Carmen opened her mouth to say something, but all at once, a blinding flash of light exploded through the bakery. Carmen’s ears popped, but no sound accompanied the flash. She blinked to clear her vision, and the next minute, she found herself sitting on the hard metal floor of the paddy wagon. Penelope Ann, Marissa, and Aria sat next to her. The four women exchanged glances.
“What the blazes is going on?” Aria snapped.
“We’re in the police van,” Penelope Ann rounded on Carmen. “Are we under arrest or something?”
Carmen shook her head. “This isn’t the police van. That’s what I thought at first, too, but this van has no windows and no license plate. I don’t know where we are, but we’re not with the police.”
The vehicle—or whatever it was—gave a lurch, and Carmen tumbled sideways. Nauseous vertigo seized her, and she braced herself with her hands against the floor. The vehicle spun faster and faster until no one could sit up straight anymore. They lay on the floor and groaned in agony.
Then the spinning stopped as suddenly as it started. The four women sat up and looked at one another. A gentle vibration hummed through the metal surrounding them.
“What’s happening?” Marissa whispered.
Carmen examined the tiny chamber, but there was nothing to see but bare white walls. “Whatever it is, we’re still moving.”
“Where are we going?” Penelope Ann asked.
“I wish I knew,” Carmen replied. “Someone has captured us and is taking us somewhere.”
“It must be the same people who kidnapped those girls,” Aria added.
Carmen turned on her. “What makes you say that? We have no evidence anyone kidnapped any girls. Anyway, we aren’t drug addicts and prostitutes and runaways. We’re professional women. I’m a police officer, you're a nurse, Penelope Ann owns the bakery, and Marissa is the librarian. We don't fit the profile.”
“But we’re all women,” Marissa told her. “If someone was abducting women from our neighborhood, maybe they saw a chance to catch four women at once. That’s how we wound up here.”
Carmen set her hands on her hips. “And how exactly did they catch us? How exactly did we wind up here? I don’t know about you, but no one even came near me. No one hit me over the head with a club, or put a handkerchief with chloroform over my nose and mouth, or a bag over my head, or anything like that. I was standing there, minding my own business, and then....” She trailed off.
The others stared at her and waited. Marissa raised an eyebrow. “And then?”
Carmen dropped her eyes. “Then I wound up here.”
“You’re the police officer here,” Marissa told her. “How do you explain our presence here, traveling somewhere against our will, if we weren’t abducted? Maybe no one hit us over the head or dragged us into a dark alley, but here we are. It seems to me we’ve been abducted.”
Carmen shrugged. “I can’t explain it, but I don’t want to say we’ve been abducted until I know for sure we have been. I don’t want to...”
Aria burst into gales of laughter. “I know. You don’t want to alarm the civilians, right?”
Carmen mumbled under her breath. “I wasn’t going to say that.”
“You weren’t going to say it,” Aria shot back, “but you were thinking it. Don’t insult our intelligence by beating around the bush. We all know we’ve been kidnapped by someone. How or why doesn’t really matter. What matters is what we’re going to do about it.”
“We can’t do anything about it,” Carmen replied. “We just have to wait until we get wherever it is we’re going. We’ll bide our time, and when the time comes, we’ll see how we’re going to get out of here.”
Chapter 2
Carmen stretched on her side and rested her head on her arm. She pretended to be asleep, but there was really no need. The other women paid no attention to her. Marissa really was asleep curled up in a corner of their little chamber, and Penelope Ann leaned against the wall with Aria’s head cradled on her outstretched legs. Both of them kept their eyes closed, but they weren’t asleep. Carmen was certain of that.
She studied the other women with a critical eye. She would have to watch all three of them and make sure none of them did anything to wreck her chances of escape. She couldn’t trust any of them. They were all too rebellious. None of them knew how to follow the instructions of a recognized authority like the police.
Marissa had too high an opinion of her own brain. She came up with every excuse to discredit Carmen’s authority. Penelope Ann had a secret that made her resist taking direction from anybody. Carmen couldn’t figure out what it was, but something hovered there hidden just below the surface. Penelope Ann would take some breaking in before Carmen could count on her to help her break out of this—whatever it was.
And Aria—what could you say about Aria? She had a mouth that belonged in the circus. It went off at the slightest provocation. Carmen would have to do a delicate balancing act between keeping her distance from Aria and keep her close enough to make sure she didn’t do the rest of them any damage.
All of a sudden, the chamber in which they lay lurched again, and a clang of metal woke them all with a start. Aria sat up, and Marissa rolled over on her side. “Where are we?”
“We’ve stopped moving.” Carmen tried to stand up.
The others copied her, and all four women stood staring around them in helpless ignorance. What was there to look at but the same four walls? Then another clang struck their ears, and something metal scraped against the side of the chamber. They turned toward the noise.
In front of their eyes, one of the walls slid to the side, and a pale blue light flooded the chamber. Carmen shielded her eyes from the glare. She couldn’t see a thing outside their prison. Then a tall figure stepped into the light. She peeked around her hand to try to make it out. Seeing their captors for the first time would give her some idea what she was up against when it came to formulating a plan to escape.
Another figure entered her field of view, and then another and another until four silhouettes lined up in front of the door. Ever so slowly, Carmen’s eyes grew accustomed to the light. Or maybe the light dimmed enough for her to get a good look at her kidnappers.
One was taller than the other three, but they all presented the strangest picture Carmen ever saw. She couldn’t believe the evidence of her own eyes. They had pale lavender skin with gleaming violet eyes, and she couldn’t distinguish any iris or pupil in their eyes. Only a bright violet orb filled their sockets. They twitched their lips in the strangest way, and their arms came to stubs at the ends. They had no hands.
Carmen’s mind whirred from the shock of seeing them, but before she could react, they stepped into the chamber in shoulder to shoulder formation. They evaluated the women with cold critical eyes. The women stared at them with their mouths hanging open. Not one of them, not even mouthy Aria, could say a word.
Once they got within range, Carmen saw them clearly enough to realize they had tiny tentacles around their lips. If those tentacles kept still for a fraction of a second, they might have resembled facial hair. But they never kept still. They twitched and flickered in constant movement. The image reminded Carmen of a snake’s tongue lashing in and out. Did these creatures sense their surroundings with those tentacles?
The tallest creature moved his head from one side to the other, and his tentacles stretched out from his face toward the women. Aria screwed up her face in disgust, and Marissa stepped back to get away from the thing.
Penelope Ann set her mouth in a stern straight line and stepped forward. Carmen noticed her moving and grabbed her by the arm. “No, Penelope Ann! Don’t antagonize them. We don’t know what they plan to do with us.”
Penelope Ann rounded on Carmen and yanked her arm free from her grip. “Don’t you tell me what to do! These people—or whatever they are—kidnapped us in broad daylight out of my own bakery.” She faced the tall creature. “I don’t know who or what y
ou are, but I demand you take us back to where we came from immediately. You had no right to take us against our will. You’re violating all the laws known to man. Release us at once or pay the consequences.”
Her words gave Aria and Marissa courage, but Carmen cringed, especially when the creature remained impassive. It probably didn’t understand a word Penelope Ann said. If it did, baiting it and standing up to it would only make their situation worse. The creatures might kill them all on the spot.
The creature swept the group with its eyes one more time. Then a sound came out of its mouth. It didn’t really resemble speech, but for some reason she couldn’t explain, Carmen understood it. “We took you to sell on the planet Corax in the Regulus Galaxy. You will never go back where you came from. Your laws mean nothing here. You are our property now, and we will do what we please with you. You will do yourselves good to cooperate. Resistance will be useless.”
Aria stepped forward. She clenched her fists at her sides. “I’ve heard that before. Do you think we’re so stupid as to go along with this? We’re free citizens of the United States of America. We have rights.”
The creature’s strange voice interrupted her. “You have no rights here. You will cooperate, and we will sell you on the planet Corax. If you don’t cooperate, you will get very hurt.”
Carmen found her voice. “Who are you, and where do you come from?”
He regarded her with a mixture of curiosity and boredom. “We are called Romarie. We come from the Twingmon Galaxy, and we traffic commodities all over this sector of space.”
Carmen gulped. “Space?”
He put his head on one side. “Yes. Space.”
Penelope Ann turned to Carmen and snapped at her over her shoulder. “Don’t you get it? You’re not very sharp for a police officer, are you? They’re aliens. We’ve been abducted by aliens.”
Carmen ignored her. “What will happen to us on the planet Corax?”
“Corax is an intergalactic marketplace where traders from all over the sector come to buy and sell commodities,” the creature replied. “Many planets in the Regulus Galaxy lost their females in the great Ixwi plague. They pay large sums for females from other planets to replace the ones they lost.”
The women exchanged glances. “So you’re selling us into sex slavery. Is that it?”
The creature trained his bright eyes on Aria. “Call it what you like. You will serve the function of female to those planets, and we take the profit. That is what will happen to you on the planet Corax. Whoever pays the highest price will determine what happens to you.”
Aria took another step toward the creature, shouting, “You can’t do this...” But before she could approach any nearer, she flew backwards with lightning speed. Her feet left the floor, and she slammed back against the chamber wall. Penelope Ann rushed to her side and wrapped her arm around Aria’s shoulder.
“Do not attempt to resist,” the creature told them. “You will damage yourselves and reduce your value in the markets. If you continue to resist, we will take precautions to make sure it does not happen anymore. If you wish to stay together, you must cooperate. Do you understand?”
Carmen glanced at her companions. Then she faced the creature. “We understand, and we will cooperate.”
He examined her with sharp eyes. “That is commendable. Are you the leader of these females?”
Carmen blushed. “I’m not the leader, but if we can stay together, we will cooperate.”
The creature leaned back. “That is commendable. Tell me your identifying labels.”
Carmen frowned. “Do you mean our names? My name is Carmen. This is Marissa, this is Aria, and this is Penelope Ann.”
The thing cocked its head to one side. “Penelope Ann. We haven’t come in contact with a female with that label before.”
“Have you taken many females from our planet?” she asked.
The creature put back its head and opened its curious mouth. A burbling sound came out of it. The sound made Carmen’s skin crawl. Then she realized it must be laughing. “Have we taken many females from you planet? We have taken thousands, and we’ll take thousands more. Your planet is the only one in this part of space that makes no effort at all to defend its females. We can take as many as we want with no resistance from anyone. Your people don’t value females very much.”
Carmen narrowed her eyes at the thing. She didn’t answer, but a burning hatred for it and its kind smoldered in her heart. She would make this thing pay for what it did to her and all the other human women it took from Earth. Humans might not value their females very much, but Carmen valued herself above all else. A quick glance around the chamber proved to her the others were thinking the same thing. They would keep their eyes open, and when they found their chance, these aliens would regret the day they messed with this particular group of women.
The thing surveyed his commodities again. “My label is Rotnim.”
Carmen scrutinized the thing. How long would it be before she got another opportunity to question it? “Are you a male of your species?”
“I am a male,” he replied. “We are all males.” He nodded toward his comrades. “This is Orbnim, this is Tinim, and this is Albinim.”
Carmen bit her lip to stop herself from smiling. “We haven’t come in contact with anyone with those labels before, either.”
He cocked his head at her. “Now you have. Now you must come aboard our ship and enter the containment area.” He turned his back on them, and the four aliens retreated out of the chamber.
Chapter 3
Carmen took a step to follow him, but Penelope Ann launched herself off the floor and rushed to Carmen’s side. She held her back with an iron grip. “Don’t go out there, Carmen. You can’t cooperate with these creatures. You heard what he said. They’re going to sell us into slavery to some glorified space sex trade.”
Carmen glanced out of the chamber, but she couldn’t see anything other than the pale blue light. “I don’t see how we have any choice but to cooperate. You heard what he said. If we don’t cooperate, they’ll hurt us and separate us. Whatever else happens, we have to stay together as long as we can. I don’t like it any more than you do, but I can’t stand by and let you hurt yourselves by trying to resist.”
Penelope Ann yanked her back again. “You’re betraying all of us by cooperating with them. I’m telling you right now, if you go out there, none of us will have anything to do with you.”
One glance over Penelope Ann’s shoulder at the others cowering in the back of the chamber confirmed Penelope Ann was telling the truth. Aria glared at her, and Marissa wouldn’t look at her at all. How could she let these women down?
She cast one more quick peek towards the door and dropped her voice to a whisper. “Listen, Penelope Ann. I feel exactly the same way you do, and I promise you, we’re gonna do everything we can to get out of here and get back to Earth. But the only way we can do that is to bide our time and keep our eyes open. Maybe if we play along with these aliens, they’ll let their guard down. Then, when we see a chance to strike back, we take it. Okay?”
Penelope Ann let go of her arm. She tightened her lips.
Carmen pressed her advantage. “I hate these aliens for what they did to us, and I’ll never rest until I get back to Earth. I’m doing the only thing that will help us accomplish that. Now who’s with me?”
Aria smacked her lips and looked away. Marissa raised her eyes to Carmen’s face and gave her a slow nod. Penelope Ann sighed. “All right. We’ll play it your way for now, but I don’t like it. We should fight back.”
“If we fight back now,” Carmen replied, “we could wind up hurt or dead. We don’t know where we are or what these creatures are capable of. He said he’s kidnapped thousands of human women, so he must be brutal and heartless. We can’t just throw ourselves at them and hope for the best. We have to use our heads and plan to escape later.”
“All right,” Penelope Ann told her.
“We’ll cooperate for now, as long as you agree it’s only temporary. I’m not going to some market in the Regulus Galaxy without a fight.”
Carmen smiled. “Me, neither. Believe me, this is the first stage in a much longer fight to earn our freedom. We’re conserving our strength and....”
She didn’t finish her sentence. Some unseen power seized hold of her and dragged her toward the door. She struggled with all her might, but an invisible hand pulled her across the chamber and out into the blue light. Her heels screeched on the metal floor, but no amount of kicking and thrashing could stop her.
The same power took hold of the others, and all four women found themselves moving against their will into the blue light. Carmen crossed the threshold first. Another enormous chamber surrounded the vehicle that took them from the bakery. Carmen got a good look at it from the outside. It was a plain white metal box. How could she mistake it for the paddy wagon?
She didn’t have time to think about that, though. The four aliens stood in a row across the room. The tentacles on their faces stood out from their faces and lashed the air. Whatever force held the women captive and moved them around in spite of their best efforts came from those tentacles.
Rotnim’s eyes blazed when Carmen skidded into view. His mouth twisted into a grotesque imitation of a smile. Carmen fought harder than ever to break the force holding her, and his expression registered even greater pleasure. When she relaxed and let him pull her along, he frowned in disappointment. He enjoyed her struggle and her fear.
Black rage bubbled up from the depths of her being. He stole her and her companions from Earth, and now he got some sick thrill out of manipulating her with his power. He enjoyed jerking her around like a puppet on a string. She fixed her eyes on his face. She would defeat him. She would destroy him and his kind for what he did to her and the other human women. She dedicated her life to enforcing the law, and she would never rest until she broke their trade in women.
Angondra Holiday Special Page 11
