her stomach. One of the men dropped on her, his body slamming down over her to pin her in place. Mira sucked air into her lungs. Her wrist was yanked above her, something closing over it so painfully that she screamed out. The other wrist was yanked upward and more pain shot up her arm as something pinched that wrist.

“Nice,” a raspy voice hissed. “Where are the other ships?”

“The jumper is approaching fast. The second ship is larger and slower.”

“Pull back behind the asteroid. We’ll be off their sensors and we can jump them as we did the pod. By the time their proximity alarms go off we’ll have hooked them. It’s two for one day. We’ll have to let the larger ship go, unfortunately. We’ll lose them in the asteroid belt where they won’t dare follow us.”

Hands gripped her h*ps and yanked them away from the crate as the weight lifted off her. The man who’d pinned her smelled horrible. She breathed through her mouth so she wouldn’t puke. The entire cargo bay smelled like garbage and rotted flesh so it wasn’t just his stench that was getting to her. She lifted her head, shaking the hair from her eyes, to see at least seven of the radiation mutants approaching her. The man behind her slid his hands around her waist and reached for the front of her pants.

“What a nice one,” one of the men rasped.

If snakes could talk Mira imagined this was what they would sound like. Fear struck her as the hand started to unfasten her pants. She’d heard horror stories about pirates who got their hands on women.

She threw her h*ps forward, grinding her pelvis between the crate and the man’s hand, trying to smash it.

She saw that her wrists were tied over the edge of the crate. Blood ran down one of her fingers. They’d bound her so tightly that her hands were going numb and the straps they’d used had cut into her skin. She yanked anyway, trying to break free. Pain made her gasp. The man behind her cursed as his knee slammed into the back of her thigh. Mira screamed.

“Get the pants off. I want to f**k her before we attack the shuttle. We’ll see what goodies it is carrying.

Maybe there are more women.” It was the man who’d first boarded the pod.

“I’m worth a fortune for ransom,” Mira yelled in terror. “I work for Firmaline . They’ll pay heavily for my unharmed return.”

The hand yanking at the front of her pants froze. Mira turned her head, glaring at the horrible-looking mutant gripping her. He looked at the first mutant she’d seen on the pod, indicating that he was the one in charge. That man stared at her with his two-tone eyes, one iris totally white, and she realized he had to be blind in that eye. His other eye was brown and milky looking. She stared into his eyes and tried not to show her horror at his bumpy and scarred features.

“I’m Mirasia Carver. My family is rich as well. You could double ransom me. You could name your price. They won’t pay though if you hurt me,” she lied. Her family would still pay regardless of her condition as long as she was breathing. Firmaline wouldn’t. The company refused to pay for useless employees. If Mira were gang-raped she knew she’d be deemed useless because they would consider her unstable. “Think about it. Hurting me isn’t worth that kind of profit loss.”

The man frowned. It twisted his misshapen lips horribly. His mouth opened and she saw missing and crooked blackened teeth. “What is your employee identification code?”

Relief hit her. “ Mirasiafour-four-six-thirty-nine.”

The man turned his head to shoot a look at one of the men. “Check it out. Contact them and see what they offer for her.”

One of the men turned, almost running from the cargo area. The hand left Mira’s pants as the man behind her eased away from her body. Two-tone eyes moved closer, studying her. “Who is following?”

She hesitated. “I don’t know. I thought they were pirates.”

“How did you end up on a pod?”

Lie, she thought frantically. “We had engine trouble. Because of my worth I was put on a pod for safety.

The pod malfunctioned and jetted away from the ship. They aren’t the ones pursuing me though because they were off line for repairs.”

The man who’d run away came back in less than a minute. “The asteroid field is blocking transmissions so there is no signal.”

Another