"They were shocked! But I finally persuaded them to listen. Finally they dressed me in a leather harness and dragged me before lady Gyor, expecting her to send me back to them.
"She took one look at me and carried me gently to her bedroom and showed me how to please her. I thought she might only keep me for a few years, like her other slaves. But I was devoted to her, I'd loved her for decades without realising it.
"Anyway, she dressed me and undressed me, in whatever way she liked and I felt very special. Then one day she came home with a few simple dresses, I was no longer dressed as a slave but as a free woman, and it was only then that I realised she loved me."
Ace laughed in admiration, "En-eta, you are one devious woman!"
"You what!" Gyor gasped from across the lawn as the spell shattered into a prismatic cloud that was lit by a hundred tiny flashes of lightning. She stood thunderous as the cloud exploded into black soot. "You lied to me!"
"I think I'd better run for it," En-eta gasped. She slipped from her gown to flee across the Base in a simple shift, as Gyor chased after her in rage.
"Do you think Gee will ever forgive her?" Enryn laughed.
"I'm sure she will, eventually," Ace chuckled, "but they'll have a lot of fun first."
Rosa gasped, "And she's been hiding this for four years!"
"That girl deserves Gyor," Enryn insisted.
"She's just as devious," Ace agreed. "That poor woman spent decades looking for a slave to control, and it never occurred to her that there might be a free person who could love her."
"And you Ace," Enryn sighed, "after your marrige ended, how many years did you hide from the world?"
"But I didn't hide Enryn, I was waiting for you," he said wistfully. "It's just a pity you were on the wrong planet."
Rosa laughed in admiration, "That was a good answer."
The first of the Assault Shuttles were delivered two days later, Eileen had taken the basic design and tweaked it up into a ship that would work.
They had been classed as EESs. The basic ship came in two parts, the first was an FTL drive section, with a long rang habitation module and a two man bridge, four defence turrets and a plasma cannon. But the second ship held the Assault section, with an armoured division for a full forty man Rifle Platoon, and six armoured combat cars folded against the body.
The combat section seemed to crouch on four weapon pods, the first two underneath the cab, containing the direct fire weapons, and the second at the rear holding the missiles and cannons for indirect fire. The pilot touched a switch and the weapon pods swung up towards the back, leaving two sets of tracks in their place, and the weapon pods now fixed for bombardment role. From being a fighter she had converted over to a mobile artillery piece, and then the six combat cars swung down to take four man fire teams into combat. So the combat cars would scout out the enemy and call in to ask the artillery to sort them out.
They were two completely separate ships, with the drive section only there to get the APC into and out of the war zone.
John called the Marines to order, he was an Ex-Lieutenant, if only with the Army, and so they listened politely. "We have a mission scheduled in four days, I'm going with my wife, and we thought it only polite to ask a few of you to accompany us."
"We're only taking the one ESS," Ace called out, "a few places have been filled already, but I'm asking for volunteers. You, you and you!"
"Have a heart Gunny," Sal sighed. "Can't you tell us what the mission is first?"
Isralla took over, "We've got wind of a base, it's not large but we don't think it should exist."
Enryn continued, "This is basically a training mission, or live firing exercise if you want. We go in, test our gear and come home when they are all dead. Sal and Ceri, you're with me. Favian and Bellona like wise."
"If you don't mind?" Favian asked. "I'm not sure of your customs, but I'd like to suggest we name the ESS, Janus, the God of Beginnings?"
John chuckled, "A fortuitous name."
Eileen began to issue the new carbines and suits of mesh armour that was as light and comfortable as silk, and far stronger than steel; it would be worn underneath their normal body armour.
The Janus exited hyperspace and flew in towards the dark moon, and separated from the drive module, which turned tail and fled to the outer edges of the system.
Then the pilot flew the Assault Shuttle around to the far side of the moon, falling towards the barren surface. They levelled out at a hundred meters and flew slowly through the dusty canyons and baked mountains.
For three thousand miles they crept around the tiny world, well below detection range.
Then a hundred miles from the target the Janus touched down on the dusty plane, and raised her weapon pods to ground assault mode, leaving her on two sets of tracks, and they drove through the night towards the target.
Ace and Enryn were trying to sleep with her head resting on his shoulder, as they swerved around boulders and craters. John and Isralla were in the cab, helping the driver to navigate through a maze of canyons.
Sal and Ceri sat at the weapons consoles, carefully watching for hostiles in their screens. While the rest of the Platoon tried to sleep.
It was only Favian and Bellona who looked apprehensive, they were both warriors who had been picked to fight on the wrong side in a war. It was never a choice, their masters had chosen to betray the Empire and tried to assassinate the future Empress, and failed miserably, but thousands had died in the war and they took the fall.
They were crucified in the corridor on the Ship Daedalus, with the rest of their comrades, and hung in agony for hours awaiting death, when an anonymous man ordered them all to be freed and turned over to his organisation.
An ordinary ship took them to a distant planet, in about five seconds! There they were placed in stasis, and the sheer scale on the asteroid storage vault was depressing, with millions held in eternal sleep; they were unsure if they would ever be revived.
Then they were revived, it could have been one second later or a thousand years.
But the new world they found was far from the one they had left, the Empire of Terra was lost in time and space, and now they found themselves on the other side of the galaxy about to start yet another war.
Typical!
"We really are the good guys," Enryn chuckled.
"Good, bad, what's the difference?" Bellona sighed. "We always get shafted no matter who wins."
"Not this time," Ace yawned. "I'm sure you're good soldiers, and I'm looking forward to finding out how good, but this time you're working for the Percivals, and they look after their own."
"You will be treated as Marines," Enryn insisted, "and have all of the duties and responsibilities that go with the territory, but also all the perks. That means you can have a life of your own. Off duty."
"I'm still not sure what that means," Favian sighed. "You don't have a brothel, or anywhere we can let off steam. So what are we supposed to do?"
"Oh boy," Enryn sighed in shock, "why do you need a brothel? Anything you need is right under your noses." She gestured to Bellona.
"We can't do that!" the woman gasped in outrage. "We could never manage to do that, it's indecent." But they had done that before, once their master had ordered Favian to rape Bellona for fun, and both Biroids had never forgotten the pain and shame as two close friends had fought and committed crimes against each other they would never forget. Favian never had a chance to refuse, he was just a toy to his master, bred to live and die at a whim. But Bellona had been created to be abused by her master, as well as to die for him. They were not even human, they were just a rich man's playthings.
Ace sighed, "I hope you won't mind if Enryn and I scandalise your sensibilities? But we're as good as married, and will be just as soon as we can make it back to Earth."
"Half our Marines are in relationships with other Marines," Enryn explained, "and I'm hoping for a joint wedding when we reach Earth." She gestured to Sal and Ceri, "I'm hopi
ng they will decide to join with us. Though I'm not too sure about who's going to wear white."
Ace chuckled, "It could be one hell of a wedding, with eighty couples in Marine dress uniforms, no-one will know who the brides are."
"You don't understand," Favian sighed, "we can't do that, it's not allowed."
"It is now," Enryn laughed.
"No, we can make it with prostitutes, bred the same as we," Bellona insisted. "Male or female, it doesn't matter. But to have sex with a fellow professional is unthinkable, our DNA won't allow it. We can't even make it with a human, unless they command us to please them."
"Genetic control," Ace gasped sadly.
"Well, forget it," Enryn chuckled, "the game has changed and the odds are now stacked in your favour."
Favian gasped, "What do you mean?"
"You'll find out, when you're ready," Ace chuckled.
The target was a collection of low domes and a few decrepit ships in a deep crater that had a force screen keeping a breathable atmosphere sealed off from the depths of space.
The Janus crouched behind a wall of jagged rock, sinking from sight of the target, as the Marines spread out to cover the area with sensors and carbines.
One of the combat cars swung down to take off position, John, Isralla, Ace and Enryn climbed aboard. Then Ace asked Favian and Bellona to accompany them.
Pulling on merchant clothing over their armored bodysuits, they sealed the combat-car and skimmed off into the eternal night.
"Okay, so what do we know for sure?" Ace asked simply. "This doesn't look like the sort of place the Lords would frequent."
"Only that their Warriors are here all the time, and that I don't like," John sighed. "This system is too close to too many advanced races, the ones that scare them."
"So you think it's a staging post?" Enryn asked.
"That, or a listening post," Isralla guessed. "Keeping tabs on all shipping in this sector, ready to alert the pirates. The instillation is illegal, but so small no one cares. "
Favian sighed, "Just what are we doing here?"
"Playing it by ear," John laughed. "We're making this one up as we go along."
"If we do this right we'll be chased back to the Janus," Isralla laughed along with her husband.
"And then?" Bellona sighed.
"You didn't think all those weapons were just for show did you?" Enryn chuckled.
The combat-car pulled up outside the main dome, next to a small shuttle that looked a hundred years old. Adjusting their disguises they entered through the main airlock, and into a world of flashing lights and shrieking music.
"Think we've found us a cantina," Ace laughed.
Humanoids of a hundred kinds bustled about the main dome, drinking, dancing and whatever else they felt like doing in dim sealed off alcoves.
A bar ran along one curved wall, with about twenty staff serving drinks, and drugs that were illegal on a hundred worlds.
It appeared that you could buy or rent anything or anyone at a moment's notice. There was a stream of young girls and boys being led to and fro from the private alcoves, some looked on in resignation, but others in open horror at their fates. The youngest could hardly walk, and they oldest looked worn out at twenty five.
Dim screams, male, female and some childish filtered through the security screens, some in fun but many in horror, disgust and mind-blowing terror.
The stage held a lovely brunette in a skin tight black outfit, who was shacked to a metal frame as a man canned her exposed breasts and pubes without mercy.
They walked past the bar and into one of the smaller domes, finding a thieves kitchen where you could buy anything.
"So this is how they get away with it," Isralla sighed. "By providing whatever service people want, no mater how perverse. John my love, can we close this dump down?"
"Not with just the Janus Ralla, and the Texas is too far out of range. I'm sorry, but we can't help them."
"We never expected this," Ace sighed. "We probably should have done."
"Let's find out what other perversions are for sale in this den of iniquity," Enryn whispered weakly. "Favian, we've found you brothel, so if you want an hour off duty we'll understand."
"I do not touch children," he gasped in horror. "All right, I'm no saint, but I'm not a bloody monster either."
"You did right to bring us," Bellona sighed weakly. "I've seen a few bad things in my life, and done my fair share, but to so abuse kids is unthinkable! Now we know which side we're on."
One dome held a hundred cages, from which the damned gazed out with dead eyes, awaiting their turn in Hell! Most were young women who felt far older than they looked, but teenage boys and even children could be ordered at will from a terminal in each alcove.
A few men wandered through the cages, window shopping until they saw the required level of terror in the prisoner's eyes. Then a quick sale and the victim was dragged from their cage into a life of agony, some never returned, and it was never explained if they had been sold or murdered.
Most of the victims had been through this before, ordered by number from old clients, or picked at random by new ones. Their only life was pain and suffering, their only hope of relief was death. But a few were so terrified they could only be fresh meat, new stock awaiting their turn at torture and abuse.
Isralla turned to see a tiny cage holding a brother and sister who could hardly be four years old. She turned white, but forced herself to turn away.
"John, this place is going down!" she warned her husband.
"I never doubted it," he sighed, "but will you wait till we find out what's going on before you rearrange the local geography?"
"I'll give some thought."
Bellona whispered to Ace, "What's the problem?"
"Isralla hasn't Gyor's serenity, or her control, sometimes her spells tend to overreact, disastrously."
"I still can't believe it's real," Favian gasped. "I've seen a few tricks, but nothing I can't explain if I try hard enough."
"You'll learn," Enryn chuckled. "If you live long enough."
They stood to one side as a servant pulled two girls from a cage, ripped off their few rags and dragged them into the main dome, as they screamed for mercy. They were sisters of about the same age, but not identical, one was an inch taller than the other and had darker hair. But their horror was impossible to tell apart. Unfortunately they just weren't important enough to save.
Something was wrong.
Isralla knew she was missing something vital, but had no idea what it was. She looked at the whores, prostitutes or slaves. There was something so fundamentally wrong she just couldn't see the problem.
It couldn't be the slaves, they were just that, slaves. Then why did she feel so sickened? She been in some pretty bad places and seen some terrible things, but few had affected her this way.
Hell, she'd grown up on Yag-Urth, seeing slaves abused daily.
She turned back to see the children, noticing the fear in their grey eyes. And then it hit her, nearly all the slaves were the same. From the same world- or ship!
With a trembling hand she reached down to pick up the scraps of fabric torn from the sisters who had just been dragged off to be raped.
She opened out the rags to see the remains of a strip dress, a single strip of white linen five foot long by one wide, with a hole in the middle to go over the head, and held together by a sash.
Enryn saw the outfit in disbelief, she had never owned one, but her sister Jinryn had, and most of the children of the Ship!
They both turned to see the slaves with incredulity, most had dark blond hair and grey eyes, and a completion that would be indistinguishable from the white races of Earth.
John and Ace turned from the rags to see the impossible, over forty people who could only have been kin to Enryn.
"They are just like Jina, our wife," Isralla snapped. "And that makes them kin!"
"To hell with the mission," John gasped, "this is now a rescue mission."
>
"So what do you want?" Ace sighed.
"Leave Ralla and me to sort them out. I want you to cause a fuss, get them to chase you back to the Janus."
"You're asking us to start a bar fight?" Enryn gasped in shock.
"No, I'm telling you."
Ace turned to Favian, "I told you there were advantages working for the Percival family."
"This is a direct order sir?" Bellona gasped. "And what limits are their?"
"These bastards don't deserve limits," Isralla snapped as she looked back from a cage of abused children. "I'm authorising lethal force."
"Any who don't give chase," John insisted, "we will sort out, our way!"
"You know," Favian laughed, "this sounds like fun."
Isralla returned to the four year olds, ripping the lock off their cage in rage. The thug who had just taken the sisters to be raped came back and saw her reaching for the kids. "Hey, you! They've just been sold! What the he..."
That was as far as he got before Isralla's golden eyes began to glow with anger, and she lashed out in wrath; he fell to the floor in agony as something began to eat his chest from the inside.
"Fire ants?" John asked.
"No, a singularity! We've about an hour before this moon gets a new crater."
John drew his Glock pistol and started to screw on the suppressor, looking for any more back room boys who might cause problems. He fired three times killing them in near silence, before they even knew there was a threat. When he turned back his wife was hugging the kids possessively.
It didn't surprise him, she took after her mother, a real soft touch. He started to open the cages and organise the break out, ignoring the man who thrashed on the floor in terror and agony. The thug just didn't know how dead he really was!
The Marines walked into the bar, looking for trouble, trying to find the right people to piss off. That came as natural with Marines as breathing.
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