Marianne's Abduction (2 page)

Marianne
clutched the letter in her hand as she walked around the block, taking in huge
gulps of air. She hadn’t drunk that much alcohol in such a short time for a few
years, and didn’t want to end up sick because of it. The best way she knew to
avoid a hangover was to walk it off and get plenty of fresh air. At least, that
had always worked in college.

She
stopped walking when she heard a mechanical sound, far away. It might be an AC
unit, but as she listened, it sounded more like a drone. They still flew them
overhead once in a while, although no one knew what they did with the
information they collected. She hadn’t heard one for weeks, but then she wasn’t
listening for them every day. Consequently, they had become easy to ignore.

Once
the sound stopped, Marianne decided to walk around the block next to her
building as well, and had just crossed the street when the sound reappeared,
louder now. It annoyed her more than frightened her, because she desperately
needed to be alone with her own thoughts right now. As she passed an abandoned
office building, she ducked into the recessed entrance to wait for the drone to
pass.

She
swore it slowed as it came toward her, but likely that was only her
imagination. It didn’t matter. Let it collect whatever information it wanted
to. What could they do to her? Once it flew past, she continued walking, and
decided to keep going when she reached the end of the street. There was a lake
up ahead, and she heard seagulls squawking. Standing near the water watching
birds might be peaceful in the middle of the night.

As
she approached it, another sound overpowered that of the birds. It was the
idling motor of a spacecraft, and it had landed on the grass next to the lake.
She stopped and watched, more curious than afraid, but didn’t see anyone near
it. She’d never actually seen an alien, but heard they looked as human as
anyone. They apparently had learned most of the languages on Earth, and if they
spoke to anyone here they did so in that person’s own language, not their own.

Marianne
walked slowly, moving closer to the spacecraft. She’d crossed half the distance
between the street and the craft when she whirled around at the sound of
footsteps. She had no time to react, other than to let out a yelp before two
men were suddenly next to her.

She
stared at them, her heart hammering in her ears. They did indeed look human,
and were dressed in combat fatigues. But she’d never seen insignias like the
ones they bore on their jackets.

There
was no time to think. She merely acted on a sudden urge as she thrust the
letter at them. “Can you get me to Sera? I want to be taken to my aunt and
uncle, please.”

She
watched their faces as they read the letter, daring to let hope build when it
looked like they understood what it said. But then one of the men moved closer
to her and reached inside his jacket pocket. Marianne backed away, but a sharp
prick in her left arm stopped her. Then her world went dark.

Chapter
Two

Vaughn
and his brother, River, eyed each other as the transport landed on the tarmac.
They’d been alerted by Jakara, the man they now worked for, that an Earth woman
had been found carrying one of the fake letters the Tyranns had been sending
out. The two men manning the transport ship had brought her to Addo, per
Jakara’s instructions.

The
Tyranns had been planting the letters for certain Earth women left behind to
find. Any woman who had family members that were working for the Regum or the
Addonians were being rounded up by the Tyranns, using letters that told the
women they’d be brought to Sera to be reunited with their families.

That
was about as far from the truth as it could get. The Tyranns were taking them
to Voyeur Moon and using them as bait to blackmail certain Earthlings now
working for the Regum or Addonians, and who therefore posed a threat to the
Tyranns. Whoever this girl was related to, it was someone the Tyranns wanted
stopped, or someone they now held as a prisoner.

By
planting the letters telling them they’d be reunited with their families, they
could argue the women had come to this system voluntarily, as opposed to their
usual method of simply snatching Earth women off the planet when the
opportunity arose, as they’d been doing for two years now.

The
Addonians were a newer group, formed not only of Regum who were tired of their
own antiquated and restrictive laws, but also of Tyranns who no longer wanted
to treat the Earth women as nothing more than sex slaves.

The
Addonians had sprung up to fight what the Tyranns had been doing to the Earth
women in the first place. Even some of their own people had abandoned the name
Tyrann
and become instead “Addonian”.
The new group was an embarrassment to the Tyranns, and they took it personally.

The
fact that Earthlings had come to Sera and Addo voluntarily to join the fight
had angered the Tyranns even further. So instead of simply rounding up their
family members, they’d resorted to further lies and blackmail, holding the
family members hostage to force the Earthlings to betray the Regum and
Addonians.

If
this Earth woman was indeed related to the couple the letter indicated, they
would need to keep her presence here a carefully guarded secret.

Neither
Vaughn nor River had seen one of the letters yet, or met an Earth woman who had
received one. This girl coming here to Addo with one in her possession was big
news. Not only would it give them concrete evidence of this deceit that
originated with the Tyranns, but it would also prove to the Regum that this was
really happening.

The
Regum preferred to stick their collective heads in the sand when it came to
rumors of the letters, believing no one in their ranks would have made their
official seals or letterhead available to Tyranns.

Vaughn
shook his head as the transport finally came to a stop. There had been
information leaks from the Regum to the Tyranns since that group took on the
name fifty years ago. It was about time the Regum accepted it and worked toward
a solution rather than pretending that because they’d now given the Tyranns
total control over Voyeur Moon, they would leave everyone alone and go about
their business.

That
wasn’t the
Tyranns
’ way. They wouldn’t leave the
people of Earth alone until they’d emptied the planet and left it floating in
space, dead.

Two
men stepped off the transport first, followed by the third one carrying the
girl. The humans didn’t survive the hyper jump necessary to make the journey
from Earth to this system in such a short time unless they were put to sleep
with an anesthetic agent, because of their different DNA. The people of the
Alpha Centauri system could make the journey in about an hour in one of their
spacecrafts, but Earthlings did not survive it unless they were asleep. The
medication would wear off in a short time, and then they’d have to try to
explain all this to the woman.

“Where
should we take her?” asked Billings, the man carrying her.

Vaughn’s
dick jumped to attention as he gazed over her sleeping form.
To my bed
.
“Our
quarters for now.
Until we can verify that she actually is the niece of
Blake and Betsy Williams.”

River
reached out toward the girl, and Billings placed her in River’s arms. Vaughn
gave his brother an incredulous look, and River grinned. “You’re too slow.”

They
walked toward the squat stone building that now served as one of the hubs for
the Addonians working on running the computer systems for their missions. This
building used to house Special Retrieval Commanders for the Tyranns, including
Jakara. When he had been with the Tyranns, he was among those whose mission was
to sweep the Earth every night, rounding up females who were on the lists to be
taken.

But
during one of those sweeps, Jakara had taken an instant liking to Callie
O’Doyle, a woman he’d taken from Earth because she’d been on a list of those
the Tyranns wanted brought to Voyeur Moon. He’d brought her here to his
quarters instead of taking her to the holding cells on Voyeur Moon, and then
he’d sneaked her into his spacecraft again, and taken her to his home on the
other side of Voyeur Moon. He’d hidden her there for months before the two were
spotted by a drone while they were out walking.

“She’s
very pretty,” said River, as they walked. Vaughn glanced down at her again. She
was indeed quite attractive, with dark brown hair and a curvy, lush body. All
the Earth women were attractive to the men of the Alpha Centauri system. But
she was here for them to keep safe, no other reason. He couldn’t allow his
raging hormones to interfere with this mission the way his boss had done with
Callie.

Jakara
had been one of the Tyranns who opposed what his group was doing with the Earth
women. As their depravity toward them grew, Jakara pulled away more and more,
and was finally forced to make a choice between his job and Callie. Jakara’s
own Section Chief and a friend who had betrayed Jakara had taken Callie
forcibly out of Jakara’s home and to the holding cells, while Jakara was on his
way to Earth to fly a mission.

Jakara
had enlisted the help of Eldon, a Regum that he’d known since childhood, and
the two men had disguised themselves and gone to the holding cells, posing as
men who wanted to choose a woman to take as their own. It had become standard
practice by then for men from all three planets, including some of the Regum,
to partake of the selection in the holding cells, so no one gave them a second
glance.

But
it had been a daring and risky move, just the same, because Eldon and Jakara
both could have been recognized. Now, Jakara and Callie lived here on Addo and
worked gathering intelligence on the Tyranns and helping to stop them from
taking everyone left on her planet.

When
the Addonians had driven the few Tyranns left on Addo off the planet, they’d
taken over this building as one of their systems hubs due to its construction
and high security. That would certainly come in handy now for hiding this
woman.

Once
inside, Vaughn and River bid the men who had brought the girl a good night, and
went to their own quarters. Although they could have had separate ones, they’d
decided to share them once they came here to work. They’d been working
side-by-side all their adult lives in a company they’d started here on
Addo
, until they were set up and falsely accused by their
own Regum clients, because they’d refused to stop doing business with the
Tyranns.

Neither
man had known the depth of what the Tyranns were doing until after Jakara
intervened for them, and told them the truth. If they had, they wouldn’t have
refused to stop selling computer software and hardware to them.

But
it was fate that they were here now, working toward a cause they believed in.
Jakara and Eldon had been instrumental in bringing the Addonians as far as
they’d come in six months. And it had been Jakara who had contacted Blake and
Betsy Williams on Vaughn’s and River’s behalf after their Regum clients
betrayed them and filed charges against them.

Blake
and Betsy were very good attorneys, and they had been able to get the false
charges dropped, but only by agreeing that Vaughn and River be sentenced to the
Zoo on Voyeur Moon. But Blake and Betsy had never had any intention of allowing
Vaughn and River to become forced into having sex with an Earth woman during
shows put on by the Tyranns at the infamous Zoo.

Instead,
they’d helped Vaughn and River escape, as they’d helped others falsely accused
of crimes do the same thing, only this time something had gone wrong. This
time, the Tyranns had been onto them, and instead of taking Vaughn and River to
Voyeur Moon to carry out their prison sentence, they’d taken Blake and Betsy
Williams to an undisclosed location on that planet.

Jakara
had people looking for them, but if this girl was truly their niece, Vaughn
knew two things. Her aunt and uncle were still alive, and the Tyranns wanted
this girl for bait. That not only put her in extreme danger, but it made her
very valuable to both sides.

****

River
readjusted the girl in his arms. If she was truly Blake and Betsy Williams’s
niece, they owed her far more than shelter right now. And it would be difficult
to try to explain to her how her aunt and uncle had ended up prisoners of the
Tyranns on Voyeur Moon, but they owed her that, as well.

River
carried her into the spare bedroom of his and Vaughn’s quarters, and laid her
on the bed. He then let his gaze travel over her face and body. She had very
pretty hair. It was the color of the summer sunsets on Addo when it was going
to rain that night.

“How
long do you think she’ll be out?” asked
Vaughn.

River
reluctantly pulled his attention from the girl.
“Shouldn’t be
too much longer.
 
Did they find
anything else on her besides the letter?”

Vaughn
handed River the girl’s tiny bag. “Only this, but they didn’t check her
pockets.”

River
opened the bag and glanced at the ID he was used to seeing now from Earth.
Nodding, he handed the driver’s license to his brother. “Marianne Kowalski. And
her address is listed as the one Blake and Betsy had occupied on Earth after
they first came here. I’d say she is definitely their niece.”

“What
else is in there?”

“A credit card, a set of keys,
some makeup, and a cardboard coaster from Greebo’s Place.”

A
soft noise drew their attention to the bed. Marianne opened her eyes, and then
sat up so fast she fell back down again, moaning. “Shit. Fuck. My head is
killing me.”

“We
can fix that,” said Vaughn.

He
left the room, and River sat next to Marianne on the bed. She had the bluest
eyes he’d ever seen. “It’s all right. He’s gone to get you some water with
lemongrass and vanilla. It will take away the headache and settle your stomach.
The medication used to knock you out will make you feel woozy for a while, but
it should wear off soon.”

She
didn’t say anything. She merely stared at him with a look of total disbelief on
her face. He knew that was a lot to take in at once, so he forced himself not
to continue speaking for now. Explanations would have to wait until she felt
better.

Vaughn
returned, holding out a glass. “Drink this. It will help.” She didn’t move.
“It’s water with herbs. They won’t hurt you.”

“Where
the hell am I?” She asked it in the same tone one might use when speaking to someone
dim-witted, as though if she didn’t say the words slowly and carefully, they
wouldn’t understand them.

“Drink
first so you don’t throw up,” said River. “Then we’ll explain everything.”

She
took the glass, and River’s heart went out to her as he watched her fingers
tremble. She drank tentatively at first, as if she wasn’t sure whether what
Vaughn had handed her was really water, and then she drained the glass. “Thank
you.”

“You’re
welcome. Do you feel well enough to walk? We can sit in the common room to
talk.”

She
glanced around. “Yes. That might be more … comfortable.”

No kidding
. The urge to push her back on
the bed and kiss her until he could no longer breathe was strong.
Get a grip
. This might have been a
mistake bringing her here, but what else could they have done with her? Now
that he’d had a good look at her, he couldn’t imagine sharing his quarters with
her and not spending every waking and sleeping moment thinking about making
love to her. But they had to keep her safe. That was their main objective.

As
she climbed off the bed and followed him and Vaughn out to the common room,
River cursed the damn stars. Why did she have to be so damn pretty? He hadn’t
signed on for this. He was supposed to be strong.
A warrior,
like Jakara, fighting the evils of the Tyranns and the puritanical laws of the
Regum.
He should be able to resist the charms of a pretty girl. He’d
been doing it his entire life.

Right.
But not for the same reasons you just ticked off, genius.