Kelsey watched as Crath waved his hand over a pad built into the wall and a door slid open. The hallway outside was narrow, with another closed door directly across from the small room. He exited, turning right. She followed. A third door sat a little farther down, to the left, also closed. Beyond Crath, she spotted an open area but couldn’t see much. He was a tall, wide shouldered, broad-chested alien.
“What’s that room?” She jerked her thumb to the door on the left.
“The owner’s bedroom. It has a strong bad smell.” Disgust showed on his handsome features. “I would have treated you on the floor before placing you on that bed. It was stained and gross.”
She pointed to the door across the hall from where she’d woken. “And that one?”
“Bathroom. There is only one. It is not clean either, but useable. Do you need me to show you how to work things inside? I’m aware that space travel isn’t common on your planet for most. Nara has told me a lot about humans. She is my brother’s wife.”
That information finally sank in. He’d mentioned before that his brothers had married humans, but she’d still been pretty dazed at the time.
Kelsey shoved aside all the questions that popped into her head. It was none of her business how things worked between two different alien races.
“I’m good for now. My captors forced us to bathe before the auction. That included letting us pee. I guess clean aliens make them more money. And by bathe, I mean they hosed us down and blew hot air on us to dry our hair.” It had been undignified, to say the least. She glanced down at the thin blanket that now covered her. “At least they gave us something to wear, even though it wasn’t much. This blanket is an improvement though. The aliens who took me from Earth forced all of us to give up our clothing and refused to let us wear anything inside our cages.”
Crath continued down the narrow hallway until he cleared it—and Kelsey got her first glimpse of outer space. Across a living space of sorts, there was a small cockpit, a bit larger than what you’d find on your average human plane. Two seats sat empty, facing a large, curved windshield showing black space with some distant stars.
She stood there and gawked.
He followed her gaze before looking back at her. “Are you well?”
“No.” Kelsey swallowed hard, forcing her attention away from the window. The living area of the shuttle wasn’t overly large, but bigger than the cockpit. Maybe ten feet wide and eight or nine feet from the hallway to the start of the cockpit. A bench sat along the wall to her right, along with a tiny table and chair, and a tall cabinet with doors. To the left side was a mini kitchen near a door she assumed was the shuttle exit.
“Are you hungry? There isn’t any appealing food stocked but it will fill our bellies. The owner bought cheap supplies. We’ll eat much better once we reach The Vorge.”
“I have no appetite right now.”
“You need to eat, Kelsey.”
“My captors fed us some oatmeal-like crap this morning before they washed us. Probably to make sure we didn’t faint or appear sickly to the buyers.” She inched forward, her gaze locked on the window again. “It’s so dark out there.”
“Yes.” Crath stepped closer. “Would you like to sit with me at the pilot station? I need to run scans to make certain we’re not being followed. The autopilot is on. I’m not overly familiar with this model of shuttle, but I’d like to think it will warn me if any approaching ships are coming at us. Still, it’s best to double check.”
“Sure.”
Crath strode to the front and dropped into the left seat. He waved her to take the right. She approached slowly, staring at the few distant dots of lights in the pitch black of space. The seat was wide, a little tall for her legs, but it was comfortable once she sat. It had a lot of thick padding.
Crath focused on the piloting station. There had to be a dozen small screens. She saw symbols scrolling across one. It wasn’t in any kind of language she’d ever seen.
“Can you read that?”
He glanced at her. “Yes. This is a shuttle model sold to many different races. It had a setting for Tryleskian.”
“That’s what you are, right?”
“Yes.”
After studying the screens, a low growl erupted from Crath, and he reached up, tapping something near the top of the console. It startled her when the windshield suddenly glowed with a hologram, blocking the view of space.
It took Kelsey long seconds to register what she was seeing. “Is that a map? What are the two red dots?”
“Incoming ships,” Crath hissed. He touched the hologram. One of the red dots enlarged, creating a pop-out image. It colored to gray. Glowing yellow symbols appeared. He jerked his hand back, touching another circle. That one enlarged and became a blue and green pop-out image.
More glowing symbols appeared.
“Either the tracking system isn’t fully offline or the Cristos had a way of locating us. I didn’t have access to a scanner to make sure you weren’t injected with any type of devices.”
That possibility had Kelsey feeling everything from rage to terror. It was bad enough that the fish aliens had messed with her by implanting a translator. “What kind of devices?”
“Trackers are sometimes imbedded inside slaves in case they manage to escape. I did look at the back of your neck and both thighs while treating you. That’s where slave devices are usually implanted. I saw no scarring or wounds caused by an injector. There was only the one behind your ear for the translator, which I removed.” He quickly tapping on more circles.
Kelsey tensed. “You performed surgery on me?”
“I could tell by the uneven scar forming on your skin that a skilled medical professional didn’t implant that translator. Bad connections can cause brain bleeds and other serious damage from infections, especially in the case of inexpensive hardware. I felt it was best to remove it immediately.”
Kelsey closed her mouth, her outrage cooling fast. That was a great reason for him not waiting to ask for permission first. She was also upset that it sounded like he’d checked out her entire body while she’d been unconscious…but she was typically a logical person. Or tried to be. He’d been looking for trackers and injuries. Sure, it was creepy as hell, but in their weird situation…reasonable. She’d had to search victims for injuries in the past while on the job, if they were unconscious when she arrived on scene. Including checking under their clothing if she saw blood, to learn if it was theirs or not.
She took a few deep breaths to calm down before speaking. “Am I safe from suffering a brain bleed, now that it’s out?”
“Yes. I replaced it with Tryleskian tech. That is safe, far superior, and it won’t harm you in any way. We’re never sure if any humans we rescue will have translators, so we all carry a spare. That’s also the reason why I had abrasion cream. To quickly heal the insertion wound. It’s a priority for humans to understand that we’re trying to save you.
“I speak your Earth language, and so does Raff, but Morrow hasn’t learned. She’s the one who went after the Titan. Being unable to comprehend her language might have made our mission more difficult if she’d been the one to rescue you. You may have seen her as a threat instead of an ally.” His fingers flew over the controls as he spoke, his expression grim.