Alien Enslaved IV: Spoils of War

by Kaitlyn O’Connor

  He hoped.

  * * * *

  Aidan knew it should have been his mission that preoccupied his thoughts.

  If things were no worse than they had been when he had left with his squad there might be nothing to go home to by now.

  It had been the focus of his waking moments until they had taken the woman.

  Until he had seen the woman

  Touched her.

  Been inside of her.

  He tried to shake the images, but he supposed the truth was that she was the only light in his world now—as pathetic as even he thought that was when they were as much strangers now as they had been before he had been dragged into that room like a mindless beast and ‘put to the female’ to breed.

  Their beasts of burden had been treated with more dignity and respect, he thought furiously.

  He should have known better than to even attempt to appeal to the Sheloni for help.

  He had known, suspected.

  But what choice did they have when their entire world was falling apart? When it looked as if the plague would kill every man, woman, and child?

  When the Sheloni was the most advanced race they knew of that might have some hope of coming up with a cure before it was too late?

  To his mind, he would not have been surprised to learn the bastards had manufactured the plague and set it loose to kill indiscriminately.

  The caveat to that was the fact that nothing seemed to motivate the bastards but wealth.

  If there was no way for them to benefit from a thing then they had no interest in doing it.

  They might have developed it and sold it as a bio-weapon, but the cure for it was next to useless when there was no one left to pay a ransom for it.

  He shook those thoughts. It was the sort of thing that made one helpless enough and frustrated enough to lose their mind.

  He preferred obsessing over the woman.

  Lori.

  After what the bastards had done to her, put her through, he was not even certain that she recalled anything about him or the time they were together. In all honesty, he could not convince himself that she did.

  But then again, neither did she seem to recall the Hirachi warriors that were as obsessed with her as he was.

  And, in the end, it would not matter. She was the first Earth woman he had ever met and he understood, now, the tales his ancestors had recounted about their own obsession with the Earth women. But he knew the women could be enthralled as easily as their own.

  He would take her as his mate.

  He was not certain he would have even considered that … before.

  But he had accepted in his subconscious mind, he realized now, that his world was lost before he had left it on a hopeless mission to bring hope to those left.

  There was nothing to go back to.

  But there was Lori.

  If he could break the chains the Sheloni had placed upon them, he could make a future for them both.

  Before there was any chance of a future, however, there must be freedom.

  With that thought in mind, he approached Fayn.

  It was unfortunate that the Hirachi had not learned the Earth language as well as he had, but then he had had the advantage of already speaking a dialect of their language—or vice versa, actually, since they had introduced their own language to the Earth people many centuries before.

  But, as much difficulty as arose from the broken English the Hirachi spoke, he was convinced the Sheloni had no understanding of that tongue and that made it the safest way to communicate anything of any importance.

  “You had something of importance to discuss with Jarek?”

  Fayn frowned at him.

  Partly, Aidan knew this was because he was slowly translating the unfamiliar words in his mind.

  Mostly, though, he suspected it was because Fayn did not trust him.

  Inwardly, he shrugged. He had no reason to. And the truth was, if they did not have a common foe he would have more reason not to trust.

  Aidan’s own temper was carefully kept at low boil because what he really wanted to do was to beat the fuck out of Fayn for sharing a cell with Lori.

  And very likely a whole lot more.

  As Jarek apparently did.

  Briefly, Fayn seemed to struggle, but then he almost seemed to shrug. “I no know if is anyting.”

  Aidan frowned. “What?”

  He shook his head, maybe struggling for words? “Lori tink dis ship near a world.”

  Aidan felt his heart leap at the sound of her name. It made it difficult to focus on translating the statement, but his heart went into overtime when he did. “Why does she think that?”

  Fayn frowned again. “Smell water. Fresh. Much, big stink. An’ food, too.”

  Aidan had to mull that statement over for a while to figure it out and when he did he was certain he must be wrong—or that she was mistaken.

  But he realized finally, that she did have a point.

  Or at least might.

  The question was, could the Hirachi do anything with it? Could they figure out a way to verify whether there was any truth to her guess or not?

  “She mark days. Count,” Fayn volunteered after a few moments.

  Aidan’s lips twisted wryly. “Clever girl. Unfortunately—and she gets points for figuring any of it out with nothing to go on but her nose—not accurate enough, I don’t think,” he said slowly.

  The Hirachi might well have a more accurate way to discover what they needed to know, though.

  They were sea people.

  And a lot of sea creatures had built-in sonar capabilities. He didn’t know if the Hirachi did, but he thought it was a good possibility.

  The question was—even if they did—how reliable would it be? Especially under the circumstances?

  Nothing to do but ask.

  Jarek was the war chief and he called the shots as far as the Hirachi were concerned. So, after studying Jarek from across the room for a bit, he decided he had cooled down enough they could try an approach.

  His expression was unwelcoming.

  No surprise since Aidan was aware Jarek trusted him less—and liked him a lot less—than Fayn.

  His entire demeanor changed, however, once they’d presented Lori’s theory.

  He looked for a moment like me might summon the entire group for a discussion. Aidan pointed out the fact that the Sheloni didn’t allow large gatherings.

  Nodding, Jarek considered for a moment and then suggested they pass the word to one or two others, each, and then allow the word to trickle through the group.

  It would have been much quicker and more accurate to pass the word if they’d dared use mind speak, but they knew for a fact that the Sheloni were capable of it and they couldn’t be certain the bastards weren’t able to intercept their mind speak.

  The tactic worked after a fashion.

  They made the circuit with the information so that all of the warriors were not only aware that a plan might be in the works, but also so that they could assist in testing the validity of Lori’s theory.

  It was impossible, however, to maintain the same air of hopelessness as before. They tested their surroundings, individually and collectively, and discovered that they most certainly were in close proximity to something very large and solid.

  A planet.

  Most likely.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t the same as seeing and the sea of space was different from a sea of water. And beyond that, they had to deal with the ship itself.

  It would take far more testing than they wanted to invest in to have a clear enough picture to act.

  They were so ready to act that it took all they could do to behave in a way even approaching the way they’d been before the discovery.

  “No can discuss dis wid … your lover,” Jarek warned Fayn.

  Fayn blinked at him, opened his mouth to deny being Lori’s lover, and then closed it again.

  He wanted, desperately, to be her lover.

>   But even if he had been, it was not something they discussed with one another. They did not hide their affairs with members of the tribe, but they also did not gossip about it. “Why no?” he asked instead, more curious than questioning Jarek’s orders.

  Jarek’s lips tightened. “De oder womens.”

  Fayn stared at him for a long moment and finally nodded.

  He was troubled, though.

  He understood that Jarek’s warning was because he thought the alien women could not be trusted to keep quiet and that could destroy any chance of success. He was probably right.

  But that also meant the women would have no warning, no way to prepare themselves for when they launched their attack.

  Chapter Ten

  Lori was so preoccupied with her nasty encounter with Fayn’s last ‘roommate’ that it was a while before she realized that Fayn was also very preoccupied.

  Not that he had been the least pushy since she’d woken in the cell with him, but he had seemed very aware of her, maybe even somewhat attracted to her.

  Before.

  She wasn’t even entirely certain of when it was that he seemed to become … distant?

  It occurred to her fairly quickly, though—partly because of her own nasty encounter and partly, she knew, from deep seated hopefulness—that maybe he had had an unpleasant run in with Jarek for much the same reason.

  She tried her best to expand upon it, deepen her own conviction that she’d correctly assessed the situation. Unfortunately, she had no fodder to work with, nothing but her own imagination. And it was a lot harder to convince herself that Jarek had a strong enough opinion of her to fight with someone on his own ‘team’ about her.

  As hazy as her memories were of the ‘experimental’ things that had been done to her when she’d been taken before, she thought she remembered both Jarek and Fayn from that time.

  She couldn’t be sure, though.

  Reluctantly, she admitted that it could have been any of the warriors.

  Or none of them.

  Maybe her mind had just ‘invented’ those memories to help her through accepting complete strangers as potential fathers for her children?

  She didn’t want to think that, but that would be the very reason for her mind to trick her like that—because it was easier to accept.

  And if she was completely honest she had to admit that she wasn’t exactly emotionally engaged in either one of them.

  She thought both of them were very handsome, very attractive—which was saying something considering they were alien. She even thought that, what she understood of their personalities, was also appealing.

  If she’d met either one on Earth, she would’ve run screaming without ever noticing a damn thing about either one that appealed to her.

  But, under the circumstances, she saw a lot about both to make them well worth devoting time to engaging their interest.

  So, emotionally speaking—or maybe romantically speaking—she was not particularly distressed to think they might not have a ‘thing’ for her. But she needed to be friends with anybody that damned big when she was completely at their mercy and they both knew there would be no repercussions if they just decided to rape her and beat her to death—in whatever order.

  She felt like peeing herself when she finally acknowledged the full danger of her situation.

  She’d liked it way better when she was pretending this was some sort of romantic game—not life or death.

  But, despite the waves of hot and icy cold that washed over her with those thoughts, she also realized that she’d reached an understanding that she needed. Sure, she’d skirted it since her arrival and managed to stay alive, but that was only because these people weren’t human.

  If they had been, the odds might not have been in her favor that she would still be relatively intact.

  Since she had finally accepted, though, she realized it was vitally important to ‘read’ Fayn and understand what made him tick. It might backfire down the road to seduce him—or even to try—but she had to deal with ‘threats’ as they presented.

  The problem was that, even with that kind of incentive, Lori wasn’t entirely sure of how to go about seducing the big lug.

  She was next door to naked and locked in a cell with him and had been for days and he hadn’t made a single move that she could interpret as sexual.

  Earth men were dense as hell, though. You had to just about hit them with it to get a message through to them.

  Unless you had no interest in which case they interpreted anything you did, or nothing, as a come on.

  Like the guy in the bar that she’d accidently glanced past when she was looking around for possibilities. Even when she’d turned her chair completely around to keep him from getting any ideas he’d come to her table and sat down, grinned at her drunkenly, and told her he’d noticed she was ‘watching’ him.

  Good god!

  So maybe these alien males were as dense as the ones on Earth?

  Maybe she needed to wag it at him?

  It sucked big time that the very thought of that terrorized her.

  All of that mental exercise had made her hyperaware of him as she hadn’t been before, had even aroused her, but not to a degree that made her comfortable with that idea.

  And, of course, there was the ‘issue’ with his ‘ex’ and that made her uncomfortable.

  She was sure it wasn’t really reasonable to feel that way. It was being accused, she knew, that made her feel guilty.

  There may or may not have been sex between them, though, but there was nothing else—no emotional attachment that would ‘hurt’ the girl—or him, she was sure. And it was unlikely they’d formed any other agreement.

  Unless she interpreted the fact that Fayn had kept things platonic as evidence that he was ‘taken’?

  Regardless of whether she’d guessed right about the situation or not, she discovered she didn’t have to worry about another confrontation. The next time she went out to the ‘exercise yard’ she discovered that fully a third of the women had vanished.

  The young girl that had been thrown in with Fayn before was notable by her absence, but before Lori could decide whether to be relieved or concerned, she discover that Elly was among them.

  In fact all of the young girls/women.

  The least co-operative—either from stubbornness or fear.

  And that scared the hell out of her.

  * * * *

  Roughly two weeks after Lori started her ‘experiment’ she concluded that she’d guessed close to the truth if not the absolute truth—the ship was at least close enough to a planet to replenish supplies regularly. It might or might not have actually landed. They had artificial gravity aboard the alien ship which must closely match the gravity of the planet—which also closely matched Earth’s, as far as she knew. So there was no increase or decrease of the pull that she could tell, which meant she had nothing to backup her theory.

  Of course, if there’d been no gravity, she would’ve known what the ship was doing without trying to figure out the water/sulfur situation. But now, even though she was reasonably confident that she knew the ship was either on a planet or close she couldn’t think of anything else that she might use as a second reference.

  Three would have been better, but she couldn’t even come up with a second possibility, damn it!

  And then there was the small problem of figuring out what she might do with the information—even saying she could count on it being accurate enough not to get her and everybody else killed.

  She thought she’d had enough of captivity that she was willing to take risks, but she wasn’t so desperate that she was willing to try anything—however dangerous it might be.

  That was something she was afraid would change drastically once she discovered what the end game of the aliens was, but, at her current level of misery ….

  Which brought her to a worrisome thought—why were they still on board?

  It made sense that the grays
would find any planets they could where they could restock supplies. They had a huge number of captives on board that would die and be worthless if they didn’t have food and water. But, if they’d found a place for supplies, why hang around? Why would they just, maybe orbit, and keep getting food and water, but not land and unload their ‘cargo’?

  Maybe it wasn’t a planet at all?

  She’d heard that there were plenty of meteors that contained water and all sorts of materials.

  Maybe they were just capturing water bearing rocks as they came upon them and extracting the water? Maybe the sulfur wasn’t from some spring on a planet.

  That was a terrifying thought considering she’d thought her information might lead to escape.

  Not that she had a clue of how that might be done.

  They seemed to be in the hold of the ship. At least, she figured they were since they were treated like livestock and ships usually carried their cargo in a hold. And she was locked in with Fayn and the only exit led to a small exercise area.

  Well, except for the tiny opening used to deliver food and water, but she couldn’t squeeze one leg through that damn thing and Fayn sure as hell couldn’t squeeze even that much.

  There were no windows.

  Or port holes.

  There had to be a way to load and unload, but she hadn’t seen anything that looked like a giant cargo door in either the wall or the ceiling above them. If there was one, and she was certain there must be, then it was on the other side and she couldn’t even escape the damn cell she shared with Fayn.

  Given those thoughts, she wasn’t even certain that she should approach Fayn about it, but she didn’t feel like she was up to even attempting an escape without someone to help.

  Besides, Fayn was a warrior. Surely he had some kind of knowledge, training, or maybe even experience in escaping?

  He could hardly have less than she did!

  Unfortunately, she was still trying to work up an approach when ‘it’ happened.

  She woke snuggled right up against him and half under, and lay perfectly still while she tried to gather her nerve to either ‘make a move’ or to try to talk to him about an escape plan—no easier than the thought of trying to seduce him, really, since his grasp of English was so poor and her grasp of his language was non-existent.