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“Of course it is. I want to expose this bastard and help those women who are stuck in that compound of his—that big rainbow dome. Did you notice how many of them were pregnant in that stupid ad?”
“At least half of them,” Sev murmured.
“Right—because that’s one way the cult traps you. They tell you that you have to have lots of babies to make more members or bring more souls from Heaven or whatever line of crap they’re spouting!” Mia’s eyes flashed. “They want to keep you barefoot and pregnant as much as possible—that keeps you from thinking for yourself. Because once you have kids, they have something else to hold over your head and then you canneverget out!”
Sev frowned, fascinated.
“I had no idea. How did you avoid it?”
“It was the one thing I did for myself, even before I decided to get out. I went to a clinic and got some birth control. I had to hide it from Michael of course—it was against the rules to try and keep from conceiving.” Mia shook her head. “I felt so guilty for it at the time but I’m so glad I did it. If I hadn’t, I might never have gotten away.”
“But other women in your sect weren’t so lucky?” Sev guessed.
She shook her head.
“No. Including my older sister. She wants out—or she did the last time I was allowed to talk to her—but her husband won’t allow it. And he’d never let her take the kids.”
Sev didn’t know what to say. Mia was sharing more with him than she had in the past two years since they’d become partners, but somehow it wasn’t making him feel any better, though he had always longed to know more about her past.
“See, this is what has me worried,” he told her. “For you, this ispersonal.And when you let a mission get personal, it can also get dangerous. Because you lose sight of what’s important—you loseperspective.”
“What’simportantis taking these PPP assholes down,” Mia insisted. “The—”
Suddenly the com-link crackled to life.
“Unidentified craft, you are presently in PPP airspace,” a firm male voice said. “Please identify yourself and state your mission.”
Luckily, Sev was ready for this. In anticipation of their accepting the mission, Commander Sylvan had prepared backstories for both of them.
“My name is Severith and I have my mate, Mia, with me,” he said. They had decided to use their real names to avoid confusion. “We’re here because we saw your ad on the Outernet and we’d like to join the PPP.”
“Ah yes—new converts!” The voice sounded much warmer now. “Very good—if you’ll transfer your personal information we can do a quick background check and decide if we can offer you entry or not.”
“Fine, give me the coordinates,” Sev said. Again, Commander Sylvan’s forethought came in handy. He had uploaded complete fictional bios for both Sev and Mia, which Sev was now able to transfer straight to the PPP official they were talking to.
According to their bios, Sev owned a garment business on Rampling Prime. Mia was a women’s fashion designer and they had met during the bustling Rampling Prime Fashion Extravaganza, where people from all over the galaxy came to see the latest trends in women’s style. They had fallen in love at once but though both of them were extremely successful in their careers, they felt like they needed something more. Which was presumably why they were now seeking to join the PPP.
It was a good backstory and Sylvan had been able to plant some false information in the Outernet to back it up. He’d also made both their fictional personas wealthy, which was going to be immensely attractive to the cult, since it demanded a healthy “tithe” regularly from its members. So Sev wasn’t surprised when a few moments after he transmitted the fake bios, the com-link crackled again.
“Well, Mr. Severith, everything seems to be in order,” the male voice informed him. “We’ll be very happy to have you and your wife here. We’d like to have the two of you go through our orientation to see if joining the PPP is right for you.”
“Thank you—that’s good news.” Sev tried to make his voice hearty and glad, though inside he still had grave misgivings about this mission.
“Stand by for landing coordinates,” the voice told him. “Our landing area is some distance from the main Dome.”
“Understood,” Sev said, though he wondered why they would need to keep the landing area and the Dome separate. A moment later the coordinates popped on the screen and he steered for them.
“Why are we landing so far from the Dome?” Mia asked, frowning as the vast entrance of an enormous cave came into sight. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to be closer?”
“I don’t know.” Sev shook his head. “What I’m mainly concerned with is the atmosphere—the air on T’zgarian is extremely thin and it doesn’t contain enough oxygen to support life for most humanoid species. It might not even be safe to get out of the ship. Oh, wait—look.” He pointed to the mouth of the cave.
“What am I looking at?” Mia asked, squinting at the viewscreen.
“They have a permeable atmosphere bubble over the front of the cave—the same way the Mother Ship has one over their Docking Bay,” Sev explained. “It keeps the breathable air inside while still allowing ships to fly back and forth through it.”
“Huh. Okay.” Mia shrugged. “Still doesn’t explain why they put the parking so far away from the place where they live.”
“I’m sure they have some kind of explanation.” Sev spoke distractedly as he flew carefully into the large cave. It was almost as big as the Docking Bay of the Mother Ship but not nearly as well-lit. He didn’t want to hit any other ships as he landed.
