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Four masked beings in hooded, dark-gray bodysuits stood on the other side of the wall, their weapons pointed right at me. They were covered from head to toe. All I could see were piercing, cold-black eyes.
“What is it?” Nadir called.
One of them pressed a finger to his—her, its?—mouth in a silencing gesture.
“Millie?” Nadir said again.
The masked alien shook his head and caressed the trigger of his blaster with a menacing gloved finger. My knees wobbled with fear, but anger heated my blood. I was getting really, really tired of aliens threatening me. I was damn sure fed up with being kidnapped. This made twice I’d been abducted by aliens. Like being struck by lightning, if it happened once, you’d think the odds of it happening again would be almost nil. You ought to be able to cross it off your list of life experiences. Abducted by aliens? Check!
“I’m coming up,” Nadir said.
“No, don’t do”—he landed on the wall beside me—“that. I’m sorry,” I finished, as his gaze zeroed in on the armed aliens.
One of them jerked his weapon while speaking in a singsong, almost musical voice, which sounded beautiful but I suspected had an ugly meaning. Nadir unclipped his blaster and stunner and tossed them down to the hooded thugs.
Waving his weapon, the alien sang again. Like a gorgeous poisonous flower or an irresistibly cute but vicious animal, the aliens’ language seemed incongruous. Threats shouldn’t sound so melodious.
Nadir sang a few bars, and I felt relieved he could communicate with them until he spoke to me. “He’s ordering us to come down or they’ll kill us,” he said in Terran Universal. “I told them, I’d go down first and then help you.”
He leaped off the wall. As soon as his feet touched the ground, they swarmed around him, singing. Nadir belted out a tune of his own. I would have been impressed by his deep, throaty baritone, except he was singing for his life.
“Stop! Leave him alone,” I cried.
One of the thugs warbled something, and the others retreated. I could see Nadir’s chest move as he exhaled in relief. “Okay, come on down. I’ll catch you.” He held out his arms.
What had we gotten into? Who were these people? Were they the ones who’d destroyed the city? I did not want to join the choir, but I wouldn’t leave Nadir to face the music alone.
“Don’t shoot!” I said and leaped.
Nadir caught me in his muscular arms and eased me to the ground.
The thug who appeared to be in charge, having gotten the others to back off a bit, sang a few notes. I should get me one of those translator thingies. He motioned with the blaster. Catching the gist, we started walking. Maybe I didn’t need a translator. Threat was a universal language.
Nadir and I strode side by side, following the leader who marched on ahead. The other three armed fellows brought up the rear.
“Do you know who these aliens are?” I whispered.
The leader turned around and sang a little ditty.
“Is he ordering us to shut up or else?”
“Yes.”
It was so freaky to be threatened in such a melodious voice. A lullaby of death and destruction. I wondered if the Aurelians understood Terran Universal. Would they shoot us if I kept talking? Where were they taking us? Why had they taken us? Had we stumbled into the wrong place at the wrong time, or was our capture premeditated?
They herded us to a stretch hovercar, a windowed rocket-limo. At least we’re being kidnapped in style. I assumed the hover-limo was stolen. I doubted the rebels or terrorists or whoever they were had legally purchased such an impressive transport. Or maybe they’d gotten a deal on a pre-owned vehicle. I had a lot of questions, but their masks revealed the important thing: they were criminals. Law-abiding citizens did not hide their faces.
They pushed Nadir and me into the middle row of seats, and a gray-suited alien boxed us in on both sides. Another sat in front, and the leader positioned himself behind us. The better to keep an eye on us. They’d taken seats without discussion of who should sit where. This isn’t their debut performance. I gulped.
Why did this keep happening to me? Did I have an invisible sign on my back reading, ABDUCT ME? Or EASY MARK? Why did aliens keep picking on me? Note to self: start packing some heat.
Of course, it hadn’t helped Nadir. He’d been disarmed right away. Had he ever been abducted before? Or was this his first time? Stick with me. I’m an old hat at this.
The hovercar pushed off and sped through the air. The windows darkened automatically, preventing us from seeing outside. Nadir cupped my knee and gave it a squeeze. I shot him a grateful smile, but not too wide in case our abductors misunderstood and thought I wasn’t taking the kidnapping seriously enough.
We whizzed through the air for maybe five minutes and then the hovercar set down. I felt a bump. The vehicle was descending. “We’re going underground?” I whispered.
“Appears so,” he murmured.
“Fa-la-la-la-la,” sang the leader of the pack.
I can name that tune in three notes. He was ordering us to shut up.
My stomach knotted. How would anybody find us? Nadir had left word with the LOP he’d left the ship, but they wouldn’t search for us underground. The chance of rescue dimmed like the lights as we descended.
The vehicle lift jerked, and then the hovercar rolled out. The vehicle doors flew open. Our captors got out. More singing and weapon-brandishing ensued. Nadir and I scooted out into a cavern.
As soon as we exited, the hatch closed, and the hovercar parked itself next to several others of varying sizes. Apparently, the rebel-kidnapper-terrorist aliens had stolen a fleet of vehicles. Very enterprising of them.
I shifted my gaze from the hovercraft to our environment. Swiveling floating canisters filled the cavernous interior with light. Speckled with sparkling crystals, rough granite walls swept upward to a high-domed ceiling. The ground was solid stone. To my untrained eye, the caverns did not appear to be a natural phenomenon but manmade. Somebody had blasted a cavern system beneath the surface of Aurelia.
We got another song, and then our captors marched us through the tunnel system. Canister lights followed overhead, bobbing and dancing with an irritating strobe effect. At times, the lights seemed to be chasing each other in a game of tag. Were they sentient robotic pet-lights?
“What’s up with the lights?” I asked.
The leader belted out a few rude notes.
“You’re a one-hit wonder, aren’t you?” I said.
“Let’s not antagonize them—at least until we have an idea what we’re dealing with,” Nadir cautioned under his breath.
Objective, fair-minded person that I was, I felt justifiably irritated with the circumstance, but Nadir’s point was well taken. Being dead right isn’t all that satisfying. But, damn, the hypocrisy of these aliens burned my ass. They believed horrible things about us while they ran around kidnapping people.
As we approached a turnoff, faint glowing green light spilled into the corridor along with a familiar sizzling hum. It’s déjà vu all over again. My suspicions were confirmed when we entered a cellblock, each cell protected by a humming electrified force field. When the Copan-Cerulean Cartel kidnapped us from the Star Cross, they rendered us unconscious and then imprisoned us in the brig of their spaceship. An invisible electric field kept us detained.
Lined up on one side, six cells had been carved into the granite, and I discovered the source of the green glow. Occupying two of the cells were a dozen actors right out of central casting of a cheesy sci-fi vid. They had oversized teardrop-shaped heads, huge solid-black eyes, and emerald skin emitting a green aura.
As we drew closer, they moved to the front of their cells and burst into song.
My jaw dropped. My head swiveled between the captives and our captors. Were they the same species? Was this what our abductors looked like under their masks? My gaze shot to Nadir. He nodded.
We were shoved into the fourth cell down the row, putting a unit of separation between us and other prisoners. The force field activated with a crackle. The gang of four captors left the cellblock.
“What kind of beings are these people?” I asked.
“These are the Aurelians,” he replied.
“We’ve been captured by the natives of this planet? Do you think they’re slavers? Why are their own people locked up?” The purpose of alien species trafficking was to sell other species into slavery, not your own. Unless, of course, these prisoners were rivals trying to horn in on the action. My imagination shifted into overdrive.
“Anything is possible. They could be traffickers, insurrectionists, guerillas.”
“Well, whoever they are, they’re cowards.”
“How so?”
“They’re hiding behind their masks.”
“They probably are shielding their identities,” he agreed. “They may have been on night patrol. The glow they emit would reveal their presence if they didn’t cover up.”
“Do all Aurelians have an aura?”
“No. Some Aurelian races don’t.”
“What were the other prisoners saying when we arrived?”
“They were demanding to speak to the lieutenant.”
“So, the dude belting out orders isn’t the lead singer.”
“Probably a patrol leader.”
They had an organized structure. And weapons. An underground bunker. We’d been dragged into something big. I sighed and checked out our accommodations. The lodging did not live up to my expected standards. No view. No mini bar. No bunk. No running water. No toilet—not even a bucket. I had a bad feeling there wasn’t any maid service either. At least they hadn’t left us in the dark. Canisters hovered outside the cell. And we had the glowing green aliens for additional light.
A golf-ball-sized red-eyed orb streaked through the cell block.
“What the heck is that?”
It zipped to our cell and hovered outside the force field.
“A camera. We’re under surveillance.” He waved. The orb bobbed as if it was waving back. “Motion-activated.”
If we tried to escape, our captors would see it.
The orb zipped off, and I watched it fly around. “Do you think they can hear us, too?” I whispered.
“We should assume so.”
Hopefully, they couldn’t speak Terran Universal. “Why take us prisoner? Why us?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe Prince Lomax was captured by these people.”
“I checked the cells as we walked by. He’s not here, but they could have other cells in another area of the bunker—even another part of the planet. I can try talking to the other prisoners. They may not know who Prince Lomax is, but I can ask and maybe find out who our captors are and what they want.” Nadir inched close to the crackling force field, and the beady-eyed orb zipped front and center again.
I saluted with my middle finger.
Before Nadir could call out, singsong voices and footsteps sounded, and two unmasked glowing Aurelian thugs entered the cellblock. That they didn’t bother to hide their faces suggested Nadir’s hunch about the night patrols was correct.
Or they’re not worried about being identified because we’re never leaving here alive.
Armed with stunners, they halted in front of our cell. “Fa la la la la,” sang a familiar voice, his lizard tongue flicking out of a tiny mouth to punctuate each note.
Ew. I hadn’t seen the tongue before because of the mask. The movement of his flicking tongue was mesmerizing—like watching a metronome. Their language had a repetitive beat—short words uttered at even intervals.
With a sizzle, the force field collapsed.
“La, la, la. La, la la,” sang the one, and both alien thugs moved out of the way.
Nadir hugged me, pressed his lips to my ear. “The lieutenant wishes to speak to me. Try not to worry. Whatever happens, I’ll find you.” He stepped out of the cell.
“No, I want to go with you.”
If we separated, I might never see him again. I tried to follow him, and the leader went nuts, spewing singsong gibberish and jabbing at the air with his stunner like a swashbuckling swordsman in a pirate musical. This dude was going to spoil my love of musical theater.
“Millie, don’t,” Nadir said. “Please.”
I backed into the cell.
The force field hummed.
The Aurelians led Nadir out of the cellblock.
