Brax
The Tellox Book 3
by
Kelly Lucille
Copyright © 2018 Kelly Lucille
All rights reserved
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER ONE
Ariel woke up groggy and with the headache from hell. She wondered in a vague way, while her mind struggled to focus, if this was what the legendary college hangover felt like. It made her question why anyone would drink to excess twice if that was the case. It took her longer than it should have for her brain to click into gear, but when it did the shot of adrenaline through her already abused system was jarring.
She was not in the efficiency apartment she rarely used, nor had she fallen asleep at her desk, or on the sofa she used from time to time at her MIT lab. She was definitely not back at the cozy yellow farm house she grew up in where her sister Sara somehow managed to keep everything smelling like lemon polish and the wisteria from her other sister Megan's lush garden. None of those places had the capacity to be as pitch black as what she was experiencing now. Nor did any of them have a cold metallic flavor in the air, or echo with the sounds of weeping and hushed sobs.
The dark was absolute. But it was more than that. She might not have Sara's intuitive understanding for the feelings and intentions of others, or her sister Megan's sensitivity to the natural world, but even she could feel the despair and fear that drenched the darkness around her.
The hum of circuitry was everywhere. An offshoot of her own talent, one she had never admitted to anyone outside of her unique family, was that she could feel the hum of technology whenever she was in proximity with anything with a circuit. Her affinity and abilities with computers were not wholly based on her mathematical abilities with code but more an inherent ability. Right now, wherever this was, the whole place felt like one big buzz to her senses.
Canned recycled air, her mind started to catalog, complete darkness, excessive energy that tasted foreign in a way she had never known, and a strange surface material. She could not use her eyes, but she could feel the deck beneath her, and it was not a natural substance, like wood or carpet, or even concrete, rather it felt coldly metallic, and glass smooth. Besides the obviously filtered air, she scented a mélange of people and scents, nothing overly masculine to her nose, mostly perfumes, and scented shampoos probably, and some subtle whiffs of nervous sweat. She stretched her arms out and hit another person. She heard a gasp as the appendage she touched jerked away.
"Sorry," she said automatically. And forced herself to sit up, despite the pain in her head throbbing in time with her heart beat. A heart beat that she had to force slowly into submission by cutting off her fear and worry and concentrating completely on the facts of the situation and acquiring as much data as she could. "I don't know where I am," she tilted her head in the direction she assumed the next warm body was located and spoke through the pain in her head. "Can you tell me how we got here and why?"
There was such a long pause she was sure the other person was not going to answer, when somewhere to the left of her another spoke up tentatively. "We are on a Tellox ship." Ariel could not completely swallow her emotional reaction to that news. But after a quick hitch in her belly she let it go and focused on the voice that was still speaking. "I don't know why we're here."
"There was a battle," another female voice said, this one sounding younger, less sure and farther away. Some of the sobbing quieted as it seemed more people started listening. "I don't know how many, but some died." A small sob of pain was quickly swallowed. "There was no warning, they just came and took people off the street. My brother tried to fight them but..." Her final words were a stark whisper of pain. "I think they killed him."
"You were at the MIT campus?" Ariel asked quickly trying to focus her and everyone else away from their grief.
"I don't even know where that is," she said sniffing and drawing in a deep wet sounding breath. "We were at the mall. It's my birthday." That last bit seemed to break the girl and she started crying in earnest.
"The mall? Was it located in Cambridge? What that today?” She somehow doubted it was in Cambridge, if the girl did not know where MIT was. She asked anyway, because it was an important piece of the puzzle.
Her last memories were slowly returning to her. She knew that she was at the campus finalizing her departure and packing up her lab to take back to California with her. Her sister Sara had disappeared months ago, and she and her sister Megan were circling the wagons and determined to stick close together until they found her. This too could be the answer to more than one question. If people have been taken from all over, and at different times, maybe Sara had as well.
As quickly as the thought occurred her mind assessed it and lowered the probability to almost nil. Nothing about this situation matched the silent disappearance of her sister months ago, and if there had been many taken that way someone would have noticed. She would have found it in her searches. Even her less than legal hacks into government databases had come up with nothing.
"Sacramento," the girl finally answered. "And it was March 3rd."
Ariel crossed her legs to find a comfortable position for her aching body. It was not bruising she was feeling, as if she had been beaten, more like her whole body was waking up from sleep with way more pain then she had ever experienced when her foot fell asleep at her desk. "Is everyone from the states?" she asked, raising her voice to be heard by more than those few around her. America?"
Since all she heard were yes's and yeah’s she moved on to the next question. "I was on the East Coast and," she stopped and tilted her head back to birthday girl’s general direction. "What is your name?"
"Vera," she said after another long moment where she seemed to be assessing whether to answer. "But everyone calls me V."
"Alright," Ariel called out again in as loud and commanding a voice as she could make it. "Everyone from either the East or West coast?"
A few people named other cities, no small towns, up and down the coastal states but nothing South or North of the border. A large chunk seemed to have been taken from the MIT campus like her, but most of the others felt like random swipes in populated city areas, such as malls and other public areas with a lot of foot traffic. Then a small voice far across what Ariel was fast realizing was a cavernous space spoke up. "I'm from Grass Valley, Ca."
That was a little too close to home being only a few miles from her own hometown. She licked suddenly dry lips. "Grass Valley, tell us your name, and please describe yourself."
Even the hold outs seemed to stop crying and listen, understanding from her tone that she meant to be answered. She needed the answers, hoping she was jumping to conclusions without enough data. But why only the coastal big cities, and the MIT campus, and one small town so near to her own as to be practically neighbors?
"Taylor," the girl said finally. "My name is Taylor. I'm five foot three, 120 pounds with brown hair and green eyes. I'm 26."
Ariel sucked in a breath as she struggled to breathe. The girl could have been describing her sister Sara but for the slight difference in age and weight."
She forced herself back to data gathering with an effort that made her slowly dwindling head pains flare. "Alright let’s narrow this down. I was taken March 3rd as well, in Cambridge at the College campus. I also have brown hair, long, but my eyes are honey brown." At least that was what her sister always called them. That or whiskey eyes. But that was neither here nor
there. "I'm five foot nine and 132 pounds." She did not share her age, and she would not if she could help it.
There were a barrage of women talking after that, throwing out data that for anyone else might have been confusing. Ariel had what her other sister Megan called a special brain. She could capture and extrapolate like nobody’s business, and it was one of the many reasons she was considered a genius from the age of two.
She let them call out jumbled answers until the voices turned to unhelpful speculation and venting worry. Then she put her fingers to her lips and let out an ear-splitting whistle that shut everyone up. Her grandfather had taught her that, along with how to rebuild a car engine and catch a fish. "Please be quiet until we have all the information we can get. Anyone male?"
No one answered.
"Anyone over the age of forty, or under the age of 18?" Besides her that was. She was not going to be eighteen for a few days more. But she was tall and mature for her age, so people just assumed she looked young for her age.
One voice spoke up, the woman had a clear no-nonsense tone that Ariel found reassuring. "I'm forty-two. I'm told I look young for my age. My name is Ivy, brown hair, five foot five, weight 150. Blue eyes. Also taken March 3rd. Sacramento, Ca. Probably in the same attack that V described."
"Anyone else?" Ariel asked. "Under eighteen or over forty, besides Ivy?"
No one answered. "Anyone with hair that is not brown?"
No one Answered. "So, lets understand the facts that we have, and if you have more feel free to add. We have Tellox warriors descending on two coasts in the same day. All big cities but for the MIT campus and Grass Valley. Only women taken and in full view of the public without any degree of stealth that one would assume the highly advanced Tellox could achieve. All women who appeared to be young and adult females with brown hair." She sucked in a breath at the possibilities going through her mind, but her words were clear and without the emotion she was containing showing through. "Does anyone know how long we have been here?"
"I think at least a few hours but nothing too much longer," one voice said. "I'm hungry but not starving yet and I think I was one of the first ones to wake up here." She paused. "And I'm Stacia."
"That logic works for me, anyone have a different answer?"
No one. "Alright. We can move on. Anyone close to a wall?" There were several responses to that and Ariel breathed a sigh of relief. At least they were not contained in some alien force field or some such nonsense, if there were walls, there were doors and ways to get through them. "Those of you that can feel the walls, are there any seams or buttons, knobs, anything that could be a door or control panel." She huffed out a quick laugh. "A light switch would be almost preferable to a door knob right at this moment." Not being able to see her hand if she raised it to her face was wearing on her nerves.
More than one person responded positively to that thought, even if it was a slim possibility that they would find something as mundane as that on a space ship.
"There's something else," the girl Stacia said into the dark. "I'm a nurse, and I have a bandage on my arm that makes me think they took a blood sample."
That, Ariel thought, while she searched for and found the same thing on her own arm. Is not comforting.
"It could be an injection site..." Stacia's voice trailed off.
But you prefer the idea of blood tests to being injected with some alien concoction of dubious origin, Ariel thought. She spoke before anyone started to really panic at the alternatives. "Let's not borrow more trouble than we already have." She made sure to infuse the confidence she employed when she needed people to overlook her age at a conference or lecture she was forced to give to students and associates twice her age and half her I.Q. "First, we find out what we are dealing with in this room, right this moment. The rest we deal with as it comes."
"I found a seam," an excited voice said from not too far off. More than one." The voice pitched higher. "Feels like a door."
Ariel stood carefully ignoring the whoosh of dizziness that came and went at the change in position. She put out her hands and moved forward with one foot and then the other. "Keep talking. I'm going to come to you. I apologize ahead of time if I step on anybody." But she made it with a few helping hands along the way without falling on her face or damaging anyone else in the dark. And she did not need eyes to tell her there was a control panel on the wall directly in front of her, by the time she made it to the voice who was still spouting off random things to keep talking, she could feel the buzz of circuits. Her hand unerringly went to what had to be a palm plate control.
She sucked in a breath and had to close her eyes at the reassuring feeling of tech humming beneath her palm. At times like these when she connected to that familiar electric buzz of energy she almost felt like if she reached out her mind she could take charge of that hum and make it dance to her will, but unfortunately for her, she was not quite up to super hero status. She needed a little bit more than excessive imagination to make things happen. "Anyone have a pocket knife or nail file?" Since she could still feel the weight of her keys in her pocket she assumed they had not been searched, though her purse and phone were gone.
More than one voice spoke up in the dark offering everything from bobby pins to keys. Then Ariel heard a voice she knew. Ivy.
"I have a swiss army knife," the woman said. Ariel could have kissed her.
"Care to join me at the door Ivy?"
Ten minutes after Ivy joined her at the wall Ariel had the hand plate off and the lights on. It would have taken her less time, but it took her a good two minutes to understand the advanced and unfamiliar technology of the Tellox. It was like she had to find a different frequency than she had ever used before, was the best way that she could describe it, but it was all based on mathematical principle, a precise language that transcended language barriers, even alien ones. Ariel was very good at math.
She ignored the relief and surprise flowing through the room behind her and ran her fingers over the groups of wires and circuits she had uncovered until she found the one that she was sure would open the portal. She left it alone for the moment. They needed a plan in place before she opened the door, so she turned and got her first real look at the woman around her, and the prison that held them, adding what she was seeing to all she had extrapolated already.
Fifty-six women in total, all brown haired, twenty to thirty something in looks, in fact in the group she was pretty sure she looked the youngest of them. Different weights and sizes, some with more curves than others. Hair length ranging from bobs to long, curly, straight, different shades of brown, they could have all been related.
The room, not as large as she would have thought from the way sound moved through it, was all the same glass smooth texture of the floor, and now all of it, from the floor to the ceiling, glowed with a light that reminded her of the UV lamps scientists used to simulate sunlight indoors.
"How did you do that?" One woman asked loudly from her place sitting on the floor nearly at Ariel's feet. More than one woman was switching pleased and surprised eyes from the glowing walls to her and widening.
A voice she recognized as Ivy spoke from her other side. "You're just a kid!"
Ariel turned to study the woman with the no nonsense voice and swiss army knife. She was right, she looked thirty-five at most, her hair was mussed and just over her shoulder. Despite having been abducted by aliens, the woman looked surprisingly put together. Ariel felt rumpled and frumpy standing beside her. She took in the way the woman stood, and the army green t-shirt and jeans. Since the shirt said Army across an enviable set of breasts it was not a stretch to figure her out.
"Active or reserves?" Ariel asked ignoring the looks of surprise she was getting.
Ivy ignored her in favor of her own question. "How old are you?" She sounded horrified. As if being a teenager was a disease they were all going to catch.
Maybe it was her long high curling ponytail, faded wonder woman t-shirt, skinny jeans and scuff
ed purple high tops. In her defense she had been packing up, not giving a lecture. If she had known she was going to be leading an escape on an alien ship she would have worn a suit and pinned her ridiculously long curls up in a bun, not worn her most comfortable ‘at home so I have nothing to prove’ clothes.
"I'm eighteen," Ariel lied, but what was a few days?
Ivy just looked appalled. "You look sixteen, at most."
Ariel shrugged. “If it helps I'm a certified mathematical genius and have two Doctoral Degrees from MIT."
Ivy blinked, and someone else grunted out something that sounded like, "whuh?"
"Actually," Ivy said after another full minute of staring. "That does help."
"Works for me," someone else muttered from the middle of the group.
Ariel smiled. "So, before I open this door we need to figure out who is going and who," she finished anticipating the coming uproar. "Is staying."
Yep, she thought wincing at the erupting reaction. That got their attention. Here's to hoping no Tellox are close enough to hear and come investigate. She figured if they were monitoring them with cameras or microphones they would have reacted as soon as she got the palm plate off and the lights on. Plus, she would have picked up on that type of monitoring when she was at the circuit board, but guards outside the door were a definite possibility.
She turned to Ivy. "Any chance you can take down a seven-foot alien barbarian or two if they hear this and come to investigate?" She spoke mildly enough but the sudden silence meant everyone had heard and understood what she said.
Ivy gave her a half smile but shook her head. "Not unless, among your many talents, you can pull a sniper rifle out of your ass."
So, no then.
CHAPTER TWO
In the end it was decided that along with Ariel, Ivy would go because she had combat experience the rest of them lacked, and a woman named Violet, who was a pilot in training and almost had enough hours in for her license. Which they figured couldn't hurt. The rest agreed to stay without too much argument, once she pointed out that they were only going to check out what they were facing and the chances of them getting caught were high, and the possibility of punishment probable.
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