Taken (Warriors of Karal Book 3) (4 page)

“I bet they do. Now if only you were born a woman, you might be able to go and find out,” she said absently. “Here, this one. One coin.”

“Deal,” the man said, taking her coin.

She turned away, busy taking the peel off the orange, hoping the flesh would not be too dried out. As she pulled the first segment apart, she heard her name called. Chrissi turned around, a fleeting moment of panic as she feared Mr. Murgrove had tracked her down, but there was no one there, only the stall traders and people going about their own business.

Directly above her head, the light from the StreamScreen danced, drawing her attention, and there, staring back at her was …
her
. She gaped at it, standing still in the street while all around her life went on. This was the exact same feeling she had felt when she had left Operation Saviour. As if, she had been standing still for five long years, while the world and everyone else in it had moved on.

When she gathered her senses, she realised she had dropped the dried-up orange. The shrivelled-up fruit simply lay there on the floor, and she didn’t care. Why would she, she was going to go into space, she would fly past the moon, so close she would be able to see its craters, and then she was going to live on a planet with enough food and clean air, that she would begin to feel healthy again.
But would she ever be happy?

Hitching her bag onto her shoulder, she took one step and then another towards her apartment, and towards her new life. Once or twice she glanced up at the sky, wondering if the space ship was coming to collect her, or was it already here?

She should have listened to the information on the Stream, but she hadn’t. Hurrying now, she made it to her apartment and switched on the old TV that had been there when she moved in. The interface wasn’t good, but she managed to scroll through until she found the information she needed. The lottery winner was expected to be ready for transport at midnight tonight.

“OK, I need to pack,” she said to herself, and grabbed her suitcase, cramming in everything she needed. There wasn’t much. As a potential astronaut, she had learned to live with hardly any personal items. All she needed were her threadbare clothes, her everyday toiletries, and a photo of her parents. Within an hour she was ready.

Looking at the time, she figured she had four hours left before she had to go to the airport. What should she do now? Was there anyone she needed to say goodbye to?

Not really. She didn’t know where Fion lived, and her friends from Saviour were scattered all around the planet now. No, she could sit here and wait.

That idea wore thin, very fast. Picking up her stuff, she took one last look around the apartment she had tried to make into a home, and then left, pulling the door to behind her. Then she went to the apartment five doors along, and knocked.

“Hello, Chrissi,” Sonia said. Sonia had two kids and no husband, things had been hard for her, and Chrissi had often wished she could help. The thought of living in a cramped apartment with two kids was enough to make anyone insane, but Sonia always seemed to smile and had helped Chrissi out when she moved in and couldn’t light the gas.

“Hi, Sonia. Listen, I don’t know if you’ve seen the lottery results,” Chrissi said, finding it weird to talk about it; it made it so much more real.

“No, I don’t watch it, as you know, they would never take on a woman with two kids, so there is no appeal to me. You, on the other hand, I can see you up there in those stars…” Sonia’s voice faltered. “Oh my goodness, you won!”

“That obvious?” Chrissi asked.

“Yes. I don’t know anyone who actually won. Always thought it was those stuck-up pents who got chosen.” Sonia looked as if she was tearing up.

“No, they’re stuck with me. Oh, please don’t cry.” Chrissi hated tears, they made her uncomfortable, and she hardly ever cried herself. It was a sign of weakness, and Chrissi could never allow herself to be weak.

“I’m so pleased for you, Chrissi. I know you haven’t settled here.”

“I tried,” Chrissi said.

“Oh, but a girl like you is meant for greater things,” Sonia said, smiling happily. “Make the best of it.”

“I aim to,” Chrissi said, remembering how her dad used to say the same thing to her every night when they looked at the stars. “Anyway, I thought I would give you the key to my apartment. There is some furniture and other stuff I bought with my severance pay from my old job. Use what you can and sell everything else.”

“Are you sure?” Sonia asked in disbelief, tears now rolling down her cheeks.

“Yes, it’s not much but it should help for now. I’m sorry there isn’t more I can do,” Chrissi said. Then she reached into her pocket and pulled out her coins. “This is all I have, I don’t need them.”

“Thank you so much,” Sonia said, embracing Chrissi tightly. “You don’t know how much it will help.”

“I do. When my dad died, it was only the kindness of other people that kept me and my mom going, so I want to do the same for you,” Chrissi said. It had been a long time since she had thought about her dad’s death, but she couldn’t allow those thoughts back in now. She needed to be calm, and in control.

“I never knew,” Sonia said.

“It’s in the past, so I try not to think about it. Right,” she said, needing to be alone to collect her emotions. “I have to go.”

“Bye, Chrissi. Go with my thanks and my blessing that whoever your alien is, he is kind.”

She laughed nervously. “Yeah, I’m trying not to think about that part.”

“You’ll be OK,” Sonia said, and hugged her again. “You’ll be OK.”

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak, and bent down to pick her suitcase up before heading to the lift. Normally she wouldn’t risk it, the power went off too often for it to be reliable, but she didn’t want to get stuck on the stairs with all her stuff. The apartment building was big, and the stairs always busy, so just this once, she would ride the elevator.

The numbers lit up. It was moving up towards her, so it looked promising. Although when it opened, she still thought twice about getting in. If it broke down, she might be late to the airport. But as she turned to look at the stairs, a man came out through the doors onto her floor. Instantly she stepped into the elevator and pressed the button, hoping he hadn’t seen her and hoping the door would close.

She stood helpless while the doors hesitated and then gradually, as if in slow motion, ground closed, the metal scraping along the floor. Chrissi turned her head, hiding her face as a figure passed by, her suspicions confirmed. It was Mr. Murgrove, and by some stroke of luck, he hadn’t seen her.

Only when the elevator began its descent did she let out her breath. Why was he here? To apologise, or to finish the job of making sure she could never go to Karal?

Chrissi closed her eyes, unable to watch as the numbers slowly counted down. What if they stopped, what if she got stuck, and he was waiting on the first floor, or he followed her? All these thoughts crowded in, and so when the bell pinged and the door opened, it made her jump. But in a moment she had sprung back to life, gathered all her things and run from the elevator, and out into the night.

There she headed towards the airport and her new life.

The journey was one he had made before. He had been on the deep space mission that had discovered Earth only months earlier; it was why he hadn’t been rostered on for the new missions. The warriors usually worked in a strict rotation, which took away any need to compete for missions. They learned to take what mission they were given and do it to the best of their ability. The Karal worked for the common good of the species, not to be some outspoken hero.

But sometimes …

He let that thought go. Now was no time to question how the Karal worked. All he had to do was go to Earth, pick up his female, and then take her back to his planet. One step at a time, that was the best way to handle a mission like this.

He exited the wormhole, seeing the beacons still in place. The original trip to Earth had taken many weeks; they had happened upon the planet by chance, and it was so far away, the transport of the females would have been arduous. But some exploration had led them to believe there was a closed wormhole that would connect their planets and make travel quick and easy.

The beacons had been deployed, and Earth and its females had become the saviours of the Karalian race, without even knowing it.

Passing the moon that orbited the Earth, he checked for clearance to land, and tipped the nose of his cruiser down to enter the atmosphere. This last stage of the journey took no time at all. He headed for the coordinates of the control tower, and touched down on the pitted tarmac. There he switched off the engine and sat looking out of the window at the murky night. It was raining.

Wrinkling his nose, he wondered if it was the acid rain he had been warned about by Okil. Flicking a switch, he asked the computer to analyse the air.

“Air quality poor. Deadly gases less than ten percent.”

He got up from his chair and went to the back of the ship. Pressing the button to let the exit ramp down, he wanted to be ready to leave as soon as the female had arrived.

“Earth time?” he asked the computer.

“23.00 hours.”

“Great, an hour to go,” he said.

Yet as the ramp touched the ground, a soaking-wet human approached. “Ready to go when you are,” she said.

Malik looked down at her, taking in her soaking wet hair, plastered to her head, and the thin sweater she wore that was no barrier to the pouring rain. So this was the woman he was supposed to breed with!

“Come onto the ramp,” he said. “I need the ship to read your tag and authenticate it.”

“The lottery guards at the gates already did that,” she said.

“And I will do it again.” He motioned for her to approach, and she did so, with no hesitation. He always thought these females would be more unsure, perhaps even wary, of the Karal. Or maybe she was so desperate to leave, she couldn’t wait to board his cruiser and climb into his bed. What a female would do to escape this planet...

“Tag match,” the computer said.

“Wow, your technology really is advanced,” she said, looking around her.

“Compared to humans, most definitely,” he said, and indicated for her to come aboard so he could shut the exit ramp. This was going to be a quicker journey than he had thought.

“We never left our solar system,” she said. “Mars is the furthest we travelled.”

“Well, you are about to travel further than most humans ever will,” he said, going to the front of the ship. She followed close behind him. Dripping.

“How far is Karal?” she asked.

“You need to remove your clothes. You cannot travel while you are wet, you might damage the systems,” he said.

“I think all the rest of my clothes are wet too,” she said, showing him her belongings.

“How long were you out in the rain?” he asked, going to a supply cupboard that had spare overalls in it.

“Two hours.”

“You were eager to leave,” he said, handing her the overalls. “Here.”

“I was. Thanks.” She took them from him, and then looked around. “Where shall I change?”

“Here,” he said, unsure what she meant.

“But you’re here,” she replied awkwardly.

“So…” Malik had been to one training session with the sim. It never occurred to him that human females might be shy of their own bodies, because that wasn’t a facet of their personality the sim showed. Nor was it one any male Karalian would understand. “
Oh
. I will go to the control deck and you can change here.”

“Thank you,” she said.

Malik went to his seat, resisting the temptation to turn around and try to capture a glimpse of her naked. There would be time for that later.

“Shall I sit here?” she asked, coming to the control deck, dressed in overalls that were too big for her curvy body. She had tied them at the waist with a belt, which helped to emphasise her breasts, and her sudden nearness stirred his body to life, the man in him awakening.

She was a living, breathing being, not some holographic sim; no matter how realistic the computer made the image, it had still been fake to him. But this woman, she was very real.

And very his.

“Your name is Chrissi Talbot?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said and smiled, looking nervous for the first time. Could she read his thoughts, did she know the craving she had awakened in him? “And your name?”

“Malik,” he said coolly

She brushed her wet hair back behind her ears and turned to him, and said, “I feel like we should shake hands or something. Is there a greeting your species use?”

“What is that on your face?” he asked. With her hair behind her ears, he could see a purple patch of colour on her chin. At first he thought she had the ability to allow her feelings to show as colours across her skin, just as the Karal did. But her colours didn’t move.

She put her hand to her chin, looking guilty, and then pulled her hair back around it. “This, oh, nothing. I hit my face, that’s all.”

Something in her eyes made him disbelieve her, and that worried him. Above all things he liked honesty, and he began to wonder what kind of woman she was. He had never thought of humans as much more than animals, creatures brought to Karal to breed with.

But as he contacted the tower for permission to leave, he understood Okil’s words. They were just as complex as the Karal, but without their colours, and so harder to read. This was going to be an interesting journey into deep space.

She was so excited. Despite the way he unnerved her, in a completely unexpected way, if she wasn’t careful, she would sit here the whole time, grinning like complete idiot. So she stared ahead, watching the ground drift away beneath them.

Finally, Chrissi was about to experience space. Not just a trip around the moon, or even to Mars, no, she was about to leave the galaxy, a thing only a few lottery winners could say they had accomplished.

“I’ve no idea where Karal is,” she said, her voice breathy as they began to climb higher, the g-force making the space-ship shudder. So this was what it was like. After all the years of training and then the months of disappointment, this was what it felt like to launch into space.