Orion: Star Guardians, Book 1 Page 4

  Juanita should have also been thinking about escape, but the hungry way Baldie looked straight at her ensured that nothing but fear surged into her brain. Was he singling her out again? Why her? Was it the blue tips she’d given her hair for Comic-Con this year? Who would have known that would be so alluring?

  “Stay behind us, Juanita,” Tala said, rising to her feet and stepping between her and the gate.

  Angela hesitated, but then also stood up.

  Juanita jumped to her feet too. She didn’t want the others to risk themselves for her. But could she step forward and present herself to ensure that Baldie didn’t snatch one of them instead? She remembered the utter terror she had felt when he had grabbed her and pressed himself against her.

  Several other women rose, more than a few eyeing Baldie, the guard with the weapon, and the open gate.

  The man with the weapon fired through the bars, and everyone jumped back. What looked like two blue laser beams shot out of the bow weapon and burrowed into the floor plating, leaving a four-inch-wide smoking hole. He smiled, then lifted his weapon, pointing it straight at Tala.

  Juanita stared at the hole in the floor and what burning away the bronze had revealed. Conduits and pipes ran underneath, bound together with some kind of green gunk that reminded her of the Silly Putty she’d played with as a kid. Whatever it was, it didn’t look like a typical building material. She was growing more and more certain that they weren’t in some bunker under a freeway.

  Baldie grabbed Angela and shoved her to the side. It was clear all he wanted was to get at Juanita, but Tala surprised them all by spinning and slamming a side kick into the man’s hip. He stumbled away a couple of steps, though he wasn’t hurled across the room the way he would have been in the movies. Too bad. He recovered quickly and lunged for Tala with murder in his eyes.

  “No,” Juanita blurted, startling herself by jumping in between them.

  She hadn’t wanted to be brave, and she sure as hell didn’t want to be mauled by this sicko, but she couldn’t let him hurt Tala. Or worse.

  Baldie stopped short, just shy of knocking her over. The rage disappeared from his eyes as they lit up with delight. He clamped his hand onto her wrist before she could think about jumping away, and he hauled her toward the gate.

  The guard in the hall said something in a protesting voice. Was he objecting to Juanita being taken? If so, why had he so clearly been facilitating her retrieval?

  When Baldie grunted a querulous sound, the man pointed with his weapon, the tip aiming at Tala again. For a horrified second, Juanita thought he planned to kill her, but he repeated something, and Baldie took a step back and reached for Tala.

  No, the guard didn’t want to kill her. He wanted a woman for himself. Tala.

  But Tala objected. She jumped back and launched a straight kick toward Baldie’s balls.

  He was ready this time and lifted a knee, deflecting the blow with his thigh. His buddy fired into the cell again, the blue energy blast nearly parting Tala’s hair.

  She threw herself to the floor, rolling to come up farther from Baldie, but he had other plans. He lunged toward her, dragging Juanita behind him.

  She drew her free arm back and made a fist. She had never punched anyone in her life, but she wasn’t about to let these two men do whatever they wanted to them. She threw her weight back, trying to slow him down. When he whirled, looking like he meant to heft her over his shoulder, she punched him in the cheek.

  Pain blasted across her knuckles, and she immediately regretted the move. The flash of surprise in his eyes was the only thing that made it worth it. Unfortunately, he didn’t appear hurt badly, and he didn’t let her go.

  Baldie reached for Tala again, but froze when something shook the floor. An earthquake?

  The lights went out, plunging them into darkness.

  Juanita twisted her wrist and pulled back, hoping to catch him by surprise. He let her go, barking some question to his buddy.

  Having expected more of a battle, Juanita stumbled backward. She’d almost caught her balance when she tripped over someone and fell on her butt.

  “Now’s our chance,” Tala blurted.

  In the complete darkness, Juanita couldn’t see her or Angela, or any of the other women, but hoped they were all making for the gate.

  Juanita rose to a crouch and patted in the direction she thought it was. She bumped into people. The darkness was disorienting. The sound of the men shouting at each other was the only thing guiding her. She thought Baldie had run out into the corridor.

  She quickened her pace, certain he would lock them all in again. Her knuckle clunked against one of the bars, and she winced. That hand already smarted after that foolish punch. Still, she guided herself along, and her heart soared when she found the opening. He hadn’t shut the gate yet.

  She ran into someone else as she tried to slip out, and swore to herself. If that was Baldie, he would knock her on her butt—and back into the cell. But whoever she’d bumped didn’t do anything. Was it one of the other women? Juanita slipped through the gate.

  A distant boom sounded, and the floor quaked again. Juanita had no idea what was going on, but she groped her way down a corridor. She didn’t know where she was going, but anywhere away from Baldie would be good.

  A clang sounded, followed by a thunk. The gate shutting and locking.

  Feminine shouts of dismay came from inside the cell. Had anyone except for her made it out?

  An angry voice yelled. That was Baldie.

  Juanita hurried until she bumped into a wall. She patted her way along it, realizing she was at a corner, and kept going. The next thing she came to was a bumpy metal wall. Or was that a door? She felt her way along rivets and brushed against something that felt like a latch.

  She pushed down, and it turned with a creak. She winced at the noise, but another earthquake rocked the floor. Or were they being hit by something? Notions of spaceships returned to her mind. Could this be some kind of space battle? But who would be firing at this ship? It wasn’t as if the International Space Station had photon torpedoes.

  Something to consider later. Once she was hidden somewhere that those creeps wouldn’t find her. She prayed Angela and Tala had made it out of the cell, too, and that she could reunite with them once the lights came back on.

  She pulled on the latch and felt the weight of a heavy door pulling open.

  Someone bumped into her back, and she bit her mouth to keep from yelping in surprise as she imagined Baldie grabbing her from behind again.

  “Juanita?” came an uncertain whisper.

  “Tala,” she whispered back, turning and gripping her.

  “I thought it might be you, but I wasn’t sure.”

  “There’s a door here. Let’s get out of here.”

  Shouts came from back around the corner.

  “No argument here,” Tala whispered.

  Juanita tugged open the heavy door. It felt more like a hatch on some old Russian submarine rather than a regular door, and it groaned as it opened.

  The corridor outside wasn’t quite as dark, and Juanita hurried out, hoping they would be able to see the way to someplace safe. But what came into view made her halt and gape.

  A window—no, a porthole—was set into the wall in front of them. The hull. Through the porthole, a massive planet was in view, its surface lit by the sun, highlighting a pale yellow and orange surface. And rings. Shimmering grays and pinks.

  “Saturn,” Juanita breathed.

  “I… I…” Tala gripped her shoulder, her face stunned in the faint light coming in through the porthole.

  “This is amazing. I wish I had my phone so I could record it and show it to everyone on my YouTube channel.” She’d started “How to Be a Geek Girl” back in college, in an attempt to build a platform to sell her best-selling science fiction novels. Once she actually had some best-selling novels. Or even a published novel. Her followers there would eat up live video of Saturn from this close up.


  “It must be fake,” Tala said, recovering her voice.

  Juanita reached out and ticked what appeared to be glass or plastic. “I don’t think so.”

  Footsteps thundered off to the right and around a corner. They were coming from the wrong direction to belong to Angela, and they were far too heavy anyway.

  Juanita grabbed Tala and led her down the corridor toward the left, reluctantly leaving the porthole behind. Hopefully, whoever was coming had been called to assist with the jailbreak and would turn toward the cells instead of following in this direction.

  Juanita and Tala would have to find a hiding place and hope to find Angela later.

  She tried to ignore the thought that followed: And then what?

  5

  The lights came on as Orion ran through the intersection, and he cursed. He would have preferred darkness for what he needed to do. That could only be Sage out there, leading an attack. Orion appreciated that his brother had come right away, apparently deciding that rescuing women was more important than vague orders about staying hidden from the planet’s inhabitants, but he wished Sage had warned him. There wasn’t much time for him to do his part.

  A woman cried out from down the corridor to his left, in the direction that led to the brig, and he faltered, almost sprinting that way. But he forced himself to stay on mission, to head straight down the passage that led to engineering. He could best help the women by disabling the slaver ship’s shield generator so Sage’s fire falcon could come in, clamp on, and do a forced boarding.

  The lights went out again as a series of thwumps reverberated through the ship. Star bombs. Not surprisingly, the slavers were firing back. Their ship was still in motion, too, and judging by the rattling of the deck plating, it was flying at top speed. Captain Cutty must think that if he made it to the wormhole gate, he could escape the Star Guardian ship.

  “Not likely,” Orion muttered, tapping his logostec to project a light in front of him as he ran around a dark corner.

  The wide hatch to engineering stood closed at the end of the corridor, and he would have sprinted straight for it, but two female figures standing in front of it made him pause. They were trying to get the latch open, but a keypad on the bulkhead would keep it locked to anyone who didn’t know the code.

  Orion hadn’t been trying to make his approach silent, so they heard him barrel around the corner, and they whirled.

  After staring at him for a shocked heartbeat, the lean one with straight black hair dropped into a crouch, fists coming up in a fighting stance. The other one, the curvy young woman with the blue-tipped dark hair held a hand toward her friend and stepped forward.

  Instead of making a threat, she met Orion’s eyes squarely, then lifted her right hand, palm toward him. Her four fingers split down the middle in a V, and she spoke.

  “We come in peace,” she said without a quaver to her voice—was she not afraid of him? “Uhm, live long and prosper.”

  Orion wrinkled his brow at the last sentence, wondering if the translation chip embedded in his ear canal had interpreted that correctly. It sometimes struggled with Zi’i, Alabaster, and the Gemi languages, but it didn’t usually have trouble with the various human tongues of the galaxy. Of course, this one was new to the chip. It’d had time to work on learning the women’s language while he’d been standing guard and listening to them speak to each other, but it was too soon to expect precision.

  Orion touched his fingertips to his forehead, then showed her his open palm as the traditional greeting—and to show that he wasn’t holding a weapon, even though his bolt bow hung on a strap across his back. He walked slowly forward.

  The older woman glowered and tightened her fists.

  “It’s all right,” the younger one said. Orion sure would like to get their names. “He’s the one who helped us.”

  “Helped us? He helped capture us, the same as the others.”

  “But he didn’t let, uhm, things happen that could have.”

  “Just because he’s not a rapist doesn’t mean we can trust him.”

  Orion winced. The translator seemed to be doing fine with the words now. Unfortunately.

  More thwumps reverberated through the decking, reminding Orion that he had a mission and that he couldn’t delay.

  He pointed toward the keypad on the wall. He needed to get past them and save introductions for later, but he didn’t particularly want them attacking him—or fleeing from him either. Could he convince them to stay with him without using force?

  “Orion,” he said, pressing his hand to his chest.

  “Oh!” the young one brightened, looking ridiculously excited by this attempt at communication. She touched her own chest. “Juanita Manriquez.” She touched his wrist and said, “It’s nice to meet you, Orion.”

  She inadvertently bumped one of the small buttons on his logostec, and the adventure novel he’d been reading earlier popped into the air, a few rows of text under an image of Herakles about to lead his magical space chariot into battle against the Zi’i.

  “Is that a comic book?” Juanita blurted.

  “Uh, it’s really more of a novel.” Orion blushed, even though she wouldn’t be able to understand him. His mother had teased him about still reading books with pictures when he’d been in the military academy. “There are very adult themes and adult moral issues that the characters wrestle with. Adultly." His blush deepened.

  But she grinned, her eyes gleaming. “I love comic books. Junior year, my roommate and I wrote a whole series of them. She did the art, and I wrote the stories.”

  The other woman cleared her throat, and Orion tapped his logostec to make the novel disappear. He hadn’t expected such a response from Juanita, and found himself intrigued, but there wasn’t time to discuss it further now. That would have been hard, anyway, given that she couldn’t understand him.

  Juanita pointed at her comrade. “This is Tala. She’s a doctor!”

  Orion wasn’t sure why she’d volunteered career information, but he accepted it with a nod. Maybe it would come in useful later. Hadn’t Sage said his own doctor had been killed in action on their last mission? Orion didn’t know if he had a replacement yet. At the same time, he imagined that any doctor from a planet that hadn’t achieved interstellar flight would have a primitive level of skill.

  “Orion?” the older woman—Tala—asked, her eyes narrowed to slits. She was about as friendly as the captain’s svenkar, and Orion could tell she would be hard to win over, or even reason with. “Juanita, it seems unlikely that your aliens would have the same names for constellations that we do. That the Greeks made up.”

  Aliens? They thought he was an alien?

  They were the ones from a world nobody had known about three weeks ago.

  He had grabbed a couple of translator chips from sickbay when he’d been in there supposedly getting headache medicine. Maybe he would have time to insert them into the women’s ears if they would allow it. He had also, under Truok’s bored eye, palmed two injectors full of the same sedative the slavers had used to capture the women.

  Shouts came from the direction of the brig, and a feminine yell of pain rolled down the corridor. That idiot Bray wasn’t molesting them while his ship was in battle, was he?

  Growling, Orion headed for the keypad, waving for the women to step aside. Tala glared at him and turned, keeping her fists up as she watched him. Juanita smiled at him, the gesture so enthused and authentic that it nearly made him trip. Her eyes gleamed, as if she were on some grand adventure rather than trapped aboard a ship with a crew determined to sell her to aliens to be eaten. Maybe she was excited to have escaped. How had they managed that?

  A question for later, after they were all aboard his brother’s ship, and this one had been blown out of the stars.

  Orion tapped in the code—he’d observed one of the engineers doing it the week before and memorized it—glad the unsophisticated clunker of a ship didn’t use fingerprint readers or retina scans for security
. The pad beeped once, and a thunk-hiss sounded as the hatch unsealed.

  As he grabbed the latch, he considered the women. Should he ask them to come in with him, where he expected to do battle? Or should he tell them to stay here?

  Yells echoed down the corridor, and he grimaced at the idea of them staying behind. He dug into a pocket, his hand brushing one of his daggers on the way, and Tala tensed again. He pulled out one of the injectors and held it on his palm. Tala’s knuckles whitened. Orion couldn’t blame them for hating the sight of those things now, but Juanita didn’t display the same wariness. She looked at his hand and then into his eyes, as if she was trying to read his mind.

  Orion pointed at the hatch, then glared at it and made a fist, hoping to indicate that there would be trouble inside. He offered the injector to her.

  Her eyes widened, but she smiled and took it. She even bounced on her toes, as if she was excited to play a role in his plans. Her breasts jiggled under the thin shirt she wore. He found himself staring, then mentally kicked himself. This wasn’t the time to ogle a woman, especially not one he had helped kidnap.

  Orion pointed at the button on the side of the device to show her how to use it. He thought about giving the other one in his pocket to Tala, but he might need it himself. Besides, she would probably use it to stab him in the neck as soon as he turned his back on her.

  “Follow me,” he said, hoping Juanita understood and would do so, and gripped the latch again. But he paused before opening it, realizing he might be able to use the women as a way to get close to the men inside without arousing suspicion. Maybe he could say he’d been ordered to bring them down to entertain the hard-working engineers. “Go with what I say, please,” he added, though they only looked at each other in confusion.

  Was there time to insert translators into their ears now?

  His logostec beeped softly. It was Sage.

  “Yes?” Orion whispered, bringing his wrist to his mouth.

  “Why aren’t the damned shields down?” Sage growled without preamble.