“Oliver?” Lewis sent, but silence greeted him and he knew he was on his own. Well, this sucks.

  Worry clawed at his gut, and he hoped the were hadn’t been found.

  “Hands on your head!” The command made him jump and he glanced up.

  The guard by the door was looking over the barrel of his blaster and had it aimed right at Lewis’s chest. Lewis’s eyes widened.

  “M…me?” he stuttered.

  The barrel jerked. “You.”

  The guard at the desk kept working, but a third one reached the end of the aisle. His weapon was also raised. Lewis lifted his hands.

  “Ookay…” He even managed to sound meek and scared.

  It wasn’t hard. The blood had drained from his face and his skin was cold.

  “Ollie, I seriously hope you’ve got something up your sleeve,” he sent, only to have the implant flash red.

  Transmission failed, he read. Well, shit!

  Lewis’s eyes darted to the door and this time he registered the guard standing behind the one at the door. That one wasn’t holding a gun, but she was looking intently at a hand-held and carrying several brick-like attachments on her belt.

  Well, double-the-shit! he thought, and hoped his consternation didn’t show.

  The third guard reached him. “Turn around.”

  Lewis stared at him, as if he didn’t understand what was happening.

  “Turn around!” the guard barked again, and Lewis flinched. “Face the wall!”

  The guard’s finger started to flex around the trigger, and Lewis turned, keeping his hands raised. It was get shot or get captured. Somehow, he didn’t think Charlotte was getting her bonus. Not unless he could think of something really fast.

  “Hands on the wall!”

  Lewis placed his palms on the wall, and waited.

  The rattle of the blaster being released was all the warning he got before a hand on the back of his head rammed his forehead into the wall, and a knee slammed up between his legs. Pain rocketed through him and he groaned.

  The guard showed no mercy, jerking Lewis’s hands roughly down and behind his back. The snap of cuffs accompanied the roil of nausea and sudden weakness in his legs. Dizziness didn’t help as the cuffs were secured to his belt. The knee was removed and he was jerked around, someone’s hands at his collar and belt.

  Lewis stumbled as he was pulled past the seated guard working at the terminal, and propelled toward the end of the aisle. His fellow workers kept their heads down and their eyes glued to their screens, but the security guards divided their attention between him and the rest of the room.

  Whatever this company was, security was more than just a door decoration for them. These guys meant business. Gals, too, he noted, reminded by the technician standing by the door. His nuts ached, his legs were still rubbery, and the grip on his collar was unrelenting.

  As soon as they hit the corridor, he realized he was in more trouble than he’d thought. The guy holding him, shoved him forward and he was grabbed by two others.

  “We’ll finish up here,” his captor snapped, “but I think he’s all there is.”

  The second team’s leader nodded, sweeping a stern gaze over Lewis. “We’re still chasing the connection,” he said, and Lewis felt some of his worry ease.

  Oliver was okay…at least for now.

  The team leader caught the look and gave him a cold stare. “You’ll help us.”

  Lewis swallowed the fear that blocked his throat. It was harder than it should have been. He had an idea these guys weren’t going to take ‘no’ or ‘don’t know’ for answer—and that he wasn’t going to enjoy their idea of ‘asking’ him to ‘help.’

  With a guard on either side, he was steered down the corridor and into an elevator. As soon as they were out of sight of the corridor, the guard on his left slammed a fist into his side. Lewis folded, but he was shoved against a wall, and hands on his shoulders kept him upright as his two guards went to work.

  Turning out of the path of the blows was out of the question due to a fist to the gut and the hands on his shoulders keeping him pinned in place. Lewis tried to use his feet to keep them back, but a stun stick across the top of his thighs ended that, too. The only good news was they left his face alone.

  They got in a half dozen blows each before the elevator doors opened—and Lewis couldn’t remember if they’d gone up…or down. As the car came to a stop, his guards hooked their arms through his, letting him slump forward between them.

  Any hope they’d keep him in the same complex was quickly dashed as they took him into a private hangar. He baulked at the sight of a small personal shuttle, and was jerked forward again.

  The sudden movement made him stumble, but his guards didn’t stop. They hauled him forward until he found his feet again. The sight of the enclosed space inside the craft caused momentary panic and he pulled back.

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  The movement earned him another sharp blow across the back of the knees and he lost his footing. Being pulled into a shuttle full of hostile guards was definitely not something he’d planned for the day, but it happened.

  They pushed him to the rear of the passenger compartment and held him against another wall, bracing themselves as the shuttle took off. Lewis groaned, turning his head as the first fist was raised.

  They left his head alone, but his ribs shifted uneasily and he’d lost the contents of his stomach by the time the craft touched down. His legs were bruised and his thighs ached from multiple blows. This time, he needed the guards on either side.

  He wouldn’t have stayed on his feet, otherwise.

  The trip had taken them to the Lunar One shuttle port, and Lewis wasn’t happy to find himself bundled off the shuttle and onto an empty train carriage that took them to one of the port’s remotest corners. To his dismay, no one else joined them when the car stopped at the intervening stations.

  His heart sank as the train left the terminal and travelled to a stop on the furthest side of the field. At least his captors weren’t hitting him, anymore. He tried straightening, only to cop an elbow to the ribs.

  Pain flared through his side and he folded with a grunt. Once again, it was only the guards on either side that kept him upright. Struggling against the pain, he slowly and cautiously forced himself to unfold.

  The guard made as though to elbow him, again, and he flinched away.

  “Stop playing with your food,” the team leader ordered, and the guards snickered.

  Lewis didn’t like the sound of that, but he did like the idea he might go another five minutes without being hit again. When he was pulled toward the open doors of the car, he did his best to make it on his own, but ended up leaning on his captors.

  Damn… he thought. I need a minute.

  It took five for them to steer him down the corridor connecting the terminal to a small transport.

  “Where…” he began, and his knees gave as a fist impacted his side.

  His guards hauled him upright with a grunt, and he gave a sobbing gasp.

  The team leader put his face an inch from Lewis’s own.

  “We’ll be asking the questions,” he said. “Understood?”

  Lewis managed a nod, as he wheezed with pain. This time he didn’t resist when he was drawn toward the transport’s hatch. It troubled him that he was mostly being carried by the men on either side, and he dreaded the beating he was sure waited on board.

  Talk about softening a bloke up, he thought, as they crossed the threshold.

  The first compartment had all the trimmings of a passengers’ lounge, but the guards didn’t stop there. Lewis let them take him through a door at the rear of the lounge and then tried to come to a screeching halt.

  He didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but blank walls adorned by shackles and a rack of tools and torture devices wasn’t it. Feeling his resistance, the guards yanked him forward. They ignored his sharp cry as they pressed his chest against the wall and manacled his hands above and to either side of his head.

  At least he could rest his head against the transport’s side, even if that was poor comfort when they spread his feet apart and shackled them to the floor.

  This was one hell of a softening up process!

  The rattle of locks being released on the cabinet made him flinch, as did the warm presence at his side.

  “Take it easy,” the team leader rumbled in his ear. “We haven’t even started.”

  Feeling the ache in his ribs and stomach, Lewis thought that this was exactly what he was afraid of. The hiss of the cabinet door opening startled him, and a broad palm came to rest between his shoulder blades.

  A distant hatch closed and the engines rumbled as they went from idle to active. Lewis didn’t have time to think about it as a baton cracked down across the back of his thighs, and his cry got lost in the engine pitch.

  By the time the craft pivoted to take a course away from Lunar One, the manacles were all that were holding him up. Blood showed in thin lines through his shirt and he hung against the wall, sobbing as he tried to draw breath through a throat clogged with pain.

  The warm presence returned, as did the voice in his ear. “You’re lucky this is a short flight,” the team leader told him. “We’ll be asking questions when we get off.”

  He threaded his fingers through the hair on the back of Lewis’s head and used his grip to gently bounce Lewis’s forehead off the wall.

  “You’d better have your answers ready, or this trip is gonna feel like a joy flight.”

  The thought chilled Lewis to the core. So far, the flight had been anything but joyous, and he didn’t want to repeat the experience.

  “Ask your damn questions,” he growled, but the team leader laughed.

  Releasing his grip, he ruffled Lewis’s hair. “Not yet.”

  He moved away and an unfamiliar swish and crack followed.

  Lewis cried out at the resulting pain, pulling at his restraints as the sound came again. This time he only caught the edge of the intended blow as the shuttle jerked in the air.

  “Get him down from there and cuff him,” the team leader roared, as the shuttle went into a steep descent. “Make sure he has a mask.”

  Lewis didn’t resist as the guards complied. He crumbled to the floor, and was unceremoniously rolled onto his stomach and his hands dragged back behind his back, again. He didn’t even attempt moving as they finished cuffing him and let him go. He just lay on his stomach as the shuttle swerved beneath him.

  Footsteps signaled their return and his head was lifted so a mask could be dragged over his face, but he still didn’t shift. One of the guards spoke.

  “Leave him. He’s done for now.”

  And they let him drop back to the floor.

  The words were truer than Lewis liked, but he still wasn’t tempted to move.

  “You think these are his people?” someone asked, and he wanted to laugh.

  He didn’t have any people.

  To his surprise, the team leader did not agree.

  “More than likely. Someone wants whatever he’s got in his head.”

  There was a short silence, followed by, “Brace! Brace! Brace!”

  Lewis wished he could, but his body didn’t want to know him.

  Maybe it’s a good thing, I can’t move, he thought, as the shuttle slammed down.

  He grunted as the impact translated through his bruised and abused muscles, and then groaned as the shuttle bounced, hit again, and slid. It slewed sideways, skating over the lunar surface as Lewis fought nausea, and shifted across the floor.

  A boot came down on his back to stop the movement, and he gasped.

  “Don’t go anywhere.”

  Lewis was really getting to hate that voice.

  Smart arse, he thought, glad the guy couldn’t see his face.

  “Help is on way,” someone called back.

  “How far?”

  “Boss says fifteen.”

  “Gonna take too long. Suit up.”

  I can do with a suit, too, Lewis thought, and it was like someone read his mind.

  “What about Mr. Happy, here?” A boot nudged Lewis’s ankle and he stiffened.

  Mr. Happy? he thought. Why don’t we revisit that when I haven’t had the crap kicked out of me? I can show you ‘happy,’ then.

  “Stuff him into one, but don’t bother with the arms. He doesn’t need them.”

  Do I get a say in this? Lewis wanted to ask, but couldn’t find the energy to say.

  Rough hands grabbed him before he could try, and he whimpered as someone lifted his shoulders and dumped him on his back. Someone else maneuvered his legs into the suit and together two guards worked the suit over him. Pain rolled through him and he fought to stay awake.

  It was a relief when the guards dragged him to a corner, and propped him upright.

  “Don’t go anywhere,” one told him, patting the side of his helmet.

  Lewis didn’t have the energy to sneer. Instead, he just closed his eyes and waited, listening to the guards decide what to do next.