“Yes, Commander.”
Galen met his gaze. “I will continue to search as well.”
Dagon nodded.
Interminable minutes passed in which he couldn’t seem to quiet his thoughts.
“Commander Dagon,” Maarev abruptly said in his earpiece.
Dagon tapped it. “Yes?”
“I require your assistance in the hallway outside the infirmary.” Maarev’s voice was tight with tension.
“What—?”
“Stop talking!” a hoarse female voice shouted in the background.
Dagon’s breath halted. His heart began to hammer in his chest.
Though women served in the Segonian military, the soldiers were always separated according to gender when sent on assignment: all women on one ship, all men on another.
“Tell whoever you just spoke to that he’d better stay the hell away,” the female demanded.
Maarev cleared his throat. “Again, I have a situation that requires your immediate attention.”
There was only one female on this ship. And she spoke Earth English.
Eliana.
Jumping up, Dagon offered no explanation when his men started at his abrupt movement and turned to watch him run out of the bridge.
Eliana was alive. She was alive!
His boots pounded the floor as he tore down to Deck 3 and headed for the infirmary. As he swung around a curve, he saw Maarev up ahead, standing stock-still with his hands raised.
Maarev glanced over at him. “Careful,” he warned in Segonian.
“Stay back!” Eliana yelled, out of sight.
Dagon halted.
“Whoever you are,” she called, her voice a little rougher than when they had last spoken, “move forward slowly with your hands in the air.”
Dagon raised his hands as requested and eased forward until he reached Maarev’s side.
Farther down the hallway, Eliana leaned against the wall with her left arm fully extended, aiming a tronium blaster at them.
He stared. She no longer wore the bulky, too-big spacesuit. Instead, a black shirt and pants hung loosely on her fragile, far-too-thin frame, blood glistening on most of the right side of it. Her left leg was straight, holding her upright. Her right leg remained bent, only her tiny bare toes touching the floor. She’d braced her right shoulder against the wall… and had left a trail of blood along the white surface as she walked. Her narrow jaw was set, her face creased with pain. And her eyes bore an incandescent amber glow that fascinated him.
“Eliana,” he stated, keeping his voice low and gentle. “I am Dagon.”
Not even a hint of recognition lit her features. “Stay back or I’ll shoot.”
He shook his head. “We mean you no harm, Eliana.”
A disbelieving huff of laughter escaped her, cut off by a grunt of pain. “Yeah, right. That’s why you’re armed.”
He did indeed bear a holstered weapon. Every soldier on the ship did. It was standard policy so each could defend both himself and the ship if an enemy managed to board without their knowledge.
“Do you not remember me?” he asked.
“No.” Her expression darkened. “Were you one of the men who tortured me?”
He frowned. “We did not torture you, Eliana. We rescued you.”
She shook her head. “That’s bullshit.”
He shared a glance with Maarev, who gave his head the slightest shake. Dagon studied Eliana. “Where do you think you are right now?”
She glanced swiftly up and down the corridor. “A mercenary compound would be my guess.”
“On Earth?”
She looked at him as if he had lost his mind. “Of course on Earth. Where the hell else would I be?”
According to his translator, mercenaries were soldiers for hire. “We aren’t mercenaries. We are—”
“One drug exists that can leave me this weak,” she snapped. “Just one. A tranquilizer. And the only men who have ever used it against us are our enemies.”
“We didn’t drug you, Eliana. You are weak because your injuries and lack of food and water have left you so.”
She snorted. “Yeah, don’t think I missed the fact that you’ve been starving me, too.”
Dagon hesitated, unsure how to respond. She didn’t appear to remember having embarked upon a space voyage.
Eliana motioned to Dagon with the blaster. “One at a time, I want you to unholster your weapons and lower them to the floor. Make any sudden movements and I’ll shoot you both.”
Maarev glanced at Dagon.
Dagon nodded.
Slowly Maarev removed his blaster from its holster and crouched to lower it to the floor. As soon as his friend straightened, Dagon did the same.
“Now kick them over to me,” Eliana commanded. “And make damn sure they reach me.”
Dagon nudged both blasters with his foot, sending them sliding across the floor to bump against her bare toes. “Please don’t fire your weapon.”
“Don’t give me reason to,” she countered.
“If you fire your weapon and miss us—”
“I won’t miss.” Both her face and voice remained cold and determined.
“If you do miss,” he continued, trying to be patient, “you will risk breaching the hull.” The walls here were thick enough that she would have to fire several times to do so, but she could do so. And though the shields would keep the ship’s atmosphere intact, repairing the hole would take time and materials he would rather not spare.
“Breach the hull?” she repeated with patent disbelief. “If you’re trying to convince me we’re on a ship, don’t bother. All you’re doing is proving I can’t trust you.”
“You are on a ship.”
She sliced the blaster through the air like a knife before aiming it at them once more. “If I were on a ship, I’d know it. Even if the ship were moored, I would feel the movement of the ocean beneath us. We aren’t on a ship.”
She really did believe she was still on Earth.
Her gaze flickered down to the weapons at her feet, then returned to his. “Make any sudden movements and you’re dead.”
He nodded. “Understood.”
She clamped her full pink lips together and seemed to brace herself. In slow, painful increments, she began to lower herself down to one knee. Moisture beaded on her forehead. The muscles in her cheeks twitched as she ground her teeth together. Her breathing grew ragged, air emerging in harsh puffs.
He could almost feel the agony every movement spawned from where he stood. “Eliana, please let me help you. You can trust me.”
She shook her head. “Stay where you are.” Keeping the weapon in her left hand aimed at them, she reached down with her right, grabbed Dagon’s blaster, and clumsily tucked it in the front waist of her pants. She tried to tuck Maarev’s blaster in the back waist of her pants but couldn’t seem to bend her damaged arm back far enough.
With a weapon in each hand, she drew in a deep breath. Exhaled slowly. Drew in another deep breath. Exhaled slowly. Then she lunged to her feet in one swift movement. A cry escaped her, muffled by the lips she pressed together.
Drek, watching her suffer was killing him. “What can I do to earn your trust?”
“You can show me to the nearest exit without alerting your fellow mercenaries to my escape.”