Chapter 20

She walked out from the back, and by looking at her, Xander wouldn’t have thought she had a care in the galaxy. She was wearing her boots that made her his height, and they went up almost to her knee. Only he knew she had more than one weapon in them. She had cut up one of the Flendah Mothering Gowns, but she didn’t look like anybody’s mother in it. Her walk was fluid, with long, graceful, confident strides; and every time a foot went forward, he could see her legs all the way to, oh heavens, he wished he could see just a bit further. Her hair was up and she wore no jewelry of any kind. There was no doubt she made the perfect looking pleasure slave. He had to blink and shake his head to keep from staring. Eventually, he just turned his back and looked out the front visu-port.

He’d managed to Track Rolara to Yetsa, a small outer planet, where slavers typically met up to exchange goods, barter, pick up, and drop off loads, supplies, or people. Rolara would be too valuable to trade or barter with; from the way Lennie talked, she was most likely a virgin, and add to that her red hair––no they would keep her and sell her at auction on Chalisea 7. If the salvers made it to Chalisea 7, their only hope would be to out right buy her, or kill whoever did, and steal her from them. Xander would be alright with option two, but he imagined, neither Lennie nor Charlie would be. Well, he wasn’t one hundred percent sure about Charlie. He’d seen few people as cool as she was under pressure and fire; but still no matter the arguments he could give for a reason to kill a man who bought another person, he wasn’t sold on Charlie being comfortable with it.

So, he would go along with Charlie’s plan for now, but he’d blow up the whole damn slaver’s ship with Rolara in it if it meant keeping Charlie alive; for Brick. At least that’s what he kept telling himself.

“How much longer until we land?” Charlie asked, coming up behind his right shoulder.

“We’re coming around now. Go ahead and strap in, but don’t...”

“I know, don’t touch the planets, got it,” she said, holding her hands out in front of her.

He couldn’t help but shake his head.

“How are we looking, Lennie?” Xander yelled back.

“Everything is working fine, it’s ancient, but it works,” Lennie said, picking up the ear pieces like they were contaminated.

Charlie walked over to Lennie, who’s young eyes gobbled up the sight of the walking sex that was The Time Keeper. It was all Xander could do, not to walk over and smack the kid in the back of the head. However, Charlie did.

“My eyes are up here, Lennie. I’m way too much woman for you. I’ll find you a girl though,” she said, a large smile spreading across her face, making every star in the sky dull by comparison.

She picked up the equipment Lennie had laid out on a tray. A light shown in her eyes and they danced like moonlight on water. It was more of his antiquated belongings. She put them on as though she’d used them every day of her life. Who knew? On her planet, maybe she did.

“You use those like they were part of your gear,” Xander mentioned.

“Not quite; the government is testing these prototypes now. I got to use them on my last mission as a trial run. They can reach up to eight miles, and you can hear through cinder block, steel, underground, it doesn’t matter––even at eight miles. Do you have the camera? Yeah, right here,” Charlie spoke as she attached all of the equipment in record time.

Xander couldn’t believe she knew what all of the stuff did, much less how it worked. She’d not just come from a different planet, Lennie had been able to find her in a different time. She may have even preceded the last Time Keeper The Allegiant had. Maybe her genetic code was from the last Time Keeper’s heritage, not his future family. He thought surely The Allegiant had found a way to breed them by now, like they did Allegiant workers, however, the genetic anomaly which made the Time Keepers must be even too complex for their Scientists to figure out. Which must have been why they’d had him come in on the job.

The thought blundered around in his mind, as he watched her put on the camera. Apparently, it was meant to be pinned to a piece of clothing. Xander had never figured out how it was supposed to work, he’d bought it off of a dealer of antiquities from ancient cultures, and it had sat in his weapons cache along with most of his other ancient weapons. Maybe she would be able to breathe life into them, as well.

“Now, the signal should go to that relay, you can see and hear everything that will happen. I’m sure The Wizard here can even find a way to put it on your big screen thingamabob. Oh, and pick a word, something for me to say if I’m in distress and I need you. Something I can work into a sentence, but not so obvious they’ll know something’s wrong,” Charlie rambled, excitement coming off of her in waves.

She was made for this life. He still had no idea how she could be a Time Keeper, he kept thinking she would show herself unable to pick one way or another as Time Keepers were known. They normally lived in complete and utter isolation, so as not to be tainted or changed by anything ugly in life, and also to not have the extreme of happiness or love either, because it tended to sway their vision and throw them off course. The Time Keepers had to be completely oblivious in order to help the government correctly. But not Charlie. She’d had pain so great, no one else could match it, and she’d seen the same love, because she was so eager to help. Someone without love did not help others. No, those people became Trackers.

“Come on, Xander,” Charlie walked up to him, holding her hands out, “tie me up.”

A thousand things flashed before the visu-link of his mind, but none of them were what she intended. Finally after much mental deliberation and an eye roll from Charlie, Xander bound her wrists in a semi-secure knot. He did not want anyone to see that she could escape, but he wanted her to be able to if she needed to. She twisted her wrists around some and nodded her approval.

He wished he could know what she was thinking, feeling...because his own thoughts and emotions were all over the galaxy, not to mention he stayed at least semi-hard around her. It wasn’t just her body, it was...everything. And the harder he tried to ignore it, the harder it was to ignore.

God, what was he going to do? He had to get Brick back, no question. That’s what he would do.