by Leslie Chase
Stolen by the Alien Gladiator
A Novel of the Silent Empire
Leslie Chase
Stolen by the Alien Gladiator
Editing by Sennah Tate
Copyright 2018 Leslie Chase
All rights reserved
This is a work of fiction intended for mature audiences. All names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Created with Vellum
Contents
1. Emma
2. Athazar
3. Emma
4. Athazar
5. Emma
6. Athazar
7. Emma
8. Athazar
9. Emma
10. Athazar
11. Emma
12. Athazar
13. Emma
14. Athazar
15. Emma
16. Athazar
17. Emma
18. Athazar
19. Emma
20. Athazar
21. Emma
22. Athazar
23. Emma
24. Athazar
25. Emma
26. Athazar
Epilogue
About Leslie Chase
Sci Fi Romance by Leslie Chase
Paranormal Romance by Leslie Chase
1
Emma
The road stretched out in front of me, an endless dark ribbon lit only by the stars and my headlights. Holding back tears wasn’t easy, but I needed to stay focused, at least until I got to the next motel.
Moving again wasn’t my favorite thing in the world, but at least I was leaving a bad situation behind. And maybe this time, my luck would change, and I’d meet a man worth a damn? A bleak smile crossed my face — that was too much to hope for, on past evidence, but a girl could dream.
Above me, a star shot across my field of vision. Or was it a plane? Hard to tell, but I made a wish anyway. It couldn’t hurt, and I needed a change of luck.
“I wish that my next boyfriend isn’t a cheating dick,” I said aloud into the silence. “I mean, make him handsome and kind and strong too, if that’s not too much to ask. But mainly, not a cheating dick.”
The small car rattled around me, laden down with all my worldly possessions. Come on, don’t let me down now, I thought, gently squeezing the wheel and praying. I really, really couldn’t afford a breakdown out here in the middle of nowhere.
But the car had other ideas. With a spluttering bang, the engine cut out and I drifted to a stop at the side of the road. Great. Fantastic. Just the change of luck I needed.
Thanks a lot, lucky star, I thought, hammering my fists impotently on the steering wheel. I picked up my phone, switched it on, and stepped out of the car to stretch my legs.
The night was strangely silent around me, not at all what I was used to, and the flat desert terrain stretched in all directions. I felt like I was alone in the world.
That feeling only increased when I looked at my phone screen. No service. Great. Fantastic. Why couldn’t anything go right?
I resisted the urge to throw the useless lump of plastic away into the darkness. It wasn’t as though I could afford to replace it, but it was tempting to take my frustration out on something.
Taking a deep breath, I looked up. The night sky was always calming, had been since I was a child. picking out constellations helped calm me and I remembered my father’s voice as he helped me name them. That brought a small smile to my face, and I wiped away my tears. Things would work out.
Somehow.
Another shooting star appeared above me, and I tried to think about a more practical wish. Before I could figure one out though, I realized that it was behaving weirdly. Turning and twisting in the sky.
An airplane, then. Only, I’d never seen an airplane move like that. It seemed to change direction instantly, darting to and fro in the sky.
Maybe I was near some military test site, and this was a top-secret new jet? Or maybe (and I grinned to myself at the thought) it was a UFO. If my phone hadn’t been a piece of shit, I’d have tried to video it, but I knew I’d never pick up anything worth showing anyone.
Whatever it was, its course took the strange light closer to me. Almost directly at me, in fact. I watched, transfixed, as it came closer and closer and…
That’s definitely not a shooting star. It was too big, for a start, and moving too slowly, almost deliberately. Not a plane either. A helicopter? I’d be able to hear that, though, wouldn’t I?
My heart beat faster and I resisted the urge to run off the road and try to get away. Leaving the car and rushing off into the dark sounded like an awful idea.
The temptation only grew as the light approached, slowing down as it came. Definitely a disk, I thought, a saucer shape. A flying saucer…
Nope. I wasn’t ready to believe in aliens. But I didn’t have a better explanation of what I was seeing, either.
I’ll be safer in the car, I thought. Well, I’d feel safer. That was close enough. Fumbling with my keys, I got in and tried the engine. It rumbled, spluttered. Wouldn’t start. Whatever the saucer was, it came to a stop above me, bright light shining down and blinding me as I tried again. My skin prickled oddly as I struggled.
“Come on, come on,” I begged the little car as I turned the key. “You can do it.”
What I expected it to do, even I didn’t know. Outrun a UFO? Seemed unlikely, even under the best conditions. But I tried again, and this time the engine caught. Revved. I stepped on the accelerator, heard the wheels spin, but felt no movement.
No, that wasn’t right. I felt no forward movement. Through the blinding light I saw that I was drifting upward, floating in the pillar of light toward the saucer hanging in the sky above.
My head felt light, dizzy, and I gripped the steering wheel with a desperate strength, as though I could just hang onto it and stay safe. My breathing sped up, my heart raced, and I could barely focus as the saucer swallowed my car and me with it. The light cut out, leaving me blinking for a moment before I could focus on the room around me.
Strange shapes lurked around me in the shadows. Moving closer. Gray creatures, roughly human-shaped, but smaller and with too-large heads.
Oh. It really was aliens. I felt almost relieved as I passed out from the shock and darkness closed around me.
2
Athazar
The darkness swallowed everything around me. Few people had ever been so far from a sun, so close to the empty blackness between the stars. Hyperspace travel meant no one needed to come out here.
Except me, and my prey.
Far from the light and warmth of the inner planets, this was the perfect place to hide illegal business. I’d spent long years working as a raider, taking slaves to shady markets in hidden stations out in the dark. Now that I’d turned on the slavers, I knew exactly where to look for them.
There. In the shadow of a comet, a gigantic ball of ice tumbling through the endless black of space, I saw movement. Someone adjusting course minutely, coming in to land. Which meant my hunch had been right; this comet was a base.
My teeth showed as I gently nudged my ship closer. Using the engines was a risk, my prey might see me, but I needed a better look. And the Shadow Hunter was hard to detect: I’d bought a stealthy ship with this kind of job in mind.
“Is this wise, Athazar?” The ship’s computer had a weary tone. It knew I would not listen, but it had been weeks since I’d had anyone else to talk to. I might as well indulge the machine.
“We both know it isn’t,” I said, carefully squeezing a touch more thrust from my engin
es. Now I’d drift closer, and in a few hours, I’d have a better look at the docking port. “I’ve seen enough to call in a Patrol cruiser and blow that ice ball to pieces.”
“And yet here we are, drifting towards a fight.” The question was implied — why weren’t we retreating to safety? My little hunter ship had nowhere near the weaponry needed to attack a raider base. Even taking on a raider ship would be a big risk. I had a batch of missiles that let me punch above my weight, but one hit on my small craft would be the end.
“I don’t just want to shut down the base, I want more,” I growled, hands tightening on the controls. “The patrons, the people who fuel the slave trade, they’re the ones I want. The raiders may be monsters, but there will always be more of them as long as someone will buy the slaves they catch.”
“But those buyers won’t be here,” the computer pointed out, sounding patient and reasonable and infuriating. For the hundredth time, I regretted buying one with a voice — the AI was useful, but the advice was irritating.
It didn’t help that the AI was right.
“There will be leads,” I insisted, looking at the scanners. The comet was big enough to hold a sizable base, and as we drifted around it, the dock came into view. Recessed into the ice, it was impossible to tell how many ships were in there. There was enough space for a lot of them, though.
Good. Lots of slavers to kill.
My guilt hung around me like a cloud, and the best way to deal with it was to deal with them. I’d suffered at the hands of slavers, and then I’d turned around and become one myself. There was only one way I could make up for that.
But for all I knew the base was empty, and shutting it down would catch only the single raider I’d seen approaching. That wasn’t acceptable. Oh, sure, the Anti-Slavery Patrol would call it a victory. One less base for raiders to retreat to meant fewer raids on the uncontacted worlds the Patrol guarded. And the comet base would have its own staff.
I wouldn’t settle for that kind of minor victory. This was a base on the edge of the Silent Empire, and that meant that I was close to being able to hurt the bastards that had torn my life apart. Dealing with a few small-time raiders and maintenance crew wouldn’t sate my need for revenge and atonement.
It was the slave owners themselves I wanted to catch, the rich and powerful people who profited from the raids. I could wait for days if I had to. Perhaps I’d even be lucky enough to get evidence against the one slave owner I hated most of all. The one who’d killed my family and ruined my life.
My revenge on Princess Tlaxanna was long overdue.
Another tiny nudge of the jets changed my course to go closer. I ignored my AI’s protests, staring at the screen and trying to piece together how busy the station was.
There was power down there, and life support. Carefully shielded, but I was close enough to see the signs. And at least one ship. Was one enough? Would it still be here when the Patrol arrived? I couldn’t tell. It would take days to fetch a cruiser — my ship was too small to hold a hypercom, and without one I’d have to leave the system to send a message.
The Shadow’s AI interrupted my thoughts. “You shouldn’t focus on your hunt so much,” it said. “You know what you need, Athazar? A mate.”
I growled, frustration getting the better of me. The AI had decided it knew what I needed in my personal life, and that was that. Perhaps if I’d nipped this in the bud, but it had started out amusing. Now it was just another irritation.
“I will find one in my own time,” I said. “Stop trying to mother me.”
“You know I’m right,” it said, ignoring my order and making me curse the programmers who’d let it do that. “Your life is incomplete without one—”
“I said leave it alone,” I snapped, interrupting. The thought of finding a mate made me tense up. A partner for the night was one thing, but a mate? No. I wasn’t ready. “I need to heal first.”
“Your scars do not preclude mating,” the AI replied, missing the point entirely. My body had recovered, but the damage my time as a slave had left on my soul would take longer to pass.
Maybe once I had my revenge, I’d be able to think about finding my life mate. Perhaps. I hoped so, but for now, it was out of the question.
And yet, a nagging part of my soul insisted that the computer was right, as annoying as it was. That I needed a female to make my life complete. I snarled, both at the computer and at myself, trying to draw my attention back to the task at hand.
As I pondered my options, the AI let out an alarmed squeak. For a hunter-killer ship, the computer was remarkably easy to scare. Maybe that’s why I’d been able to buy it so cheap.
“What’s the matter now?” I asked, looking up. The screen in front of me lit, showing the sudden appearance of a ship. At least that’s the end of the awkward talk about my personal life.
“It dropped out of hyperspace right on top of us,” the AI said. “They could have collided with us!”
“But they didn’t,” I said, taking the controls and making sure we weren’t in the new arrival’s path. Their sensors would still be down, the transition from hyperspace to realspace always knocked a ship’s systems offline for a little while. We had a moment in which we were invisible.
Which gave me a crazy plan. I bared my teeth in a hungry hunter’s smile and gave the jets a couple of touches pushing us towards the newcomer.
“What are you doing?” the AI demanded. “You’re going the wrong way.”
“Quiet, computer,” I instructed, shrugging off my own doubts. Now was the time for action. “Trust me, I know what I’m doing.”
The AI made a resigned noise and shut up. That was good: I didn’t want to try to explain my bad idea to it. The ship loomed large ahead of me, a converted cargo freighter looking much the worse for wear. A painted sign proclaimed it the Firebearer, but it looked like it carried more rust than flame.
The collision warning lights flashed as I drifted closer, and I saw lights coming on across the ship. It was now or never. Aiming for one of the empty cargo airlocks, I accelerated as fast as I dared. This close, the Shadow Hunter would be easy to spot, stealth systems or no. As soon as the Firebearer’s scanners were online, they’d see me.
Unless… at the last moment I fired the braking thrusters, slowing my approach. The impact rang my small ship like a bell, and if anyone was close to the airlock I’d hit they couldn’t have missed it. But the docking clamps held. I was attached to their ship.
The extra weight ought to be spotted as soon as they started their engines but looking at the condition of the hull I doubted the crew of the Firebearer were that careful about their sensors either. Sure enough, they fired up their thrusters and accelerated toward the comet base without paying any attention to their stowaway.
“There we go,” I said, leaning back in my seat and clasping my hands behind my head. “Perfect.”
Apparently taking that as permission to speak again, the Shadow’s AI protested. “Perfect? Athazar, you’re taking an inordinate risk for nothing.”
“I’ll get a good look at the docks, an idea of who else is there, and a chance to learn more about this ship. How many slaves are out here,” I said. “There’s no telling what we might learn. Maybe even a lead on my enemy.”
An unconvinced sound came from the ship’s speakers. “Athazar, you’re endangering yourself just for the thrill of the risk.”
I thought about that and grinned. Nodded. “That’s right,” I said, enjoying the outraged squawk that got from the AI.
It wasn’t my only reason, but I had to admit the Shadow wasn’t completely wrong either. If I wanted to do more than just shut down a slavers’ port, that meant taking chances. I had debts to repay, and they wouldn’t get done if I didn’t do things like this.
And it was fun. I wouldn’t deny that was part of it.
Outside, the stars were blotted out by walls of ice as the Firebearer moved into the comet’s dock. The ship drifted through an atmosphere shield and the
n we were in, surrounded by breathable if cold air.
Around us, a half-dozen other ships already waited, and my grin turned hungry. Most of them looked like slave raiders, yes, but there were a couple that looked more like wealthy merchant ships. Well maintained and poorly armed for raiding, those had to belong to the buyers. Slave traders picking up victims for the Silent Empire’s nobility to abuse.
That meant a link to my prey might be here.
3
Emma
Waking in the small, cold space was the worst part. My head ached, my mind was fuzzy, and I couldn’t see anything. Couldn’t remember anything.
I tried to move, but that just told me that it wasn’t just my head that hurt. Everything was sore, and I groaned as I struggled to sit up. Collapsed back on the hard metal surface. Lay there, just breathing and trying not to cry.
“Come on Emma,” I said to myself. “You can’t just lie here.”
I wished I could, but I had to know what happened. The last I could remember was… driving? A long dark road? A bright light in the sky? No, it was gone.
Had I been in a crash? That would explain the pain, I guessed. But not where I was. My mind conjured panicked images of me being trapped in the wreckage, under a truck or something.
“No.” I said it out loud, trying to convince myself. “No, that’s stupid. Someone would have found me by now. And anyway, it would hurt more. Right?”
