“WAIT!” A man's voice called out and I stopped walking. “Don't leave us here.”
“You all feel the same way.” I said without turning around. “None of you actually want to leave.”
“That... that's not...” The man stopped before he lied.
“I don't know why you want to stay, considering how you're treated.” I said and turned back to look at them. Ten people had gathered together around Liv, who had stopped coughing and rubbed the blossoming bruises on her throat. She didn't glare at me like I thought she would, though.
“We've all been here for years.” Another man said. “Eight years for me.”
“I... told you... six before.” Liv said, her voice a little hoarse.
“Same.” Liv's friend said.
“Fifteen.” A woman said and she didn't look a day over twenty five.
“You don't need to know how long we've all been here.” A different man said. “Some of us do want to leave, despite Liv trying to protect us by stopping you.”
“We're a family.” A tall elderly woman said. Her grey hair was cut short and she seemed quite regal, even wearing a prisoner jumpsuit. “We've been together here for years, helping each other, probably longer than you've been in space.”
I had to think about that and counted the years in my head. “About the same, actually.”
“Then you know that time creates a bond in and of itself, regardless of circumstances and companions.” The elderly woman said. “You were right. You are intruding on us and you've wrecked our social dynamic.”
I looked around at their faces and back at hers. “You knew the others were trainees.”
She chuckled and it resonated from the walls. “We all knew and tolerated them, since they never stay long.” She said and walked over to me. It was a shuffling gait, because the magnetic cuffs on her ankles only let her legs get two feet apart. “Please, don't abandon us.” She said and held a hand out to me.
“You still don't want to leave.” I said.
“You mistake our thoughts about wanting to stay in this place.” She said with a smile. “Take my hand and understand.”
“I want your word that you won't try to influence me, give me a compulsion, or try to knock me out.”
“I will not influence you, past what you see and choose for yourself. I offer no compulsion and I refuse to knock you out.” The elderly woman said.
The Presence didn't waver, so I reached out and took her hand. Nothing happened.
“You need to let me pass through your outer mental protection.” She said with a smile.
I opened a small gap for her and she shivered and stumbled a little at what she felt. I caught her and she braced her free hand against my chest and stared into my eyes.
“How old are you?” She asked with wonder.
“Is that really what you want to know right now?”
“No, I... it's just...” She reached up and caressed my face. “I have the distinct feeling that someone has been waiting for you for a very long time.”
I nodded and she put her hand back on my chest to brace herself and she closed her eyes. She shared hundreds of images with me, like snapshots of their lives together in the mine. They had accepted their fate and as each new person came in and joined their family, since they could all easily tell who was going to be staying, the family grew. They worked together, they shared meals so everyone could eat, and they slept. It had been that way for years.
“We had no requirements to join.” The elderly woman said and opened her eyes. “Good, bad, or indifferent. Rich, poor, or destitute. It doesn't matter. Here, we are all the same. Prisoners.”
“None of you want to lose that surety.” I said, now that I understood.
“As long as we always stay together, we don't care where we are.” Liv said and stood up. “When you showed up and said you were here to rescue me, I knew you meant to take me away from the others.” She said and her friend took her hand. “I couldn't let that happen.”
“You can let me go now.” The elderly woman said.
“No.” I said and she shivered as I moved one of my hands up her body.
“W-wait, I... I'm too old to...” She caught her breath at what she said and blushed. “I... I mean...”
I almost laughed at her thoughts as my hand just barely missed touching her breast and I slid my hand up her neck and cupped the side of her face. “This may tingle a little.”
“P-please...” She said and her face didn't lose the blush. “...be gentle.”
“Should I distract you?” I asked and her thoughts told me what to do.
I slid my other hand down her back to the top of her backside, then I used an index finger to press on a spot just between the cheeks. She gasped as I stimulated her erogenous zone and then I used her own surging Presence to disable the suicide charge in her head. The elderly woman rested her head against my chest and took several breaths to try and calm down.
“Did you just finger her ass through the jumpsuit?” Liv asked, surprised.
“Not quite.” I smiled and held the elderly woman tenderly until she recovered. She lifted her head to look at me and her face showed a lot of different emotions. Her face finally settled on disbelief.
“You... I haven't... not since...” She stared into my eyes. “You are a dangerous man.”
“Coming into an Order controlled system to one of their sacred crystal mining planets and infiltrating the mine to release the prisoners wasn't enough to convince you?”
The elderly woman smiled. “That is all existential and circumstantial.”
I actually chuckled at that answer, because it meant I had to prove it to her personally.
“If you can take us all out of here... and guarantee that we won't be separated... we will behave.” She said and I felt like she was their final authority on the matter. What she said was how it was, and that was that.
“You have my word that even after I sneak you away to be set up in new lives, you won't be separated.” I said and they all started to cheer. “On one condition.”
The elderly woman squinted her eyes at me as the cheering died. “Name it.”
“If anyone comes to you and asks for help and mentions this, you have to help them, no questions asked.”
“If we don't?”
“Then the mutual support structure that's there to help you adjust to freedom will be cut off.” I said. “If you agree, housing, money, jobs, equipment, and anything else you require will be provided.”
“What if all we want is to be left alone?” She asked.
“You will be left alone. That's the whole point of hiding you away. The less people that know where you are, the better.”
“Then how will someone find us to ask us for help?”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“I never said you would be out of contact, just left alone.” I smiled. “How else would you ask for more food, or get help with farming, or build and buy things, or get more money?”
The elderly woman thought about it for a few moments. “I assume the communications will be secured?”
“I have my own secured satellite network that's expanding constantly and it can't be monitored by The Order. It's also ridiculously cheap to use.”
The elderly woman chuckled. “Then yes, we agree. If someone comes to us for help, we will help them, no questions asked.”
“Good.” I said. “Now line up so I can disable your suicide charges.”
“Don't you dare do to me what you did to Ral.” Liv said and put a hand over her backside.
“Excuse me for a few seconds.” I said to the elderly woman named Ral, then I disappeared from her sight and reappeared behind Liv, grabbed her by the back of the neck and put a hand on her head. I pulled her Presence into her skull and popped the wires and the battery out of her suicide charge.
“AGH!” Liv grunted and I let her go, then I reappeared back in front of Ral.
“Th-three seconds.” Ral looked at me and a shiver went down her spine.
“I'm not even using Presence.” I said to her and made my fingertip glow. “I wouldn't have to move from this spot if I was.”
Ral turned to look at where everyone was and her eyes widened. “You aren't exaggerating.”
“Honestly, I could have done it from the surface if I wasn't trying to hide.” I said and she shivered again. I walked over to Liv's friend and she put up her hands.
“Please, don't.”
“It's all right.” I said in a calming voice. “May I take your hand?”
She looked like a scared rabbit and held a hand out to me. I gave her my best smile and she caught her breath, then I shared a calming technique with her. She relaxed for a moment, then she realized what i just did.
“You can SHARE!” She yelled and a few of the others gasped, because they knew what she meant.
I reached up and touched the side of her head and gently eased her Presence over to the charge and let her feel it. Her breath quickened as I carefully pulled the leads out of the wires and then slipped the little battery out of contact. I removed my hand from her head and tried to let her hand go.
“Just... a bit more.” She said and held on for a few more moments, then she took a breath and let it out.
I turned and looked at the man close by and he shook his head. I chuckled. “Just a handshake will do.” I assured him and he looked at the three different reactions I had gotten from the three women. “They wanted it done a certain way.” I clarified for him.
“Oh.” He said and held a hand out. I took it and didn't let him feel me manipulating his Presence. Fifteen seconds later, I let his hand go. He looked at his hand and then reached up to rub the side of his head. “I didn't feel anything.”
“You didn't want to.” I said and walked over to the next woman. She had feathers for hair and her nose almost looked like a beak. “May I...”
“I want what Ral had.” She said and indicated the elderly woman.
“Are you sure? There are other people here.” I said with a smile and Ral blushed.
“Oh, now I really want it.” She said and stepped close as she took my hand. “Surprise me.”
“Okay.” I said and put my arm around her and let her surface thoughts float around until I caught one particular one that she thought I could never do for her. I smiled and put my mouth by her ear and touched my forehead to the spot above the suicide charge.
To her utter shock, I started to tweet and whistle a mating call and her whole body reacted as all of her feathers twitched and fluffed out. She arched her back and shook her ass as if she had tail feathers and I used her surging Presence to disable the charge. She grabbed onto me with her free hand, let out a squawk, then let out a long slow whine and I stopped whistling and held her.
“What the hell was that?” Liv asked.
I looked around at everyone and saw shock and surprise on all of their faces. Their surface thoughts told me that they had never seen her act like that before and they had known her for years.
“She's going to need a few minutes to recover and maybe she'll tell you.” I said and nodded at the man I had just shaken hands with. He took the feathered lady from me and she was completely passive. He raised his eyebrows at me and I shrugged, because I didn't know a lot about avian aliens.
“Just a handshake.” The next woman said with a stern expression and I could tell that she really wanted whatever I had done to the others. She didn't ask out loud for it, so I just took her hand. Fifteen seconds later, she let my hand go and I felt her regret. Unlike her, none of the others wanted me to distract them while I disabled their charges.
“I still have to leave you here while I go to the office.”
“Liv was right. There's nothing there.” Ral said. “It's a waste of time.”
“How do they keep track of everything?” I asked, and Ral laughed.
“Like what? How many prisoners there are? How many crystals? A datapad can track that easily.”
“But...”
“There's nothing here but the automated factory for crystal refinement.” Ral said. “Has the Presence wavered once while I've talked?”
I took a breath and let it out, because it hadn't. “I hate having to change plans at the last minute.” I said and hit my wrist com. “I've discovered there's nothing to raid in the office.”
“What? But... every other place...” Simone started to say.
“This is an automated factory. No records, no plans, nothing.”
“Adjusting extraction plan.” Jelly said. “We've just about got the cargo hold full, too.”
“Okay, I'm bringing the prisoners out.” I said and turned to look at the eleven of them. “If you have things you want to take with you, you've got two minutes to grab it.”
“Take the cuffs off!” Liv almost yelled.
I took out the magnetic lock key broadcaster and hit the button, then all eleven sets of cuffs, both wrists and ankles, dropped off of them. “I'll grab the laser drills.”
They looked at me for a second, surprised that they had been freed so quickly when the cuffs normally needed touch activation, then they realized they were free. Liv and her friend hugged tightly and a few of the men shouted.
“One minute forty-five seconds.” I said and made two of the laser drills disappear.
“How are you doing that?” Ral asked.
“Magic.” I said and grabbed the other drills, then went over to her. “Where are your quarters?”
“T-this way.” She said a little nervously and led me around the other scrambling people and took me into a nice cubicle sleeping area. “We don't have time for you to...” She stopped talking when she saw me gather her things. She had quite a lot built up, considering she had been in prison for a while, and I tossed everything onto her bed. “What are you doing?”
I tied the blanket into a bundle and then tucked it into a bag of holding. “Let's go.” I said and gently took her arm. “I'm sorry I disappointed you by not making love to you like you expected.” I said and she gasped. “I can't have sex with you because I'm on a mission.”
Ral gasped again. “You... really would...”
“I'd like to apologize for letting the situation get out of hand like it did.” I said and we stopped at each person's personal cubicle and I told them to do the same thing I did for Ral. I marked and stored the bundles and then they all followed me out of the main mine area and up to the platform where the two Order members were still unconscious.
Unsurprisingly, each and every woman walked by them and kicked them in the crotch or the face. I didn't stop them or even mention taking it easy on the two unconscious men. Their opinion of me rose slightly and we left the mine and entered the portion where Simone waited for us.
“We had to pack some things.” I said and she shook her head and helped me usher everyone all the way back to the shipping area.
“It's really real.” Liv's friend said as she saw the shuttle. “We're really leaving.”
Liv gave me a look that wasn't an apology, just an acknowledgement, then everyone jumped when Isabella removed her camouflage and stood up on top of the shuttle.
“It's going to be a tight fit.” Simone said and grabbed several of the cargo handles from the rack by the door and carried them into the rear cargo hold of the shuttle. The prisoners stared at Isabella as she hopped down to land in front of them, then she followed Simone into the shuttle.
“Go! Go!” I said and led Ral inside and waved at the others to follow us. “We can only spoof the security system for so long.”
I took Ral into the cockpit and strapped her into the seat I usually used and Jelly had us out of standby mode. Simone took the co-pilot seat and Isabella sat in the last seat. For the rest of the prisoners and myself, it was standing room only in between the crates and the cockpit.
I counted the prisoners and made sure we didn't leave anyone behind. “Okay Monna, close us up.”
“You got it, Grandpa!” Monna said and the cargo bay door and the shuttle hatch closed.
“Your shuttle has an AI?!?” Ral asked, completely shocked. “Wait, did she just call you grandpa?”
I chuckled and nodded.
“Hold on, everyone!” Jelly said and added power into the engines and Monna lifted off slowly.
“Damn, those crystals are heavy!” Monna said, almost in a grunt.
“You can handle it, Monna.” I said and pat the bulkhead.
“Okay, here we go!” Jelly said and we flew up and into the preassigned departure flight path. Everyone held their collective breaths as the shuttle flew past the anti-aircraft weapons and then we tilted up into the air and Jelly poured on the speed.
“...aaaaaand we're clear of their line of fire.” Simone said and everyone sighed, myself included.
“We just have the courier ship and the fast cargo transport to contend with.” Isabella said.
Ral looked at the console in front of her and saw the ships, then her whole body stiffened up. “Oh, goddess! Shoot them! Shoot them now!”
“Hailey! Fire!” I said without hesitation.
A dozen assault laser cannons lit up space as they tore through the bridges and engines of both ships. A second later, a series of explosions tore through the fast cargo ship and it disappeared in a huge blaze of fire and debris. It was fairly close to the courier ship and it was engulfed and disappeared, too.
“Wow.” Jelly said as she easily weaved us through the worst of the debris being flung towards us.
Ral was breathing heavy and I reached for her shoulder.
“What was it?”
“I saw our deaths.” Ral said as she looked at me, her face white as a sheet. “They were waiting for us to try to dock to your ship, then they were going to take us.” She said. “Your delivery pickup was three minutes too long.”
I managed to not turn my head to look at the cause, then I heard a slap and had to look. Liv's friend had slapped her hard across the face, then she started crying and hugged her. Liv looked at me and this time she gave me an apologetic look.
“Okay, people. We're going with Clean Sweep.” I said. “Beatrice, send the signal to cause the distraction. Hailey, open the secondary missile doors and set the pattern for Alpha.”
“Hunter, we got away.” Simone said as Jelly took us into Adona's shuttle bay and we landed.
“That doesn't matter now.” I said. “Hailey, fire.”
The ship rocked slightly as fifty of the ten foot long straight fire missiles were released in a set pattern. “Simone.” I said and she switched places with me. I brought up the data on the screen and watched on their own security system as the anti-aircraft defenses shot down ten, then twenty, then thirty-five of the missiles. Fifteen got through.
Only one was needed.