Zared
As soon as I opened my combat helmet, I caught her scent she was one of eight women huddled in the back corner of the room. They were all fine looking females, and I knew immediately, one of them was going to be mine. My cock twitched at that thought. It was no time to be thinking about claiming a female, but it was not easy to quell the desire once I caught her scent. Then she caught my eye and our gazes locked.
There was stunned surprise in her look that told me she recognized the blatant attraction between us. Gods, she was beautiful even in that shapeless slave sack she was wearing. Her shoulder length light brown hair was tousled about her face and her blue eyes sparkled. Then she stepped forward, smiled up at me and told me she was “Harper Avery from the planet Dirt.”
I knew our translators hadn’t got it quite right. It struck me funny as it came through. I wanted to reach out and stroke her smooth skin, but I didn’t want to frighten her with my combat gloves. If I touched her… it would be a mistake. There was too much to do to indulge in mating rituals.
We had to get these people into the ship and off the planet before security rousted the military to defend the auction house. My team was one of the best in the Consortium and better than any in the Empire, but we could be vastly outnumbered. Some of the females, including mine, could be injured in a fire fight.
Mine. I lingered on the thought for just a split second. Harper Avery didn’t know it yet, but she would not be going back to the planet Dirt or whatever name she had called it. Then I pushed that thought to the back of my mind and commanded them to follow. They fell into step behind me immediately and stuck close as I guided them out of the building to our shuttle.
It was too cold outside for the thin shifts they wore with no shoes. None of them complained. We’d rounded up about 100 of them. Only a couple were from Farseek. The shuttle would be crowded but we were under our weight limit and we only had to endure a fifteen minute ride to the ship.
While we were rounding up the merchandise, my AI specialist Tivid Lantu was hacking the auction house databank to learn if any of our people had been sold through the Ursaga Auction house, who bought them and where they were taken. Nearly a million people were missing. They were likely spread all over the Empire which encompassed hundreds of worlds. It could take a lifetime to find them---damn the Consortium!
Farseek was not the only world left undefended. They’d done the same thing to a dozen other worlds whose militaries had agreed to fight for them against the Empire. We all wanted revenge but we wanted to find our people more. We would need many more companies and ships to avenge our people. For all of that we needed currency and backing. To get it we needed paying missions like this one to rescue Guryon’s daughter. His support also allowed us to save a hundred other would be slaves.
We were lucky on this one. Security was lax and not well organized. By the time the military mustered an attack from the ground, our shuttle was docking in the in the bay of . It was one fine ship with the most up-to-date weaponry the Consortium could buy.
Technically, they owned it, though it would do them little good without someone to run it. They had us, and we weren’t planning to give it back anytime soon. They owed us as well as all the other mercenaries they’d hired to fight the Sargus War for them. With the Farseek warriors and others like us serving in their military, the Consortium had no one else to come take their ship back by force. All they could do is cut off the funding and wait for us to fold.
The reward for rescuing Guryon’s daughter would keep us solvent for a while. After we take inventory of the others we scooped up with her, we might collect some more rewards. We could only keep them on the ship temporarily because we just didn’t have the room. Some we could probably return to their home worlds, except the women from the planet Dirt. Certainly not Harper Avery.
I had no idea where that world might be located. Maybe Tivid could figure it out from the data we collected from the auction house, unless the slavers lied about where they collected their merchandise. At least we had saved some 100 souls from slavery this day, including my fated mate from the planet Dirt.
I chuckled to myself remembering the indignant look on her face when I said that. Then she smiled up at me. That was beautiful to see---the first decent thing I’d seen since we’d been back to Farseek. It’s good that she has a sense of humor, she will need it.