A Break in the Sunlight

9. The Road Traveled

NOTE: This chapter contains violence and sexual themes.

"— Magdalene. Log.

"Christ.

Oh, godohgodohgod...

Okay.. they.. they knocked Kaski out with some kind of chemical. I held my breath and faked it. We're being taken... I don't know where. We're in some kind of hovercraft. Still in the port, I think. We passed the terminal, heading... South, no West. They've got my arms tied back, shit it hurts....there are... there are four of them. The.. the big one is called Reeth, or Reese or something. He's.. maybe 9 feet, humanoid... Christ... brown...brown hair. Big-ass scar on his neck.. maybe a burn. I don't know.

The other three... they are tall, too, one fat guy with shaved black hair grabbed Kaski, he looks Lidan without scales. The other two... oh um, one is blond, skinny...pilot jacks, he was the one with that shit over my mouth. And the other one I didn't see so well, I think he's got brown hair. It's short. They are wearing... it's hard to tell. Damn it.

They... they are taking us somewhere. They stuck something in my mouth.. I think it is rags from the engine well. Shit! They just walked on... No alerts, nothing. I don't know what the Christ they used.

We're stopping. I'm going to look again. They aren't.. wait a minute. There they are, under the light, by a Corva– The fourth guy! He's the one from last night...the one that Kaski pulled the knife on. Par- No, Perrish! The GRC guy. The ship... it was a Corvasi... RJ-99 something. On the C dock. That must be where we are. Shit... He's coming over here. He's got something in his hand.... Christ... He saw me... He's got..."

" **Recording Timed Out. End Log—**

Jaren woke to the sound of voices, instantly tuned to danger. She was groggy. Her eyes ached and the gag was gone, but her mouth tasted like chemicals and oil. She was on a semi-hard surface, probably carpeting, and something warm was lying to her left. Kaski. She didn't open her eyelids, but remained perfectly still as she let the pieces fall into place. They'd been grabbed. Someone had come into the Indigo and grabbed them early this morning. It was that GRC bastard from last night, that had gotten rough on Kaski. They'd been thrown into a hovercraft and brought somewhere. Here. The GRC had used some chemical to knock them out, and her throat still burned. Her arms were bound behind her back. She had lost feeling in them.

"And what about when someone comes looking for them?" asked a deep male voice, obviously pissed.

"Pff. They're hired twat, whose gonna come looking for them?" a reedy voice answered with a laugh. Jaren recognized it as the tallest one, with the scar. He hadn't been in the group last night. Nor had Deep Voice, as far as she had recalled.

The previous evening she and Kaski had met at the Spaceport Bar, as agreed, and walked over to the GRC vessel on the C dock where they were supposed to meet the clients. But from there things hadn't gone quite according to plan. The three soldiers had been waiting, and were more than ready for their show, but they refused pointblank to make an upfront payment. The girls had devised a half-now, half-later pay scheme, one that was fairly standard, according to the local talent... but the soldiers wanted them to do the show first, and promised they'd pay later.

Immediately, they had smelled a rat. And when negotiations went from bad to worse one of the soldiers, a private with a blond crewcut, had tried to grab Kaski's tits. Kaski had kicked him in the balls, and while he was mewling on the ground, this guy Perrish had yanked Jaren backward by her choker. The necklace, thankfully being a piece of drek, had broken, and with the help of Kaski's knife, both girls had escaped unscathed.