Page 21 of Narzek
Dreadnaught Ten was on point while the other four maintained a blockade around the massive passenger ship. Captain Ventu blinked and stared at the new arrivals for a few seconds then breathed a sigh of relief. They were allies, not enemies. Two of them were Consortium battleships and two were Alliance battleships. With their help, the other four dreadnaughts were able to take control of the battle. The Sargans were soon overwhelmed. Another of their ships was destroyed, and within minutes, the rest of the Sargan’s battleships blinked out, leaving at least a dozen fighters behind.
Abandoned by their mothership, the fighters flew off toward the back side of Mecstar Prime. They weren’t a priority, so none of the dreads or allies bothered to go after them. They would probably land somewhere on the backside of the planet until the Farseekans and company left and the Sargans came back to retrieve them.
While the battle with the Sargans in space progressed, Narzek was alerted that a shuttle was crashing. He knew what was going on in space, and a slither of fear passed through him for his mate on Dreadnaught Ten. He also knew she would be secured in their cabin, probably the safest spot in the ship.
He couldn’t let himself think about it further or he couldn’t do his job. They were just finishing herding people from the secondary mining site. Narzek had planned to send a couple team members back into the tunnels one more time to check for stragglers.
Instead, he had his second in command pull a couple Farseekans aside to see if anyone was missing while they waited for a shuttle to take them up to the Kurellis.
Then Narzek’s team boarded the borrowed hover tram and headed to the crash site. Pieces of the shuttle were strewn along the landing stretch, still smoldering. It had almost reached theKurellisin space before it was forced back into the atmosphere with a damaged engine.
Reentry happened too fast, heating the hull enough to weaken it. The pilot extended the air wings and flaps to slow their descent once they reentered the atmosphere. She used every trick she knew to slow it enough so as not to kill everyone aboard. It still hit the ground too hard, but it broke apart so that the floor in the cargo hold broke loose. It skidded to a stop, only dislodging several of the fifty-some people who had been sitting on the floor.
Narzek started there, dropping off their team field medic and two more team members to help him. They also found more people along the way, still strapped into their seats bolted to the pieces of the floor.
Thankfully, most of the injuries were minor. The worst injuries were among those who had merely been sitting on the cargo hold floor. They’d been thrown off the floor before it skidded to a halt in the dirt. The team medic carried a supply of universal nanocybots, which he injected into the most seriously injured.
Dawn was breaking over the rocky plain where the shuttle crash-landed when they finally accounted for all the passengers from the shuttle. At that point, Narzek got word about the arrival of the Consortium and Alliance Warships. Dreadnaught Ten took massive damage but no fatalities or serious injuries.
Narzek wanted to drop to his knees and thank the Maker for sparing his mate. Instead, he paused for a mini-span and breathed a silent prayer. At that moment, he vowed this would be his last tour of duty into the warzone with Cayla.
He wanted desperately to find his mother, sister, and brother, but he knew he couldn’t keep putting his mate at risk to do it. What if continuing the search caused Cayla to be killed, and he still never found the rest of his family? Even if he found them and the process got her killed, it would destroy him. He was at what Cayla called between a rock and a hard place.
Narzek had to pause for a few deep breaths to clear his mind of those disturbing thoughts. He also had to stop himself from considering the implications of the Alliance ships now orbiting Mecstar Prime with the Dreadnaughts. There were too many variables in the situation to speculate. Meanwhile, he had injured people who needed transport to safety.
He called for a shuttle to come to pick up the passengers from the crash site. Then he went about reassuring them that the fighting was over and another shuttle would take them to the passenger ship safely.
By the time they had gathered everyone together, a second shuttle had arrived. As they left, Narzek sent a voice message to Captain Ventu, recommending the pilot for a commendation. Only her skill kept the damaged shuttle from plummeting to the ground in a fiery explosion that would have killed them all.
Narzek and his team gathered at the hover tram and paused to watch the rescue shuttle take off. They still had kilo-spans before they could return to the ship. The people rescued from that last mining site told them about another smaller site staffed by thirty-four more slaves. At least some of them were Farseekan.
As long as there was a chance to find more of their people, they would keep searching until they were recalled to the ship. Narzek continued to hope that he might find one of his loved ones. Both women and men were forced to work in the mines together.
The crystals mined there were more valuable than what females could earn in brothels. Other than individuals who purchase sex slaves at the auctions, they had more females than they needed for the brothels near spaceports and space stations.
This tour, they were going to the places with the most significant concentrations of Farseekan abductees. Narzek also considered that his relatives might have been found by any of the other teams. In that case, he wouldn’t know until all the rescues were sorted out on theKurellis.
Mecstar Prime was the last stop for theKurellisbefore heading back to Farseek. Two of the dreads would be going back with them to the edge of Consortium space, then they would return to rendezvous with the rest of the dreads at their next rescue destination.
Now that Narzek knew his mate was safe, he could go about the rest of the mission without worrying about her. When he got back, he would make sure she knew beyond a doubt just how much she meant to him.
Chapter Sixteen
Finally, the ship stopped shaking, and Cayla slowly came out of her meditative state. She had no idea how much time had passed, or if the attack was over. A minute or two later, the AI voice announced the emergency had passed. All engineering and ship maintenance people were to report for duty, but all the shuttles were still out.
She thought there was nothing for her to do but wait. Then she remembered she could get updates on the rescue operation through the cabin’s AI interface. There she learned what had happened.
The extraction of the slaves continued. So far, the only injuries ground side were from the shuttle crash. That meant Narzek was ok. The attack on the ship had halted with the arrival of Consortium andAlliancewarships.
Cayla’s heart stepped up is rhythm as the implications of the Alliance ships dawned on her. It opened a real possibility that she could go…home. But, no. She couldn’t go anywhere without Narzek.
They were going to Farseek at the end of this run. She’d learned everything she could about her mate’s homeworld. Narzek sent word to the reconstruction board that they would need a home built separately from the main family home. She wasn’t willing to give that up, not the new house, Narzek, and the life they planned. They would start a family when they returned to Farseek, and they would farm the land.
Besides, theses were Alliance Warships. She doubted they would be taking passengers back to Earth. She did know that there were a few dozen Earthers among the thousands they had rescued already. There were probably more among the Mecstar Prime rescues.
Cayla’s thoughts were interrupted when the interface screen beeped with an incoming call from one of the Alliance Warships. She gave the answer command, and an attractive woman appeared on the screen.
“Greetings, Cayla Fox. I am Lieutenant Sherine B’caro. I am the citizen recovery liaison for the United Galactic Alliance of Worlds, which now includes Earth,” she said in slightly accented but fluent English.
