catching his and knocking loose the blaster. The weapon tumbled from his numbed fingers and slid across
the floor, metal scraping concrete. She followed through with a knee to the solar plexus. The man gasped, and as he retreated, back to the wall, she struck the underside of his jaw with her fist.
Finally, he went down.
Hand hurting, knuckles bruised, she tried to shake away the pain radiating up her arm and regain her breath. Her crew swarmed her, and she had no idea how much they’d seen. Jadlan eyed her with serious concern. Micoo whooped with glee.
Rak frowned, suspicion and curiosity in his glance. “How did you—”
“Later.” Azsla scooped up the gun. She told herself that she hadn’t killed them because they were innocents, like the doctors. But they were soldiers. And killing them or not shouldn’t have concerned her—not at all. But she couldn’t waste time thinking about it. “Lock them in our quarters. Then let’s move.”
THE MOMENT DERREK and Sauren shut the hover taxi door, Derrek’s com link beeped an urgent signal. Only a few people had that code, all of them important to him, so instead of shifting it down to message mode, he lifted his wrist near his mouth. “Derrek here.”
“Dad?”
Dad? No one called him dad. He might have two kids, but they didn’t speak to him. He’d been told that long ago when he’d lived with his family they’d had a decent relationship, but Derrek didn’t remember it—thanks to the Firsts on Rama who’d wiped his memory as punishment for a crime he hadn’t committed.
Since then, he’d had no contact with his children. So the call must be a wrong number. Yet, even after all these years his hope that his family might call him had never totally died.
Tish was just shy of her seventeenth birthday and a slim, blond-haired, violet-eyed beauty. Tad, two and half years younger, had yet to grow into his adult-size body and was at the awkward stage where his hands and feet were too big for the rest of him.
But it had to be a wrong number. Derrek’s kids followed his ex-wife’s lead and acted as if he didn’t exist, with one exception. They cashed his credit wires without so much as a thank-you. As if they deserved whatever he had. As if what he did for them meant nothing.
He wondered if their abandonment pained him less because he couldn’t remember their early years when they’d all lived together. If so, he should be grateful, because whenever he thought about his lost family, it was like a fire burning in his gut, the flames agony.
Of course, wanting only the best for his kids, after having been told his history, he’d done his duty sending credits every few cycles. As his income increased, so had his generosity. His family now lived well beyond the means of ordinary Zorans. That knowledge should have been enough.
He should have moved on. In some ways he had. He’d moved off world to Alpha One and built an empire. But he couldn’t let go all the way. And he still despised himself for keeping up with his family through reports . . . reports he couldn’t stop himself from reading. Those pictures in his files were key to feeling like part of something, part of them—even when he knew they’d prefer him dead. Dead husbands and fathers were less embarrassing than mind-wiped husbands and fathers.
Not even his recent financial success could erase the stigma of a memory wipe. It didn’t matter that he’d been unjustly accused. He’d become a liability, and she hadn’t stuck around to watch the cruel process of him learning to walk and talk again. She’d dumped him. Their years together had apparently meant nothing.
Despite the separation, he didn’t think of them as strangers. How could he? He had holo pies of Tish’s first day of school. And of Tad’s first wobbly steps on Zor. Derrek knew his daughter loved loud music, carroticle cake, and had tattoos on her ankle. That his son dreamed of being a top-notch star pilot. Once several years back, Derrek had even interrupted his busy schedule to look them up in person—from a distance, of course. He’d seen ordinary, spoiled kids, and he hadn’t interfered, knowing if he did, he could turn their ordered lives into chaos.
He’d missed his chance. Instead of bonding with his kids, he’d been in recovery. Those lost years could never be reclaimed, and the knowledge chilled him to the bone; a tiny part of him had died when he’d realized it was over.
Still, he had never stopped hoping . . . that one day, Tish or Tad would call. But they never had. So he didn’t bother dialing into picture mode to see a kid who wasn’t his. “I think you’ve got the wrong number.”
“You’re denying that you’re Derrek Archer?” The young woman’s voice was brassy, bold, yet beneath the fake sass he detected a twang of uncertainty. Vulnerability. “Mom always said you wanted nothing to do with us. Maybe for once she’s right.”
Tish?” His throat closed.
He forced his fingers to dial in the picture. Tish. His Tish. With her beautiful lavender eyes and her overdone makeup. She’d twisted her hair into a sophisticated style much too old for her and reminded him of a kid playing dress-up. Derrek might not remember how to raise kids, but even he knew better than to laugh.
“I am . . . your father.” At Derrek’s words, Sauren’s eyebrows rose all the way to his hairline. Then he turned away to give him privacy. Sauren didn’t know anything about Derrek’s family, but the two men were close. That Sauren didn’t know, that Derrek hadn’t shared, revealed as easily as a signpost exactly how much the call meant to Derrek.
“Glad to hear you owning up to me.” Tish sounded . . . snippy. Rude.
Huh? Some of the warm and wonderful floated away. “What are you talking about?”
“It might have been nice to hear from you on my birthday or on daughter’s day. Even once.”
“I sent your mother credits every month.”
“Did you think you could just pay us off? Abandon your responsibilities?”
Derrek had dreamed many times of a conversation with his daughter. But never had he once imagined the hostility he heard now. And the last thing he wanted to do was to tell Tish that her mother had locked him out of their lives. He wouldn’t do that, wouldn’t say it, no matter that it was true.
“Why did you call?” he asked, keeping his tone even. No matter what kind of emotional ride he might be on, his instincts kicked in. She wasn’t calling out of love or curiosity, and disappointment burned through him. He threw dirt on the burn and buried the pain deep underground until he could function.
“I need credits, and Mom says you’re loaded.”
He winced at her crassness. He should have known that was the only reason she’d call . . . she needed credit. And he had only himself to blame. He hadn’t been there to help raise her. Give her values. Hadn’t been there to help her settle on the new planet. Oh, he’d sure enough arranged for their freedom, hers, her mother’s and brother’s, but he hadn’t been there to support them—except to send credits. Once again he’d failed her.
“How much do you need?” he asked, taking the blame, wishing he had a do-over. That he could go back to a time when he had a tight connection to Tish.
She hesitated as if she were negotiating. “Two thousand.”
“Two thousand?” He whistled. “What’s a kid like you need two thousand credits for?”
“None of your business,” she snapped.
“If you want my money, it is my business,” he countered. Guilt and shame and yearning might erode his heart, but what good could come from giving her that kind of credit?
“Dad, I just . . . need it. If you were in my life, you’d trust me. But I guess Mom’s right, the memory wipe didn’t just take your memories but your feelings.”
Her accusation knocked him down, and he had to pick himself off a mental floor and stomp on his emotions because they scared him a little. It was true. He couldn’t remember Tish’s birth. Couldn’t remember feeling happy about her or his son—because he’d been cleaned out. The sons of bitches had taken everything from him. His ability to speak and walk. His skill as a chef. He’d had to learn to read and wri
te all over again. Tie his shoes. Comb his hair. They’d taken away his ability to support his family.
He’d lost . . . his identity. Talk about a total wipeout of essence. They’d left him with no skills—not even the ability to crawl.
Like a baby in a crèche, he’d started over. The reeducation process had taken two years. But everything before the memory wipe was still gone. His brother had spent hours telling him stories from his childhood. But to him—they were stories, unconnected to his heart, like a book he’d read about someone else.
He kept his voice gentle. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.”
“Mom said you’d say that.” She spit the words like an accusation. “But it changes nothing.”
“However, I can be here for you now.”
“Then wire the credits.” Tish severed the connection, and he felt like she’d cut him back out of her life. Funny, it shouldn’t have hurt. But she came from his DNA. His genes flowed through her body. She was his only daughter, and she’d sounded hurt, angry, confused, and scared.
He hadn’t a clue what to do.
It would make sense to call her mother, but she wouldn’t take his calls. He could pay a surprise visit, but he wasn’t welcome in the home he’d paid for. And he couldn’t bear to see the new husband, Mavinor. If Mavinor was a decent man, Derrek would be jealous. If Mavinor was a lousy man, Derrek would be furious. For him, showing up was a lose–lose proposition.
Emotionally he was so ready to wire the credits. His daughter had reached out to him for the first time in her life that he could remember. He couldn’t believe he was actually considering not doing it.
And yet, what did a seventeen-year-old need that kind of credit for? She had a roof over her head, food in her belly. Derrek raised his wrist to his mouth and linked to the private investigator who sent him the weekly reports. “Any idea why my daughter wants two thousand credits?”
“Nothing solid.”
“So give me a guess.”
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