Rogue Mate, page 13
part #1 of Rogue Star Series
I expected to feel raw, exposed, talking about my past.
But for the first time, there was nothing, not anymore.
I was far more concerned about my future.
And hers.
Kalyn
Within a few days of returning to the Rogue Star, I was allowed to leave the med bay for a few hours at a time.
Lynna gave me a set of crutches to help me get around, but she also encouraged me to start using my leg again.
I still experienced some pain, but not as much as I’d expected to. Lynna had showed me where I’d been hit, but it still seemed unbelievable. Surely, I couldn’t have been that badly injured, and then better so quickly?
But the images on the screens were awful. And the haunted look in Dejar’s eyes made me decide to stop asking questions.
The demeanor of the Persephone women had changed toward me. They didn't glare at me when I entered a room anymore.
Now, they asked me how I was recovering. Some of them went as far as to include me in their conversations. If I'd known taking a literal bullet for them was what it took to earn their respect, I would've shot myself in the foot long ago.
The downside to all of this was how useless I felt. Whenever I offered to help anyone, human or Shein, I was denied.
Everyone wanted me to focus on recovering.
Not exactly exciting work.
One night, after talking to almost everyone on the ship and feeling particularly useless, I retired to the med bay early.
Tonight was the first night Lynna was going to let me sleep without the aid of painkillers. My leg ached when I hauled myself onto the bed, but it wasn't too bad. I’d used it more than I should've today. Now I paid the price.
Not long after I made myself comfortable, I heard a knock on the med bay door.
"Come in," I called. Dejar poked his head in and smiled.
"I just want to see if you're doing okay," he said.
"A bit sore, but otherwise I'm doing great." I motioned for him to enter. He stepped inside and let the door close behind him. He’d come by every morning and every night before.
Far too quickly, his visits had become the favorite parts of my day.
And that probably wasn’t something I should spend too much time thinking about.
"I saw you walking around a lot without the crutches today," he said. "I think you pushed yourself too hard."
"I'm trying to get my strength back," I replied. "I hate feeling so useless."
"You are many things, Kalyn, but you are not useless," he assured me. "As soon as we feel like we can take on deliveries again, you'll be the first one I consult with."
"Even before Aavat?" I asked.
"You're nicer to talk to than Aavat," Dejar winked. "Do you have everything you need? I can get you something from the mess hall before I turn in for the night."
"I already ate," I smiled at him. "But before you go, can I talk to you about something?" He reached forward and took my hand in his. He held my hand often now. It felt comfortable and natural. Sometimes I felt tempted to reach for his hand when we were amongst the crew, but I refrained.
Not until I knew what this meant, whatever I was feeling between us.
"You can talk to me about anything," he said.
"It's about the Dominion and what happened on the outpost," I said. He tilted his head and furrowed his brow.
"Go on," he urged.
"When you dropped us off, it only took the Dominion a few moments to find us. Your ship was still in sight," I said.
As time passed, I remembered more details from our time on the outpost. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that some of those details didn’t add up.
At first, I thought I was just paranoid. I’d been in shock for a while. Shock does things to a person’s mind and body. I tried to put it out of my mind, but there was always an alarm going off in the back of my head as if to say something wasn’t right.
Long days with nothing to do had given me plenty of time to start compiling a list of things that were out of place… and the list was getting too long.
"The Dominion likely saw us coming," Dejar replied. "They have eyes everywhere."
"Then why didn't they arrest you or secure the ship the moment you came into port?" I asked. Dejar thought for a moment before he spoke.
"I don't know," he answered. "Maybe the Dominion decided to prioritize you and the other human females when they saw you arrive on the outpost.”
"Exactly, but I think it’s more than that," I nodded. "They were oddly prepared to stumble upon us that day. When they took us to the villa, they had exactly enough beds for all of us. They had clothes that fit everyone. The food was already laid out like they'd been waiting for us to arrive."
"The villa could've been prepared for elite visitors," Dejar suggested, though I could tell he didn't fully believe his own words.
"That had the same body shape? Number of arms, average height, everything? And there's something else I found odd," I continued. "When that ship attacked, it seemed to also be herding us. The way it approached us on the side forced you to steer the Rogue Star toward the outpost. The ship was faster than us. It overtook us so quickly. Why would it attack at the exact moment the delivery route put us close to the outpost?"
"Their attack was methodical." Dejar rubbed his chin as he recalled the details of the attack. "They attacked efficiently and retreated efficiently. Even in the moment, I thought it was too well-planned to be a spontaneous attack. The ship was too nice to be a pirate ship."
"You agree with me, then?" I asked. "Something isn't right about all this."
"Everything thus far has been extremely coincidental," he nodded.
"Even the shockwave that destroyed Persephone doesn't make sense," I added. "Maris is convinced this ship couldn't make that big of a shockwave on its own."
"The tech we use to make those jumps through the fold is built to minimize energy bursts like that," Dejar said. "If it was malfunctioning, the Rogue Star would've been hit by the energy burst, too."
"There's more," I said. "When I was walking around the villa, I heard someone talking about experiments."
"What kind of experiments?" Dejar’s jaw tightened.
"I don't know," I admitted. "Whoever it was said something about a facility that had already started experimenting on creatures found on a planet. Something Twelve?"
"None of the planets in Dominion space end in twelve. Other than the twelfth outpost, that is. Were they talking about that?" he asked.
"No, they definitely didn't mention an outpost," I said confidently. "They also said something about human resilience and only needing females for the experiments."
"And these were Dominion officials you heard talking?"
"No," I admitted. "I never saw who was speaking."
“In that case, it could’ve been anyone,” Dejar said. “Every once in a while, the Dominion discovers a group of scientists performing unethical experiments for various reasons. Usually for medical research. It’s possible another one of those groups emerged and decided to target you and the other women.”
“Maybe,” I frowned. I wasn’t satisfied with that explanation. “But that would mean whoever I heard talking had something to do with the shockwave, the dark ship, and the two officials that brought us to the villa in the first place. That isn’t plausible.”
“No, but it’s not impossible,” Dejar shrugged. “It would explain why that high-ranking official we saw was there.”
“But not why he was so desperate to send us back to the villa,” I interjected. “If he was there to break up an unethical group of scientists, why would he want to take us back to where they were?”
Dejar and I sat in silence as we struggled to come up with an explanation. Anything that would fit.
“I’m not saying you’re wrong,” he said after a few minutes. “There’s certainly something strange going on, but I don’t see a clear motivation. All the Dominion knew for certain was that my ship crossed into forbidden space. They couldn’t have known you or any of the human females were on board until you stepped off at the outpost.”
“Are you sure?” I asked. “They were so prepared for us.”
“After everything that’s happened, I’m not sure about anything anymore,” Dejar sighed. “Whatever the case, you’re back on the ship, where you belong. We’re going to lay low for a while.”
“Where I belong,” I repeated in a whisper.
The words brought a smile to my face, a strange, warm glow to my chest.
“I mean where you can be looked after,” Dejar stuttered. “You’re safe on the Rogue Star.”
“Thanks to you.” I ran my thumb over the back of his hand.
His expression softened. “I don’t want you to worry about this anymore,” he instructed. “If there’s anything to be alarmed about, let me take care of it.”
“Absolutely not. You’ve got enough to handle,” I insisted.
“It’s my job to handle things,” he shrugged. “I don’t get a choice in the matter. But I do have a choice in this matter and I choose to take the burden off your shoulders. Especially while you’re recovering,” he added.
“Fine, but that means I’m going to take some of your burdens later on.” I shook my head. I couldn’t contain my smile as I looked at him.
“We’ll see about that.” He leaned forward and pressed a kiss onto my forehead. “Go to sleep now. No more worrying.”
It might not have been his intention, but the touch of his lips kept me awake thinking about completely different things.
Dejar
We were being used.
But I didn’t know how or why, or by whom. What was happening out there?
I headed to my office.
I needed to figure this out, and the only person I could talk to without biased opinion wasn’t a living being. I sat at my desk, brought up my viewscreen, and called up the ship’s AI.
“How can I help you, Captain Dejar?”
Umbba Qal.
He’d changed the voice again.
Now, instead of the older male voice that I had gotten used to, it was a sensual female voice that had been adjusted to sound similar to Kalyn’s.
Far, far too much like Kalyn’s.
“Captain?”
I must have been sitting there, silently cursing Qal, for too long. “I need some information, and I need it sent to my viewscreen in the clearest way possible.”
“Very well. What information are you looking for, sir?”
I took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and thought about what Kalyn had told me, about how the Dominion was ready for them to arrive.
“Can you find anything on any of the universal nets regarding women, of any species, that have been taken or have disappeared? Any stories, reports, anything at all.”
“Do you mean to include what happened to the female members of the crew in your search?”
“Of course. Thank you,” I said. While the AI searched the different universal nets, I did some searching of my own.
I looked into other Dominion locations where the outposts were essentially high-end rest stops and who they were in business with. It wasn’t hard to do, the Dominion made sure everyone knew they were involved in everything they could get their hands on.
So, the question was, what were their hands on?
I spent over an hour searching, collating, and trying to understand what it was that I was seeing. I was looking for connections between Outpost Nine and whatever else was out there.
“I have found the information you requested, Captain.”
“Put it on the wall for me,” I said. I looked away from my little screen to see page after page, tab after tab of information, stories, and news reports of women and girls disappearing. “By the All-World…how many?”
“How many women or how many stories?”
“How many women.”
“There are more than two-hundred and twenty accounts of missing females reported across the nets at this moment. Each account has a varying number of females involved.”
“Estimated total?”
I did not like the answer.
“Over three thousand, Captain. That would be in recent years. Would you like me to go back further in time?”
Three thousand?
“Give me a breakdown of races, locations, dates, and whether or not they were ever found.”
“Affirmative, Captain.”
While the AI compiled the report for me, I looked over the news reports and stories that were already available for me to read.
I read for the next hour, and spent that hour disgusted, horrified, and angry. Most of the reports I read were from the outer regions, and several of them involved young girls just disappearing, never to be seen or heard from again.
I couldn’t find a connection.
“Reports ready. Would you like them on the wall again, Captain?” the AI asked.
“Please,” I responded. The AI had color-coded the reports for me and I have never been angrier at color. “Wait. What are these, here?” I asked as I stood up and pointed.
“Those are the races that have reported the most missing incidents.”
I studied the list of races.
I hadn’t heard of most of them, and the ones that I had heard of, I had no idea what they looked like. I’m not sure I had ever seen any of them, or if I had, I had never learned what they were.
“Is there anything else I can do for you, Captain?”
“Yes, please. Change your voice protocols.”
“Is there a problem with this setting?” the AI asked.
I had to be honest, even to an artificial intelligence. “While the voice is pleasing, it is also distracting. Please choose a different voice setting.”
While the AI went through its voice protocols, I kept looking at the report.
The numbers from the outer regions all went through a similar pattern. The number of reports went through spurts over the course of a few months or a few years, then stopped, as if no one disappeared anymore.
The reports from the inner regions were different, and smaller in number.
“My voice parameters have been changed, Captain. Is this voice more to your approval?”
Still a female voice, but professional instead of sultry. And nothing like Kalyn’s.
Good.
“It is,” I said with a nod. “Lock to this setting, please, and set me a reminder to discipline Qal for adjusting your programming.”
“Affirmative, Captain.”
“Thank you. Now, tell me what these numbers mean.” I indicated the numbers I had noticed earlier with the outer regions.
“The number of females taken from the outer-region planets is significantly higher than normal reports, but for only a short period of time.” She highlighted the numbers of the outer regions in yellow and then highlighted the reports from everywhere else in blue. The yellow outnumbered the blue by nearly four-to-one. “Then, the reports either stop or reduce significantly.” She displayed new reports highlighted in the same colors, and this time the blue outnumbered the yellow, but not by much.
“Can you explain?” I asked. I was missing something.
“The number of missing females returned to average, or lesser, occurrences.”
“After how long?”
“The average time of the heightened number of reports is six months between first report and final report of multiple females disappearing. There are still reports, but rarely is it ever anything more than a pair or trio of young females, which is a return to ‘normal’ numbers,” she answered.
The fact that anyone disappeared could ever be counted as ‘normal’ was wrong, but I understood the choice of words. “Is there anything special about these planets?”
“Not that I have been able to find at the moment, Captain. There are still thousands upon thousands of reports to sift through.”
“Very well. Continue to go through them and update these reports as best as you can,” I said. I returned to my desk to figure things out.
What was happening? Why the anomalies in disappearing females for months on end that suddenly stopped?
Why had the Dominion been ready for Kalyn and the others?
What did the Dominion have to do with any of this?
Too many questions to answer and still not enough information to answer them. I wasn’t sure where to go to find the information we needed, and I wasn’t sure if anyone else on board had an idea either.
We had to figure this out.
Also…if the Dominion was truly involved in this…I wasn’t sure how to use that information.
All I knew was that our little scuffle on Outpost Nine meant we were most likely fugitives now and a lot of our jobs were going to be cut off.
Scro.
Kalyn
"I don't understand why all of you are making such a big deal out of this." I looked up at Lynna and Dejar, who stood beside my bed with huge smiles on their faces.
"You're basically healed! It's a big deal," Lynna squealed.
"I've been walking around on my own almost every day," I said with a dismissive shake of my head.
"Yes, but now you'll be cleared to perform your duties," Dejar jumped in. "Aren't you happy to be able to work again?"
"Of course I am," I replied. "I hate not being able to help anyone."
"That's why we're making a big deal out of this," Lynna explained. "Something good is happening to you and we're happy for you. That isn’t a complicated concept to grasp."
I didn't consider this an accomplishment, exactly. If anything, it was all from Lynna's skill and work. She was the one who’d patched me up. I still had two legs, thanks to her and Zayn.
"No, but it's your medical genius," I replied. "I should be throwing a party for you."
"I barely did anything," Lynna said demurely. "The tech in the med bay practically runs itself."
"Don't sell yourself short," Dejar said to Lynna. "Even Zayn admits you have talent. He rarely gives compliments.”
"In any event, I'm excited to have a roommate again! It's not fun sleeping in that little closet all alone," Lynna said.
