Fortunately, she had no trouble keeping her distance. She spent most of her time in the cabin with Nye, only leaving to share meals with the men.
Under the circumstances, she wasn’t completely sure how it was that she began to get the impression that all was not well. She thought, at first, that the tension sprouted from her inclusion in the group when she hadn’t been anticipated. Try though she might, however, she couldn’t think of any looks or comments to support that and she finally concluded that it was either something to do with the ship or their destination.
Either of those possibilities were unnerving, but it got way worse in a very big hurry when they had been traveling for a space of weeks and she was warned to take baby Nye to as safe a place as she could find and hide if the ship was boarded by their enemies, the Sheloni.
* * * *
“That’s all they said?” Kadin demanded, struggling with a sense of outrage. “’We come.’?”
Surprise flickered across Gaelen’s features and confusion. Those emotions were joined in a few moments by uneasiness as it occurred to him that he might have erred in his commission of his part of the mission. “I should have stayed with the machine until they said more?”
Kadin gaped at him, making no attempt to hide his outrage that time. “Do you think they meant to say more?”
Gaelen frowned, struggling to recall any sense that they were still trying to communicate when he broke away, and finally shook his head. “No.”
Disgust twisted Kadin’s features. “You do not think they might have said when they planned to rendezvous with us?” he asked tightly.
It was Gaelen’s turn to gape. “How could they know that?”
Kadin blinked at him several times and flicked a look at Hauk—who was clearly paying no attention to the discussion at all. “The machine?” Kadin suggested.
“How would it know that?”
Kadin struggled with the urge to roll his eyes, reminding himself that none of them were especially expert at manipulating the machines of the Sheloni and he had little room to throw aspersions at the Hirachi, who were not to blame for the fact that they were so technologically challenged. They had had little time to advance before the Sheloni had begun to prey upon them and none since. It was a struggle at any time they needed the damned things. But they damned well knew that it was capable of such things given the fact that it guided the ship through space. “You tell it where you are going and it calculates the distance and the time it will take to get there.”
“Except they do not know where we are … exactly.” Gaelen mulled over it a few moments. “I will go back and see if they can calculate and tell me when they believe they will be able to rendezvous.”
Hauk dragged his feet off of the console and planted them loudly on the deck as he surged to his feet. “No. It was a risk to summon them. If you go back to chat, the enemy will be on to us and they will find us before our people do.”
They might anyway and they all knew it so Kadin decided to keep his frustrations to himself.
Chapter Seven
And, in point of fact, it did transpire that the Sheloni had somehow intercepted that one and only attempt to contact their people for help.
Or perhaps merely stumbled upon them in the vast emptiness of space?
Or maybe the Sheloni were intent on another raid for breeders on Earth and as surprised as they were when they stumbled upon one of their own ships in an area where none should have been?
Then again, maybe not.
Kadin, Gaelen, and Hauk shifted to high alert once they had contacted their allies about the damage to the ship and began to wear the armor that was available and to carry their weapons, or at least keep them close to hand.
They knew if the Sheloni found them they would be obscenely outnumbered, but none considered simply yielding when Nye’s life would be at stake. They would fight until they could fight no more.
There was no warning that they had been discovered. They had expected that, at the very least, they would have a few moments to brace themselves.
But it transpired that they were relaxing after a meal one moment and the next, the great metal beasts of the Sheloni almost appeared to crawl out of the bulkheads of the ship.
Kadin’s first thought was that Emma had only just left to return to the cabin and he was focused immediately on an internal calculation as to whether or not she had had time to reach it or if the mechanical monsters of the Sheloni had invaded the ship everywhere at once.
He shared a quick, speaking look with Hauk before he launched himself at the closest target.
They were almost overmatched. Although only two of the metal giants were able to enter the dining area at once to battle the two of them, the beasts were four times bigger than they were and probably ten times stronger.
They were not as agile, however, and many battles with them had finally taught them the weaknesses of the Sheloni machines.
It still took a great deal of effort to reach the part of the robot that controlled its functions, to pry the panel off that protected it and disable the thing.
Sweat was rolling off of Kadin in rivers from the effort and he was huffing for breath. Even so, he turned away without pause and leapt toward the corridor. Hauk was almost directly behind him.
They managed to cover maybe half the distance that separated them from the cabin they had assigned to Emma and Nye when they encountered Gaelen, who was struggling to hold off three of the machines by himself.
Undoubtedly, he had been returning to the dining hall to eat when the beasts invaded and that meant Emma had managed to reach the cabin.
They had some hope, at least, that she had and that she had managed to find a safe place to hide with the baby.
As powerful as Gaelen was, it was unlikely he would have been able to hold his own against three of the things if they had not been constricted by the bulkheads that formed the narrow corridor.
They joined him, each pitting themselves against one opponent.
They had managed to disable only one, however, when they heard a scream that turned their blood to ice in their veins.
The Sheloni had the little king and Emma.
* * * *
Emma’s fear level went up several degrees after she discovered there was a chance that they might be captured by the enemies of the people she was traveling with—surpassed the uneasiness she had felt before by many times, in point of fact.
Unfortunately, not only did it not have time to mellow from familiarity, though, it multiplied many times over that when she saw the thing coming out of the wall.
Or maybe it just materialized in the corridor? Used something like she’d seen in science fiction movies to particalize and then transport?
She had no clue and no brain function to really consider it because that deserted her the moment her terror glazed eyes brought it into focus.
Gaelen jerked her through the doorway so fast she felt her shoulder joint separate from her arm. Before she could do more than gasp, he slammed the door between them. A thin little whimper of fear penetrated the fog of terror that enveloped Emma. She whipped a look in the direction the sound had emerged from and instinct took over. Surging toward the crib where the baby lay, she scooped him up and looked around for a safe place to hide him.
There was nothing. The cabin was small and the crib and bunk took up most of it, neither of which would hide either one of them. The corridor was out of the question. She could hear the battle raging there.
It flickered through her mind that poor Gaelen was going to get slaughtered by that metal monster, but she couldn’t spare the time or emotion to examine that too closely at the moment.
There was only the bathroom, but thankfully the moment she thought about it, she realized there would be room in the storage cabinet for the baby at least.
She rushed toward the door and into the bathroom.
The cabinet, she discovered, would hold them both if she emptied it.
But wo
uld the monster grasp what the stuff on the floor meant?
She shook the thought off.
She couldn’t just shove the baby into that little cubby and expect him to be quiet. He was too little to understand that he would need to. He would think if he couldn’t see the thing it wouldn’t know he was there.
She compromised by tossing some of the linens back into the cavity to pad them and the rest into the bin for dirty linens, then scrambled into the tight area and pulled the door closed behind them.
She didn’t realize just how much heat she’d generated until they were closed in the tight space. Almost immediately she felt like she was roasting and burning up their oxygen.
They could still hear the banging from the battle.
In point of fact, it seemed to escalate and grow louder until it was no longer a dull thudding partly muffled by the pounding of her galloping heart in her ears.
Abruptly, the door was wrenched off of the linen cabinet with a scream of metal.
Emma screamed, as well, when she felt her arm seized.
Struggling, she tried to wrap her free arm and her legs around the baby to hold him and protect him as she was dragged out.
The monster wrenched him from her grasp in spite of all she could do. She screamed, this time with more fury than terror, pounding at the thing in an effort to break free.
“Cease! Emma, stop! You will harm yourself for no good reason!”
Emma whipped a sharp look toward the man who’d spoken intending to inform him it was for a very good reason, but his next comment stopped her cold.
“They will kill the baby if you continue to resist.”
She gaped at Kadin in horror—stunned by his statement, confused to discover all three men were there when she had thought it was only Gaelen—and whipped a look toward the baby, dangling by one arm as she was—helpless, fragile, so precious—crying for her, reaching.
She went limp, lost all will to fight. “Give him to me, please? Please, please, please don’t hurt my little baby,” she gasped just before something hit her like a truck running over her and pitched her into a deep, black hole. Nye’s screams followed her down.
* * * *
Emma woke with a sharp edged gasp and sat upright.
Vertigo hit her immediately and she toppled from the platform she’d woken on onto a harder, colder surface she instantly identified as a floor—metal or stone.
She corrected that. Metal. It had to be. She didn’t know where she was, but she had to be on the ship.
Or at least ‘a’ ship.
Would the aliens have taken over the ship? Or moved her onto theirs?
She was afraid to think about Nye, but she couldn’t block the thoughts. They poured through her, bringing wrenching grief that tore painful sobs from her throat. “Nye,” she sobbed, hoping against hope that they’d put him with her.
Only silence answered her though, a dull, empty silence.
Curling into a tight ball, she wept until exhaustion overtook her.
She felt ten times worse when she woke the second time. Her eyes felt as if they were swollen shut and her sinuses were inflamed from all the tears.
She was going to kill those bastards if she got a chance, she thought with sudden rage.
If they’d hurt Nye ….
She broke that thought off, trying to convince herself there was no reason to harm him.
Except just plain old neglect.
She broke off that thought, too. It wasn’t helping. It was making her more agitated and she was no good to him if she couldn’t pull herself together.
Kadin had said they would kill him if she didn’t stop resisting.
So she had.
Had they killed him anyway? Just to be spiteful? To punish her for trying to fight to begin with?
She didn’t know, but she thought the guys might.
Unfortunately, for all she knew they were dead.
A hard knot formed in her throat.
She didn’t want to think about them being dead—couldn’t.
Quite aside from meaning she was totally alone, she just couldn’t imagine such strong, virile men dead.
They were too young to be dead!
Well, she didn’t have a clue of how old they might be, truthfully, but they’d seemed young and strong and uber manly—warriors, fighters.
An image filled her mind abruptly.
They’d been in captivity when Kadin had bellowed at her to stop. They’d been disarmed.
It heartened her.
Surely they must be alive if they’d surrendered?
Some of her fear and grief lightened.
They would do their best to rescue the baby. She knew they would and she had confidence they would be able to figure something out.
She didn’t know if they would risk their necks to save her, but she was a big girl. Hopefully, she could figure out how to rescue herself.
On that thought, she decided to get up and explore her surroundings.
She discovered the limitations the moment she stood up—or tried. She slammed her head into the top/ceiling hard enough it rang like her head was a bell clapper.
And then she hit the floor again as her knees gave out.
It took her a few moments of self examination to determine whether or not she’d broken her head or her neck, but that was top priority before she considered what she’d discovered about the ‘room’ she’d found herself in.
She decided it wasn’t a room at all. She wasn’t much over five feet tall and she couldn’t stand up in it. Surely a room would have a higher ceiling than that?
And there was no light.
The cabin she’d occupied with Nye hadn’t had any windows and they were in space so she supposed there wouldn’t be light even if there were windows, but it should have artificial light, surely?
She felt her way along the platform she’d fallen off of and found a wall on either end. She was pretty sure it was a wall, anyway. When she’d felt it and run her hand end to end along the ‘ceiling’ she was certain of her limitations.
It was more like a box than a room.
Chill bumps chased up and down her spine, but she dismissed the creeps. It wasn’t a coffin, unless it had been made for a giant.
Well it was way big for any of the ‘giants’ she knew except not nearly long enough or tall enough because it wasn’t long enough or tall enough for her. She verified that by climbing onto the platform again and trying to stretch out.
It felt like it was made of metal, but she supposed it could be something like plastic even though it had seemed to have a metallic ring when she’d bonked her head on the top.
Maybe something like a crate for animals?
That was disturbing, but these were aliens, not humans, and they sounded like they had low esteem for the people she’d traveled with and she would be lumped with them ….
She had to pee.
“Oh god!”
She wished she hadn’t acknowledged it because she immediately felt more pressure on her bladder and she knew there was no bathroom accessible to her.
She got off the platform and thoroughly examined the box she had found herself in anyway—just to be sure.
Not even a fucking pot, she fumed, tempted to just pee on the floor to spite them except she had a bad feeling she wouldn’t be spiting them.
Because everything she’d felt was solid and that meant the puddle would stay for her to slip down on and wallow in.
She climbed onto the platform again and tried to stretch out as much as she could, trying to direct her mind to something positive.
She came up empty.
She hadn’t found so much as a crack she could get her fingernails in to so she wasn’t going anywhere until the bastards that had taken her were ready.
She didn’t want to think about what she was going to be forced to do in the corner if they didn’t come for her before much longer.
And she couldn’t bear to think what might be happening to Nye.
>
She couldn’t formulate escape plans.
Or revenge.
She struggled to think of something, anything else.
Her brother came to mind.
He was never going to know what had become of her.
Of course, that was true from the moment she’d decided to go with Nye if they were taking him.
And here she sat in a damned box!
So much for thinking about her brother as a distraction!
Apparently all roads led to Nye.
Before she could think of anything else to distract herself, she heard an ominous hissing noise. She hadn’t figured out what it was when the smell tickled her nostrils and she realized she was being gassed.
Terror fell over her like an icy shroud, but she didn’t have time to really panic. Almost the moment she realized she was enveloped in gas, darkness cloaked her, sucked her down into oblivion.
Chapter Eight
The experience was so much like a nightmare that Emma was convinced at least part of the time that that was what it was—not real at all, just a figment of the dark side of her imagination.
A puff of fresh—or at least fresher than she’d had—air roused her from the deep pit to semi-conscious a matter of seconds, or maybe minutes or hours before something hard clamped around one of her ankles. Her limp body slamming into the floor as she was dragged off of the platform sent a wave of pain and consternation through her that aroused the desire to come fully awake, but she couldn’t fight off the miasma cocooning her.
She was lifted by that ankle a few minutes later and left to dangle as the thing carrying her headed across a vast cavern of a room and then a wide corridor. She knew this much because artificial lights flickered to life as she was pulled from the box she’d been in, momentarily blinding her even though it was feeble lighting at best, leaving as much in shadow as it illuminated.
She thought she might have blacked out for a period of time because when awareness surfaced again she found herself lying on what seemed like a gurney with a blinding light above her.
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