Alien Slave (16 page)

* * * *

Dani exulted despite the tortuous
thirst driving her crazy. The muggy air sapped all the moisture
from her body, leaving her as dry as a desert. Fortunately, she’d
found a small stream of moving water in the boggy surroundings and
had filled her container. Her well-marked path led her unerringly
back to the crashed ship, where she would build a fire, boil the
water, and drink until her belly ached and her throat stopped
screaming dryness.

She also planned to catch the teeming
insects and small wildlife she’d come across. She’d cook them and
hope like hell they’d agree with her stomach. The spears she
planned to make were also paramount. She’d seen the paw prints of
something insanely huge and judging by how deeply they sank into
the soft ground, heavy as well.

The prints had been twice the size of
her big, galumphing size-ten feet. With telltale claws at the tips
of the three toes on each print. Dani knew she was not at the top
of the food chain on this marshy moon.

She caught a flash of sunlight on metal
through the trees and almost gave a little cheer to have reached
the clearing where the downed ship waited. Movement within the
trees closed her throat before the sound could leave it.

Dani spotted Gelan’s face for an
instant between the curtains of thick foliage. She froze. The
Kalquorians were here? Hunting her?

A million thoughts flashed into her
head all at once as the small break in the brush revealed Wynhod,
then Krijero following in Gelan’s wake. They were so intent on her
trail that they didn’t spy her standing there for the split second
they had of a clear sightline.

Dani’s brain jabbered wildly.
Rescue!Caught!Prisoner!Saved!Run!Beg forgiveness!

As soon as the Kalquorians were out of
sight, Dani quietly, carefully stepped away from the path she’d
followed, simultaneously heading towards Reggie’s ship while
ducking low to avoid being seen by her pursuers. She crouched
behind a dense stand of growth, trying to slow the harsh panting
her breath had become.

To the jabbering cacophony in her head,
she ordered, Shut up and let me think.

Except for a few chirps of panic, the
madness abated so she could do just that. Dani listened hard for
the oncoming Kalquorians. She thought she heard a soft pair of
footfalls, just one man walking through the woods. Had they split
up? Had the clan seen her and now attempted to flush her
out?

You have to give yourself up to them.
You don’t want to be here alone, starving like you did on Earth.
For God’s sake, think about those paw prints. There’s big shit out
here, things that would find Danielle Watson a delicious
snack.

Surrendering was obvious. But her
stomach curled in on itself to think of the repercussions she’d
face when those huge aliens got their hands on her. She couldn’t
even imagine the tortures the brutes would subject her to. They
might even do it publicly, in front of their fellow Kalquorians on
their planet.

Dani had a vision of the public
punishment stage on Dantovon, of recalcitrant slaves cuffed and
suspended naked in the air as their owners’ hired disciplinarians
lashed them with electrical shock whips. The captured slaves always
lost control of their elimination on the first blow, adding to the
humiliation.

Dani saw herself there, hanging
helplessly while Gelan, Wynhod and Krijero whipped her skin raw,
her body jerking with every pulse of electricity. Surrounding the
stage would be a sea of Kalquorians, their dark faces alight as
they jeered at her screams.

It might be better to die on this
horrid moon.

And God knows what they’d do to her
before they even reached Kalquor. It was what, a three day journey,
even with two wormholes to hurry their passage? Dani’s overactive
imagination conjured a dungeon-like brig, in which she’d be
manacled to the wall, beaten and tortured and raped the entire
time. Trapped like one of the heretics of the Spanish Inquisition
on an alien ship…

“
Their ship.” Dani clamped
her mouth shut against the escaped whisper and listened for that
set of footfalls to run towards her.

But all had gone silent, save for the
ever-present buzz of the insectile creatures that flew around.
While she’d lived horrible thoughts of torture in her mind, her
pursuers had apparently passed her by.

A jolt of excitement raced through
Dani’s body. She could escape in the Kalquorians’ ship. No doubt
they had set down near Reggie’s crashed shuttle. It would be easy
to find. All she had to do was circle the clearing until she
discovered where they’d landed.

A much better vision than the ones
she’d been torturing herself with emerged. In this one, a gleam of
metal through the trees alerted her to a streamlined bullet of a
Kalquorian shuttle, one so modern it practically flew itself. The
Kalquorians would still be following the shreds of her dress,
probably not even as far as the sluggish stream she’d gotten water
from, when she lifted off for destinations friendly to
Earthers.

Thinking about water brought her thirst
raging back. Dani looked at her container of water, her parched
throat clicking as she swallowed. And she remembered the
conversation at the Joshadan eatery, in which Gelan’s clan shared
the story of their hunt with her.

Krijero asked his clanmates, “Did you
take your bacteria-inhibitors?”

At the nods from the other two men,
Dani asked, “What’s that for?”

Gelan answered. “We carry bottles that
filter and purify water, but it can take a little while for it to
be potable. Rather than load ourselves down, it’s easier to drink
the water we find on the hunt and take medication later that kills
off any harmful bacteria we might have ingested. Most responsible
people keep a supply of such medication on hand in case they have
to make an emergency landing on an unpopulated planet.”

There had been no sign of medicine on
Reggie’s ship when she’d investigated the supplies on board. Not a
surprise, as he’d not been the most responsible creature; his
ship’s condition was a testament to that.

But the Kalquorians no doubt had it on
their ship. The ship she was going to take.

Dani drank deeply from her water cache.
It was cool and sweet, the best water she’d ever drunk. Just as she
had promised herself, she drank it until her stomach strained.
Wonderful.

Refreshed at last, Dani slowly stood
up, searching her surroundings for the Kalquorians. They were
nowhere in sight, and no shouts of discovery rang out. They’d
walked by without knowing she’d been mere yards away. She grinned
and shook her hips in a little victory dance.

So long, suckers. Dani is outta
here.

Congratulating herself on such a
brilliant plan, Dani hurried away, keeping the clearing with
Reggie’s crashed ship in sight to her left. She imagined the look
on the Kalquorians’ faces when they discovered they’d been
outsmarted by an Earther prostitute.

Priceless.

Chapter 10

The morning had turned to afternoon by
the time Gelan thought they might be catching up to Dani. She’d
proven herself better quarry than he’d anticipated, giving him a
newfound respect for the girl.

She’d searched out water. She’d managed
to evade them. She wasn’t too good at covering her tracks, but
having come from privilege, he hadn’t expected her to know how to
do that. That she’d been able to lead them on a merry chase at all
impressed him greatly.

The ground was turning progressively
muckier, giving way to swampland. Dani’s trail had skirted several
deep stands of water, taking her farther and farther from the crash
site. Wynhod still managed to move almost silently, his Nobek
skills of sneaking up on prey as effective as ever. Krijero
squelched along, his heavy tread making sucking sounds every time
he lifted his feet.

The Imdiko rubbed a sweat-sheened
forearm across his brow. “We must be at least ten miles from the
ship. Where is she going?”

Gelan wrenched one booted foot out of
the muck. “We’ll ask when we catch her. Watch yourselves. I think
some of this stuff could pull a man under.”

Wynhod looked at the tiny footprints
that became more and more visible as they progressed. “We can’t be
far behind her now. This will definitely slow her down.” He gave
Gelan an evil grin. “Have you given any thought to her punishment
once we catch her?”

Gelan returned the grin as his pants
stiffened a little. “That’s about all I’ve thought of. She’s going
to be a very sorry little girl.”

He wasn’t into hurting innocents,
especially women. But like most Kalquorian men, dominating others,
especially in sexual situations, tantalized. Spanking a naughty
girl who’d put herself in danger, bending the rebellious little
Earther to his will aroused him terribly. The thought of Dani’s
lovely round buttocks reddening under his heavy hand tightened his
crotch even more. Now that was going to be a fine
trophy.

* * * *

Dani cursed under her breath as she
skirted yet another deep pool of water. She’d never seen a swamp on
Earth except on vid shows, but she thought this must be how they
looked and smelled. Nasty. Incredibly nasty and dirty. Blackish
muck covered her feet and coated halfway up her calves. She’d lost
one of her slippers in the sticky mess half a mile ago.

Worst of all, she fretted about getting
farther away from the shelter of the crashed ship and her escape
ship. She couldn’t turn back, knowing the Kalquorians might very
well be on her trail. She couldn’t have retraced her steps anyway,
not after what she’d

spied. In one of the pools she’d
encountered, she’d seen the scaled back of some huge creature
breach the gray-slimed water’s surface. The bit of it she’d seen
conjured visions of skyscraper-sized dinosaurs, something she’d be
only a nibble to should it catch her.

No, she couldn’t go back that
way.

Dani squelched through ever stickier
mud, sinking more with every step as she trudged around the pond
that might hide yet another scaled horror in its unfathomable
depths. She lost the other shoe as she heaved a step forward. She
paused, looking with mingled despair, exhaustion, and fury as the
hole she’d left in the ground quickly filled with water.

This really sucked.
Literally.

Keep moving. That’s all you can
do.

In the brief seconds she’d stood still,
she’d sunk nearly to her knees in the black sludge. When Dani tried
to yank her leg up and forward, she could only raise it an inch.
She tried the other one. Same result.

Dani grabbed one leg with both hands,
trying to pull herself free. The ground retained its hold on her,
pulling her even deeper. She was in up over her knees now, and she
panicked, struggling mightily to get out of the swallowing muck.
Despite her frantic efforts, she continued to sink even faster.
Within seconds, she was buried to the waist.

Terror overcame her and Dani screamed.
“Help! Help me!”

Within the stand of trees she’d left
minutes ago, something crashed towards her. With visions of hungry,
fanged monsters in her head, Dani twisted the upper part of her
body not encased in mud to see her approaching doom.

She sobbed with relief when the three
Kalquorians cleared the woods, running towards her. Being beaten
within an inch of her life didn’t seem such a terrible fate
compared to being buried alive in mud or chomped on by
dinosaurs.

Gelan and Wynhod stopped short a few
feet away, and they grabbed Krijero to keep him from coming any
closer either. Wynhod warned the Imdiko, “Stop here, Krijero.
You’ll sink a lot faster than she is.”

Terrified they’d just stand there and
watch her be buried in muck, Dani cried, “Get me out of here!” She
was now up to her armpits, and the heavy mud holding her prisoner
made it hard to catch her breath.

Gelan eyed the ground surrounding her.
“Don’t move, Dani. Moving will make you sink faster. Hold
absolutely still.”

Wynhod turned away, facing the woods.
He suddenly disappeared in a blur of speed, moving faster than
Dani’s eyes could follow. She gasped as he returned in a matter of
seconds, dragging a long, thick branch. She’d never seen anyone run
so fast.

Gelan seized the branch’s thickest
part, helping Wynhod swing the thinner end towards Dani. “Good
idea, Wynhod. Grab on, Krijero, and we’ll pull her out.”

Krijero joined his clanmates at one end
of the branch, pushing the length across the mire. Dani reached,
stretching her arms over the thick surface to grasp the opposite
end. She was up to her chin now.

“
Hang on as hard as you can,
little fighter,” Wynhod said.

The men pulled on their end, and Dani’s
body reluctantly dragged towards them a couple of inches. She
gasped as mud slid up to her lower lip.

“
Hold for a moment.” The men
paused in their efforts as Wynhod coaxed Dani gently. “As we pull,
lie as much on your stomach as possible. Try to make yourself flat
on the surface.”

Dani looked at him in horror. She
lifted her chin to keep the mud out of her mouth. “Lay down? No
way! I’ll sink.”