Kidnapped (18 page)

Ignoring his objections, she sat in his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck, trying to blink away the tears welling up in her eyes, thinking they could at least depart this life together. He held her almost reluctantly, stroking her hair with his own hand, saying softly, "I'm amazed you managed to get in here, and I'm so happy you did. I didn't expect to ever get to see you again. But you have to leave, Baby Doll, you must hurry."

She didn't trust her voice not to break, and she didn't answer; she nuzzled her head against him. Travis tried again, "Go find a life, Sweetie. Maybe you can find a way to get home. I shouldn't have taken you away, and I'm so sorry I dragged you into all of this. I love you so much, but you have to go now."

All the emotions she'd suppressed during the past few weeks were welling up now, and she shook her head and swallowed hard, trying to control herself. Crying had always come easy to her, too easy, but she couldn't afford to do it this time. She needed to talk and think coherently, not break down.

He wouldn't listen to her if she couldn't sound confident, and she was glad her voice stayed steady when she protested, "No, there must be a way. There's always a way."

*****

Travis sighed softly. He still couldn't believe she was there, and he thought of all the things she must have gone through to accomplish it. Every instinct he had was telling him to obey her. He had always obeyed the Alliance, and now he obeyed her, but he knew the place and what they were up against all too well. She must have had the luck of a lifetime to get this far. He tried to say it jokingly, to make her feel better, but it didn't sound good even in his own ears. "No, Sweetheart, maybe if we had more time, but we can't get out of here, even if I chew my arm off."

For a second, he considered the idea of finding something to cut the cursed thing off with. Removing the arm would make the risk of her being blown to atoms smaller, but he'd be useless to her like that. He had overestimated how much time they had. If anything could have been done, it should have been before he ended up in the cell. "It's not possible. You've been here too long. You have to go. Please go."

Tears were trickling down her cheeks, and it was breaking his heart. He felt like he should do something to make her not cry, but there wasn't anything to be done. Her words weren't making it any easier. "You don't understand, you have to get out of here, you have to stay alive. I need you, Travis, I love you, and I need you to stay with me."

He should obey, he needed to obey, but he couldn't. Then, Patricia leaned closer to him again and whispered in his ear, as if instinctively knowing someone could be listening in on them, someone who could use this knowledge in the worst of ways.  "You're going to be a father."

He had never even considered the possibility, and he felt as if she'd struck him physically. He understood the biological theory just fine, but the idea that it could actually happen to
him
had never crossed his mind, and he answered automatically, "I what?" knowing as he said it that it didn't change the facts. He was condemned.

There would be nowhere for him to run. He was out of ideas, and even if he could get out of the cell, they'd find him no matter how hard he tried. They were out of time too; the door was starting to slide open.

He almost threw her to her feet and propped the helmet down over her head, positioning himself between her and whatever horror might enter.

There were three men standing there, uniformed, armed, and relaxed. They expected this to be easy. "Travis 152, Veronica wishes to see you."

The man speaking had a smug look on his face, and Travis was surprised to feel rage rise in him. He wanted to crush the smile, wanted to hit it until it went away.

The men were slowly realizing everything wasn't as it was supposed to, there was someone else in the cell, and the man who had spoken called out, "Hey!" but Travis was faster. He'd been holding the rifle Patricia handed him earlier backwards, and now he used it as a club, attacking them with heart and soul.

He didn't expect her to really run just because he called out to her to do it. She was one of the most headstrong people he'd ever met, and finding a way to get to him all the way in there just proved it. He sometimes wondered if all the people on her planet were like that. This Earth of hers must be an interesting place.

*****

Patricia didn't expect herself to run, but when she saw her lover charge the guards, doing it for her and their unborn child, she knew she had to. She couldn't let him make this sacrifice for nothing. She had never been good at running, but now she did her best, quickly ducking under one of the guards that tried to catch her.

A heavy door was closing off the prison area, and she threw herself down, gliding under it on her stomach, and she knew she was getting hysterical when she wanted to laugh; it seemed too much like something out of a movie. Maybe it wasn't really her, maybe it was a stuntwoman.

She expected someone to follow her, but when she finally dared glance over her shoulder the corridor behind her was empty. She suspected Travis kept them busy, and the thought made her want to wail. Squeezing her eyes shut for a moment, she forced herself to walk slower, to look like she fit in and not like someone fleeing.

Moments later, she reached a main corridor filled with people walking in orderly rows. The walls were so white and the lights so bright she wanted to squint, but she managed to look relaxed and walk in pace with everyone else. She needed somewhere to hide, some time to think, and her eyes darted from side to side.

*****

Travis was putting up the fight of his life, hoping he'd be able to keep them occupied long enough to give her a chance to get away. It was all he could do for her now, and he found a grim satisfaction in the physical pain. He knew for sure he killed one of them, and the second should be dead or dying.

By the time the third actually managed to hit him over the temple with the very same ba'k he'd once used on Patricia, the first day he had her on the ship, he was so wired on adrenaline it took two more blows to render him unconscious.

It took hours before Travis woke up again, finding himself chained to a chair in Veronica's office. His head was pounding and his body was aching, but it didn't seem all that important. A trickle of blood from a wound in his temple wanted to get into his right eye, giving everything an irritating pink hue, but he decided not to care about it. He was surprised to be alive.

Veronica sat behind her desk, pretending to focus on a report on a screen, and neither of them said anything for a long time. Travis's limbs had long since gone numb from the loss of blood flow, but he was ignoring all physical discomforts. He was trying to digest the information that he was going to be a father. The very thought seemed bizarre and unreal to him. If she was still alive, that was, and that thought made him start worrying again.

Eventually, the Supreme Commander flipped the screen down into her desk and turned to face him, and her cold voice seemed frostier than ever when she spoke. "I guess it makes sense that such an insubordinate man like you would go to that godforsaken planet that's hardly even in our records anymore, and find a woman with the nerve to break into my ship. My Ship!"

Shrugging was difficult when pinned down like this, but he managed.

Veronica ignored him, and continued coldly, "Still, I have to admire her audacity. No one has dared try something like that for a long time. I like the spark."

He thought dryly if the only one showing spark, whatever that might be, was a person from a non-alliance planet, it probably had something to do with free will. Patricia's motivation stemmed from emotions that had been completely alien to him too not long ago, emotions that had been allowed to flourish in her, instead of being forcefully suppressed. He knew all about it now, and he would have done exactly the same thing for her. He also knew talking to Veronica was pointless, so he asked flatly, "What do you want?"

She smiled, trying to look sweet and friendly, but mostly resembling a predator with too many teeth, and leaned her chin in the palm of one hand. "Why, my dear, I thought you'd never ask."

A well-manicured finger pressed a switch, and her cool voice ordered whoever was waiting outside, "Bring her in."

Those three words froze Travis's blood; he had been raised and trained to feel fear, to be motivated by fear in everything he did, but he had never been so afraid.

*****

A heavy-handed guard pushed Patricia through a door, and she hollered, "Get your hands off of me! You'll burn in hell, you Nazi pig!" There weren't words in Stax for all those things, but there could be no misinterpreting the spirit.

The room she entered was so white and brightly lit she wanted to squint, and it took a few moments for her to focus her eyes on anything. A woman's voice drifted over through her from the other side of the light. "Look what we found hiding above an inner ceiling. The two of you are so much
trouble.
"

Looking in the direction of the voice, she saw the speaker, clad in a gown so white it blended with the background. The woman was ignoring her, looking at something to the side, and when Patricia followed her gaze, she saw Travis, tied to a very white metal chair. She wriggled free from the guard and ran over to him, wrapping her arms around him. "Are you alright? You're bleeding!"

He mumbled that he was okay, that she shouldn't worry, and Veronica watched them with the look of a contented cat, eventually interrupting coldly, "It's not so much a matter of what they did to him as of what he did to them. I've lost good men today. Good
obedient
men. Now,
Sit Down
!"

That command was sharp enough for even Patricia to look up, and this time she didn't fight when the guard pulled her to her feet and forced her over to a chair.

Only when both her prisoners were seated, and the guard had returned to his spot back by the door, did Veronica finally get up. She walked around the table and leaned against it, measuring them with her eyes, and Patricia felt like she was stalked by the stare of a bird of prey.

"Travis dearest, you asked me what I want. It's very simple. I've tried Travis 151, 153, and 154, and they were even more incompetent and useless than you are. Numbers 156 to 158 were so pathetic I had them executed. I'm beginning to think a man solely motivated by fear won't be able to get me what I need."

She walked up to him, stood behind him and put her hands on his shoulders, bending forward to mumble in his ear, almost sensually.

"William's crew are different, they're like her: passionate, filled with hatred and rebellion. And as misguided as that might be, I need someone willing to work as hard as they do."

Straightening up, she went back to her desk and leaned against it, saying more matter-of-factly. "You will go get them for me. This time you will succeed, and meanwhile, your little girlfriend here will be my... assistant."

Travis mumbled, "No," and when Patricia glanced over towards him, the look on his face frightened her; he seemed to have aged ten years in a few seconds. He met Veronica's eyes and pleaded, "Let her go. You don't need her. I'll cooperate, I'll do what you ask, but you have to let her go."

His commanding officer clapped her hands together and laughed, clearly enjoying herself. "Look what a gallant knight you've become. Who would have thought! You're wrong though, I need her very much. There wouldn't be any motivation for you to obey if I let her go, now would there."

Patricia couldn't quite understand Travis's dread. They were both alive, and he might have a chance to escape this dreadful place, to be free. Veronica leaned over him again, so close that her lips almost touched his cheek, and said softly, "What's it gonna be, Loverboy? Are you going to go to work and have a chance of seeing her again, or should I kill her right now?"

She rose up and stared at him, with a smile tugging at her lips. "You know I'd do it, don't you Travis?"

*****

Veronica's words were physically painful to Travis. He mumbled, submissively, "I'll go. I'll bring them back, just, please don't hurt her," and wished he'd had his hands free, so he could have killed the woman slowly.

The Supreme Commander smirked, "Well, it seems like fear does work after all. If you're a good boy, I might even leave her the way she is. For now. You'd better hurry though. You, if anyone, know my patience isn't the best."

She went back to her chair, sat down and crossed her fingers in front of her. "So, it's decided. I think I'd better not turn my back to you in the future, Travis. You look positively murderous."

Smirking, she pushed a button on the desk and gave an order to her secretary in the outer room, "Reinstate Commander Travis in active duty and have his ship prepared. He will be taking off within minutes."

She looked at them for a few moments, smiled, and nodded to the guard to let Travis go. When he was released from the chair, she said, almost gently, "You'd better be a good boy. Try to do what you're supposed to this time."

He got up, ignoring the pain and numbness in his limbs, trying to force his legs to carry him with sheer willpower, and muttered, "Go to hell," as he bent down to kiss Patricia. She wrapped her arms around him and whispered, "Be careful. I love you."