“Do I have to stay in here for the remainder of this trip?”
Krizen sighs, shaking his head. “I’m not planning on it. I have no idea where your galaxy is. You’ll have to come with me to the constellation interface later so we can chart it out.”
Sweat beading on my forehead, I nod and agree. Krizen’s eyes scour me over, taking in my blonde hair. “I’ve never seen an alien with your kind of features before,” he said softly. “Your hair seems to be less of a biological advantage and more of sexual selection. I imagine your species is attracted to a good head of hair…”
I blink, unsure what to say, what to do or how to react. He’s scrutinizing me now. He doesn’t look as though he wants to be interrupted. If I’m honest, he does intimidate me more so than the wasp aliens. Those awesome muscles exposed upon his body make me marvel. I feel like he could just flex that arm around my head and my neck will be ripped off. He leaves his arms uncovered, but his chest is concealed by a black jerkin.
I accept his advice to rest longer, and curl up into my bed as the door shuts.
The head slaver’s name is Mardyn Xav. He’s the one responsible for taking women off their planets, holing them up and abusing them, intending to sell them off for profit. Not caring about who they are in the slightest.
I’ve been traveling for ages in that box of fear, with nothing but my thoughts for company. I’ve watched as every single communication attempt with the other prisoners ends in failure.
Now I have a chance to go home. To return to earth after God knows how long it’s been. I wonder how many people know I’m missing. I picture my mother with her frizzy blonde hair and too-wide smile going on national television, pleading for anyone who knows what happened to her daughter. I see my landowner knocking on my door, wondering why rent hasn’t been paid.
I probably have many messages on my cellphone, which is still with me, but even if the battery wasn’t long since dead, I’m too far away from earth satellites to receive a signal at all.
I’m too far from anything.
I test my status as prisoner. I sleep for a little bit, then attempt to leave my room. To my surprise, the door slides open. I step out, for the first time unhindered. I see sentries posted at the room entrances, but they don’t act alarmed at my stepping out. In fact, there’s already women out, sitting on benches and chatting, or lining up by what appears to be a vending machine, or dispenser. My tattered boots clank on the floor beneath. I breathe in what’s likely filtered oxygen, and consider if I should talk to the other women or not. It occurs to me I’ll understand their languages now, but I’m not sure if I want to say anything. What would we share? We were all imprisoned together.
Come to think of it… there’s a lot more women here than what Mardyn Xav kept upon his Marauder. I hastily count the cells and the enormous expanse of the room, seeing there’s around fifty rooms. It’s a large area, more like a collection of small hotel rooms, except we have a type of communal shower instead on one side. I see a few of the women are in there now, and there’s hot steam emanating from the shower entrance.
Curious, I walk over to a dispenser where three women are waiting, and watch what they do. They don’t put any tokens inside it – they just select from a menu, and it’s printed. Like, 3D printed.
Of food.
I gawp at this technology for a moment. When it’s my turn, I scroll through the menu, recognizing absolutely none of the food variants at all.
What the hell is Xaria tskink soup? Or Ptari rump steak with Nzi sauce? Jesus Christ, I’m better off just closing my eyes and jabbing a button at random. I notice a drinks menu flashing up after I’ve pressed on some random food. The only thing I recognize is water, and that’s the one I press. I watch in amazement as my food and drink is 3D printed, before taking it.
I have some kind of greasy dish with purple chunks. I try it tentatively, and my mouth is assaulted with a sweet, feathery taste, with a tang to it that reminds me of smoked Applewood cheese. It’s not bad, but the texture is peculiar, and has an unnatural vibe to it. I suppose it’s a consequence of food not created the natural, authentic way.
The technology bamboozles me, though. It’s hard enough to grasp the fact that I’m light years over my head, and have officially dipped into the realm of fringe science.
Krizen doesn’t speak to me again until one day later – the ship has an internal clock to help simulate night and day patterns, though it’s not any clock I’ve ever seen – and he calls me up to the command deck where there’s a vast interactive map full of star constellations and galaxies.
I’m flabbergasted. I can’t even begin to make heads or tail of it as Krizen says, “Here’s all the data we have of the different alliances and mapped charts. The red dots denote black holes, the green denote wormholes, which we can use for universe hopping over vast distances. The big white dot is our current UP. Universal Position. I know where the other aliens belong, and I already have contact from one of the alliance planets to let me drop them off. But I have no idea where your Milky Way is. We probably have a different name for it, so take a look.”
I shake my head helplessly. “I have no idea how to look at this, or where to start. I told you, we’ve never gone into space like this before. How am I supposed to know?”
Krizen rubs his hand over his face, a vein twitching in his large forehead. I sense irritation emanating from him. “We haven’t had any luck with the other women. You’re the only one who seems like she still has her head screwed on. Just… look. Okay?”
A fresh wave of irritation courses through me. How the hell am I supposed to process this? I’ve already told him I can’t do 4D map reading of a bunch of constellations with names I can barely wrap my brain around.
Resisting the urge to roll my eyes, I step past his impressive bulk, trying to ignore the way he dominates the room just by the way he stands, with the way his muscular body promises a lot of pain if you think opposing him is smart. The light brown eyes settle into an inscrutable expression again, though I still feel the annoyance.
“I can give you the time if you need.”
“No need. I don’t understand it. I see nothing that constitutes to my galaxy. Hell, even if you have it on here, it’s under a different name. Uh… do you have a galaxy called Andromeda on here?”
He shakes his head. My cheeks flush, and I want to cry. I really can’t understand this. It’s just a swathe of dots, galaxies and constellations, with many the same shape as the Milky Way, and I hardly know what Andromeda looks like, or anything else. The map is so vast that it could take me many earth years to properly decipher. Looking for one planet out of the trillions of galaxies that exist… I begin to feel ill, trying to process that information. He spots me swaying, but doesn’t twitch a muscle to help. I’m on my own for this.
“Useless,” Krizen mutters. “I have no idea what Mardyn was thinking, seizing aliens from an undeveloped planet. Look. It’s this simple. If you don’t know where you live, I can’t get you home. The best I can do is drop you off at one of the Demogalactic planets, their alien rights laws are the most refined I know. And I’m not about to waste time and resources hunting for your planet where there’s other aliens in need of help. It’s that simple.”
I’m shaking in barely suppressed rage. I’m completely out of my depth, here. I didn’t choose for this.
“For fucks sake,” I say, and the curse word makes him raise one eyebrow, “you think I want to be here? You think I chose for this? I just want to wake up in my bed and go to work and not have to deal with a concept that we haven’t even begun to grasp!”
“I’m sorry,” he replies, though he doesn’t sound apologetic at all, “but there’s nothing else I can do. Maybe we can keep you on the ship for a little while longer, and give you more time to look at the map, but you need to understand. There’s no point looking for something if it doesn’t exist.”
“I suppose I’m little more than a slave in this context then, right?”
Something hits me. I’m confused – all my muscles are becoming soupy, lethargic, and he steps forward, grabbing my front and tearing off the clothes. My breasts flop out, and I want to scream, except I can’t. He does the same for my pants, that terrifying strength ripping my old earth clothes to shreds. I’ve nothing but my boots and socks. Another wave washes over me, and to my horror, I find that my body is getting wet. My legs spread of their own accord as his hand nears my throbbing core.
“This is how we gain our mates in my culture,” he hisses. “Except the women can mentally wrestle back just as strongly. Usually, they’re stronger. I can make you do anything. Anything. Jump out the ship into the vacuum of space. Dance until you drop dead. Or this.”
I shiver, my mind screaming, unable to take the focus off the fact that I can’t resist this. I can’t stop it. He could grope me, go inside me right now, and there’s not a thing I can do.
“I have this power, and yet, I focus on saving the women. Certainly not because I’m a nice person. But because despite everything, I do care.”
Still keeping me locked in the paralysis, he then walks off to a boxed panel in the side of the command room, and starts fumbling through, until he grabs some plain gray cloth. He strides back to me, and my eyes glare helplessly, and my mind curses the arousal my body’s seething through, the way my core burns greedily for his touch, even though it’s not consent. It’s unwanted stimulation. Unable to unlatch my jaw to speak, I watch as he starts putting new clothes on me.
“You were due for something fresh, anyway. You’ve been in the same clothes for months, I can smell. These will keep you properly insulated.” He purses his lips, inspecting my boots. “Let me deal with these.” My body again moves of its own accord, and I sit on a chair. He pulls off my boots and socks, places new panties on me, then grabs some shoes from the same locker. The first ones don’t fit, so he takes a better size. I feel thoroughly weirded out, and my new panties are already getting damp. He also brings back two more sets of new clothing, and the new shoes on my feet are flexible, like plimsolls.
“I have the power,” he says, his voice a snarl. “And it insults me that you would ever consider me to be along the same irk as Mardyn. Since you do not respect me, you will taste a little fear. You will also taste my mercy.” He releases me, and suddenly I feel like I can breathe properly again. I slump on the chair, huffing in fury. Instantly, before he has a chance to add anything else, I stand up and slap him in the face.
He stares at me for a long moment, then chuckles. “I suppose you have a right to that. But don’t forget what I can do. Don’t dismiss what I’m offering. You may come back here anytime, examine the map. You may have free roam of the ship. But you never accuse me of being a slaver.”
Shivering in absolute fury, I spin on my heels and storm out of the command room. Krizen merely watches my back, unmoving, the warning still in his eyes.
Chapter Three
Krizen sticks to his word, though it takes me a long fucking time to even want to speak to him again. A thrill of fear courses through me when I consider that all of the Fauvs like him on the ship have the exact same ability. Any moment, if one of them decided to act upon a whim, they could just lock my limbs into place, and I wouldn’t be able to do shit. Tell me, how do you cope in a situation where everyone is far, far stronger than you?
It makes your skin crawl. I don’t want to be powerless, but I am. I’m like some caveman whose been yanked eight thousand years into the future and all I have is a stick against laser guns, technology and civilizations far larger than I’ve ever been able to comprehend.
The only think I can do is try and change the unknown into the known. I have to figure out how this ship works, this system works. Only when I have the knowledge will I not freak the fuck out of my skull.
My mind keeps swimming back to Krizen’s possession of me. The way my body just gave in and shuddered into wetness, ready for him to do anything. When I reflect on it too strongly, I still feel an echo of that arousal. It makes me want to scream and beat my fists against the bed, but I also can’t get over the fact that he’s stuck to his word. I’ve been given freedom, or as much freedom as you can have on a spaceship in the far reaches of the universe.
I’ve been allowed to just stroll into the command room without so much as a blink between some of the sentries, to bring up the map. Each attempt is futile, but I also know that looking is still better than doing nothing. Maybe there is a pattern here. Maybe the Milky Way can be found. Krizen is in the command room about eighty percent of the time, so I’m not shot of the sight of him. The trembling and flinches when he neared me stopped after a while, since he never tried that… mind manipulation trick again. He’s sticking to his word, and the impact, the memory of that fear has stopped me from accusing him directly. I still feel at times that I’m trapped, and it makes me miserable. I also understand my life is infinitely better than the one on Mardyn’s ship.
When I’m in the command room one day, with my eyes glazing over from the sheer amount of constellations I’m looking at – and I’ve just figured how the wormholes interconnect at last – an idea hits me.
“Hey, Krizen.”
He glances at me from his desk, where a lot of flickering images are displayed, including some kind of chat room. “Hmm?”
“You say Mardyn’s chasing us, right?”
He nods. “Yes. He’s unwilling to give up his humans. Even one will be enough for him, with your kind of value. I took a risk in doing this, but I don’t want to leave stones unturned when I face the problem at hand.”
I notice the two guards to the command room give each other side glances. “Well. Is there any way you can, like, extract the information from Mardyn’s ship? I mean, he’s been into my galaxy. He took me. Can you offer a deal or hack into him or something?”
Krizen places a hand on his forehead, light brown eyes narrowed. “No. We can’t hack into a ship’s mainframe. The best we can do is hack into the comms, but everything else is in a closed circuit. And Mardyn’s kind, the Nariten, they’re not exactly known for complacency. If they feel their honor has been breached, then they’ll stop at nothing to either get you back, or just blow us up to restore their honor.”
“Really?”
“Yes. We wait for them, we have a high chance of being blown up before anyone can say ‘oops.’”
I contemplate the information, scowling. “That’s dumb. He’s wasting time and resources himself in pursuit.”
“Aliens have ways of conducting themselves. Most cultures have strict codes of conduct that mostly applies to them. Universe forbid that those codes interfere with other aliens.”
“Huh.” Disappointment surges. I’d really hoped I could extract the information from Mardyn, somehow. “I take it we don’t have the firepower to deal with him?”
“If we blow up his ship, you’re no closer to home, either. Still, it’s good to see you’re processing things through. We’ll make a spacer of you yet.”
“Thanks,” I reply dryly, though it’s tough to fight through the disappointment. Without a clear path to home, I feel directionless. Drifting. Existing without purpose, surrounded by unknown. Though at least, some things are becoming clearer to me. There’s less mystery to the place, though some things are still out of my mental grasp.
“Come over here,” he says like a command, but without the whole mental trickery associated with it. I follow his massive form over to the bridge of the room, where we get a good view of the space in front. “You wouldn’t think there was this many colors in space, would you?”
I stand next to him, and examine the vacuum outside our ship. Stars seem as though they’re slowly moving around us, but what arrests my attention is the cosmic paint-splash of color dominating the left side of the ship. Purples, greens, yell
ows and blues. Everything is mashed together with chunks of meteor dust within. I even see static crackling – there’s a storm raging in all that color. It’s immense, possible spanning entire galaxy lengths, and I’m momentarily speechless. I wouldn’t have been able to see it unless I was standing here, either. “Wow,” I say eventually, unsure what else to add. The canvas of space is a lot more dynamic than I expected. It’s not just stars spread out, and planets orbiting them. It’s so much more.
Krizen nods and smiles. “Wow is about how I would describe it, too.” He then looks at me seriously. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed your moping about the ship. I know you miss your home and you want to get back to it, but there’s nothing more we can do other than what you’re already doing. You should learn to appreciate the things in front of you as well. Like this.” He waves his large hands around, which are big enough to easily envelop mine. “And think. If you do get back as well, you’ll be carrying knowledge that few are blessed to on your planet. You’ll know space travel is possible. That there are civilizations out here that already know most of the universe’s secrets. You’re not helping yourself otherwise.”
At first, I want to lash out at him, and tell him his words are nonsense. I should be allowed to feel bad, I’ve been taken away from everything I’ve ever known. I’m in a place I never wanted to be, and I have no idea of what my family is thinking. But I’m also not seeing the opportunity of this place. I’m not really looking or liking what I see.
It makes me ponder. I thank him, and I go back to my designated room to reflect further, and write upon the papers that are here. I’m accumulating a fairly big pile of them by now. His words help me to see him in a different light. To appreciate him a little better. I start watching the outside more, absorbing the views offered, the planets that blur past us. We’ve made some quick pit stops at planets, to drop off some of the alien women in their birth homes, and the people here diminish. We also interact with another slaver ship, and through careful communications, Krizen and his crew buy eight more women and four males, helping them settle in the ship, giving them translators if they do not understand.
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