Page 17 of Star Mates

“Where, exactly, is here?” Logan asked her.

Willoughbee turned away from them and walked toward a very large monitor. She pushed a few buttons and the screen changed to show a galaxy. Another button had the image zooming in, and Emmarie saw a large sun with an asteroid belt dividing three planets away from several others. Another sun, smaller than the first, lay far in the distance to the last planet.

“This is the Amarante,” Willoughbee murmured. “Much like your Sol System from whence you came. The sun here is a yellow dwarf with a luminosity class three with another red dwarf star about six hundred million kilometers apart from the last planet. The position of the planets and their compositions make this system unique because five different races have evolved.” She pointed to the planet closest to the sun. “This is Kex, a hot desert like planet made up of a warrior-type class.” Another image appeared. Big, brutish beings covered in armor with a horn jutting out of their foreheads.

Emmarie blinked.

“Kexians are basically guns for hire,” Raiden murmured.

“Who hires them?” she asked.

The image clicked back to the planets.

“This one,” Willoughbee answered. “Unaria, and the primary source of being a pain in our asses. Unaria is a capitalist world, I suppose would be the correct term. Comprised of nothing but ore and supplies almost all of the other worlds. They keep the Merloni,” she pointed to one of the last planets on the left side of the asteroid belt, “in business. Unarians use human slaves for the mines, women to breed the human slaves, and of course, the beautiful women for chatelaines.”

She shot a brief glance at Emmarie.

“And we’re on this side of the asteroid field?” Logan asked. “That’s enough to keep out the bad guys?”

“Not entirely.” Willoughbee replied. “We call the asteroid belt the Outlaw Rings. It’s extremely dense and flying through them is taking your life in your own hands. However, the Kexian sentinels are brash enough to try to get through the belt to get to us.”

“So…we’re sitting ducks?”

“Have you ever heard the expression the enemy of my enemy is my friend?” Raiden asked.

“Of course,” Logan muttered.

Raiden tapped the biggest planet on the screen, on the right side of the asteroid belt lay two planets, one very small and one easily three times bigger than Kex and Unaria combined. “The farthest planet is Zond, but the inhabitants are timid. We rarely see them. The big planet is Dura, and they’ve been in conflict with Unaria over ore and processing rights for eons.”

“Durians have developed new technology over the years to reduce their dependence on ore,” Willoughbee added. “Much of their technology is all around us. Dura allowed us to colonize Arden, one of their moons, and gave us access to our own protection shield, as well as providing much of our equipment.”

“So, you’re what? Durian subjects?” Logan asked, crossing his arms as he studied the chart.

“No,” Raiden answered. “Of course not. Humans haven’t any rights.” He shot Willoughbee a raised eyebrow look. “The main question I have is why the Merloni crashed. The Slip Gate is a security so that a ship wouldn’t come out of a tunnel and hit an asteroid.”

“Which is, of course, exactly what they did,” Pikon quipped.

“So how did they rebuild it?” Raiden asked, almost to himself. “The hub was destroyed, so how the fuck did another Slip Gate get rebuilt without us knowing about it?”

“What was destroyed must not have been the hub,” Willoughbee replied.

“If it wasn’t the hub then those people died for nothing!” Raiden growled, raking a hand through his hair. “For thirty years we thought it was gone. But how long has it been bringing people through that we knew nothing about?”

“Speculation gets us nowhere,” Willoughbee told him. “Clearly we face the imminent advancement on slavery. We need to bring the Senate together.”

“We need to find that new hub,” Raiden countered. “Destroy every bit of Slip Gate technology so the Merloni would never be able to abduct another human from Earth.”

“That would mean we could never get home,” Emmarie murmured.

Everyone in the room turned to look at her. Pity filled Willoughbee’s gaze, but it was the stark truth shining brightly from Raiden’s dark eyes that held her captive.

“I could learn how to fly one of their ships,” Logan said. "I’m a linguist-”

“You’d never survive the trip home,” Raiden said matter of fact.

“We survived it here!”

“Logan,” Willoughbee’s compassionate voice rumbled. “The only way for a human to travel through the Gate is by being encased in cryo-animation. Our bodies are not made to withstand the internal pressures.”

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