“No, just going through a heat field. It will cease soon but please don’t panic and run. There’s a good chance that if you do, you will knock us off course and you don’t want to die like that.”
“I’d say not.”
Her stout answer made a grin crack his face even though he hadn’t meant for it to. He said, “You sound very practical.”
“I am very practical. Usually. Going to Orbital wasn’t practical at all. I don’t know what made me say yes. I guess it was just the idea of travel and going to such an exotic place—and…and, well, I wanted to make Jack happy. He was looking forward to it so much.” A sob came again, and he turned his head to see a long tear sliding down her cheek. She brushed it away with one hand and straightened her shoulders. “I have to know the name of that planet so I can get help and send assistance back.”
Blade decided to just be brutally honest. “Let me ask you this. Was he ever engaged before?”
She frowned. That frown creased her forehead and made her eyes squint a bit as she nodded. “How’d you know?”
“Any idea what happened to her?”
Clean white teeth chewed at her slightly thin bottom lip. “She left him without a word. It broke his heart. He wouldn’t ever talk about her.”
“I think your fiancé sold you.”
Her eyes went wide. Her jaw sagged open. She cried out, “Are you insane? How can you say such a thing?”
Blade said, “Because it happens like that. There’s a travel voucher, a too good to be true vacation to an exotic destination, a gift that is out of the ordinary and strange and not really affordable. Then when the woman, and sometimes the male, get to where they are going, food or drink gets drugged and the slavers, who are already there because they have already agreed to the purchase, haul off the victim, who is rarely ever seen again. I would say you got very lucky.”
“No.” Her hands shook as she raised them to her mouth. “You’re wrong. He would never. Jack is a very…” She broke off. Her chest heaved up and down. “Why would he do that?”
“Because he wanted credits and he could get them by selling you is the usual reason.” Blade knew his words were harsh and unkind but so was what had been done to her. “Did you fly on private transport?”
“Yes but…”
“Then you skipped the lines of security and didn’t have to register as a traveler.”
“No, but that was part of the voucher! It was…” She fell silent. The sobs that came from her chest now were not silent. They were harsh and broken. “No. he would not have done that. If anything, he was tricked and they stole me.”
She would believe that all up until she found her fiancé safe and sound, and quite shocked that she was back home. He knew that he was talking to a brick wall and if there was anything he was not willing to do, it was waste his precious time dealing with this situation. He said, “Maybe you’re right.”
“Of course I am!” her cry was wild and raw. “I…I need to try to contact him as soon as possible and let him know I am okay!”
“You can use the com-caster as soon as we get somewhere close to a place with signal.”
“Thank you.”
He knew he should dump her on the nearest planet. Unfortunately, the nearest planet was not one he would drop a dog off on. It was not as bad as the one they had just left, but it was bad enough. It was an outlier with plenty of criminal activity, and she was an innocent.
Too innocent.
He said, “I can take you to Merital. It’s just a small agri-planet, but they’re law abiding, and you will be safe there. You must, and I mean must, tell nobody where you were found.”
She squirmed. “I can’t tell anyone because I have no idea at all where I was. And you are so very wrong about him. He’s a good man. I mean I know you probably see that…what you said…a lot, but that only happens in your world, not in mine. I’m…we’re decent people, not criminals!”
She didn’t add the words like you, and she didn’t have to. He could hear them loud and clear anyway.
He didn’t have the time or the ability to help her sort it all out. He didn’t really have time to load her onto a safe planet, in truth, and why he had said that baffled him. He was a hard man, and he’d seen plenty of beings in trouble over the years. He could have walked away from her, he should have walked away from her, but for some reason he hadn’t—and he usually didn’t. That was his fatal flaw. He always wanted to save and champion the lost and hurt and weak. One day that was going to get his ass shot off, and he knew it, and he also knew that now was not the time to get mixed up with Tara, and whatever had happened to her. He was about to embark on open warfare with the all-powerful Federation.
And maybe he was wrong, maybe she had just been kidnapped, and her fiancé had nothing at all to do with her finding herself in that situation.
But he doubted it.
He was willing to wager a year’s worth of loot that she had little to no family, would not be missed at her job, and that said fiancé had kept their relationship very secret.
Why the hell did he care?
Because if he did sell her and she went back to him, he would either kill her on the spot or just sell her again, probably before she even had a chance to figure it all out for herself.
That ruthless part of him asked, “And so what? It’s not your problem. You have bigger fish to fry and a war to first start, and then fight. Drop her off and get on with it already.”
That was what he should do, no doubt. But he did care for some reason. He said, “You’re likely right, and I’m sure he’s terrified and worried about you.”
Her shoulders, held rigid by her tension, dropped slowly. “I’m sure he is. Thank you for…for everything.”
He nodded. His eyes went to the controls. Fourteen hours to Merital, and then she’d be gone. Out of his way and out of his ship and life.
