Bringing Stella Home (8 page)

James squeezed his fists, driving the
blood from his knuckles. He didn’t know what to say, so he ignored
his father and turned all his attention to the automated log, eyes
scanning the record of the ship’s activity in the moments
immediately before and immediately after the first moments of the
invasion.

“
There is a chance,” his
father continued, “that they docked with an outbound ship and
escaped the fighting. It’s a small chance, but not impossible. If
that’s the case, they’re probably somewhere on the Karduna-Gaia
Nova starlane with the rest of the refugees. They won’t be able to
return until the war is over, but at least they’ll be under the
protection of the Gaian Imperial Navy.” He paused. “But James, it’s
much more likely that they were killed or captured.”

“
Even if they were
captured,” James muttered, “there’s got to be some way to get them
back.”

“
How? The Hameji never
trade prisoners. Even if they did, what do you have to
trade?”

James said nothing. His father
sighed.

“
James, please listen to
me. You’ll only torture yourself if you keep believing that they’re
still alive. They’re gone, and there’s nothing we can do except
pick up the pieces and move on with our lives. I know it’s
difficult, but—”

“
There,” James said,
pointing triumphantly to the screen. “That’s it.”

“
That’s what?”

“
Proof that Ben and Stella
weren’t on the surface when the Hameji attacked.”

His father frowned and peered at the
screen while James triumphantly folded his arms. A grin spread
across his face as his father’s eyes narrowed.

“
What is this?”

“
The network registry. See
that? Stella’s wrist console accessed the bridge computer two
minutes and thirty-six seconds after the announcement declaring the
Hameji invasion. If the shuttle was making re-entry at that time,
she wouldn’t have been able to access the network.”

“
That doesn’t prove
anything,” his father said softly. “They couldn’t have—”

“
Can’t you see?” James
said, unable to contain his excitement. “Ben and Stella were in
orbit when the attack happened,
not
on the surface. They’re still alive!”

“
We don’t know that,” his
father argued. “Son, I—”

“
No, Dad, they’re alive—I
know it. I can feel it!”

“
And if they didn’t escape?
If they were captured?”

James drew in a long breath. “Then one
way or another, I’m going to get them back.”

* * * * *

Stella winced with pain as the
soldiers marched her down the empty corridor. Their gloved fingers
dug into her bare arms, exacerbating her already painful bruises.
She struggled to keep pace with them.

Up ahead, the corridor ended in a T
with another. The soldiers turned right, toward a dead end—no, a
door.

A door that could only be an
airlock.

Stella’s eyes widened, and fear shot
through her like electricity. Kicking and screaming, she tried
desperately to break free. She managed to kick the soldier on her
left, breaking free of his grip. Before she could escape from the
other, however, he grabbed her around the waist and lifted her
bodily off the floor. She thrashed about with her arms and legs,
but he squeezed her stomach, making it difficult for her to
breathe. Somewhere ahead she heard the hissing sound of the airlock
door opening. A blast of cold air hit her bare skin.

“
No!” she screamed. “Not
the airlock!”

She managed to grab hold of the edge
of the door as they dragged her in, but the soldiers easily pulled
her loose. Together, they dumped her unceremoniously onto the cold
metal floor. Before she could scramble to her feet, they were gone.
The door hissed shut behind them.

“
No!” she screamed again,
pounding on the door even though she knew they wouldn’t be able to
hear her. Out of sheer terror, her muscles gave out and she
collapsed on the floor. The air was cold and had a stale, coppery
taste to it. She took in a deep breath and stared fearfully at the
opposite door, fully aware that it could open at any time and send
her flying naked into the void.

It didn’t open, however. One moment
passed into another, and nothing happened.

Slowly, fearfully, she glanced around
the room. Like most airlocks, it was small and windowless—the
walls, floor, and ceiling were plain steel. The floor was cold to
the touch and hard against her bare skin. She hugged her chest and
shivered, then noticed a pile of burlap lying about an arm’s length
away from her.

Clothes?
she wondered, picking it up. To her surprise, it
was a one-piece tunic.

She hesitated for only a second before
putting it on. The fabric was rough against her skin, but that
hardly mattered—after standing naked for so long, any sort of
clothing was a comfort. She closed her eyes and leaned against the
wall, taking a few moments to calm her troubled
thoughts.

So they’re not going to
kill me,
she realized. If they were, why
give her clothing? No, they wanted her alive. But why?

Ben. She had to find him—he could help
her. But was he on this ship? He hadn’t been in the main hangar
bay—hadn’t responded when she’d called out for him.

A lump rose in her throat, but she
forced it down. She couldn’t afford to let her emotions overwhelm
her.

Think. If they’d brought her to an
airlock, they probably wanted to transfer her—send her to a new
ship. Maybe the same ship as her brother? Her heart surged, but she
shook her head. No, she couldn’t count on that.

One thing was certain, though: She had
to escape.

She drew in a deep breath and stood
up. Her legs were a bit shaky at first, but she soon recovered her
strength.

The only way out of this place was
through the two doors on either side of the room. Stella tried the
one she’d come in through, but it was locked from the outside. As
for the other door, she had no desire to breathe vacuum, so she
left it alone.

They’re keeping me
here,
she realized—but why here in the
airlock? Obviously, another ship was coming to pick her up—but
where would it take her? The question gnawed at her brain, and she
paced nervously across the floor. Within a short while, her feet
were numb from the cold.

Where had they taken her in the first
place? Was she still in the Karduna system? If she could get to a
window, she might be able to tell from the arrangement of the
stars. As a little girl, she’d memorized all the home
constellations and knew what they looked like when she was out of
the system. As soon as she found a window, then, she had to get a
good look at the stars.

Thinking about the constellations made
her think of home—of her mother and father, and James. Another lump
rose in her throat, this one much harder to suppress. Were they all
right? Had they survived the invasion? Or were they—

No, she couldn’t allow herself to
think about that now. Later—there would be time later. When she had
a better idea where she was and what the Hameji had in store for
her, she would plan her escape and get back to them. For now,
though, all she could do was wait.

Wait. Stella shivered and hugged her
arms against her chest, sliding against the wall until she was
sitting on the floor again. The burlap sack covered her body, but
it offered her no warmth. If the Hameji kept her here much longer,
she—

The sound of metal groaning against
metal jolted Stella out of her thoughts. The sound was close—close
enough that the floor shook under her bare feet. They were
coming.

* * * * *

Ben didn’t know where he was, where
the Hameji had taken his sister, why he was still naked, or why
they had put a hood over his head. All he knew was that he was
dangling from his wrists and it hurt like hell.

Off to his right, he heard the sound
of a door opening, followed by a cold draft against his bare skin.
Footsteps announced the arrival of his captors. He shivered and
tried again to pull himself up so he could lift the hood off his
face with his throbbing fingertips. The Hameji had clamped
something around his neck, but maybe this time, he could get it
off. His wrists were numb and his arms trembled with fatigue, but
he pumped his legs to give himself a boost—

The crack of a whip sounded
thunderously loud in his ears, followed by a razor-sharp pain that
flared across the flesh of his back. His arms gave out and he
screamed in pain, body arching in agony.

“
What the hell was that
for?”

Another crack sent pain shooting up
and down his shoulder. His arms trembled, and warm sweat began to
form behind his ears and in his armpits. He turned his head, trying
frantically to get a sense of where the blows were coming from, but
the hood made it impossible to see anything.

“
Who are you?” he shouted.
“What do you want with me?”

The whip whistled as it cut through
the air. It seared across his chest and belly, cutting his bare
skin like a knife.

“
Stop!” he cried, his voice
barely coherent. “Stop it! Whatever you want, I’ll—”

His pleading turned to screams as the
whip cracked across his back. At the same time, another blow from a
completely different direction landed against his thigh and
backside. A stream of blood dribbled down his shoulders, tickling
his skin. He thrashed about, trying to break free of his bonds, but
they held firm. Anger turned to panic as he realized how utterly
powerless he was to stop the torture.

“
Wha—augh! Please!
Stop!”

The blows were coming faster now, so
fast that he soon lost count. The pain washed over him, becoming
his only reality. His cries turned to sobs as hot blood dribbled
down his shredded skin, oozing from his wounds.

Then, as abruptly as the beating
began, it stopped.

As Ben caught his breath, the cord
suspending him in the air suddenly came loose. He fell to the floor
with a thud, hands and knees striking hard metal. Rough hands
lifted him by his arms, while others grasped his neck and undid the
clasp holding the hood in place. A moment later, he found himself
squinting in the sudden brightness. Before he had time to look
around, a hand grabbed him roughly by the hair and shoved his face
into a bucket.

The ice-cold water hit his skin like
an electric shock. Without thinking, he opened his mouth and tried
to take a breath, then coughed and spat as he started drowning.
When he tried to jerk himself free, his captors held him down until
his lungs burned for air.

Just when he thought he’d die, the
hand pulled his face out of the bucket. He coughed up water and
gasped for breath, then vomited explosively onto the
floor.

A moment later, his face was in the
water again.

Ben started to panic. He tried to free
himself again, but a heavy blow struck him in the kidney, knocking
the wind out of him. Before he knew what was happening, his lungs
were filled with the terrible, icy water, and he was drowning. His
eyes opened wide and his muscles grew frighteningly weak, lungs
burning as if on fire.

Then he was out again, coughing and
vomiting and gasping for breath all at once. His head spun and he
nearly passed out. He would have screamed, but he didn’t have the
strength.

Why were they doing this to him? What
did they want? When would it stop?

Without a word, the hands lifted him
by the hair and plunged him back into the terrible, icy-cold
water.

* * * * *

“
What are you doing, Son?”
James’s father said as he squinted at the screen, reading over
James’s shoulder.

“
Drafting a bill,” James
said. No point in hiding it.

“
What sort of a
bill?”

“
I’m proposing to head an
emergency search and rescue mission to search for survivors around
Kardunash IV and compile a database of all Colony citizens lost so
that we can—”

“
And how much funding do
you plan to appropriate?”

James took a deep breath. “Five
hundred thousand Gaian credits.”

His father’s mouth turned downward
into a frown. “Half a million? That’s a lot of money for a war-torn
community.”

“
It’s less than one percent
of the operating budget from last year!”

“
And how are you going to
spend it?”

“
I don’t know yet,” James
admitted. “Fuel, supplies, equipment, outsourcing if we need
it—”

“
What kind of
outsourcing?”

“
It’s just a provision,”
said James, hoping his father didn’t question him on that point any
further. If Ben and Stella were prisoners of the Hameji, he’d need
help in order to set them free. The rumors about the Hameji
couldn’t all be true—there had to be
some
way to rescue his brother and
sister.