A People's Plight

Chapter 2

Jace

He didn’t know what had come over him, the moment he saw the attractive young woman approaching across the grass he froze, stunned! Although it was dark, with his enhanced eyesight, he could make out the striking features of her face, the almond shaped eyes, the high cheek bones and rounded chin, all framed by her shoulder length hair. He couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like to run his fingers through that hair. She had a slender, athletic frame that was hugged by her fitted jacket and tight trousers. She was a beautiful sight and Jace felt an instant attraction to her.

She appeared to be lost in her own thoughts and hadn’t noticed him yet. He was routed to the spot, just staring, gazing at her longing for her to look at him so that he could do more than just look. There was a slight turn of her head and she looked straight at him, he was sure she was about to speak, but his brother, Kade, appeared behind her, wrapping his arm around her body and clamping a medicated cloth over her mouth and nose. Jace could see from her eyes, that she tried to scream, but no sound escaped her lips. The look of terror spread across her face.

Shaken out of his daze, Jace shook his head and walked towards the pair, reaching into his trouser pocket, he withdrew a syringe, he had a job to do. Upon reaching the woman, he raised the syringe and pushed the needle into the skin of her neck, whisper words of apology under his breath, he emptied the syringe into her neck, withdrew the needle and returned it to his pocket.

Kade removed the cloth from her face and tucked it into his pocket, before adjusting his grip to hold the woman under her armpits. Jace moved round in front of the woman and bent down to grab her ankles, as his hands touched her bare ankles a zing went through his fingers sending tingling up his arms. He almost withdrew his hands, but a whisper of “Hurry up!” from Kade, made Jace force himself to keep hold of her ankles and lift them as he stood up. With a nod to Kade, they carried the woman towards their spaceship.

Upon entering the ship, Kade started to head towards the cargo hold, but Jace paused. He couldn’t put her with the rest of the women, there was something special, different about this one and he wanted to find out what! “Let’s take this one to my cabin instead of the cargo hold”.

The look Kade gave him was at first shock and then realisation, as he looked down at the woman they were holding, appraising her body. Jealousy swelled up inside of Jace, as he watched Kade ogling her and he was on the verge of growling out his displeasure, when Kade looked back at him, shrugged his shoulders and started off in the other direction towards Jace’s cabin.

When they reached the door to the cabin, Jace set the woman’s feet down, placed his hand on the lock plate and waited for the distinctive click signifying the door being unlocked. After hearing the click, he turned the wheel on the door and pushed it open. Kade’s muttering “Take your time, it’s not as if she’s heavy or anything” reached his ears as he turned around to pick up the woman’s legs. Once again, he got a jolt when his hands touched her bare ankles, the tingling spreading all the way up his arms to his shoulders by the time they placed her on the bed.

Jace reluctantly let go of her ankles, stood up straight and shook his arms trying to stop the tingling sensation that flooded them. He looked towards his brother, who was gazing at the woman lying on his bed, coughing to gain his attention. Kade turned towards him with a sheepish expression on his face.

“Stay here, with her.” Jace commanded. “I will check on the rest of the crew and our guests, so that we can get on our way back home and complete this god, awful mission.”

“Yes, sir!” Kade snapped to attention with a salute.

Saluting back, Jace turned and left his cabin closing the door behind him. He hoped he wasn’t making a mistake leaving Kade in there alone with the woman, but it couldn’t be helped, he needed to make sure all his crew had returned to the ship and that his guests were comfortably secured in the cargo hold. He strode down the corridor towards the bridge, trying hard not to look back towards his cabin with regret.

Entering the bridge, he was greeted by a call of “Captain on the bridge” followed by the duty officer, ensign and security officer all standing to attention facing the door and saluting. Saluting back, Jace commanded “At ease!” before striding to his command chair and sitting down. Turning to the duty officer, who had returned to his chair, he said “Up to date report, please commander.”

“Seventy-five women have been billeted in the cargo hold. Doctor Wallis has reported that all the women have been sedated for the trip and should remain that way for at least 24 hours, long enough for us to finish our first gate transit. All crew are back on board and accounted for, except for Commander Apollo. Doctor Wallis would like to perform medicals on all crew members that left the ship, to ensure no contagions have been brought on board.” The duty officer reported concisely.

“Thank you, Commander. I can confirm that Commander Apollo is on board the ship. Please inform Doctor Wallis that he can commence the medicals once we are on route to the gate.” Turning his attention to the ensign sat in front of him and the helm, Jace asked “How long until the ship is ready to take off, Ensign?”

Turning his head towards Jace, the Ensign replied, “The engines are roaring and ready to go at your command, Captain.”

“Proceed with take-off, Mr Stein.”

With a “Yes, sir!”, the Ensign turned back to his console. He did a quick tap of his wrist communicator before his fingers started flying across his console. “Ship wide announcement. Prepare for take-off, countdown will commence in one minute.”

The Ensign’s fingers stopped moving and hovered over a flashing light on his console, twisting his left wrist, he looked at it’s time display, nodded and then started his countdown, “Ten, nine, eight, seven.” His finger touched the flashing light, “Thrusters online, five, four, three, two, one.” He touched another part of his console and the ship started to quiver. “We have take off!”

Jace could feel the thrum of the thrusters through his chair and felt his ship slowly leave the ground. The ship’s speed increased with every passing second, he could feel the increasing g-force pushing him down into the seat of his chair. Suddenly, all the downward pressure ceased and he felt a slight weightlessness before the artificial gravity kicked in.

“We have left the gravity field, thrusters offline, impulse engines online.” The ensign announced.

Jace sat up straight, “Thank you, Ensign. Lay in a course to the system’s gate and engage. What is the earliest ETA for gate transit?”

The ensign touched various controls on his console, then stated, “Course laid in and impulse engines engaged, sir. Estimated ETA 5 hours, 23 minutes and 21 seconds.”

Jace turned to the duty officer, “You have the com, Commander Felix. I’m heading down to sick bay to check in with the Doc, then I will take some downtime. Inform me when ETA is 30 minutes.” With that he rose from his chair and headed out of the bridge, ignoring the crisp “Yes, sir” of a response from the Commander.