A home, as her crew.
Though I knew, as my body thrummed with desire to find her as I shot through the thick fluids, that I wanted more than to be her shipmate.
I glanced back, wings continuing to beat. The empress’s soldiers were hot on my trail, but I could see the end of the pool ahead. Light was streaming down from a large archway.
Ten wing beats later, and I pushed to the surface, jointed fingers gripping the edge of the floor that lead away from the private chambers. I yanked myself out, body coated in the mucus-like substance. It dripped off of me, large splats hitting the floor below.
I glanced left, then right, closing my inner lids to dim the brightness. My vision was still messed up, but it was improving fast.
Where would they take a healthy human female? There weren’t many in this sector. She was young, as well.
Breeding age.
I remembered my time here, remembered where they did the tests for viable fertility.
That’s where I’d find her.
9
Tommelise
I woke to an ache deep in my belly—but when I tried to reach down to touch my abdomen, I pulled up against restraints.
My eyes popped open for an instant, long enough to take in the cold, white surroundings. I lay naked, strapped to a gurney of some sort.
Fuck. Where am I?
I searched back through the fog clouding my mind.
The Bufo Alvarius Empress. Right.
I risked another peek. One of the empress’s people stood over me, currently turned away from me, fiddling with the controls of a machine of some sort. Above it hovered a multicolored scan image of my body. The med-tech zoomed in on my reproductive system, leaning in to examine it more closely.
Blue? I subvocalized.
Here, boss, my ship answered, her voice far too cheerful for my situation.
Sitrep?
You are in the medical area of the breeder-slave sales pens being checked for viable fertility.
I fought to keep my expression neutral in case the alien who was checking me had turned back around. Breeder slaves. Yuck.
Your crew members, Blue paused, then continued seconds later, two are in the slave cells. One is on his way to break you out. The tall one. With wings.
My heart squeezed in my chest. I knew I’d chosen well. It would have been easy for them to save themselves and leave me behind, but they hadn’t.
Where are you? I asked.
Still docked in the cargo hold. But I’m ready to leave when you are.
I paused, trying to parse that statement. How? I finally asked.
There was no missing the undercurrent of satisfaction in Blue’s response. I’ve been chatting with the station’s AI. She’s deeply unhappy with the empress and willing to help us get out of here.
Oh, you are brilliant, Blue.
It was all I could do to keep from smiling. That impulse was wiped out seconds later when the medtech’s cold hands landed on my bare abdomen. I had to fight myself not to jump, but I needed to take him by surprise. Once I figured out how to get loose from my restraints, anyway.
I tried to ignore whatever he was doing—massaging my stomach with his slimy, slightly sticky hands, it felt like—and strained to hear any hint that my crewmen were nearby.
Nothing.
Fine. I could get out of here and go find them.
Having finished his manual exam of my abdomen, the medtech lifted my body a little to peer at my back. With a grunt of irritation, he began releasing the restraints on my legs. I remained perfectly still, praying he’d release me entirely. I all but held my breath until he moved up toward my hands.
Where’s Morpheus now? I asked Blue as the alien moved to flip me onto my stomach.
Ninety seconds to arrival, she replied.
An eternity. No telling what the slimy creature could do to me in that time. I couldn’t wait any longer. I’d simply have to hold him off until Morpheus arrived.
As the alien moved to flip me over, I kicked one leg up to catch him in the chin. At the same time, I pushed up with my arms to leverage myself off the table.
I landed on the ground, still holding the metal table—which, I realized, was actually a kind of gurney, complete with wheels.
The medtech let out a grunt and lunged toward a button on the equipment panel. Worried he was going for an alarm, I stomped on what I hoped was the brake release and shoved the table into his midsection. He cried out and stumbled backward. Using the moment to grab one of the sharper instruments off the nearby silver tray, I brandished it at him and took a step forward.
“Make one more move and I’ll gut you like a pig,” I promised.
A set of inner eyelid membranes flickered down over his eyes in a move I read as agitation. “You can’t get out of here,” he croaked.
“Maybe not, but at least you’re not touching me anymore.”
His wide, thin lips curved up in a smile. It was threatening enough to put me on my guard, but I don’t think anything could have prepared me for the long, sticky tongue that flicked out toward me. It wrapped around the wrist of the hand holding the scalpel. Everywhere it touched, it burned. An involuntary scream ripped out of my throat and my hand opened. But I was able to grab the scalpel as it fell, beating the medtech to it with only a microsecond to spare. In one swift motion, I sliced across the tongue that imprisoned my other hand, using enough force to slice the thick muscle almost in half.
I wrenched my hand away, tearing the rest of the tongue off.
Blood poured from the severed end, and the medtech let out a croaking wail. I shook the other end of the tongue off my wrist and it plopped to the floor with a wet splat.
My hand was useless, whatever venom the alien had touched
