Chapter 3:
Blade was torn between amusement and concern for his passenger. She was clearly confused and battered. He knew that the battering had mostly come from takeoff, but there was nothing he could do about that. She’d waited too long to enter the craft, and he had barely had enough time to get them out of there. There was no way he had the seconds it would have taken to let her get into a seat. They had already been firing, and one good shot would’ve killed them both or crippled the craft so that their pursuers could have reached them and killed them.
He knew he shouldn’t risk looking at her at the moment, he had a minefield to get through after all, but he couldn’t help himself. She was lovely, all flaming red hair tinted with gold highlights that he would wager were natural, translucent pale skin, a slim nose dotted with a few freckles right across the bridge, and wide eyes the same color as summer grass. Her body was exquisite, slim and well-sculpted. Evidence that she had been well-fed and had had plenty of access to water and other necessary things for humans.
So who the hell was she?
He decided he had to find out even if it meant risking paying less attention than he needed to. He had come this way far too many times to not know how to get out. There was an asteroid belt ahead after all.
It suddenly occurred to him that this human woman beside him had never been through there and if she began screaming that would be a hell of a larger distraction than he needed. He decided asking her some questions to take her mind off what was happening and to keep her focus on him would be just the thing.
He said, “Now you know my name; what is yours?”
She whispered out, “Tara. Tara Better.”
Better? What sort of last name was that? He frowned and guided the ship easily around the first of the small asteroids chunking their way across the deadness of space. “So you were on Orbital and having dinner: that is the last thing that you remember?”
She nodded quite vigorously. “Jack, my fiancé, and I were there for three days. Well, no. We were supposed to be there for three days, but we had only just gotten there that day. We went to dinner and…and I don’t know what happened next.”
He considered that, weighing her words carefully. Women being taken on trips to pleasure planets that ended with them being drugged and sold was a thing that happened a lot. He knew far too many slaves who had ended up in slavery via a vacation with a person they thought just wanted to gift them something nice.
He decided to ask a few more questions even though he was pretty sure that that was exactly what had happened. “Did you arrive a few days before this happened? Do you remember anyone who looked suspicious?”
She made a low sound in her throat then spoke. “No. It was an unexpected trip; it wasn’t something we planned to do. He just came home one day and said he got this really good deal on a travel voucher. That some friend of his had… Oh my God! Do you think his friend was in some kind of trouble and whoever he was in trouble with thought Jack and I were…”
Blade had his own opinion, and he was pretty sure it had nothing at all to do with mistaken identity, but he figured he might as well sound her out and see what he could learn. He was actually pretty willing to bet that her loving fiancé had gotten into some kind of debt there on the pleasure planet and had decided to trade her off as payment. Or he had taken her there to sell her.
He asked, “Had you ever been there before?”
She turned her chair so that she was looking at him. He could feel the intensity of her gaze upon his profile. He was glad to feel it. They were coming through the asteroid belt now, and danger was all around them. One scream from her and he might jerk the flight stick in the wrong direction just because she startled him.
Tara said, “No, we had never been. We never left Newport, either of us. And not just the planet either; neither of us had ever been out of Newport City. That’s what made it so strange, and so exciting too, I guess. We had both always wanted to travel, but neither of us have ever had the opportunity because our positions are so lowly and our credit earning is as well. We kept saying that when we were older, and no longer in service to the Federation, that we would travel.” A sharp laugh burst from her mouth and then it turned into a low sob that she quickly smothered and stifled.
She spoke again, “I guess we got to travel anyway.” Another sob also stifled swiftly. “Do you think he is alive? Do you think they hurt him?”
He was willing to bet old Jack was back home in Newport, perched in whatever living arrangement he had and gleefully counting himself lucky to have experienced the planet while having to pay nothing more than the woman who was sitting beside him. He asked, “Tell me something, how long were you two engaged?”
She sighed. “Oh, five months now. We met only seven months ago but… Don’t laugh. I know it was really fast. It’s just that we seemed so suited to each other and…”
Blade decided to turn the subject. “So you reside on Newport?”
“Yes. Have you been there?”
His voice was tight. “Not in a very long time.”
“But you’ve been?”
His shoulders stiffened, and he deliberately loosened them, forcing his muscles to relax so that he would not jerk up on that flight stick. “Yes, I have been.”
She said, “I have no idea how someone would go from living in Newport to living back there. Why were you there?”
He steadied the ship and made a minor adjustment that would take them through the heat field. “I had business there.”
“What kind of business could take you there?”
Blade said, “You don’t want to know. Listen, I am going to take you as far as the nearest Fed-friendly planet. Then you’re on your own. I can’t take you to Newport; I have business elsewhere.”
“I see.” She turned the seat and then sucked in a breath. “We’re on fire!”
