Chapter 7

They parked up the bikes and settled the gravity sleds.

The high Mages set up a new shield before they moved out. Their first objective was the ships. They moved so they were out of visual sight of the camp and approached the small gunship. Zed told Dusty mentally, to hold her vambrace next to the door locking mechanism. Dusty did so and they waited for a minute.

“The ship is empty and the codes are changed, mistress. Only you can unlock the ship by placing your brace near one of the locks,” Zed said.

“Thanks, Zed, let’s do the next one,” she replied.

While Dusty was changing the locks, the team had fanned out to cover the ground between the ships and the compound. They waited silently while she moved from ship to ship. She silently called James and Pat to help her shield the ships.

The other three grinned when they realised what she was going to do. When they glanced back a few seconds later, the ships had disappeared. Aaron chuckled to himself. It was going to be bloody hard for the pirates to escape if they couldn’t even find the ships.

The High Mages joined the others. Dusty said, “Now the tricky part. If they are asleep, use the spell to keep them that way and then move on. Do the woman too if you find them, as it won’t hurt them. Use the darts if they are awake. They may feel you doing the spell, as some people are sensitive to spells being cast on them.”

“Zed has found the schematics of the freighter. The cabins are on level two. But they have probably also altered some storage rooms as these ships only have six cabins. Once we are inside, your AI should be able to detect the people. James and I will do level two. Pat, you get level one and Aaron and Bindy you get level three as it has the small storerooms.”

“Que, hate to do it to you but you get to guard the door. Once we have cleared the levels, we will go look at the other women. Aaron, you will take over from Que when we go to do this. James, you get to guard us girls. Are we all clear on the assignments?” she asked them.

They all nodded so she had them move to the freighter.

As the team closed in on the ship, they got a better look at the set-up.

The place was a mess. Whoever was on clean-up duty needed sacking. The Pirates hadn’t even taken their dishes from the meal they had earlier to the wash-up area. Food scraps had been left out and they weren’t that appetising. This planet had tiny flying bugs with four legs and they crawled over the left out food and dirty dishes.

The team took care not to disturb the bugs or dishes. They made the ramp unchallenged. Dusty and James who were leading peered inside. It wasn’t much better inside the main hold. The large open area had boxes stacked everywhere. Some had been opened and left with half the original items tossed to the side of the boxes.

Mud had been tromped in and not cleaned up. It had been kicked around and there were even puddles of muddy green water. The moisture from the air had settled on boxes and loose items and fungi were growing on those that hadn’t been disturbed for some time.

Pat started when an alarm went off in her helmet. “Damn,” she hissed softly into her comm., “The suit is reading the air as contaminated and unsafe to breathe in here. Try not to disturb those big reddish, mushroom looking things, the sensor on the air filter is reading the spores as toxic to us.”

The others K’d back and moved deeper into the ship. The lighting was dim but they could see well enough. Que took up a position where she could see out but also look back into the hold. As the others proceeded, they took note of what was lying around but kept clear of the items and the puddles.

The stairs were where Zed had indicated. They had removed the door that sealed them at some time. The team headed up to the level they had been assigned. Once they were all in place, they used the schematics on their vambraces’ pads or their Mads to proceed. Their AIs also silently told them if anyone was near and relayed silent directions.

Dusty and James stood outside two of the cabins. They silently opened the doors and picked out where the occupants were. The first two rooms both had two occupants and the men were asleep. They approached a man in each room and dropped a spell on him. Four down, twenty-eight to find.

Dusty got the Captain’s cabin. She found two men and a woman in the big bed. She picked out the Captain and spelled him first. Looking at the other two, she noted that they both had whip marks on their backs. They were also a lot younger than the Captain was. She doubted either had hit twenty.

She spelled the women who had her back to her and the walked around the bed to do the man. He was on his stomach with his face towards the wall. At least a dozen welts criss-crossed his back and were fresh. Some of them were weeping where the skin had broken.

Dusty swallowed down bile and went to put a spell on the man when he opened his eyes to look at her. She froze as she looked into his eyes. To her horror, he just looked through her with glassy eyes. Tears slid down his face but he didn’t move or cry out.

She slowly reached out and placed the sleep spell on him. She had to add a small healing spell as well. His eyelids drooped and then closed as he sighed softly. She was tempted to pull her pistol and shoot the Captain but managed to restrain herself, just.

She backed away and turned to leave the room with sadness in her heart for the young man and a deep anger for the older man. She vowed he would suffer for his actions. She met James in the hall and he held up two fingers. She held up three.

James could see that she was distressed but knew now was not the time. Dusty pointed down so they headed down to help Aaron and Bindy. She told him mentally what she had found as they backtracked to the stairs. Now it was nine down and twenty-three to go.

Pat found a man and a woman on the top level. They had bedded down in what had been the Captain’s ready room. They were both on the couch and the woman was held in the man’s arms. Pat could see that she was four to five months pregnant.

She placed the spell on them and moved on. Ike, her AI, informed her there were two more men on this level in the officer’s lounge. She found them sprawled out on the two couches. She had little trouble putting a spell on them too. She headed back down the stairs. That made it thirteen down nineteen to go.

As Zed had informed them, level three had been claimed by the other men. Four of the men had canvas cots in one of the bigger rooms. They were set out like in a military barracks. Bindy and Aaron had little trouble putting them to sleep; seventeen down, fifteen to go.

The other five men had claimed the four smaller rooms and used bedding taken from ships they had captured. Three of the men had a woman with them. The other two shared a bed. Dusty and James worked their way through these rooms while Bindy and Aaron were doing the group of eight; twenty-five down seven to go.

The seven left were women and they were in the hut off the side of the ship. Aaron went and relieved Que and she went with the others to check out the women. Six of the women were asleep on cots in the wardroom; at least the room was clean and didn’t stink of mould.

The seventh woman was slumped over a desk with her head on her arms, she was crying quietly.

Dusty approached the sobbing woman and said gently, “Are you with the pirates?”

The woman didn’t move at first but she stopped weeping. She straightened and turned the chair to look at the five people standing behind her. She looked them over with fear in her eyes. The fear subsided as she realised that four of them were women. She also recognised the insignia on their camo-clothes and knew they were from UNSEC.

“I can’t believe it, you finally found us. It took you seven bloody months but better late than never for some of us anyway,” she said with bitterness.

“Who are you?” Dusty asked her.

“Dr Whitney White. I was the ship’s doctor on the Queen Anne, from the UK,” she replied.

She looked at Dusty’s arm when she heard a male voice say, “The Queen Anne did indeed have a Dr Whitney White as the ships doctor. Facial recognition indicates that this woman is who she says she is.”

“How many from your ship are still here?” Que asked.

“Five, those who weren’t sold died. This damn place is a pesthole. I, no sooner get one disease under control and then we get new people, and it starts all over again. Some of the plants are toxic and I’m sure some of them have affected the pirates and some of the prisoners.”

“I kept telling Rupert that we needed to move but he won’t listen to me. I’m not even sure if he is sane anymore. Half of the people here are from the Taggart. It was a ship full of people from Eastern Europe mostly Russian and from the Slavic nations. They took the rest of them to sell on Terra nearly six months ago.”

“Rupert kept more of the men from that ship as he was going to get them to start building better accommodations until he lost the plot. The last lot were from the Horizon about four months ago. They were a mixed bag from many nations.”

“However, they tried to kill his crews after he raped some of the women about three months ago. He had been stabbed the week before by one of the women and was already paranoid. Two of his men were killed and ten of the prisoners. After the riot, he lost it and increased the drugs. The other women were just as involved as the men so he drugged them too.”

“His men just claim a woman and sleep with her until she is pregnant. Some of them have kept particular women, others still use whom they please, male or female, mostly because they are infertile. Cara and Reni have claimed a man from the ships, Ricky, but they sleep in the compound with him.”