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  The female called Barb had related to him the horrors of her childhood in a country called Nambulia on Earth. With quiet dignity, she had explained the excruciating details of her ordeal. Her acceptance of her fate had angered him at first, but when he failed to make her rail against her situation, he realized she had come to terms with the degradation and had moved on. Like him, she would never be able to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh, but it did not seem to bother her a fraction of the way it troubled him.

  “I can still marry,” she told him. “I can even bear my husband children. One day, I will do this. Until then, I am content the way things are.”

  A deep resentment at what had happened to this petite woman brought McGregor’s eyes open. He was looking at the viewing screen, but he was seeing her pretty face. Dark as copper with thick black hair that glistened with blue lights, the one called Barbara-he refused to call her by the nickname that reminded him of torments he would not discuss even with Khiershon-had garnered Iyan’s respect and admiration in a very short length of time.

  “Why should I rant against the gods for what has happened to me?” she asked. “It serves no purpose.

  Why allow the ones who did this to me to win? What will I gain by turning against all men for what a few misguided, foolish old ones did?”

  “You are not enraged by this?” he demanded.

  She had put a hand on his arm. “I asked: what purpose would it serve?”

  “I am enraged for you!”

  Her velvet-brown eyes had softened. “Then be my friend, Captain McGregor.”

  “Friend?” The concept of a female as a friend was alien to him.

  “Aye, Captain.” She held her hand out to him. “Friends are those who understand one another and respect the feelings of the other. Will you be my friend? If so, take my hand and we will seal the bargain.” He had looked at her small palm, wondered at the pale gray color of the flesh-so different from the dark hue of her face and arms-and surprised himself by clasping that fragile hand in his callused one.

  “Nice to meet you, Captain McGregor,” she said, shaking his hand.

  He half-smiled at her. “Iyan,” he said, ducking his head. “My name is Iyan.” As he sat there remembering their conversation, he was astonished to find himself grinning foolishly. As soon as he realized he was doing it, he stopped, his face returning to its normal stern, forbidding cast. But the little dark woman flitted across his mind’s eye once again and the smile returned to its lips.

  “I think our captain has found himself a female,” the warrior at the navigational console whispered to the one at the communications console.

  “The gods help her,” the other man sighed.

  Caitlin dipped thewashcloth into the basin of iced water and wrung it out. Her attention was on Cree’s gleaming face as she folded the cloth and placed it on his heated brow. Almost instantly, his eyelids opened and she found herself staring into the Reaper’s golden depths.

  “Did he...?” Cree croaked.

  “No. He let the ship pass unchallenged.”

  Cree sighed, closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them, he seemed to be looking past her. “Have we entered the wormhole?”

  “Not yet. The captain was concerned about leaving the Orion’s crewmen on Montyne Vex. I believe he’s decided to bring them along so he sent The Ravenwind to fetch them.”

  “Why?”

  “McGregor believes if there was one Amazeen cruiser on this side of the wormhole, there may be more.

  He didn’t want to take a chance of leaving our men there and have them tell the Amazeen about the existence of the Orion.”

  Cree grunted his approval of the idea. “Wise decision.” He reached up to take the wet cloth from his forehead. He laid it on his thigh.

  “You’re feeling better?” Caitlin asked, taking the cloth and putting it aside.

  “My blood feels as though it is boiling inside my body. Whatever they were doing to him, he was in terrible pain.”

  “You think they were torturing him?”

  He shook his head. “I believe they injected him with something that caused the reaction. They would not have killed him. They were taking him to Rysalia. I could hear their conversation.” She pulled a chair up to the cot and sat. “McGregor told me what happened to your uncles on Rysalia Prime. I am very sorry.”

  Cree turned his head toward her. “The same thing will happen to my bloodbrothers and bloodcousins at the Feast of Alluvia if we do not reach them in time. They will have already been brought to the Titaness.”

  “Will there be a trial?”

  His answer was a contemptuous snort. “They were condemned the moment they were conceived.” She nodded and looked down at her hands. Several minutes passed and she remained silent, her gaze lowered.

  “What concerns you, Lady?”

  She shrugged, but did not reply.

  He lifted his hand weakly and touched the back of his fingers to her right cheek, smiled tiredly when she raised her head and looked at him. “You fear me still?”

  “No.”

  He trailed his fingers under her chin then slid his fingertips along the left side of her face, caressing her.

  “Yet something is bothering you about me.” He ran his thumb over her lips, reveling in the feel of her full flesh. “What is it?”

  She smiled. “I just don’t understand my reaction to you,” she answered. “This isn’t like me at all.”

  “What isn’t like you, Sweeting?”

  “This,” she said, lifting a hand to clutch his. “This strong attachment that is forming. I don’t understand it.

  I’ve only known you a few hours, yet I feel as though I’ve known you all my life. That I’ve been waiting for you.”

  “Perhaps you have.”

  “But we’re so different,” she protested.

  “Are we?”

  “Yes! We are literally from two different worlds. Two different galaxies. We are different races and...”

  “I suspect,” he said, threading his fingers through hers, “we are of the same heritage.”

  “How can you say that?” she asked.

  He grunted, let go of her hand. “Help me to sit up,” he said, pushing up on the cot.

  She stood, put her arm around his shoulders and helped to lever him to a sitting position. Fluffing the pillow behind his back, she adjusted the covers over his legs. “Would you like some water?” At his nod she poured him a glass, held it to his lips. When he was finished, she sat down again.

  “Many years ago,” he said, wiping the moisture from his lips with the back of his hand, “a Rysalian Fleet officer named Kyrish Brell happened on the wormhole that leads into your part of the megaverse. He eventually found Terra, as he named it, but we now know it had been called that many centuries before Brell ever stepped foot on your world. He brought back with him twenty young women of childbearing age to help repopulate our world. From that time forth until the Resistance took over Rysalia and most of the surrounding planets, women were brought from Terra and used as breeders.” Caitlin said nothing, but her thoughts were on the hundreds of missing women about whose disappearances nothing had ever been discovered. She wondered if they could be on Rysalia.

  “Most are,” he said, reading her thoughts.

  “Go on,” she said, shuddering at the thought of her fellow females being abducted for such a vile purpose.

  “Brell was not the first from our side of the megaverse to find your world. Apparently star travelers from another planet got there before him but never told anyone. If you compare the cultures of Chale to your Ireland you will find similarities too close to be coincidence.”

  “Such as?”

  “The Chalean High Speech is almost identical to the Irish Gaelic language,” he replied. “Many words have different spellings but are pronounced alike. Terra and Tara being one of them. Brell had no way of knowing this when he named Terra, which in Rysalian High Speech means land of green mountains. In searching bac
k through the archives on Chale, we found ancient manuscripts alluding to clandestine trips to a place called Eyre’s Land. As best can be determined, Kaelin Eyre, a Commodore of the Chalean Fleet, discovered the wormhole in much the same way Brell did, but several generations earlier. His ship, The Banshee, was loaded with political prisoners from Chale, Rysalia, Serenia, and a dozen other worlds. Their destination was Ghurn Colony for most and Helios Five for a select, dangerous few.

  Encountering a solar storm that blew them billions of miles off course, The Banshee wound up being sucked through the anomaly. None of the worlds they passed were habitable until they found Terra or Tara as Eyre named it. Upon landing on this new world, Eyre decided to leave the prisoners there. The atmosphere was the same. There was vegetation and animal life to sustain the prisoners. Unpopulated at that time, the land seemed an ideal place to strand the Unwanteds, as the prisoners were labeled.”

  “Brell knew none of that,” she said for clarification.

  “No, he did not.”

  “Ironic they used almost the same name.”

  “The words mean the same,” he said. “Terra and Tara both mean land of green mountains.”

  “So you think they both landed in Ireland.”

  “We know Eyre did for he left behind cromlechs to mark his landing sites.”

  “Sites?”

  Cree nodded. “He and his crew went back many times to drop off prisoners.” He looked away.

  “Including some of their scientific disasters.”

  “Reapers?” she asked, sensing that was what he meant.

  “Dearg Duls,” he replied. “Aye. The generic inferiors of the modern day Reapers.” He looked up. “I would rather not discuss why these men were different.”

  She let that pass. “I can see why you would think since I’m of Irish descent that I would have something in common with the Chaleans, a common ancestry, but you are Rysalian. What...”

  “I am a hybrid. All Reapers are,” he interrupted. “My sire is Ry-Chalean. My dam is from Ireland.” Caitlin blinked. “You have human blood in you?”

  He smiled. “In more ways than one,” he said, reminding her of her own life essence traveling through his body.

  She blushed. “Where was your mother’s home?”

  “I know nothing of her save she is from Ireland,” he replied. “The records of my birth are on Rysalia Prime and I’ve never stepped foot on that evil world. The only reason I know her birth land is the symbol on my Reaper tattoo that marks my hybrid race.”

  “I didn’t notice a symbol,” she said, craning her head to look at the tattoo.

  “This,” he said, looking down at the stylized imprint of a reaper. He touched the image’s scythe. “The marking stands for Terra/Ireland.”

  She looked closely at the place to which he was pointing and saw the strange symbols that looked like a lightning bolt and an elongated X turned on its side burned into the blade. She sat back in the chair. “That must have hurt like hell.”

  “I barely felt it,” he lied.

  She sighed. “So we have a common ancestry and you believe this is why I have such strong feelings for you so soon after our meeting.”

  “That and the gods put us in each other’s path. I told you I knew you were coming. I let the mining ship pass because a part of me knew there was help of a different kind on its way.” She lowered her head, unable to meet his eyes, “Did the gods tell you I would fall in love with you?” she asked.

  He was quiet for so long she raised her head and looked at him. What she saw etched on his handsome face made her heart skip a beat. He was staring intently at her, his eyes dark with an emotion she could neither dismiss nor mistake. She began to tremble.

  He held his hand out to her. “Come, Lady,” he bid.

  She did not hesitate. She did not question. She went to him, stretched out beside him on the cot and reveled in the feel of his strong arms enfolding her.

  “I will make a vow to you, Sweeting,” she heard him say. “I will love no other for as long as there is recorded time. And when time is no more, I will love you still with all that is my heart, my soul, and my body.” He placed a gentle kiss on her brow. “A Reaper’s vow is forever, my lady, and when we mate, we mate for eternity. No other woman will I allow to lay hands to what belongs only to you nor will I put my hands to another.”

  A thrill of heart-aching joy rippled through Caitlin and as his palm molded around her breast, she sucked in an excited breath and clung to him, her body shuddering with delight.

  Chapter Eleven

  Helen lookedup as Caitlin came into the mess hall. The other women stopped talking as the woman they considered their leader went over to the molecular duplicator and poured herself a cup of coffee. When Caitlin sat down with her coffee at a table by herself, the women turned in their seats and stared at her.

  Several silent minutes passed as Caitlin just sat there, staring across the room, before Helen could stand it no longer.

  “Well?” Helen asked. “You looked pretty damned relaxed. What happened?” Caitlin took a sip of her coffee then put down the cup. “I believe I now belong to Khiershon Cree.” She lowered her eyes. “Body and soul.”

  “Just great.” Pat got up and swung her chair around so she could sit facing Caitlin. “And what exactly does that mean, Cait?”

  Caitlin shrugged. “I don’t know. He says we...” She stopped as McGregor strode imperiously into the room. She looked up at him, expecting more animosity from the man.

  “We just intercepted a signal from an Amazeen ship,” he said, his eyes steady on hers. “They have just exited the wormhole.”

  “Is that damned thing a revolving door or what?” Marti inquired, sitting taller in her chair.

  McGregor ignored her question. “We would prefer those bitches not blow us the hell out of the heavens.”

  “What do you want us to do?” Caitlin asked, coming to her feet.

  McGregor said nothing for a moment then decided Caitlin-who was staring back at him with a worried look-understood the position she and her crew was in.

  “Hail them and let them know you are a Terran medivac and pose no threat to them. Let them know you are a ship of women.”

  “And if they want to board?” Marti asked.

  “You’ll let them and we’ll exterminate every last one of them!”

  “No,” Caitlin disagreed. “You’ll hide.”

  McGregor took a step closer to her. “Woman, my days of hiding from the gods-be-damned Amazeen are over and done! I will never hide from them again!”

  “Be cool, Iyan,” Barb warned. “We’ll handle it.”

  Caitlin was shocked to see McGregor’s expression soften as he turned to look at Barb Fuller. There was grudging respect in his eyes and he nodded slightly, his only acknowledgement of the warning, then turned to Caitlin.

  “Hail them, ask who they are, and then wish them gods’ speed on their journey.” Caitlin put her hand on his wide chest and pushed gently. “Then move so I can do that, Captain.” McGregor looked down at her hand, then at her face. The right side of his mouth lifted in what might pass for a smile then he took one step back. “A softer touch than that which connected with my face, Lady.”

  “A softer tone of voice than that which has connected with my ears up until now, milord,” she retorted.

  The tall man shrugged then stepped aside, sweeping his arm out in an invitation for her to precede him.

  “You clean up nicely, don’t you, McGregor?” she challenged as she walked past him and smiled when she heard him grunt.

  “I’d better come along,” said Helen.

  “I think we all had,” agreed Cathy. “Whoever is on that ship will need to see a roomful of women, won’t they?”

  McGregor looked at Atherton and cocked an eyebrow in acknowledgement of her understanding of the situation. He almost smiled at the wench, but caught himself in time. Squaring his shoulders, he followed closely behind Caitlin.

  “When we get
to the bridge, make yourself scarce, Big Boy,” said Marti.

  “I will stay out of line of the vid-com,” said McGregor.

  “We call it a vid-link and you’ll stay in the corridor out of sight,” Caitlin ordered and half-expected the man to balk, but when she looked around and up at him, he only nodded in agreement.

  “We’re being hailed,” the young man sitting at the communications console informed McGregor.

  “Leave us,” the Captain said. His gaze scanned the bridge, hitting each male. “All of you.”

  “I suggest you allow us women to take over the control of the ship, Iyan,” Caitlin told him as she took her place in the Captain’s command chair. “We know her better than you which is why Khiershon abducted us.”

  McGregor’s jaw tightened at the use of his given name, but he did not reply. He stood just inside the room, watching as the women went about seating themselves at the various stations on the bridge. “You know what to say?” he asked, nervous as the hailing continued.

  “Aye,” Caitlin replied. “Helen, open the channel.” She didn’t turn to make sure McGregor had slipped out into the corridor.

  The screen pulsed dark blue, then an image settled harshly on the vid-link screen surface.

  “Holy shit,” Pat said as the tall, titian-haired woman appeared. “Tell me that ain’t a roller derby queen!”

  “Greetings,” the unsmiling woman decreed. “I am Thalia Chakai, the Captain of the LRC Alluvial. To whom am I transmitting this missive?”

  Caitlin’s face was equally impassive. “I am Captain Caitlin Kelly of the United Space Alliance Medivac Command. My ship is the Orion. How may I help you, Captain Chakai?”