“That means they can see us.” Stealth was an awesome technology, but it wasn’t perfect. They couldn’t run hidden and shielded at the same time.
As soon as the words left her mouth, something launched from the alien ship.
“Prepare for impact!” she ordered, as Nala immediately announced it throughout the ship.
They braced and waited. If the shields held, they’d be all right. Five seconds passed, without a sound from anyone on the bridge. By the count of ten, Maggie glanced at Teagan. “It should have hit by now. Are we picking up anything on scans?”
“Yes,” Nala cried from behind her. “We have a hull breach!”
“What? How?”
“I don’t know, ma’am.”
“Put up the schematic,” she demanded of Teagan.
Once again, the image of the Odyssey appeared on the main view screen.
“Where?” Maggie asked as she searched for an indicator or hot spot.
“There,” Nala said, pointing to the rear section. “Level three, near engineering.”
Aloud, she called, “Bridge to engineering. We’ve picked up a hull breach at your location. Damage report.”
“We’re searching, Captain,” Cela, the chief engineer, called back, shouting to be heard over the alarms. “Haven’t found a speck out of place.”
“Keep me posted. Bridge, out.” She stared at the screen for a moment, then turned in question to Nala, who could only shake her head. Eventually, she moved to stand beside Teagan, feeling helpless. “I don’t understand. What was it they launched? And why attack without trying to communicate first?” She spun to face Britta. “Anything yet?”
“All channels are silent, Captain. Shall I try to hail them?”
“Yes, demand an explanation for this aggression.”
Another alarm buzzed and she twisted back to the main screen.
“What now?”
“We’ve found the breach, ma’am. The air ducts—” Nala couldn’t finish as she wavered in her seat a second before she slumped onto her control panel. Maggie had no sooner taken a step forward, when Kara, the co-pilot, drooped in her chair and slipped limply to the floor. She spun, seeing one after the other of her crew lapse into unconsciousness.
“Poison gas,” Maggie whispered weakly as she too succumbed. Her last lucid thought was, “God have mercy on us!”
Flanked by Allon, one of his captains, and Kanei, one of the many warriors who made up his elite crew, Roth walked down the short corridor to what he was informed would be the control center for the small alien ship. As he approached, the doors automatically slid open. He stopped short, to avoid stepping on the small female lying prone right inside the room.
Allon bent and scooped her up in his arms, while Roth moved further inside. In the center of the room, he paused, glancing around to see that all the females, at least twenty in number, were unconscious. They would have to work quickly to get all three hundred of them transferred to the Dauntless before the effects of the sleeping gas wore off. His warriors were seeing to that already via a room-by-room, level-by-level search.
As he turned to leave, planning to supervise the transfers, his boot brushed against a soft body on the floor. At his feet, even tinier than the first, was a curled-up sleeping female. He crouched, his gaze running over her from head to toe, taking in each delicate feature.
She was stunning, and he was moved by some irresistible force to touch her. Pulling off a glove, he ran the back of his hand lightly across her cheek. It was downy soft, even more so than it looked, and her delicate repose reminded him of the pet purrada his sister had as a child.
Unable to keep from exploring further, he traced a fingertip along the line of her jaw and up over her rounded chin to the fullness of her lower lip. As he touched her mouth, a tingling sensation, like a jolt of electric heat, arced between them. It ran up his arm and throughout his body, stirring a raw, wild need, the strength of which he’d never felt before.
Surprised by his reaction, his first thought was to pull away, but his brain was overruled by the desire that burned hotly within him, and he could think of nothing except moving closer.
He tamped down that urge, using his eyes instead, running them over her hair, which was caught at the back of her head in a tight knot. It was glossy, the hue a light blonde with streaks of shimmering gold. The harsh hairstyle didn’t diminish her beauty, yet he wanted to see it loose and flowing around her shoulders.
Her skin was unusually fair, her lips full and rosy in color. She was slender, which was revealed by her form-fitting uniform that also outlined curves in all the right places.
“They are so small,” Kanei marveled aloud. “How can they possibly breed with us?”
Roth glanced up at the warrior, his image distorted slightly behind his inhalation device. He disliked the bulky things intensely, but would have succumbed to the gas instantly without it.
“Jarlan says it is possible,” Roth concluded as he slipped his arms under the waiflike creature and rose with her held snugly against his chest. “If he thinks it’s so, who are we to say otherwise? The man is an expert.”
Kanei’s hand reached out to stroke her skin as he had. Before he made contact, Roth stepped back, a feeling of possessiveness overwhelming him. That the man had dared try to touch her enraged him, and he found himself snapping, “Debate science later, Kanei. We need to get the females secured in our holding area on board the Dauntless before they come to.”
Both of his men glanced at him in surprise, though they made no mention of his abrupt behavior. He didn’t understand it himself, and strove for composure as he ordered further, “Captain Allon, control of the ship is yours.”
The man nodded in acknowledgement, clapped his hands, and rubbed them together with enthusiasm—but not over the other sleeping females, at the alien technology. “Now comes the fun part.”
Roth shifted his gaze to the stunning creature in his arms. “Some might disagree with you on that.” Without waiting for a response, he carried her out, and down three levels, joining a long line of his men who also carried a small woman as they returned to the cargo bay to be transported back to their own ship.
4
Pacing in an eight-foot-square box wasn’t easy, although in her agitated state Maggie managed to do it, stopping every few minutes to press on the clear walls, searching for weak areas that might prove an avenue for escape. Eyeing one of the corners, she stepped up to it, running her fingers along the seam, again finding nothing.
“Give it a rest, will you, Mags?” Rebecca pleaded with exasperation. “We’ve been over every inch of this damned jail cell at least ten times. Sit down, before you wear yourself out and drive me insane.” She patted the empty spot beside her on the thinly padded wall-mounted bed.
“I can’t sit, let alone rest.”
As she went back to pacing, she noticed two aliens had entered the cargo hold that was their prison and were walking down the wide aisle between the rows of cells. Maggie froze as they approached, thinking they had come for her and Rebecca, but they stopped at the door across the way and escorted six more of her crew out. It had been going on like this since she regained consciousness several hours earlier. Every fifteen minutes or so, a few of her people were taken and never returned. As she watched this next group depart, she did what she had done each time.
“I am the captain,” she shouted, smacking both palms on the walls as they moved past without stopping. “I demand to see whoever is in charge.” Take me to your leader seemed a bit overdone or she would have said exactly that. As usual, they did nothing more than glance at her, amused expressions on their handsome faces, then moved on either ignoring or not understanding her request.
“You can stop that as well,” Rebecca commented tiredly. “Obviously, they don’t speak irate female, or English.”
“How are you so calm?” she demanded as she whirled around. Unperturbed, her senior officer, closest advisor, and dear friend shrugged. Maggie peered at her more closely.
“Are you in shock, or is it denial? You do get we have been taken prisoner and that our ship has been stolen.”
“Maybe it’s a little of both.” Rebecca’s brows slanted together as she considered the question. “Still, I don’t see what good pacing and wringing my hands will do any of us. Besides, I’ve seen these guys before and since they’re not throwing our women over their shoulders and acting like cavemen, and maybe because they actually put clothes on—although that’s hardly the best part of this scenario—they don’t seem nearly as menacing.” She paused, shrugging once more. “Maybe I’m desensitized.”
“Yes, about that. I thought you said these guys were barbarians.” She extended her arms to the sides. “Look around you. This isn’t exactly a cave or a grass hut. Their technology is clearly far more advanced than ours, and despite the fact they seem to think they have the right to conquer and imprison whatever species they happen across, not to mention stealing ships whenever they like, they aren’t dragging their knuckles on the ground and picking bugs off one another.”
Rebecca arched a brow sharply. “If you’d have been down there, being chased through the jungle by one of those black-bearded giants with their ass-length hair unbound and wild, and saw them jumping out of the trees, buck naked except for a miniscule scrap of leather over their, uh…” she gestured toward her middle, “junk, for lack of a less crude term, you’d think they were barbarians too.”
Maggie opened her mouth, about to concede her point as well as apologize for being insensitive after what Rebecca had gone through, when she saw her cell mate’s eyes widen as she stared at something over her shoulder. Twisting quickly to see behind her, she jumped, finding two more of the alien men standing inches away, the thin, transparent cell walls the only thing separating them.
Their size was imposing, with unbelievably broad shoulders and rippling muscles that tested the confines of their snug clothing, which appeared to be a uniform of some type. When the taller of the two crossed his arms over his immense chest and moved closer, Maggie half expected him to burst his seams and rip through his clothes like The Incredible Hulk from the ancient superhero comic books her brother used to gobble up as a kid. They didn’t, and he didn’t turn green.
She was speechless. Not only by their immense size, but the fact that these men didn’t look like the hulking, barefoot, grunting barbarians her crew had described. They were dressed in quality, well-tailored clothing, and everyone that she’d seen so far had been clean shaven, each with a smooth, firm masculine jaw without the slightest hint of the reported grizzly black beard. They did all have long dark hair, although not wild as Rebecca had mentioned. Most wore it tied neatly in a ponytail; others still, like the ones in front of her now, had a thick black waist-length braid.
That gave Maggie pause, because it reminded her of…
No, it couldn’t be. That was crazy.
As she peered up into his face—being only five and a half feet tall, this was a long way up, because the guy was freaking huge—Maggie took a sudden step back. She immediately regretted it; showing weakness to an enemy was never a good strategy. In spite of this, she was unable to stop herself. It wasn’t out of fear, or intimidation, or because, like all the others, he possessed a striking male beauty: it was his eyes. Light purple, like the lavender grown in abundance in her hometown of Sequim, Washington. The only other time she’d seen that exact hue had been in the intense gaze of her alien lover from her dream.
Her mind became congested with doubt. Had it been a dream, induced by her crew’s vivid descriptions, or perhaps a premonition? Either way, she struggled to hide how disturbed she was by the likeness. And while she kept her face carefully composed, her hands still trembled. She quickly clasped them behind her as she met his gaze, hoping he hadn’t noticed.
When the hard line of his mouth eased a fraction, she suspected her hope was in vain.
“What are they waiting for? Why don’t they say or do something?” Rebecca questioned, now standing at her shoulder. Her quivering voice told Maggie, she wasn’t quite as cool as she let on.
“Intimidation, is my guess. Besides, what good would it do, since we don’t speak giant alien and none of them knows a word of English? As for doing something, are you in such a rush to be hauled off to God knows where to have God knows what done to us?”
The purple-eyed alien said something to her in a deep, sensual voice, so familiar, it sent a ripple of awareness shooting through. Maggie stiffened, alarmed once more at her body’s uncontrolled response to an alien who was also her captor. She shifted slightly, glancing at Rebecca, who was staring up at the huge aliens looming over them.
His low rumble of unintelligible speech brought her gaze back to the big guy, and for some reason, her frustration bubbled up to the surface.
“Save your breath, Gigantor. We don’t understand you.”
His lips twitched and although she couldn’t be sure, she thought she saw a flicker of amusement cross his face.
“Did you see that?” Rebecca exclaimed. “I think he understood you.”
Without taking his eyes from Maggie, the man lifted his chin. He spoke again, the words strange, though his baritone made the language deeply melodic.
“Their language,” she murmured, apparently being of the same thought. “It’s almost as if they’re singing.”
The man standing beside and slightly behind the taller one, chuckled at Rebecca’s comment.
“You can understand what we say!” Maggie accused. Immediately, she started in with her harangue. “You can’t keep us here against our will. We’re free women,” she shouted in his face, or in that general direction, because she only came up to his chest. It had been disconcerting to be towered over by Earth men all her life, but with these giants it was downright irritating. It was also alarming that she wasn’t able to control her temper, even more so now, because he was coming in.
He waved his hand over a sensor on the ceiling and the door slid open. Both she and Rebecca hurried out of the way. It was either that or be squashed, as their combined bulk evaporated what meager space was left in the tiny cell. Lavender eyes moved in front of her. The other one, whose teal gaze was fixed on Rebecca, stepped her way, an engaging smile on his handsome face.
Maggie wouldn’t allow herself to be distracted or daunted, and stated in her sternest authoritative voice, “Since you can understand me. I demand to speak to whoever is in charge. Now!”
Teal eyes laughed outright at that, while at the same time guiding Rebecca out of the cell.
“Wait,” she demanded, but he didn’t slow, not when she fought his hold or when she took a swing at him. It did spur a reaction, though not what she wanted. He didn’t stop. Instead, he bent, shoved a shoulder into her belly, and flipped her up and over, clamping a sinewy arm around her kicking legs as he carried her out.
Maggie tried to follow and help her friend, although she knew it was pointless, especially when fingers curled around her arm and held her still. “Where are you taking her?” she yelled at the departing man. When he ignored her question, and kept right on striding out the door, she turned back to her jailor.
“I demand to see your captain,” she repeated boldly, or perhaps stupidly, because she was alone in the cell with him now.
One long finger stretched out and glided along the insignia on her sleeve that denoted her rank. Next, he tapped the design adorning his own uniform.
“It’s you?” she asked on a sharp intake of breath.
He inclined his head, as he gave her a smile that sent her pulse racing. Then like all the others, except the caveman who hauled Rebecca out over his shoulder, he took her arm and led her out to a destination unknown. As she passed the other, now-empty cells, it dawned on her that they’d left her and her first officer for last. Why that would be, she wasn’t sure, but she didn’t think it boded well for either of them, not that any of the recent events did.
Her situation went from bad to worse in the next few minutes.
&n
bsp; Silently, because what was the point of talking, he took her to a large room filled with beeping, flashing monitors on the walls and uniformed staff moving in and out of partitioned areas with beds. Maggie had no doubt it was an infirmary. Stories of alien probes and tests from stories she’d read as a teen flooded her head, and she dug in her heels.
It didn’t slow Gigantor down at all, his arm coming around her waist and lifting her against his hip.
“What are you planning to do?” she demanded, as he moved farther into the room and to an empty cubicle. They passed several of her crew already strapped to the tables, which clued her in. “No,” she cried as she struggled within his hold. But the captain, or whoever he was, didn’t have patience for her resistance. After barking something she didn’t understand, he flipped her up in both arms and put her where he wanted her.
Uselessly fighting his unbending grip, Maggie cursed a blue streak as like the others, she was strapped to the table. The technician who was at her feet wasn’t as efficient as her irritated captor and lost his hold on one of her feet. In her panic, she reacted and kicked him in the jaw. Slighter than the other man, he crumpled to the floor with a thud.
Immediately, her alien caught her ankle in his giant hand and saw to the task himself. Once she was immobilized, he stalked to the end of her bed and with his hands on his hips, shouted some unintelligible orders. Fuming, Maggie watched with mixed emotions: a touch of satisfaction for having taken one of them down with a single kick, and dread, that her actions had obviously made the bigger one lose his temper.
“Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, Mags,” a voice called softly.
She rolled her head on the flat, useless pillow and saw Rebecca in the bed next to her through an opening in the seam of the folding partition that separated the cubicles. They shared a moment of commiseration, before a technician moved up beside her, blocking Maggie’s view. She strained to see around him in order to determine what they were doing, which would likely happen to her next.
His By Command (Primarian Mates Book 2) Page 4
