by Stella Cassy
We soared down toward the spaceport. I hadn’t been there since I arrived as a confused prisoner of the Pax, but it was pretty easy to recognize. There were dozens of spaceships scattered about on landing pads, so unless this was the universe’s biggest secondhand spaceship showroom, I had a pretty good guess of where we were and what was about to happen next.
We soared past the giant rocket-shaped ships, big cargo carriers, a few patrol ships bristling with weapons, and ended up landing by one of the smallest, least impressive of the ships. A little silver oval-shaped thing.
“Dismount!”
Good idea. Perhaps I could find a ship of my own to steal. Not that they had covered how to fly a spaceship in any of my freshman courses back at Princeton. In retrospect, very little of what they taught was turning out to be useful out in the real world. Not on this world, anyway.
Tentatively, I swung a leg over the dragon’s back, so that I was half hanging from his neck. He lowered himself down closer to the ground, and I slid down until I had my feet planted back on Ea— Minapolis.
I ran a hand over the top of my head, shaking my head in annoyance.
“That ride didn’t do my hair any favors.”
“Shall I remove it for you?” The Dragon turned his head slightly in my direction, a wisp of smoke drifting out threateningly from between his nostrils.
I took a step back warily. I didn’t know much about dragons. Or Drakons. Did they kid around? Or were they just psychotic killers who burned anyone that annoyed them?
“No. A brush will do.”
He did not immediately produce a brush, much to my annoyance.
“Get in the ship. We do not have long.”
I brushed off my shoulders, imagining that there would be dust on them. There wasn’t — presumably it had blown off during our thrilling ride through the air — but I did notice that there were a few chunks of stone that had somehow embedded themselves in the folds of the robe I was wearing. One of the fragments of my erstwhile home was quite sizable, with a wicked point and a sharp edge. Could be useful, I thought, and tucked it into the large pocket on the front of my robe.
As I peered down, I noticed that the front of my outfit was torn slightly, allowing a view which would’ve excited a few of the boys I knew back on Earth. I tried to fold my robe more tightly closed, but it had decided that it resolutely wanted me to flash a good view of my cleavage to anyone who cared to look. In terms of annoyances in my life at the moment, it was way, way, down the list.
“No thanks,” I said in answer to the dragon’s command to board the ship. “I’m good here. Nice meeting you.”
A rumble came from deep inside the dragon. Kind of like if you had taken a tiger’s growl and made it a dozen times more threatening. It seemed he didn’t think his command was an optional one. We’d see about that.
There was a mechanical noise from the ship as a gangway lowered itself down toward us. It was a silver ramp, the same color as the outside of the ship. Having been kidnapped by aliens once already, I wasn’t eager to repeat the experience. I wanted to find my own ship.
“You’re a slave. Do as you’re told.”
“I’m not your slave. See ya!”
Before the dragon could think, I spun around and started to sprint away, planning to look for somewhere to hide to start off with. Then hopefully find a spaceship with an open door and a comprehensive instruction manual.
Unfortunately, my new dragon captor was a lot quicker than I imagined. I didn’t get very far. About one step, in fact. He knocked me over with a wing, and I found myself lying on the ground, looking up at the sky above, until my view was blocked by a big, threatening dragonhead glaring down at me.
“I said ‘Get on the ship.’”
It didn’t look like I was going to have much choice. That didn’t mean I was going to go willingly. I shook my head up at him. If he really wanted me on that ship, he was going to have to make me.
“Jal, get over here,” said the Dragon in a throaty voice.
There were hurried steps down the gangway, and another Drakon, in his humanoid form, ran down.
“Sir, we have been reported to the Minapolis authorities. They have put out a warrant for us.”
Rethryn put a talon on my chest, just below my neck and above my breasts to hold me in place.
“We shall depart immediately. Carry the slave aboard.”
I tried to wriggle out from underneath, but it was no use. The Drakon that Rethryn had called Jal came over, grabbed me by the upper arm, and as Rethryn released the pressure on my chest, picked me up and slung me over a very broad shoulder.
“I don’t want to go on the ship!” I yelled as I was carried up the gangway. It didn’t look like I had a choice. Once again, I wasn’t being consulted.
Neither of them said anything. I didn’t think it was because they were deaf, but more because they didn’t think anything I was saying was worth listening to.
At the top of the gangway, Jal dropped me onto the floor.
“Stay.”
My eyes locked on the gangway below me. I was very strongly considering sprinting down it and off into the sunset — or another part of the spaceport, anyway. But at the bottom, I could see Rethryn, on his way up. He had shifted while I hadn’t been looking and was now back in his humanoid form. The large, orange patterned Drakon was thumping up the gangway. I wasn’t exactly an expert on their expressions, but he didn’t look happy. I considered trying to dodge around him in a desperate bid to flee.
“Get us out of here!” commanded Rethryn into the interior of the ship with a bellowing yell that could surely be heard in even the most distant corners. “Now!”
This would be my last chance to escape. I was worried that I had gotten myself from out of the frying pan of the bank on Minapolis, into the fire of a Drakon spaceship. While I liked to pretend my life couldn’t get any worse when I was working as a slave, in the back of my mind I knew it could.
My hand drifted to the collar around my neck. The collar to which I knew where the keys were. I had a plan for it, back in the bank. I was going to remove it myself, escape myself. Maybe even burn down that stupid building myself. But all that had been taken from me by these dragons. My autonomy removed. Like I was a slave. Twice over.
“Nuh-uh.”
Rethryn was at the top of the gangplank, and he tilted his head as he heard me whispering under my breath. I burst to my feet, and this time instead of trying to run around him, I decided to surprise him by winding him. I flew straight at him, swinging a small but heavy fist, and punching him hard in the solar plexus. Or whatever the Drakon equivalent of that piece of human anatomy was. I missed, getting him just a bit too low, instead getting a feel of just how hard a Drakon’s abs can be.
He grunted. But it wasn’t the grunt of someone having the wind knocked out of them as they doubled over in surprised disablement. It was the grunt of annoyance of someone after a fly landed on their finger and they had to go to the effort of lifting the small appendage to flick it away.
Didn’t matter. I twisted and spun around him, tasting my last breath of Minapolian air.
Reaching into my robe, I grabbed the sharp fragment of white and pink stone from the remains of the bank. As I clutched it in my hand, he wrapped one strong arm around my waist and lifted me off the floor as if I was a balloon-figure instead of a real, heavy, flesh and blood person.
“Put me down!”
His grip only tightened. If he didn’t want to take orders from me, I was going to make him.
With the sharp, jagged piece of rock in my hand, I reached up and stabbed it into his shoulder as hard as I could. I would’ve liked to have gone a little lower to get him in the heart, but at the angle he was holding me, it was impossible. I stabbed him two, three, four times, one after the other, stab, stab, stab, stab.
Then I was flying. He threw me off him with enough force to send me across the small entranceway of the ship into the metal wall beyond, which I crashed into
and slid to the floor.
I was up again immediately, running at the Drakon. My back and shoulders hurt where I had hit the wall, but adrenaline was pouring through me and I could ignore the pain. I wasn’t acting logically now. Behind Rethryn I could see the gangway closing. There wasn’t going to be any escape. But that didn’t mean I was going to play nice.
As I approached him, he held up an arm warily, orange-tinted blood running down from his shoulder. But I didn’t go for his shoulder this time, I dived for his legs, landing at his feet and reaching up, stabbing at his thick, muscular thighs with my makeshift weapon.
I didn’t even get past the scales this time.
Then his hands — or talons or whatever they were — closed around my shoulders, and they lifted me up into the air. I tried to reach out and get him again, but I couldn’t. His arms were too long, and his grip on my shoulders too tight. He dunked the point of a talon into the fleshy muscle just below my collarbone.
“Drop it,” he hissed.
I hesitated, and he pushed the talon in further, almost breaking the skin. I dropped it.
With a start, I realized the ship had become noisier, and was shaking. The gangway was fully closed. There was going to be no escape now. We had taken off, and I was at the mercy of the Drakon now.
“Jal! Get back out here!”
There was a thumping of heavy steps as I hung in the air. I stared at my nemesis before me, slightly amused to see several small puncture wounds where I had stabbed him, and orange-tinged blood leaking out of the new holes. My handiwork didn’t seem to have led to a weakness in his grip though. So I hung in the air in front of him while we waited for his colleague to arrive.
“Sir.”
“Put the slave in the brig.”
“I do have a name you know,” I hissed.
The Drakon seem to have gone deaf again. Unceremoniously, he released his grip on my shoulders and I fell to the floor. As I hadn’t been expecting it, I was on my knees before I’d barely realized what was happening. Before I could get up again, the other Drakon, Jal, had wrapped an arm around my waist, encompassing my arms which were hanging by my side as well. With the arm wrapped around me like an iron vice, he carried me further into the ship.
As I was toted away like nothing more than a sack of potatoes, I stared after Rethryn with angry hate in my eyes.
He was staring at me too. If he’d been human, I would’ve put his look at somewhere around ‘confusion’.
Good. Keeping your rivals and adversaries off-kilter was a good tactic. That was something else my father had taught me. It usually came after getting them to underestimate you. First they underestimate you, then bam, you surprise them and knock them off-kilter. It really put you in a position of strength.
Right now, I wasn’t sure that I could call the position I was in strength, but I would have to work with what I had.
Jal carried me to what I can only describe as a cage. He opened it with his free hand, pushed me inside, then closed the door behind me.
This wasn’t the first cage I had been in since starting my new career as a slave, but it was the smallest.
“Let me out.” I didn’t even shout it. I knew it was futile. I didn’t even want to waste the energy on putting effort into my demand. It was more like I was doing something expected of me.
“No,” said Jal as he stalked away, not even bothering to look over his shoulder as he answered.
I leaned back against the bars and slowly slid down, intending to sit since I had nothing better to do.
I failed.
This really was the smallest cage I’ve ever been in. I couldn’t actually lower myself to a sitting position, since it was too narrow. Instead, I kind of wedged myself in, leaning against the bars behind me.
“Well this sucks.”
What would I be doing if I was back on Earth, I wondered. I’d probably be out on a date with some guy who wanted to marry me for my father’s money. Or maybe one who just wanted to fuck me because I was hot.
I let out a long, lingering sigh. What was I going to do?
Back when I lived on Earth, I could always answer that question because I could choose exactly what I wanted to do. Even in crap situations there was always a choice. Call dad and ask for money, or help? Try and solve the problem on my own? Call the police, call my professors, call my friends… There were always options.
Not anymore.
In space, no one can hear your calls.
All I could do was wait and see what would happen next.
So that’s what I did.
7
Rethryn
Rethryn
Back on the bridge I was in no mood for crap from anyone.
“Status?”
Luckily, F knew my mood.
“Minapolis ordered us to return to face justice. I ignored them.”
“Good. Are we being chased?”
“Our velocity is already too great for any of their patrol vessels to reach us. They made a cursory attempt, but quickly gave up and resorted to threats. Threats that they cannot backup, sir.”
Pathetic. The whole planet was nothing more than good for nothing traders and merchants. If only I had a real fleet of my own, I could strip it bare.
“Shall I prepare the medical bay, sir?”
Thrantok was looking down at my shoulder. There was a small amount of blood leaking out where the slave girl had scratched me. She was a feisty one all right. I had been so taken by her sleek form, and the way she had gracefully moved through the air as she flew toward me, that she had caught me by surprise when it turned out she actually had a weapon. I had let her come at me, so that I could feel the soft, warm skin of her flesh against mine. But I hadn’t expected it to come with such a sting. She was lucky I hadn’t crushed her throat and tossed her corpse down the gangway.
Although she deserved such a punishment, it would have been a waste. It did make me think though. Why had she attacked me?
Illswing. Or rather, Illswing’s mother, Leiren. I gently fingered my wound, feeling the pain and letting it build the anger inside me. She threatened me before. Now I had been attacked. I growled deeply. Surely this was her doing.
“Sir?”
I waved at Thrantok dismissively and stomped off the bridge. He could handle things there. I wanted to use a comms unit, but not on the bridge in front of everyone. I headed to my cabin for some privacy.
This ship was so small and pathetic that I was there in under fifty paces. I pressed my palm against the button outside my room, and the door swished open to reveal my minuscule quarters. I did not even have a separate office from which to make my call. Instead my comms unit was in the same room as my bed and my private dining facility. It was barely better than the quarters I used as a cadet.
I stomped inside. I had tried to create a little taste of home here, but the effort seemed risible.
On my wall I had pictures of myself in the various ceremonies that had recognized my position and success in life so far. From gaining the rank of ship captain — if ‘ship’ wasn’t too grand a word for the vessel I currently commanded — to back when I had graduated the Academy. Of course there were family portraits too.
It was barely acceptable as a captain’s quarters. Everything was stuffed in one room together. A large bed, a dining area, and a seating and relaxation area. Did the ship’s designers not know the social status of its future captain?
I snorted. Of course they didn’t. How could they? It didn’t stop me being annoyed by it though. A royal prince deserved better.
I had a workspace on one side of the room, and I went over and sat down on the high-backed chair in front of the desk. I tapped the controls to work the comms unit. After I had selected the person I wanted to contact, I took a moment before pressing the button to connect.
I fingered my wound again, digging a talon into the surprisingly deep scratch the slave had made. It hurt when I did it, and that pleased me. It strengthened the anger and resolve I had for
this call. After I pressed the connect button, I did not have to wait more than a few microns before it connected.
The purple plume of the Drakon on the other end of the screen flittered in a wave, as she pretended to be pleased to see me. She always did that. If I didn’t know what she was really like, she might even fool me.
“Rethryn Hielsrane. What a pleasant surprise. How goes your mission?”
I could tell from the way that she asked the question that she was hoping it was going poorly.
“You know how my mission is going. But don’t think for a minute your little plans and agents are going to stop me.”
She feigned innocence. Of course. Probably because she knew it would get a rise out of me. And she was right. I was a warrior not a doormat.
“Whatever do you mean, dear?”
“This.” I tilted my position so she could see the wounds on my shoulder where the slave had stabbed me. “Did you really think your little spy could seriously hurt me?”
“Did you get scratched, dear?”
I wanted to reach through the screen and throttle her. Why did she keep calling me dear? I was a threat to both her and her son.
“Your little agent was unsuccessful in her attempt to maim me. What was your plan? Make me so disfigured my future mate will reject me? I suggest you attempt no such course of action again.”
She laughed, long, slow and melodiously.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I can assure you, if I had taken any action, you would be in no state to call me and complain about it.”
I glared at the screen, her chirpy manner making my blood roil and my inner dragon ache to burst out and deliver vengeance.
“And anyway,” she continued, “I don’t think you need to worry about your future mate rejecting you.”
My tone turned deadly cold. She was on very, very dangerous ground. “And why might that be?”