“You are welcome to accompany me in one of our ships,” Sajithen said, “while Pioneer tends to that matter. That is, if you agree, Commander.”
“Sounds reasonable,” Mayweather said. “I’ll clear it with the captain.” He glanced toward Zehron. “I don’t suppose you have anything helpful to suggest.”
“Only that you not raise your hopes,” the pale-skinned director said. “The abductors have gone to great effort to impede your ability to track down your crewmen. Wherever you go, you will likely face deceptions, traps, and other dangers. If you and your crew come through them alive, it may well be too late to stop the exposure of our secret files.”
The commander met his spiel with an irritated glare. “Do you have a better idea?”
Zehron smirked. “Not at all. I enjoy a good gamble. I’m simply reminding you, Commander . . . that the odds always favor the house.”
7
June 19, 2164
Orion homeworld
DEVNA’S HOPES WERE RAISED when she was told she would be servicing a human.
The last human male she had encountered, last year on Rigel V, had been a member of Starfleet’s most secret, off-book intelligence agency, sent to stymie the Three Sisters’ plan to manipulate the Federation into a potentially crippling war. He had interrogated Devna’s handler, learning that she was no mere sex worker but, in fact, an Orion Syndicate agent using her seductive arts to goad a Federation commissioner into embracing a more aggressive policy. The fair-haired Starfleet operative had confiscated her knife before confronting her and was somehow immune to her pheromonal allure. She had been at his mercy, and he could have easily arrested or assassinated her. And yet, instead, he had spoken to her kindly, reasoned with her in a way no male ever had. He had shown her his vulnerabilities and extended his trust, prompting her to respond in kind. In exchange for being allowed to go free, she had alerted him to a planned raid in the Deneb system. It had not been the Sisters’ true endgame by a long shot, but it had been enough to appease Starfleet and make them feel they had scored a victory. More important to her, though, it had been a gift—a gesture of gratitude to the one man who’d ever earned it from her. She still did not know that man’s name—though she had her suspicions. She had searched for his face in computer records and discovered that he bore a strong resemblance to the deceased Commander Charles Tucker of the Earth vessel Enterprise—the very man who had defeated the Three Sisters’ attempt to capture that ship years ago. If he truly were the same man, having been bested by him would be something of an honor. Yet she had kept this suspicion to herself, as another gift.
Devna had paid for it, of course. She had been spared physical punishment, for her master Parrec-Sut knew she had been conditioned to derive pleasure from pain; but she had been stripped of her privileges as an agent and infiltrator and reduced to the lowest level of sex slave, existing only to service the whims and fetishes of any who would have her. Devna had accepted this fate philosophically, aware that it could have been far worse. Devna had gambled that Parrec-Sut and his own superiors, the Sisters, would understand the strategic calculus behind her choice. Giving up Deneb had let her escape and preserve a valuable intelligence asset for the Syndicate with minimal consequences to their long-term objectives. The short-term loss of revenue had been offset by the gain of making Starfleet complacent. It had been a risky move on her part, but one that had shown initiative. She knew that Navaar appreciated such qualities in her agents. That was surely why Devna was still alive.
Yet Devna still had to serve out her punishment before she could earn her way back into the intelligence service. She had been properly submissive for all of it, retreating into a mental zone of self-abnegation, so that what was done to her body would have minimal impact on her mind or spirit. Yet she still welcomed those occasions when a customer showed some hint of treating her as a person rather than a tool for sexual release. So she had allowed herself some hope when told of her new assignment. The Sisters’ ally Jofirek had invited one of his own business associates to join Navaar’s alliance and had brought him to Orion to meet with Parrec-Sut, who was filling in for the Sisters’ chief overseer Harrad-Sar while the latter was offworld. His name was Charlemagne Hua, and he was a human who controlled the narcotics trade on many of Earth’s fringe colonies, worlds without the pervasive law and order of Earth and its Federation partners. Sut had assigned Devna to see to Hua’s needs for the duration of his stay. She had let herself hope that this human male would have some trace of the same kindness the agent had shown her.