The problem was that she rarely let her guard down. Every time LaCruz had seen her she’d been surrounded by her various hangers-on. Taking out one or two of these should prove fairly straightforward but taking them all down was going to prove problematic. However they decided to go about this, it wasn’t going to be easy.
Even if Markham could get the Marines organised, they were going to have a major fight on their hands. There were just too many unknowns at present. Saratova had built up a regular little army here, plus, this was their ship and they’d know how best to defend it.
There were a group of eight raiders waiting to pick them up and take them to whatever holding facility they were currently using. They had the hard eyes of men and women who’d seen a lot of bloodshed and she didn’t doubt for a second that they were capable of looking after themselves. She’d seen their type in bar rooms all over the galaxy. Ready to turn their hand to whatever grim tasks their paymaster might require. Then, it was simply a question of keeping them supplied with drink and drugs before you pointed them in the right direction and let them loose.
She watched their faces as they received their briefing from Deetz. She’d piled her braids up on top of her head to show that she meant business. Most of them were listening, but one or two of them were glancing over in the direction of LaCruz’s group, eyeing up the women. It was subtle, no one was making it too obvious, but it was there. LaCruz had seen it too many times before. If you were going to survive in space as a woman, you had to know those signs and be willing to act on them.
Problem was, most of the attention was being directed towards the Marsh woman. She was attractive enough, LaCruz reflected, that is if you liked skinny women but clearly enough of them did. Annoyingly enough, the last thing Markham had said to her before he was taken away was that she had to look out for Marsh.
She didn’t know what was so special about her, all she did know was that if anything happened to her, Markham was going to be pissed and she had no intention of letting that happen.
As they were being led out of the cargo bay, LaCruz positioned herself towards the front. She figured that if the attention was on her, she might be able to divert it away from Marsh, at least in the short term. And it wasn’t as if they wouldn’t have already been warned about her. Some of them would no doubt be delighted about the fact that LaCruz had nearly strangled one of their own. You get enough service personnel together and they invariably revert to a pack mentality, delighting in the rise and fall of others.
They’d no doubt already marked her down as a troublemaker and would deal with her accordingly. Which suited LaCruz. If they cared to step up, she’d be only too happy to reciprocate. Didn’t matter how big they were, LaCruz would make them rue the day they decided to mess with her.
LaCruz smelled their quarters a long time before they got there. She recognised the smell from her childhood: an acrid mix of human waste, intercut with notes of fear and despair. The smell of the worst slums. The smell of a prison.
She quickly dropped back into the middle of the group, keeping her voice low.
“Okay, ladies, listen up. They’re keeping other people in here with us and I’d imagine that by now they’re pretty desperate. Your job is to keep your head down and try not to draw any attention to yourself. Anyone asks, you’re with me. Tell ‘em, Jackson’s here now and she’s taking care of you. If nothing else, it’ll put them on the back foot while they try and work out who the hell I am. Got that?”
A blonde woman looked at her with wide eyes. “What sort of things are you talking about?”
“I think they’ve been keeping people down here for a long while. That makes them a potential danger far as we’re concerned. But don’t worry, that’s all going to change.”
“And you’re the one to do it?” Marsh said.
“Sister, I’m the one chance you’ve got of making it out of here, so you’d better do just whatever the hell I tell you.”
They’d turned down a narrow corridor which reminded LaCruz of the inside of some industrial pipe. The stench rose up, threatening to over-power them and a couple of the women gagged.
“Don’t worry,” their guard snickered. “You’ll get used to it. Everybody does. Eventually.”
LaCruz turned to the others. “Okay, if we’re going to stick together, I need everyone’s names. Let’s have ‘em.”
*
The women were all split up and LaCruz was put into a cell with three other women, though one of them, named Tulip, was barely out of her teens. In contrast to the squalid conditions, she wore a sort of cocktail dress which hung off her tiny frame.
Her companion, a hard-faced young woman called Mariella, made it clear that they had no interest in talking to her and that she would have to bed down beside the door. LaCruz was happy enough with that arrangement as it meant she was on the other side of the room to their foul-smelling toilet. There were two bunks, one on either side of the room. The two younger women shared one, while an older woman, who was twice the size of LaCruz, was asleep on the other.
There were no windows, just a strip light which was turned off at a predetermined point to encourage them to get some rest. LaCruz would have liked to have had a little more time to examine the door, specifically the lock, but with the only light coming from under the door, she reckoned she was wasting her time. Instead, she decided to make herself as comfortable as possible before trying to get some sleep.
She woke up in the corner, with the big woman, who’d been asleep earlier, pinning her down. While the woman’s knee crushed her chest, the woman busied herself trying to remove LaCruz’s boots. Pinned down like that, LaCruz found it impossible sit up and didn’t have enough room to bring her fists into play either so she did the next best thing. She sank her teeth into the fleshy part of the woman’s thigh.
The woman let out a scream as though she were being murdered and quickly rolled off her.
Lacruz sat up, relieved to find that none of her ribs were broken and was happy to leave it at that but the big woman had other ideas. She came round and stood over her meaning to drop down on her with both knees but LaCruz was too quick for her. Rolling to one side, she reached up and grabbed the back of the other woman’s belt, intending to pull herself to her feet. In reality what happened was that as soon as she pulled down on the belt, the older woman over balanced and fell backwards, cracking the back of her head against the far wall.
The sound of it was loud enough to wake the other two women.
They sat up and, upon seeing the big woman lying there cursing, immediately took her side in the matter.
LaCruz had had enough by this stage so went over to the woman’s bunk and tipped all her things onto the floor. Then she lay down and within a minute was fast asleep.
CHAPTER 10
LaCruz woke up when a couple turned up to collect the girls.
She had no idea how long she’d slept for but she felt refreshed and was fully awake within thirty seconds. The couple stood in the doorway, a man and a woman, and they seemed reticent to enter the cell. Word must have got around, she assumed, or perhaps they could see the blood stain on the far wall. Either way, they stood at the threshold, beckoning the two young girls to come forward. Although it was all very low key, LaCruz didn’t like what she was seeing. The girls took their time checking their tawdry clothes before searching under the bed for items of make-up they had hidden under their mattress. The fact that the big woman hadn’t taken these for herself told LaCruz all she needed to know.
It wasn’t as if she hadn’t seen the self-same set-up a thousand times before. The market for young flesh never grew old and she could see the desperation in the faces of the two pimps – for that was surely what they were. From their attire, they appeared to be on the lower end of the social scale, reliant on farming out these young girls in order to protect themselves from some greater deprivation. Mariella refused to be rushed when applying her make-up. She was young enough to believe that she still held some ag
ency here, and perhaps she was right. So long as her looks held out, she’d be in demand but that couldn’t last forever. All it would take would be for one of her clients to lash in a moment of rage and her career would quickly come to an end. It looked like that point had almost been reached for Tulip who seemed to be in the process of starving herself to death, not that anyone had noticed.
When they had stepped out of the cell and into the corridor, their minders inspected them thoroughly, like farmers checking their cattle.
After the door was locked, LaCruz sat on the edge of her cot taking in every detail of the room while the other woman sat slumped against the wall staring sullenly at her.
LaCruz said, “Anything to drink around here?”
“Not for you,” the woman struggled to form the ‘f’ properly.
“What’s wrong with your mouth?”
The woman stuck out a tongue which had swollen to twice its normal size. She spat a clot of blood onto the floor.
“What do you care?”
“I care that it won’t get infected. Thing like that gets infected, it’s going to stink the place out.”
“I’ll be fine,” she said. Then, watching LaCruz, she put her hand on the vacant cot and pulled herself to her feet. She dropped down in the middle of the bed, her eyes never leaving LaCruz.
“What’s the score with those two?” LaCruz said.
The woman made a non-committal gesture. “Working girls. We all got to work.”
“Doesn’t seem to be suiting the young one. Tulip, is it?”
“She’ll be okay. She may not look it but she’s tough. Not like the others.”
LaCruz made a mental note of that and wondered how many other women hadn’t made it.
“What about you? You not working?”
Anger flashed in the woman’s eyes. “What you trying to say?”
“I’m saying, they’re not keepin’ you here for nothin’. So, what’s the score?”
The woman held up three fingers.
“Kitchen, cleaning, whorin’. That’s it. You can’t do that, they cut you lose.”
“Okay, so I’m thinking… sorry, what’s your name?”
“What you need to know my name for?”
“So we can chat like two society ladies.” That got a laugh. “Name’s LaCruz. What’s yours?”
“Baptised Sylvia but everyone calls me Sylvie.”
“So, Sylvie, I’m guessing: kitchen?”
Sylvie shook her head mournfully. “If only. No. Cleaning. They’ll come for me in a little while.”
“No offence, Sylvie, but don’t they have servitors for stuff like that?”
“Must have done at one time but these people is crazy,” she tapped the side of her skull to emphasise her point. “They’ll shoot anything. They’ll shoot you, they’ll shoot me. And they think it’s funny. Any robots – they shoot.”
Indiscipline. That was good. Trigger happy. Even better. This was all stuff she could use.
When LaCruz stood up, Sylvie eyed her suspiciously.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. You’re fine. I just need some hot water, that’s all.”
Sylvie glared at her. “What you need water for?”
LaCruz reached inside the lining of her belt and brought out a small pouch.
“Drugs?”
“Er, no. Salt, actually. I thought we could take a look at that mouth of yours.”
The cell came equipped with a single nozzle for water which you could adjust to change temperature. Even at the highest temperature, it wasn’t particularly hot but LaCruz filled a cup and then sprinkled in some of the salt. She handed it to Sylvie and told her to swill it around her mouth, making sure to wash out the wound before spitting it out. They repeated this process three more times.
When they’d finished, Sylvie showed LaCruz her tongue, like a child trying to show they’d swallowed everything. She must have bitten down hard on her tongue when she’d banged her head. She’d been lucky not to have bitten it off completely.
When they’d finished Sylvie said, “You think you’re getting out of here, don’t you?”
“What if I am?”
“That’s what we all thought. But we were wrong.”
LaCruz wanted to question her, find out how she’d come to end up in a place like this, but she didn’t. She had an idea she was going to need Sylvie’s help if they were to have any chance of getting out of there and so didn’t want to push her luck.
“You must have thought about it, though,” LaCruz probed. “Escaping. Don’t tell me you haven’t.”
Sylvie graced her with a rare smile. “Oh, I think about it every day. An’ it would work too. Hundred percent.”
LaCruz gave her a quizzical look. “Okay. Say I were to believe you. What’s stopping you from doing it?”
Sylvie took a moment to look carefully around the room. Then she said, “First of all: I’d need somebody to back me up. Someone I could rely on. Someone solid.”
“Okay, so, what’s the second thing?”
“If I did manage to make it out of here, I’d be condemning every single person on this ship to death.”
*
It was about midday when the guards came to take LaCruz along to the mess hall. By that time, Sylvie was long gone. The eight ‘new’ women had to line up in the corridor before they were allowed to go inside. LaCruz recognised two of the women she’d come over with, Marsh and a woman called Petey. She and her exchanged a knowing glance. Marsh was towards the front, her long auburn hair draped over her shoulders. She didn’t bother to acknowledge LaCruz.
They only had to pass through one set of doors to get here, which LaCruz took as a good sign, adding the details to her mental map. She’d already formed a decent idea of the area Sylvie worked in, particularly where they stored their cleaning products, so she was already starting to put the pieces of a plan together.
Although she was, by now, extremely hungry, her main hope in attending the mess hall was that she might be able to find out where they were holding Markham. It didn’t matter if she didn’t get to speak to him directly but if she could get a message to him she’d be just as happy. So she was thrilled, when upon entering the mess hall, she spied him on the other side of the room, sitting between two Marines. It was the haircuts which set them apart.
The women had to wait behind a barrier in the centre of the room until the queue for the servery had gone down. The Marsh woman was in a group which was told where they could sit before they were sent over to get served. As their group snaked past the male diners their presence elicited an all too familiar response from the men who were eating. LaCruz’s heart sank as she heard Marsh respond to the cat calls. Drawing unwanted attention to herself. There was nothing quite like fresh meat in a prison environment to get the male inmates excited and, as a woman, that was the last thing you needed.
Only, the fact that they weren’t then escorted to their seats LaCruz found reassuring. There were two guards by the refectory, both armed, but they weren’t really paying attention to their duties. One was checking his wrist monitor while the other was chatting to one of the chefs. All useful information.
When it came their turn to approach the servery, LaCruz waited until she was halfway there before glancing over in Markham’s direction. He looked up at just that moment, held eye contact with her while he mouthed what could have been ‘Blow’ before dropping his gaze back towards the table.
The food was the usual synthesised stuff she’d been expecting but she was surprised that they included some kind of pudding for dessert. She hung back, waiting until the next group of women were despatched before selecting her dessert. As she’d expected, there was a cacophony of sound as the new women came over and she used this distraction to pick up a second dessert dish and force it down on top of the other.
She ignored the tirade of wolf whistles behind her, picked up her tray and headed for the table where Petey was sitting. She put her tray down opposite h
er and then sat down. Immediately, she picked up the top dessert and crammed it into her mouth. Then she substituted the second bowl, placing that on top.
“Interesting!” Petey said. She was thin, all angles and edges, her dyed blonde hair starting to grow out.
“This ain’t no fine dining experience,” LaCruz said. “It’s all about the calories.”
“I see.”
LaCruz moved to a bowl of thin stew, using the heel of bread she’d been given to soak up the juices.
“You’ve been to prison before?” the woman asked.
“Not prison, as such, no. Spent a little time in juvenile detention, though.”
“And is that one of the tricks you picked up there?”
“Yeah. That and learning how not to draw attention to yourself.”
She inclined her head over towards where Marsh was sitting.
“Yeah,” Petey didn’t even bother to look. “Someone needs to talk to her about that.”
“If she sticks around long enough.”
Petey’s eyes went wide. “You think something might happen to her?”
“These guys ain’t got an awful lot going for them. They’re liable to go a long way to get a piece of that. You understand me?”
Petey made a sour face.
“Then, there’s always the chance that one of them will try and set her up as their new baby mamma.”
Petey choked down what she was eating.
“They can do that?”
“They can do whatever the hell they like if they’ve got the guards onside.”
LaCruz rubbed her thumb and forefinger together in the universal sign for money.
“I see,” Petey went back to her dinner.
LaCruz finished her stew and went to move her bowl when she felt something on the underside. She checked that no one was looking before quickly turning the bowl over.
Cry of War: A Military Space Adventure Series Page 15