Page 2 of Return of the Nine

She closed the pods, keyed in the coordinates for Hestia, the capitol of Gaia, and punched the release.

The tubes shot the pods out of the ship and hopefully into the atmosphere.

Ziggy was basing her targeting on the experimenting officer’s thoughts that they were still in orbit.

With her companions launched, Ziggy ran down the hall toward the secondary holding area.

She typed in the pass code and slipped behind the door just as the thunder of boots ran past her.

“Who are you?” The masculine voice shook her to her toes.

Carefully, she turned to see four men hanging from the wall. She looked a little more closely. They weren’t men. Well they were of the masculine gender, but they weren’t human.

“I am a prisoner from Gaia. Who are you?”

“Warriors of the Nine. Can you release us?”

She blinked and walked forward. The other three men were looking at her, but the one who was speaking stared into her very soul.

His skin was a dusky brown, his eyes catlike and tawny and his hair deep brown and tangled. He was huge and his ears were decidedly pointed.

“I can. Why should I?”

“Because we belong to the ships that are attacking this Tokkel vessel. If we get back to our people, this attack will end.”

“May I touch you?”

He looked at her and while exhaustion rode his features, curiosity was there as well. “Yes.”

She ran her hand along his chest and rummaged through his knowledge. Her talent only allowed her to access conscious thoughts of a technical bent. She could pick up languages easily, but wading through this man’s knowledge base was harder than most. The language that he thought in was musical and very old.

He didn’t have any connection to the Tokkel aside from being their prisoner. The men with him were under his command and they had been taken from their ship with only the battle with the Gaians keeping them from being executed or tortured for information.

Ziggy nodded and pulled her hand back. There was a tingle in her skin from where she had touched him. A pleasurable burn pulsed up her arm. “Fine. I will let you guys go. There is a set of escape pods down the hall on the left.”

He stared at her in shock. “You speak the language of the Nine?”

She blinked. It suddenly occurred to her that he had been speaking in Tokkel until now. “I suppose I do, now.”

Ziggy pressed the releases and all four men collapsed to the floor in heaps.

“Do you know why they attacked Gaia?”

Her conversational partner helped his men stand. “Is that what you call it? We called it Underhill.”

She froze. “What do you mean?”

“We left that world eons ago. It changes those upon it.” He stood and his men nodded silently to him. “We are ready to leave.”

She smiled. “I hate a mystery, but you all look like you need to be somewhere else.”

He inclined his head formally. “I look forward to finding you again when this is all over. You seem to be a woman with mysteries of her own.”

She chortled. “You have no idea.”

They didn’t need to be told to be silent. She led them to the pods and the male she had been speaking to calmly keyed in the destination coordinates.

She helped one of his men into the pod.

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