Alien Romance Box Set: Eblian Mates Complete Series (Books 1 - 3): A Sci-fi Alien Warrior Invasion Abduction Romance

by Ruth Anne Scott

  At the end of the hall, Natalie held up her hand. One last door remained unopened. Behind it, the regeneration chamber waited for them with its vaporous shadows and soft undulating lights. Tina was in there, and Fo and Te must be waiting there, too. They would defend their cargo with their lives.

  Natalie caught her breath. This was the moment of truth. Once they passed through that door and the shooting started, she couldn’t hesitate. She didn’t mind killing the Toom, but she might have to kill Tina, too, if it meant protecting other women on Earth from suffering the same fate.

  Kyan put his hand on the door, and it swung open at his touch. The three comrades burst into the chamber and immediately fanned out with their blasters raised. Natalie caught sight of the cloudy opening to the regeneration bed, but she didn’t have time to wonder if Tina was inside before blaster fire broke out. One blast zinged past her head, and she ducked for cover.

  Kyan dropped to one knee and fired into a corner. Natalie caught sight of Fo’s face twisted in a hateful grimace. He fired back at the intruders, and Te fired at the same time from another direction. Arno rushed across the room, but from a hidden corner, a volley of blaster fire caught him in the shoulder. He flew sideways and landed on the floor at Natalie’s feet. Ee stepped out of the shadows. The three Toom had them surrounded.

  Kyan read the situation in a moment. He fired once at Fo and turned on Te, but he couldn’t fight all three Toom at once. Natalie set her feet wide and leveled her blaster at Ee. She let off three quick bursts. The first one sailed over his head, but the second clipped him on the side of the head. He staggered right into the third blast and went down with a scream.

  Fo and Te paid no attention to their fallen comrade. Kyan kept up a continuous fire on Te, and Natalie turned her weapon on Fo. He bared his hideous teeth at her, and her heart quailed. He could make her submit with a flash of his eye.

  Natalie rallied all her courage and advanced on him. She had to pay him back for everything he cost her. Images of her life back on Earth flashed before her eyes. She played with her dog in front of her parents’ home. She swung out over the river on the old rope swing and splashed into the delicious cool water. She shared strawberry ice cream cones with her sister at the County Fair. The Toom robbed her of all those beautiful experiences. They robbed her of her very humanity. She would never set foot on her home world again because of them.

  Fo saw her coming and sneered in disgust. She didn’t worry him at all. He’d controlled her life for months, and she never made a peep of protest. Now he could take that life from her with a flick of his wrist. He brought his blaster around and took aim at her head.

  Natalie didn’t stop. She crossed the chamber the way she had dozens of times before. She waited until Fo tightened his grip on his blaster, and the glint of confidence sparkled in his eyes. He had her right where he wanted her. If he couldn’t sell her at the gatherings, he would get rid of her and get himself a woman he could sell—a woman like Tina.

  But he’d done his work too well. The regeneration bed altered her body, not only to make it more responsive to his whims, but faster, stronger, and more deadly. She could move faster than he could now, and her determination gave her unerring accuracy. Just when he thought he could gun her down, she jerked her blaster up and fired.

  Her first blast ricocheted off his bald head and hit the ceiling. The ship quaked on all sides, and Fo’s free hand flew to his head. But Natalie was already firing again. This time, she hit him in the stomach. He doubled over, and his blaster fell out of his hand. He stared at her in disbelief. How could his placid little slave turn on him like this? What happened to all her countless hours of training?

  Natalie set her jaw and crossed the last few feet between them. Fo scooped his blaster off the floor and aimed at her again, but she fired before he got it into position. Her blast cut through his tunic and severed his arm from his body. His arm fell to the floor at his feet with the blaster still clenched in his fist. He stared at it in disbelief, but he couldn’t pick it up again.

  He raised his eyes to Natalie’s face, and for the first time since he stole her from Earth, a hint of pleading crept into his face. She couldn’t kill him when he was totally defenseless, could she? Natalie never killed anything or anybody before. She always prided herself on her compassion for animals and her empathy with other people.

  But this was different. He would pick up that blaster and kill her in an instant if he could get away with it. He would kidnap as many women from Earth as he could, and he would sell them all as callously as he sold Natalie and her friends.

  Natalie hardened her heart against him and leveled her blaster at his face. This was for all the women back on Earth who didn’t know how precious freedom was. This was for Amber and Melanie, too. When she got back to the Mixtidelin, she would be able to look them in the eye and tell them she'd done the right thing for them. But most of all, this was for herself. Fo might not understand or even care what damage he'd done to her life. But she understood, and only death could give her justice. She tightened her hand and fired.

  Her blast ripped through his eye socket and knocked him flat on his back. He lay twitching at her feet. Smoke rippled out of his face, and a death rattle rolled out of his throat. Natalie stood over him and waited until he stopped twitching and lay still. Not even the regeneration bed could bring him back.

  She lowered her blaster with a sigh. Her troubles were over. Galactic Police flooded the room, but the fight was over. She turned around and found Kyan and Arno standing over Te. He knelt on the floor with his hands behind his head. He glared at her with vicious hatred. If he couldn’t own her, he would kill her, just like Fo.

  Natalie tried to let go of her weapon, but her fingers wouldn’t obey her mind. She would never use it again. She would retreat to the Eblian home world with her beloved Kyan. She would give him children, and they would rebuild the planet the Toom destroyed. She would dedicate her life to building and giving birth, not to death and destruction.

  The mist-shrouded opening of the regeneration bed flickered across the chamber. Another three lights shimmered in the other corners of the room, but this one flickered brighter than the others. “Tina must be in there.”

  Kyan stepped forward. “We’ll get her out.” He aimed his blaster at the opening.

  Natalie laid her hand on his arm. “Wait.”

  Kyan rounded on her. “We have to take her back to the Mixtidelin. Once we get back on board, we’ll destroy the ship, and we can't leave her behind, no matter how messed up she is.”

  Natalie shook her head. “I didn’t mean to leave her on board. We'll take her back, but let me do it.” She took a step forward and aimed her blaster into the misty depths. “This is for me to do.”

  He frowned. “Are you sure?”

  Natalie didn’t turn around. “When Tina comes out of there, she’ll be an even bigger mess than she was. I have to be able to tell her I was the one who took her away from all that peace and tranquility.”

  Kyan moved back and left her alone with what she had to do. She stared into the shadows for a moment. Now she understood, better than she ever did before, what she was taking away from Tina. Tina would be floating in a sea of bliss in that bed, but it was a sea of lies, a bliss of ignorance and slavery. No matter how pleasant it was, she was nothing more than a money-making machine for the Toom. No one could live a real life without pain and hardship. Tina couldn’t call herself alive in that bed, because she never experienced the struggles and heartache of real life.

  Natalie drifted on her own memories of her time in the regeneration bed. It lulled her to sleep and wiped out all those precious memories of her life and family back home. It didn’t have to alter her cell structure to destroy her humanity. It made her forget about it so completely it might as well have never happened. It wiped out the good memories of love and joy the same way it wiped out the pain of bad memories like Melanie's

  Natalie brought her blaster up and aimed at the fli
ckering light. She didn't let herself hesitate, but fired again and again in quick succession. The blasts rippled along the mottled surface of the chamber, and the light wavered. Then, before her eyes, the grey-blue wall melted and dissolved in a shower of sparks.

  The lights danced and twinkled, but the chamber wall sank to the floor and disappeared, leaving behind only a bare metal surface. And lying on the floor without a stitch of clothing on was Tina.

  She blinked and looked around. Natalie set her blaster on the floor and knelt over her friend. Tina turned her head from one side to the other, but she didn’t see anything around her. She didn't even register Natalie or Arno standing a few feet away. She took a few long moments to get her voice to work. “What's going on?”

  Natalie gathered Tina in her arms and lifted her off the floor. “It’s all over now, Tina. You're coming back with us.”

  Tina struggled to her feet, still unsure where she was or what was happening. Natalie led her toward Kyan, but at that moment, Te jumped up from his place. He knocked Arno aside and dove across the floor. He grabbed Fo’s fallen blaster and rolled onto his knees. He brought the blaster up and fired at Natalie. He hit her in the arm, and she let go of Tina with a surprised cry.

  Te rounded on Kyan next, but Arno cut him off before he fired another shot. He blasted Te in the chest with his weapon, and the last Toom hit the floor with a thud. Natalie hugged her arm to her chest and stared at the three dead bodies lying on the floor. At her side, Tina whimpered and cringed. She rubbed her bare arms with her hands. The effect of the regeneration bed was already wearing off, leaving her bereft and cold.

  Natalie watched her with a sinking heart. Then she shrugged off her own pain and put her arms around Tina. “Come on, Tina. I’ll take you home.”

  Chapter 12

  Natalie stood on the Mixtidelin’s command bridge with Kyan on one side and Commander Axilon on the other. They gazed at NCQ585 floating lifeless and abandoned on the display screen. “They’ll never tell anybody your secret now. You'll be able to go undercover again.”

  “Because of you,” Kyan returned. “We never would have gone if you hadn’t convinced us to go.”

  “What will happen to it now?” she asked. “Will you confiscate the regeneration beds?”

  “We won’t confiscate them,” Commander Axilon replied. “We’ll destroy them. We'll destroy the whole ship.” He turned to Arno at the Tactical Station. “Lock blasters on target and fire.”

  Arno pushed a button on his console. A volley of blaster fire rumbled out of the Mixtidelin and shot through the vacuum of space. It hit the Toom ship, and the edifice trembled from the concussion. Then the whole vessel erupted in a brilliant explosion of colored light. Glowing dust and trails of energy sailed past the screen and disappeared into nothing.

  Natalie sighed. “That’s it, then. It's all over.”

  “It’s over,” Kyan murmured. “They won’t bother anybody else again.”

  “There are plenty of other Toom doing the same thing, though.” Commander Axilon turned to Arno again. “Break orbit and set course for the Rings of Dorfli. There's another gathering there, and we have word the Toom are bringing another shipment of Syllic slaves”

  Arno settled himself at his station and concentrated on his console.

  Natalie faced the Commander. “I won’t be going to the Rings of Dorfli.”

  His head shot up. “No? Where are you going to go?”

  Natalie drew herself up to her full height, but her head still didn’t come up farther than the medals on his lapel. “I’m going to the Eblian home world with Kyan. I've had enough of battling the criminals of the universe. I lost my home on Earth. Now I need to build a new one somewhere else.”

  Commander Axilon cocked his head. “Is that true, Kyan? Are you going home?”

  Kyan put his arm around Natalie’s shoulders. “I lost my home, too, when the Toom wrecked our planet. I didn’t think I'd get the chance to rebuild our people. Joining the Galactic Police was the only way I could think of to clean up the mess they made and stop it from happening to somebody else. Now I have a way to rebuild. I've done my duty to the Force. It's time I got back to some kind of life for myself.”

  Commander Axilon nodded. “That’s all very well for you, but what about the other Earth females? If you two leave, I'll have no choice but to drop them off at the nearest rehabilitation center. I can't keep them on board, and Tina won't respond to anyone but you, Natalie.”

  Natalie shook her head. “You don’t have to drop them off at the rehabilitation center. You can drop them off on Eblian with us. I'm sure Amber and Melanie will be happy to make lives for themselves there. The Eblians need reproductive females to build up their population, and the planet resembles Earth enough that they'll feel right at home. They can build families for themselves and dedicate themselves to repairing the damage done by the Toom.”

  “And what about Tina?” Commander Axilon asked. “She won’t be ready to build a family any time soon.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Natalie replied. “I suspect she’ll recover a lot faster on a planet like Eblian than she would in space. Out here, she has nothing but empty stars to stare at and remember her experience with the Toom. Eblian will give her something else to think about and other people to connect with. She'll focus on the future instead of the past.”

  “And what if they don’t agree to go to Eblian?” Kyan asked.

  Natalie smiled. “I’m sure they'll agree to go there instead of the rehabilitation center.”

  “You better go tell them, then,” Commander Axilon replied “We’ll be passing that system in a few days. You have a lot of work to do to prepare them for their new life.”

  Kyan accompanied Natalie down to the medical bay, where Dima gave them a report on Tina’s condition. “Of course she’s perfectly healthy. The regeneration bed cured everything that was wrong with her.”

  “Where is she?” Natalie asked. “I want to see her.”

  “She’s back in her quarters.” Dima pointed to his display. “See? She hasn’t moved from her couch since she came on board. She's more catatonic now than she was before she left.”

  Natalie shook her head. “The regeneration bed couldn’t cure what's wrong with her mind. Only a real future can do that.”

  Dima turned away. “I sure hope you’re right.”

  Kyan held Natalie’s hand on the way to the crew compartments. They stopped outside Melanie’s door. “Are you ready for this?”

  Natalie nodded. She could laugh out loud at the plans racing through her mind. “I’ve never been more ready for anything.”

  “How are you going to convince them?” he asked.

  “That will be easy,” she replied. “I’m excited about the future. All I have to do is tell them how excited I am, and describe what our lives will be like when we get there, and they'll get as excited as I am.”

  “Amber and Melanie might react that way,” he told her. “How can you be sure Tina will?”

  “I can’t,” she replied. “But she won’t have any choice. In fact, I don't think I'll tell her in advance what we're doing. We'll just transport her to the surface, and she'll have to live with it.”

  Kyan shook his head. “I didn’t think even you could be so harsh. Maybe you should take it easy on her.”

  “Harsh would be dropping her off at the rehabilitation center,” Natalie replied. “That’s what the Commander will do with her if she doesn't go with us. On Eblian, at least she'll have the rest of us to help her. She'll be in the closest place to Earth as she's ever going to get. She'll have to sink or swim. But I think once she gets there and sees the way things are, she'll thrive like the rest of us. She's a strong woman. She just can't live out in space. As soon as she gets her feet on the ground, she'll come back into her own strength.”

  He eyed her. “It sounds to me like you’re talking about yourself.”

  Natalie put her arms around him. “Maybe I am.”

  Just then, the l
ift door opened, and Arno stepped out. He nodded to Kyan and faced Natalie. “I’ve made up my mind. I'm coming with you.”

  Natalie stared at him. “You don’t have to do that.”

  He shook his head. “I’ve made up my mind. I've had enough of the gatherings and chasing all over the galaxy for the next rogue trader. I'm coming back to Eblian with you.” He glanced at Kyan. “If you'll have me, that is.”

  Kyan straightened up. “We’d be glad to have you.”

  Arno turned again to Natalie. “You said Tina was as strong and resourceful as you. I’ve been thinking about it, and I believe you. I saw the way she acted in the training studio. That's what I liked about her from the beginning. It was those Toom and their regeneration bed that poisoned her. If she gets away from the gatherings and the regeneration beds, she'll get back to the way she was. She'll become strong again.”

  Natalie laughed out loud in pure joy. “Just give her a chance, Arno. I know she made a terrible mistake going back, but I’m convinced her feelings for you are real. I've never seen her the way she was with you. She was strong and sure because of you. Come with us, and give her a chance to prove herself.”

  He nodded. “I’m in. I gave the Commander my notice, and now I'm on my way to my quarters to get ready. You let me know when you're ready to leave.”

  Natalie squeezed his arm. “Thank you, Arno.”

  He fixed her with his eyes. “I should be thanking you. I wouldn’t look at her again if you weren't sure about her.”

  He walked away, and Natalie watched him out of sight. “He’s ten times the man I thought he was.”

  Kyan nodded. “I told you he was a man of honor.”

  Natalie sighed. “I’m glad he's with us.”

  “Me, too,” Kyan replied. “Eblian needs every hand it can get.”

  Natalie turned to Melanie’s door again. “I better get in there. We’ve got a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it.”

  He let her go. “Let me know if you need any help with anything.”

  Natalie waited until he disappeared around the corner. Then she took a deep breath, rang the bell, and strode into Melanie’s quarters. She found Melanie sitting across from Amber in the main room. The two women turned toward her as she walked in.