The female clerk chewed something in her mouth, gave him a long, bored look and then tapped on a screen in front of her. A green symbol showed over his picture on the window and the clerk slipped him a slim tablet through a space between the window and the counter.
“Welcome back to Erral, YorAk. Abide by Station laws at all times or you will be detained. No fighting. No running. No shooting shop employees. No airbikes. If you choose to visit Mama Vi’s House of Horrors, you acknowledge that all bodydismemberment and/or death is incurred at your own risk.You acknowledge that if you should die, Mama Vi reserves the right to use your remains for slop. Do you comply?” she droned, filing her claw with a metal file without looking at the big male.
The gray giant grunted, slapped his hand on the tablet and growled, “I comply” and then shoved the tablet back through the slit in the glass.
A creaking metal gate screamed open to the right of the check-in station. The giant lumbered through and the gate closed behind him.
What the fuck?
A few aliens waiting in cheap metal chairs saw Anubis carrying me through the ‘In-processing’ lobby and called out to him, waving their hololinks.
“Hey! My Lord! I have a Pass Through! My Lord! My Pass Through?”
“When are you going to fix fucking Docking Station Four’s arm? My Lord! I waited four clicks!”
“My Lord!”
“My Lord Erra! Please! A moment of your time!”
“Got yourself a new plaything eh, my Lord! Will she be at Mama Vi’s?”
Anubis ignored them all, moving with purpose towards a much larger separate gate to the far side of the lobby. I strained to see around his back and spotted two black Orixas—the same species of alien as Ohem—dressed in solid black military fatigues. A black plasma rifle with a wide barrel was held in both of their hands across their bodies at the low ready position. One of them had blue bioluminescence and the other had green, the swirling lines and dots visible on their tails and tentacles that were held deceptively placid behind them. It shocked me to see them, a little jolt of alarm stiffening my muscles. I knew that there was a whole planet filled with them, but for some reason Ididn’t think any of them were outside of the Unity. They weren’t as large as Ohem, but that didn’t make them any less menacing. Hell of a set of gate guards. Combine them with the automated turret system over the clerk station and it all but guarantees compliance and good behavior.
Their four glowing eyes tracked us as we approached, but other than that they didn’t react as Anubis stopped before the gate and waited for it to finish its painfully slow screeching odyssey. Once it was open he continued on his way, under a metal overpass and into a neon blinking barrage of chaos.
From my upside down vantage point, I saw what looked like a futuristic dystopian shanty town. Patchwork buildings both tall and short stacked on top of each other in rising levels with wires and cables stretching over narrow stairwells and passageways. Some held clothes or lights of varying colors and others had hanging vines, moss and potted plants cascading off them. Trash was piled in wooden crates scattered here and there along the slotted metal pathway we walked on. Above it all, past the hanging clothes and lights, was a lovely view of a swirling purple nebula. The stars winked at me as if laughing at my predicament.
I braced my arms against his back, growling under my breath when his arms tightened on my legs, one of his large hands wrapping securely around my thigh and giving it a provocative squeeze.
“Keep your hands to yourself or, god or not, I’ll break them.”
His laugh vibrated through me. “God? I am no god, merely a humble collector of interesting things. And you, my dear, are very interesting. A human woman, abducted from her homeworld and thrust into a war not of her choosing, following along after a lone Rijitera and her unlikely mate. It is the stuff of adventure vids. I mean to add you to my collection. It will be delightful.”
The hell he would!
I struggled anew, trying to twist out of his grasp. I clawed at his back, ruffling the fur there and ignoring how soft it was under my palms. Anubis continued walking through the crowd of gathering onlookers like it was a Sunday stroll through the park and I was merely a sack of potatoes he’d thrown over his shoulder. I hissed at the aliens gawking at us, too many strange faces and bodies to get an accurate catalog of all the different species. Some stumbled back at my warning, but others leaned in to get a better look as we entered a lift. The doors closed us away from prying eyes and Anubis laughed again when I tried to use the wall as leverage against him.
“You are as feisty as I thought you would be. I am delighted that my servants decided on you instead of the good doctor. She is a beautiful woman, let there be no doubt, but much too sweet for my taste. But a statuesque warrior such as yourself? Beauty and fire? Ah, now that is a combination worth collecting!”
I ceased my struggling as his words penetrated. “The good doctor?”
How the hell did he know that much about us?
He hummed, patting my leg. “Sam is a doctor, yes? The lovely but mentally unwell Patty was an interest for a time, but I rather like my heart where it is, whole and uneaten. And you, Callie, are a pilot in the United States Air Force. Then there is Jack, the savage and proud Rijitera as the de facto leader of your little clan. Am I missing anyone? I don’t count Ohem, Aga, and Rema because they are natives to this part of the universe. Oh, Anu! The Rijteran former Empress who is now a meddling virtual consciousness. Can’t forget her.”
What in the actual fuck?
The lift stopped and Anubis glided out onto another walkway with more shanty buildings pressing in close on either side. People chattered from balconies and other walkways above and below us, shaking out rugs, hanging clothes on lines strungbetween buildings, and going about their daily lives while Anubis carted me around. Some people glanced our way before going back to their business, but most paid us no mind. It was the weirdest thing ever. Like this kind of thing happened often enough to be normal. Maybe it did. Maybe my asshole kidnapper did this on the regular.
I was going to kill him. Right after I found out how the hell he knew so much about us and why.
“Ah, here we are. Home sweet home.”
At the far side of a wide roundabout was a sprawling sandstone palace, like something plucked straight out of Egypt. It was so wildly out of place, surrounded by the metal and light of the space station with the swirling nebula cloud overhead, that for a moment I was struck dumb, hanging limp, staring at it slack-jawed like an idiot. A solid black statue of Anubis standing straight with his feet together and his arms behind his back in a thoughtful manner, his face serene, was situated smack dab in the center of the roundabout, surrounded by blood red flowers, their stalks black as pitch.
Aliens milled about, some heavily armed and predatory, their eyes catching the light to flash with dangerous intent and others carrying small children or goods being carted by light vehicles that hovered a few inches off the ground. The roundabout was packed with people, like the chaotic streets of Kolkata, and Anubis weaved through them like an expert born to them. The low hum of constant noise was overwhelming, as was the myriad of smells.
We went up a set of terracotta stone stairs through a door that whooshed open as we approached. It was a relief when it closed and the sounds from the city died with it. We stepped into a wide room with deep maroon colored walls that smelled like incense and some kind of spice that tickled my nose. We passed plush couches sitting atop a mix-match of lush woven rugs, throughanother door, down at least two hallways with walls covered in gilded framed pictures of various sizes depicting portraits of important looking aliens and then through a narrow black door that slid open silently. The world shifted again, air whooshing past me as I was tossed from his shoulder and onto a soft bed where I sunk into the mattress and blankets deep enough I had to fight my way out, rolling onto the floor and coming to my feet with my fists up, ready to beat this fool to death with my bare hands.
