by Lula Monk
“Fret not, Chief Officer. I am only doing that which I am permitted to do by my contract with Galactic Continuity.”
“And what is that?” asked the insectoid sharply.
Ignis shrugged. “Exploring the Hub, of course.”
“This sector is closed while the entertainers are absent.”
“I’m not here to be entertained.”
“Why are you here then, Commander?”
The insectoid stood almost twice as tall as Ignis, and yet Ignis lifted his chin and stared down the insectoid. “I’m here to fight.”
Slep’s trilled, the insectoid’s version of a laugh. “And whom might you wish to fight, Ardan? The guards? They would be easy fare for one such as you.”
Ignis’s eyes glittered with mischief. His flames surged out from beneath this coat, dancing higher and higher until they towered over him, equaling the insectoid’s height and then quickly surpassing it.
“I long to fight with one of your prisoners.”
“We have no prisoners aboard the Hub,” said Slep smoothly.
“I know that,” replied Ignis. “That’s why the cells aren’t technically part of the space station, are they?”
Slep chittered. “There are no cells.”
“Prove it.”
“How might I prove the lack of existence of a thing? Such is nonsense.”
“Give me a tour of the place,” said Ignis hotly. “Show me there are no cells.”
“You will not find the one you seek in a cell,” said Slep, his tone clipped and hard. “We do not cage our patrons. Unless we find them to be unruly.”
“Your… patrons?” Ignis asked indignantly, his flames shooting out to swirl around him, expanding and growing until they reached every edge of the corridor, forming a perfect circle at Ignis’s back. “You allow that creature here, while I am here?”
“If you thought he was not here, why were you looking for him?”
A good question, and not one Ignis felt like answering.
“Show me to him.”
“I cannot,” said Slep. “Purchaser’s privacy.”
“Cyndar was not amongst the crowd today. I can attest to it.”
Slep’s mandibles clanged together again. “Our patrons have our privacy, but I can tell you this: the Smold said he would be particular in seeking his match. You are not guaranteed to find him, Commander.”
“But he is here, is he not?”
Slep said nothing.
“I asked you a question!” roared Ignis.
“And I have chosen not to answer it,” said Slep calmly. “Now, I must humbly request that you return to your rooms.”
“Where is he?”
“Commander, I cannot–”
“Where is he?”
“I cannot reveal the whereabouts of one of our other patrons,” said Slep. “You know this.”
“He killed my wife!”
The insectoid turned its back to Ignis, its next words cold and final. “That is not Galactic Continuity’s concern.”
With that, the insectoid skittered away down the corridor, leaving Ignis’s flames to rage alone.
Chapter 7
Clea
“So, what is this grand plan of yours?” asked Clea.
Samantha shuffled along for a moment, glancing around them in both directions as if making sure no one else was listening. Not that listening ears were a problem since everyone was spaced out a good thirty feet in either direction. At the volume they were currently speaking, no one could hear them. Hell, Clea could barely hear anything the woman had said so far.
“The plan,” whispered Samantha, “is to inform every woman on the hub her purpose and her place in the coming revolution.”
“Yeah, I get that,” said Clea, “but what is the plan? Like, what are we actually doing?”
Samantha sighed and rubbed at her red eyes. “There's a lot to do, to be frank. There’s the munitions hold to find, and I must make contact with a woman who has some sense of aviation…”
“You really think a woman on this station is going to be able to fly a spaceship?” Clea scoffed. “You’re out of your fucking mind.”
Samantha gave her a cold look. “You have no idea what it was like. Before the orientation initiative.”
“What what was like? Being a slave?” Clea asked sharply.
“That is precisely what I mean.”
“I have some idea.”
Samantha rolled her eyes. “No, you don’t.”
“I’ve got a whole host of ancestors who would disagree.”
“And if your ancestors were here, I wouldn’t balk at their claiming to know the way the women on this station have felt. But their experiences are not yours; you have no idea what it’s like be to a slave.”
“And you do?” Clea asked pointedly. She rubbed at the raw flesh of her wrist, the shackle rubbing and chaffing the skin. “You’re the one who is leading this supposed revolution, right? That means you’ve got some kind of power here. And you are the face of this orientation thing. You don’t know shit about what it means to be a real slave either, I would bet.”
Samantha’s eyes blazed. “I wasn’t talking about me.”
“Then who?”
“Them,” said Samantha, pointing behind her shoulder with her chin.
Clea subtly turned her head around, but not too much. They were not permitted to turn back. She’d learned that the hard way.
She and Samantha had been the last of the breeders to queue up in the corridor of the Breeding Sector. Consequently, they were the last pair of women separating the breeders from the entertainers. Clea looked at the entertainers spread out behind them, each pair clad in sequined, skimpy outfits. Their eyes were dead, lifeless and dull.
“What happened to them?” Clea asked, her voice hollow. Seeing those women… Maybe Samantha was right; Clea had never been through anything that would make her look the way they did. She felt a twisting in her gut, the weight of sorrows passed down for generations sitting heavy in her belly. How many of my ancestors looked the way these women did, so broken and hopeless?
A lot, she knew.
But Clea also knew her family was full of fighters. She felt the same determined spirit in her own breast, the same unending fire burning within her.
She would not yield. She would find a way to be free.
And she definitely wouldn’t end up like the lifeless women who trailed for miles behind her and Samantha.
“I told you being a breeder was better than being an entertainer,” the pregnant woman said.
“But what is so bad about being an entertainer?”
Samantha rubbed her neck, her crimson eyes blinking slowly. “It’s what they make you do.”
Clea waited for the woman to continue.
The red-eyed woman cleared her throat. “To my knowledge, the overseers of the Entertainment Sector make the women do all sorts of things. Sexual things. Private parties and public exhibitions.”
“Part of me thought you were exaggerating about the number of men they saw each day,” Clea admitted.
“Aliens, not men. And it’s each rotation, not day. The creatures here don’t measure time in Earth units.”
“Well excuse the shit out of me.”
“Just giving you the most appropriate frame of reference. It will be easier for you, to learn how to interact with your owner.”
“I don’t know how you can stand to call them that.”
“What?”
“Our owners.”
Samantha shrugged, the motion sending the links of the chain that bound them together clinking against each other. “Just another frame of reference.”
“Well it won’t be my frame of reference.”
The red-eyed woman gave Clea a shrewd look. “I suggest you reconsider. You saw him in the corridor, as did I. His anger drifted into the Rim like sweltering waves of heat.”
“No wonder. Did you see the flames rippling off him?” Clea shivered at the memory.
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br /> “And he was looking directly at you, Clea. Don’t deny it. You will only be lying to yourself.”
Clea pursed her lips, ignoring Samantha’s words. It was true; she couldn’t deny that the rugged warrior had cast his gaze on her when they walked past the entrance to the Entertainment Sector. His eyes had seemed to pierce her soul when they locked onto hers.
Seeing the sheer might of the force of his flames – a leisure she’d not had when he’d saved her after the auction – had made her stomach quake. Ignis was powerful. Brutal. And she had no desire to give him any excuse to turn his ire on her.
“He is adamant about wanting to mate.”
“Of course he is, Clea! Haven’t you been paying attention?” hissed Samantha.
Clea recoiled at the woman’s tone. “I don’t want to have sex with him.”
“I know. And I know doing such a thing will be difficult, given your fear of fire.”
Clea sucked a breath in sharply through her nose. She’d not told the pregnant woman that fact. “How did you know?”
“I saw the way you looked at him. The terror in your eyes was… different.”
They walked in silence for a moment. Clea tried to come to terms with Samantha’s words. In the end, she supposed the pregnant woman was right. It might be best if she chose to have sex with the alien of her own volition, rather than having him use a show of force to make her mate. The thought of Ignis enthralling her with his flames, using his power to control her movements and manipulate her body for mating… the very idea made her tremble.
Better to do the thing her way, without causing the alien to use his flames.
“Were you… afraid, when your owner forced you to mate?” Clea asked, testing the word ‘owner’ out on her tongue. Forming the word left her mouth feeling vile; the term would always repulse her. She was confident of that fact if she was confident of nothing else.
“Dredge did not force me to mate.”
Clea’s feet felt suddenly glued to the metal walkway. She froze, but the pregnant woman kept walking. The result caused the chain linking her to Samantha to pull taught, making the woman stumble. She caught herself on the railing, but just barely; the glowing crimson mound of her belly inches away from the hard metal bar.
“Keep moving!” shouted one of the two Cephalopod guards up ahead. They stood sentinel just under a wide entryway, above which were written the word’s ‘Transportation and Administration Sector.’
“I’m so sorry,” whispered Clea, helping Samantha to steady herself on her feet.
“No talking!” shouted one of the guards.
The other promptly followed with, “No touching!”
Clea and Samantha separated themselves, the metal links of their chain softly clinking together.
“I’m sorry,” Clea whispered again.
“It’s alright,” said Samantha, rubbing at her red eyes.
They paused their conversation as they walked on, not wanting to illicit the anger of the guards. As they passed the entryway, Clea chanced a peek past the aliens. The splintered stone stood only a few yards from the entryway. After fleeing Ignis, she’d been so close to…
To what? The Rim?
She looked around, taking in her surroundings. The clear tube stretched on for miles in both directions, leading to nothing but the entryways they’d been passing on their long, slow walk. Even if she had reached this walkway, it would have taken her nowhere.
The harsh reality was that Clea had few options. Her own plan had been horribly misguided, with no positive outcome to be had.
Clea glanced at the pregnant woman walking serenely beside her. She hoped Samantha’s plan was a good one.
Once they’d walked enough distance past the entryway and the guards standing sentinel, Clea turned to Samantha. But the red-eyed woman spoke first.
“The Glim did not have to force me to have sex. I volunteered.”
Clea balked. Her heart dropped into her stomach. Clearly, Samantha was crazy. “Why would you do that?”
“It’s all part of the plan.”
The hair on Clea’s arms rose.
“That,” she said, pointing at Samantha’s budding belly, “is part of your plan?”
The serene look on Samantha’s face was gone. In its place rested terror, resolve, and… was that a hint of sorrow? As soon as Clea noticed the look, though, it was gone.
“It was required,” said Samantha, her face now a neutral mask of iron, revealing nothing.
They traveled in silence again, the only sounds that of their feet padding along the metal walkway and the soft and gentle chink-chink sounds of their chain. As they walked, Clea tried to solve the mystery of why Samantha would be feeling all those emotions she’d seen racing across the pregnant woman’s face.
Suddenly, she had it.
“You… you love him, don’t you?”
It was Samantha’s turn to stop walking, her pace slowing to a dead stop. Remembering herself, the red-eyed woman began walking again, this time briskly.
“Samantha,” said Clea forcefully, struggling to keep up now that the woman was going so quickly. “Tell me the truth. Do you love him?”
“What does it matter?” spat the woman harshly, her tone burning Clea as harshly as if it had been one of Ignis’s flames. “What does it matter if I love Dredge?”
“Uh… hello?” said Clea pointedly. “Don’t you think the leader of our little insurrection should, oh, I don’t know, be on our side?”
Samantha glared daggers at Clea.
“I am on your side! On all your sides!” She looked over her shoulder at the pairs of women walking behind them, each separated by ten yards, the column seeming to stretch on into infinity. “Everything I have done, I have done for you all!”
“And for yourself.” Clea sneered. “At least be honest about that much. Part of you is doing all of this to save your own ass.”
“If I’d had it my way, I never would have lain with Dredge in the first place. I’d have slit my wrists at the first opportunity and prayed my next life was better than this one!”
“Whoa. That’s heavy.”
Clea scrutinized the pregnant woman, observing the way thick tears were snaking down her chin to drip onto the small mound of her belly.
“So why didn’t you?”
Samantha turned her sorrow-stricken eyes on Clea. “Don’t you get it yet? I couldn’t leave this place, not even through death, knowing that anyone could end up on this space station, forced to do unspeakable things. Not all owners are as kind and patient as Dredge. Even with the orientation initiative in place, many aliens still force their products to mate before the women are ready. And the entertainers? None of their pain has stopped, Clea. At worse, these walks are serving as a reprieve from their horrible existences. But I’m wanting to give them more than that. I want to give them hope, and the assurance that we will all find a way off this space station.”
The pregnant woman stopped her speech, her chest heaving.
“Are you alright?” Clea asked, bracing the woman by putting a firm hand on her arm.
Samantha shrugged her away. “I’m fine. Growing Dredge’s Glimling in such a short time frame is taking a lot out of me is all.”
“That, and these walks too, I’d imagine.”
Samantha shrugged. “Another added benefit of these walks is it keeps us all in shape. When the time comes, we will all need to be physically ready.”
“And you think just running is enough to get us out of here? To get past those big tentacled bastards?”
Samantha’s shoulders slumped. “No. But at present, it is all we can do.”
The gears in Clea’s mind started swirling, clinking and clicking into place. “What if someone on the station knew martial arts? What if on each of these exceptions, you could start disseminating information and subtle, impactful fighting moves?”
Samantha scoffed. “It would be hard to practice martial arts chained to each other while on display in a giant clear
tube.” The pregnant woman rubbed at the small of her back. “Besides, where would we even find such a woman?”
A grin spread across Clea’s lips. “You’re talking to her.”
Samantha examined Clea’s face with her glowing eyes. “You know martial arts?”
“Hapkido.” Clea shrugged. “The moves I’ll be able to teach in such limiting conditions won’t be the most impactful, but something is better than nothing.”
“And you think you could teach the women some moves? Subtly, of course.”
Clea thought about it for a moment.
“I’m pretty sure, yeah. High-impact, low force moves.” She looked at the line of women stretching out behind them, walking by twos as if they were headed to some biblical ark. “Not many of them look like fighters, though. Maybe defensive moves would be the best.”
Samantha chewed at her lip. “Yes, I think you are right. I want the women to get to where they need to get, when the time comes. No need for fighting, just fleeing.”
“And taking down a few nasty captors along the way would hurt, right?”
“Right,” said Samantha, smiling up at Clea.
The entryway to the Breeding Sector loomed in the distance, the tentacles of the numerous Ceph guards tasked with escorting them all back to their rooms already visible.
Suddenly, Samantha sucked in a sharp breath, her chained wrist shooting up to clutch at her belly. Her other hand gripped the handrail so hard her knuckles turned white.
“Are you okay?” Clea asked, quickly assessing the woman by giving her a once over.
The pregnant woman sucked in another gulp of air. The glow of Samantha’s belly pulsated erratically, dully in some places and more intensely in others.
“Is it supposed to be doing that?” Clea asked, almost frantic. She didn’t know what an alien pregnancy was supposed to look like, so she definitely didn’t know of Samantha’s behavior was normal.
An especially intense burst of light shone forth from Samantha’s belly, just above her navel. The woman winced, her shackled arm drifting up to the spot.
When Clea looked up at the woman’s face, she was surprised to find a smile there.
“It’s a kick,” said Samantha, her eyes misty with tears. She laughed.” Or a punch. I’m not really sure which.”