by Mara Frost
Now, I’m not talking about just the bread being green or the meat being green. The entire sandwich – which looked to be a ham, cheese and lettuce sandwich – was a uniformly light green color. It was a little disconcerting.
He turns to the little food generator thingy and starts pounding away at the controls. “I don’t understand what the malfunction is. I looked into Earth cuisine specific to where you are from and sandwiches came back as a basic food that almost all enjoy.”
“That’s true, but does your little fancy magical food generator doo-dad show pictures?”
Big Blue pounds away again and the chirping sounds getting louder and then an image of a perfectly colored delicious-looking sandwich pops up. My stomach growls again.
His brow furrows as he glances at the image and then looks at the green thing in his hand. He then starts to mumble something scary that I don’t understand. He’s clearly annoyed. Again.
“I assure you that it will taste like your Earth sandwich and the physical and chemical composition are exactly the same. The replicator simply got the coloring wrong. Here.”
He reaches down and releases my bindings. I don’t fight him...mostly because I really don’t want to and I just plain don’t have the energy anymore.
He hands me the plate. “Here. Try it,” he orders.
I look up at him hesitantly for only a second before my empty stomach wins out and literally forces me to reach out and grab the plate from him. I weigh my options and realize that death by food poisoning is a risk that I’m willing to take at this point.
“Fine,” I mumble.
Without realizing it, I close my eyes as I take my first bite, almost like I’m expecting an explosion as soon as my teeth bite down on the green bread. Once I have a mouthful of alien sandwich in my mouth, I slowly open my eyes.
Nothing. No explosions. No bloodcurdling death by poison. It tastes like a plain old ham and cheese sandwich. I glance up at him and find him staring down at me expectantly, like he’s waiting to see what will happen to me to. It catches me off guard.
“What?” I muffle with a mouth full of food.
“Well? How is it?”
I shrug and take another bite. “It’s good. It’s not the most amazing sandwich ever, but it’ll do.”
Satisfied, he relaxes but continues to stare at me in a weird disconcerting way as I take each bite.
Okay, that’s not awkward.
“So, when can I see Jordan?” I ask in between hungry bites.
“You cannot.”
“Nope, not an option. I have to see her.”
I can only imagine how she’s doing without me by her side. She probably screamed herself hoarse and cried until she was dehydrated. Granted, that doesn’t sound appealing to be around, but I’m sure I could have at least calmed her down a bit.
Or throttled her. After I looked into some alien earplugs.
“You cannot.”
“I will.”
“No.”
“If I can’t then I’m going to starve myself and die and you’ll get no money for me at all,” I blurt out.
He stops and his eyes widen slightly.
Ahah! Bingo bango – he apparently didn’t realize that humans weren’t just dumb animals.
“You wouldn’t starve yourself. That goes against your basic need to survive,” he replies mechanically.
“That’s true, we need food to survive, but we also have freewill – freewill that allows us to make decisions... decisions like choosing not to eat or survive in undesirable conditions,” I shoot back at him as I take a big bite out of my sandwich. He then watches me take that bite as I chew with conviction. His brow perks up with interest.
Okay, I didn’t think that totally through.
“Oh, what? This?” I reply as I motion at the green food in my hand. “Don’t think I wouldn’t do it! I would just start exercising my freewill after....this...sandwich,” I reply matter of factly, my mouth full.
He meets my gaze for a moment and then smirks and rolls his eyes.
“Regardless, I’m afraid you won’t be reunited with your friend as she has already left with my partner.”
“What!”
“Yes, they left when we dropped out of hyper speed. They are probably half way across the Omega quadrant.”
“I don’t know what any of that means, but what the Hell! She’s gone?!”
He nods his head once.
“Well, go get her!”
“No. They are gone.”
“You are a bastard.”
I throw my sandwich at him. I’m so angry and scared that I don’t know what to do. My entire body is shaking.
They did it. They really did it. They took her and they’re going to sell her like cattle at auction. And I’m next.
My voice quivering, “W-what is going to happen to...her?”
I don’t know if it was the way I looked or the way I sounded, but for a brief second a part of his hard exterior melted away and I saw something in his face. I don’t know what it was – pity? Regret? Who knows, but it was something that wasn’t there before.
And just like that it was gone just as quickly as it appeared.
Without blinking, he replies, “Kaveth will take the female to the buyer who commissioned us to acquire a human female. It’s in a different quadrant and I suspect they’ll be there in a few days.”
“And what will happen to her once this new ‘buyer’ has her? What do they want with humans?”
He pauses for but a second, perhaps showing a tiny bit of discomfort with the conversation, but then hardens and continues, “What they do with her is none of my concern. My only concern is that their Q’itars are good.”
“Screw your ‘Q’itars’! How can you do this to...to someone? To another living being? To a person?!”
“Earth and humans are not part of the Imperial Federation of Planets. You are part of the Uncharted Territories and trading beings from these territories isn’t as policed.”
“I don’t know anything about what you’re talking about! But you know damn well what I’m talking about! You know what you’re doing is wrong! You can’t trade a life as if it’s some sort of object,” I yell as I pound my fist into the chair.
I can feel the hot air puffing out of my nose and mouth as my chest heaves up and down. Okay, so I wasn’t expecting to have a debate about universal morality with a big alien today, but you know what they say about making plans – don’t bother because aliens will abduct you.
“What are you humans to you?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest. “Are we like this...this...thing here?”
I smack at the weird leather-like vest thing that he’s wearing and pull at it, trying to make my point.
“Are we just inventory? Some sort of product? Stock? Not a living, breathing sentient being? What gives you the right to assign value to living beings?”
He cocks his head to the side and studies me.
“Do you not do the same for your cows and pigs? Do you humans not deem the value of your cows only good enough to eat? And from what I’ve seen on the food generator, you’ve been treated far better in my care so far than any cow on Earth’s.”
I open my mouth.
“No, but...”
I stop, struggling to find the right words.
“It’s different! We’re not cows or pigs! We’re humans!”
At this, both corners of his mouth lift. There he goes smiling again.
The smile changed his entire face...even if it was for just an instant. The alien coolness disappeared. His face warmed and his dark violet eyes looked like they came alive. It almost took my breath away.
Almost.
“I see. So it’s alright for a living thing to judge the value of another living thing, but only if it’s you humans who are the ones judging it?”
“No! That’s not what I’m saying! H-humans aren’t cows, ” I blurt out.
He snorts and then narrows his eyes in the most evil way. “Humans
aren’t cows for whom?”
I turn white. I feel the blood draining from my face. Cows? Humans are cows? I’m a cow to someone! Oh God, they’re going to sell us as food!? The fear was always there and since I was captured, I’ve pictured all sorts of terrifying scenarios, but I was really...really hoping that ending up on someone’s plate wasn’t going to be one of them.
“B-but...no! Humans are different from cows! You can’t talk to a cow!” I yell, and then add, “OR HAVE ARGUMENTS WITH A COW!”
He smirks, clearly amused by my distress and anger. Which only makes me more angry.
“I don’t know about you, but I am not arguing. I just find it very interesting that you operate under your own set of rules and cry foul when someone operates under similar rules.”
Yeah, it’s called a double standard. Look it up.
“You’re impossible,” I growl. “You know what I’m talking about and you know damn well that I’m not some ‘lesser being’ that can be eaten like farm animals, but whatever helps you sleep at night, buddy!”
His face remaining ever stone-like and stoic, he shrugs. “I have no issues with my state of dormancy. Why would I?”
I roll my eyes until I swear that they’re facing the back of my skull.
“It’s a saying, big guy. It means that you can choose to think whatever you need to think to have a clear conscience for the actions that you’ve done in your very dirty past, but in the end it doesn’t change the fact that you know what you’re doing is wrong.”
This makes him stop short for some reason. His face tightens. His jaw clenches. He stares at me with an unblinking gaze that’s filled with rage and something else...maybe anguish? I can’t look away. I should be afraid, but for some reason I’m not. I can tell that these emotions aren’t directed at me.
I apparently struck a very tender nerve.
“My conscience is of no concern for you,” he growls lowly.
“O...kay,” I reply back slowly. Okay, so it’s a super tender nerve.
The little emotion that was on his face magically disappears as he turns away.
“You should rest. These are my quarters and you can sleep here while we travel.”
He walks to the far wall and inputs some random codes into the flat screen and a bed slides out of the wall compartment.
“That’s for me? I can sleep there? In your bed?”
He nods once.
“And you’re not going to tie me up or anything like before?”
He looks around the room, as if assessing the space, and then casually nods at the window – the window that is showing the infinite black universe on the other side of it.
“You don’t have many options for escape. And if I remember correctly, you humans can’t survive in such inhospitable environments like outer space.”
“Yeah, we can’t breathe space,” I reply flatly.
He nods and walks towards the door. “I will be back later for a medical check,” he says.
Alert! Alert! Alarms are going off in my head. In my mind that sounds very not okay and no good at all. What the Hell is a medical check? Probes. This definitely means probes.
“Medical check? What medical check? What does that mean? And why do I need one?”
Without looking back, he replies, “You have no need to be concerned. It’s noninvasive and you will not be harmed.”
“Okay, but –“
He presses the controls on the panel by the door, walks through the magic space doorway and disappears.
I blink at the smooth wall that he walked through in frustrated silence.
“Alright, never mind then,” I say to absolutely no one at all.
If that jolly blue cyborg thinks that I’m going to sit by quietly while he kidnaps me and makes a profit on me then he has another thing coming. A VERY big thing coming.
***
Dakhar
I drop into the pilot’s seat and take a deep breath in. I close my eyes and run my hands through my hair. Why am I letting this female get to me so much? One of the things that allowed me to excel as a solider was that I was able to keep my emotions in check.
Zero emotions. Nothing fazes me. Ever.
Except human females apparently – one particular insufferable human female who doesn’t know when to keep her mouth shut, especially when it’s good for her. When she started talking about my past and my ‘clear conscience’, I was finding it very hard to keep my temper in check. I had to leave.
She has no idea how dark my conscience really is and it has little to do with the trading of lesser beings for some quick Q’itair. She should just be happy that I didn’t show her how dark I can be. What’s the deal with this human?
I need to punch something.
It’s too bad Kaveth has already left. Whenever either one of us needs to release some built up aggression, we could always rely on finding a good sparring partner in the other person. But really, it was just an excuse to beat the shit out of the each other, which was fine by me. Although, to be fair, Kaveth was usually on the receiving end of my fist, but not because he lacked skill...he just didn’t have the same rage.
How does this female ignite this feeling of...frustration in me so much? I don’t want to hurt her, but when she opens her mouth or tries to stab me with things I want to grab her and...and...
“Hey! Yoohoo! Anybody home!”
The sound of a shrill feminine voice breaks my thought. I turn on visual for my quarters and I see the female in the middle of the room, looking around aimlessly and swinging her arms in every direction. She doesn’t know where the camera units are, but she knows that she’s being monitored. Smart girl.
I continue to watch for a while longer while she continues with her odd dance in the room.
“Yo! Big Blue! Can you hear me? Come in, Big Blue?”
I cock my head to the side. What is this ‘Big Blue’? Is she referring to me?
“I know you can hear me and see me so you might as well answer me, you little creeper!”
She starts to jump up and down almost manically now, clearly frustrated. This is surprisingly amusing. I zoom the camera in a bit more. These humans are unstable. I punch in the camera a bit more and see her face contorted in frustration, getting redder with each passing second.
I smirk.
My eyes fall to the lower part of the frame. With each jump, I see her generous breasts bouncing furiously with her. Without realizing it, my eyes widen. I don’t look away. They remain locked on her chest, as if mesmerized. My grip on the console tightens a fraction.
“Hey!”
As if I’ve been caught, I rip my eyes away. I blink several times, trying to bring myself back. I glance at the monitor and see her standing in the middle of the room, silent with her hands on her hips. She growls one final time and then walks to the bed and sits down.
Satisfied that she was done with her temper tantrum, I switch off the video, but before I do I give her one more glance, lingering a little longer on her than I probably should be comfortable with.
“Humans,” I mutter as I switch the video off. I lean back and decide that it’s time to place a call.
“Maxaya.”
The ship answering my call, engages and makes an acknowledging noise indicating that it’s open for command.
“Open a line to General Xuraan on visual please,” I order.
The computer sends the communication out and almost instantly an image of Xuraan materializes. I barely conceal my distaste. Aside from being a generally vile creature and damn repulsive looking, he’s also a High Lord within the Empire. He’s bloated with power and indiscriminate with his wrath. He embodies evil and everything that I turned my back on.
“Dahkar,” the High Lord wheezes.
“I have a human you might interested in bidding on, ” I say evenly.
But his money is still good.
***
So screaming and jumping around like a lunatic doesn’t get the response from aliens like it normally
would from humans. Noted. That’s fine. I still have a few other tactics up my sleeve. These aliens have brains, right? They’re running around in space like it ain’t no thing, they should be able to see reason. They have to have something that resembles a heart under all that...alien blue...man-muscle, right? Right?!
I walk around the room aimlessly, inspecting everything, but a little too cautious to actually touch anything. Except for maybe the control panel by the door - that thing needs to be touched! If I can actually get the door open then...then, well, then what? I don’t know what, but I’ll deal with that as I get to.
I stand in front of the area where the door would be and stare at the smooth surface. I touch it lightly, impressed by the technology. I can’t even begin to think how they make this ‘magic door’ work, but it’s clearly done by atom manipulation. With just a flick of a finger on the control panel, the very molecular structure of the door is reprogrammed so that the ‘wall’ opens up and becomes a ‘door’. Star Trek eat your heart out.
“Cool,” I whisper to myself.
I imagine there are probably a lot of cool things on this ship. Too bad I’m too freaked out about potentially being a ‘cow’ to aliens to really appreciate it all.
“Well, let’s see if there’s a way to get out of here.”
My hand hovers over the flat control panel, shaking only slightly. Thoughts of being zapped or incinerated for pressing the wrong controls run through my mind briefly, but then I quickly reason that maybe that would be more appealing than being sold off to Jaba the Hutt anyway.
Alien symbols actively run up and down the panel and I can’t make heads or tails out of anything, so I do what anyone would do. I just start banging away at the controls, pushing and sliding my fingers along it like there’s no tomorrow.
Does it do anything? Nope. Is it making a lot of noises at me? Yep. Do I care? Not really. I continue working at the control panel for a minute longer, trying to remember what Big Blue pressed to open the door, but nothing seems to work. Beeps, chirps and alarms sound at me and after a minute the panel locks up entirely.
So I just locked myself inside of this room even more. Wonderful.
