Chapter 11

Fox

I'm in bed, but I can't sleep. I keep wondering when Helga and Ella will be found. Not if, I remind myself, when. I get up and pace my quarters. Then I sit at my desk, watching my officer's ships and readouts as they scour the solar system. She must be on the unregistered ship that got out.

My door chimes. "Enter." My voice reflects my bad mood.

I look over. It's Sem. "Commander. We've located an escape pod with a beacon on it. It's an old Dulu model, but there's a human inside."

I stand up. "Helga?"

"We don't know yet. One of our ships is on its way to intercept it."

I begin putting on my uniform. Sem comes over to help me. "It's been years since you were my squire."

Sem, as usual, says nothing, but calmly hands me my knife as he would when he was much younger. I know he's doing this now because he doesn't have the words to tell me he's worried I might not find Helga and then not marry anyone and be replaced as Commander. I take my knife from his hand, no longer the boy's hand he once was, but the man now and my successor. "I'll find her if the goddesses will it."

"The goddesses can be elusive," Sem says. He didn't trust the goddesses to find Ivy. He purposely found her himself.

"But they've never let us down. We do their work, and they work for us," I say and begin walking toward my door. Sem falls in step with me.

Once we reach the command center, we see the escape pod being opened in a docking bay on one of our smaller ships near Jupiter. I'm holding my breath, hoping to see Helga, but it's an unconscious Ella who is taken out of the pod. I look at the scans being transmitted directly to us from the junior doctor's polymer. "She's alive. She's just been given a sedative," I hear the junior doctor say on the screen. "I'm going to wake her," he says, and I wait. Has she been harmed? Have they erased all her memories?

Ella awakes with a scream and then yells some more when she sees that everyone is grey. "What is going on?! Let me go!"

The junior doctor calms her with his telepathy and reads her mind. He reports out loud what he finds. "She was taken in the human-led ship with Helga. Ella pretended to be asleep to listen for any useful information before she was released. Helga traded her necklace for Ella's return to Earth or to us. The pirates are taking Helga to Gala as retribution for Fox sending their human commander, Echo, there." A few seconds of silence pass, then the junior doctor removes his hands from Ella's arm. "That's it. She doesn't know anymore." The junior doctor looks into the camera. "Commander, what are your orders?"

"Erase her memories of this and give her a memory that Helga left with me somewhere romantic. Take her home."

I'm disappointed Helga was not in that pod. But had it been Helga, I still would have had to go after Ella. My fears are confirmed, but at least Helga is alive and I know where they're taking her. The next question is, how do I get there and get enough UCs to buy her?

I go into my office, and Axl is on my heels. When the door closes, he asks, "Where are you going to get the UCs to buy Helga from Gala? A human like her will be expensive."

"I'm going to ask the High Priestess."

"That's a dangerous move. If you fail…"

"If I fail, I'm dead anyway."

"If Helga makes one wrong move…" Axl says, remembering how the High Priestess felt about Georgiana.

"I know," I say. "But it's the most straightforward way."

"Well, may the goddesses protect you from her wrath," Axl says as he leaves my office.

Once he's gone, I open an RVM to the High Priestess. "The goddesses bless me with your wisdom," I say when I see her solemn face across the screen. "I need your guidance, High Priestess."

"Speak, Commander."

"I have found my true other half. She is a human woman of twenty-seven Earth years. However, a half-human trafficker's crew abducted her for retribution against me. They're taking my human to Gala Station to be sold as a slave."

"Have you married this woman without my consent?"

"Of course not, High Priestess."

"So you're not married?"

"Not yet."

"She is not your true other half then. The goddesses would not test you like this. Perhaps she is meant to be on Gala and a slave. Keep looking for your wife-to-be on Earth."

"High Priestess," I touch my finger over my heart. "She is my true other half. Please, I beseech you, as Head of our House, please, help me."

"What evidence do you have that she's meant to be your wife?"

I close my eyes and think of Helga. "When she speaks, I hang on every word. When we are together, we finish each other's sentences. My heart beats louder and I breathe faster when she's near me," I touch my chest with my fist to emphasize my words. "And every moment she's away from me, I think about her. I'm not hungry or thirsty. I could live forever in her blue gaze without any nourishment." I open my eyes and meet the High Priestess's through the screen. "I only want her and she can do no wrong. As far as I'm concerned, she's the most perfect woman the goddesses ever created."

"You're in love, clearly, but how do you know she's your true other half? What signs have the goddesses given you?"

I rack my brain to think of something the High Priestess would note as a sign from the goddesses. "I met her in a place called the Heaven of the Bavarians. It's where she is from, and when she came to me, we had an electrifying instant connection. She brought me a drink, and I drank it freely." Of course, this means nothing on Earth that I'm aware of, but in the Empire, it's old-fashioned, but not uncommon, to ask that a drink served by a woman be checked for poison while a man is still in his prime. If a man doesn't it means he trusts that woman.

The High Priestess is quiet considering this. "Commander, is this woman a servant?"

"Humans hold no Alliance classes."

"Yes, but for you, a servant will not do. The woman you marry will be equal to your rank. She will be the woman to represent the base both in the Empire and the galaxy. She will be responsible for the pastoral care of your crew and their families. No servant could possibly have the skills required for this position. I think you're mistaken in believing she is your true other half."

I get out my knife so the High Priestess can see it, then I dramatically cut my palm so violently and quickly some drops of blood even get on the screen. I can see I've affected the High Priestess because she looks at me gravely now. Good , I think, you should take me more seriously . "I swear on the goddess of home that Helga from the Heaven of the Bavarians is my true other half, and I must go to Gala and save her. Please grant me enough UCs to buy her and bring her home."

The High Priestess and I hold eye contact across the bloodstained screen for seven seconds. Seven sacred seconds. I count them in my head. Please let her relent.

The High Priestess clears her throat. "If you must go, then go. You may have five thousand UCs to buy her back. No more. If her price goes over that then the goddesses are sending you a clear sign to let her go."

I purposely don't agree not to go over the five thousand. If that happens, I'll find the extra UCs somewhere. But I add, "And I will take our fastest ship, the Des ."

"If you must. Go and follow the goddesses light. Do not stray into darkness, Commander." I end the transmission. I'll worry about pleasing the High Priestess after I have Helga back here safe and sound. That is if she'll have me after all of this. If she won't, then I've lost everything. I have a moment of doubt, but then I remember Helga's smile, the way she looked at me, and her fear when Adam attacked her. I told her I'd always protect her, and that's true. I must get to Gala as quickly as possible.

I enter the command center and tell my officers my plan. "I hope a few of you will consider volunteering to join me. Axl and I can't do this alone. I don't expect too much trouble from the human traffickers, but Gala is Gala and there's always some kind of carnage there."

"You can count on me," Sem says.

"Thank you, but I need you here in my stead." I stop short of saying, ‘And if anything happens to me, you're the next Commander.' I don't say it because it's too close to being a reality.

A few of my other officers, including Lev, volunteer to go. For the first time in hours, I feel confident that Helga will be rescued. I give the order to make the Des ready.

As we are getting ready to board the ship, Anna pulls me aside in the docking bay and asks if she can go too.

"You?" I look her up and down. Long brown hair and sturdy for a human, but still a human female and wife of one of my officers. It's ingrained in me that I must keep women safe at all costs. Allowing her to join us goes against a lifetime of tradition. "Gala is dangerous and no place for a human woman."

"I can wear a Dulu device that makes me look like an Alliance woman."

"But you know very well that Alliance women don't leave their planets," I say. Anna is an anthropologist, and since she married Lev, she's learned more about our culture than we understand ourselves.

"Commander, you know some Alliance women do leave for important matters. And think about it, if an Alliance woman was on Gala, she'd get more respect than any of you, yes? The galaxy is a matriarchy, isn't it?"

"It is…" I want to counter this with something, but she's not wrong. And no doubt this is more of a professional curiosity for her, which is why she's downplaying the danger.

"And there are women on Gala, yes? Not just the ones being sold," she asks.

"Yes, females of other species. Sometimes a middling-class Alliance woman or two. But?—"

"But what? Come on, Commander. I speak Alliance. I know I have a bit of an accent, but not one anyone would take exception to. Lev told me I could just say I'm from Alliance Planet Four."

"I don't have time for this."

"So I can go?" Anna asks.

"Anna, it's just not safe."

But then, before I can say more, she adds, "I can help you with Helga. I'm assuming she doesn't know you're…" Anna runs her finger up and down my body, "you."

"She doesn't."

"And she probably doesn't have a translator. I speak both German and Alliance. You need me on this mission, Commander," Anna says, and now I can't deny her logic. It would be easier to have her with us to comfort Helga. I have no idea what state she's going to be in.

"It's against my better judgment, but if you're determined and you know the risks, which I think you do, then I'm lucky to have you. Stay close to Axl on Gala. I like your husband a lot, but his aim with a gun isn't up to scratch, especially not with the criminals we might encounter."

"I'll do that," she says with some excitement and boards the Des in front of me.

I watch her for a second and wonder if that was a mistake. If she dies, I'll be responsible for a human woman's death. Now I've made this mission to save Helga even more dangerous. I can't allow Anna get hurt or sold either. But if we all make it out of Gala, she will be an asset to Helga.

Once everyone is onboard, we hear Sem through the communications from the base's command center. "May the goddesses light your path, Commander, and we will look for your return," he says as we leave the base.

"Set in a course for Gala," I say. "Top speed."

"You've not eaten all day," Axl reminds me when it's time for the evening meal, but I've made no indication that I'm leaving the bridge. He continues, "Go. If anything happens, you'll be the second to know."

I want to tell Axl I'm not hungry because I feel sick to my stomach thinking about what might be happening to Helga. "That's not good enough. I want to be the first to know."

"That's not doing her or you any favors right now. Go and eat. I promise you, I've got this. Trust me."

After a few more minutes of Axl working to convince me, I reluctantly leave the bridge. I go to the dining hall where Lev and Anna are already seated. I join them for the meal.

"We'll find her," Anna says without any preamble. It's unnerving sometimes how women speak thoughts out loud.

"It's up to the goddesses," I reply not wanting to talk about this. Because I feel like if I talk about it out loud. If I hope too much, it won't happen and I'll never see Helga again.

Thankfully, Anna says nothing to this. I know she's still uncomfortable with our religion, but she has enough sense to drop this.

The food is served by Axl's squire, and we mostly eat in silence. I don't know what they're thinking about, but the only thing running through my mind is how Helga might be suffering and how I could have be so foolish not to consider Echo's people seeking retribution. I usually see others' plans lightyears away.

When the meal is finished, I go to my temporary quarters and lay down. I can't sleep, of course, but I go through the motions, praying for time to jump ahead so that I know how this is all going to end.