“She said we set her free,” he mumbles, still stuck in that last conversation between himself and Natali. He can’t get over it. I can’t help him there. He should have told me what he’d suspected. He should have told me that he was worried Natali would abandon us.
The past is the past, though. I can’t change what’s happened. I can only hope that Lazar and Otho’s trust in Natali is warranted.
When we were taken in, the Aurelians barely said a word to us. No arrest. No charges laid. We were just thrown into the brig, and then the Reaver took off. Lazar suspects that something’s off about the whole thing, and I’m increasingly inclined to agree with him.
But, what it signifies, I still can’t fathom.
“We didn’t Orb-Shift, so we aren’t going to Colossus,” says Lazar, bringing himself to the present moment as he mules over our current circumstances. We’ve been traveling for at least an hour. I don’t have the exact count, because they took my smartwatch along with our weapons and armors when they captured us, but my sense of timing has always been good.
The young buck in charge of securing our surrender was quiet, but efficient. He was radiating competence, which isn’t common among trigger-happy Law Enforcement officers.
“We’re not going to Colossus,” Lazar explains further. “The Lieutenant himself will be the decider of our fate.”
Lieutenant Taggar. The man from the holo-projection. I’ve heard of him before. He’s renowned for his loyalty to the Aurelian Empire.
In that regard, things could go either way for us. He might be the sympathetic ear we need, who’ll accept that we had to do questionable things to benefit our Empire – things that skirted the law.
On the flip side? I’m leaning towards the thought that Lieutenant Taggar will use us as an example to other Aurelians thinking of going Rogue; to clean the besmirched honor of the Aurelian Empire.
In truth? It all depends on how quiet Mr. Carani kept the kidnapping attempt. It could be interstellar news – or it might still be unreported.
It’s not headline news when a Rogue Aurelian takes captives – but when a government agent does it? It’d be an interstellar scandal. It would leave a foul taste in the mouths of still-loyal human settlements; forced to pay high taxes for the safety we claim to offer them, and yet kidnapping them when we don’t get our way.
I crouch down on the floor of the brig, squatting. My legs aren’t tired. They’re stronger now, even – every muscle able to exert even more control and endurance than they could before the Bond took hold.
Our cell is empty – void except for a toilet and washbasin. Through the bars, I see another cell across from us; a mirror image for ours except that it’s empty.
It’s been hours since Natali put the Bond Disrupter on. I hate that thing, even though I don’t even know what it looks like. I predict it’s in the form of a necklace, or a ring. The device requires only a small shard of Orb to power it, so it could take any form imaginable.
The Bond disruptor is what poses the biggest question.
If Natali isn’t planning to betray us – then why wouldn’t she take it off? Even if just for a second?
Why wouldn’t she have reached into our auras by now? If only to make sure we hadn’t been injured, or even killed in the process of being apprehended by Aurelian Law Enforcement?
Even if Natali is making a tough decision – perhaps the toughest in her life – I still thought she might have enough consideration for us to find out firsthand whether or not we’re even still alive.
Perhaps I misjudged my mate.
Only Otho maintains complete faith in her. I don’t want to think of him as naïve – after all, he’s trusted me in situations from which we barely escaped with our lives. His faith in me has helped us through tough times and near scrapes. Now, it’s his faith in Natali that’s keeping away the hopelessness that threatens my psyche.
I am the leader. I should be the one emanating stability. Instead, I’m drawing on the strength of my triad.
There’s a thud as the ship rocks.
We’ve docked. Where, I don’t know.
Five minutes later, I hear the heavy bootsteps of our captors. The stern-looking, young Aurelians are confident and capable as they approach the brig. It’s a triad of them – and all three have a haunted look in their eyes. I imagine they’re fresh out of their hundred years of service to the Aurelian Empire – and instead of settling down with the reward of a harem on Colossus, they chose to do the same as us; to go out and serve the Empire.
Those hundred years of service leave a mark. I can see it in their faces. They don’t say a word as one of the agents presses the button to open the cell doors, and the other two lead us out.
I stand to my full height as I emerge, and I follow the officers toward the hatch of the Reaver – leading my triad out into the huge bay of a bustling spaceport.
Ships both large and small fill the looming bay of this spaceport – with traders, merchants, soldiers and mercenaries rushing around between hangar bays, dodging each other as they dart to their destinations.
Children gawk at us as we pass. I notice more Reavers docked here – pure white and powerful between the scruffy looking human ships.
There may be other Aurelians in this spaceport, but my triad and I are still an unusual sight for the humans traveling through here.
So, this is where all this will be decided: A neutral spaceport, complete with the proper facilities needed for a military or police trial. In a spaceport this size, there’ll always be disagreements to mitigate – ranging from petty disturbances to murder. That means there’ll be
