Juanita sat on a bench beside Tala and Angela, the day and the bruises she’d received catching up with her. This had seemed like an exciting adventure while she’d been helping Orion, however limitedly, defeat bad guys. Now, she was tired and hungry and found herself wishing for her own bed and the leftover ribs in the fridge from her favorite barbecue restaurant back home.

“Do you think they’ll feed us?” Angela asked, gazing around at their new prison.

Quarters. That was what the armored man who’d led Juanita and all the other women to the area had called it. It looked to be a recreation room with tables on one side, some with holographic games or maybe movie displays paused over them. There were a handful of benches and newly added blankets and cots, though there weren’t enough cots for everyone.

The other side of the room held exercise mats and gym equipment. Juanita didn’t recognize most of the machines, but there were dumbbells and sandbags that didn’t look much different from what the YMCA had back home. None of the crew was using the tables or equipment right now, and a lone man stood guard by one of the doors.

That was what made it feel like a prison. The guard. Was he there to keep them in? Or to keep the crew out?

He wasn’t in armor, like the other men—Star Guardians, Orion had called them—from the boarding party, but he cut an intimidating figure with weapons hanging from the belt of his pressed black fatigue uniform. He had broad shoulders, with the sleeves rolled above the elbow, displaying a tattoo on the top of his muscled forearm. The uniform and weapons looked military, but he lacked the clean-shaven face and tidy short hair of US soldiers and police officers. He had green curly hair cut in a short Mohawk with a matching beard. Bleached white sticks of bone pierced his ears in several places, top and bottom, and tattoos on his eyelids creeped Juanita out whenever he blinked slowly enough for her to see them.

“I don’t know, but I’d happily take a steak and potatoes right about now,” Juanita said.

“Me too,” Tala said, rubbing her injured elbow.

Juanita didn’t know how badly she had hurt it, but she seemed to be moving the arm without more than a wince or two. Juanita’s shoulder throbbed, and she would trade all her Magic: The Gathering cards for a bottle of ibuprofen. Angela didn’t appear to be wounded at all. Maybe she had been smart to stay in the cell instead of escaping, though she had sheepishly admitted to being ashamed that she hadn’t thought to slip out when she’d had the opportunity. Fortunately, the attacks from the Star Guardian ship had distracted Baldie, and he hadn’t had time to molest anyone else.

“I don’t eat steak,” Angela said. “Or a lot of meat in general. Or meat-based products. Or byproducts. I’d take one of your homemade quesadillas, Juanita.”

“I’ll be sure to ask if they have a kitchen with a tortilla press that I can use.”

“You may have to be flexible with your diet here,” Tala said. “Assuming they offer us food at all. Our other captors didn’t.” Her lips thinned in displeasure.

So, she also hadn’t missed that they were basically in a new prison.

“Can you ask someone, Juanita?” Angela asked. “I’m wasting away here.”

“I doubt it’s been eight hours since we were originally captured,” Tala said dryly.

“I hadn’t eaten since lunch!”

“So you’ve gone twelve hours without food? That’s barely more than you’d miss with a good night’s sleep.”

“Not for me. I snack before bed. And first thing in the morning. And when I’m in bed, I’m unconscious, not being kidnapped and drugged and terrorized. Those are things that’ll make you hungry.”

The words got some nods of assent from the other women in the room, most of whom had banded together in little knots and were sitting as far away from their green-haired guard as possible. A few were hiding among the gym machinery, maybe hoping not to be noticed.

Juanita pushed herself to her feet and walked toward the guard. She was the only one with a translation device, so she supposed that made her the spokesperson for the group. Assuming this fellow also had let someone stick a biting chip in his ear.

“Hi, can you understand me?” Juanita smiled at him, pointedly not looking at the crossbow-like weapon cradled in his arms.

“Yes, of course, ma’am.”

Juanita found the ma’am promising, even if it made her feel old. “We were wondering if it’s possible to get something to eat. Some of us have gone more than twelve hours without eating.” She grinned over at Angela. Juanita was hungry, too, but she’d had a crazy yoga-loving roommate in college who’d convinced her to do detox fasts. After that, twelve hours wasn’t a big deal, especially if she didn’t have to chant and meditate while doing it. She’d never confessed to that roommate that she’d used her meditation time to come up with story ideas. The comic-book-artist roommate she’d had the following year had been a much better fit for her.

“I don’t know what you’re saying,” Angela called across the room to Juanita, “but I can tell you’re teasing me from that grin.”

“Just making sure he knows you’re the pushy one.”

“You’ll thank me when we get our quesadillas.”

Juanita snorted, wondering what the chip would translate quesadillas to.

The guard watched the exchange, then lifted his wristwatch to his mouth. What had Orion called it? A logostec?

“Lieutenant Boca?” he asked. “Our guests are hungry.”

A grunt came by way of response.

The guard lowered his watch.

“Does that mean room service is on the way?” Juanita asked. “Or that we should start picking teams in case we need to engage in cannibalistic warfare?”

He lowered his tattooed lids halfway and studied her. “Are you joking?”

“Yes.” Juanita glanced at Angela. “I think.”

“Oh.”

“I’ll just go back to my seat.”

“A good idea, ma’am.”

Juanita officially missed Orion. She’d only gotten a chance to communicate with him for a few minutes, but she felt certain he would understand her jokes. At the least, he might put his arm around her to comfort her, and she could lean against the chiseled muscles of his chest.

Tala sighed when Juanita returned to the bench.

“Are you dreaming longingly of quesadillas too?”

“No. Just thinking that I went up to Flagstaff to get away from it all. This is more away than I had in mind.”

“Regretting leaving your job?”

Tala hesitated. “Regretting leaving Phoenix maybe.”

“It’s true that aliens rarely land in big cities,” Juanita said. “It’s so much easier to kidnap people in rural areas. And hide your spaceship while you do so. Unless you have a cloaking device, like in Star Trek IV when the Klingon Bird of Prey landed in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Oh.” Juanita snapped her fingers. “I hadn’t thought of that. We already don’t think these guys are aliens, I know, but what if they’re from the future? And they came back through time to… well, they weren’t saving whales if they were kidnapping us, but what if slavers went back to get people from our time period for some reason—like maybe women aren’t fertile in the future, so they needed some fertile women?—and… oh, no, none of that is like what Orion was telling me about. He said there are aliens that want to eat us. But he could have been lying. If he was from the future, there might be a rule to keep from enacting the Grandfather Paradox.”

Tala was gazing at her with a bland, almost concerned, expression.

“I can see you’re not as much of a fan of all things science fiction,” Juanita said.

“I’m trying to decide if you’re being serious when you seemingly use fictional events to extrapolate what might be happening to us here in reality.”

“I’m rarely serious. It’s part of my charm.”

Tala turned her bland gaze toward Angela, as if looking for confirmation.

“It’s true,” Angela said. “But her real charm is that she makes excellent quesadillas. And tamales. And that soup with the peppers. You should have been there for the Christmas party at the shelter, Doc.”

“Menudo,” Juanita said.

“What?”

“That’s the name of the soup.”

Tala arched an eyebrow. “Isn’t menudo made with tripe?”

“I make a vegetarian version for the gringos,” Juanita said, smirking at Angela, though she used the term jokingly. She’d been born in the US and had grown up in Phoenix, so she was a foreigner, too, when she went to Mexico to visit her grandparents. Nobody in her grandparents’ little village dyed their hair cute colors and binge-watched Battlestar Galactica on Netflix. Her cousins all thought she was odd, and Juanita had never felt at home in her extended family.

“What vegetable mimics tripe?” Tala asked dryly.

“I used eggplant.”

“Could you stop talking about food?” someone groaned from a corner, a black woman of about thirty. She sat with another woman about the same age and wore an NAU sweatshirt, like many of the girls, but looked like she might be a teacher rather than a student. “I’m so hungry.”

“I’ll offer to cook for them if they let me use their kitchen,” Juanita said. “I can make anything taste good. Angela and I even make homemade dog food for the dogs at the shelter.”

“The shelter on the north side of town?”

“Yeah. We all volunteer there.” Juanita pointed to Tala and Angela.

“We got our pointer mix there. But he went with Jace in the divorce.” Her lips peeled back in displeasure. “I miss the dog more than the man.”

“Dogs have softer ears. They’re more appealing.” Though Juanita wouldn’t have minded stroking a certain male chest. It had also been appealing.

“No kidding. I’m Indigo—you can call me Indi.” She pointed to the woman sitting next to her. “This is Katie, a pilot and the only other woman working at the United States Geological Survey office in Flagstaff.”

“Can you pilot spaceships?” Juanita asked.

“I think that’s above my pay grade. But I’d try.” Katie winked. She looked to be in her late twenties with her hair back in a ponytail. She wore a brown leather jacket and jeans with holes in the knees. They appeared to be legitimately made holes rather than ones trendily added at the factory.

“We mistakenly thought it would be nice to go for an evening walk last night,” Indigo said. “Or the other night. I have no idea what time it is. They took my phone.”

“Mine too,” Juanita lamented in a mournful tone.

The door slid open, interrupting the introductions.

Juanita half-expected someone to walk in with trays of food. If Star Guardians were the good guys, they would definitely think to feed their guests, wouldn’t they?

Sadly, the two uniformed men who strode in weren’t carrying trays. Their sleeves were rolled up, revealing tattoos identical in size, color, and placement to the one the green-haired man wore on his forearm. The man in the lead looked more like what Juanita expected from a soldier, or even an officer, with a clean-shaven face, angular jaw, and short brown and gray hair, a little mussed, but still within regulation. At least US Army regulations. He had a couple of scars, including one on his chin and another that had lopped off the corner of one eyebrow. He was lean and fit, and maybe six feet tall, but not as broad and brawny as the green-haired guy or many of the soldiers the women had passed in the corridors on the way to the rec room. He made Juanita think of Colonel O’Neill in Stargate SG-1.

The brown-skinned man walking behind him was younger, with some kind of fur draped diagonally across the torso of his black uniform jacket. He had a tidy mustache and goatee, and was without adornments other than the arm tattoo, but he had some impressive dreads that gave him a wild look as they fell to his butt. He made her think of Tyr from Andromeda.

A third man trotted through the door, and Juanita stood up, smiling. Orion.

He wasn’t in one of the uniforms, instead wearing the same sleeveless vest from before, his muscular arms fully on display. He stopped in the middle of the room to the left of the graying man. The brown-skinned guy took a position to the right. Though Orion was bigger and more muscular than the uniformed man beside him, as well as fifteen or twenty years younger, they had the same strong jaws and dark brown eyes.

“I’m Captain Sagitta,” the graying man said, touching his chest and looking around the room at the women. “I understand one of you has a translation chip already?”

Sagitta? Was this the person Orion had called Sage? He’d seemed much bigger in the armor.

“That’s me,” Juanita said.

Of course, everyone else wore blank looks at the non-English words.

Sagitta looked expectantly at Juanita. Was she supposed to translate for everyone?

“That’s the captain,” she told them.

“This is my tracker, Lieutenant Treyjon,” Sagitta said, gesturing to his right, “and this is Orion, a bounty hunter who’s working with us. If you saw him on the slaver ship, please know that he was working undercover.”

Orion frowned. Hadn’t he told her they were brothers? If so, was it odd that the captain hadn’t introduced him that way?

Sagitta raised his eyebrows at Juanita. Oh, right. Translations. She told the others what he’d said.

“Who among you is the leader?” Sagitta asked.

The leader? Were they supposed to have a leader? Most of them didn’t even know each other.

Nonetheless, Juanita translated the question.

After hesitating a moment, Tala stood up. She was probably the oldest of the women who’d been captured, so maybe it made sense, or maybe as a doctor, she was used to being in charge.

Juanita moved to stand next to her. She wasn’t a leader of anything, but she figured she had better stand by Tala so she could translate.

Orion smiled at her, and a feeling of warmth spread to her toes. He had a nice smile. He ought to make the gesture more often. His usual expression was more of a surly glower, one that seemed more pronounced when he stood next to Sagitta.

The three men walked closer to Juanita, Tala, and Angela. Before speaking, Sagitta opened his palm to reveal a couple of tiny silver chips.

“Uh oh,” Juanita said. “Ear doctor time.”

Tala frowned. “What?”

“I think that’s what Orion put in my ear.”

“Yes,” Orion said.

“They bite.”

Sagitta tilted his head to the side. “They’re not animate. They just sink into your skin enough to clamp on. It’s only painful for a second.”

“They bite,” Juanita repeated to Tala.

“We can communicate more easily with you if you wear them.” Sagitta handed one to the other man, Treyjon, and nodded toward Angela. Maybe she was also to be considered one of the “leaders” due to sharing a bench with Tala. “Miss Juanita, warn them that we will put the devices in their ears.”

It was an order, not a request, Juanita noted, but she translated. Captains were probably used to giving orders without saying please.

Warily, Tala turned her head so Sagitta could place the chip in her ear canal. If she experienced any warm tingling feelings from him fondling her ear, she didn’t show it. But Tala was always on the distant and aloof side, so Juanita didn’t know if she had warm tingly feelings.

Angela, on the other hand, smiled shyly at Treyjon. Until the thing bit into her ear. Then she stiffened and gasped.

He patted her shoulder, his expression surprisingly warm and sympathetic for someone rather fierce-looking who wore the alien equivalent of a bearskin. Sagitta didn’t offer any pats when Tala flinched at the bite, but Tala probably would have rejected them anyway.

“Your name?” Sagitta asked her, all business.

Tala jerked in surprise and touched her ear, but she recovered quickly.

“I’m Doctor—I mean, just Tala. This is Juanita and Angela.”

“Will there be food soon?” Angela asked, ignoring the marvel of the translation chip in favor of more pertinent concerns.

“Doctor?” Sagitta’s eyebrows rose, and he ignored the other question.

Surprisingly, Tala’s cheeks reddened. “No. I mean, I was a surgeon, but I… quit.”

“A surgeon? You have training? Experience?”

“Yes. I was a cardiothoracic surgeon for almost ten years. I only quit recently.”

“If you’re thinking of hiring her to replace Doc Svetloka, remember the planet she came from,” Treyjon said. “They don’t even have interstellar flight. Who knows what their doctors know?”

“Star Guardians don’t hire,” Sagitta said, then lowered his voice, “and I know you’re not accusing anyone of being primitive, Lieutenant.”

“I hope you’re not disparaging my planet, Captain.” Treyjon stroked his band of fur. “Just because we hunt zetrandi with spears doesn’t mean we don’t read books.”

“Is it hard to open the pages when they’re frozen together?” Orion asked.

“Not at all, but I wouldn’t expect you and the captain to understand, having grown up on such a soft planet. I hear you can press a button, and drones deliver food to your apartment in less than ten minutes.”

“Less than five if you’re in the heart of the city.”

Treyjon scoffed.

“Captain,” Tala said, “what’s to happen to us?”

“We’re on our way to our home port on the planet Dethocoles. It’s the seat of our government and also houses the military space fleet and Star Guardian headquarters. We’ll have to report in to our superiors, but I expect we’ll be allowed take you back to your planet after that.”

“You can’t take us home first?” Tala asked.

“I cannot. I have my orders. But this ship exists to protect people, even those who don’t know of the Confederation and Star Guardians. You have my word on that. You won’t be harmed. In the meantime, you and your people are our guests. Please feel free to use the facilities.” Sagitta gestured at the tables and the gym.

Oh yes, Juanita was going to take up weightlifting while she was on her first interstellar flight. Wouldn’t that be fun?

The game tables looked somewhat more interesting, but what she really wanted was to explore the ship. Would Orion be able to give her a tour?

“Can we go anywhere we want?” Juanita asked.

For a brief moment, the most horrified expression crossed the captain’s face. Orion threw his head back and laughed.

“Is that a no?” Juanita murmured to Tala and Angela.

Tala shrugged back. Angela, who was looking at Treyjon’s tattoo, or maybe the defined muscles of his forearm, didn’t acknowledge the question.

“Of course not,” Sagitta said. “I was just—we have some areas that are secure, but perhaps tours of common areas of the ship can be arranged for those who are interested.”

“The captain is having a heart attack over the notion of grubby civilians leaving fingerprints on the pristine control panels on the bridge and in engineering,” Orion informed them.

“Not precisely,” Sagitta murmured. “After all, I let you touch them.”

“Only with the utmost reluctance, from what I’ve noticed.” Orion touched a hand to his chest. “I’ve been on enough fire falcon ships to know where the sensitive parts are. I’ll be happy to give the women a tour.” He smiled at Juanita.

She started to return that smile, but she noticed the captain frowning at Orion.

“You will not be alone with any of our guests,” Sagitta said coolly.

Orion’s eyebrows flew up, and he faced the captain. “What does that mean?”

“I’ve seen you looking at that one.” Sagitta waved to Juanita. “I do not trust your honor in this matter.”

“My honor? I’m the one who got wind of the slavers’ mission and told you about all this.”

“Only because you travel in those people’s orbits and make your life among criminals.”

“So I can have contacts among them. I know you’ve found it useful more than once that I’ve been able to get in touch with colleagues to send you information. Nobody would talk willingly to a Star Guardian.”

“Nobody unscrupulous, no.”

Juanita shifted her weight, made uncomfortable by the argument. She also worried she was causing some of the tension, however inadvertently. Had Orion been checking her out? She remembered him glancing at her boobs once, but not in an overtly lecherous manner.

Orion, glaring at Sagitta, stabbed his thumb into his chest. “I’m not unscrupulous. I can’t believe you would even say that.”

“You killed ten men in that engineering room.” The captain faced him calmly, his eyes cool but devoid of the anger in Orion’s. His cheeks weren’t flushed, either.

“In self-defense. And they were criminals, not tax-paying citizens. Don’t tell me you’ve never killed anyone to defend yourself or your crew, Captain.” He put a weird, accusatory emphasis on the rank.

Had the bench not been at Juanita’s back, she would have edged away. Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to try some of that gym equipment, after all.

Treyjon looked away from the argument and toward the exercise mats, as if he were considering the same thing.

“Not someone with an egatar chip, no.”

“I—what?” The fury and indignation in Orion’s eyes faded, replaced by uncertainty.

“Did you even look? Did it ever occur to you that there might be innocents aboard that ship? That some of the crew might be people who that Captain Cutty enslaved and then forced to join?”

“I know nobody in the first group had a chip on his forehead.” Orion looked to Juanita, that uncertainty still in his eyes.

She had no idea what they were talking about and could only shake her head.

“But the lights kept going out. I don’t know. I guess it’s possible—”

“It’s more than possible. It’s the truth. I saw the bodies, and I know your work.” A muscle ticked in the captain’s jaw. “I scanned the dead. The man with a chip was Argoneth Tanner from a wormhole research station outside of Zeta Colony. His station was raided last month by Cutty’s ship. As a scientist, he was doubtlessly a prize the captain didn’t want to sell on the cheap, and he may even be how Cutty learned that the gate we just went through had opened after being dormant for so long.”

“It was self-defense,” Orion said, but his argument was softer this time, much less passionate. “There wasn’t time to—”

“Then you don’t kill people, if that’s the case. You knock them on their asses, or you stun them. Why can’t you carry a stunner? By the gods, Orion. You’re twenty-eight years old. When are you going to consider consequences for your actions before you take them?” Sagitta’s face had been nothing but cold, but now emotion flashed across it. Anguish? “I’m honor bound to report that man’s death, Orion. His murder. And who was responsible. Further, the rest of those men, slavers or not, should have been tried, not killed outright.”

Sagitta thumped his fist against his thigh and strode toward the door.

“And stay away from the women,” he said over his shoulder before stalking out.

“I don’t carry a stunner, because criminals don’t take them seriously, and you get killed by someone with a double-firing bolt bow,” Orion muttered so softly that Juanita almost missed the words.

His cheeks were cherry red, and his fists were clenched at his sides. He avoided looking at her—he avoided looking at everyone. He stalked across the room, his back ramrod straight, and left without another word.

Only Treyjon remained, but he didn’t seem to know what he was supposed to do. The green-haired guard hadn’t left his position by the door, and he was keeping his face blank now as he gazed at a spot on the wall.

“Familial affairs,” Treyjon finally said.

He gave the women something akin to a salute and walked out.

“Does this mean we’re not getting any food?” Angela asked.

Juanita shook her head bleakly, confused about what exactly was going on, and more worried about Orion than about eating. He had captured her, yes, but they all would have been captured anyway. He had stuck his neck out to keep that asshole from raping her. And he’d protected them again in that engineering room. Surely, she owed him something. But what could she do to help in a world—in a universe—that she didn’t know?