Nat nodded, pushing the screaming part of her mind down. A huge chunk of her memory was missing from right after the fight with Rell. She had some vague memories of walking through the rougher sections of Sector 4-B but that was it. Looking down, she realized she was wearing the secondary outfit she’d planned to escape in. Okay, so she’d made it to the change point on her route to the port. She must have been jumped between Station Avenue and Astra Crescent.
“Where the fuck are we?” she murmured back, her gaze narrowing on the bars of their cell. It was big enough to hold maybe fifty people, but only about twenty of them were in here. The bars at the front faced a wall, a small corridor the other side of the door. The bars to the left and right were obscured with some kind of glass between them. She could just about make out movement the other side. “What’s in them?”
Her companion shook her head. “Don’t know. I woke up in here and I’ve only seen the guards. They’ve not brought anyone else past us.”
“Huh.” She didn’t say anything else as the constant vibration coming through the metal under their asses changed. Just slightly. Enough for her to work out it was there and what that meant. “We’re on a ship. Any idea whose?”
The redhead shook her head. Nat thrust her hand out. “I’m Nat.”
“Melissa.” She shook Nat’s hand, her skin soft. That answered another question. Melissa had obviously never done a hard day’s work in her life.
“Where are you from?”
“Barvatt, but I was on a ship in the Sedorian Belt. There was a pirate attack and…” She shrugged. “I woke up in here. I was the first. They kept bringing women in. You were the last.”
Nat nodded, silently absorbing the information. The Sedorian Belt was systems away from Versia III, which cut out her initial fear that somehow her biological father had found her. Her mom had gotten herself knocked up by some asshole crime lord with deep pockets and a lethal reputation. But if Ingrassia had found her, she certainly wouldn’t be in a holding cell with a bunch of other women from all over. She’d be in… yeah, actually she had no idea, but she knew one thing. She wouldn’t like it. Not one bit.
“Who took us?” she asked as the sounds around them changed yet again. If she didn’t miss her guess, whatever craft they were on was about to land.
“Aliens,” Melissa whispered, wincing as the lights above them snapped on. Blinded, both women tried to shield their eyes. It was no good. They couldn’t see a thing.
Fighting down panic, Nat shut her eyes, concentrating on her other senses. The door opened, heavy boots announcing the arrival of their captors. A hard hand latched around her upper arm and she swore, trying to fight, but it was no good. Strange, guttural sounds and clicks filled her ears as she was hauled along like a small child. It was walk or be dragged, so she walked.
“Melissa?” she called out. “Are you still there?”
That got an explosion of clicks by her left ear and she ducked, lifting her arm just in time to block a blow to her head. Okay, no talking then.
“…here…” came the smallest whisper and she released a small sigh of relief. It wasn’t much, but the fact the other woman had cared enough to give her water while she was out meant something. It was the beginnings of a friendship, and wherever the hell they were, she suspected she was going to need all the friends she could get.
Her hands were yanked together and something hard clamped around them. She didn’t need to be able to see to recognize a pair of cuffs. Twisting her wrists, she checked the tension. No give. Fuck. That wasn’t good. Not good at all.
She was shoved along, hard prods in her back making sure she kept moving. The sound of stumbling around her and small gasps of pain said they were all being herded in the same direction. The light was still too bright for her to see, even if she kept her hands up over her face, so she didn’t bother, squinting against the light instead. If she fell, she’d need her hands to break her fall.
The floor fell away. She stumbled before she figured the decline, walking down it until the surface changed. It almost felt like sand underfoot…
The bright lights snapped off and she blinked, trying to bring everything back into focus rapidly. The scene around her materialized, the lights turning out to be lamps the guards had been holding in front of them. She caught her breath.
The guards were not human. When Melissa had said they’d been taken by aliens, she’d taken it with a pinch of salt. They weren’t anywhere near the outer frontiers, so it was more likely they’d been taken by Edanian pirates than real, actual aliens.
Only the seven foot, scaled guy standing in front of her was definitely not an Edanian. Not even the most extreme body modifications the offshoot of humanity were capable of could give them tails as long as they were tall.
“Holy shit…” she breathed, looking around. She saw more of the scaled aliens, like lizards standing on their back legs. They held the big lamps in three-fingered hands, naked except for what looked like leather tactical vests. She flicked a glance down. Where the fuck did lizards keep their junk? No chance of kicking these assholes in the balls. Nothing was there.
Dark amusement hit her. She’d been kidnapped by aliens without balls. Scales but no balls. Sucked to be her.
“Nat?” A small voice caught her attention and she looked around to find Melissa by her side, her face pale. Her lower lip trembled when she caught sight of the lizard guards. “Where are we?”
“Not a clue. Not home, that’s for sure,” Nat said in a low voice as she looked around. They appeared to be in a large arena with a sand floor. She lifted her hand to shield her eyes. Stone walls surrounded the sand, the area probably about the size of a football pitch, and then extended up about a hundred foot. Heavy duty mesh rose higher, and beyond it she could see tiered seating with a small crowd interspersed among them.
It was the cage, all over again. This was a fight arena.
Snapping her gaze back down, she studied the people around them—a bunch of rag-tag humans, all taken from different places from their clothing. The two junker crew at the end looked mean and dangerous, so she made a mental note to stay away from them, but the new crowd being herded into the arena on their left worried her more.
Aliens—a few of the lizard people that were guarding them, and then all kinds of others. She blinked and resisted the urge to reach down and pinch herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. But no, Nat prided herself on not having much imagination. It served no purpose other than to make people want shit they had no chance of getting. Better not to set yourself up for disappointment. So there was no chance she could dream up the drop-dead gorgeous walking butterfly guy at the back of the group.
“Ohhh…” Melissa sighed. “Isn’t he beautiful?”
“Stay sharp,” Nat grunted. “We don’t know what the fuck they all are, and what we’re doing here.”
That question was answered almost immediately when two of the guards walked out with a large bin. Upending it on the sand, they dumped out a collection of weaponry.
“Shit…” she breathed. That sealed it. They were fighting. No one moved for a moment, everyone looking at each other as the guards withdrew.