Page 11 of Star Mates

Emmarie blinked as she processed the information. “Excuse me?”

“Humans are slaves,” he told her in a voice not entirely cruel. But his words were so matter of fact that they almost hurt to hear them. “They began collecting us about a hundred years ago.”

“Collecting humans?” she asked, horrified.

“The Merloni’s one gift is possessing brilliant minds,” Pikon stated.

“They used to abduct Earthlings to sell them off for either the working lines, the breeder lines, or the pleasure lines but sometimes they got commissions.”

“Are you fucking joking?” Logan asked.

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

“Shit,” Logan said. He was quiet for a moment as he processed the words. “Why did you seem surprised to see us on the view screen? And using past tense to explain everything.”

“Because we thought the Slip Gate technology had been destroyed,” Pikon answered.

“Why did you think that?”

Raiden ran a hand through his thick hair. “We though the location computer for the Slip Gate is a satellite had been destroyed. Obviously, we were wrong.”

Queasiness rolled through Emmarie’s stomach. All the stories of people who had been abducted by UFO’s slammed into her brain. The horrible claims they had made about what had been done to them found new truth and turned her stomach.

She took a long drink of the strong contents of her glass.

“Can you fly us home?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. Her eyes met and held Raiden’s, searching for the truth.

“This ship isn’t built with Slip Gate technology,” he answered, watching her with an almost pitying look on his face. “Only the Merloni ships can do that.”

“Then we need to get a Merloni ship!” Logan growled. “Take us back to that one we were on!”

“Listen, Earthman,” Raiden growled, pushing his face into Logan’s space and staring him straight in the eye. They were the same height, of similar build, but as different as night and day. Raiden’s face was hard, his jaw held in a grim manner, dark like an avenging angel. Logan, who had the softer look of a scholar, was a man pushed into an extreme situation but underneath his stress Emmarie could see the concern and fear that mirrored her own. “That ship was destroyed. We need to get to safe territory because you’re going to be hunted. The Kexians aren’t stupid, they’ll figure out the two of you made it out alive. Human slaves are a valuable commodity. She,” he gave a nod in Emmarie’s direction, “can breed us, so she’s going to be worth more than you.”

The two men stared at each other, measuring the inner core of the other. Tension crackled between them.

“You’re saying we’re stuck here?” Logan demanded.

Raiden blinked, and his dark eyes changed from aggravation to pity. “We’ll take you to our home port on Arden, one of Dura’s moons, and we’ll get you to someone who can help you get settled.”

“I don’t want to settle,” Logan said, his voice tight with a hard edge.

“I know,” Raiden answered and then he stood. “I’m not trying to be insensitive, but you two have stumbled into a situation where humans know no other way of life.”

“We’re at war, my friend,” Pikon told them.

“War?” Emmarie whispered. “Against…aliens?”

Raiden sighed. “Shut up, Pike. Listen, I’ve got to get back to the controls. We’ll be at Arden soon.”

Right before he departed, he glanced over his shoulder at her and held her gaze. Emmarie felt that pull again toward him, as if she had known him all her life. Then he broke eye contact and was gone.

“Holly hell,” Pikon said on a sigh. “It’s a bad blow knowing the Slip Gate has been rebuilt.”

“Are you’re part of some type of resistance army?”

He held his finger and thumb about an inch apart. “Yeah, but it’s this big.”

“Well, we’re American so we know all about small revolutions,” Logan said confidently.

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