My state of hysteria doesn’t last long. I’m lying on the floor of my cell after exhausting myself when I hear a voice speak to me from the cell next to mine.

“It’s better for all of us if you are quiet,” she says.

Her words hit me like a slap to the face. My actions just now prove how incredibly selfish I have been. I thought I was doing what was right for these women but really I was just trying to appease my guilt. I’ve only managed to end up right back where I began all of those days ago. In here, I’m useless to everyone.

“I’m sorry,” I say with barely a whisper. After I was kidnapped and then rescued the first time, I had a brief moment where I really thought I could help somehow. It was stupid to insist on accompanying Koba but the thought of sitting around Lunis Station while there were more women like me out here just felt wasteful. Now I’m left here in this rusty, cold prison cell, warring between the desire to go home and the fear that I have lost the only person I care about in this place so far from my home.

The minutes continue to tick past and I’m no closer to having any idea what to do next. When I get up the courage to look around me, the rest of the women are so quiet and still in their cages, it’s eerie. If I ever wondered what someone truly broken looks like, now I have my answer.

Moments later, there’s a banging sound coming from the doorway and the creaky, steel door swings open, admitting multiple alien guards. Once they have entered the space and spread out around the room, one more alien strides inside. He’s purposeful with his gaze and when his beady eyes land on mine, there’s no mistaking the flash of pleasure that crosses his face. It’s the same alien that was with me with I was abducted and the same one that shot Koba.

“This is the one,” he says as he walks straight toward my cell. The guards around him mobilize as soon as he identifies me, sending me scurrying to the back of my cage. I don’t know what the hell they want with me but I’m tired of the attention. With shaking fingers, I grip onto the bars behind me when the guards open my cage door and duck down to pull me out. One of them grabs onto my leg and yanks me toward him. Somehow I manage to hold onto the bar, but it pulls my arm in such a way that I know the next time I’ll let go or risk having my arm pulled out of the socket.

Two guards grab me the next time, one on each leg. They slide me easily out of the cage and across the floor until I’m sprawled on my back at the leader’s feet. Without a word, he reaches down and grabs onto my right ankle, twisting it at an odd angle while he examines it. After a moment he throws my leg down, slamming it against the floor. I can’t stop myself from crying out in pain.

“Where is it?” he asks, venom dripping from each word.

I’m afraid to say the wrong thing and escalate his temper but I don’t know what he’s talking about. “Where’s what?” I ask.

“The implant,” he says as if it should be obvious. “What have you done with it?”

“Um, it was removed.” His anger is seething, making me curl up into myself so I feel less vulnerable.

“And disposed of?”

“Um, I…I don’t know. They thought it was a tracking device,” I add, hoping it will keep him from reacting impulsively.

“It is on Lunis Station in the hands of the Force?”

“I don’t really know. I think so.”

Then, without another word to me, he turns to one of his guards and says, “I suppose we will need to keep Koba alive long enough for him to divulge the information about the implant. Wake him up. I will be along shortly to question him.”

“Yes, Stosk,” the guard says, turning to walk out the door.

“And as for you,” Stosk says, directing his attention at me once more, “back in the cage until we find a use for you again.”

The same two guards grab onto me and begin to drag me back toward my cage.

“No! No, wait!” I shout as I fight against them. I do my best to try to wriggle from their grasps but they are too strong for me. The terror of being put back in that cage and left to rot makes me panic. “I can help you!” I say.

“Stop,” Stosk says to his men. He motions to them and they release me once more onto the floor. Now that he’s listening I need my mind to catch up with my mouth. I’m thinking about Koba on the brink of being tortured in another room and I can’t let that happen. There must be something that I can do.

“I can get the implant back for you,” I say after frantically trying to piece a plan together.

He doesn’t say anything at first but his intense, black gaze makes me keep my head down.

“I can find it on Lunis Station. I know I can.”

“You lie,” he finally says.

“No, I can do it. You have to believe me.”

When I look up at him I can tell he is trying to figure out how to make this plan work. “What is in it for you?” he asks.

“Release us, Koba and me. He can get me back to Lunis Station and I can find it for you.” Before he can dismiss me I continue. “I need Koba to fly us back in the ship. Without him, I can’t get back, and you don’t have access to Lunis Station.”

Another few minutes pass. My chest is heaving from trying to calm my breathing. Stosk is a terrifying creature. There’s something about the black voids of his eyes that let me know he would become my partner in crime or send me out of an airlock with the same amount of thought. (Or lack thereof.)

This time before he responds, he bends over and takes ahold of my chin, lifting my face to his. “If I release you, you must return to Zephyrus to deliver the capsule to me. If you cannot do that, Koba stays and yields to my demands…or dies.” He yanks my face around, forcing me to look into his eyes. His claws break through my skin, sending a small trickle of blood down my neck. “Make your decision,” he says, releasing me.

“Yes, but how will I get back to Zephyrus on my own?”

“Ships from Lunis journey here regularly. You seem resourceful … find a way on board.”

And then he turns from me and strides purposefully toward the door. “Release her,” he says to his guards behind him. Before he walks through the door, he adds, “If you betray me it will be the worst mistake of your pitiful short life.”

They grab onto me roughly and pull me toward the door. Once through, they continue to drag me down the long, dark corridor. I try to walk with them but their pace is so quick I lose my footing and end up being dragged. The dull light in front of me gives me hope they will indeed let me go. We reach the ramp and they toss me down, out of the ship and onto the coarse sand below.

“Wait!” I yell back at them. “What about Koba?” Without explanation, the guards disappear back into the ship, the darkness swallowing them whole.

I sit, stunned, wondering what the hell is going to happen next. The Atronox cannot be trusted, but if they don’t bring Koba back to me there is physically no way I can return to Lunis Station to retrieve the capsule for them.

“What have I done?” I say out loud to myself. How could I stoop so low to agree to help the aliens that abducted me from my home?

“Koba,” I tell myself. I did this for him. If it weren’t for him, I would have been sold a long time ago and suffered a much worse fate. There’s no way I can walk away and not try to help him. He means too much to me now.

The image of Koba flashes into my mind and there’s no denying the way my heart speeds up at the thought of him. As if I have summoned him to me, another set of Atronox guards arrive at the ramp of the ship, carrying Koba, unconscious and limp. I’m just getting to my feet with they drop him, and his near-lifeless body rolls down the ramp onto the sand at my feet.

When I lean down to help him, the ramp of the ship makes a loud grating sound as it begins to rise. Once it slams into place the engines roar, kicking up sharp sand and pebbles and whipping them at us as the ship lifts off the ground. I tuck myself around Koba, protecting his face and chest from the debris while waiting for it to calm. Through all of this, he doesn’t move and I worry that I’m too late. What am I going to do if he dies right here in the sand? I don’t know what I can do to help him, but I do know that I’m in over my head.

When the ship is no more than a speck in the sky, I steel myself and look around. Just like when we first landed, there are other ships around, but it is more like a parking lot. There aren’t other aliens milling around. For being so close to the city, it is actually quite deserted.

“Well, what the hell are we going to do now?” I say to Koba’s unconscious body.

From what Koba has told me, this is a city full of shady creatures and criminals. It doesn’t seem like a good idea to go strolling through the streets by myself, asking for assistance. But it’s clear to me that Koba is injured and I won’t know the extent of his injuries until I find someone to help me. Aside from wrapping his wounds with gauze to stop the bleeding, I really wouldn’t know what I’m doing.

Time passes and with it so does my hope that we will find a way off of this planet. At least our ship isn’t too far from where Koba’s still lying unconscious on the ground. If he wasn’t so damn big I would try to drag him to the ship where we would have shelter for the night. I’m sure there are supplies on board that I could use to keep Koba comfortable until I can figure out what to do next.

“I need you to help me, Koba,” I say to him. He still doesn’t move, but the slow rise and fall of his chest is soothing. Finally, I make my decision to try to drag him on my own to the ship. I don’t know what else there is to do. I stand up and reposition my body so I’m standing by his head and I’ll be able to pull him by using his arms. I’ve just lifted his arms when I notice something move out of the corner of my eye. I whip my head around to see someone standing not far from me, his head tilted as he studies me with pale red eyes. I’ve waited too long to make my move and now we’ve been discovered.