They left the following day, with all the food they could carry and with all the weapons they had escaped with. They had no idea what they would find on this new adventure and they wanted to be as prepared as possible.
The Taucet colony wasn’t very big. There were only half a dozen igloo style structures connected to each other through hallways. They also had what looked like greenhouses and their vessels were parked on a huge field next to it.
They had all kinds of vessels, from the small ones for short trips and air attacks the cyborgs had experienced at their base, to the huge one, that clearly had brought them here.
The bigger one was hovering over the colony, so if they wanted to get onboard, they would have to commandeer a smaller one and fly in to it.
With luck, they wouldn’t have more than a couple of guards watching the vessel and they would be able to overpower them easily.
“The ship must have enough fuel to take them back to their home planet,” Jayport pointed out. “That should be enough to take us where we want to go.”
“Yes. That’s a possibility, I must confess the ship is a bit bigger than I expected. It will take us too long to learn how to fly a thing like that,” Jarcor said, in a stern tone.
“Then, we’ll have to force the guards on the ship to fly it for us,” Jetfra said, scowling.
Jarcor nodded. That was another possibility they would have to consider, if they really wanted to get out of here.
They evaluated their chances and watched the colony for a few days to get some notion of their routine allowing them to plan the best way to get to onboard the ship unnoticed.
During their watches, Jarcor realized what Sabrina had told him was true. The Taucets were abducting humans and enslaving them.
The workforce on the colony was human, mostly females of all ages. Apparently, they used different colored clothing to identify their jobs in the colony and though the cyborgs were horrified with the women’s situation, they knew there wasn’t much they could do to help them.
Once more, Jarcor prayed Sabrina had been able to go back home safe and sound. Though he had tried, he hadn't been able to forget her, and he was starting to think he would never forget her.
The other thing they were able to establish with their reconnaissance, was that every two days, a couple of guards would fly up to the ship with food and supplies and change places with the ones stationed on the ship.
That allowed them to plan their attack.
“We have to find a way to get inside the vessel before they get there and hide from them. Once we’re on the ship, we’ll surprise them and take control. I’m sure it won’t be that hard to convince them to take us out of here,” Jarcor explained.
“They lower their guard at night. We must use that time to get inside the craft and wait for the guards. The vessels look big enough to hide us all inside,” Jayport added.
“Yes, I’m sure of it too. They don’t seem to check the vessel before they leave, so we should be safe until they land inside the mothership,” Jarcor continued. “Once there, we’ll hopefully outnumber the guards so subduing them shouldn’t be that hard.”
His men nodded, looking excited. They all wanted to leave Earth and find a place they could call home.
They put their plan into action the following night, thankful that everything went as planned.
The minute the craft landed on the main ship, the cyborgs exited their hiding place and as they had predicted, it wasn’t hard to subdue the four aliens’ onboard the vessel.
Once they had them restrained, Jarcor sent four of his men to check the rest of the vessel. The last thing he wanted was unpleasant surprises.
“What are you doing here?” snarled a Taucet, struggling to free himself. “Getting this ship won’t help you win this war,” he warned them with a sarcastic tone.
“We’re not interested in fighting in this war anymore. We need this ship to leave the Earth and you’ll help us,” Jarcor explained.
They didn’t have much time before the Taucets on the colony noticed something was wrong.
“Why should we help you? You’re our enemies.” The same alien asked, with scorn.
“You’ll help us because I’m sure you value your life a lot more than we do,” he replied, with a disdainful scowl.
Meanwhile, Jayport had been scanning the ship and comparing it with all the information Jarcor had transmitted to him about flying aircrafts.
“This is easier than we expected, Jarcor. Its voice activated, and it has no security measures, so anyone can activate it,” Jayport explained, with a wide smile.
“So, we don’t need them?” Jarcor asked, sounding pleased.
“No, no, of course you need us. We’ll help,” another one of the Taucets said, eager to preserve his life.
“Are you insane? You can’t help them,” the first Taucet protested.
“They’ll kill us if we don’t. I haven’t yet lived enough,” the second one replied.
The four aliens started talking in their own language but after a few moments they had agreed to cooperate with the cyborgs. Apparently, their lives were too short to waste on lost battles.
Before they departed, Ronjay, one of the men Jarcor had sent to check the rest of the ship, returned and used their private channel to warn him of a possible threat. Jarcor turned to look at one of aliens. “Are there other people on board?” he asked with a stern tone.
“Just some of our slaves. We keep them here for our entertainment,” the alien explained. “And they also serve us,” he explained.
“How many of them are here?”
“Ten, last time I checked. You’re free to use them any way you wish,” the alien quickly offered.
Jarcor nodded and ordered Ronjay to go get the women. They hadn't been able to scan the ship, like they usually did with wherever they were, and that could only mean the metal used by the Taucets was a lot different than the ones they had on Earth.
His men returned with the frightened women, all humans, but there was no time to send them back to the planet. They would have to come along with them.
It was only fair if they used some of the humans as slaves, considering the way they treated cyborgs.
“Keep them locked up until we decide what to do with them,” he ordered, as he turned to look at the Taucets. “Get us out of here and be careful with what you do. We know enough to detect foul play.”
It only took them a few minutes to get out of the planet’s atmosphere. By the time the Taucets on land realized the main ship had left, it was too late to stop them. The small vessels didn’t have enough power to follow them.
“Do you have any idea where you want to go?” Exion, one of the aliens asked. His blueish skin wasn’t that different from the cyborgs’ skin, though they had dark blue spots, framing their faces and down their naked shoulders. Like all Taucets, he also had huge dark eyes with oblong pupils and long, thick, dark blue crests where humans and cyborgs had hair.
“We want to get out of this solar system and find a place where we can live,” Jarcor explained.
“There are millions of planets where you could live,” the Taucet explained. “You’ll have to be a bit more specific than that.
“Why did you invade us then?” Jetfra asked, puzzled.
“Most of those planets are deserted. But your planet has something we need urgently.” It was obvious he wasn’t going to tell them what it was, so they didn’t insist.
“Can you take us to one of those planets? Preferably one with no other people living on it,” Jarcor asked.
He knew they were risking a lot trusting the blue creatures, but the universe was too vast for them to wander aimlessly. Out here, they were sailing unchartered waters, and they would need all the help they could use. Humans’ knowledge on the universe was insufficient.
“In fact, yes, we can. There’s an abandoned planet not far from this solar system I’m sure you could live on. It’s very similar to your own planet,” Exion informed.
“Abandoned? What do you mean by that?”
“We found traces of civilization on it, but there isn’t any intelligent form of life inhabiting it now.”
“If the people that lived there abandoned it, it mustn’t be very good,” Jayport pointed out.
“We didn’t find any obvious reason for them to abandon it,” Exion explained. “It has the same kind of atmosphere you have on Earth and even similar vegetation and wildlife.”
“How do I know you’re not taking us into a trap?” Jarcor asked the alien, with a cold tone.
“Right now, our survival depends on you. We won’t risk that, believe me,” Exion assured him.
Jarcor nodded and allowed the Taucets to set course to the planet they had described, hoping for the best. If the place was really as they had described it, they would be able to establish it as their new home.
It took them a few days to get there, at full speed, but they used that time to get acquainted with the ship and its engineering as well as with the women and the aliens onboard.
They would soon be living on the same planet and they would have to establish alliances that would allow them to survive in outer space.
At first, the women were scared and even a bit hysterical, but the Taucets quickly controlled them with the collars they were wearing.
Once they realized they weren’t going back to planet Earth, they had accepted their destiny a lot calmer than he had expected. He guessed their time with the Taucets had taught them there was no use fighting against the inevitable.
Jarcor considered removing the collars from them, but he decided it would be better to do it later, when they were established.
What they did, as soon as possible, was to destroy the tracking devices installed on the nipple rings all the women had. The tattoos on their necks were also used to track the slaves, but the Taucets agreed to show Jarcor how to hack into it and destroy the circuitry hidden behind the ink.
When the ship finally arrived to the orbit of the new planet, Jarcor was anxious to get to their destiny. He wanted to start working on their new home.
Like Exion had told them, the planet was quite similar to Earth, with its oceans and green continents. They orbited the planet to get a good look at the extent of it, scanning it with the ships scanners confirming Exion’s words. There was no intelligent life form on the planet.
Unlike Earth, this planet only had three huge continents, separated by the blue oceans, though there seemed to be a lot of small islands scattered around the seas near the shores.
They finally landed on the planet, near one of its seas and Jarcor set up an exploration group, including two of the Taucets, before he allowed the rest of his men to go down to the planet.
They traveled around the place for a couple of days and what they found was promising.
There was more than enough drinking water, animals they could surely use as food, as well as fish and vegetables. There were also rocks and trees for them to build new homes and keep themselves warm. This planet’s sun looked a bit further away than the sun of Earth’s solar system, but the temperature on the planet was quite agreeable, at least, at this time of the year.
They would be able to make their homes here and its proximity to the planet Earth would make it easier for them to free more cyborgs and bring them there.
“This place looks perfect. Why do you think its former inhabitants abandoned it?” Jayport asked, curious, as they walked along a sandy beach.
They had decided to establish their first village not far from the sea, but close enough to a river to have all the fresh water they might need.
“I have no idea, but we’ll have to investigate that, once we’re established here. Our priority has to be finding fuel so that we can travel back to Earth as often as possible to free all of the cyborgs we can,” Jarcor replied.
“The Taucets have been of great help so far. Perhaps they’re willing to keep helping us,” Jetfra suggested.
“Yes, it would have taken us much longer to find a place like this one, if it hadn't been for them,” Jarcor admitted.
Fortunately, the Taucets were more than willing to help the cyborgs in exchange to keep the women they had brought. Since they had been their slaves from the beginning and the women didn’t seem to object to the deal that was agreed upon.
The Taucets showed them what to look for on the planet they could use to trade on the intergalactic markets, something they didn’t even know existed.
The planet, called Arcadia, was rich in minerals highly valued on those markets, so soon they had all the resources they needed to go back for more cyborgs and to build their homes on the new planet.
They started by building a decent home for each man, giving them a place to call their own, with everything they could need to have a pleasant life.
They used the prefabricated houses they found on the intergalactic markets, so the houses were built a lot faster than it would have been if they had tried to build them from scratch.
They chose materials that combined perfectly with the landscape around them. Another one of their priorities was to use the natural energy sources of the planet as much as possible, so they installed solar panels and wind turbines.
In a few months, they had a new home.
Now, all they needed was to bring as many cyborgs as they could, to free them from their enslavement on Earth and give them the life they deserved.
Life was starting to make sense again and Jarcor was pleased with how things had turned out.
His heart still craved for Sabrina, but he was learning to kill those weakening feelings. She had no place in his new life and he was sure she had long since forgotten him.
All he needed to do now was to focus on their new planet and everything would be just fine.
At least, that was what he kept telling himself at night, when loneliness dug its claws in his aching heart and made him want more.