Chapter 30

The Thunder Bolt hummed to life under Dante’s touch, and soon he was rising through the forest under the ship’s cloaking tech. For a second, he let the ship hover just under the canopy, as if hesitating.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered to himself and to Tinsley.

Dante was overcome by the sudden urge to turn the ship around and bring it crashing into the side of the facility. He had images of himself jumping out of the cockpit, guns blazing, shooting down any Jorvlen who crossed his path until he found Tinsley and wrenched her back from the pirates’ grasp.

But that was nonsense and he knew it. If he didn’t kill himself in the act of crash-landing the ship, he’d no doubt be overtaken by Jorvlens within moments of exiting the vehicle. Even if he somehow managed to get to Tinsley, totaling the ship would mean they had no way of getting out again.

No, his only chance of saving her was to leave her behind, as much as it pained him.

He let out a heavy sigh before shifting the transporter into gear and sending it rocketing out of Seisi’s atmosphere. But the whole time he was thinking of Tinsley, wondering where they had taken her and what would happen to her when she got there.

It didn’t take him long to find out.

“New tracker detected,” came Buzz’s voice over the ship’s speakers just as Dante brought the ship into Seisi’s orbit.

Dante’s sullen visage suddenly transformed into a smile as he scrambled to get the tracking screen up. After a few button presses, it appeared in front of him. The ship had already twisted to face the small, red planet, and suddenly the screen showed an image of Seisi overlaid on the real thing.

There, on the holographic map, he saw a small blinking red light. Tinsley.

Dante breathed a sigh of relief, staring at the dot for a moment and willing it to be okay. He could see she’d been taken inside the facility, and he zoomed in, not sure exactly where she’d been taken.

What he saw ripped the smile right off his face and replaced it with a look of dread. Tinsley was in the basement, right inside the hallway they’d explored together. In fact, he could even see her cell.

Suddenly another thought occurred to Dante—one that made his blood turn to ice.

What if they’ve drugged her?

He knew how dangerous and how powerful Motley was. Hell, they’d seen it with their own eyes—cell after cell of unconscious women, drugged for gods knew how long and for what purpose.

The thought of the same thing happening to Tinsley was nauseating. For the second time, he considered flying right back down there and extracting her himself, and for the second time, he reluctantly shook that thought away.

What he had to do was call for backup.

With a tightness in his chest, Dante found Bran’s name on his comm and started a call. The way they’d left Tinsley’s ship—in a state of disrepair with little hope of fixing it on that tiny substation—made him wonder if there was any way the backup he was about to call could get there.

But his fears were dashed almost as soon as he heard Bran’s voice.

“Yes, captain?” came the first mate’s answer immediately.

Dante smiled. He knew he could trust his crew to be ready at a moment’s notice, and he was sure they would have figured something out in his absence. That’s what they were hired for, after all.

“Bran,” he began, “I hope to the gods the Nebula is up and running by now, because we need your help.”

“Good news, captain!” came the words that Dante was hoping to hear. “The substation crew was able to order in some spare parts. Captain Adams’ ship is ready to go. Where do you need us?”

Dante could feel his chest relaxing, just a little.

“I’m orbiting the small planet of Seisi. Tinsley’s been captured and is being held there. And not just her. The facility is full of kidnapped women. I need you here as quickly as possible.”

“Aye aye, captain,” Bran replied without missing a beat. “We’ll be there in about four flicks.”

Dante paled. Four flicks was a long time to leave Tinsley down there, and who knew what would happen until the crew arrived? They might take her comm, might move her somewhere else, might… Well, he didn’t want to think of what else might happen.

In any case, he didn’t have much of a choice but to wait. The crew would be there as soon as they could. He trusted that. Now he just had to trust that Tinsley would be okay in the meantime.

He leaned forward, staring at the little dot on the screen again when Buzz spoke, startling him.

“A second tracker has been detected,” the AI told him.

“What?”

“Tinsley’s comm tracker and implant tracker are both online,” came the reply.

Dante almost laughed with relief. That eliminated one risk at least—even if the Jorvlens took her comm, there was no way they’d think to check for an implant tracker. They were new on the market and so few people had them that it didn’t even cross anyone’s mind to check for that kind of technology yet.

Not that that guaranteed Tinsley’s safety, but it at least guaranteed he could find her. He looked at his comm. Only four slakes—about a quarter of a flick—had passed since the call with Bran. If he was going to be there for four flicks, Dante couldn’t just stare at Tinsley’s tracker. He’d have to find something else to keep him busy.

Luckily, he knew exactly what that was.

He tapped his comm to the Thunder Bolt’s control panel, letting the holoscreen shift to the contents of his comm. Flicking through the files, he found what he was looking for. He switched on the ship’s long-distance radio communication and typed a message.

This is Dante Lorr, son of King Vrondo of Lorr, and private investigator with Probe and Pursue Services. I have information pertaining to the kidnapping, illegal detention, and sedation of at least thirty women from a host of different planets, perpetrated by Jorvlen pirates. This appears to be an ongoing operation, and I have reason to believe many, many more women have been victimized. The facility holding the women is on Seisi. Please find attached evidence of these crimes.

Dante attached the image of the logs they’d found on the pirate ship plus a few photos he’d taken of the holding cells just before they left. Then he typed in the code of the Galactic Authority.

With a sense of hope, he pressed therelay button, sending the message out across the vastness of space in the hopes that something might be done to help those women left inside.

He looked at the screen again, flicking back to the map of Seisi. Somewhere down there, a group of women he’d never met—and who he might never meet—were unknowingly relying on his help. Except for one, who knew he was coming for her.