“Where have they taken her?” I scream. “How could this have happened? Pakka, she was with you!”

“I know, I know,” he sighs. “I am guilty. That I am sure of. We had a discussion that upset her, and she went seeking ‘fresh air’… She hadn’t returned when the security breach began. The building locked down and every door sealed shut.”

“How long?” I snap. “How long since she’s been gone?”

“Two hours,” he says.

I shut my eyes and imagine every horrible thing that could have happened to my precious Ella in the span of two Earth hours. I cease my fighting against the bonds and dig my fingernails into the side of the gurney.

“Release me,” I beg. “If any of you feel any sense of compassion, any shred of loyalty towards me as your crew member, as a fellow male, as a fellow warrior. If you care for me at all or ever did, you will release me immediately.”

“We are doing this because we care for you, Kila, and we are trying to keep you from whatever insanity you are planning. If you go on a rampage and kill humans in the process, there will be nothing we can do to protect you from either Earth or Alliance authorities.” Kiva’s eyes plead for me to cease fighting against them. But I will not.

“If anything happens to her, you should carry me straight to the funeral pyre,” I tell them. “I could not live with it.”

“How can you say that and not see what the hormones have done to your mind?” Mori asks. “We all wish to see Ella safe, and we will do what we can to help find her, but you speak as if your life has no value without her. It’s insanity.”

I let out a cold, angry laugh. Perhaps I have lost my mind, but it happened long, long ago. I realize this now, because Ella has brought my sanity back from the ashes since I’ve known her. How can I make them understand?

“I have been insane. I have always been angry. Do you not realize this? You will all know this truth soon, as you live on without that handy little chip which for so long kept us at some low level of living… You will realize you have always been lonely, or sad, or angry just like me. I have felt this since they day my command unit was left to die on an Azza-run planet. I have felt this since I watched each and every member of my team die screaming. I have felt this since they left me in a desert with nothing but rags to cover me— laughing, laughing at my pathetic cries.”

Now they are listening. Every single face is turned towards me with wide eyes as they realize what I refer to. They have never heard details of this story from my own lips.

“Do you know why I survived?” I shout at them. “DO YOU?”

Kiva shakes his head just barely.

“I SURVIVED BECAUSE I WAS ANGRY,” I rage, screaming my voice hoarse. I rip at the bonds and my arm snaps free. I clench my free hand into a fist. “I survived because every bone in my body wanted retribution. It was the only thing that made me crawl through sand, lick the dew from the top of a rock, eat from a dead carcass and hope it would not kill me… You think that I am like this because of Ella? You are lying to yourselves because I know you feel something deep inside. It’s probably crawling to the surface as I speak.”

I am faced with silence as my chest heaves from my quickened breathing. They stare at me, and I wonder if a single word I’ve said has gotten through to them.

Then with one swift movement, Vala leans forward and cuts the straps with his knife. Kiva’s mouth drops open.

“You are right,” Vala says. “But we won’t let you do anything alone. Promise us that at least. We will work this research team as a command unit.”

I nod. I am surprised, relieved, and energized all at the same time.

“I, too, would like to find Ella-vi,” Kiva pipes up.

I glare towards Mori, expecting his negative argument.

“This is madness. I find your obsession disturbing. But I have nothing better to do, so I am in,” he says with a grimace.

We all turn to Pakka then, awaiting his reply.

He tenses, looking rattled. “Fine! Yes... YES, fine… But what is the plan? What will we do? We don’t know where she’s gone. The local police and the Alliance investigators are already working to find her. And more importantly, we haven’t a single weapon, or armor, or… anything!”

“Actually,” Mori says, “That’s not precisely true. Do you think I would travel to an unknown planet without any?”

“Yes!” Pakka blusters. “Considering that to do otherwise would be illegal and against the Alliance Intergalactic Science Board’s rules of participation?”

Mori grins. “I have a masking trunk that works on all scanners, Pakka. Do you think me a fool? We might be scientists now, but once a Kar’Kali warrior, always a Kar’Kali warrior. I never take a mission unprepared for a fight.”

“There is no time to waste,” I say, gritting my teeth. “Now get me off this thing.”

Kiva jumps in to help Vala cut the other straps that bind me.

“That doesn’t answer the important question of where you think we’re going to go with your illegal weapon supply?”

I swing my legs over the side of the gurney and test their strength by pressing my feet onto the floor.

“I know exactly where we are going,” I announce. “We are going to find a man named Vic Williams.”

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 22

ELLA

When I come to, I’m relieved to find that there’s no glove in my mouth anymore. But I guess on the list of negatives, that’s probably an indication that no one can hear me scream.

The room is dark, but I can make out the basics. It’s a bedroom. One that looks deceptively normal. There’s a hardwood floor beneath me, a basket for laundry, and a bed that’s made with a fluffy duvet cover. It certainly doesn’t seem like the kind of place you keep a kidnapped woman.

My legs are tied together at the ankles and the knees, and my wrists are tied together behind my back. I test my mobility and find that all I can do is roll around and inchworm across the floor. I could probably get up on my knees, but what would be the point? I’d just be uncomfortable.

I tense immediately when I hear voices getting closer to me. They’re yelling at one another— a man and a woman.

“What the hell are you doing here? I told you I’m done, I’m not going back there,” the woman is saying.

“Oh, that’s fine and dandy… But you owe a debt to Beck now. I was just here to drop off a visitor. You’ll be babysitting until the heat is off, then we’ll pick her up,” the man says. I hear a door opening.

“No fucking way! Get back here! I SAID I WAS DONE! I don’t owe him anything—”

“You’re done when we say you’re done,” the man replies. “Fuck it up and find out what happens.”

SLAM! The door shuts so hard the house shivers. A scream of frustration sounds from the other room, where I assume the woman speaking has been left alone. Then I hear some destructive thuds and bumps. She must be throwing things around. I perk up, realizing she’s probably my only jailer right now. An unwilling fellow woman. Maybe there’s a chance I can befriend her or overpower her… something.

My heart starts to pound. I lick my lips. “H-Hello?” I call out. “Hello? Can you hear me?”

It’s silent for a second, then footsteps approach the door where I am. I shuffle up to the door and throw myself against it to test whether its open. “My name is Ella,” I say, jiggling the knob with my shoulder, cheek laid up against the wood.

“It’s better for both of us if you shut up and I don’t talk to you,” she announces in a cold, controlled voice through the door.

“What if I have to pee?” I try, sitting back on my knees.

“There’s a bathroom attached to your room. Figure it out,” she says.