Farming was one way they could help with expenses. Expanding the number of food crops and variety would allow them to sell the excess to Starport City. While Starport City grew some crops on a small scale. There was always a shortage of fresh food, and much of it had to be imported at considerable expense. The Refuge could help fill that need and make a fair profit while saving city residents money.
Things were working out as Calan had planned for the community he was building. As they became more self-sufficient, Calan could devote more of his time to healing. He held clinic three times a week and took calls via the AI for accidents and sudden illnesses. Occasionally, people from the outside would bring in someone injured in street violence.
Calan treated anyone who was in need, even members of the overlords’ gangs. He also won a few over who eventually joined the Refuge.
Knowing that Ajha was growing more distressed at their failure to find Mikki, Calan felt comfortable leaving the Refuge to continue their search. They both were starting to believe that Mikki was not in any of the brothels. There were eight fight clubs on the south side of the city. All of them fought women, mostly against other women, but a couple had females who fought humanoids of either sex, but mostly humans.
Alien humanoids tended to avoid Earth as they no longer felt it civilized enough for their tastes. The lack of law enforcement made it a haven for interstellar criminals who did business with the overlords. Calan worried that Mikki might have been taken off-world. But illegal landings by offworlders generally didn’t happen this close to Earth’s largest starport.
Neither Calan nor Ajha wanted to believe Mikki had been taken off world because finding her then would be nearly impossible. Instead, they concentrated on the last eight fight clubs.
Calan procured clothing for them that was fashionable for moneyed Starport City residents slumming in the fight district. It would make them less conspicuous than their standard issue refuge wear. They had gotten a reputation as a disruptive influence by depleting their supply of victims, particularly females the gangers could force to work in the overlords’ brothels.
Calan used his powers of persuasion to get into the back rooms of the fight clubs where they would ‘accidentally’ stumble into the wrong room. Ajha would say they were looking for her sister, Mikki the Mutilator.
“She’s a big woman, almost as tall as my mate. She has fiery red hair green eyes,” Ajha would tear up. “I promised I would come to see her fight. We’ve tried so many clubs and can’t find her.”
An older man tending the fighter in the fourth dressing room they checked said, “I never heard of no Mikki the Mutilator. That sounds more like Ajay the Annihilator. I think I heard she was fighting at the Bronze Cage.”
“Really?”
“Thank you, sir,” Calan said when he had discerned the man was telling the truth as he knew it. “We’ll go there and look for her.”
He took Ajha’s hand and drew her close to his side as they left. Some of the stray thoughts he perceived made him worried that some thug would try to snatch her from him. They could try, but he would stop them.
He kept her close by his side as they waited for an automated tram to take them to the Bronze Cage. The passenger trams only ran in the southside entertainment district, the biggest. Overlord Marko Keys was even more powerful than Redmyn Berke. They kept the brothel business to their own territories, but their fighters competed with fighters among all the clubs.
The related gambling operations were nearly as lucrative as the brothels. It could be dangerous for them to attempt to free one of their fighters. As they slipped into the back room of the Bronze Cage, Calan could feel the excitement bubbling up inside of Ajha.
“She’s here. I can feel her!”Ajha was practically bouncing with impatience to look for her.
“Stay calm, my love. We mustn’t draw attention.”
Ajha paused to take a few deep breaths before she could stroll casually down the hall between the dressing rooms. There were ten of them, stuffy little rooms hardly bigger than most bathrooms.
Now that Ajha had sensed Mikki’s psionic signature, Calan could also recognize it. He knew immediately they would find Mikki in the room at the end of the hall on the right. Ajha willed herself to walk calmly at Calan’s side to that room.
The plastic composite door was open a crack, and Mikki sat at a dressing table in front of a mirror teasing her red hair into a wild cloud around her head. Calan and Ajha guessed it was part of her fighter persona.
Ajha pushed the door open slowly. “Mikki?”
The other woman jumped with a start and turned, dropping her brush to clatter on the floor. “Ajha?” she gasped in disbelief, tears filling her eyes. Mikki jumped up from the plastic chair and folded her in a desperate hug. “Oh, baby, you did get away. I didn’t know if you were dead or alive!” she said, weeping softly. “I missed you every day, but I couldn’t get away. When we’re not fighting, they keep us in a barracks like prisoners.”
“I figured something like that happened when you never came back to find me. That or you were dead.”
“I’m not dead yet, but they are setting me up to fight out of my class---bigger, stronger, and more experienced---even men,” she said. “I got my first male on female match tonight.”
“Oh, Mikki! That’s not fair. What are you going to do?’
“Fight. I’ve got no choice. I either fight or die---and you two better get out of here before someone catches you.”
“They won’t bother us,” Calan said. “I can get you out of here if you want to go.”
Chapter Eleven
“Are you crazy? They’ll kill us all!” Mikki let Ajha go, hugging herself. There was no need to worry about being overheard. The crowd’s cheering and stomping would drown out their voices to anyone out in the hallway.
“Not if I convince them you’re already dead and we’re not here at all,” Calan said.
