Wide double doors off to their right opened and more men stepped out. As they moved into the halo of light she saw they were young, most of them, and not at all like the company men—a gaudy riot of gold hair, jeweled eyes, wildly iridescent tattoos—and they all had guns.
They walked down the line, handling their rifles negligently, and a kind of suffocated hush descended. Two more men followed them out of the doors. The first was tall and heavyset, dressed in black. The second was short, older, trim and graying, and dressed in a conservative suit. She thought she knew him but before she could be sure one of the gaudy men jabbed her in the midriff with his rifle. “You,” he barked, “eyes down.”
She dropped her eyes to her toes as the big man spoke in a strongly accented voice. “Shit. This it?”
“You saw the manifest,” the graying man replied and she recognized his voice: the Blodgett’s general manager. She couldn’t recall his name—think—the lurking panic was twisting her guts—no, don’t panic, think—it was something that began with . . .
“I ain’t got room for half of these. And I ain’t paying more than lot price for the rest.”
“I can’t send them back—”
Treecher. Was that it? Treecher? Think . . .
“Not my problem. Dispose of ‘em the usual way.”
“I’m already taking a loss here.”
“Not my problem.” There was a pause and then Treecher started to say something. The big man cut him off. “You prefer I adjust our agreement?”
Silence. Then Treecher said, “Fine. Take what you want—leave the rest.”
The big man walked toward them, stepping into the light. He had long black hair tied back, and large hands with wiry black hair on them. He walked down the line, followed by one of his men with a drawn flechette pistol and as he passed each person by, his flat voice said with hardly an intervening pause, “Take. Leave. Leave. Take. Leave. Take.” Every time he said ‘leave’ a muffled pistol shot punctuated his monosyllabic sentence.
Then he reached her. He stopped. His wide, thin-lipped mouth opened in a grin. She became fascinated with the gold designs etched into his teeth. His big hands reached out and ripped open the front of her blue work shirt. Air touched coldly on her young, bare, just-budding breasts.
“Gettin’ there,” his lank voice said, pulling out the short vowels. “Yep. Gettin’ there.” He bent down to where she couldn’t avoid his eyes. “What’s your name?”
“Loralynn Kennakris.” To her ears, it sounded almost as if someone else had answered for her.
“Fucked-up sorta name, Kris.”
The man straightened.
“Take.”
Chapter One
Eight years later (GAT) . . .
Contract Slaver Harlot’s Ruse
Kris tried to brush a pesky strand of hair out of her eyes using the cleanest place on the back of her arm. It didn’t work; her arms were covered in bilge muck to the elbows. She thought about asking the woman next to her, but decided against it. No talking among the cleaning crew.
She gave up and returned to washing the big conical recycling filter. After all these years, she still couldn’t believe how much they stank. The greasy gray-green muck had a clingy feel as if it had been polymerized. Maybe it had. She’d never figured out what the recyclers did exactly—why, when they were supposed to squeeze every useful organic compound out of the ship’s waste, there was so much of this left over. She wasn’t supposed to know. Slaves weren’t supposed to know anything—anything, that is, except how to do what they were told.
That’s how she’d ended up down here, in the ship’s bowels, working in scum on the slime line—not doing what she was told.
Well, not exactly not doing what she was told.
God Damn! this stuff stank. She wondered why her nose hadn’t gone dead. Maybe it had—a little. For the first hour she’d gagged almost constantly. Strich, the line boss, had spiked her a couple of times over it—not bad, just reminding. But she’d thought she would be used to it by now. After all, the whole ship stunk like this—well, not quite like this, not near this bad—and this wasn’t the first time Trench had sent her down here either, although he hadn’t done it often. Only when he was really pissed.
Well, she had been trying to kill him.
Maybe it was a stupid thing to do, she considered. Trench wasn’t that bad to her; she had slave life easy and she knew it—occasional trips to slime line notwithstanding. She was well-fed, given light work, even allowed to read some or check out the vids. It’d always been that way. For a year, she hadn’t understood why. Trench had kept her by him ever since that first morning; the morning he’d looked at her and said Take. When she was thirteen, she found out why.
She had kicked and screamed and clawed and tore that first time. Thrown things, broken things. Tried with all the strength of her young body to kill him.
Trench just laughed. He’d pinned her wrists in one coarse, long-fingered hand and wrenched her quivering legs apart with his knees. She bit him and he loved it.
When she figured that out, she quit. It hurt too much, and his pleasure made the very notion of a heroic resistance seem silly, even obscene. She’d tried laying still, a limp masturbatory doll, but Trench hadn’t liked that at all. He let her know it in the most brutal fashion possible. That hurt too much, too. So she concentrated on trying to please him and that worked.
Things got better. He sometimes got her things she asked for, if she wasn’t too greedy about it. He kept the others off her. She didn’t get shared much unless he needed to grease a deal. He even let her alone once in a while. This was special and she used that time to learn everything the ship’s systems could teach her. She was looking for a way to kill him—kill all of them. This was not the first time she’d tried.
She didn’t think Trench knew that though. She’d messed with the ventilators, trying to give him mild hypoxia, but that was just cover. If he’d found out she was trying to tweak the jump convolvers, he’d have thought of something worse than this. Her hand paused in scrubbing. Maybe he was thinking of something worse than this. Maybe this was just the softening-up routine . . .
Strich moved into her peripheral vision, slapping the spiker against his leg. She scrubbed harder. Strich wasn’t bad with the spiker, but he wasn’t reticent either. Nor was he stupid. He’d been watching her. If he thought she was acting weird, if he told Trench, if Trench had asked him to watch her . . . Sweat began to form on her sides, clammy and itching.
Think of something else . . .
She returned her attention to the recyclers. The stench was almost a welcome distraction now. Maybe they were mistuned, or just not very efficient. They were old. Everything on slaver ships was old: the comms, the hydroponics, the synthesizers, the assault birds, the planetary tilt-rotors—all old. Some of the designs—like the tilt-rotors—she knew went back hundreds and hundreds of years. Stuff out of her school’s history texts.
But slavers didn’t use the new tech; they couldn’t afford to. The new tech was great: efficient, low-maintenance, compact. She heard the crew bitching about it—about the lack of it—all the time. But when it broke—and everything broke when you got shot at a lot or had to do things like run the Devil’s Cat’s Cradle—you couldn’t fix it. Molecular reorganizers, atomic reflux welders, dionized expert systems—all the stuff that made it work—wasn’t easy to come by and it broke too. Sure, if you had a secure, full-up, automated airdock, the latest stuff was wonderful. But slavers had to be able to fix things in space, on moons, in animal pastures. If hammer and tape could fix it, good. If you could junk it and steal a replacement, better. If you could do without, better yet. Slavers put their money where it counted: the engines, the guns. The things that kept you alive. Kept you running.
Slavers were real good at staying alive and running. Sure they liked to raise hell, get drunk and stoned and puke on each other. They used fuck’n between every other word and pissed in the beer. They were raunchy and bru
tal and stank. But they were some of the best fighters in Charted Space, drunk or sober. Some found that admirable. Kris just hated them for it.
Strich loomed on her left side, just behind.
Shit! She’d been drifting again. She watched the blue tip of the spiker out of the corner of her eye, waiting for the nerve-jangling prod. It didn’t come. Then she noticed the look on Strich’s face. Was it possible to be relieved and anxious all at once? Strich’s look made it clear that he hadn’t been watching her because he was suspicious or because Trench had told him to. She turned her back on him, scrubbing furiously.
Would he dare? Trench didn’t like to share his recreation. Strich knew that. Maybe he figured if Trench sent her down with the animals, he wanted her reminded of the value of his good graces. Maybe Trench was so pissed off he’d posted her open-season.
Kris looked left and right. Nobody seemed to be paying the slightest attention. Of course not. This was expected. She thought the guy two stations down was smiling a little under his grime. She bit her lip. Good show, huh? Why was he waiting then? Shit, he was standing right behind her—she could feel him. On your knees, bitch was the traditional salutation. Or maybe he wasn’t going to bother with the small talk.
She looked down at herself. Gawd, she was a mess. She stank. How could he possibly want to . . .
Of course, he wanted to. She was the captain’s bitch and he might not get another chance. Slavers weren’t fastidious, Strich least of all. What did he have in mind? She’d always managed to fend off Trench’s more unpleasant urges after the first couple of times . . .
She felt a push in her center back. Not hard, not gentle—just unmistakable and insistent. She gritted her teeth and screwed her eyes shut.
No—wrong. She couldn’t resist. If she resisted, she lost control. She had to turn, to smile. She had to . . .
There was a jarring, subacoustic thud and a feeling like time ripping. Kris thought it was her. Then came a savage jolt and a great sharp-flat ringing like sledgehammers on hull plate. She and Strich were thrown to the desk. She was lucky, slamming her shoulder up against the side of the recycler port. Strich was not. Being taller, he caught his head on a corner. He slumped to the desk, blood flowing freely. She tried to stand up. Another jolt, even more violent than last. The deck bucked and she went down again.
What the hell’s happening?
The proximity sirens went off with an ear-splitting wail. People were babbling and moaning, some stupidly crying for help. You’re a slave, dipshit. No one’s gonna help you. Then she heard the whine of the fusion drives waking up.
They were in space! Real space! Someone had punched them out of the wormhole. But that couldn’t happen. It just couldn’t . . .
Crawling now—she didn’t dare try to stand—she made for the hatch. The rest of the cleaning crew was trying for it too, the ones who could move anyway. A claxon raised its undulating wail, adding to the cacophony of the proximity sirens. There was a crumping noise and three loud bangs tattooed the side of the ship.
Someone was firing on them—not warning shots either. She heard the weird little kzing of the ship’s batteries returning fire. Sudden acceleration squashed her down against the deck. She felt, then heard, a launch transient shudder the metal beneath her, then two more, then a fourth.
Trench was dumping his missiles—fast. They couldn’t have possibly gotten a firing solution so quickly. Trench was scared—bad scared. A hot, delicious joy filled Kris. Something bigger and meaner than him was after his ass.
The inertial dampers kicked in, too many seconds in coming. Something must’ve busted for it to take so long. Lucky they weren’t all smeared to jelly. She peeled herself off the deck, bolted for the hatch now that it was safe to run. The batteries were firing constantly.
More banging on the hull, then a loud crump—louder than the others. The emergency reds came on. Kris dove for a lift ladder; swarmed up using the rungs—you never could tell when the gravity might give out in a fight. More noisy crumping—armor plate slagging off, she realized—and a sudden veer the inertial dampers didn’t quite handle. She swung around to the other side, knees hooked around the rails, and kept moving. Less noise from the ship’s guns; just the forward batteries firing now. The shudder of a missile launch.
Kris boosted herself out of the ladder well on to the afterdeck. Trench stood in the passageway just outside the cabin they shared. He held a sidearm in one hand and was trying get into his space armor with the other. He wasn’t on the bridge! He’d been sleeping. He wasn’t on the bridge! Kris’s joy turned savage. She hadn’t expected so much. She sprinted at him.
He hadn’t seen her yet. Another sudden uncompensated veer staggered them. He turned, reeling—saw her, waved the gun at her. The boarding alert drowned out part of what he was shouting: “. . . below! Goddammit! Get the fuck outta here!” Her eyes widened. He thought she was afraid. Kris laughed but it came out a scream. He continued to wave at her. “Evac, goddammit! Evac!”
There was a huge clang. The ship shuddered and rolled violently. They’d been docked. Trench went down, clumsy in his half-on armor, tumbling across the deck and hitting the rim of a sealed hatchway. The breath went out of him in a grunt. Kris skidded into a bulkhead feet first, kicked hard and launched herself across two meters of intervening deck plate. He still didn’t understand when she slammed into him.
Chapter Two
LSS Arizona
Inner Trifid Boundary Zone
Captain Jan RyKirt, commanding the heavy cruiser LSS Arizona of the Nereidian League’s Colonial Expeditionary Forces, sat at the desk console in his quarters, flipping through images and listening to the after-action report. The stuckee was young Ensign Whatsisname, a Nedaeman on his first patrol, and he wasn’t doing too well. RyKirt was having to jog every detail out of him.
What the hell was his name, anyway? Currently an assistant fire-control officer. Car . . . something. Cardinovich. Benct—no Bren. Bren Cardinovich. RyKirt shook his head slightly.
“I’m sorry, Sir?” Cardinovich interrupted himself.
RyKirt looked up. The boy must have seen him shake his head. “The crew, son?”
“Nine officers. Five dead, including captain and exec. One wounded. About a hundred crew, maybe thirty casualties.”
RyKirt regarded the young man narrowly. Cardinovich had given a good first impression. Hadn’t expected him to go all flappy after his first fight. “About? Maybe?”
“Well, sir, we don’t know how many were in the aft weapon spaces and engineering got scrammed some—” The ensign abruptly broke off as he realized he’d just used ‘tween-decks talk with his CO. Rapidly he amended, “Took heavy damage. A bunch of equipment got knocked loose. I guess they had some trouble with the inertial dampers.”
Oh so that’s it, RyKirt thought. Must have been messy. Very casually he asked, “Did you inspect the engineering spaces, son?”
“Uh, no sir,” Cardinovich answered. “I was on afterdeck detail. Chief Olsen told me about the engineering spaces.”
So that wasn’t it. Damn, what had gotten to the boy? Casualties were light on A-deck. Pushing the thought aside, he went on with his questions. “Hull?”
“Chen-Richelieu converted ore carrier. Manufactured in 09”—he pronounced it ott-nine in typical Nedaeman fashion—“last registered to Xang-Hua Minerals. Dyson-Forbes powerplant, heavily modified—no serial numbers. Two C-48 jump drives—”
“What?” RyKirt broke in suddenly. “Where in hell they get those?” C-48’s were heavy-mass cruiser drives. They’d just been damn lucky—he never thought he’d been trying to pop a ship with such hot drives.
“I don’t know, sir.”
Of course, the boy didn’t know. “Does Commander t’Laren know about this?”
Ensign Cardinovich looked even more uncomfortable. “I don’t know if she does or not, sir.”
“Well, make damn sure she finds out.”
“Yes, sir.” Cardinovich saluted and started to
turn.
“Christ son, not now.” Cardinovich actually jumped. “Finish your report. What about cargo?”
“About three hundred slaves, sir. Mostly on the holding deck.”
“That’s the second time you’ve used that word.” The kid’s gotta learn, RyKirt muttered to himself. Cardinovich, though, was looking blank and for a moment the captain was sure he was going to ask, “What word?” but to his credit he figured it out.
“We’re having trouble sorting them out, sir. There was some spalling in the holding deck.”
“Saying that up front will save you a lot of breath, Ensign.”
“Yes, sir.”
RyKirt went back to the images on his console. They were flat file-pics of the newly liberated slaves, those identified so far. They showed all kinds of people: mostly young men and women but some kids too, and a few that were middle-aged, even elderly. Specialists, RyKirt thought, looking at the older ones. Paid pick-offs. Slavers didn’t always take in big batches. Bastards. He swept the pics to the margin. “Do we know when all these people were taken, Ensign?”
“All the debriefs aren’t filed yet, sir”—RyKirt hid a smile; at least the kid could learn—“but most in the last two to three months, galactic arbitrary time. One’s about eight years, though.”
Sweet Jesus, RyKirt breathed. Then aloud: “Eight years?”
“Yes sir.” Cardinovich started skimming the images around on the console’s flat surface. “That’s her, sir. Only, she doesn’t look much like that anymore.”
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