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Ziggy struggled against the bonds that held her down. The Tokkel were working on another captured human and the screaming was getting to her. One of the four armed beasts was about to mark the interior of her ankle with a glyph similar to the ones on the restrained humans around her.

As the needle started to buzz, she kicked wildly, causing the creature to snarl at her and call for another to hold her down.

With two of the Tokkel working on her she tried to scream behind her gag, but only muffled whines emerged. Closing her eyes at the pain, she focussed on the hands holding her down.

The contact gave her the chance she needed. Every other alien had been wearing a glove-like membrane but the male holding her had bare hands. She used their physical connection to reach into his mind and pull out all the information she could.

He blinked and shook his head violently, trying to clear it. She held her breath, but he spoke to his companion and in seconds, she could understand what he said.

“That was weird. We must have dipped into the atmosphere for a moment.”

The tattoo artist looked up. “Why?”

“Didn’t you feel that? The whole ship rocked.”

He was holding her leg with two clawed hands.

“I didn’t feel anything.”

He had made a few passes with the needle when the entire ship shuddered.

Ziggy held perfectly still as a disembodied voice blared out, “Intruder alert. All hands to battle stations.”

Her persecutors immediately left her and the rest of the humans for their battle stations.

Ziggy bent her arm as far as she could and caressed the switch that would release her. It took three tries and she knew that she would be bruised for weeks, but a hiss sounded and the restraints retracted to free her limbs.

She hopped to her feet and unbuckled her gag. Looking around she saw four Gaians who had been captured with her and she released them from their restraints. “Keep quiet.”

They didn’t need to be told twice, they kept darting frightened looks toward the door.

Ziggy’s thoughts ran through the stolen knowledge and she nodded. “There are escape pods just outside the door. I can launch you.”

One of the wounded was holding a flap of skin to his side. “Just show us where to go.”

She shuddered at the pain in his expression but paused to slap a wide bandage from a nearby storage cabinet across his side. “That should hold you.”

He looked at her with glazed eyes. “How do you know this stuff?”

She shrugged. “Just a hunch, now let’s get you back to the surface. Hopefully the attack will have ceased by now.”

The other subjects were looking at each other but they seemed as eager to get off the ship as she was.

Ziggy opened the door with the passcode and she slid around the corner to the station with the four emergency pods for this wing of the ship. The Gaians each took a pod and waited nervously.

They were nowhere as nervous as Ziggy was. Once she launched these pods three security officers would come running.

She was going to have to get to somewhere safe awfully quickly, but given her mental situation she had a far better chance than her fellow captives.

The wounded man smiled. “We are trusting you because you are human.”

She shook her head. “You are trusting me because I am offering you a way out, now hush and hang on. This is probably not going to be a smooth ride.”

She closed the pods, keyed in the coordinates for Hestia, the capitol of Gaia, and punched the release.

The tubes shot the pods out of the ship and hopefully into the atmosphere.

Ziggy was basing her targeting on the experimenting officer’s thoughts that they were still in orbit.

With her companions launched, Ziggy ran down the hall toward the secondary holding area.

She typed in the pass code and slipped behind the door just as the thunder of boots ran past her.

“Who are you?”

The masculine voice shook her to her toes.

Carefully, she turned to see four men hanging from the wall. She looked a little more closely. They weren’t men. Well they were of the masculine gender, but they weren’t human.

“I am a prisoner from Gaia. Who are you?”

“Warriors of the Nine. Can you release us?”

She blinked and walked forward. The other three men were looking at her, but the one who was speaking stared into her very soul.

His skin was a dusky brown, his eyes catlike and tawny and his hair deep brown and tangled. He was huge and his ears were decidedly pointed.

“I can. Why should I?”

“Because we belong to the ships that are attacking this Tokkel vessel. If we get back to our people, this attack will end.”

“May I touch you?”

He looked at her and while exhaustion rode his features, curiosity was there as well. “Yes.”

She ran her hand along his chest and rummaged through his knowledge. Her talent only allowed her to access conscious thoughts of a technical bent. She could pick up languages easily, but wading through this man’s knowledge base was harder than most. The language that he thought in was musical and very old.

He didn’t have any connection to the Tokkel aside from being their prisoner. The men with him were under his command and they had been taken from their ship with only the battle with the Gaians keeping them from being executed or tortured for information.

Ziggy nodded and pulled her hand back. There was a tingle in her skin from where she had touched him. A pleasurable burn pulsed up her arm. “Fine. I will let you guys go. There is a set of escape pods down the hall on the left.”

He stared at her in shock. “You speak the language of the Nine?”

She blinked. It suddenly occurred to her that he had been speaking in Tokkel until now. “I suppose I do, now.”

Ziggy pressed the releases and all four men collapsed to the floor in heaps.

“Do you know why they attacked Gaia?”

Her conversational partner helped his men stand. “Is that what you call it? We called it Underhill.”

She froze. “What do you mean?”

“We left that world eons ago. It changes those upon it.”

He stood and his men nodded silently to him. “We are ready to leave.”

She smiled. “I hate a mystery, but you all look like you need to be somewhere else.”

He inclined his head formally. “I look forward to finding you again when this is all over. You seem to be a woman with mysteries of her own.”

She chortled. “You have no idea.”

They didn’t need to be told to be silent. She led them to the pods and the male she had been speaking to calmly keyed in the destination coordinates.

She helped one of his men into the pod.

He paused. “There are only four pods.”

“I know. I have a plan.”

She kept her features calm. Her plan involved taking the entire ship into the Northern Ocean.

“I will not allow you to risk your life to save ours.”

Ziggy sighed and leaned up to kiss him. As her lips met his she heard a low rumble and hands on her waist. Using the direct contact to his mind via the kiss, she made him sleep. He staggered and she used all her strength to put him in the pod. With a sad smile she punched the release and launched the four to safety.

Moving as quickly as she could, she hid in a storage alcove as three troopers came stampeding to the pod station.

Ziggy sat quietly and waited for her chance. Her moment would come and she would do what she could.

Her planet was at stake after all.