Forbidden Worlds - Box Set (32 page)

Chapter
5

The urge to track down Fletch and tear off his clothes crept up on Talia while she wandered through the bowels of the pod carrier.

It started with an itch at the back of her neck. Her coverall seemed to become more confining by the moment, and her nipples hardened and began to ache for his rough touch. Sweat broke out across her brow when she allowed herself to remember how good he’d been last night.

Relentless and obedient by turns, he’d given her everything she’d asked for and more. What harm, really, would there be in a repeat performance?

“No.” She started with a simple, firm statement of fact. “It’s the U-4EA. Get over it. Get over him.” She flung herself deeper into the dim corridors below decks, and a wave of relief washed over her when she found herself standing before a door marked BRIG.

The word had been written in black ink, scrawled under the painted symbols that most likely represented the Mogarthan equivalent. “Perfect.” A cell was exactly what she needed. That would keep her away from Fletch and his magnificent body until these urges wore off.

She let herself into the brig, which was surprisingly large for such a small ship. Apparently the Mogarthans liked to take prisoners.

There were four cells. Three empty and one occupied by the pod captain. The slaver.

Talia tried to back up before the sleeping Mogarthan female awoke, but her movements attracted the prisoner’s attention.

Stretching her four arms at once, the alien female rolled to a sitting position on the narrow cot in her cell. She blinked large, languid eyes at Talia and then began to sob.

“Oh…thank Ertema you’ve escaped, little one. Come closer. Let me look at you! Have they hurt you? What have they done to the others?”

Talia squinted at the Mogarthan. Her work as a scout kept her isolated most of the time, so she’d had little contact with the warrior race. This female was large, broader in shoulder than Fletch, tall by the look of her massive legs and dressed in a coverall that showed generous portions of her four breasts through strategic cuts in the fabric. Long gray hair hung down in surprisingly delicate braids around her shoulder which heaved with her sobs. She wiped fat tears from her eyes with several thumbs while she waited for Talia’s reply.

“I…didn’t escape. They let me out.”

“Of course they did. Dogs. All males are dogs. They’ve taken advantage of your inebriated state no doubt?” The Mogarthan rose and hobbled to the bars of the cell. She seemed to be in pain. “Captain Kreth-Regana, little one. I’m a leader of the Mogarthan Anti-Slavery Movement.”

Right. Was it possible for a Mogarthan to sound utterly sincere? Talia backed up. “I shouldn’t be in here. I’m going to leave now—”

“No! Please, don’t go yet. Can you get me medicine from the infirmary? I need something for the pain.” The female shifted her stance to reveal a vicious wound in her thigh. “I pleaded with him, but the human refuses to believe I’m not the owner of this ship. He thinks I’m a slaver.” She spat on the floor of her cell to emphasize her disgust with the term. “The human wouldn’t believe me when I told him I was the one who rescued this ship. You were all on your way to Camilax—the slave planet—to be placed in the games—played in the arenas until you died from exhaustion.”

Talia pursed her lips and managed to resist the urge to cross her arms over her chest. Hadn’t Fletch told her the Mogarthan had refused to reveal the ship’s intended destination?

“Camilax?”

“Yes. The arenas are known throughout Mogarthan territory for their brutality. Games of sex—the winners given to the highest bidders for their unrestricted use. The sex trade is a shame my people have borne for centuries. Only a few of us are brave enough to try to put an end to these barbaric practices.”

“Well, I’m sure if you explain that to Earth-Sec…” Talia’s back connected with the door of the brig, which wasn’t quite far enough away from Kreth-Regana’s cell. The Mogarthan’s long arms reached through the bars, and she brushed trembling fingers over Talia’s arm. “Please, little one. Help me. Can you just get me the medicine I need to stop this pain? The human has ignored me. He’s left me here alone for days, hungry and bleeding.”

None of this made sense. Why would Fletch mistreat his prisoner? Even if she was a slaver, she deserved medical attention and food. “I’ll see what I can do.” The wound on the female’s leg did look angry and untended. Surely there had to be some rudimentary first aid supplies available in the ship’s infirmary.

Kreth-Regana looked hopeful. “In the infirmary, the green syringes in the case nearest the door are for pain. In the back cabinet, near the floor, you’ll find the antidote to the drug—small red tablets. Take some, then the male won’t be able to command you to his will any longer.”

Talia raised a brow. “He told me there was no antidote.”

The Mogarthan made a sound halfway between a chuckle and a snort. “You sexed him, then? More than once, I gather. Why would he tell you about an antidote?”

Damn him again. If the Mogarthan was right, Fletcher Gray’s next date was going to be with the wrong side of an airlock.

Oddly, the desire to watch him depressurize battled with memories of him rising above her in the throes of passion. He’d been gentle with her, loving at times, and then powerful and demanding. She’d loved every minute of…

“I’ll see what I can do. If you’re telling the truth, the Human is going to wish he’d never been born.”

Talia stormed out of the brig and, after charging down a dead end corridor, finally oriented herself and headed back toward the more familiar parts of the ship, cursing Fletcher Gray every step of the way.

* * * *

He refused to admit that he missed her. After all, Fletch usually worked alone— Ganymede’s dismorphic presence notwithstanding, of course.

Nevertheless, by midday-cycle, Fletch found himself scanning the ship for Talia. He located her in the infirmary, depicted on the screen by a red dot moving quickly around the small room. He wondered if she was sick. Did U-4EA have any unpleasant side effects besides near constant arousal?

Ganymede’s silhouette crossed the bridge in front of him, distracting him from his task. “Problem?” the Metrian asked.

“Talia’s in the infirmary. Maybe you should go check if she’s all right.” He wanted to go himself, but he figured she would accept an alien’s presence more easily than his own. He could have simply used the ship’s intercom, but then she’d know he was tracking her movements.

“Will do.” As quickly as he appeared, Gan faded from view. One of the perks of being largely incorporeal was that Gan could phase shift through the decks as well as the bulkheads and reach any part of the ship in a matter of seconds.

Even that short span of time was too long for Fletch. If Talia was ill, he wanted to know about it. In fact, he felt responsible for it. The other women still floating in the U-4EA pods would at least have the mining colony’s medical staff to help them with any non-sexual side effects of the aphrodisiac. Talia was on her own.

“Gan?” He took the chance and called his partner on the intercom, hoping he sounded nonchalant.

“Not here.”

“Don’t play games, Gan…oh, you mean she’s not in the infirmary anymore?”

“Gone.”

Fletch checked the scanners. Why did it matter, after all? If Talia wanted to avoid him, he should just let her do that. Despite himself, he let his gaze wander back to the scanner. The red dot representing Talia seemed to be heading toward the bridge now.

Ah. So she couldn’t stay away for long, could she?

Relieved that she didn’t appear to be ill, he laced his fingers behind his head and waited for her to arrive.

* * * *

Just as Kreth-Regana had said, Talia found green syringes in the cabinet in the infirmary and a heavy bottle of red pills tucked away on a lower shelf.

Armed with both, she stalked toward the bridge to confront Fletch after a brief stop in the brig. She’d get some answers or he’d get a close-up view of the
Xector’s
hull from the outside.

She found him lounging in the captain’s chair when she arrived, daring to look smug. Of course he’d been expecting her to seek him out again. He’d been sitting here waiting for her to need him again.

She dropped the bottle of Mogarthan pills in his lap, and he grunted with the weight of it. “What the—”

“Is this the antidote to U-4EA? The one you told me didn’t exist?” She wished she could read Mogarthan script.

Fletch’s blue eyes widened, and his fingers curled around the pill bottle. “Um…these are lead tablets…Mogarthan dietary supplements. You didn’t take any, did you?”

“No.” She raised an eyebrow. “Not yet. But how do I know you’re telling the truth? I can’t read Mogarthan.”

“Gan?” Fletch sat forward, the pill bottle cradled in his lap. “Ask him. He wouldn’t lie to you.”

“But you would? Kreth-Regana said she’s part of the anti-slavery movement. Why do you have her locked up in the brig with no food and no medical attention?”

“You’ve been in the brig?” He looked nervous. She had him now, and she planned to haul a complete confession out of him. If only she could fight the desire to climb in his lap and kiss him.

“You didn’t think I’d go there, did you?”

Fletch squinted at her. “I didn’t think you knew where it was. What did Kreth tell you?”

Talia withdrew one of the green syringes from the pocket of her coverall. She’d already given one to the Mogarthan captain, who seemed eternally grateful to get some relief from her pain. She brandished the sharp-tipped instrument at Fletch. “She told me the destination of the ship. Something you said she was trying to hide. Now, why would she do that?”

Fletch put his hand up in a calming gesture that did nothing to assuage Talia’s anger. “Maybe because she’d have to realize by now that I’d be able to extract the information from the computer, and because you’re nothing more to her than cargo and she doesn’t see you as a threat.”

“Even so…” Talia hesitated. His reasoning made sense, but it didn’t explain his harsh treatment of the prisoner. The Mogarthans were a fierce race, but they were not generally antagonistic to humans from what little Talia knew of them. Their slave trade notwithstanding, they’d even aided humans during the war, and were considered allies, albeit ones who preferred to keep to themselves. “You left her in the brig with no food or medical supplies.”

“Mogarthans eat once a month. She’ll be in custody with Earth-Sec before she’s hungry again, and I was in a lot worse shape after I captured her than she was.”

“What about her leg? She had a bleeding gash—”

Fletch held up his hands, cutting her off. “In the middle of her right thigh?”

“Yes.”

“That’s not a wound. That’s her…um…genitalia.”

Talia’s jaw dropped, and a slightly sick feeling swept over her. “Oh…so why did she want pain medication?”

Fletch surged forward then, dropping the pill bottle. He snatched the syringe from Talia’s hand. “You gave her one of these for pain?”

Talia nodded, uncertain now, and a little frightened by the suddenly wild look in Fletch’s eyes.

“Gan!” He yelled to the seemingly empty bridge. “Can you hear me?”

In response, the bridge plunged into darkness.

Beneath Talia’s feet, the deck lurched, sending her sprawling. Utter silence followed, broken after a few moments by Gan’s distant voice.

“Dead meat.”

“Oh, fuck, you said it, partner.”

Talia sensed Fletch’s movements. He stumbled past her in the darkness as she felt around for the edge of the captain’s chair and tried to pull herself up. “What’s happening?”

“Do you hear that?” his disembodied voice asked.

“What? I don’t hear anything.”

“Kreth shut off the compressors. She stopped the ship, and cut off life support to the upper decks. When Gan said ‘dead meat’ he meant that’s what we’re going to be in a few hours.”

“How could she escape?” Talia searched the darkness for the faint outline of Fletch’s body. She found him kneeling by a storage compartment. Before he responded, an orange glow flared to life in his hands. The palm-torch leant a sinister cast to his features, but at least it illuminated a portion of the bridge.

He seared her with a look. “How? That’s easy. You gave her a hormone boost that turned her into a him and tripled her strength.”

“Me?”

“That green syringe. Those aren’t pain killers. They’re chromosome suppressants. Didn’t you know Mogarthan’s can change sex?”

“How would I know that?” Was he serious? This was her fault?

Fletch shrugged as he crossed the bridge. “I don’t know. You seem to be an expert on Leonid sex habits. Why not Mogarthan’s, too? Gan! Gan, where are you?”

There was no reply from the Metrian. Talia gaped while Fletch flipped switches on the
Xector IV
’s control console. “Damn. She cut off the intercom.”

“Gan knows where we are. I’m sure he’ll be all right.”