by Renee Rose
“Affirmative.” I switch the comm so that my crew can hear as well.
“And you are near the planet Fonquin?”
“Affirmative.”
Tarak sits straighter beside me, probably equally excited by the new mission.
“Is the human on board contained and stable?”
“Yes.”
“Divert to sector A-47 to the planet Fonquin. We intercepted a masked communication that physical slave records are going to be moved to a new facility, a more heavily guarded one. This is the only chance we’ll have to sneak in undetected and steal the ones we need.”
“Understood.” My body courses with energy.
“Bayla’s children are still enslaved somewhere in the universe,” Dr. Daneth says. “My hope is those records reveal their location, or at least their barcodes so I might seek their location through other data channels.”
Master Seke speaks. “If you can upload these records, we will then have the locations of each child, and can determine whether and when to undertake a rescue mission for each.”
“We can do it,” I promise.
“You are the only warship ready in the vicinity. Even the hour it would take to prepare a second is time wasted.”
“Dr. Daneth, tell your mate we will get those records.”
Master Seke speaks, “Set course, fastest speed that all life-forms can tolerate on board. We’ll send you the necessary info as you go.”
“It will be done.” I set the new course in the computer. “We will need to prepare a plan of attack. Tarak, are you on this?”
Beside me, Tarak is deep in concentration, his headset beeping and his closed lids flickering as his hands race over his keyboard. I still find it hard to understand how a blind Zandian can be so good at navigation, but he’s developed a unity with the tech that is unparalleled. I trust him 100 percent and have never feared to have him at my side. In fact, he’s one of the best star-techs on Zandia this planet rotation.
“Yes.” He nods. “I’m tuned into the sonar and visual transcription and I’m plotting the best route to avoid asteroids in the Delta belt.”
“Better you than I.” I chuckle, but it’s no joke. “Until Dr. Daneth approves brain implants for all of us, that is.”
He snorts. “Don’t hold your breath. It’s far too dangerous to try the operation on an unhandicapped Zandian. We were lucky it didn’t kill me. Remember I lost all feeling in my legs for a solar cycle and had to do heavy rehab to rebuild the disrupted nerves.” Then his mouth sort of twists before he regains his usual positive expression. I’ve never heard him complain about his lack of sight, but sometimes I wonder if it bothers him. Clearly he’s a great asset to Zandia, disability or no, but he’s never taken a mate. Never even seems to show interest in it. Even if he liked our new human’s voice.
I focus on our task at hand. “Best two routes?”
“We can go around the Delta belt. If we go straight through, and I use my link to avoid asteroids and debris, we’ll get there in half the time.”
“Do it.” I know he can handle it—he guides us through places that even smaller, more nimble ships can’t go. Even our best human navigator, Mirelle—who has some kind of extraordinary gift of concentration that makes her a perfect fit for starship nav—can’t do better than Tarak on his best planet rotations.
“Captain.” He nods and closes his eyes again.
A Zandian crew member enters. “Sir. The human is calling for help. She asks for you.”
“Veck.” I remember that I left her there after I… veck. “Send in someone to give her food and—”
No, wait.
I can’t stand the thought of another Zandian going in there and seeing her. Is her ass still bare? Did I cover her properly? I’m not sure I did. Guilt and something else ricochets through me.
Jealousy.
It’s not an emotion I’m accustomed to feeling. Curse the humans and their strange capacity to awaken the Zandian emotions!
I look at my screen—we’re on course, stable. “Nevermind. I will attend to the human. I will return in a few moments.” I get up and stride out.
I take a breath as I near the door. Stand straighter before I open it.
She’s moaning. When she looks up at me, her eyes are wild, as if she’s seeing something else.
This was how she looked when she stabbed me with her syringe.
“Get away, don’t touch me!” She cries out and shrinks back. “Please.” Her voice catches.
“Leave.” I dismiss the guard. He nods and turns on his heel, and I enter the room, letting the pneumo door hiss shut and click behind me.
“Taisha.” I sit beside her. “You’re hallucinating.”
She doesn’t acknowledge me, and I grab both her wrists, just above the cuffs. Speak into her ear, letting my lips nearly touch her skin. “You. Are. Safe. Breathe.”
She immediately stills, then blinks, her eyes coming into focus. Slowly, her taut body relaxes. I sit beside her, pull her onto my lap and wrap my arms around her, where she collapses into my shoulder. She still trembles. It’s not exactly erotic, but neither is it platonic. I’m mesmerized by the feel of her curly hair on my cheek when I bend my head down. She smells of blossoms. I would like to stay here for eons, but we are out of time. I clear my throat, and she opens her screwed-up eyes and blinks back the water, then looks up at me.
“Where am I? I’m—oh. On the ship.” She looks down at her cuffs, then her body. “We, ah, I. Yes.”
I slide her from my lap and hand her clothing to her, embarrassed at my show of tenderness.
“Your trauma is affecting your reason,” I observe. I know humans are emotional creatures, but it seems this one has become unstable. Still, that doesn’t stop the fierce spike of protectiveness I have for her. If anything, it increases it.
“We’ve been diverted on a mission before we go to Zandia.” I consider telling her what it is. After all, she is an escaped slave. She might have some information to offer to help us steal these slave records. “The human mate of one of the king’s top advisors is searching for her young. They were taken from her at birth. We have an opportunity to extract the data necessary to locate the young.”
Taisha’s eyes round.
“You requested asylum on Zandia. Are you willing to assist and serve our species?”
She swallows and I watch, entranced, at her delicate tendons and slim neck. Her cheekbones are high and slanted, and her eyes appear extra luminous now. Stars, she’s pretty. “Yes, Master,” she replies.
I stand up. “Then I need you to sit in the control room and answer questions about Ocretion slave-keepers. We may need that information for our mission.”
My voice is stern, but my body—veck, how I want her.
She nods. “Of course, Master.”
My cock thickens. I should tell her not to call me lord or master, but I like it too well.
I keep the cuffs on for now. She’s still our prisoner, and I don’t trust her. “This is a chance for you to prove your loyalty to us.” I help her stand. “It will all come into account when we finally get to Zandia.” I look at my arm. “Since our first meeting did not go well.”
She glances at my arm, which is fully healed by now. “I said I’m sorry about that.”
I have to force my lips from quirking into a grin, although I’m not sure why I’m smiling. I think I like her being sorry far too well. “So I heard. Time will prove it. And you can start the process now. Come.”
I slip my palm around the soft curve of her elbow. Her scent fills my nostrils, nearly throwing me off balance. Veck, I want to throw her down on the bench and veck her until she cries out in pleasure.
Not now.
Definitely not now.
I pull myself together and escort her down the hallway to the consoles, and point her to seat near mine, a bit off to the side.
“Do not touch anything,” I warn her. “Do not interfere with anything.” To be sure, I take one of her cuffs and
lock it to the seat, which ensures she can’t leave and approach the control consoles.
She just nods. She’s wide-eyed, looking all around her, half amazed, half nervous.
“First time on a ship?”
She nods. “Yes, Master.”
“You were born on Romon-3?”
“No…” She frowns. “I suppose I was transported there from the breeding facility. But it was in a cage. I never saw the ship.”
I know slaves are transported in cages, but hearing it—knowing this beautiful human spent her life treated like a beast—hits me like a blow to the gut.
“I’m sorry,” I say. And I am.
Chapter 7
Taisha
“What is your exact mission, Master? How can I help?”
Neither the captain nor his second in command answer me. It’s odd that the navigator has his eyes shut. He’s wearing a complicated headset with wires and something that flashes, and he’s working.
“Can he see? Can you see?” I direct the question to each in turn, but again, no reply.
I swivel as much as I can to look around the cabin. It’s sleek and well-formed, with slim panels and lights and digital displays. I’ve never seen such technology; the Ocretions keep us human slaves away from it as much as possible to maintain our ignorance and inability to weaponize ourselves. But even I can see that this is magnificently arrayed.
“Just tell me how I can help.” I raise my voice, “I’m eager to do what I can.”
I think my captain nods briefly, but his eyes are trained on his screen, and he’s reading something from his comm.
“It’s in a slave records building labeled B-33-X on this map.” He points.
His navigator agrees without even looking over once. “Yes, it’s land-locked and apparently slated for destruction. They’re moving all the records to the new storage site across the city.”
“Any on-site holo feed to assess local habits and clothing?”
“That’s going to be a problem. There are no Zandians on planet.”
They both chuckle, but seem tense.
My captain frowns. “Looks like the only beings allowed entry to that building are either Ocretions or humans.”
“Veck. Even with our disguises, it won’t be easy. We have those Ocretion masks, but they don’t conform perfectly. Plus, it’s a small area, and they all know each other. My best assessment is there is a sixty percent chance we’ll make it through without getting flagged as intruders.”
“Master Seke wants this to be a secret op. We need to do this in a way that does not raise any alarm. If they know we’ve taken the records, or even suspect it, it will set off a political problem with the Ocretions.”
There’s silence.
“Go at night with two of our guards on board for cover? Covert op?”
“Possible. But still risky.”
“Too bad we don’t have one of our human fighters on board to go in as a spy. Mirelle would do it. Or Cambry and her brother Tal. And I think they’re the only beings who could carry it out without being discovered.”
“Mirelle’s across the galaxy with her masters, two planet rotations away even with hyper. Not possible.”
“Veck.”
They ponder this, I assume, based on their quiet expressions.
“We really need to get more humans trained in espionage,” my captain says.
“Although that won’t help us now,” his navigator points out.
“I can help,” I offer before thinking it through.
They both turn to stare at me; at least, the captain stares. I assume his navigator is swiveling to catch my voice more clearly, because he faces me too.
“How could you help?” He sounds incredulous.
“It’s obvious.” I hold up my hands as far as they go with the cuffs.
When neither of them seem to get it, I add, “I’m human. You need a human. Bam.”
“What is bam?”
“Bam, I mean, I can do the espionage thing for you. I’ll go into that building and get what you need. It’s a great idea.”
It’s a truly hideous idea. If I get caught—which I probably will—I’m right back with the Ocretions, and they’ll either punish me there, or send me back to my master for trial, or both.
“Let me do this. It will prove to you that I’m loyal to you and Zandia. That I meant no harm with that, ah, injection.” I flinch when saying it, because the thought that I could have killed one of these beings now sickens me. Especially the captain. Thank Mother Earth the Zandians are mostly immune to it!
“There is no way,” the captain snaps. “You’re untrained. Untested. It’s too dangerous.”
“I was untrained back on Romon-3,” I point out. “Yet I managed to swim up a dangerous river, kill an Ocretion guard, hide, and sneak onto your ship. I think I’ve shown I’m pretty good at sneaky stuff.”
He scoffs. “Lucky.”
“No.” I lean forward. “Desperate and determined. Fierce.” I lock eyes with him. “I won’t let you down.”
And courage rises in my body, just as when I was back on Romon-3, running for my life. In the middle of it all, there was no time for fear, just for action. I’m getting into that zone again. “Tell me what to do, and I will do it for you without fail.”
“We should consider it.” The navigator leans towards me. “She’s not lying about wanting to help.”
“How can you tell?” The captain doesn’t seem to disagree, though. I feel as if he believed me the minute I opened my mouth.
“I smell her scent. Fear and adrenaline, but not the spike that comes with human lies.”
“We smell when we lie?” I’m offended and fascinated.
“Everyone smells, all the time.” His voice is brusque. “Some humans tend to spike a certain hormone when they lie and it’s detectable, at least to me. But this is not the main topic at hand.”
“All right, then. Look at this.” The captain points to the holo, where a map pops up in color, then morphs into a 3D image of a street and a building. “Assuming we use you, this is the place. You’d enter here.” He points to a door. “Where you provide identification. Then you’d have to go down here.” The picture morphs back into a map, a floor plan, of a huge warehouse. “Down this hall, to this room, labeled records. There is a human slave working in there, with an Ocretion overseer in the corner. You would request the records of all offspring of the slave with the barcode number 3835978 and say they were for your master. When you get the data containment modules, you put them into your cloak and leave. Make your way back to the ship, hidden in the woods here” —he points again— “undetected, of course.”
He scans my face. “Does that seem even possible to you?”
My heart bumps in my chest. “Yes, my lord. I can do it.”
“I am not sure.” His voice carries doubt.
“You said yourself using your Ocretion masks only has a sixty percent probability of working. My human face is 100 percent.” I smile at my own joke, but neither Zandian cracks a grin. “Uh, and I’m good at being a slave, because, I am one.” This time I don’t smile either. “So it won’t be an act. I know how to keep my head down, how to act subservient to the Ocretions.”
“If they detect any cause for alarm, the mission will fail.”
“I will not fail,” I promise him.
The two confer. “If she gets caught?”
They switch to the Zandian language, and I can’t understand, but the conversation goes on for a while.
Finally the captain comes to me. He crouches down to look into my eyes. “This is risky. It’s possible you might not survive.” He pauses. “Do you still want to continue?”
I nod. “Yes, my lord.”
He winces. “Only use my lord when you address our Zandian king.”
“Yes, Master.”
“Then here is the plan. You will enter the building and request the records. We prefer that you bring the modules to us. But if you cannot remove them or are compr
omised, we need you to upload the data to us before they take you. As soon as you get them, you find a private place and insert the modules into this slot on the wrist comm we give you, one at a time. Once they are uploaded to us, destroy the modules and the wrist comm. Then make your way to the ship. If you get caught, we may not be able to extricate you. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” It’s awful, but I must do it. If I don’t prove myself, I’ll be no better than a traitor when I finally get to Zandia. This is my only shot. Plus, it’s a way to help humans… children. My heart hurts thinking of young humans enslaved. It’s worth it to at least try.
“Then let’s go.”
Chapter 8
Taisha
“Slave B-4389742, requesting entrance per my master’s orders.” The B stands for breeder, a position I’ve thanked sweet Mother Earth not to have from the time I was old enough to understand what it meant. I'm incredibly lucky I was never raped by my slave master or any of his guards.
My voice is calm and even as I stand in front of the squat gray building, the hot sun of this new planet is baking into my back, even through my cloak. The number I rattled off is not the barcode on the back of my neck, it is one provided to me by Captain Drayk. I’m praying they won’t require an actual scan of my barcode. I’m also praying my dark skin won’t make me stand out too much. Make them wonder if they’ve seen me around before and realize they haven’t.
There is a pause, and then a guard opens a slot in the door. I pull my hood closer over my forehead. Human I may be, but my skin color is not common here, and I don’t wish to attract extra attention.
“Purpose?” His voice, the typical Ocretion snarl, makes my spine go cold and my breath comes faster. Sweat prickles my brow.
“I am not allowed to question my master’s purpose, but I respectfully request to fulfill his wishes. He needs slave records for a former breeder. One sold some solar rotations ago.”
I cast my eyes down, an obedient human, and try to look as meek as possible.
“B-4389742?” He leans forward and scowls. Makes a move as if to type into a device, then purses his lips in disgust. “System is down this planet rotation for the transfer. Master’s name?”