Naked (2 page)

Cierra raised her hand, and Tyan noticed and smiled.

“Excuse me, gentlemen, my friend is here.”

The men turned, and two visibly jerked when they saw her pale skin and obviously alien features.

Cierra wrinkled her nose but kept her mouth shut. The Xerat had features that didn’t move much, so even moving her face was enough to unsettle them.

Tyan walked up to her and slipped her pale blue arm through Cierra’s, tugging her out of the shop.

“You do enjoy taunting them.”

Tyan bared her teeth in a smile that didn’t move her thick skin. “It is my favourite thing to do on my days off, you know that. I loved their faces when they saw you. That was highly amusing.”

“Which is why you wanted to meet there, you wanted to freak them out.”

Chuckling, Tyan said, “Well, you know how much I judge a man by his reaction to you.”

“Yes. A man who can flirt with you, see me and still keep his erection is a keeper.” Cierra laughed. “Where are we going today?”

“Lunch at Niro’s on the floating city and an erotic puppet show is in the middle of the afternoon.”

Cierra blinked. “A what?”

“Puppet show. You would not believe what they can do with cut outs and puppets.” If Tyan were human, she would be waggling her eyebrows.

“Lead the way, my friend.”

Tyan kept her smile for several blocks as they left the market, wandered across the connecting bridges and entered the floating city of Hrimla.

As they walked through the streets of the floating city, Tyan did what she always did on these jaunts and gave Cierra local history.

“This city dates back to the turn of the last millennium. It was designed as a trading platform between the water and land folk. They had a place here where peace was guaranteed and escape routes were available to both folk in case of attack.”

“Tyan, I know this. We have been to the city before.”

Her friend waved that away and kept speaking. “The bridge was built when the water and land folk started to interbreed.”

“Right. As they connected to the land, the land connected to the water.”

Tyan casually reached around and clamped a hand over Cierra’s mouth as she kept talking.

“The resulting people founded Jraka City and now run the trade base.”

Cierra licked her friend’s hand and Tyan pulled it away.

“Ew. You aliens are disgusting.”

Cierra made a face. “And you taste horrible. Why are you continuing the history lesson?”

“The show we are seeing this afternoon is about the meeting of the two folk. I needed to give you the background so that you would understand what you were seeing. It is performed in High Xerat and I wanted you to have comprehension of what was going on.”

Tyan stopped frowning at her hand and wiped it off on Cierra’s bodysuit.

“Hey, this is a nice suit.”

“And now you are wearing your own drool. The punishment fits the crime.”

Cierra looked down at her exposed belly, and she flicked her newly blued hair over her shoulder. Her job paid for her home, her clothing and left her plenty of funds for things like permanently tinting her hair.

It didn’t hurt that her new hair colour helped her blend in with the locals. She enjoyed the anonymity that she never thought she would crave. She had gone from a world where she didn’t stand out to one where she was a blazing beacon of the unfamiliar with every step she took.

The puppet show was underway and as fascinating as Tyan had promised when a rhythmic sound blazed and waved out through the city.

Tyan paled and fear was in her eyes. “We are under attack. Get to the water exit.”

The line of folks heading to the water exit was long, but in under a minute, they were standing at the edge of the pool. Tyan shoved a breather in Cierra’s mouth and jumped into the water herself.

Cierra turned and saw figures entering the theater; they wore armoured suits, helmets and baldrics with some weird canisters on them.

Cierra jumped into the water and started to swim, using the handholds in the walls to pull herself along and toward the light.

In the silent underwater world, she heard a sound a moment before a flash of light and energy rolled over her. The breather clenched in her mouth and clamping her nose shut was all the kept her alive as her paralyzed body floated downward.

She felt a splash as the invaders entered the water, and while several swam past her, one grabbed her ankle and hauled her back toward the theater and out of the water.

Her mind scrabbled around trying to find the logic in the moment, and she couldn’t. She was hauled out of the water by her ankle and hung in the air before being dropped to the floor next to the pool.

She saw the slick, featureless helmet of the person staring at her, but he didn’t speak.

Cierra listened to the breather; the slight hiss told her she was still getting air.

Her body started to tingle, and she fought the urge to twitch. If they didn’t know she was recovering, it might give her a chance to get away.

Other invaders came up, and they had other Xerats in their grip. All women.

It looked like her guy had pulled a dud.

The Xerat women were unconscious, their gills closed and eyes shut. All Xerat had gills, but the land folk usually pretended they didn’t.

Cierra looked around, and the invaders were picking up their prizes and leaving the theater.

If her fella tossed her over his shoulder, she wasn’t going to have a chance. Her hand-to-hand combat skills were not up to snuff.

When he reached for her, she grabbed the breather, threw it at him, scuttled back and got to her feet.

The helmet tilted slightly, but she couldn’t tell if he was amused or confused. He stepped toward her, and she ran for the rear exit as fast as she could. Tyan hadn’t been hauled up, so there was a chance she was still free.

She didn’t hear pursuit, but she kept going, bursting outside and coming to a halt. The sky was dark with a huge ship, and small shuttles were making the rounds to the surface and back, presumably with members of the population.

An arm wrapped around her waist, but she was too shocked to do anything. This was something out of fiction, out of someone’s twisted imagination. Why was it happening now?

With a smooth move, she was flipped up over his shoulder and he carried her to the shuttle taking up the courtyard behind the theater. She had done half the work for him; he hadn’t had to carry her all the way to the shuttle.

Inside the shuttle, she was strapped to a wall with the unconscious women, and the ship took off.

They lifted into the sky, and she fought the straps. Her senses and predictive logic weren’t giving her anything. There was no logic here.

The other women were still unconscious. Cierra looked around the hold and noted a few medical kits on the walls. They were located every two women on each side of the hold.

The ship shuddered and Cierra winced. The cuffs dug into her wrists as the ship tilted and twisted in midair. Whatever they were doing, Cierra hoped they would rectify it soon.

* * * *

“Who the hell is shooting at us?” The captain snarled.

“Surface-to-air attack. They didn’t have these twenty years ago.”

The captain swung them around and slid their shuttle into the incursion ship’s protective field.

“Are the others under fire?”

His helmsman looked at the data coming in on their scanners. “No, it is just us. Who did you grab, Captain?”

“I have no idea, but she was completely lit up when I looked at her. I couldn’t leave her there.”

He tightened his grip on the controls and tried to focus on skimming along the belly of their ship. Her frightened crystal-grey eyes didn’t match the Xerat-blue hair that she was sporting, but there was a focus in her gaze that he hadn’t been expecting. She didn’t look at him; she analyzed him. Even though she was not his target species, he hadn’t been able to leave her behind. He was going to catch nine kinds of hell for this, but if she didn’t have someone to ransom her down on Xerat, he wanted to keep her.

He knew when something belonged in his life, and she was it. Cruising the galaxy, seeking species that were vulnerable to kidnapping and ransom had been a match for his destiny, but he had never been sure what the end game was. With all the seers in his bloodline, seeing into his own wasn’t possible beyond recognizing parts of his own future when he saw them.

That woman was definitely part of his future; he just wasn’t sure which part.

When the helmeted figures returned to haul them out, Cierra was bruised, aching and still the only woman awake.

Not one of the men made a sound, even as they hauled the women up and flipped them over their shoulders. Cierra grunted as her captor did the same with her, but she was too busy trying to look around to care.

The ship they were brought to was clean, grey and the walls were unremarkable. There was nothing for her senses to get a grip on. Nothing that she could see as a means to escape. She wasn’t dumb enough to think she could fly down to the surface. Her flight skills were non-existent.

As a survivalist, she was strictly urban. She could only manage a dodge or escape when she was in an environment that gave her options. There were no options here.

She finally gave up in her reconnaissance and dropped back down; her breath caused condensation on her captor’s armour.

Behind them in the corridor, she heard more marching feet, and when she craned her head up, there was another line of armoured men walking the hall and each of them had a woman over his shoulder.

She was taken into a room with what seemed to be docks of a sort on the walls. She could see the unconscious women being stood up in the docks and clamps came out to hold them.

When she was flipped, her head spun, but she lunged to get free of the dock. Her captor pushed her back into the dock, and the clamps wrapped around her neck, wrists, thighs and ankles.

A scan ran over her from head to toe and back again. Blood was taken from her palm, and then, the most alarming point of the process began. Small servos reached out and peeled off her clothing.

Hyperventilating wasn’t her first choice, but she couldn’t help it. Being naked in front of a stranger was not her idea of a secure position to be in, and she was all about making herself feel secure.

The scanner ran light over her again, and a hypo hissed with a cool jet striking her thigh. Her heartbeat slowed, her breathing slowed and she slipped into darkness.

She was inside a small cocoon and that was nearly as bad as the nudity. The glowing opaque shield above her was close enough to hit, so she pushed at it, bringing her legs up and using them in the effort as well. She heard a creak, then another and finally it swung open.

Cierra leaned her head over the edge of the unit and gasped for the stale air of the ship.

Wait a minute.
The air wasn’t stale. Not completely. There was an organic component that was very familiar. Wherever she was, there was a garden nearby.

She was still without clothing and that didn’t make her happy, but it did make her cautious. Cierra slipped out of the capsule and looked at her surroundings. She was in a warehouse filled with other capsules, each one holding a single sleeping woman.

Cierra still didn’t know why they had been taken, because the obvious reasons didn’t seem to apply. If you wanted sex slaves, you didn’t keep them in storage, did you?

She crept along the columns of capsules, listening for a guard while she tried to get a feel for who was in those containers. She was queasy when she counted one hundred thirty sleep capsules, including her own.

A small noise made her jump, and she skittered between two capsules, wishing that she hadn’t been an idiot who left the lid open on her unit.

Her mind translated a masculine tone cursing and the footfalls headed out the only door in the storage area.

Well, they knew she was out; apparently, they thought she had made it into the ship.

* * * *

“No ransom will be collected for her. You know that.” General Sapya scowled at him.

Captain Ahket nodded. “I know, but I had to take her. She was meant to be here.”

The general sighed and ran his hand over his features. “Are you sure that that is what your senses were telling you? They could have been pointing out her unsuitability for a payday.”

Ahket shook his head. “The colour was wrong. She glowed with the colour that my family associates with someone or something close to us. Something to keep.”

Sapya made a notation on his tablet. “Well, your other endeavours have paid you well. This one won’t injure your standing.”

Ahket nodded. “Thank you. How are the other ransoms going?”

“The funds are flowing in. This was a most successful event, with one minor hitch.”

Ahket winced. “If I had not collected her, then I would have had to return for her.”

Sapya nodded grimly. “I am going to have to have a word with your grandmother. She has corrupted you.”

He was about comment about his grandfather choosing his grandmother, but the duty sergeant skidded into the room.

“Apologies, General, Captain. The woman.”

Ahket turned. “Yes?”

“The pale woman…”

Sapya raised his eyebrows. “Yes?”

“She isn’t in her capsule.”

Ahket began cursing and ran for the hostage sanctuary. The sergeant followed him, apologizing the entire way. When they approached the door to the unit, he lifted his hand to stop the younger man.

“What did the door record?”

“It didn’t record anything, but her capsule alarm didn’t go off either. Perhaps she can get around our technology.”

Ahket didn’t bother calling the young man an idiot. Those alarms were set to keep the soldiers from getting in and abusing the unconscious women. They were not set to keep the women from breaking out.

He entered the sanctuary and looked around. The open capsule was right where he had left her, but the woman was missing.