As it turned out, it was Harper’s commander that got hurt. That poor woman had a full-blown panic attack, gasping for breath when she heard Zared grunt in pain and Pyrr asking him if he were all right. He was after his nanites repaired the damage.
After that, we were very busy with the influx of rescues in the cargo bay. That was the only place in the ship to house eighty extra people. The other dreadnaught took the rest of the one-hundred-eighty people. Harper and I, armed with AI tablets took names and information from the former slaves as they came off the shuttle.
They were a bedraggled lot that reminded me of the refugees I’d seen during my deployments on Earth. They were weak and tired from long hours of work, too little food and not enough sleep. We only took them out a few at a time because there weren’t enough chairs to go around. Then there weren’t enough seats in the shuttle either. Many of us had sat on the floor in the cargo hold of the shuttles when we were rescued from Ursaga. Each one had seating for twenty-five.
Once the colony was secured, they would send in teams to scavenge whatever they thought we could use in addition to the bunks from the slave barracks.
Most but not all of the rescued slaves were from Farseek. We used the tablets to record their images, name, origin, age, and occupation before their capture. One young man drew special attention from my friends and me because he spoke to us in mildly accented English.
“Are you from Earth?” he asked Harper.
“How did you know?” she asked slipping from the Farseek into English automatically.
He was one big handsome guy with light skin and pale blue hair, amber cat eyes, and pointed ears. The ears weren’t really elfin or Vulcan. They closely resembled ours but were pointed on the top.
As soon as I heard him speak, I went over to Harper's line to hear more. Even in all the noise in that cargo bay Nora and Zoey also heard him speak and came to find out more.
“How do you know our language?” Harper asked.
“I was stationed at our base there for three years,” he explained. “I was kidnapped from there.”
“Do you know where Earth is?” Harper asked urgently.
“Yes, but not how to get there from here,” he said. “We are still in our galaxy, but far from Alliance territory which includes Earth. From the star maps I’ve seen, we are a few arms away from our sector. I only know Earth coordinates in relation to Narova, my homeworld.”
“What is your name?” I asked.
“Sahvin Kazza,” he said. Then he looked up at Nora and sniffed, then gasped in wonder. He stood abruptly and backed away.
“Is something wrong,” Harper asked he as looked at Nora and sniffed.
“Nora from Earth, you are meomee! My soul mate,” he said, looking directly at her.
“What does that mean?” she asked.
He looked at her, his feline eyes filled with longing. “Can’t you feel it? It means you are my fated mate.
“It sounds like solmatu,” Harper said. His eyes took a little getting used to, but he was otherwise gorgeous with a muscular build and pale golden skin.
“Oh, my!?” Nora gasped.
Harper and I had a pretty good idea what was happening, but from the look on her face, it seemed a bit more intense.
“How can this be happening?” she murmured uncertainly. “I just met him for ten minutes, and I feel like I want to push him down and have my way with him.”
I chuckled as I stole a glance at our new feline acquaintance. “He’s kind of looking at you the same way,” Harper whispered.
“I have a feeling you aren’t going to have much choice in the matter. You might as well go talk to him. He seems very nice,” Harper encouraged her. “This fated mate thing hasn’t turned out so bad for Scarlet and me.”
She glanced briefly at Sahvin, and sighed. “He is pretty, isn’t he?” Nora smiled wryly.
“He is.” I laughed softly.
Nora went closer, and Sahvin stood, offering his hand to her. We didn’t know at the time that when she took his offered hand, that basically sealed the deal. They left the cargo bay almost immediately, we guessed to get better acquainted. We didn’t stop too long to ponder it because we still have about thirty people left to check in.
Zoey and I ended up doing the rest of the work because Commander Zared showed up finally and Harper slipped away with him soon afterward. Zoey and I didn’t blame her. She had been so scared when he got hit, but he looked fine as ever as he strode into the bay. I’m surprised that she didn’t run and jump into his arms, but she kept her cool.
I went back to what I was doing, not knowing when Pyrr would be back. He had commed that he was helping with the loading of the shuttles on Breskaa so we could get out of the system soon as possible. They didn’t know how long before the Sargus Empire would send a destroyer looking for those ships our Dreads destroyed but we needed whatever they could salvage to take care of these people we had rescued.
I would sure be glad to hold him in my arms again, but I was no longer worried about his safety. Somewhere along the way, this space stuff had started to become routine. Who’d have thought?