So she fetched a plastic tumbler from the small cupboard above the sink, and poured herself some water. It tasted tinny and strange after the pure, sweet water she’d drunk on Zhoraan, but at least it was wet. Also, the act of getting herself the water helped to steady her nerves a bit. Yes, if she allowed herself to dwell on it, the bile would resurface, but she could control it by not allowing that hideous image to resurface in her mind.
It wasn’t the oral sex. She’d always sort of enjoyed that. Certainly she’d loved doing it to Zhandar, feeling those delicate, tiny scales slip against the surface of her tongue. Her disgust now arose from the realization that Gabriel was just as aroused by the thought of forcing her to do something sexual to him — anything sexual to him — as he was by the physical act itself.
I have to get out of here.
Of course she already knew that. Now, though, the need for escape seemed so much more urgent. She had to save her child, but she also had to save herself. Maybe she’d been fooling herself by thinking that all Gabriel wanted was merely sex. She could have handled that. She might not have enjoyed it, but she could have lived with it. But now that she’d seen he wouldn’t be satisfied with simply bedding her, that he’d need to debase her first in order to show who had the power here…well, she knew she wouldn’t be able to survive that. It might not take a day, a week, or even a month, but sooner or later, after being continually used in such a way, Gabriel would break her. And then she, Trinity, would be gone, and the only thing left would be a shell of a body that he would continue to use as he wished.
She would die before she allowed that to happen.
* * *
Certainly Zhandar had never imagined his first trip into space would be like this. To be fair, he’d never really imagined going into space at all, because he loved Zhoraan and saw no need to leave his home world, but even so….
A shuttle had come directly to Lirzhan and Alexa’s homestead to retrieve him. On board were Nalzhir and several silent men Zhandar assumed must be guards. Why Nalzhir had them there, Zhandar wasn’t sure, because they only accompanied them to another, much larger ship that they docked with in the dark spaces just outside Zhoraan’s solar system. Zhandar was handed over to the newcomers, and then Nalzhir and his escort departed in the shuttle, presumably to return to their own world.
The new ship was manned entirely by Gaians, but they clearly had no official loyalties to anyone. Their vessel was unmarked, and they were dark gray jumpsuits with no badging, no patches, none of the various identifying accoutrements he had heard the Consortium military and its adjuncts so loved to place on their uniforms. Their leader, a man with skin almost as black as Zhandar’s own, had introduced himself only as Ejiro, informed Zhandar that they would reach the space station’s system in approximately eight and a half standard hours, then disappeared back into the cockpit.
There were fifteen of the soldiers or commandos or whoever they were. None of them seemed inclined to speak, although Zhandar noticed one or two giving him sideways glances when they thought he wasn’t looking. He couldn’t blame them; he doubted either of them had seen a Zhore this close up before. Not that there was much to see. Even so, behind a layer of steely self-control that was admirable for a human, he could still sense ripples of curiosity, and even unease. Not about the mission, per se, but merely to be involved in something that involved such secretive aliens. Apparently infiltrating a secret Consortium base was all in a day’s work for them, but to have a Zhore on board their ship? That was something else entirely.
Conversation with any of the men seemed to be out of the question, so Zhandar had to content himself with merely looking out the window, which was interesting at first. The stars had never seemed brighter, and the other planets in the Zhoraani system were like gleaming jewels in shades of gold and pearlescent white and rusty red.
Then the ship shifted into subspace, and the colors outside the window were no longer quite so lovely, but seemed to shift and shimmer into shades that made his stomach want to turn. He pushed the button to lower the shade. Across the way, one of the soldiers cocked an amused eyebrow but didn’t say anything.
Well, I suppose you are used to going into space, but I am not. And though Zhandar had read brief accounts of what travel through subspace was like, those accounts did not come anywhere close to describing what it was actually like when experienced for yourself. For many reasons, he would be very glad when this journey was over.
Oddly, he dozed, probably because he had only slept for half the night the evening before. Just as well, because otherwise the journey would have seemed twice as long as it already did. The shudder of the ship as it dropped out of subspace woke him. All around, the soldiers seemed to have gone on the alert, checking and double-checking their weapons, eyes now hard, intent.
Zhandar wished he had similar preparations that he could occupy himself with. But he was only a passenger here, allowed to come along because apparently no one thought he would be too much in the way. Well, and probably because Alexa had insisted on it. Even a squad of mercenaries might be intimidated by a woman like her.
The next moment, Ejiro emerged from the cockpit. Now he wore a flat black cap on his bald head. His hand rested on the sidearm in the holster he wore, but he looked relaxed and calm, with no hint of worry about what they were facing.
“We wait here,” he said.
“Wait?” Zhandar demanded. “Wait for what?”
“You think we were going to go in there all guns blazing?” Ejiro returned, looking singularly unperturbed. He had a soft singsong accent, one that under other circumstances, Zhandar might have found soothing. Now it just seemed to grate on his nerves. “They’re sweeping the system. This ship has no clearance. We’ve got to wait for the supply shuttle to show up. It’ll come out of subspace close to here, outside the gravity well and beyond the range of their scans. We take the shuttle and use that to go in. It’s already got the clearance. Understand?”
“Yes,” Zhandar said, although he wasn’t happy about the delay. To think that Trinity was probably less than an hour away, and yet they had to sit here and wait….
“Good,” Ejiro said. “They won’t be expecting us — they’re just civilians, makin’ a run to a place that isn’t supposed to exist. And they’ll be confused an’ worried when we I.D. ourselves as a GDF vessel. It’ll be over before they even know what’s happening.”
Zhandar had to hope so. Then again, Jackson Wyler had sent this team because he trusted them to do what was necessary. They had to have a good deal of experience with this sort of thing. How precisely they’d acquired that experience, he had no idea, but he was finding that there were a good many things he had no idea about. Zhoraan had sheltered him well. Perhaps too well.
The minutes ticked by. Or at least Zhandar assumed they did. There was no chronometer visible in the cabin. All he could do was sit there, silent and tense, and force himself to wait to see what happened next.
Then the ship shuddered. Not the same sort of shudder as when she’d emerged from subspace, but a sharp jolt. Zhandar grasped the hard edge of his seat to keep himself from sliding forward, but none of the men around him so much as reacted.
“Got her,” Ejiro said with some satisfaction.
“Got her…how?” Zhandar asked.
“Just like reelin’ in a fish,” Ejiro replied with a chuckle. The men around him seemed to get the joke, because they nodded, and a few even smiled.
Well, they might all understand, but Zhandar was even more mystified. Seeming to take pity on him, Ejiro said,
“Tractor beam. Small one. Only works on ships the same size as this one, or smaller. But it gets the job done.”
So such things actually existed? “How — ” Zhandar began, but Ejiro held up a hand.
“No time. It’s experimental. Let’s just say a friend gave it to me.” His expression sobered, and he went on, “Team Alpha, handle it.”
Half the strike team headed toward the back of the ship,
where the access hatch was located. They weren’t wearing pressure suits, so Zhandar wondered what they actually planned to do. But then there was a hollow thunk, and the ship shivered again, although more faintly this time.
“What…?”
This time, Ejiro stopped Zhandar with a shake of his head. “You ask a lot of questions, Zhore. We pulled the shuttle up against us so the team can take the umbilical to go over there. They’ll have it all handled in less than two minutes standard.”
That sounded like an optimistic estimate to Zhandar, but he didn’t bother to protest. And it seemed that Ejiro knew exactly what he was talking about, because in a remarkably short amount of time later, one of the strike team members reappeared in the passenger compartment.
“All handled, sir,” he told his commander. “Four crew members, all subdued and taken to the holding area.”
“Excellent. I’ll bring the passenger over.”
By “passenger,” Zhandar assumed Ejiro meant himself. Good. He’d worried that he might be left behind on the commandos’ ship, but apparently he would be allowed to ride along on the hijacked supply vessel, even if he couldn’t actually set foot on the space station.
“What are you going to do with the captives?” he asked. If they had been actual Consortium personnel, he might have been less concerned about their fate. But they were only subcontractors, here to do what they thought was a simple job. They didn’t deserve to meet with any misfortune because of that.
“Not to worry,” Ejiro replied with a chuckle. “We’ll give them back their ship, soon as we’re done with it. A’ course, they’ll have to explain to their bosses what happened here, but that’s no concern of mine.” The amused glint left his dark eyes, and he went on, “A’right, then. Time to go. Step lively, and remember to stay out of the way.”
With that, Ejiro was moving toward the rear of the ship, heading for the umbilical that connected them to the captured vessel. Zhandar did as he was told, following the Gaian, with more of the commandos bringing up the rear. Although he was willing himself to be calm, he could feel his heartbeat speeding up. So much closer now. Things were falling into place. In less than an hour, Trinity would be in his arms again. He would have to apologize, tell her how wrong he’d been to turn away and be so unforgiving.
And then he’d have to hope that she would be more forgiving than he.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
After focusing on the station for the better part of an hour, Trinity thought she had a fairly clear idea of where everyone would be at any given time. The only wild cards, really, were Gabriel and Blake; the rest of the station’s staff seemed to stick to their set routines. Even the guards, who moved around the hallways rather than staying in one place, had patterns to their movements that were easy enough to detect, once she had concentrated on those movements for a little while and then filed them away for future reference.
All right. Everyone present and accounted for. Now came the hard part.
This was something Trinity hadn’t attempted for years, mostly because the implications of her actions had scared the hell out of her, even as a teenager who’d at first was only looking to have some fun. Back then, she’d been invited to a party, but her mother, in a rare fit of responsibility, had said Trinity couldn’t go because she’d caught wind that the party-thrower’s parents were traveling, and therefore “anything” could happen.
Acantha Knox had probably been right about that. But Trinity, only wanting to fit in, had railed against her mother’s intractability. And then she had an idea.
For the past five years, ever since she’d turned twelve, she’d been able to see into people’s thoughts, sometimes in a distressingly detailed way. Doing so didn’t require any great effort on her part. In fact, it was harder to keep their thoughts out of her own mind rather than to look into the thoughts of others.
But what if she used the power of her mind to actually force someone to do something?
She’d sat on her bed and thought as hard as she could at her mother, You want to let Trinity go to the party. It’s okay if she goes to the party.
And so on.
Less than an hour after that particular experiment, Acantha Knox had appeared at the doorway to her daughter’s room and had said, somewhat waspishly, “All right, you can go. But you need to be back here by eleven.”
Ecstatic, Trinity had jumped up from her bed and hugged her mother. And she’d gone to the party, which was awful, because there was absolutely no supervision, and everyone got more or less drunk, and Bradley Lassiter cornered her in the bathroom and tried to stick his tongue down her throat. Trinity had escaped home well before her eleven o’clock curfew, feeling chastened. Her mother was already in bed, apparently trusting that Trinity would be back when she had promised.
Which she had been, but at the same time, guilt began to assail her. She’d basically reached into her mother’s mind and made her do what she, Trinity, wanted. And that was just wrong, on so many levels that Trinity didn’t even want to count them.
She’d never reached into someone’s mind in that way again.
Well, until now.
She decided to make Blake her puppet, for two reasons. One, like Gabriel, he seemed to have the clearance to go wherever he wanted on the station. No one would question his coming to her room, because he’d already done so on Gabriel’s orders. Second, she’d reached into his mind before. She knew how to get past his defenses. But because she’d never mentioned this one particular facet of her talent to anyone, she also knew Blake wouldn’t be expecting her to pull anything like this.
Closing her eyes again, Trinity let her thoughts range out through the station. It was getting late in their artificial day — her evening meal had been brought to her hours ago — and so she knew Blake would be in his rooms. Hopefully not jerking himself off with his latest VR girlfriend, but if that turned out to be the case, she’d just have to shake him out of it, disgusting as that notion might be.
Luckily, though, he was just closing down his computer for the night. He hadn’t begun to get ready for bed, which meant he was still dressed. Even better. This would be easier if she didn’t have to make him jump through a lot of hoops before he even got out the door.
She let herself sink into his thoughts, which, thank God, were mostly innocuous right then. Whether he should hit Gabriel up for a raise, now that the whole Trinity Knox thing seemed to have worked out pretty well. Or, failing that, at least get an extended leave someplace where he could lie on a beach and try his luck with some real women, the kind he could have fun with for a week or two, no strings attached.
It was a tiny seed she planted. Just the suggestion that he needed to go out and check on Trinity. She’d been acting a little strange, and although it seemed as if she was okay with having that Zhore embryo removed, maybe it was better to check that she didn’t do anything drastic, especially with the supply ship arriving with the surrogate in less than an hour….
Blake got up from his desk and moved to the door, then let himself out. His rooms were located two levels above Trinity’s, so he went to the lifts and summoned one. It seemed to take an excruciating amount of time before the elevator arrived. Eventually, though, the lift gave a half-hearted bing, just before the door opened.
At that hour, the elevator car was empty. Trinity knew she didn’t have a lot of time, though, because one of the guards was due to sweep her floor in approximately five minutes, and she needed to have Blake get her out of there and on her way to the station’s hangar before the guard appeared.
But in less than a minute, he was on her level, walking down the corridor to her room. She got up from her bed and went over to the sofa in the little sitting area, then turned on the vid. It was late, but not so late that he should think it strange that she was still up and watching a show.
The door chimed, and she said, “Come.” That wasn’t too bad. Her voice hadn’t shaken at all.
Blake came in, looking both sort of blurry and unfocus
ed, and yet cheerful. “Hey, Trinity.”
“Hey, Blake,” she replied. “Did you need something?”
“I, uh….” His words trailed off, and he shook his head. “I thought I did. But now I can’t remember what it was.”
She gave what she hoped was a sympathetic nod. “That’s too bad. Why don’t you come sit down and watch the vid with me? Maybe that’ll help you remember.”
“Um…sure.” He came toward her and then settled himself down on the couch.
“Comfy?”
“Yeah.”
“You know, if you don’t like this show, you can change it.” That was the tricky part. She needed to leave him here so she could head out to the hangar, but she also knew she couldn’t devote the entirety of her concentration to keeping him rooted in this spot. Once she was roaming the hallways, she’d need to focus as well on making sure she avoided the guards.
“Oh, okay. Thanks.” Blake turned away from her and directed his next words to the vid unit. “Scarlet Dawn, episode forty-seven.”
Somehow Trinity managed to prevent herself from rolling her eyes. Scarlet Dawn was an extremely bloody serial that focused on the exploits of a crack team of GDF special ops. The violence probably wasn’t the only reason Blake enjoyed the show — one of the leads was a demolitions expert with enormous boobs.
Whatever floats your boat, Blake, she thought then, before saying, “Well, you have fun with that. I need to check on something. Okay?”
“Okay,” he said absently, attention already focused on the screen. Trinity supposed she couldn’t blame him too much — those breasts were pretty distracting, and she wasn’t even attracted to women.
As Blake’s eyes seemed to glaze over, Trinity got up from the sofa and tiptoed out the door. He didn’t stir, and she murmured a silent thank-you to the universe. One part of her mind was still hovering over his, just in case he should rouse himself from his stupor enough to realize that their valuable captive had just slipped out from under his nose.
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