by Iaz Grant
“True,” she admitted. She turned to leave and looked over her shoulder. “I will check on him.”
“Thank you.”
She paused. “Do not let your fear eat away at you, Captain. It’ll bring you nothing but grief. We’re doing all we can.”
“I know,” he said softly, but she’d already gone, her feet whispering soundlessly across the glossy floor.
He lowered himself back in his bunk and closed his eyes again.
When he finally slipped into a thin, uneasy sleep, he dreamed of Helena.
Chapter Nine
Helena closed her eyes and wished she could never open them again.
Her pale, naked body gleamed with sweat, and she ached all over. The bed creaked as the man—she didn’t know his name, didn’t even know how many others had come before him already today, and the day had only just begun—gathered up his clothes and left. She let out a tiny sigh of relief. She would have about five minutes of blessed solitude before the guards posted outside of the testing chamber called the next man in.
Like the other women, she was scheduled to be auctioned off soon. But first, she’d been passed around to her potential buyers like a toy, forced to please them in humiliating and degrading ways, so that they may test her out.
She hated it. She hated that she was being used as a disposable piece of trash, she hated putting her mouth and hands on complete strangers, and she hated that she loved it at the same time.
It was as if a fundamental part of her had been awakened, hungering for domination and release. She fought that part of herself with all of her might, but she was terribly afraid that she was fighting a losing battle.
Did that make her a whore? She didn’t know. All she knew was that she both dreaded and eagerly awaited the moment when the next client opened the door.
Xander had given the prospective buyers free reign with the women; they were allowed to do whatever they wanted. But with Helena, he'd set down one rule—they could force her to suck their cocks, play with herself, even please one of the other female slaves like she'd been forced to do with Sondara, anything else at all, but they weren't allowed to have sex with her. Her status as a virgin, along with her bloodline and unusual appearance, made her an extremely valuable object. "We can't sell damaged goods," he'd told her with another one of his terrible, empty grins.
But once she was bought, that slim margin of protection would go out the window. In spite of her newfound lust, she was afraid.
The door opened with a gentle click. Helena lay where she was without opening her eyes.
“Well, well, look who’s sleeping on the job,” a deep voice drawled lazily.
A shiver of revulsion ran down Helena’s spine as she opened her eyes and gazed directly into Xander’s face. The muscular blond man’s eyes crawled over her sleek naked body, lingering on her lush breasts and her flat stomach. “Get up,” he commanded.
Helena’s heart sank. Again? But her disappointment turned to confusion when Xander tossed her a flimsy, gauzy bra and a belted skirt that she knew would barely cover her butt. “Put this on,” he said. “It’s time to go.”
She swallowed down her rising fear and took the clothes, forcing herself to look down at the floor. “Yes, sir,” she said meekly.
He stroked her hair. “That’s a good girl,” he said.
She dragged on the thin clothes, wondering with a detached sort of weariness where she would end up.
***
“What is that?” Helena whispered to Sondara, who stood in line beside her. Helena was gazing out into the crowd of men. Aside from humans, there were all sorts of aliens present; some, like the one she was staring at, that she’d never even knew existed.
Sondara tilted her head to the side so that they could talk without being noticed by the slavers. They were dragging girls up to the platform one by one, and to Helena’s relief, she was at the back of the line.
She’d come to regard Sondara as her only friend amongst the other slaves; Ava was too much of a coward for Helena’s patience, and the other girls were morose and as silent as corpses. But the red-skinned woman was tough, and her resilience and her kindness had kept Helena going when she thought that nothing else could. Their friendship, thankfully, hadn’t been impaired by the things that they’d been forced to do to each other.
“That’s Chubbob the Conqueror,” Sondara whispered. Thanks to her superior hearing, she was able to pick up extremely valuable bits of information; information that Helena knew the slavers wouldn’t like for them to know. “You want to watch out, Helena. He’s got tons of money; from what I gathered, he’s the leader of some planet far away. And he’s staring at you.”
Revulsion gripped Helena like an iron hand. The alien in question was over seven feet tall. His shoulders were slumped, and his lumpy skin was a dead shade of greenish-gray. He had three bulbous black eyes, from the depths of which shone an unmistakable crafty intelligence.
He’d been watching Helena from the moment she’d arrived in front of the crowd. Greed shone in his eyes, and he grinned at her, revealing stubby, mossy teeth. She shuddered again.
“What is he?”
“I don’t know,” Sondara muttered. “But I heard the slavers talking about him. Evidently he has a fetish for human women.”
Her stomach lurched, and her fear escalated into full-fledged panic. “What if he wants to buy me?” she whimpered. “I can’t let that monster do whatever he wants to me! What should I do?”
Sondara lowered her eyes, helpless anger shining in them. “There’s nothing you can do,” she said softly.
Tears stung Helena’s amethyst eyes before rolling slowly down her cheeks. Sondara was right.
In what felt like no time at all, one by one all of the scantily-clad, bound slaves made their way to the stage and were sold. Helena watched a screaming Ava get dragged from the platform by a group of jeering young men and felt a pang of sorrow for the blond woman.
Finally, only she and Sondara were left. Tears blurred Helena’s vision as she was led towards the narrow steps.
“Goodbye, Helena,” Sondara whispered as her friend was taken from her.
Helena gazed upon the crowd, trying her best to mask her fear. But her terror bubbled in her stomach like acid as she caught the gaze of Chubbob. The gruesome being was watching her greedily.
She closed her eyes and prayed for it to be over soon.
Chapter Ten
Zebb gazed down upon the barren, cracked landscape as Joyce brought the vessel lower. The cockpit was full; Karliah and Tyler stood on either side of Zebb, scanning the landscape as well.
“It should be somewhere nearby,” Tyler said. His skin had gone a pasty shade of white, but Zebb admired the lad for not backing out despite his lack of combat experience. “The heat signatures were coming from over there.”
Karliah’s white tail twitched in frustration. “Yes, but we have no way of knowing exactly where they are now that we’ve entered the atmosphere. The sonar is useless, thanks to all of the lava under the crust.”
“We’ll find them,” Joyce said vaguely as she simultaneously steered the ship and pressed buttons on the glowing panel in front of her. “It’s only a matter of time now.”
Zebb glanced at his second-in-command. “I expected Tyler to be nervous, but you? What’s up?” For Karliah looked extremely agitated. Her eyes were darting rapidly back and forth, and her ears were laid back flat against her skull.
“I don’t like this place,” she muttered. She crossed her arms. “It feels wrong. If danger had a smell, it would smell like Polentia.”
Zebb was about to reply to her strange statement when Joyce let out a dry cackle. “There it is! Look ahead!”
Square shapes, unmistakably buildings, loomed on the horizon. Zebb gripped the holster of his military-issued laser pistol tightly in his sweaty palm. She was somewhere up ahead, and he’d find her. And with God as his witness, he was personally going to kill the men who’d taken her from him.
>
***
“Fifty thousand credits,” the loathsome gray creature rasped.
Helena’s hands began to shake. Surely no one would bid higher than that.
The crowd was silent.
“Going once,” Xander called. He wore a deeply satisfied smirk. “Going twice…”
Helena watched helplessly as Chubbob’s bulbous black eyes lingered hungrily on her scantily clad body. She prayed that someone would speak up, anyone at all, as long as she didn’t have to be given to that disgusting thing. "Sold to Chubbob the Conqueror!" Xander cried, barely containing the glee he undoubtedly felt at scoring such a high price. Helena's heart sank to her feet. "Congratulations, good sir. Come and collect your item."
Tears fell from Helena’s remarkable eyes as the enormous alien swaggered towards the platform. Her knees turned to water. Her eyes darted wildly around, but there was no way she could escape.
At first, she mistook the rumbling underneath her feet for her body, which shook with fear and revulsion as the creature approached her. But when the rest of the crowd began to cry out in alarm, and Xandar’s smug expression slipped from his face like water, Helena knew that something else was terribly wrong.
An ominous, guttural roar filled the skies as one of the jagged mountains in the distance erupted, spewing clouds of purple ash and chunks of rock into the air. Bits of molten lava flew up to the gathering storm clouds as a river of red, flowing rock rushed down the mountaintop, heading straight for the gathered auctioneers.
At the same time, the ground split open, sending up clouds of noxious gas and sending several fleeing people straight to their dooms. Screaming, the crowd scattered, leaping into their vessels and taking flight.
At the same moment, Chubbob seized her with his flabby, rough hands. She screamed and struggled, but he was dragging her with incredible ease. “I paid way too much to leave you here,” he croaked with a greedy smile.
So preoccupied with fleeing the unstable planet as they were, nobody noticed the new coming vessel right away. It was Helena who spotted the ship first. She caught sight of the insignia on the side, as well as the print declaring JULIET SEVEN underneath it, and let out a shriek.
"Zebb!" she cried. She sobbed again, this time with an enormous, crushing relief. She was saved. Zebb was fast and strong, and he had the best crew in the entire universe. He would kill this monster and free her.
But before she could do more than entertain this beautiful fantasy, Chubbob let out a snarl and pulled her along faster, tossing her into his ship and jumping aboard.
***
Zebb and his three crewmates leaped out of the ship. All around them, other vessels were rising in the air and fleeing. Zebb paid them no mind. His eyes scanned the rapidly thinning crowd.
“Spread out!” he barked. “Search everyone and find out where she is.”
Karliah spared him a single concerned glance before following his orders. His squad streaked away and disappeared, leaving Zebb standing where he was. His eyes narrowed.
A man was standing on the raised platform. Unlike everyone else, there was no air of panic about him. He slowly walked down the steps and approached Zebb.
His spine tingled. Years of dealing with terrorists and wily dictators had honed his instincts, and they told him now that this man was the mastermind behind the slave trade. It was all in the expression on his face.
"Captain Zebb Welsh," the man murmured. There was a trace of mockery in his voice.
Zebb was a little unnerved that the man knew who he was, but he refused to let it show. He said nothing but gripped the holster of his pistol tighter.
“Yes, I’ve heard of you. You’ve thrown quite a bit of trouble our way in the past. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Xander Fletch.”
“Are you the one who took Helena?” Zebb growled.
Xander grinned. “The minx with the purple eyes?”
Zebb’s heart lurched. “Where is she?”
“Gone,” the blond man whispered. His eyes danced with mad glee. “But not before I broke her in. Do you want to hear what I made her do to me? Oh, Welsh, she took care of me real good.”
Rage consumed Zebb like a fiery inferno, erasing all rational thought. He whipped out his pistol just as Xander did the same. Without thinking, he flung himself to the side as the blond man’s beam of light struck the ground where Zebb had been just a split second ago, leaving only a smoking crater.
“You should have seen the way she sucked my dick,” Xander taunted. “She’s a real natural. But what surprised me, see, was how much she liked it. She—“
But he said nothing else, for at that moment Zebb, with his face twisted with fury and grief, aimed his weapon directly at Xander's head and pulled the trigger.
The cruel slaver’s head disappeared from the neck up in a gristly spray of blood and gray tissue. Smoking slightly, the corpse collapsed, leaving a sickly-sweet odor of cooked meat.
Breathing heavily out of his nose, Zebb got to his feet. His knees were shaking.
The roaring in the distance grew louder, and the smoke and ash was now so thick that Zebb could barely breathe. He coldly stepped over the body of his enemy and squinted.
Through the clouds of smoke, he caught sight of his crew sprinting towards him. But they were not alone; they were leading a scantily-clad red-skinned woman that Zebb recognized as a Brakomi towards him.
“This is Sondara,” Tyler said as they reached him, raising his voice slightly to be heard over the noise. “She’s the last of the slaves.”
Sondara glanced at Xander’s still corpse. A tear ran down her cheek as her eyes shined with a savage triumph. “You killed him. I can’t believe you killed him. I’ll be in your debt for as long as I live. May he burn in hell forever.”
Zebb seized Sondara’s shoulders. “Helena Murdock! Have you seen her?”
“Yes, she’s—“
“No time!” Karliah snarled.
“We have to go now!” Joyce shouted hoarsely as the earth quaked underneath their feet.
Zebb swallowed, fighting down his desire to find out what had happened to Helena right that moment. “Come on!” he shot over his shoulder as he ran towards the ship.
They boarded just in time. The molten river had finally reached the buildings, lighting them afire and swallowing them whole.
“There are gods after all,” Sondara murmured as Joyce jumped into the cockpit and began slamming buttons. “It’s all going to be destroyed. They’ll never be able to use this place to enslave women again.”
Juliet Seven lifted from the ground and sped away, leaving the dying planet behind them. Zebb stomped away from the cockpit and returned just as they were exiting the atmosphere. Clutched in his dark hands was a yellow uniform. All Alliance uniforms were color-coded according to rank, and yellow represented the lowest.
“Here,” he said, thrusting the uniform at Sondara.
She glanced at it, amused. “This won’t go well with my skin.”
“Never mind that,” Zebb said roughly. “I’m giving you an opportunity. We can give you food and shelter until we can return you to your home planet, or you can join us and help me find Helena.”
The anguish in his voice was enough to convince Sondara. She took a deep breath. “It would be my honor to help you. Helena was my friend, and possibly my only comfort in that awful place.”
“Do you know who bought her?”
“I do, although I don’t know where they’re going or where he’s from.”