Ajha got a sense of accomplishment from being able to help others learn as well. She was shaken by what happened to Calan when they rescued Mikki. They were the two most important people to her in the world.
She worried that Calan was tackling the next phase of his plan too soon after being shot and treating Mikki for her PTSD. He didn’t think it would be any more stressful than when he freed Mikki. The stress had come with his injury and her terrible memories.
Ajha couldn’t convince him to wait a week or two after he’d experienced Mikki’s memories. Knowing other people were suffering as Mikki had for the past two years disturbed him greatly. Many of them had suffered far longer than Mikki, their lives stolen by the overlords.
She knew better than anyone else how it haunted him. He vowed to take away the overlord’s power over them.
Calan and Rax returned about two hours later with a large cargo transport hovercraft as well as Calan’s hover tram. They set the two crafts down near the loading docks. Accommodations in the cargo hauler might not be the most luxurious, but they would be free in a short time to choose what they wanted to do with the rest of their lives.
Ajha had finished with classes and was continuing reading in their flat when Calan returned. She knew the moment he set down the tram in the yard. She didn’t wait for him to come to get her. She put her tablet away and headed to the yard to meet Calan at the hover tram. Mikki fell into step with her on the way there.
Mikki wanted to be with Rax on this operation and thought she might be helpful since she had been in the thick of it for the past two years. Ajha would serve as a lookout while Calan’s attention was elsewhere.
They left the refuge through the exit beside the loading dock. Ajha climbed into the passenger seat of the hover tram, and Mikki climbed into the passenger seat of the cargo hauler. The hover tram lifted off first then the cargo hauler lifted off and flew toward the red-light district east of the Starport City.
Chapter Sixteen
Calan remembered the memories his mother had shared of her childhood in Farringay. The day the gangers killed her mother was the day she connected telepathically with Calan’s father. Her brother left her alone in an alley under an abandoned stairwell. She tried to hold back the fear she remembered from that lonely desperate night. She couldn’t hold it all back.
On the surface, little had changed in forty years. Sometimes, at night when he couldn’t sleep, he’d open his mind and feel their pain to remind him why he came to Earth and why he was going to stay. Calan’s mother had done a good job of putting the past behind her. He’d had a wonderful childhood.
Occasionally, he caught a stray memory slip through his mother’s thoughts. He hadn’t meant to eavesdrop on her thoughts. He was just so attuned to her that he’d pick up on them. But he knew not to deliberately intrude on her mind.
Sometimes, stray memories just slipped out. Maybe if the cyborgs had stayed after Starport City, things would be different. He didn’t blame his parents for not wanting to come back. The overlord’s thugs almost killed his father and tormented his mother.
In the years since they had tormented many more. They would keep doing it unless someone stopped them.
Calan set town the hover tram in front of the first brothel they went to look for Mikki. Rax set down the transport beside the tram and opened the cargo hold. Calan reached for Ajha’s hand and closed his eyes, taking a deep cleansing breath.
He reached out with his mind to the women and men who were little more than prisoners forced to service the clients that came from Starport City. He pulled them into a connection with him one by one until he had all twenty-three of them.
“Come with us if you want to be free…”He gave them the details to board the transport and the refuge where they would take them. Then they waited while the victims gathered their meager possessions and started to leave.
Calan then turned his attention to the guards and managers of the of the brothel and blocked them from seeing their sex slaves walking out. Then he forced the memories and despair of those slaves into their minds and left them psionically stunned so they wouldn’t discover their slaves had been freed for several hours.
They went to each of the four brothels on the east side. Over a hundred twenty-seven souls responded to Calan’s telepathic call and boarded the two transporters. The process took hours, waiting for the rescues to act and gather their possessions.
When Calan was satisfied all who wanted to be free were aboard, he gave the command for the tram to return to base and signaled Rax to close the hold and follow suit. Once they lifted off, he released the minds of the men and women who were paid to keep the brothel workers enslaved.
Intake workers were waiting in the hover bay to log in the new refugees. They had put up a barracks divided into sections in the empty wing of the industrial complex. There was room for an estimated five to six hundred people while they waited for delivery of more apartment modules.
After they landed in the hover bay Calan sat in the pilot’s seat for several minutes clearing his mind.
“You were right. I should have waited a few days before I started this maneuver.”He turned his head and looked at Ajha contritely.
“Why don’t you try reaching out to the prostitutes before we go? They can be ready when we get there. Then all you have to do is control the keepers.”
“I thought of that, but I just didn’t want to wait. Although I’m better than I was today, I realize I wasn’t ready.”
“Can’t you show me how to help you? I know I’m still new at this, but we’re connected. Use my strength to help you. You told me when Jamerin freed Aledus, Parei, Lara and your grandmother helped him.”
“And they were laid up for days. I don’t want you to be injured while you are still dawning. It will kill me if anything happens to you because of me.”
“How would I be hurt if I am just channeling my psionic energy through you?”she asked.“You are not that much stronger than I am. You couldn’t take too much. Let me help!”
Ajha climbed over the console of the craft and knelt over his lap facing him. She framed his face in her hands and leaned her forehead against his. Closing her eyes, she sent a steady stream of love into his mind until she sensed him regaining strength and equilibrium. Then she kissed him with the promise of something more, later.
He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her pressing his face against her breasts, as his mind echoed back his feelings for her.
