The search led them to a seedy system with one barely habitable planet and one colossal and dilapidated space station. Jackie could only imagine what happened to its previous inhabitants, as it was obviously not created by the criminal element.
“Listen, we’ve tapped their communications, we’ve even confirmed she’s alive.”
“I know, it’s just…it’s what they’ve done to her. They’ve turned her into a killer!” Rick exclaimed.
Jackie was not about to let him go there alone, nor was she about to let him down. He was her rock, and she was going to be there to see this through.
His young daughter had been pimped out for years by his wife after the pirate attack. She had many horrible things done to her over the span of years by a great many men. When Jackie probed Becky’s mind, she found that she never loved Rick, and never wanted to have children. It was all an act to get out of the place she first called home.
Once she was done selling her daughter for sex, she sold her to a fight club owner. That was seven years ago. The fact that she was still alive was great news, but seven years of that type of hell after being a child prostitute, would he even recognize her?
“Whatever she is or has become, she is your daughter, the flesh of your flesh. We will get her back to you. I swear this.”
It was time to go.
They boarded a pirate shuttle, one of many that were confiscated on the raid to the planetoid. It looked crappy, flew crappy, but it fit over fifty marines in it, and that wasn’t counting the dreadnought and four battleships in stealth brought to this little hell hole of a space station.
Commodore Reynolds had let her objections be known about Jackie accompanying him. It was, after all, poor strategy to put your most valued player in the line of fire.
For her part, Jackie did not care, not this time. She owed Rick big time. And while he was not demanding her to come, and even asked if she would stay on the flagship, he did not beg her to stay and was very glad she refused. Among the problems with her coming was that she was a very recognizable figure, she knew that, and both Rick and Commodore Reynolds pointed it out to her.
A simple wig and contact lenses solved that problem.
“Docking in ten, nine, eight…” the pilot announced from the front of their pirate shuttle.
Once they had a hard seal, they debarked the shuttle. The docking port offered to them was not far from a second shuttle that had launched as a backup, another pirate shuttle holding another fifty marines. The two shuttles of marines would pose as separate mercenary groups, fitting right in at the station.
“This reminds me of the planetoid base when we first went in,” Jackie commented.
Indeed, the place was grungy, dirty, and had a stench to it. Besides critical repairs, cleaning the planetoid base was the first thing Jackie had done since capturing it. And to think, with all the influx there now, the original base would shortly seem very small.
“You ever going to stop calling it the ‘planetoid’?” Rick quipped with a grin.
They passed one seedy shop after another, thus far nothing as overt as the pirate base had with the slave markets, but they were both sure it was here, just underneath the surface.
“Well, I had other names in mind.”
“Oh, don’t keep me waiting!”
A little boy came out, begging for money. It reminded her so much of home. In many places on Earth, there was poverty. Children were begging in the streets everywhere as Earth was the ghetto of the Westerly Federation.
Before it was depopulated.
“I was thinking San Agustin,” she answered while admiring some of the fresh produce in front of her as they continued walking.
“San Agustin, I like the sound of it.”
Pari?
<
They had several corvettes assigned to ferry duty, to stay in touch. This side-trip was an out of the way personal mission, but it was important to the two players at the top of the new Askirti Federation.
“Any idea where our teams are?” Jackie asked quietly.
“I checked my handheld a minute ago. They’re ghosting us, some ahead, some behind,” he said.
Just then, something caught Jackie’s eye. It was a shop full of handbags. Women’s handbags.
“Ahem, stay on target, miss,” Rick said with a grin.
“I know.”
A few minutes later, they found what they were looking for. Pari had sifted through the information they spied and had found where Sylvia was. She was the star attraction at a sketchy joint just ahead.
Getting in was easy using untraceable credits that had to be exchanged, of which she brought plenty. The building they entered was smoke-filled with very rough looking people. Not necessarily pirates, but definitely a rough crowd.
“No buying drinks here,” Rick said.
After Jackie had been drugged by a corrupt commodore on the WFS Nemesis, brought to his room and nearly raped, she was not about to drink even the water in a place like this. That particular commodore ended up losing his head in the altercation that followed.
“I’m suddenly not thirsty,” she deadpanned.
Working their way through the bar area, they got to the fight room, in it was a large cage. In the cage were two men duking it out. Scores generally smelly people surrounded the cage urging their favorite player to do better as they each traded bets.
Watching the fight, Jackie could not understand the sport in it. Hurting people for sport seemed to be an abuse in her mind.
We are made in the Creators image, we shouldn’t willingly beat others that were created in that same image, especially for entertainment.
She hated violence for violence sake, lacking righteous purpose.
After a few rounds, two women came out. A bell rang, and they started beating each other as best they could. Jackie was just relieved that each round thus far was not a fight to the death, otherwise, she was not sure how Ricks daughter could have ever survived seven years. Still, she had to ask herself if every one of the fighters were slaves.
<
We are going to do what we came here to do, but I will come back here and rectify this. I will tear this station apart looking for those who are held against their will.
After about an hour, the fourth set of women came out. That is when she saw Rick’s eyes grow wide. After twelve years, he was looking at his little girl. She was just eight when he thought she had died. Before him now was a warrior of a woman, nearly as tall as her father at two meters. Her head was shaved, her body was toned and muscular, showing no small number of scars in the areas not covered by her pitiful outfit.
“Gather yourself if you want to leave here with her,” Jackie whispered to him.
He blinked a few times and tried to calm down.
Watching several rounds of his daughter fighting and being pounded was the most difficult thing he had ever done. Knowing she was a slave, knowing his time with her was stolen, this was not the reunion he had imagined.
After the fight was over, she was escorted away and into the back.
“Time to go,” Jackie said.
They moved towards the back, towards the door with two large men blocking the way.
“We’re expected,” Jackie said.
“Uh-huh.”
As she took out a handful of credits, one of the guards took them. Then she started to move forward, but the other guy stuck his hand out. Jackie could not help but to roll her eyes. Then she took out the same amount of credits and placed them in the second guard’s hands, at which point they were let through.
As they went into the back area, they saw room after room, actually cage after cage, where the fighters were held. It made her sick. The look of disgust on Rick’s face was not hard to place, either. Moving down the corridor, they did not find Sylvia.
“Where could she be?”
Rick asked in a pained voice.
“We’ll find her.”
They reached the far back of the corridor where was another door. Opening it revealed a private party full of shady looking people. Near the back of that room was a stupid looking throne with a toad of a man seated on it. Around him, in chains, were what Jackie guessed were his favorite fighters, all women, including Sylvia.
“Let me handle this. If you panic, it could cost Sylvia her life. As it is, let’s hope she doesn’t recognize you right away. That could cause this whole thing to blow up. I’d rather settle this peaceably if we can.”
He nodded his head in agreement, not trusting himself to speak.
Jackie approached the throne and began what she hoped was a good performance.
“How much?” she said with a grin.
“How much for what?” said the toad, his eyes never rising to her face.
“How much for…HER!” she said pointing at a not-surprised Sylvia.
The man started laughing.
“I get that at a few times a week! Go away! You can’t afford her! Hey, I have more women, if that’s your thing, I don’t want them anymore.”
He motioned to a set of women chained to the wall approximately twenty meters away. These ladies had seen better days, having lost too many fights.
“You can’t afford to pass up my offer!” Jackie retorted.
“Oh? Do tell.”
“I was thinking fifty thousand credits.”
By the look on the man’s face, she could tell it registered, and she was in the right neighborhood on price.
“Why fifty thousand when she is worth two hundred and fifty thousand!” he responded, laughing.
“Why not indeed,” Jackie laughed with him. “You and I both know they don’t last much longer than she has. So why not sell now while the price is good?”
Sylvia’s eyes narrowed at that statement. Obviously, Jackie’s statement did not score points with her.
“She’s my best money maker! People LOVE to see women fight, and she does that well!”
“One hundred thousand.”
“Nope.”
“One hundred and fifty thousand.”
By this time, a lot of the commotion in the room had stalled, and more and more folks were watching this little bidding war going on.
“Nope.”
“You drive a hard bargain,” Jackie said, looking around. “You would think at these prices she would come with a small staff!”
“That can be arranged if you like!” the man responded, laughing.
Jackie was sure he was referencing a staff of slaves.
Huffing, and looking exasperated, Jackie said, “Okay, you’ve got me! Two hundred and fifty thousand credits!”
She took out a bag of credits and threw it at his feet.
He looked at the bag on the floor, then raised his head and his eyes up, meeting hers for the first time.
“What is she to you? You’ll never make that off of her,” he inquired.
“What’s it to you if I want her to be my cook?” Jackie retorted.
Looking at the bag of credits at his feet with a questioning look in his eye, he said to his guards, “so why don’t I just keep this money and have my guards take you and your boyfriend here!”
At the reference to Rick, Sylvia took an appraising look at him who was looking at her, her head tilting slightly as she did. Her eyes suddenly grew wide, and she placed a hand over her mouth as realization set in.
“You do wish to live long enough to spend that money, don’t you?” Jackie said.
“Guards!” he called out.
Immediately her image changed. She pulled her wig off and her appearance changed as her eyes and veins glowed, and that white fire made its way out, all in a split second. She shoved her hand out in the direction of the nearest approaching guard, and without touching him, he flew backward, pieces of him hitting the wall. Her appearance then returned to normal. Well, normal for her. Her snow-white hair was out for all to see, and her sparkling bright green eyes now piercing that toad of a man as her contacts had burned off.
The rest of the guards stopped in their tracks, backing up.
“The Askirti witch!” he yelled.
“You should have taken my deal, as I had hoped this trip would be a quiet one. But just so you know, I despise slavers, and I despise people who break a deal. You are both.”
As she was speaking, the back of the room opened, and a hundred of her marines came in, carbines at the ready.
Jackie reached inside her jacket, pulled out a pistol and shot the toad in between the eyes. None of the others in the room did anything, as they all were in fear for their lives.
Immediately Rick ran up to his daughter and embraced her.
“Daddy! It’s really you?! Mom said you were dead!”
“I found out just days ago you were alive! I would have come sooner!”
Tears were now pouring down both their faces.
Jackie looked at the other women chained there.
“Wanna be free?”
They started crying. These fierce female fighters wept openly, nodding their heads.
The marines with her began to unlock all their chains.
“You are all free to do as you please. If it pleases you to come with me, you may do so as free women,” she said.
They all came.
“Have the marines free the rest of the slaves here, offer to let them go with us,” she said to one of the soldiers. “I’ll have the Hania send additional shuttles for transport.”
##
“I can’t believe that mom did that to us,” Sylvia said.
“Me neither,” Rick responded.
“How did you get her to tell you?”
“Jackie extracted the information from her.”
Sylvia’s eyes got wide.
“She did not survive. Jackie did not want to do it, I asked her to.”
Rick explained who Jackie was and what she could do, and what she did to Sylvia’s mother.
“Serves her right.”
“Darling, I know you have been through pure hell, but I want you to know I will pull whatever strings I need to such that doors are opened for you. You can go to school, be a doctor, do anything.”
“Daddy, I was just thankful to see the ship’s doctor. She took away the scars on my body. At least I can be beautiful again and let my hair grow out.”
It was a small consolation as both her father and her childhood were stolen. She was sold as a prostitute for years by her mother, then to a fight club. The scars on her body were the easy ones to heal, but those on her soul would never go away.
Sylvia was weeping again. It happened many times over the last few days as her personal hell had come to an end. Now she just needed to figure out how to live.
“Is it true? Is she what everyone says she is?”
“Maybe not everything, but she is the most powerful woman alive. She’s also kind and thoughtful with a passion for the lives of the innocent, of children who were taken and enslaved, people just like you.”
“I heard whispers from some of the crew, Ice Queen. I also heard it is well earned.”
“She lost a lot, worse than us,” Rick said at which point it sent chills down Sylvia’s spine. “She tries to deal with it and keep going. She isn’t that way underneath, once you work past her defenses.”
“I suppose I’m not too different,” Sylvia said looking down.
“No, my daughter. You’re not. You too have had too much stolen from you. Right now, what is your heart’s desire?”
“I want to stay with you. I know you have feelings for her, that’s obvious,” she said with a grin. “I want to know her too.”
“She has already told me she will support whatever I want.”
“Do you mean that much to her? Sorry, I don’t mean to pry.”
“One day,” her dad said with a grin, “I will make her my wife.”
Chapter 10
No
n-Aligned Zone
Between systems
“I am sure it is here!”
“We’ve committed an all-stop, we have three corvettes, four battleships and a dreadnought sitting in the middle of nowhere waiting on an AI to tell us we are looking at something interesting,” Jackie responded.
“You don’t have to be like that,” Pari responded.
Pari enjoyed having the flag bridge to show itself. It’s projection walking around and talking much as a human would.
The sentient AI had picked up a signal with its multi-dimensional quantum computer and raised an alert, causing Jackie to commit the fleet to an all-stop. This was the fifth time today, and it was wearing thin.
The small task force was returning to Jackie’s new system, San Agustin, from retrieving Rick’s daughter. Fifty-two of the former fight-club slaves elected to go with the Askirti military rather than forge their own way, all female.
Sylvia, Ricks daughter, was allowed on the flag bridge per Jackie’s instruction. Although far from military protocol, and probably not a very good idea in a battle situation, she needed Rick by her side. And Rick needed his daughter by his.
“Are they always like this?” Sylvia asked her dad.
“Yup, pretty much,” the proud and jubilant father responded.
“There! There it is again!” Pari exclaimed.
“And what is ‘there’?” Jackie asked, rolling her eyes.
“High Queen, I am almost scared to say. Please proceed to the coordinates I provide.”
Annoyed and shaking her head, Jackie gave the orders to proceed in FTL for another few minutes in yet another direction. She was becoming annoyed with her AI at this point.
Ten minutes later, the task force came out of FTL.
“What the hell is that!” Jackie exclaimed as a nearby object was displayed on the wall screen. Everyone on the flag bridge stood up, even Rick and Sylvia at the sight.
Ahead of them was a ship that made the dreadnought they were on look tiny by comparison, it was an ancient ship that had received massive battle damage. It was just sitting there adrift between systems, where it would possibly remain for millions of years had someone not stopped in this particular region of space.
Rumors of Wars: The Askirti Chronicles - Book 2 Page 10