Bringing Stella Home (15 page)

How did they find
me?
she wondered, making her way inch by
inch through the narrow space. More than a dozen soldiers waited
for her on the other side.

As she neared the opening between
crates, a hand seized her roughly by the arm and pulled her out. As
she spilled onto the floor, something prodded her in the stomach
and an electric shock surged through her body. She cried out in
pain as her legs and arms spasmed uncontrollably.

“
What are you doing? Stop!”
Another shock hit her in the shoulder, filling her arms and chest
with pain. She tried to resist, but her body was
unresponsive.

Her vision blurred, and time slowed
down as the pain overwhelmed her. One of the soldiers reached down
and took her by the hair. Her eyes widened in panic as he stared
hungrily at her.

Before he pulled her up, however, she
heard the sound of a familiar voice. The soldiers stopped and
looked away, moving aside to let the newcomer through.

It was Narju.

He was talking with the soldiers—no,
arguing was the better word. They didn’t seem too happy to see him,
and glanced from him to her with undisguised malice. Still, after
several minutes of deliberation, they turned and left the room. The
sound of their footsteps gradually died away, until the hiss of the
elevator doors marked their exit.

“
How do you feel, Sholpan?”
Narju asked, kneeling by her side. “Did they hurt you
much?”

Too exasperated to speak, Stella sat
up and broke down into tears.

“
Here, let me help you.” He
took her by the waist and supported her as she rose to her feet.
Her legs gave way, but he caught her before she fell. She wiped the
tears from her eyes and turned to face him.

“
Why did you come after
me?” she asked. “How did you know I was here?”

“
I came because I am your
servant,” he told her. “As for finding you, it was not difficult,
considering the tracking chip implanted in your ankle.”

Stella froze and looked
down at her ankle, where the doctor had made the incision.
So that’s what that was,
she thought to herself in dismay.

“
All of us have one,” Narju
said, lifting his pant leg to show a similar scar on his foot. “It
allows the Hameji to monitor us. The moment you left the
concubines’ quarters, they knew you were trying to
escape.”

“
What can I do, then?” she
asked, her voice cracking. “I need to get out of here, Narju. I
can’t stay in this place.”

“
I’m sorry, mistress,” he
said softly. “The tracking chips are triggered to sound an alarm if
tampered with or removed. I’m afraid you cannot escape.”

“
Don’t you understand?” she
yelled, her voice becoming frantic. “Don’t you have any idea what
they’re going to do to me? They’re going to rape me, Narju—not just
once or twice, but night after night for the rest of my
life!”

“
Sholpan,” he said, looking
her gently in the eye. “Please, be calm.”

Stella wanted to scream and run away,
even if it brought the soldiers down on her again. Something about
Narju calmed her, though. She stayed where she was.

“
You are a good girl,” he
said. “I do not want to see you hurt. I understand what you are
going through, though you may not believe me.”

“
Oh you do, do
you?”

“
Yes, I do,” he said, his
face falling. “I was once a prisoner as yourself, many long years
ago. The Hameji tortured me for several months before they took
away my manhood, and I know I am destined to spend the rest of my
life as their slave.”

Stella felt a pang of regret for her
snide comment. “I’m sorry.”

“
No apology is necessary.
Please believe me when I tell you I mean you no harm.”

“
I believe you,” she
whispered.

“
Then listen to me,
Sholpan. You must forget about your home. Forget your past life.
Leave it behind you.”

“
No,” Stella said, shaking
her head. “I can’t.”

“
Your hope is false,
Sholpan—it will only destroy you. Even if you managed to escape,
the Hameji would retaliate by slaughtering all those whom you love.
If you truly love them, leave them.”

“
I can’t,” she repeated,
her whole body growing tense. She tried to hold back the tears, but
they could not be stopped. Deep down, she knew that Narju was
right.

He smiled mournfully at her and took
her gently by the wrist. “Come, Sholpan” he said. “Let’s
go.”

Chapter 7

James floated up through
the narrow hatchway and pulled himself into the
Catriona’s
command chair. The bridge
was dark and silent, and the slightly stuffy air was cold enough to
give him chills. Even though space on the ship was tight, James
felt more alone than he ever had in his young life. He tried not to
let that bother him as he started powering up the
Catriona’s
systems.

It’s not stealing if it
rightfully belongs to you,
James told
himself.
It’s not my fault Dad refused to
give me my inheritance.
As for the lie to
his mother, though, he had no excuse for that.

The lights and indicators on the
boards came to life, splashing faint, glowing light across the
consoles and keyboards. He pulled the seat restraints across his
chest, strapping his weightless body to the chair. As the ship
cycled through its system checks, he transmitted his falsified
manifest and flight plans to the local port authority.

The small interstellar
passenger shuttle had once belonged to the Colony’s diplomatic
corps, in the early days of the station’s independence. The
Patrician had long since upgraded the government fleet, selling off
the obsolete craft. Even though the
Catriona
had a passenger capacity of
five, she was significantly smaller than the
Llewellyn,
with narrower corridors
and tighter cabins. Cabinets lined every available wall, while
pipes ran along the ceiling. The ship was functional, but not
particularly pretty. She was equipped with a long-range jump drive,
though, and that was all that mattered to James.

Once out of the Karduna system, he
would be safe from the Hameji. The distances between stars were so
vast, and his ship so small, that they would never find him. In
only a matter of days, he would cross into Gaian-controlled space
and arrive at the nearest relay station along the Karduna-Gaia Nova
starlane. Doubtless that was where all the refugees had fled—and
where he would find Ben and Stella if they had escaped. But if they
hadn’t…

As the systems came to life around
him, James glanced out the window at the Hameji cruiser parked
alongside the Colony. It appeared so deceptively peaceful, like an
interstellar passenger liner from some exotic far-off location.
James knew the truth, though—he knew it all too well. He had not
forgotten Kardunash IV, shrouded in gray as the mass accelerators
had slagged the world into oblivion. He vividly remembered the
orange streaks of the falling asteroids as they smashed into the
surface. Billions of lives, snuffed out within seconds—and the
monsters responsible for the atrocity now sat in that very cruiser,
their guns pointed at his home.

And if Ben and Stella were
prisoners of the Hameji, held in some cruiser like that one, he
would break them out. Not by himself, of course, but with whatever
help he could find. The
Catriona
wasn’t too pretty, but he knew she’d fetch a good
price on the black market. With that money, he could hire a band of
mercenaries. He didn’t know how, but that didn’t matter. If it
would save Ben and Stella, he’d find a way.

The on-board computer
finished with the system checks. A message flashed across the comm
screen, indicating that the port authority had cleared him for
departure. The instrument boards blinked and hummed, while the low
rumble of the ship’s reactor sent small vibrations through James’s
seat. In only a few minutes, the
Catriona’s
jump drive would be
charged enough to take him past Karduna’s orbital plane and into
deep space.

As the
Catriona
finished warming up, James
hesitated to take the controls. He’d never gone against his father
like this before. What if he couldn’t find any mercenaries willing
to take on the job? What if they stole his ship and left him
stranded—or worse, sold him into slavery? What if he
failed?

No,
he told himself.
Now’s not the time
to freeze up.
Biting his lip, he gripped
the piloting stick in his hand and flipped the switch to release
the docking gear. The distant scraping sound of metal on metal came
through the walls, followed by silence. He engaged the engines, and
felt the acceleration press his body against the chair as he pulled
away from home, heading into starry void.

James swallowed hard as an image of
his mother came to mind. His imagination twisted her face into the
sadness that would no doubt overwhelm her when she heard that her
last surviving son had run away. He choked back tears and tried to
put the image out of his mind, but found that he
couldn’t.

He glanced down at his instruments.
The status bar for the jump engines was green. Fingers moving
mechanically, he set his target coordinates for the first jump and
reached for the switch that would engage the drive. His hand
trembled as it hovered over the switch.

You don’t have to do
this,
his father’s voice came to
him.
You can still come back. It’s not too
late.

Please, James,
his mother said, tears in her eyes,
please don’t leave us. You’re all we have
left.

James’s heart pounded loudly in his
chest, and he clenched his hand into a fist. For an unsteady
moment, he considered aborting the jump and returning
home.

Then, he imagined he heard
a new voice in his head.
I love you,
James!
It was his sister, Stella. He
remembered the way her hair had bobbed as she ran down the corridor
of the
Llewellyn,
as if she were a little girl again on another family trip to
Kardunash IV. Ben was there, too, smiling the way he used to before
he had left home for his apprenticeship—before he had grown up and
started to act too mature or important to spend time with his
little brother. They had been so close back then, before Ben had
left home for the stars.

James took a deep breath and tried to
stop his shoulders from shaking. Tears streaked down his cheeks,
but he couldn’t remember when or how they’d gotten there. All he
knew was that if he turned around and stayed, he would never see
his brother and sister again. Never.

Before any more doubts rose into his
mind, he reached out with his index finger and flipped the
switch.

A low hum came through the bulkheads,
rising quickly in pitch and intensity. It reached a climax, and
James felt as if he were shrinking, or perhaps as if the ship were
growing larger. His stomach flipped inside out, and the floor fell
out from underneath him. He gasped, and for an infinitesimal
fraction of a second, everything went black—or perhaps blinding
white, James couldn’t tell.

Then, as quickly as it
began, the distortion passed and the universe returned to normal.
He found himself sitting in the pilot’s chair of the
Catriona,
staring at the
myriad instrument panels. He lifted his hands and turned them
around in front of him—they were his hands, unchanged. He felt a
little disoriented and nauseous, but other than that he seemed
fine.

He glanced out the window at the
stars. They surrounded his view like a mist, or a thick, milky
cloud. He gasped in wonder—he’d never seen a starfield so brilliant
and intense in his life. Was this what Ben and Stella saw, every
time they left the heliosphere of Karduna? It was
incredible.

After staring in awe at the scene for
some time, he checked the status bar for the jump drive. One
percent and recharging, with an estimated forty five minutes before
it would be ready for another jump. Long enough to triangulate his
position and set the new target coordinates.

He brought up the starmap
and immediately got to work, pausing now and again to glance at
Karduna, only a little brighter now than the other stars. One thing
was for certain; he couldn’t go home. He was a thief, even if
the
Catriona
was
part of his rightful inheritance. Ben and Stella were now all he
had left.

* * * * *

“
You’ve been awful quiet
these past few days, darling,” said Tamu from the pile of pillows
on which she lay. “Is anything the matter? You have to open up
sometime—you’ll go crazy if you don’t.”

Yes,
Stella wanted to scream.
Everything’s
the matter.
Instead, she lay in silence on her bed and stared
at the underside of the top bunk.