Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 58483 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58483 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
“We should consider it.” The navigator leans towards me. “She’s not lying about wanting to help.”
“How can you tell?” The captain doesn’t seem to disagree, though. I feel as if he believed me the minute I opened my mouth.
“I smell her scent. Fear and adrenaline, but not the spike that comes with human lies.”
“We smell when we lie?” I’m offended and fascinated.
“Everyone smells, all the time.” His voice is brusque. “Some humans tend to spike a certain hormone when they lie and it’s detectable, at least to me. But this is not the main topic at hand.”
“All right, then. Look at this.” The captain points to the holo, where a map pops up in color, then morphs into a 3D image of a street and a building. “Assuming we use you, this is the place. You’d enter here.” He points to a door. “Where you provide identification. Then you’d have to go down here.” The picture morphs back into a map, a floor plan, of a huge warehouse. “Down this hall, to this room, labeled records. There is a human slave working in there, with an Ocretion overseer in the corner. You would request the records of all offspring of the slave with the barcode number 3835978 and say they were for your master. When you get the data containment modules, you put them into your cloak and leave. Make your way back to the ship, hidden in the woods here” —he points again— “undetected, of course.”
He scans my face. “Does that seem even possible to you?”
My heart bumps in my chest. “Yes, my lord. I can do it.”
“I am not sure.” His voice carries doubt.
“You said yourself using your Ocretion masks only has a sixty percent probability of working. My human face is 100 percent.” I smile at my own joke, but neither Zandian cracks a grin. “Uh, and I’m good at being a slave, because, I am one.” This time I don’t smile either. “So it won’t be an act. I know how to keep my head down, how to act subservient to the Ocretions.”
“If they detect any cause for alarm, the mission will fail.”
“I will not fail,” I promise him.
The two confer. “If she gets caught?”
They switch to the Zandian language, and I can’t understand, but the conversation goes on for a while.
Finally the captain comes to me. He crouches down to look into my eyes. “This is risky. It’s possible you might not survive.” He pauses. “Do you still want to continue?”
I nod. “Yes, my lord.”
He winces. “Only use my lord when you address our Zandian king.”
“Yes, Master.”
“Then here is the plan. You will enter the building and request the records. We prefer that you bring the modules to us. But if you cannot remove them or are compromised, we need you to upload the data to us before they take you. As soon as you get them, you find a private place and insert the modules into this slot on the wrist comm we give you, one at a time. Once they are uploaded to us, destroy the modules and the wrist comm. Then make your way to the ship. If you get caught, we may not be able to extricate you. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” It’s awful, but I must do it. If I don’t prove myself, I’ll be no better than a traitor when I finally get to Zandia. This is my only shot. Plus, it’s a way to help humans… children. My heart hurts thinking of young humans enslaved. It’s worth it to at least try.
“Then let’s go.”
Chapter 8
Taisha
“Slave B-4389742, requesting entrance per my master’s orders.” The B stands for breeder, a position I’ve thanked sweet Mother Earth not to have from the time I was old enough to understand what it meant. I'm incredibly lucky I was never raped by my slave master or any of his guards.
My voice is calm and even as I stand in front of the squat gray building, the hot sun of this new planet is baking into my back, even through my cloak. The number I rattled off is not the barcode on the back of my neck, it is one provided to me by Captain Drayk. I’m praying they won’t require an actual scan of my barcode. I’m also praying my dark skin won’t make me stand out too much. Make them wonder if they’ve seen me around before and realize they haven’t.
There is a pause, and then a guard opens a slot in the door. I pull my hood closer over my forehead. Human I may be, but my skin color is not common here, and I don’t wish to attract extra attention.
“Purpose?” His voice, the typical Ocretion snarl, makes my spine go cold and my breath comes faster. Sweat prickles my brow.
“I am not allowed to question my master’s purpose, but I respectfully request to fulfill his wishes. He needs slave records for a former breeder. One sold some solar rotations ago.”