Chapter 8
Even before the transporter stopped popping, Kyan whirled around with his fists clenched. “What in the name of heaven happened? How could you let her get away?”
Natalie stepped off the transport platform. “I didn’t know she would go back to the Toom. I didn’t know what she was planning until she ran away.”
He cursed and slammed his fist into his palm. “We had all three of them free. All we had to do was transport them back to the ship and we were clear. Then this had to happen.”
“You were there. You saw the way she acted. None of us had any idea she planned to run back to the Toom.” She glanced at Arno, but she didn’t have the heart to ask if he had any inkling Tina planned to ditch them at the gathering.
Kyan read her mind. He pursed his lips, but he didn’t say anything to Arno, either.
Arno, on the other hand, showed no such qualms. He sighed. “She’s been acting weird ever since we started training together.”
“What do you mean?” Natalie asked.
“I’m not sure I understand it myself,” he replied. “She just didn’t act the way I’d expect someone to act who was going on a dangerous mission. She was too passionate, too wild. I should have known she never wanted me in the first place. She put on an act for me to get back to the Toom.”
Natalie cringed. “Are you sure about that? Her feelings for you may have been real. Maybe she decided to go back to the Toom at the last second.”
Arno shook his head. “She was thinking about it all along. I’m certain of that. You want to believe your friend wouldn’t deceive us about something like that, but if you think about it, you’ll realize I’m right. She was traumatized by her experience. She couldn’t function on board this ship in a free state. Then, when the mission came up, she saw it as a way to get back to the Toom.”
Melanie stepped forward. “He’s right. I noticed her watching Te in the arena. She should have kept eye contact with her own master, but she was watching Te instead. He turned her on. She thought of him as her master, and she followed his commands. When he told me to turn myself on, she followed his orders.”
Natalie gasped. “She couldn’t do that! She was with Arno. He was her master, not Te.”
Melanie waved toward Arno. “Ask him if you don’t believe me. He’ll tell you the same thing. He was in the arena with us. He saw for himself what Tina was doing and how she responded. Ask him.”
Natalie turned to Arno, but the expression on his face answered all her questions. She dropped her eyes to the ground. “I don’t like to admit it, but you could be right. I was just so happy she was engaging with other people on this ship after so many months in hiding. I didn’t want to admit there could be another reason she wanted to go back to the gatherings.”
“It doesn’t matter now,” Kyan told them. “We’ve lost her, and now we have to figure out a different way to get her back.”
“We’ve lost a lot more than that,” Arno replied. “We’ve lost our cover, so we’ll never get her back. You and I will never go back to the gatherings again, so we’ll have to kiss Tina good-bye.”
“Don’t say that,” Natalie pleaded. “I know Tina deceived you, but try to see her position from her point of view. The regeneration beds gave her the nicest feeling she ever had. Nothing on this ship could compare with that.”
He rounded on her. “Nothing?”
Natalie shook her head. “You want to believe the connection you shared with her could replace the regeneration bed, but it’s like a drug. You’ve seen the way these women respond to it. It erases all the pain and shame and hardship of slavery and fills you with more pleasure and peace than you can imagine. I should know. I’ve been there. I wish I could say my love for Kyan could take its place, but it can’t. Nothing can take its place.”
Amber shifted from one foot to the other. “Are you saying you don’t have regeneration beds here?” She glanced around at the Mixtidelin's cold bare walls. “If that’s true, how do you....?” She broke off.
Natalie took her hand. “You two have a long, hard adjustment ahead of you to get used to a life of freedom. It isn’t as blissful as your life with the Toom, but it’s the only life you can have here. That’s the price of freedom. I’ve been living this life for eight months, and I can tell you from personal experience that it’s worth it. No one will use you or sell you or harm you here. You have the chance to be human again.”
Amber and Melanie exchanged glances. “Why can’t we just go back to Earth? Our families will be wondering where we are.”
Natalie shook her head. “I’m sorry. None of us can go back to Earth ever again. The regeneration beds altered our cellular structure so we’re no longer fully human. The Toom robbed us of that.”
“But you just said we had the chance to be human again,” Amber pointed out. “What happened to that?”
Natalie waved her hand. “I meant it as a figure of speech. You have the chance to be something other than a piece of meat the Toom sell to the highest bidder at the gatherings.”
Arno stepped closer to Kyan. “You take your friends down to the medical bay. Kyan and I have to report to the bridge. Commander Axilon won’t be pleased we blew our cover and lost Tina into the bargain.”
Natalie put out her hand to touch his arm. “We’ll get her back, Arno. We’ll find Tina and bring her back.”
He shook his head again. “She’s gone. I was foolish to get close to her, and now she’s gone. She wants to be with the Toom. We won’t risk trying to rescue her again.”
He strode away down the corridor and Kyan followed. Natalie watched them out of sight. Then she sighed and turned to her friends. Melanie gazed at the corner where Arno and Kyan vanished. “What was that about?”
Natalie guided her friends the other way down the corridor. “I’ll tell you later. Right now, we have to take you two to the medical bay. You won’t have the regeneration bed to heal you if anything goes wrong. The medical staff will need to check you over and make sure you didn’t get hurt in the arena.”
Amber stopped walking. “I’m not having any nasty aliens poking and prodding at my private parts.”
Natalie laughed. “Darling, that’s exactly what Fo was just doing.”
Amber dropped her eyes.
Natalie took her by the hand again. “Don’t worry. No one will lay a finger on you. They perform all the examinations with scanners. You can keep all your clothes on, and you won’t feel a thing.”
Amber looked down at her own body. Goosebumps spread over her skin. “I’m cold.”
Natalie nodded. “Follow me, and I’ll get you some clothes.”
She opened a locker in a compartment adjacent to the transport bay and took out two of her own uniforms. “Put these on.”
I’ll go with you to the medical bay, and then I’ll show you to your quarters. Then I’ll go back to my own quarters. I have a uniform there I can put on.”
“How do you know which quarters are ours?” Amber asked.
“Commander Axilon assigned you both quarters before we left,” Natalie replied. “We didn’t know when or how we’d be bringing you back—or even if we’d be bringing you back. But we assigned you quarters just in case. I don’t know what the Commander will want to do with Tina’s quarters. I wish I could be a fly on the wall when Kyan and Arno report to him.”
“Will they go after her?” Melanie asked. “They won’t leave her with the Toom, will they?”
“I really can’t say,” Natalie replied. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if Commander Axilon leaves her to her fate. This is the second time Kyan and I have risked our lives to bring you three back, and now Tina’s thrown our efforts back in our faces. I don’t blame Arno for turning his back on her.”
Melanie studied her. “I didn’t know you did that. I didn’t know you put yourself in danger for Tina—and for us. We owe you our lives.”
Natalie blushed. “Just wait a few months before you thank me. You’re still under the influence of the regeneration beds, so everything still looks rosy and bright. When that wears off, you’ll wish you were back with Fo like Tina is now.”
Melanie shook her head. “I could never go back. If you think freedom in space is important enough to risk your life twice to bring us back, I could never turn away from that. I’ll do everything I can to prove your sacrifice was worth it.”
Natalie squeezed her hand and they started down the corridor to the medical bay. “I have just as much to thank you two for. You two are the only others of my kind in the whole galaxy. Not only are there no other humans, but we’ve been altered to the point that we’re no longer the same species. We’re three of a kind, so we should stick together if we can. In a way, I share more with you two than I do with Kyan.”
They passed the windows looking in on domestic scenes. Children laughed and played with their parents, and groups of people practiced martial arts in training studios. Amber stopped in front of a window looking in on a class of children learning to read. “This is a big ship. I didn’t realize there were so many people on board.”
Natalie gazed at the scene. “It’s a hologram.”
Amber’s head spun around. “What?”
“It isn’t real,” Natalie murmured. “There are no children on board this ship, and no women, either—apart from the three of us. The Galactic Police Force only sends men after these illegal traders. They can’t risk one of their officers getting captured and taken into slavery.”
“But you said you’d been here for months,” Amber replied. “You’re a woman, and you’re going after the traders. How do you explain that?”
“They shouldn’t have let me stay,” Natalie replied. “They should have sent me to the rehabilitation center with the rest of the slaves they rescued from the gathering.”
“Why didn’t they?” Melanie asked.
“Maybe because I was different,” Natalie replied. “Maybe because I had been altered too much. The other slaves could just go back to their home worlds, but I couldn’t. Then Commander Axilon heard from one of his operatives that Fo planned to bring another Earth female to a different gathering. That’s when he got the idea of sending me undercover to get Tina. If that hadn’t happened, he probably wouldn’t have let me stay on board.”
“Why did he let you stay on after that?” Amber asked. “Shouldn’t he have found somewhere else for you to go?”
“He should have,” Natalie replied. “But Tina needed me. She didn’t respond well to being rescued. She wouldn’t come out of her quarters, and she wouldn’t talk to anybody but me. Commander Axilon kept us here so we could stay together until she recovered.”
Melanie shook her head. “And now she’s gone.”
“And it’s all our fault,” Amber added.
Natalie rushed to her. “Don’t even think that! Tina made her own choice. None of us made that choice for her. If she couldn’t handle life outside the regeneration bed, we can’t force it on her.”
“I never thought she’d be the one to cave in and run back,” Melanie told her. “I would have thought Amber would be the one to do something like that.”
Natalie cast a glance at Amber. Then she lowered her eyes.
Amber straightened up. “I know you both thought that about me. When Fo and his men first took us from Earth, I thought I would die of fear. But after they put me in the regeneration bed, I started to like my new life. Now that I’m here, I know I can handle anything that happens.”
Natalie gazed into her face and sighed. “You don’t know how happy I am to hear you say that. I was worried about you. It sounds terrible to say. I shouldn’t.....”
Amber stopped her with a wave of her hand. “You don’t have to apologize. I know I fell apart. I’m not as strong as you, Natalie. I always thought you were the strongest of us, all except....” She stopped.
Melanie nodded. “We all thought Tina was the strongest, and we were all wrong. Tina’s gone, and we have only ourselves now. Let’s forget about her and concentrate on the future.”
Natalie stopped in front of the medical bay. “I don’t want to forget about Tina. She may have let us all down and put us all in danger, but I can’t let her go. I can’t rest until all four of us are free.”