Vanser took a sip from his mug of kaf, letting the warm liquid slide down his throat. He hoped the stimulating effects of the drink would offset the terrible night’s sleep he’d gotten. He and Molly had arrived on Azatlia several hours earlier, after which Vanser had arranged for lodging in a hotel for use as a base of operations.

Well, and as somewhere to sleep too.

As soon as they’d landed, Vanser had put feelers out to all the local space ports and law-enforcement agencies, looking for any lead to find “Wyndiss Ro” and recover the abducted human in her possession. After that, he’d crashed, having been awake for almost seventy hours straight.

Unfortunately, he’d slept terribly despite the exhaustion. Vanser couldn’t seem to turn his brain off long enough to sleep. His mind kept churning the same thoughts over and over again. Why hadn’t he tried harder to catch the thief, even after recovering Molly? How was he ever going to find her friend, a single human in a vast galaxy? Why had the thief gone to that much trouble to steal a couple of humans in the first place? It wasn’t like humans were rare, and even a human from Earth shouldn’t have been that much of a draw.

And finally, also most importantly, what was going to happen to Molly now?

So Vanser took another sip of his kaff and ran a hand through his rather unkempt hair. He looked over at the room’s desk where he’d made a little shelter for Molly so she could have some privacy while he slept.

His eyes widened as he saw Molly. She was wrapped in the square of cloth he’d draped over her for a blanket, and her shoulders were shaking as she sobbed quietly.

She hadn’t appeared to notice him yet and Vanser was unsure as to what he should do next. The young imperator was torn between respecting turning around and respecting her privacy or offering comfort. He didn’t want to embarrass her though.

However, the sound of her misery became too much for him, so he cleared his throat quietly to alert her to his presence.

Molly stiffened and fell silent. “Vanser?” She called over her shoulder.

“Yeah, uh it’s me.” Vanser mumbled quietly. “Listen… if… if you’d rather be alone…”

“No.” Molly sniffed and rand a hand through her hair as she sat up. “No, it’s okay. “

Vanser hesitated for a moment longer before pulling out the desk chair and sitting down. A moment of silence passed between them before Vanser sighed and set his mug down on the desk.

“Do you want to talk about it?” He asked softly.

Molly sniffed and shook her head. “I’m sorry… it’s just… it’s a lot to take in…”

“I can understand.” Vanser nodded.

“I… I just had a dream… about home, and my family, is all and… well then I woke up.” Molly shuddered again and shook her head as if trying to shake the memory loose. “And I was still here.”

“Molly… I’m sorry.” Hesitatingly, the Titan reached out and gently stroked his fingers along her back. After a few seconds of him doing this, Molly looked up at him, her eyes wide.

“Are… are you petting me?”

Vanser’s fingers jerked away as if she were on fire. “What? No! Of course not I just… um… I don’t…”

Molly sighed and shook her head slowly. “Sorry Vanser. I know you didn’t mean anything by it.”

Vanser drummed his fingers on the desk. “Molly…”

“It’s fine!” Molly snapped, hunching her shoulders in irritation. “It’s not your fault.”

“Right…” Vanser muttered awkwardly. “Anyway… I’ve, uh, I’ve notified the local authorities about the woman who stole… abducted…. your friend. If she tries to leave the planet on any kind of commercial transport, we should hear about it.”

“That’s good.” Molly sighed in relief. “I just hope she still has Charlotte with her. I hope she hasn’t… already sold her or something.”

Vanser shrugged. He was well aware that this was a distinct possibility. “We won’t know until we catch her, and I’ve got eyes all over the place.”

Molly nodded and Vanser noticed how bloodshot her eyes had become.

“Oh!” Vanser suddenly stood up and walked across the room. “I almost forgot. I ordered something for you last night.”

He returned to where Molly sat a moment later and placed a small brown box on the desk next to her. She watched in fascination as he tore the package open for her.

“I thought you might need these.” He told her, shrugging.

Inside the box were several plain shirts and pairs of cloth pants. They looked like they were sized to fit Molly. She thought they looked fairly similar to the kinds of things she used to wear as pajamas.

“They aren’t much.” Vanser muttered. “But I thought you’d be more comfortable in them. And, believe me, these are nicer than most clothes that are… designed for humans.”

Molly smiled. “Well, they’re certainly better than wearing this stupid swimsuit.”

She turned and looked up at the titan above her. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Vanser shrugged. “Least I can do, really.”

Molly ducked back into the makeshift shelter and emerged a few minutes later dressed in the clothes, which were surprisingly comfortable.

“So what do we do now?” Molly asked as she sat on the edge of the desk and let her legs hang over the side.

Vanser rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m not too sure. I’ve put everybody I can think of on alert, but other than the two of us going out and walking around the city hoping to run into them, there’s not a lot else I can think of for us to do, personally.”

Molly rested her chin in the palm of her hand and shrugged. “No I suppose there isn’t.”

“Well, in the meantime… Are you hungry?” Vanser asked. “There’s a restaurant down the street a bit, we could go get some food.”

“Yeah… I could definitely use some-”

And then Vanser’s pad beeped.

*.*.*.*

Charlotte ran her hand across her thigh and felt the soft material of the leggings Lenya had gotten for her. Once they’d had a chance to breathe, the Titan had felt it appropriate to take care of Charlotte’s less immediate concerns. So the second the shops had opened, they’d headed to the shopping district to get the human something better than a two piece swimsuit to wear.

Granted, she’d had to make due with doll’s clothing because the “clothing” available for humans was… well… The less said the better.

“So what’s our next step?” Charlotte asked the Titan, who was sitting on the bed across the room, lacing up a pair of boots.

“The next step is we get the heck off of this rock and back to Titan Station.” Lenya replied, pulling her bootstraps tight and standing up.

“You found a transport?” Charlotte asked, climbing to her feet. She tried her best not to look down, because the ground was… well, much further than she was willing to fall.

“I did.” Lenya grinned and lowered her palm to Charlotte, who climbed carefully into her hand. “A friend of mine, a pilot, is based out of Azatlia and she owes me a favor. Said she’d be willing to ferry us to Titan.”

“Good.” Charlotte sighed as she settled herself in Lenya’s palm. “When do we leave?”

“Right now.” Lenya hoisted her pack onto her shoulder and made her way towards the door. “We have to move fast because Drixis is on a bit of a tight schedule and I did spring it on her.”

“That’s good.” Charlotte sighed. “The sooner we get back to Titan Station, the sooner we can find Molly.”

“Yup.”

“And then maybe we can have a look around?” Charlotte asked. “I mean, I’ve never been on an alien world, might be nice to be able to do some sight-seeing.”

Lenya chuckled. “Tell you what, when we get your friend back, I’ll take you to Vorsha. Got some business there anyway.”

Sounds good to me.”

It didn’t take them long, just a short shuttle ride, to reach the spaceport where Lenya’s friend had her shuttle docked. Charlotte watched the spaceport pass by with wide eyed curiousity. She was situated in her customary place in Lenya’s jacket pocket, which gave her a good vantage point to people watch.

Of course, this was the first time she’d been able to engage in the activity when the people were the size of buildings.

“Looks like the shuttle’s in the next docking terminal over.” Lenya muttered to herself, although Charlotte could hear her perfectly. “Should only take us a minute or so to get there.”

Charlotte looked out through the windows that lined the corridor of the space station. Outside, gleaming in the bright sunlight, were dozens of shuttles of various shapes and sizes. Each was, of course, absolutely massive. Each shuttle looked to be the size of a small city to the small human. It was difficult for her to take in all at once.

It was just another reminder that she was not on Earth anymore, and the universe apparently wasn’t designed with people like her in mind.

“Here she is!” Charlotte looked up at the sound of Lenya’s voice. Ahead, she saw another titan woman.

“Is that Drixis?” Charlotte asked.

“Yeah. That’s her.” Lenya’s pace quickened as she tried to close the gap between the two of them.

Drixis was shorter than Lenya, though of course this was a matter of degree. Her hair was cut close to the scalp and dyed a bright green. Her dark skin made her grey eyes stand out in a way that was almost eerie.

“Lenya!” The pilot grinned and clapped her friend on the shoulder as soon as Lenya had drawn close. “About time you got here. Come on, we have to move quick if I’m going to keep on schedule.”

“Right, right.” Lenya panted. “Drix, this is Charlotte.”

The Titan pilot glanced down at her for a moment, but seemed to disregard her almost immediately. “I don’t want to know what trouble you’ve gotten yourself into, Len. I just want to get on with my business.”

Lenya nodded and fell into step behind the pilot as the two of them hurried down the spaceport corridor and towards the shuttle.

“Excuse me, miss, we need to have a word with you.”

The voice caused Drixis to stop so abruptly that Lenya almost ran right into her. Slowly, she turned and found herself looking right into the eyes of a young woman in the uniform of Spaceport security.

“Is there a problem?” Drixis asked.

“I’m hoping not. I need to ask a few questions of your friend here.”

“Oh, I’m not with her.” Lenya spoke up before Drixis could interject. “In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her before in my life.”

“Lenya what are you…” Charlotte muttered before a twitch of the Titan’s torso caused her to fall silent.

The security officer looked skeptical, but after a moment she shrugged indifferently and dismissed Drixis with a nod.

The young pilot spared a questioning glance back at her friend, before swiftly making her way towards her shuttle.

“Right, officer… you said you needed to speak to me about something?”

“Yes… step this way please.”

Lenya was led to a small open seating area right next to the security station. The young officer asked her, politely, to have a seat, which Lenya did- very grudgingly.

“How long is this going to take, officer?” Lenya asked.

“Oh it shouldn’t be more than a few minutes. Don’t worry, if you miss your flight, we’ll be more than happy to make new travel arrangements for you, provided you have a proper itinerary.”

Lenya but her lip. A ‘proper itinerary’ was something she did not have, since the boarding pass in her pocket listed her outbound flight on Drixis’ shuttle… whom she had just claimed to not know.

After several long minutes of waiting, Lenya heard footsteps on the tile floor of the spaceport. She looked up and saw a young man in an Imperator’s uniform drawing near. He was still several units away when something began to nag at the back of Lenya’s mind. There was something very familiar about the young officer.

She gasped when she realized just what it was.

The young man looked up, the two of them made eye contact and Lenya saw his eyes widen just the slightest bit and she knew that he’d recognized her as well.

Well, nothing else for it then.

Lenya lurched to her feet and took off like a shot. She vaguely registered several security officers telling her to stop but she didn’t pay any attention beyond that. She was too focused on Drixis’ ship, which she could see just outside on the landing strip. The green haired pilot looked to be working through her final takeoff checklist.

A second later, Lenya was out in the bright sunshine of the Azatlian morning, dashing across the grey and black surface of the docking strip.

Drixis looked up and her eyes widened in shock as she saw the woman charging towards her, being pursued by spaceport security and… was that an Imperator?

“Len, what are you…?!”

“No time!” Lenya screamed, pushing Drixis into the shuttle. “Get us into the air and off this rock!”

“Wait, hold on a second…” Drixi grumbled as she fell into the pilot seat and started the engine. “I’m trying to run a business here, you’re going to cost me my license!”

“Tell them I put a weapon to your back.”

“They know you don’t have a weapon!” The pilot yelled as her shuttle lurched into the air.

“Yes but you don’t know I don’t!” Lenya replied, reaching over to the controls and disabling the communication system. “There. Now you can claim you never heard them tell you to land.”

“You’re going to be the death of me, Len!” Drixis groaned.

*.*.*.*

Vanser swore profusely as he watched the shuttle rocket into the atmosphere. She’d been surrounded by spaceport security and she’d still managed to slip by every one of them. Then he took a deep breath and reminded himself there was a reason they were all working spaceport security.

No time to worry about it now. He needed to get after her.

“Get me a military shuttle.” He told the nearest officer. “Have it prepped and ready to go in ten minutes.”

“Yes sir!” The young man nodded and sketched an awkward salute before dashing away to do as Vanser asked.

“Oh no.” Molly poked her head out of his pocket. “We were so close too!”

“Yeah.” Vanser shook his head. “But there’s good news. First, we’ll be able to follow the specific ion trail of that shuttle to wherever she’s heading next. Second: I’ve now seen her without her disguise on, so I’ll be able to give Pryvani a better description of her, which will help us figure out who she really is.”

“Well that’s good.”

“There’s one more thing.” Vanser glanced down at the person in his pocket. “I saw she still had your friend with her.”