Chapter 1
Natalie Korman finished tapping at her console to enter the latest survey information. Star Destroyer Mixtidelin floated in orbit over an uninhabited planet on the outskirts of the galaxy. No one ever bothered to survey it before, since no trade ships ever stopped there and no one ever traveled from that planet into space. But Natalie’s survey mission found vast forests and fresh water rivers teaming with life. Even large herbivorous species roamed the forests. It would make a perfect spot for a colony.
Natalie switched off her computer and leaned back in her chair when the door slid open and Kyan entered. “Working late again?”
Natalie kissed him over the top of her desk. “This is the last time. I just finished logging the survey data. I can relax now.”
“Until the next time,” he replied. “You’re working too hard. You should take time off between assignments or you’ll burn yourself out.”
Natalie shook her head. “I can’t. This is the first time I’ve had a job that really excites me. Ever since you rescued me from the Toom, I can’t get enough of my new life. I can hardly remember what I was doing on Earth before the Toom abducted me and my friends.”
Kyan sat down opposite her. “Don’t you ever wonder what happened to your friends? Don’t you ever think about your own people back on Earth? You can’t be so consumed with your work that you don’t think about the past.”
“I think about them,” Natalie replied. “I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t. Besides, Tina is here, and she still needs me to help her recover from her experience with the Toom.”
Kyan nodded. “She hasn’t bounced back the way you did. I wonder if she’ll ever adjust to life away from Earth.”
“She has more family there than I do,” Natalie told him. “She had a fiancé she hoped to marry, and she planned to get pregnant and raise a family. She was trying to conceive when the Toom abducted us.”
“I understand why it will be more difficult for her, then,” Kyan replied. “You had no one to tie you to Earth?”
“I had my parents and my friends,” Natalie told him. “Tina has her parents and two sisters and two brothers back on Earth, but she hasn’t connected with anyone here the way I connected with you. I miss my family, but my life is here now, with you and with my work. Tina won’t make the adjustment until she finds that point of connection.”
“She’s lucky to have you nearby,” Kyan remarked. “You understand what she needs, and she’ll be more likely to accept help from you than from anyone else.”
“I know you’ve tried to talk to her and show her around the ship,” Natalie replied. “She wouldn’t even look at you. She wouldn’t even enter the same room with Commander Axilon.”
Kyan looked the other way. “That’s hardly surprising, after what she’s been through.”
“I hope the Commander understands as well as you do,” Natalie replied. “He could be forgiven for taking it personally after he’s been so kind to us.”
“It’s our job to integrate you back into society after freeing you from the traders,” Kyan told her. “We only want what’s best for you both.”
“You didn’t have to be as kind as you have been,” Natalie replied. “You could have sent us to the rehabilitation center with the other freed slaves.”
He raised her by the hand from her seat and pulled her toward him. “But then I wouldn’t have you here with me, and that would be terrible. Your place is here now, so Tina will stay near you until she’s ready to move on.”
“I only hope my other friends are safe,” Natalie exclaimed. “We’ve never seen or heard from them again, even though you and the Galactic Police Force have raided dozens of gatherings just like the ones where you rescued me and Tina.”
He held her at arm’s length and fixed her with his glittering green eyes. “We haven’t seen or heard from them—until now.”
She stared up at him. “What?”
“We found one of your friends,” he replied. “And if we find one of them, she might be able to lead us to the other.”
Natalie’s hands shook. “Where are they? We have to mount a rescue operation. We have to get them back. Once we’re all together again, I’m certain they’ll recover from their experiences faster than they could alone.”
Kyan help up his hand. “One of your friends was spotted with a Toom at a gathering on the Exceltian planet, but he got away before our operative could identify him or track him down.”
“Then how are we going to find them?” Natalie asked. “They could be halfway across the galaxy by now.”
“Our operative got the number from the Toom ship in which they escaped,” Kyan replied. “It was NCQ585.”
Natalie’s head shot up. “NC585? But that’s Fo’s ship. That’s the ship my friends and I were on when the Toom abducted us.”
Kyan nodded. “It’s the same ship, so the Toom who had your friend must be one of the three who took you and your friends from Earth. They must have kept all four of you from the beginning, even though they never let you see each other. Now that they’ve lost you and Tina, they’ve been selling the other two at the gatherings. Our operative saw the Toom with one of them, but they must have the other one on board their ship.”
“Unless they’ve sold her somewhere,” Natalie countered.
“If they’ve sold her on to someone else, somewhere else,” Kyan replied, “they’ll know who and where. That’s why I said finding one of your friends would lead us to the other. Once we catch the Toom with one of your friends, we can compel them to tell us where the other one is.”
Natalie grimaced. “I only hope they’re both still on board.”
“I don’t think they would sell either of your friends,” Kyan replied. “Earth females are much too valuable to part with. The Toom make an enormous profit auctioning your bodies to the highest bidder. They would never get rid of you if they could avoid it.”
Natalie turned away. “I don’t want to think about that anymore. I just want to find my friends.”
Kyan didn’t let go of her hand, but pulled her back around to face him. “You have to think about it. The only way to get your friends back is to go undercover the way we did before. You’re the only Earth female of your kind who has been inside the gatherings and lived to tell the tale. You have all the modifications the Toom gave you in the regeneration beds. You’re the best suited to going undercover to get your friends out. Do you think you can do it again?”
“I wouldn’t have been able to go undercover if you hadn’t been with me,” Natalie replied. “I hope you didn’t blow your cover last time when the Police raided the gathering and we rescued Tina.”
“I didn't I blow my cover,” he told her. “We put on a good performance, and we got away before the Police raided the place. No one saw us take Tina out of the gathering hall. The representatives at the gatherings will be on the look-out for the Eblian warrior and his Earth slave.”
A wicked smile crept over Natalie’s face. Her body tingled, and she drew closer to him. His green skin took on the rough texture of tree bark the way it did when his passion for her flared. Natalie slid her hands up his arms, and the scratchy surface sent a quiver through her guts. She couldn’t keep away from him. “I’ll do it. You be my master, and I’ll be your slave.”
A rumble so low she could barely hear it bubbled up from his big barrel chest, and he towered over her. His nostrils flared, and his breath rasped in his throat. He gathered her in his arms, but at that moment, a siren shrieked through the ship. Kyan and Natalie jumped apart. A glaring red light flashed over the doorway.
Natalie leapt to her desk and swung her console around. She hit the command prompt, and the screen blinked on. “It’s the NCQ585! They’ve been spotted leaving the Lornax Cluster.”
Kyan dashed to the door, and it opened for him. He and Natalie rushed down the passage to the lift and up to the command bridge. Commander Axilon paced back and forth in front of his screen with his arms crossed over his chest. “Flank them, Corporal. See if you can cut off their retreat.”
On the screen, a grey hulk of a space vessel lay against a backdrop of stars. It whizzed through the blackness and changed direction in the blink of an eye. It flitted back and forth with lightning speed. The Mixtidelin did its best to match its movements, but in the end, the Toom ship outmaneuvered it and disappeared into a nebulous cloud of space dust.
Commander Axilon drove his fist into his palm. “Curses! These Toom have all the advantage of technology. We’ll just have to get them next time.”
He caught sight of Natalie standing in the doorway. “Has Kyan briefed you on the situation?”
Natalie stepped forward. “Yes, he has. He told me I might have to go undercover again to rescue my friends, and I told him I would only do that if he went with me. We would play the same game we did before, where he pretends to take me to the gathering as a slave.”
The Commander nodded. “That’s the only way we can rescue your friends. I wouldn’t suggest it if there was any other way, and I wouldn’t send you into danger without Kyan to protect you.”
Natalie glanced over her shoulder. Kyan watched her from his station. Excitement burned her heart. “I’ll do it.”
“There is one more thing we have to arrange,” the Commander told her.
“Anything, Sir,” Natalie exclaimed. “I’ll do anything to find my friends and get them away from the Toom.”
“The gathering we have in mind takes place in two weeks,” Commander Axilon replied. “It takes place outdoors on the Magellan home world. It’s a large gathering spanning ten days, with thousands of representatives.”
Natalie’s eyes widened. “That’s bigger than anything I’ve seen before.”
The Commander nodded. “This is the biggest gathering in the galaxy. They hold it once a year on the Northern Promontory and all the representative come. It’s the place to see and be seen. The Toom never brought more than one slave at a time to a gathering. Maybe they worried about losing them. But if they have two Earth females in their possession, they’ll bring them both to this gathering.”
Natalie made a face. “Double the profit.”
“Exactly,” Commander Axilon replied.
Natalie brightened up. “But that means we can get both Amber and Melanie out at the same time.”
Commander Axilon held up his hand. “That’s the problem. One operative won’t be able to canvas the whole gathering alone.”
“There will be two of us down there—me and Kyan,” Natalie argued.
Kyan interrupted. “We won’t be able to separate. We have to keep up the appearance of master and slave. You have to stay with me at all times. Even with the two of us, we won’t be able to cover the whole Promontory in the available time.”
Natalie frowned. “So what are we going to do? Can you scan the gathering from orbit so we know where to look?”
“We could,” Commander Axilon replied. “But we would still need more than one pair of operatives to retrieve your friends without tipping off the other representatives. We’ll send two teams down. You and Kyan will form one team, and....”
Natalie interrupted with a gasp. “You can’t be thinking of sending Tina! She isn’t ready. She can barely leave her quarters after what happened to her. You can’t send her back.”
Kyan laid a hand on her arm. “Take it easy.”
Natalie ripped her arm out of his grasp. “Take it easy! We just risked our lives to rescue her from the Toom, and she’s been a recluse ever since. Now you want to send her back? She would be traumatized for life. What happened to all that flowery talk about helping us reintegrate into society? What happened to helping us recover from our experiences? It was all a bunch of hot air.”
Commander Axilon nodded. “I understand how you feel, but it’s the only way we can rescue the other two females. Perhaps if you explained that to your friend, she would return to the gathering on her own free will.”
Natalie smacked her lips. “You’re out of your mind if you expect me to even suggest something like that to Tina. Who do you have in mind for her partner—another Eblian?”
The man at the helm swung his chair around and stood up to face her. He was big, even for an Eqel, and the phosphorescent ceiling lights shone off his bald head. His leathery tanned skin bore the deep creases of his species, and the dark blue blood in them glistened when he breathed.
His heavy brows loomed over his black eyes, and the exposed holes of his nostrils occupied the center of his face where a nose ought to be. Every breath rumbled out of his enormous chest and filled she silence.
None of the Eqels Natalie had seen at the gatherings struck her as quite so foreboding as this one. Then again, she never really got that close to any of them. Sure they bought her along with all the others, but she never before faced any of them as real, flesh-and-blood men. Not only was he flesh and blood, he had designee on her friend—the friend whose well-being was Natalie's personal responsibility.
Now the rough look, the burning eyes, the hairless skull and the gleaming veins covering his body sent a shiver through her bones. He wore only a crossed leather harness over his massive chest, and his shoulders bulged on either side of the straps with thick ropes of muscle.
Natalie stared at him. “You can’t be serious!”
“Arno has been undercover at the gatherings before,” Kyan told her. “He knows how to blend in and he knows what to expect.”
“He was with the Police who busted up the gathering where we rescued Tina,” Natalie pointed out. “The other representatives will recognize him.”
“He was wearing his riot helmet,” Kyan replied. “No one will recognize him. He’s the perfect choice for Tina’s partner.”
Natalie rounded on him with clenched fists. “He won’t be Tina’s partner because Tina isn’t going. That’s all there is to it. End of discussion.”
Kyan shook his head. “You and I can’t go to the gathering alone. We need at least one more master-slave pair. It’s the only way we can get the other two Earth females out.”
“You just said it yourself,” Natalie shot back. “You called her a slave. You want to make her a slave again after she just escaped from the Toom with her life barely intact. How can you even think of doing that?”
“She won’t be a slave,” Kyan replied. “We won’t be making her a slave again any more than we’ll be making you a slave again. She’ll be going back of her own free will for the express purpose of rescuing your other friends from captivity.”
“If you really think she would sacrifice her freedom to go back,” Natalie snapped, “then by all means, go ahead and ask her. I can tell you right now what she’s going to say.”
Commander Axilon exchanged glances with Kyan. Then Kyan stepped closer to her. “Actually, we need you to talk to her. We need you to convince her to go back. The mission won’t succeed without her.”
Natalie’s mouth hung open. Then she threw up her hands whirled away. “Forget it! I wouldn’t even suggest she go back. You know how fragile she is. She can barely leave her quarters, and she won’t even speak to anyone besides me. Asking her to pretend to be some behemoth’s slave and go back to the gatherings is the absolute last thing I would ever do to her.”
Kyan started to say, “Natalie....” But she didn’t wait to listen to him. She stormed off the bridge.
She didn’t wait for the lift. She skimmed down the access ladder to the next level and strode down the hall toward the medical bay. Who did these people think they were, to play God with a person’s life? A male was a male, no matter which corner of the galaxy you found him in. They didn’t care about any female’s feelings. They couldn’t understand how hard it was to yank a woman away from her home planet and throw her headfirst into sexual slavery with vicious space traders like the Toom.
Now they wanted Tina to go back! Never! And they wanted Natalie to do their dirty work to convince her to throw her life away all over again. They wanted her to strip Tina of the progress she fought to make since they rescued her. Well, Natalie would never do that to her friend. No one understood better than Natalie what Tina went through at the hands of the Toom. She held Tina’s hand every step of the way since she came on board the Mixtidelin, and she would defend her friend with her very life if necessary.