The only positive? She was better off than Baxer.
After shoving her into the cabin, Baxer had attempted to follow her inside. Sleko and his men grabbed him, then disarmed and informed Baxer that he would be sold into slavery alongside Susa. The trio had dragged a kicking and screaming Baxer off as the cabin door closed.
When Susa was right, she was right—well, almost right. Sleko and his buddies hadn’t killed Baxer, but they had turned the tables on him as soon as they were off the P85 docks.
Baxer was most likely imprisoned somewhere in the bowels of the ship, probably in chains. She’d definitely gotten the better end of the accommodation deal.
While she hated and feared the Dornians with every molecule in her, she had to admire the Dornian group’s astute ability to ascertain so quickly that Baxer was worth less than nothing to his uncle and that ransom money wouldn’t be forthcoming.
Baxer and his mission had been doomed as soon as Goldai entrusted her kidnapping to Dornians. The Umbraxi ruler was a stupid bakking moron. Baxer was merely pathetic.
So far, Sleko and his buddies hadn’t been back to check on her. Thank the One. Though it wasn’t a surprise. They not only had to escape the P85 space dock, but also had to put a good amount of distance between them and the P85 system before Vanni sounded the alert and set the Alliance in pursuit of the mercenaries.
Susa was certain the Mason Freight captain would send help as soon as he was aware she was missing. He’d proven to be very protective of her during the week she’d spent on his ship. Unfortunately, he’d trusted the wrong person with her safety—just as she had.
Her biggest hope was the Alliance, or whoever came after her, would do it quickly—before she was sold. Because she couldn’t escape without help.
While pacing, Susa had also concluded—and resigned herself to the fact—she’d be raped. Her captors would want to sample the merchandise. Pseudo-reptilians weren’t known to deny their base hungers.
She hugged herself as her stomach churned at the thought of their black claws touching her—of them pushing themselves inside her. Everything in her screamed run, but she had nowhere to go. Even if she managed to get out of her small prison and found a place to hide, they’d use their highly developed sense of smell to hunt her down and then they’d punish her for causing them trouble.
Blessed One, she couldn’t breathe. She forced herself to take deep, slow breaths and use her head. She couldn’t even attempt to escape until she was off the ship.
The door lock snicked. She reached out with her empathic sense. A single male’s lust permeated the still closed door. Icy fear slid down her spine and her heart rate soared. No matter how much she told herself she could endure her fate, she really couldn’t.
Pulse pounding in her ears, she eyed the bed where she’d hidden her small supply of weapons. She needed to grab one … now. But even if she managed to kill one of her captors—and she had serious doubts she’d succeed—there’d be two others that she knew of. And she would still have no way off the ship.
Stiffening her spine, she left her weapons hidden, then moved to a chair in front of a small built-in desk and pasted a blank look on her face, the same one she’d used on Tenar when he’d visited her. It had driven the pervert nuts. That wasn’t the result she was going for with the Dornians; she just didn’t want to look weak.
Sleko entered and locked the door behind him. He had something in his hands.
“Clothes off. Now.” He tossed the bundle he carried onto the bed. “Put on. Then we eat. My brothers and I want to see what we sell at Messier-Kelt auction.”
Susa managed to stifle the gasp of horror at his words. The auction he’d named was located at the edges of the Andromeda Galaxy and had been the destination for many of the Prime women and children captured by the Antareans before the Prime had finally chased the enemy out of the Milky Way. The Prime who’d ended up sold at Messier-Kelt were never heard from again.
Dizziness hit Susa hard, and she held onto the desk to keep from falling off the chair.
“You hear, woman?” Sleko wrapped a hand around her throat and lifted her from the chair as if she weighed nothing. He shook her. “Clothes off. Now. You wear what I give. Understand?”
She managed to nod as she gasped for breath. His hand was strong, and his clawed fingers stabbed into her skin, drawing blood.
Grunting his satisfaction, he let her go. She stumbled. He laughed.
Hatred unlike any she’d ever felt had her returning his amused look with an icy glare.
“Brave. You will fight Sleko.” The auto-translator hissed on the sibilant sounds, reminding her that Sleko’s ancient ancestors had evolved from a snake-like lizard. He leaned in and smiled, his sharp fangs glistened under the cabin’s ceiling lights. “I like women to fight. Makes me hard.” He grabbed his large erection through his clothing and grunted. “First food. Then fuck. Change. Now.”
Swallowing her revulsion, she presented what she hoped was a haughty demeanor and then removed her tunic and trousers. She was glad she’d already hidden her weapons.
“Stop,” he ordered as she turned to reach for the bundle of clothing.
Standing naked, she swallowed past the pain in her throat where he’d choked her and focused on a spot on the wall beyond Sleko’s shoulder. While she could avoid his lust-filled gaze, she couldn’t block out his grunts and hisses as he walked around her and examined her body—or the violent, sexual-based emotions pummeling her empathic sense.
Sleko traced the curves of her ass with a single claw. “Very nice. Soft skin.”
Susa winced. Sleko had applied just enough pressure to cause pain, but not enough to draw blood. He wouldn’t want to mar the merchandise too much.
When he finished the circuit, he used the back of a claw to brush the upper curves of her breasts. “Not a virgin. But a Prime sex slave. Worth much.”
“Sex surrogate.” She looked fully into his dirty-yellow eyes. “Not a sex slave.”
He laughed, harsh, coughing sounds. “You will be slave. Soon.” He tipped up her chin and smiled. “I test your skills. Soon. Put on clothes. Enjoy them now. When on sale, clothes gone.” He laughed, then leaned against the desk. “Dress. We eat. You too skinny.” He scanned her body and focused on her breasts. “Not all skinny.” His hacking laugh scraped against her already raw nerves.
Susa turned away to hide the clamor of emotions burning within. A potent mixture of rage, hatred, distaste, fear, and humiliation had her alternately shaking and striving for control. If she started to scream, she might never stop. She clenched her jaw and viewed the pile of what he called clothing. There was a sheer black thong and a matching demi-bra. She sensed a theme—even clothed she’d be exposed. More ominous was the wide belt of supple black leather with metal rings attached to the front, sides, and back. It was a bondage waist cincher. She didn’t want to think about how Sleko planned to use the rings.
Gritting her teeth, she vowed to survive so she could somehow kill the bakking apayebo. The mental threat calmed her roiling emotions somewhat, enough that her hands barely shook as she pulled on the so-called clothing. She turned to face her captor.
Sleko approached and put a lock on the closure of the waist cincher. “This you wear.” He tugged on the belt. “All the time. These”—he touched the undergarments—“only when we eat. You belong to Sleko. For now. Sleko no share. Brothers only look.”
Susa said nothing. What was there to say? She wanted to shove her knife in the kill zone above his nasal holes and between his slitted acid-yellow eyes. But she wasn’t suicidal.
To escape—or be rescued—first, she had to survive.
One thing Susa knew about herself—she was a survivor.
Chapter 6
On the P85 fighter craft
“Looks like your daughter heard correctly.” Damon glanced at Dobrek who piloted the fighter craft, a sleek little number and loaded with every upgrade he’d ever heard of and some he hadn’t. That Dobrek had manage
d to keep the tricked-out craft from being stolen by every dishonest trader, pirate, or mercenary who passed through the P85 space dock said something about the man’s command skill set.
“How so?” Dobrek asked.
“The Dornians aren’t heading for the Perseus Jump Gate.” The Perseus gate was the closest jump gate that would’ve allowed a speedier passage to the Umbraxi solar system.
“My little Cilla is an excellent observer.” Dobrek gave Damon a lop-sided grin. “I keep telling her mother we’re raising a perfect candidate for the Alliance Military black ops branch.”
Damon chuckled. “They’d be lucky to have her.” He rechecked the signals from the three trackers attached to the Dornian ship. “They’re on a direct heading for the twin Andromeda gates, and they’re not sparing the atoms.”
The Andromeda jump gates were located near the Mu Arae system. Andromeda Jump Gate 2 was the Dornians’ most likely goal since it dumped space traffic into the gap between the Milky Way and Andromeda, not too far from the Prime solar system. The gap was outside of Alliance Military and Prime Home Guard control. It would be harder to intercept and stop the Dornian ship if they managed to make it into the gate. The only good news was the Andromeda gates were controlled by the Alliance Military. Jump gate control would be looking for the Dornian ship. But—
“If they realize there’s an apprehend-and-hold alert out for them,” Dobrek said. “They’ll try to muscle through the gate and make for Andromeda at top speed.” Both men knew jump gates could be breached if a ship’s crew were desperate enough. “This Sleko, according to the dossier Wulf Caradoc sent, has professional connections to one of the Antarean crime families that owns a slave auction.”
Dobrek had voiced Damon’s worse fear.
Something nagged Damon, an elusive memory from his days knocking around the galaxy. “Heading for Andromeda 2 is too obvious. Sleko has to know there’ll be an active alert.”
Damon scrolled slowly through the star maps along the current heading of the Dornian ship and finally, he saw it. Every instinct that had kept him alive in the rough and tumble world of the edges of the galaxy sizzled and sparked. “Fuck it. They’re not going to the Andromeda 2 gate.”
“What do you mean?” Dobrek looked over at Damon.
“There’s an abandoned gate on their current heading. DOR 991. Marked as out of commission.”
But it wasn’t.
The time-space continuum anomaly that made a jump gate feasible didn’t go away just because the gate was considered closed. “Out of commission” merely meant the Alliance had shut down a privately managed gate in order to force space traffic to an Alliance-controlled one.
It was all about money and power. Yeah, Damon was a cynic. But then he owned one of the few privately held jump gates in the Milky Way. He was only able to keep it private because the gate was located in the galactic rim and was considered erratic and not profitable. Charybdis was a dangerous gate, but the Alliance was wrong about it not being profitable. Damon never planned to clue them in otherwise.
The Alliance shut-down locks placed on decommissioned gates were computer codes which locked the gate entrance’s physical mechanisms. And the locks were a joke. The codes were easily bypassed, and the trick to doing so was no secret among the pirates, mercenaries, anti-Alliance rebels, and even Alliance black ops teams and contractors.
Hell, he’d even used this “forgotten” gate a time or two when working as a contractor for Alliance Black Ops.
“We have to stop the Dornian craft before it reaches the DOR 991 gate.” Damon put the map up on the helm’s secondary monitor. “If they use it, they’ll make it into the gap and close to Andromeda-controlled space.”
Susa would then be lost, just as many Terran, Volusian, and Prime women and children had been before her. The three largest hominid species in the Milky Way had always been a favorite target for use as sex slaves by the races making up the Andromeda Coalition.
“I’ll contact Wulf Caradoc.” Dobrek keyed a code into his com. “That abandoned gate is in Gold Squadron’s territory. They might have a ship in the area.”
The response came quickly.
“Dobrek? Martin? What’s your status?” The deep voice of Wulf Caradoc had become all too familiar since Damon had left his jump station on the mission to escort, now rescue, Susa.
“We’re about one point five standard hours behind the kidnappers,” Dobrek reported.
“We have you and them on our long-range radar,” Caradoc noted. Before they’d left the P85 orbital dock, Dobrek had provided the tracker information and images from the P85 dock security cameras to Wulf Caradoc, figuring he’d make the kidnapping a higher priority than some unknown person in Alliance Military would. “If they try to use the Andromeda 2 gate, they will be stopped.”
“Caradoc, Martin here. I think they might be heading for the DOR 991 gate. It’s on the same heading and it would be a gate they’re familiar with considering their criminal background. I’m sending you the star map with the jump gate highlighted.”
“No need. I know that gate. Good catch,” Caradoc replied. “The Alliance has changed the codes on the lock-down blocks several times, but someone always hacks them and then the word spreads like an epidemic.” The Prime warrior sounded disgusted, but resigned. “We have two C-class battle cruisers in that sector. I’ll divert a ship to back you up, but you’ll intercept the Dornian ship before our ship can.”
Which meant he and Dobrek would have to harry the Dornians, slow them down, and keep them occupied until their Alliance back-up arrived.
“I’ll divert the other cruiser to guard the access to DOR 991, and they’ll be cutting it close to beat all of you there.”
Again, the underlying truth was he and Dobrek needed to intercept and slow the assholes down until the big guns arrived. Damon cast a glance at Dobrek whose expression showed he’d come to the same conclusion—Susa’s fate rested in their hands.
“At least, we’ll be covered on both gates. My biggest concern,” Caradoc’s tone had changed to a low snarl of a pissed-off predator, “is how to get Susa back from the kidnappers without harming her or causing them to hurt her.”
Damon had the same concern, and it made his hackles rise. Dornians didn’t like to be cornered. The scum-sucking lizards had been known to sacrifice hostages and then attempt to blast their way out of a no-win situation. Not a smart idea since they tended to be under-weaponed as compared to the Alliance Military. The suicidal decision-making was chalked up to the reptilian part of the pseudo-reptilian species. Bluntly speaking, their default response was fight not flight. Higher-brained logic was not a reptilian-hybrid hallmark.
Case in point, the Dornian mercenaries should’ve investigated Susa’s background before taking the job. Her connections with the Prime ruling family and the Alliance Gold Squadron made her more trouble than she was worth.
Of course, if Sleko and his comrades managed to elude the hunters on their tail and make it into the Andromeda gap, then the slimy fuckers’ gamble would pay off.
“Let’s concentrate on keeping them from leaving the galaxy first,” Damon suggested. “Then we’ll deal with how to get Susa out of their hands.”
“Agreed,” Caradoc said. “I’ve just sent you the battle cruisers’ transponder identifiers so you can track them. They’re proceeding at top speed. Right now, Susa is the top priority in that sector. I, or one of my brothers, will contact you if the situation changes on the Alliance side. Good luck. Caradoc out.”
Disconnecting, Damon sent a prayer to his old flame Dame Fortune to forestall any rebellions in the sector so the Alliance would stay the course or to throw an obstacle in the Dornians’ path for Susa’s sake.
On the Dornian ship
The ship’s dining area was a small, ugly beige room with one long, scarred metal table surrounded by straight-backed metal chairs. Sleko sat across from Susa. His brothers sat one on either side of him. The three of them stared at her as they shoveled food i
n their mouths.
If the food turned out to be as unappetizing as the surroundings and the company, Susa would starve before they could sell her.
Stop the defeatist thinking. Stick to the plan.
She’d eat if she had to choke down every bite. She needed to keep up her strength.
Susa shimmied in the chair in an attempt to find a comfortable position. Her skimpy outfit did nothing to protect her mostly naked bottom from the cold, unforgiving metal beneath her. Not wanting any more of their attention than she already had, she kept her discomfort to herself.
“Eat.” Sleko pushed a plate of food across the table.
“What is it?” Her stomach revolted as she pushed the gray-brown glop around the plate with a spoon.
“Protein.” Sleko took a big bite of his. “Good for you. Much energy. You need later.”
Ugh. Ick. Blech.
Her disgust with both the food and his plans for later must’ve shown on her face, because Sleko glared at her. “Eat. Now. Or Sleko feed you.”
Susa stared at the goo. It hadn’t improved since the first look. The disgusting noises of Sleko’s brothers slurping the crap down as fast as they could exacerbated her feeling of imminent projectile vomiting. But she also didn’t want Sleko force-feeding her.
The only good news was the food hadn’t been drugged. Sleko had served her from the same large bowl he’d taken his portion. The bad news was it hadn’t been drugged—she’d be fully aware as he raped her.
Trying not to inhale, she tasted a small bit of the lukewarm so-called food with the tip of her tongue.
Okay, it was as tasteless as it was unappetizing looking, but it wasn’t horrible. The slimy texture also had the side benefit of sliding down her swollen and bruised throat without causing pain.
As she ate a small bite, Sleko grunted, and his slit of a mouth turned up into what might pass as a snaky smile. “Good, woman. Sleko might keep you—”
One of his brothers, who she’d named Scar because of the long, nasty-looking mark diagonally bisecting his face, slapped his large hand on the table, making all the plates jump and startling a squeak from Susa. “We agreed. Sell Prime whore. Make much money.”
Prime Target Page 7
