"I think I'll call you Slut," Isralla laughed, "for you truly are one."
"If you please us," John laughed, "we will keep you. But any trouble and you'll get it back a thousand fold. Well either beat you till you can't stand or sell you to a farmer to pull his plough, perhaps both."
"And if I please you Master," she whimpered. "What then will you do with me?"
"I was thinking of a little brand," Isralla sighed, "tasteful and erotic, but only if you really deserve it."
"The brand is if I'm good?" she gasped in horror.
"The brand would mean that we're keeping you," John explained, "for life."
"You will forever be a slave," Gyor insisted. "But to be a recreational slave is better than being tortured to death like the girls we rescued from your club."
"I know of..."
"Of course you don't," Isralla snapped, "you were too busy having sex! We'll show you the infirmary tomorrow, there are still about twenty children being treated for sexual and physiological abuse."
June pulled up the twins, letting the slave see what damage a lifetime of bondage could do to kids that could hardly walk.
"Jina, take the slut away, clean and feed her, then chain her to our bed by a short leash," John insisted. "You will please us both tonight Slut, with your mouth."
"Oh, and Jina love," Isralla said sweetly, "you have the right to punish her as you like. Don't bother to ask us, she also belongs to you. You are our wife after all."
Jina laughed and kissed Isralla and then John, pulling the slave from sight.
Isralla picked up the discarded black outfit, examining it with interest. "We'll keep her naked for a few months, and then let her wear this again."
"Long term plans?" June laughed.
"After we've trained her, which won't take long, she's a real submissive slut at heart, I think she'll make a good private pilot."
"We might have to alter her seat," John laughed, "a few chains or a dildo, just to keep her happy."
"The chains yes," Isralla agreed, "but no more dildo, not ever! If she ever wants to have sex again then she will have to beg us for mercy."
Gyor laughed, "And I wonder where you picked this up?"
"I learned from the best Mom," Isralla laughed.
That night, after Enryn and Ace had got them nicely drunk, Favian and Bellona walked home and fell into the same bed. Quiet when they started to make love was uncertain, but they awoke at daybreak naked in each other's arms. The next time they made love they were both stone cold sober and enjoyed themselves far more than expected.
They tried to hide their secret perversion only to find out that most Marines had guessed it was coming and some had even bet on when it would happen. Enryn walked off with a thousand dollars, she'd picked the date as soon as she found out about the Ball.
The others in Favian and Bellona's platoon were confused about the situation and started to question their own programming for the first time.
A month later the Iowa limped in to take up station with the Texas and Florida, and Eileen finally got a chance to dismantle the sections and fix them in a giant replicator in the Florida.
Again it was an imposable use of replicator technology.
She did it anyway.
And a month later the Iowa was back on active duty and looking far better than she had ever done. And far more automated, to cut down on the inter service rivalry.
Isralla invited Ace and Enryn over to inspect the repairs, incidentally letting Slut see all three ships hanging in space for the first time. The slave's respect for them rose a few thousand percent, and she started to believe they might have a chance to beat the Lords of All.
A week later Isralla renamed her Becky, after she had earned the right by hard work and devotion. They still could not trust her, and so she spent most of the time restrained, even when watching her masters training with the Marines.
Eileen finally showed everyone her newest ship, the Coloniser, a saucer shaped craft half a mile wide, that had a wooden village built in the middle. Below the village was giant sized replicator assembly, that could beam a copy of the village and recreate it on the ground. They could replace the village with anything they wanted from a igloo to an apartment block, but the wooden village was more appropriate for low tech worlds.
With Becky piloting they flew the Coloniser down to an Earth type world, and tested it out by building a dozen villages on the virgin world. Ace and Enryn walked around the first village, seeing thirty sturdy houses, a barn, civic centre cum school, water pumps, sheds full of tools and clothing suitable for the climate and a harsh winter. Each house had three large bedrooms, a lounge/ dinning room, kitchen and bathroom. With an endless supply of building material growing in the forest, if the villages needed to expand.
"Forget the rustic charm," Eileen laughed, "I've built a full electrical, water and waste system below the streets, and a computer data base in the school. They'll be able to pick up any skills they need, and contact the other villages."
The barn was full of supplies and simple farming tools. "Sorry I can't replicate living animals," Eileen sighed. "I'm sure they would appreciate a few horses, cows and sheep."
"Even if you could," John pointed out, "they might not survive on a new world. The colonists will have to learn to domesticate local critters."
Enryn laughed, "Look, we've already done the hard work, let's try it out. If we can get Gyor to find us a couple of thousand refugees..."
"We can leave an Arrow class Frigate in orbit to keep an eye on them," John mused. "I think it's worth a go."
Becky was back to wearing her shiny black jumpsuit, that clung to her every curve almost as if alive, but at least she could walk in the new boots. Isralla pulled the slave by a leash gently, but the girl didn't seem too distressed by her ordeal. She was flying again, and earning the right to please her masters. Flying and sex had always been the biggest thrills of her short life.
Favian and Bellona joined Ace and Enryn sweeping around the site, or holding hands when no-one was looking. They saw plenty of alien life forms but none threatening to the new colony.
A few hours later a mirror bright dome snapped into existence in the middle of the village, and seemed to burst into nothing before the mind had time to realise it was there. It left over two hundred men, women and children laying naked on the lawn, sleeping as the gas wore off.
Becky could only stare on seeing that many of them were near starvation, and suffering months of abuse. A dozen girls and a few men seemed to have white scars all over their bodies, left from surgical experiments.
Gyor was explaining where they were from and what had been done to them. "We couldn't save them all, but we got about ninety percent, including most of the experimental subjects, all that took was for an Agent to hit them with a drug that mimicked death. The bastards who performed the experiments were expecting them to die and sent the bodies for cremation. Just like all the rest. We had time to heal the worst of the wounds, and treat them all for starvation, but the mental aspect will be up to them."
"What was the last thing they remember?" Enryn asked.
"Dieing," Gyor sighed. "Most of them remember choking to death in the gas chambers, and then nothing. Our Agents were running the disposal site, using none lethal gas instead of cyanide, and Jumped the bodies to Aeden. We never saw any need to wake them up, it would only stretch our resources even further."
"This is what happened to us," Bellona gasped. "But we saw the cryo-stasis chambers, million upon millions of them, and I was terrified we would be forgotten."
"It's happened," Gyor admitted, "all it takes is for one technician to be in a rush to go home, he punches in the wrong decimal point and a thousand people can be misfiled for eternity. We're sure that somewhere in our billions of chambers are some who will never be revived because we don't know they exist."
The refugees started to recover, and the team was soon rushing around handing out paper cups of medicated soup.
It was an hour before two people managed to pull on cotton jump suits and ask sensible questions. "Where the hell are we?" the man gasped in panic.
"Who are you, and why arn't we dead?" the woman also gasped.
"You died over sixty years ago," John tried to explain. "But we had need of you and brought you here, which is over a thousand light years from Earth, to start a new life."
"You can never go home, that world is lost to you for all time," Isralla sighed. "But you can start again, if you wish to live."
"Here none will persecute you," Enryn insisted, "for all are the same as you."
Ace took over, "All you need to farm this land is waiting for you. All we could not provide was the livestock, so you get to catch and domesticate your own brand of wildlife."
"There are another eleven villages just like this one within a month's walk," Enryn explained. "We tried to put you in family groups, but most of the records were lost or incomplete, and so you might be strangers for all we know. The computer in the civic building will put you in touch with the other sites, so you may find missing loved ones."
"But don't bet on it," Bellonia insisted. "This is an experiment, and if it works we might drop off a lot more like you all across the planet."
"So what do you expect of us?" the man sighed in shock.
"To have a good life, that's all we ask," Isralla pointed out.
"And the rules lady?" the woman sighed. "There must be rules somewhere?"
"Basic common decency," John took over. "Treat people the way you would wish to be treated. You will have to work together just to survive. But forget the law books, they no longer apply. Anyone will be free to be his or her own self! No matter what that means."
Isralla continued, "Anyone will be entitled to live with, and marry or not, any consenting adult. We only draw the line at genetic disasters like close family or children. If you want five wives or five husbands we don't care."
"Just love each other," John sighed. "This group consists of a mixed bunch of two hundred, that's about the size of most early villages. I hope you will care for the children?"
They left the world behind with but a single Frigate to protect it and study the experiment.
All they needed now was to win a war and start to colonise the galaxy.
Eileen and Ison were struggling with the wooden assault shuttles, they had replicated a mock up of part of the alien mothership, but the first five shuttles had failed to penetrate the target's shields, and crushed the dummy crew. The next six had got far enough to ignite the plasma torch against the dummy hull, and turned into Roman candles, again killing the crew.
So it was back to the drawing board. The concept was sound but the technology rather basic.
The training had been getting ever tougher as the various branches grew to be Marines, like it or not. Then one day Ace put them all on parade in their dress uniforms, and told them that they had all qualified as Space Marines.
Sal was wearing corporal stripes as she lead Fae around the drill field as the Company Mascot, causing the entire ship's crew to grin with a display that would offend just about all of the Marines rules and regulations for the last two hundred years. But the grinning girl did have a huge effect on moral.
Ace didn't explain that even the old Marines had requalified three times over the old Earth bound limits, and the ex-slaves were now keeping up with ease. Favian's Biroids were easily four times over the legal limit, and Bellona was pushing her girls into reaching five.
John and Isralla called the Marines to order.
"I'm sure you're all getting bored," John snapped. "So we've arranged a little camping trip."
"Marines like mud, or so June assures me," Isralla laughed, "and I've found a whole world of mud for you to play in."
Ace took over, "The Warriors have a training camp on a jungle world, recruits go in one end and Warriors come out the other. We don't like that. And I'm sure you don't like it ether."
"This is a big installation, but far off the usual shipping lanes," Enryn continued, "so we don't expect any ships to come. So we invite them to chase us into the jungle, and take them out one at a time."
"And that means booby traps," Ace laughed. "We trap the entire jungle and invite them out to play."
"After we search the installation we use the ESSs to sterilise it," Enryn snapped. "We don't leave one Warrior alive or one brick touching another."
The Iowa parted from the Texas and Florida, and carried the flotilla of ESS armoured personnel carriers into battle. Just like the Janus, all had been named after Roman Gods, and the Romans had a lot of gods so they were unlikely to run out of names any time soon.
A few light years from the target the ESSs parted from the Iowa behind a star and dived towards the target planet at full speed. They ditched their FTL units and swept around the system to hit the planet from the far side to the base.
Then for thousands of miles they flew nap of the earth around the mud ball, dodging mountains to fly up rivers and through valleys, never any higher than they needed to be.
It took a week to crawl towards the target, then they landed and went the last hundred miles on tracks, settling down in a valley a hundred miles from the target.
Four man combat-cars skimmed through the jungle, mapping routs and setting traps as nearly three hundred Marines turned the jungle into a low tech death trap. There wasn't a single piece of metal or electronics anywhere, just traps made wood, bamboo and vines, and triggered by trip wires.
It took them three weeks to turn the entire jungle into a place where no-one in his right mind would want to be.
Ace and Enryn took turns with Favian and Bellona scouting out the installation, seeing who came and went, but apart from the odd transporter the base looked quiet.
They knew better.
Ace, Enryn, Favian, Bellona, Sal and Ceri walked openly towards the installation, raised their carbines and aimed at the inactive shield generators, and fired a never ending stream of armour piercing rounds, grenades and incendiaries into the dozen domes, cracking through the armoured shells to devastate the delicate machinery inside. Explosion after explosion tore across the installation.
Then they took out the communication antenna, sealing the base off from the rest of the universe.
It took five minutes for the first Warriors to form up at the entrance, and the Marines fired at them in vane, their point fifties bouncing off the shields in futility.
"Ok," Ace laughed, "I think we got their attention, but just to be sure." He fired a burst of grenades over the Warriors and far down the tunnel to explode deep inside the base.
"May I suggest my love," Enryn said sweetly, "that we run like hell!"
"Seconded," Bellona laughed.
Favian didn't wait to cast his vote he was already half way to the tree line, as a hundred Warriors burst from the installation.
Enryn fired a bust of her own, sending grenades to explode around the Warriors, but not hit their shields.
"Play time is over," Ace laughed, "Let's see if they can keep up." The marines set of running leaving the Warriors to catch up.
Just inside the tree line was a maze of improvised trenches, not a serious obstacle, it was only meant to annoy the Warriors as they struggled through the stake lined paths that played hell with their shields.
The Warriors were being rounded up into bunches, not one had been killed yet, but they were panicking and calling for help.
An hour later another thousand Warriors burst from the installation, reinforcing their comrades, and pushed the Marines back to a second line of defences by sheer numbers.
Then the trap happened again on a much larger scale and Warriors began stepping into stake lined pits, slicing their legs open.
The second counter attack began to falter as men who thought they were invincible found out that a simple piece of wood could kill them.
Panic ensured as the critically injured begged their masters to send yet more help. And the Lords of All began to
panic themselves, for if this secret became common knowledge they would become the laughing stock of the galaxy. All they could do was ensure that all of the vermin who attacked them died to the last.
Hundreds more Warriors poured from the installation, and then the last few in dribs and drabs as they were pulled from other duties.
The jungle was getting very crowded, and the Marines began a carefully rehearsed withdrawal, enticing the Warriors too chase them into death traps.
Spiked trees began to swing down forest paths, forcing the fleet of foot to dive into stake lined bushes, and those not fast enough to be crushed by the trees.
Springy branches swept across the paths, armed with a dozen dagger sharp spikes that slipped through shields with ease.
The casualties were building up and any attempt to evacuate the wounded back to the installation was dismissed, the word was given from on high, from now on any casualty who could not walk was to be killed, rather than tie up three Warriors to carry him to safety. So any man who stepped into a stake lined pit was as good as dead.
The Marines pulled back slowly, letting their traps do the killing. They weren't there to count coup, it wasn't a battle to gain personal victory, it was just to kill the greatest number of foes as they could with the least risk to themselves as possible.
And to entice the entire Warrior army into the final death trap.
They pulled back ever further, drawing the Warriors towards a maze of vine covered jungle that they could never enter with their shield working. But enter they would have to do, for their Lords would permit no retreat.
Again the Marines slipped through the jungle, leaving the Warriors to stumble along behind.
"Gunny to all ESSs, target one is now full, all Marines are clear, you may fire at will."
A hundred miles away the Janus and her sister APCs lifted their indirect weapon pods into the sky and fired as one, but not at the Warriors, but at the trees!
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