by Viki Storm
He enters the ship and opens the cargo container, gives it a cursory glance, then nods his head. He says something to his two goons, and they start to load the cartridges onto a tele-lift.
“And Hilf’s items?” I ask. Hilf didn’t specify what he was going to be receiving, only that I should expect a small crate, about a meter wide and half that tall.
“Impatient,” he says. “Well, so am I. He takes out his comm and mumbles a message into it. A few moments later, a third goon arrives, hefting the box onto one brawny shoulder. He brings it into the cargo hold and sets it down roughly, with a hard clank that rattles my eardrums.
“Hello there,” the third goon says when he straightens up and sees Brooke. “This is a nice piece. Real nice.” He reaches for her breasts with two knobby hands. Brooke gasps, but before the bastard can get his slimy fingers on her, I take my weapon out of its sheath and land a blow across his wrist. The bones snap with an audible crunch, and he howls in pain.
“You are a rube,” Shooki says, “and you deserved that. I would have done the same if you had tried to touch my property.”
“Come on,” the hired thug says and winces. “Look at those tits, they’re begging for a squeeze. She’s a slave, not the guy’s mate. What’s the big deal?”
“The big deal is you overstepped your boundaries and transgressed the sanctity of one’s personal property. If you ever rise high enough in station to acquire an exotic creature of your own, perhaps you will understand. I apologize for the behavior of my employee,” Shooki says. “I could let you have a few minutes with my own slave, by way of offering recompense. Her womb’s been despoiled by my seed already, but if you don’t mind going second, you are welcome to it.”
“It won’t be necessary,” I say, horrified that he’s offering mating privileges with his slave as casually as you might offer a guest a glass of cold water on a hot day.
“You are awfully uptight,” he remarks. “Must be the fabled Kenorian discipline. Shame your planet was destroyed. The universe needs more like you to counter-balance the hedonists like myself. Very well, then. You can check to see if Hilf’s package is to your satisfaction, but I assure you it is. I wouldn’t risk crossing a Phurusian. Hilf especially. I wouldn’t even risk thinking about it—they can arrest you for things you’re just thinking about.”
“Thanks for the tip,” I say. “I’m sure everything’s fine.” I just want to get out of here.
I close up the cargo hold and practically drag Brooke back on board the ship, where those clods can’t look at her anymore. “Fucking Christ,” she says. “What a bunch of pervs. What is it about owning a penis that makes you a full-fledged creepazoid anywhere in the damned galaxy? Aren’t aliens supposed to be all smart and evolved past their bodily desires?”
“There’s degeneracy everywhere,” I say. “As well as virtue. Many planets abolished slavery long ago—this just isn’t one of them.”
“I guess not,” she says. “Can I change clothes yet?”
“No,” I say. She shoots me a hot look of anger, but I interrupt her before she can say anything else. “Not because I want to ogle you.” Okay, that part is a lie. “But because we need to get out of here immediately. I don’t trust Shooki not to ambush us, despite what he said about being professional and not wanting to make an enemy of Hilf. And I really don’t trust those goons of his. You’d think a professional would hire better help. They could follow us, put a tracer on the ship, ground us with an anchor beam. The sooner we get to supra-light speed the better. Sit down and affix your safety apparatus.”
She protests, but I hold up a hand, ignoring her. Now’s not the time. I mean it when I say that these criminals can sabotage our ship.
“No honor among thieves,” Brooke says as she snaps her buckles together.
“That’s exactly right,” I agree. It’s hard to concentrate on initiating the flight sequence as she sits next to me. Her long, lean legs are bare and smooth, those red panties clinging so tightly to her sweet sex I can see her lips outlined clear as day. I imagine sliding my tongue between them, finding her little clit hard and ready for my attention. Her breasts are on display, too, as she’s not able to use her hair to cover them up while she’s strapped into the copilot seat.
She’s almost entirely nude and completely bound—as if waiting for her mate to claim her.
Oh, cruel Universe, could it deliver a more delicious gift to me? Not at all.
I get the ship in the air and we depart without incident. Maybe Shooki really is a professional—or maybe he really does fear Hilf that much. I’m not sure why he would. Hilf is a sycophantic bureaucrat with machinations of petty power. The only thing I fear from Hilf is his inability to keep his promise and free Brooke from her slave collar.
Then something occurs to me.
“Shit,” I say. I set the autopilot.
“What?” Brooke asks. “Can I get dressed now?”
“Yes,” I say, utterly distracted for the first time by something other than her body. “I need to check the cargo.”
“What’s wrong?” she says, sensing my alarm.
“Hopefully nothing,” I say. But I’m already out of my seat and headed downstairs, Brooke trailing behind me, her full breasts bouncing as she runs to keep up with me.
I find the cargo container and run my fingers along the edge, looking for the latch.
“What’s wrong?” she asks again. She’s a little out of breath, and her heart beats visibly under her skin.
“Why did Shooki seem so afraid of Hilf? Why did he keep mentioning how he wasn’t going to cross him?”
“I don’t know,” Brooke says. “But when a guy says, ‘I’m not a liar,’ he’s usually a liar.”
“That’s one option,” I say. “The other is that he was sincere, and he’s afraid of angering Hilf because of what’s in this container.”
“Like, what, he’s giving Hilf an atom-bomb or something? And he’s afraid that he’ll use it?”
“Atom bomb?” I say. “No, I mean a serious weapon. Something capable of real destruction.”
“That’s what I meant—oh, never mind,” Brooke says. “You think there’s some super-weapon in there?”
“Let’s find out,” I say. I pop the lid and look inside.
“Oh, shit, we did get swindled,” Brooke says. “See, I was right. When a guy says ‘I’m not a liar,’ he’s a liar. We’re fucked.”
“I agree with you there,” I say, staring into the cargo crate. “We’re fucked. But Shooki was no liar. We didn’t get swindled.”
Inside the crate is a load of vita-packs worth maybe two or three thousand credits black-market.
“We didn’t?” she says. “Because that looks like a box full of Flintstones Vitamins to me.”
“It is vitamins,” I say, “but I don’t know what a flint stone has to do with anything. No, this is exactly what Hilf wanted.”
“What’s so scary about vitamins? Is he going to give everyone strong bones and cure their scurvy?” she asks.
“I have no idea,” I say truthfully. I have an idea, a little insurance plan. It just better be enough to outsmart a Phurusian.
Chapter 11
Brooke
Anax lands his ship and literally drags me off. My feet tangle together and I start to fall, but I can’t, since he’s holding onto my arm so tight.
“Can you slow down a little?” I ask.
“No,” he says.
We storm into the settlement looking for Hilf. They gave him a room to stay in, but he isn’t there. The Kenorians seem to love him, seeing him as their instrument of revenge against the Phurusians who humiliated them so much. I’m still not sure why the Kenorians have so much spite for Phuru. I mean, the Phurusians are evil, perverted bastards, don’t get me wrong, but when your planet is destroyed and some other planet gives you steady work doing what you love (bashing skulls), you’d think you’d be grateful. It must be their damned pride. ‘Don’t take anything as an insult and you’ll never b
e insulted’ is my motto, but these Kenorians seem to take everything as an insult.
“Where’s that bastard?” Anax barks at the first Kenorian warrior he sees.
“There’s a lot of bastards here,” he replies. “Looking for one in particular?”
“Hilf,” Anax growls.
“Oh, that bastard,” the other warrior says. “I’d classify him more as a sneak than a bastard.”
“Have you seen him?”
“I saw him at the morning meal, but that was some time ago. Sorry.”
Anax snorts and drags me along.
“I don’t know why you hate Hilf so much,” I say. “I mean, he is helping us. He’s about the only one who can.”
“He hasn’t done anything to help us yet,” Anax reminds me. “So far, all he’s done is breach our settlement and tell a bunch of rogue Kenorians what they want to hear. He’s too good to be true—so he probably is.” I take a moment to let that sink in. I haven’t really considered the possibility that Hilf wouldn’t deactivate my collar. I just sort of assumed he would.
“He will,” I say, but now I’m not so sure. Damn Anax. I appreciate that he’s blunt and brutally honest—there’s nothing worse than a condescendingly pandering man—but that doesn’t mean I have to like his message.
Anax just grunts and keeps marching us through the settlement. I wonder how long the Kenorians have been here—and more importantly, what they’re working towards. All they seem to do is train for battle, but for what? Is there a battle coming that I don’t know about? Are they going to invade some hapless planet, or do they train just because that’s what they’re born to do?
“There’s the bastard,” Anax says, nodding towards Hilf. Hilf is at an outdoor table, and his comm panels and what I assume are broadcast antennae are set up all around him. He reminds me of back home, where you see people camped out at a coffee shop with their laptop, tablet, phone, charger, notepad, pencil, pen, planner and textbook all sprawled across a huge table.
“Sneak,” I correct. Anax just snorts as he starts to walk faster, dragging me along. I’m hesitant to rudely demand things from the one person who can save me from the explosive charge inside the collar, but maybe Anax has the right idea—the squeaky wheel gets the grease, after all.
“It’s done,” Anax barks without formal greeting.
“You must have had a hard time,” Hilf says, “if you forget to address me as sir.”
“Your cargo is in my ship,” Anax says, ignoring Hilf’s request for decorum. I don’t think the Kenorian language has that little saying about catching more flies with honey. “Remove the female’s collar.”
“Tell me, how was Shooki? Was he looking hearty and hale?”
“He was looking like he was half a dozen donuts away from a triple coronary bypass,” I say. “And hopefully he’s having one right now.”
“I assume he made untoward remarks concerning the possibility of taking you into his bed and breeding you?” Hilf answers.
“Not unless he’s ignorant of human anatomy and thinks insemination occurs in the large intestine,” I reply, metaphorically retching at the thought of the pleasure slave who was probably right now being subjected to that lowlife’s degrading acts.
“How vile,” Hilf says. “But when conducting business, it is often necessary to—”
“The collar,” Anax interrupts. “Now.”
“As I was saying,” Hilf says, “sometimes it’s necessary to deal with impatient or tactless associates.”
“I have plenty of tact,” Anax says. “I haven’t wrung your puny little neck yet.”
“Anyway,” Hilf says, “I am sorry to report that I have not been in contact with my technical expert. Like most males of genius, he is quite absent-minded when it comes to routine tasks not related to his area of obsession. As you can see, I am setting up the equipment needed to contact him. So if you’ll allow me some time…” Hilf says.
“You’ve had plenty of time,” Anax says. “She doesn’t.” He cocks a thumb at me. My stomach sinks, thinking about how some Phurusian could have already pressed a button, signaling the detonation of the collar’s explosive. That the radio wave used to transmit the signal is traveling through the Blackness of space right now, slower than the speed of light, slower than the speed of sound—but slow and steady wins the race. I picture little squiggles, those sine and cosine graphs, shooting through space, headed straight for me. And the second that the sensor on my collar receives the signal, interprets the wavelengths and decodes the message: kaboom.
Maybe I haven’t been taking this seriously enough.
Hilf reaches into his pocket and takes out a thin glass panel the size of a saltine cracker. It’s translucent, glowing with colored markings, reminding me of a neon sign. “Come back in an hour—no, half an hour. And I’ll have all the knowledge I need.” He smiles, and I get a creepy-crawly skin feeling. He reminds me of those stories where someone’s making a deal with the devil, but they don’t know it’s the devil.
“Fine,” Anax says. “Half-hour.”
He stalks off, leaving Hilf to his many comm devices. I trail behind him, feeling more uncertain than ever.
“Is there any way to estimate how long I’d have if someone on Phuru did decide to detonate the explosive?” I ask.
“Once they pushed the button,” he says, “you’d have about four days, if we’re using the time we keep on this settlement.”
“How long has it been?” I ask. “We got here, stayed one night, then traveled to Laurentia and back. How long does that add up to? I slept on your ship, but it’s hard to keep track of time without a regular sunrise and sunset.”
“It’s been about three and a half days,” he says. He takes my hand, and I feel a little more at ease, like he’s going to take care of this. I know I’m supposed to be a modern woman and take care of myself, but I’m way out of my league here. On Earth, I was going to be a lawyer, and that’s pretty much at the top of the social pyramid, right underneath doctor and rocket scientist. But out here? I’m a lowly, primitive human, and I’m reverting to my primitive ways—namely, finding a big strong man to help me.
It would make the feminists puke, but I don’t care. They never got abducted and had a ticking time-bomb locked around their necks.
“Any second, I could explode,” I say. “One minute here, next minute I’m nothing but a cloud of red mist.” I can’t help getting a little macabre.
“Stop that,” Anax says, loud enough to startle me. “They aren’t going to detonate it so soon. I will make Hilf get it off. If he can’t, I will make him pay. Then I will find someone who can.”
“Thank you,” I say. I feel pulled to him, not attraction like ‘oh, he’s so hot’ (though there is a fair amount of that). It’s like there’s a hook through my chest and someone’s on the other end of the string, reeling me in. Like some unseen entity is arranging us like pawns on a chessboard. Some cosmic cupid got an arrow into me.
But I can’t just abandon myself to that feeling because, well, it’s just a feeling. And not even a well-defined one. It’s vague, frayed around the edges. Like a shadowy thing that disappears when the lights turn on. I’ve been trained to think, to analyze, to construct arguments based on texts and statutes. To ask questions and consider all sides of an issue—to tear down my own argument to find its weaknesses.
And there’s one thing I can’t get away from. One question I need to ask.
“Why are you helping me?” I ask him. “You arrested me, took me to the Hall of Justice. Then you change your mind and go through all this trouble to help me. Why?” I force myself to ask the rest of it, the thing that’s really bothering me. “What do you want in return?” I know what most men want in return for almost anything… what those primitive cavewomen had to trade to the cavemen in exchange for mastodon pelts and saber-toothed tiger meat.
And at this point, it’s something I wouldn’t mind trading. It would be a bargain, in fact, a romp in the sack with a sculpted war
rior.
“I want you,” he says. I was not expecting this reply. When men feel entitled to sex, they never admit it.
“That was direct,” I say. “You Kenorians don’t really deal in subtleties, do you?”
“You’re mine,” he says again, as if it’s a foregone conclusion. “I already explained it. We are mates. You are a precious gift from the Universe.”
“You might have mentioned that,” I say. This mate stuff is a little weird… but it’s sort of not. I can almost get behind it, almost understand what he’s talking about. That fishing line reeling me in.
But if I think about it too much, turn it over in my mind, it disappears in a puff of smoke.
“Anax,” a voice calls. It’s not Hilf, I know that, the voice is too deep and commanding. Hilf sounds like a spoiled vicar at a dinner party chastising the host for serving undercooked fish.
“Kothar,” Anax says. “Our language is insufficient for this meeting. I am overjoyed.”
“As am I,” Kothar says. They embrace like the old friends that they are, and I imagine what that must be like to think someone so close to you is dead for ten long years, then, like Lazarus from the grave, they’re not dead anymore, just like that. Kothar looks at me—rather, he looks at the collar. Then gives Anax a disapproving stare, disappointment rolling off of him in a thick wave. I remember what Anax said about their former home planet Kenor, how they despised slavery in all its forms.
“Hilf has not deactivated it yet?” Kothar asks.
“No,” Anax says.
“He will,” Kothar says.
“I’d like to believe that,” Anax says. “I’d like to believe he’s our ally, but really he could be spying on all of us, providing data to the Phuru behavior simulators so they can forecast our actions.”
“Why?” Kothar asks. “It makes no sense.”
“The Phurusians always feared us,” Anax says. “We were the only real threat to them in our sector.”
“We were never a threat,” Kothar says, unbelieving. “Our relations were always good.”
