by Livia Bourne
Thrash closed the distance between himself and the doctor in two fast strides. Grabbing the shorter man by the front of his uniform, Thrash shook him as he shouted, “What are these objects? You found them. You must know what they are?”
The humming noise had quickly grown to a full alarm, becoming so loud it was impossible to hear each other without shouting. By the time the doctor answered, the sound had morphed to a piercing vibration that shot jolts of pain through Khalil’s ears and head.
In a matter of seconds, they found themselves in a crisis situation as all of the Alphas present threw their hands over their ears in an attempt to lessen the pain shooting through their bodies, starting in their ears, but spreading like a fast moving virus.
Khalil could see the doctor’s mouth moving. He was trying to say something, but white spots had begun to block his vision as he recognized he was on the verge of losing consciousness. He watched the doctor struggle with Thrash, trying to get the first marble they’d found away from him. When Thrash fell to his knees in pain, the marble fell to the floor, rolling across the flooring and leaving a scorched line of what looked like fire behind it.
What magic was this?
Knowing time was short, Khalil fought to maintain consciousness long enough to reach the airlock closet only a few feet away. He met Onyx at the door, both men understanding they needed to secure themselves away from the danger before blacking out or the transport and everyone on board would be at the mercy of whoever had infiltrated their ship to place these unknown weapons onboard.
The piercing sound had begun to pulsate and morph in ways he had never experienced. It was as if his brain was no longer in control of his body. He should be moving forward, but instead, his legs gave way, crashing him to the floor, landing flat next to Onyx. The men’s eyes met as each lay motionless. No matter how hard he fought to tell his body to move, it was as if he had been frozen in place.
It was the spark of panic in Onyx’s eyes that told him just how much trouble they were in. His number one was always calm, working any problem he faced until resolved. A fury he could do nothing to quench consumed him just before it felt like his head was going to explode. His last thought was of his hope to live long enough to exact revenge on whoever onboard had betrayed them.
Chapter 2 - Zahara
Zahara was just finishing bathing in the shower chamber when the pulsating humming began. At first, she just thought it was the engine of the transport, but within nanoseconds, the sounds grew loud enough that she knew something was amiss.
She rushed to turn off the water jets and quickly grabbed the thick robe from the hook next to the chamber. She didn’t bother running the drying cycle, electing to wrap her wet body before rushing from the bathing room.
She encountered Randi, the princess’s handmaid as soon as she entered the suite’s living space. The older beta female had placed her hands over her ears, trying to block out the growing noise.
What had started as a curious sound moments before was quickly turning into a security concern. Zahara rushed back to where she’d left her clothing, rummaging through the pile until she found the most important part of her outfit—the long-handled, razor sharp dagger.
Her fingers trembled as she reached to strap her weapon onto her upper thigh before she took off running down the long hallway to the final bedchamber of the suite, bursting into the room without knocking.
“Princess Audra! Wake up! Something’s wrong!”
Her shouts were barely heard over the fast-escalating screech of the pulsating humming coming from the ceiling above them.
The princess had been jarred awake because she met Zahara halfway across the room, already throwing on her own robe over her flowing bedclothes. The royal’s waist-length hair swirled behind her as she rushed towards her assistant.
“What is happening, Z?”
“I don’t know, but I think… we should get you… to a containment airlock… until a member of the commander’s team...” Zahara’s words trailed off as she fought to pull Audra to safety. Not only could she no longer control her limbs, the words died on her tongue. It felt like a dry brick in her mouth.
As one, the two females’ legs collapsed beneath them, splaying them flat on the thick padding of the bedchamber floor, each unable to move their muscles as if they’d been frozen in place.
She saw the terror in the princess’ eyes as the piercing sounds escalated until Zahara was sure her head was going to explode from the pressure. As afraid as she was, she found herself welcoming the darkness as she lost consciousness, finally making the pain stop.
The piercing screams of a female in torment broke through Zahara’s drugged slumber, dragging her from the blessed darkness. Disoriented, she fought to make sense of her surroundings, even as she suspected she’d be better off unconscious. At least then she wouldn’t have to fend off the rising panic as her brain rebooted, foggy memories flashing in her mind until terror gripped her hard.
The sharp pain she’d been in was now a throbbing ache. Still under the influence of whatever magic had disabled her, she struggled to open her eyes and assess her situation. For a short moment, she thought she’d been blinded, but then was relieved to feel the rough fabric of the blindfold chaffing her cheeks. Her limbs felt like they were weighted down, barely able to move.
She searched her memory, trying to think of the last thing that made sense. A flash of Princess Audra brought renewed panic as memories of their collapse in the bedchamber returned. She was unsure where she was, but she was at least certain she was no longer on the plush floor. Sensation had returned enough to her limbs to know she was laid out on a rock-hard slab of some sort.
Feelings of crushing failure invaded and for the briefest of moments she acknowledged she deserved any hell she had been delivered to for failing to keep her princess safe.
Horrific sounds of anguished screams tore her out of her memories, dragging her into the present whether she wanted to be or not. As a trained beta assistant to the princess, her instincts were to go to those in need—to help. But as she finally moved her arms and legs for the first time since regaining consciousness, she discovered she’d be of no help to anyone.
Wide metal cuffs cut into her wrists and ankles when she dared move her limbs even the slightest amount. Grateful she felt her long robe still covering her, she tried to reach for her hidden weapon, but her limbs were chained to heavy posts sticking out of the slab, preventing her range of movement.
Zahara fought down her panic, determined to reason her way out of danger—if not for herself, so she could find Audra. She’d sworn an oath to serve the princess, but that wasn’t the most important reason.
Audra was also her best friend.
The blanket of drugs still weighed heavy, tempting her to slip back into slumber to escape the reality of her situation, but she wasn’t a quitter. She had a job to do. She needed to find the princess and figure a way out of whatever hell they’d been dropped into.
She struggled to maneuver to move her blindfold enough to take a peek of her surroundings when the screams got closer. She instinctively froze, attempting to convince her captors she was still out cold to avoid drawing attention to herself. With each passing moment, it became harder to keep her breaths slow and even as she fought back fear listening to the barbarians torturing another unlucky captive nearby.
“I’m begging you, please. My mate can reimburse you for my release.” The unfamiliar female groveling through tears sounded older than Zahara.
The sound of snapping leather striking flesh was fast like lightning. The resulting scream a few seconds later came like the clapping thunder in a storm.
“For a worthless hag, you scream beautifully,” the guard complimented.
The guttural scratching sounds had come from the grotesque, horned alien closest to her. She peeked through a sliver of space behind her blindfold to see the beast was in the process of torturing the unfortunate female she’d seen in the ship’s cafe helping t
he princess’s chef just that morning. Her name was Milly or Mally—something like that.
“This is the best music we’ve heard in a long time.”
Zahara didn’t recognize the beasts or their language, but her implanted translator had understood the foreign grunting noise and interpreted it, although she suspected the linguistic database needed to be updated because there was nothing close to music playing in the diabolical lab they were in. There was only the sound of misery.
Evil cackles made Zahara’s skin crawl as the guard humiliated the old woman. Another strike and shout were so close it took all of her self-control to not cry out herself.
“Be glad you’re too old to breed, woman. On your feet. You’re to be moved to the mining sector to serve as a laborer.”
Her hearing heightened with the loss of her eyesight. Zahara could make out the sound of heavy chains scratching against the floor as the guard dragged the sobbing woman away. Praying there were no other captors nearby, she struggled to curl into a tighter ball on her side, working to get her head closer to her chained hands so she could remove the fabric over her eyes. She wouldn’t be able to make an escape plan without surveying her situation.
Even when the cloth was partially removed, she couldn’t make out any of her surroundings for long seconds as her eyes became accustomed to the dim lighting. As her location came into view, she had to choke back her own sob.
A half dozen other captives were chained in the dank, stone, windowless room. Like her, several remained on the hard floor passed out, but the unlucky early risers had been dragged to the middle of the room to be strung up by the cuffs on their wrists to heavy chains, hanging naked from a mammoth beam in the ceiling. The beta females had been stretched out so that they had to stand on their tippy toes to relieve any pressure on their arms.
She froze as two armed guards entered through the arched doorway. It took every ounce of her control to keep from screaming. She’d seen plenty members of the barbaric race of Trakonians displayed on the vid-screens in the village communication center and in her school lessons. But they were a thousand times more menacing in person. Not just because of their huge, muscled bodies and ugly smashed faces, but she was close enough to see the hundreds of tattoos covering their bodies, all depicting scenes of violence and torture, as if they were a walking advertisement for torment and anguish.
She felt guilty relief when they stopped to grab up one of the still unconscious women closer to the entrance. Lifting her like a rag doll, the tallest of the guards threw her over his shoulder like a sack of grain as soon as they’d unhooked her chains from the wooden post closest to her slumbering location.
A shorter guard stooped to yank a crying beta’s head back by her tangled hair. “What is your age, slave?”
“I’m not a slave. I’m a Gradonian citizen!”
Zahara recognized the woman as a distant cousin to Audra who had accompanied the princess on their peacekeeping mission.
The back of his paddle-like hand connected with her right cheek, sending the female sprawling to the hard floor.
“Silence! Speak only to answer a question posed by your superiors,” the guard warned.
“You are no superior! You’re scum. I demand you release me at once,” the regal female asserted. “As a member of the royal family’s entourage, I demand to be released.”
Her argumentative words were accompanied by her angry swing, connecting her closed fist with the jaw of the nearest guard.
Unfazed, his retaliation was immediate. Thick digits grabbed the bodice of her fancy gown, ripping the clothing away from the indignant female as easily as most would tear a piece of parchment. A second Trakonian guard joined in the fray, squeezing the captive female’s neck, cutting off airflow and holding her immobile so his fellow torturer could make quick work of pulling every stitch of clothing from the royal’s body until she stood completely naked. She gasped for precious air once the guard released her neck, again flailing ineffectually against her captor.
“String her up. I know Lord Trakon wants her for the main attraction tonight, but that doesn’t mean we can’t teach her a lesson before.”
Like the two other females dangling from hooks and chains, the royal’s arms were held up until her wrist cuffs were attached to a steel hook. Shorter than the other women, her feet didn’t even touch the ground, so when the guard released her, she fell. The velocity of her drop along with her weight almost dislocated her arms at her shoulders. Zahara watched, horrified, as the woman floundered in the air like a big fish on a hook.
The ugliest of the guards had reached towards his belt, removing the whip that all Trakonian warriors carried with them. The thick length of leather-like rope was infamous for the damage it could do to exposed skin unlucky enough to connect with the feared punishment device.
A notoriously sadistic race, Trakonians were known for the joy they took from inflicting pain on any living thing in their path. Was it any surprise that over many solar rotations, the females of the barbaric race were fewer and farther between? The only hope the galaxy had to rid themselves of the blight of the Trakonians was that it should only take a few more generations to eradicate the race simply through their inability to procreate without killing the females carrying their offspring.
The whip snapped against the royal’s bare back, leaving an ugly welt that immediately swelled in its wake. The unfortunate woman kicked, valiantly trying to swing away from the onslaught of pain coming hard and fast from the punishment lashing. More than anything, Zahara wished she could cover her ears, hoping to block out the terrifying screams of pain followed by the cruel guards’ vicious laughter.
Only after they had drawn royal blood did the relentless whipping end. As the sobbing female hung limply from the hook, the guard turned. It was then that Zahara suspected the woman’s suffering had only just begun.
The profile of the mammoth beast displayed an ugly pole jutting out from his groin. Memories from school flooded her thoughts. She remembered the titters of laughter in her all-female class when their professor had described the unusual sex organs of their hated enemies. To the young betas, the images displayed on the vid-screens had seemed salacious. She remembered feeling the stir of sexual arousal when the enemy’s very personal weapon had been described in the educational context.
Here. Today. Seeing the weapon up close made her stomach want to throw-up.
And make no mistake, the long, thick, ugly mass protruding proudly from the soldier’s body was a weapon. It was notoriously used to tear apart their enemies—both male and female. It was well documented that torture and killing brought the Trakonians sexual pleasure which in turn, led them to seek out a growing number of unfortunate sacrificial sex slaves who would have their available orifices split open by the punishing pounding of the mammoth cocks.
Cold terror gripped Zahara as she realized she, and every unfortunate Gradonian on the Viper, including Princess Audra, now faced the reality of becoming a sexual toy in the most barbaric sense of the word.
She bit her tongue to keep from crying out a warning to the still sobbing woman, unaware that the worst of her punishment had not truly begun. Zahara knew that warning her would do no good. It would only serve to draw attention to herself, and the longer she remained untouched, the longer she had to figure out an escape plan.
Zahara slammed her eyes closed, trying to block out the vision of what was about to happen just feet away from her. The blood-curdling scream followed by the grunting and slapping sounds as the Trakonian guard raped Audra’s distant cousin would forever be etched in her memory. As nanoseconds turned to long moments, the sounds of the suffering female faded away as she passed out from the pain of being ripped open. Morbid curiosity forced her to sneak a peek when all that remained was the pounding grunts, watching as the guard lifted the woman’s body up and down his long shaft as if she were weightless. He used her body as a sheath, chasing his own gratification until he roared his completion.
A
n acrid odor filled the room as globs of thick wetness shot from the unconscious female as stream after stream filled her until her body would hold no more. Her fresh blood mixed with the demon’s seed, spilling to the floor just a few arms’ lengths away from Zahara.
She fought hard not to gag, knowing it would signal to the guards that she too was awake. When the stench of the Trakonian became unbearable, she rolled, trying to get as far away as the chains on her limbs would allow.
The scratching, guttural sounds of another guard scared her, pulling a whimper from deep within. When she opened her eyes, she was face to face with the most ugly horned creature she’d ever seen.
“I’m happy to see you awake. I look forward to breaking you in before you’re part of tonight’s main attraction.”
The ugly man was close enough that she could smell the putrid odor of decaying flesh on his breath. Zahara wished she’d never woke up.
Chapter 3 - Khalil
The incessant dripping of a water tap was Khalil’s first conscious thought. It wasn’t until he tried to move that the nightmare of the strange attack on the Viper started to seep into his memory. Like flashes of pictures from a vid-screen, visions of Onyx and Thrash crashing to the ground, immobilized by the same piercing sound that had downed him, came back.
It was the sharp ache of his shoulders that forced him fully awake. As movement returned to his previously frozen limbs, he discovered his wrists were wrapped in thick chains, pulled up and out wide, attached to iron rings in the stone wall at his back. His legs still felt like dead weight, unable to stand, putting a strain on his shoulders as he hung from his arms.
“You are awake. I have much to report.” It was the gruff voice of Thrash that broke the silence of the confinement area. For the first time, Khalil lifted his head in an attempt to examine his surroundings. To his horror, he found himself in a circular stone cell with at least eight of his most trusted members of their elite team chained just as he was. He couldn’t see Thrash, which told him the officer, was chained next to him. Onyx was missing as well, and Khalil hoped he was chained on his other side. If only his head didn’t feel like a boulder. He’d like to turn to look at them to assess their damage.
