Table of Contents
Sister Resister
©
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18
After Words
Gramercy
Books by Kelli Jae Baeli
About the Author
Sister Resister
Samegender Chronicles
Episode 1
Kelli Jae Baeli
Lesbian Literati Press
United States of America
©
Sister Resister
Samegenders Chronicles, Episode 1
Second Edition
Formerly titled Circling Uranus
Cover Design & Creation
© 2018 Kelli Jae Baeli
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All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced (no cloning either) or transmitted in any form or by any means, to include satellite transmission, travel through the Space-Time Continuum, Binary Coding, Immaculate Conception, or Vulcan Mind-Meld, without the permission in writing from the publisher. Reviewers may, however, quote short passages as long as they are saying something nice.
Summary:
The prison transport ship is supposed to take them to Sintori-5, but another punishment is on the horizon, and it included a sort that some would consider delightful. And things only got worse. Then they got better.
Classification:
1. Fiction-Lesbian 2. Science Fiction 3. Humor
4. Women Authors - Fiction 5. Fiction - Adventure 6. Fiction - Speculative
7. Fiction - Chicklit
Created and Published in the United States of America
Where we can freely create and print things.
1
I smelled the oxygen first. But not the pure clinical oxygen of the suspension chamber; this was stale.
I opened my eyes. Saw the canopy of the pod hanging open over me. Surely someone should be there to snatch me out and shackle me, so my punishment on Sintori-5 could begin. I decided it might be wise to stop wishing for something I didn’t want.
Knowing that suspension was achieved by something called Therapeutic Hypothermia, I expected to feel cold, but I didn’t. Eyeing the open canopy, I figured I’d had time to thaw out before I woke up.
I climbed out of the chamber, my gaze taking in the empty spots in the long room. Empty, except for the torn hardware on the floor. Where were the other pods?
Glancing down, I noticed the skinsuit. It was binding me in all the wrong places. The right places would have been okay, but this...this felt like being bound in shrinkwrap. As I searched my memory, I vaguely recalled putting it on before boarding the ship. Against my will. Both things.
That explained it. I’d never wear a skinsuit voluntarily.
Then I remembered the cleansing ritual that happened beforehand. It had been humiliating, standing naked in front of that guard as he sprayed me with some disinfectant. Because I was dirty, wasn’t I? If the floor hadn’t been so slick, I would have turned the hose on him, but that would have got me killed, and I was a survivor.
As a member of Sister Resisters, a samegender clan that took me in when my last family members were seized, I was part of the Strike Squad. The night of my arrest, I was enjoying my first bit of recreation for some time, after a long stint of striking things.
The militia busted into the underground club and I happened to be standing near the door with my lips locked on a blonde beauty when the troopers thundered in, and I beat feet and found a fantastic hiding spot which didn’t matter, because Languid—my almost-date for the evening—ratted me out. Bad timing being what it is, I had yet to get her free of her clothing. The guards snagged me, dragged me, handcuffed, through the circuitous tunnels that led out of the hidden club, and put me in the wagon waiting on ground level.
Some of the patrons must have made it out, but I’m sure many didn’t. My entire clan was there that night, mostly unarmed. Cassio had insisted that we all go. It was our off-duty time. A respite from our clandestine fight on a front line that existed in all corners of Pangea. No telling how many of my peeps had been gunned down, or how many arrested, just like me.
Shaking the memory away, I went to the porthole in the hull. Outside, just the omnipresent black vacuum of space. My limited understanding was that inertia kept the ship moving, but I wasn’t sure if there were necessary adjustments to be made. Did something hit us, knocking us off course? And there was no telling how far from Pangea the transport ship was, nor how close to Sintori-5. No telling how long it would be before the militia arrived to regain control. We weren’t traveling in hyperspace, that much was obvious by looking out a window. I also didn’t know how long the journey was supposed to take, but it must have been a while, since the sleep pods were used. They wanted their prisoners to arrive still young enough to work the mines on Sintori-5; I wasn’t sure if the same was true for the refuse planet, Smegunus.
It seemed there were many sins to be punished on Pangea, probably because it provided a workforce for the prison planets. The Sinbook listed quite a few; like public speaking, owning a weapon, stealing food or medicine, insurrection, treason, insolence and defiance.
The last one was my personal favorite, and I violated it every chance I got, but had yet to receive punishment for it because I was fleet of foot.
I’m not sure the militia knew that those arrested at Double Zero were also members of Sister Resisters. More likely, the arrests were because among the myriad offenses in the Sinbook, the sin of relations with a person of your own gender was a biggie. It was somehow related to some ancient religious ideal, but also to the preservation of humans, since samegenders could not reproduce together. That issue had faded long ago, as the colony’s fledgling population grew into the billions. But the antiquated ideas persisted. Apathy, complacency, and submission had poisoned the masses.
I remembered the Earth history lessons my grandmother gave me, passed down from her mother, and her mother’s mother. How it used to be perfectly acceptable for two of the same gender to mate. All it took was the apathy of the people, and one fascist regime in North America, started by a man named P. Murt D’lanod, and the complicit ruling party. Individual freedoms were whittled away until none remained, and all those tolerances and acceptances were a whimpering dot on the chart of human history.
We called his adherents P-Murts. They still worshiped him like a god. There were statues of his bloated countenance throughout the capital city. We’d even destroyed one of them, but it was quickly replaced with another. Why anyone would worship the visage of a fat man holding a cheeseburger in one hand a a cell phone in the other, I’d never know. But the Sister Resisters were bent on reclaiming freedom for all, so we did what we could, whenever we could, to get our resistance message out there.
The oldest histories told us the whole thing had happened before on Earth, around the time of the Second World War, but the general populace on one particular continent, North America, grew complacent, forgot the lesson, and let it happen again. But that second iteration of fascism caused the planet to die, and so nothing any of them believed meant anything, because the planet was headed for annihilation due to the mindless plundering of its vitality. Resources became scarce. Anarchy and violence were commonplace.
I never really understood most of it, but knew that for some very personal reasons, the P-Murts would forever be my enemy, and the enemy of all thinking, loving human beings.
The actions and inaction of apathetic voters and oblivious, self-serving leaders allowed the destruction of democracy, and soon thereafter, the destruction of Earth itself.
Our ancestors fled to the stars; some on government ships and others on independent vessels financed by billionaires, oligarchs and royal families. Using all technology at their disposal, those countries with space programs uncharacteristically worked together to figure out how to accomplish interstellar travel, using something called a Spacetime Fold, but they never got the science quite right, and went to plan B, which was suspension in the pods and a long journey to the destination. They had chosen a system of planets discovered in the Scorpius system, orbiting a Red Dwarf. All those planets were in some beloved location known as the Goldilocks Zone, which supported human life.
The US, UK and France fleets settled on the largest planet, Pangea; the Russians, Turks and what was left of several other warring nations on the smaller Garzi; Japan, China and the UAE colonized Pegrion, and the independent fleets settled on Plovis.
The governing bodies on these brave new worlds continued to be militant and authoritarian in their rule, and the general populace grew weary. Eventually, people lost the ability and the intestinal fortitude to resist the power and the will of the moneyed elite.
Pulling myself back to the present again, I looked around the podroom, my eyes accosted by the flashing red light spinning in the corner. I had to decide what to do next. Take stock.
My pod and another were still bolted to the floor, but the others had been ripped out.
Something had gone fuck-all wrong, for sure.
Leaning over the other pod, I put my palm on the cool glass to activate the shield clearing mechanism, then jerked back reflexively.
I had seen pictures of them, but never seen one for real. At times, I thought them myths. But here it was. One of the Plovis grand experiments in longevity that no one talked about except as terror stories.
The bald cephalosapien lay in repose in the pod, its tentacles draped over its body. body. This was a female. I could tell by the generous swell of her bosom. It might have been titillating had her nipples been nipples and not suction cups. Sort of spoiled the whole thing. It was easy to see, though, that half its DNA was human. The only thing not humanoid were the head and tentacles. The only thing I could see, anyway.
I wasn’t sure that reviving the ceph was a good choice. No telling what kind of crime that hybrid was guilty of. I could open that pod and find eight tentacles wrapped around my throat. I heard they were wicked-fast.
My attention went back to the flashing light. I left the pod and checked the door. It was sealed tight. Wiping the window clear, I peeked through. On the other side was what remained of the neighboring compartment. It had been torn loose by something powerful.
If the ship had been attacked, why were all but two pods gone? I gave it a few thoughts and realized that there had been a breach in the hull beyond the door. The other pods had been sucked out, and the safety mechanisms of the ship must have sealed the door before the suction got to the last two pods at the front of the compartment.
I was lucky to be alive. But that sentiment was lost inside the heavy thing sitting on my chest. Everyone I cared about might be floating in space right now. Dead to the world.
I couldn’t let myself think about it. I had things to do. Survival among them.
Taking stock, I saw the munitions box on the wall. Sidling up to it, I braced one fist in the other and used my elbow on the glass, and nearly broke my humorous bone, noting that it would not be the least bit amusing to do so.
The glass was impact resistant. The pain told me as much. Holding my painful elbow, I spied the remaining piece of metal from a torn out pod, and managed to wrench it loose. Using the metal bar with a large bolt on the end, I shattered the shatterproof glass and pulled out a Merkel 550.
I’d always wanted one. I used to stare at them as the Militia marched by with the weapon in their gloved fingers, resisting the urge to snatch it from one of them. Now, it appeared I had my wish. A Merkel of my very own.
Holding the long weapon in my grip, I inched my way along the corridor beyond the two remaining pods to search the rest of the ship. It took only a half hour to realize the vessel was empty.
Back at my starting point, I considered the condition of the room. Was the entire crew in the podroom when it happened? Maybe they had only got me and the ceph in the pods when all smeg broke loose. Yes, I recalled that the other prisoners were waiting in line behind me. When had they put the ceph in the pod, then?
I had been hooded. They put hoods on the prisoners so we couldn’t see.
It was coming back to me now.
I moved back over to the pod with the ceph in it. I didn’t know Jane-shit about piloting this ship. The cephs had big brains. Maybe it—she—could get us out of here. Someplace safe.
My fingers tightened on the weapon. I had the Merkel. If the ceph tried something, I’d blast her. I knew the gun was designed not to breach the hull of ship. So no reason to fear.
Taking a calming breath, I punched the green button. A hissing sound susurrated through the chamber as the pod filled with fresh oxygen.
Vital signs jiggled on a graph superimposed on the glass. I only recognized a few. Blood pressure. Pulse. Cerebral activity.
I leaned closer, staring at the face framed in a gelatinous softness of a head only slightly bigger than my own. Except for the larger portion at the back. The head wasn’t oversized, like an octopus, as all the depictions claimed, but it did resemble one a bit.
Suddenly, two large round eyes popped open; slits for irises. The elongated pupils expanding and contracting.
I jumped back, training the Merkel on the suspension pod, then leaned closer again. Our eyes met. The ceph blinked at me. Smiled encouragingly. She had human teeth. Nary a fang to be seen. Maybe at least some of the stories were creative narratives.
I punched the open button, and the canopy hissed again as it rose slowly. Mine was already open when I woke up. Perhaps if it hadn’t been open, I would not have woken up. Ever.
The ceph sat up, stretching out eight tentacles, sleepily. I kept myself out of reach as the hybrid gracefully emerged from the pod. She stood a full 200 centimeters. Easily four heads taller than me. Her body seemed mostly human, except for the eight tentacles where her arms should be. The appendages and the head and face were a sort of faded red color. A shade of salmon, maybe. Which would make sense, considering her DNA.
It—she—looked around. “Where are the guards?”
Her voice sounded normal. Not gurgley and ominous, like the stories depicted. “I think everyone is dead. I think they all got sucked into space. There was a breach in the hull.”
The ceph’s eyes went to the bay door, the bolt holes and twisted metal of what was left of the other pods. “Are we the only survivors?”
“As far as I can tell, yes.”
“Well then, introductions are in order. You are?”
“My name is Story Book.”
“Story Book, I am called Shrtzherg Hodzmorkinshed—” she extended a tentacle.
I leaned back, looking at the appendage as if it was...well...a tentacle.
The tentacle relaxed again. “Oh, I see. You’re afraid of me. You’ve never met a cephalosapien before, have you?”
I admitted, “No...I haven’t.”
“Well, I don’t know what you’ve heard, but we are a peaceful species.”
I gripped the Merkel tighter. “Yeah? Then why are you on a prisoner transport?”
“I could ask you the same question, Story Book. Maybe I should be afraid of you?”
“Pfft.” Then I thought better of playing down my own threat-level to her. I squared my shoulders, aiming the Merkel at the ceph. “Maybe you should.”
“Why are ?”
“I asked you first.”
“I asked you second.”
I felt my own frown.
The ceph chuckled, and the action made her gelatinous skin shake. “Very well, I shall start. I was caught in the tentacles of another of my kind. I don’t think the militia guards can tell the difference between male and female cephalosapiens. So they merely arrested us both for samegender violations. And yourself?”
My eyebrows were high on my forehead. I could feel them. “I was arrested for violation of samegender laws, too.”
“I see...well, I had traveled from Plovis to Pangea to meet with another of my kind at the club, but we were caught up in the raid. I had hoped we would be safe from that very thing there.”
“The wrong people are in charge, that’s why.”
“Without question.”
We shared an awkward moment of silence, and I tried not to linger my gaze too long on those suction-cup nipples. Why wasn’t she wearing a skinsuit?
I spoke up, finally. “So, is this transport for samegender violators?”
“Perhaps so.”
Now, I was sad that all the other pods were blasted into space. Seemed a pathetic waste. They were my people. I looked at Sherthodz Mokshedingstein... The ceph. That meant this creature was also my people. “What did you say your name was, again?”
“Shrtzherg Hodzmorkinshed.”
I swallowed, licked my lips. “Can I just call you Shrtz?”
The ceph smiled. “As you wish.”
“Okay, speaking of shirts...you should put one on...”
The ceph glanced around the pod bay. “I see no wardrobe nearby.”
“Well. We’ll find one. Some. A ward...a clothes...thing.”
“My nakedness makes you uncomfortable?”
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