Page 58 of Relyn
“Jane,” Bright said in reply, “I must speak with Athen or Kave.”
“Athen is still on Etlon, but Kave is right here.”
“Kave is curious as to why Wendy is not out of com range. Bright promised to get her to Terra with all speed,” a male voice said. “I do not like to disappoint my mate.”
Bright sighed. “Something more important has come up.”
“More important than my mate’s happiness?”
Relyn rolled his eyes and sat down in the copilot chair.
“I am Relyn, son of Caldar,” he began. “My mate has been taken and is being held captive by Alana, an Etlonian female, in exchange for a crate of the most precious value.”
“Bright,” Jane said. “What did you do? You were supposed to go directly to Terra.”
“She did not,” Relyn interjected with enough side eye to Bright that they could probably hear it over the com. “She boarded a ship looking for Alana, and in order to leave she made a deal with the captain to locate Alana, and then return with news. However, Alana waylaid us again and is now holding Nora hostage in return for the cargo that had been stolen from her.”
“Nora? When did Nora come into this? You’re telling me Nora is being held hostage with your mate?” Jane asked.
“Nora is his mate,” Bright said.
There was a collective “ohhh,” from the other end of the line.
“Kave, there are three Suhlik cryocylinders here with enough Etlonian genetic material to restart the entire species. They must be protected,” Bright said. This time there was silence. “We cannot let Alana have it.”
“What do you need us to do?”
Chapter 25
Nora
Three days passed, and Nora was pretty sure they were much longer than Earth days, but by how much she had yet to figure. The women here were comfortable, if a little cramped. About half of them shared a room, which told Nora that Alana was still gathering women throughout the galaxy.
Their stories were much the same. Alana was using a human woman to lure them in and drug them. They would wake up onboard a ship without any idea of where they were or how long they had been out.
That they were all human or Etlonian women spoke to a purpose that made Nora dread the outcome. There were only a few reasons to collect women, and since Alana’s crew didn’t seem interested in raping and pillaging, Nora’s imagination went a little wild.
Nora’s tablet was quite popular and had made her a lot of friends fast. Although they had limited access to terminals, no one had a library of books and vids from Earth. She passed around her tablet, gathering information and trying to establish a timeline of how and when they arrived, and how many guards were here, and what kind of weapons they possessed.
Most of them had no idea. Escape wasn’t much of an option, considering that leaving the bubble would make it extremely difficult to breathe, and there didn’t seem to be any other civilization on this rock. In order to escape they’d need a ship, but while the humans were clueless in how to fly, the Etlonians were a bit more experienced in space flight.
Pila, the first Etlonian she had met, knew how to fly most ships. She had been with Bright when they’d first learned how to fly, so Nora was pretty confident that if they could break out, they could fly out.
Breaking out was another matter. Most of the women seemed dead set against it. They had no more than basic firearms knowledge and most seemed content to sit here and wait for whatever fate Alana had planned.
Nora was not most. Neither, apparently, was Denise. She’d been an engineer back on Earth, and had been in space for nearly a year. Her husband had died only a month after, and she’d been hopping from station to station, looking for work or a ride back to Earth. That’s when she’d met The Bitch, as they all called the blonde human that had conned them into a room where she’d drugged them. She’d given many names, which Nora thought sounded way too familiar to be coincidence. After all, how many women could be named Humility and Meadow? Whoever The Bitch was, she had a tie to Etlon Two. Nora kept her suspicions to herself, but when she suggested they do a little recon, Denise jumped at the chance.
After all, if the aliens wanted them dead, they would have done that way before now.
Despite all attempts at being sneaky, Nora drew lots of attention as she stood by the door. Several women gasped when she popped the plate off the door panel and began to mess with the wiring. Much like the ship, these doors were pretty muchwired all in the same way, and opening it took her less than a minute.
“Now, we’re just going to go take a look around. We’ll be back in a few minutes,” Denise said. She handed over a rigged tablet system that she’d created. “If you hear that thing beep twice, I want you to make the most God awful noise you can manage, like someone’s dying in here. Okay?”
Geena took the tablet and nodded. “Good luck,” she said.
Denise and Nora headed through the doorway, which seemed unguarded. They had decided to stick together, and play the dumb female if they encountered any resistance. It always seemed to work in the vids.
The pair headed left, knowing that straight ahead led out to the main gate. The building had very few windows, and looking at the doorways, Nora suspected that it was actually designed for less atmosphere. It would be an effective defense if all they had to do was lower the dome and lock the doors to disadvantage attackers outside the building. The inside could be pressurized and the atmosphere could be maintained at a comfortable level. It also meant that if the dome went down, all the women would need to head to their quarters in order to be protected. Right now, they spent most of their time in the open quad.
