Eleven
“What?” Pace leapt to his feet. “Where is she? Who’s holding her?”
“The missive came from a small, supposedly uninhabited asteroid just outside Mall’s space perimeter.”
“Those assholes who were casing my ship,” Pace growled.
The aide opened his mouth to speak again, but Lord Dickhead shut him down.
“Enough, Morllay,” he barked. “Mr. Ruffalo, have a seat. We needn’t let this get in the way of forging a diplomatic bond between our planets. We’ll go ahead as planned and find you a new mate, then the treasure will enter our coffers.”
Really? Remaining standing, Pace glared at him. His voice lowered dangerously. “Let me get this straight. You want to present me with a new wife, grab the booty off my ship and abandon Lola to some space pirates.”
“Put that way, it sounds rather distasteful, but I take no offense. Ms. Xeltrax is a fine example of our most revered mine workers, but we can find you a replacement easily enough. Perhaps not a Crusher this time, but how about a Surveyor or a Blaster?”
“Look, douchebag,” Pace growled, leaning toward the Lord with his hands flat on the table to keep himself from punching the old fuck in the mouth. He wasn’t supposed to have met Lola, but he could make it sound like a deal was a deal. “Lola is the only one I want. Understand? No Lola, no treasure.”
“Surely you―”
“Aren’t you listening?” he snarled. “It’s Lola or nothing. That’s who Gerri signed me up for, and I trust her judgment. I’ll make things easy for you. You don’t have to stir a single rescue ship from whatever military you people have. I’m plenty capable of doing this on my own.”
“All right,” the Lord sniffed. “But before you go, you’ll sign a document agreeing that if you find her, you come back here with the treasure.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Pace snapped. “I want Lola to be welcome here to visit her mother and her friends.”
“And we’ll add a clause about the id-female thing. A bothersome, yet necessary technicality.”
Pace’s eyes narrowed angrily. “You’ll leave that clause out until I talk to Lola. It will be her decision and hers alone on whether she wants to relinquish her male half. I’m not Hydroxene. I don’t have to play by your rules, and I would think twice about trying to force me. Our planet has a lot to say about people maintaining free will. If you covet a trade agreement with earth, I’d start rethinking your own, narrow-minded demands.”
“Fine,” Shmegma sniffed. “We’ll wait to hear what Ms. Xeltrax has to say, if you manage to rescue her.”
As far as Pace knew, gender identity might be something id-females―whatever the hell that term meant―gave up willingly. But until he found out, he’d withhold his compliance.
He gestured to the aide. “Get me to my ship,” he ordered, then turned to the high muckety-mucks. “And stay out of my way. I’m going to rescue my wom…my partner.”
****
Lola woke slowly, rubbing the back of her neck where it throbbed in pain. She groaned. What the hockstad? She knew sex with Pace had been aggressive, which was half the fun, but was she really so out of shape that it had made her neck stiff? Her mouth tasted like gerbshit, and she needed a drink.
She gingerly attempted rolling to one side, but stopped, confused. She wasn’t in a bed, or even in the hotel. Lola blinked rapidly several times to try and clear her mind. She was in a box, no more than…she tentatively reached out with her boot and tapped one wall, at the same time sending her hand back…seven feet long and…she reached out to her sides…perhaps six feet wide with maybe a seven-foot ceiling.
She blinked again. A closed door stood at one end of the box, the light filtering through maybe half a dozen slits high up on the walls. Other than those features, the box was empty, apart from her slightly battered body.
Lola breathed deeply, regaining equilibrium. How had she gotten here? The last thing she remembered was standing on the wait-pad at the LEV, preparing to board a pod to bring her back to G-Hydrox. After that…nothing.
She rubbed the back of her neck again, feeling a lump. Wait. She remembered a sting. Dammit. Someone had injected her with a sleeping serum. But why had she been targeted? And where in the galaxy had she been taken?
Slowly, she made her way to her feet, swaying drastically, catching herself with a hand to one wall. Altered gravity? Certainly not the solid footing she had on her planet, or Mall.
Not expecting much, she shuffled the few feet to the door and tested it with a sharp kick from her boot. Locked. No inside handle or knob.
Great.
Having aggravated her neck, she sank to the floor and looked around. An anomaly at one of the small, high openings caught her eye. Something had been shoved through it from the outside.
Lola stood again, more easily this time, and jumped with the help of less gravity, reaching up. Aha. The end of a small nozzle. She gave it a tug, pulling it down to eye level. It was attached to a hose. Could this be her source of water?
Eagerly, she pointed it away from her body and loosened the nozzle, watching as a trickle emerged. Tentatively, she stuck one finger into the meager stream. It sure felt like water. She brought her digit to her nose and sniffed. No odor. That was a good sign. She cautiously stuck out her tongue and dabbed at the liquid. No flavor. It sure had all the properties of water, and she was damned thirsty.
Lola shrugged. She’d eventually be dead if she didn’t drink. She brought the hose down to her mouth and zealously lapped up its offering. Ahh… Good. The water appeared to be safe. The more she drank, the more her head cleared. Before she closed off the nozzle and let the hose go, she doused her hands and rubbed them over her face.
Better.
Now to find out what kind of rompholes she faced. “Hey!” she yelled, aiming her voice toward the slots. “Is anybody out there? Why am I here?”
She heard some shuffling outside, but no voices. For all she knew, she could have been abandoned and what she heard were four-legged vermin. Well, if sentient beings were out there, she knew a way she could probably get them to pay attention.
Lola sat on the floor with her boots positioned against the door and began to bang them against the metal. It made an awful cacophony inside her box, but she was used to a constant din in the mines, so it didn’t bother her in the least. She could also keep up her racket for an enormously long time, switching back and forth between her id-female and male forms. The muscle groups for each of her incarnations were different, so when one set fatigued, she could go to the other. What she hoped was that it would annoy the hockstad out of whomever was on the outside before both her personas lost energy.
“Let me out, you cretins. I want out!” Her male self punctuated her kicks with bursts of angry words, spewing vitriol for several minutes. Sure enough, someone yelled at her from the other side of the door.
“Shut the fuck up, bitch,” the male voice said. “Or we’ll cut your feet off. Then if your human doesn’t come, we can send those parts to him first.”
Lola paused, turning female. They were trying to lure Pace to rescue her? Why?
“What do you want him for?” she spat. “He’s nothing special to me.”
“Not him, you stupid gerb. The treasure he carries. We figure it’s a good trade. You for the riches from earth.”
Lola nearly groaned. Whoever these idiots were, they clearly hadn’t kept up with events. There was no way Pace would come for her. He’d left her. She’d never seen anyone turn so cold, so quickly. When she’d mentioned the possibility of a man in their relationship―speaking about her hidden other half―he’d jumped up and left. End of story.
Depending on the time, which had to be somewhere around mid-day because her box was beginning to heat up, Pace would probably have unloaded his cargo on G-Hydrox, found out all about the female/male thing and bolted back toward earth. There would be no treasure for her abductors, no outside rescue for Lola―she had no illusions of being valuable to the Lords―and, if she didn’t find a way to get herself out of this mess, there’d be no continuation of her life.
“Hey!” She continued kicking when she heard footsteps start to move away. “I need to use the facilities.”
“Hah,” came the reply. “Squat in the corner or change into a man to pee upright. It’s your choice.” He laughed.
“I don’t mean pee, romphole. I mean defecate.” She figured if her box was getting warm, the building they were in must be, too. The smell would eventually waft out of her confines and reach her captor’s olfactory senses. “And as the day goes on, if it gets hot, you don’t want to be smelling that.”
Did the guy just grumble to someone else? Was she up against one enemy? Two? More?
“Fine. Stand away from the door and I’ll let you out. But understand, I have a zorka aimed at you, so don’t try anything stupid.”
Lola wouldn’t think of it…without scouting the situation first. She knew if she didn’t try to escape at some point, once the man realized Pace wasn’t coming, her life wouldn’t be worth two washsnaps. This was all on her.
“I’ve moved away,” she said, raising her hands.
The door opened slowly, and Lola shaded her eyes from the light. She saw the zorka, and as her vision adjusted, the man who held it. Pale skin, a double-high forehead, squinty little eyes on the sides of his nose. A third hand protruded from the front of his chest. It was this appendage that held the weapon trained directly at her head.
When he motioned her forward, she stepped out slowly. Behind him was a small room. Judging by the crates and boxes stacked haphazardly around, it had to be some kind of warehouse. She noticed an atmospheric filtration system on one wall, so she guessed wherever they were didn’t sustain life. So much for busting out through a wall.
The light in the room, which had begun heating uncomfortably, came from a glass ceiling that showed two familiar suns. So she was in the same solar system as both Mall and her home planet. That was good to know.
Besides the one with the zorka, there were two other similar beings sitting at a makeshift table playing a game with what looked to be sticks.
Lola recalled Pace’s words from the marketplace. Three nosy characters, he’d said. They’d been skulking around Calamity, looking in the windows before she’d closed the meteor shields. Could this be the same misbegotten triad?
“Come on, you ID challenged whore. The facilities are over there.” He jerked his head toward a door fifteen feet to their left.
By that foul-mouthed epitaph, Lola knew he was at least aware of the nature of Hydroxenes. That meant they were probably from a nearby planet. If she could find out which one, perhaps she could recall some weakness in their species, although his forward vision, what with the placement of his eyes, couldn’t be optimal.
She walked slowly to the elimination closet, effecting a non-invasive curiosity. “I see you know where I’m from,” she began. “What planet do you call home?”
“None, you nosy bitch. We haven’t called any planet home in many rounds. But this haul from your earthling might just change that. With the booty he’ll provide, we can buy ourselves into any galaxy we choose.”
Lola didn’t doubt that. In every sector, far and near, money talked.
By the time Lola finished using the facilities and had been placed back into her box, she hadn’t learned much or found anything to help her escape. There had been no makeshift weapons in the EC, nothing to combat three men anyway, so she’d left its confines, still unarmed.
She paced her prison, six steps one way, then seven the other, lamenting.
Three men, nothing with which to arm herself and an unspecified amount of time to save her own romp. Things were not looking good.