Free The Gate by Kaitlyn O'Connor Page B

her
about the groups’ plans, the name of the leader of the
‘terrorists’, and what her role in the group was. At first she was
too shocked and appalled at the accusations they kept flinging at
her to gather her wits. Later she was just plain exhausted and
confused because no matter what she said, they kept right on
questioning her, asking the same things over and over but merely
rephrasing the questions every time.
    She didn’t see anyone else. She had no
idea if she was the only one of the entire group that had been
caught or if they’d managed to net everyone.
    She didn’t particularly care about the
strangers in the group, though. She wanted to know if Devlin and
Brenda had been arrested, as well.
    Unfortunately, she didn’t dare ask. She
wasn’t naming any names! It was just plain outrageous that she’d
been taken into custody. No way was she going to land anybody else
in the situation she’d found herself in when the bastards had no
business arresting any of them.
    She didn’t know what the group might
have done in the past, but they certainly hadn’t seemed to have any
criminal agenda. The leader—she assumed the man talking had
been—hadn’t suggested anything at all but informing the public of
what the government was up to.
    They had the right to assemble! They
had the right to free speech! How dare their government pull such a
stunt!
    And would anybody ever know?
    Or was she just going to ‘disappear’
like the people Brenda had told her about?
    During the short periods when she was
allowed to rest, she divided her time between worrying about
disappearing and how they might make her disappear and the rest
worrying about Devlin and Brenda—mostly Devlin. After a while she
was so exhausted she ceased to worry about dying or disappearing at
all. She was just too tired to be afraid, but that didn’t stop her
from worrying about what might have happened to Devlin.
    She demanded legal representation until
she was hoarse and it fell on deaf ears. She was told she couldn’t
have a lawyer.
    Suddenly she had no rights? What the
fuck?
    She thought nearly a week passed before
she was removed from her cell and, instead of being taken to
interrogation again, she was escorted to the spaceport and put on a
prisoner transport to be taken back to Earth. They didn’t tell her
why they were taking her. They didn’t even tell her they were
taking her. She assumed they were, though, when she was taken to
the spaceport. She couldn’t think of any other place they might be
taking her.
    She caught a glimpse of Devlin as they
shoved her into the transport tube. It sent a brief surge of
happiness through her and then renewed fear—for him.
    She thought of very little else while
they made the trip from the moon colony to Earth, her mind churning
with speculation and worse case scenarios that made her sicker to
her stomach than the sharp descent and powerful grip of Earth’s
real gravity did.
    That was traumatic enough, though, that
it distracted her for a short time. She’d been stationed on the
moon colony for three years and it was first experience with
Earth’s gravity in all that time. Somehow, it hadn’t been nearly as
hard to adjust to the artificial gravity on the moon.
    Ignoring the lingering effects of the
landing and her physical discomfort as her body tried to adjust to
the abrupt change, Carly began searching for Devlin as soon as she
was released from the tube she’d been transported in.
Disappointment flooded her when she didn’t see him but hope surged
again when she was escorted to the gangplank.
    Emerging from the ship was an assault
to the senses. The heat and smells of Earth, the pressure and
gravity, the brilliance of the sunlight even through the heavy pall
of smog that filled Earth’s atmosphere were jolting enough. The
sounds nearly deafened her, though.
    It took her a few minutes to sift
through the barrage to her senses and figure out what the noise was
and when she did fear was uppermost