The Slave Planet

by Seven Steps

A single tear dripped down her cheek as a feeling of safety washed over her.

  After today, no woman or army will ever defy me again.

  Arees could hardly rip her eyes away from the battle. She watched with pleasure as her old home burned, the flames cleansing her soul.

  It’s finally gone, she thought. That place. The memories. Those women. No one will ever turn against me again. I’ve made sure of that.

  A deep sense of betrayal clutched her chest when she thought of the women of High Council. She’d known them for years. She’d even called them her friends. Then, Nadira came and everything changed. The women that she surrounded herself with could no longer be controlled, or trusted. Arees had to admit to herself that if Jun-Su hadn’t murdered the High Council, then Arees might have done it herself. She couldn’t rule Venus while looking over her shoulder. To rule, one needed good council, trusted advisors. She needed people who would work tirelessly towards a common goal of a greater Venus. Instead, she was stabbed in the back. The councilwomen weren’t the loyal friends she thought they were. The moment they had the opportunity, they turned on her, casting her aside to vote for Baleen.

  Can you imagine, Arees thought. They would have taken Baleen over me. Baleen. She was no better than a common farmer. I had no choice, I had to kill her, although I must admit it gave me great pleasure to do it. But what would give me even greater pleasure would be to kill Jun-Su.

  She choked back a tear when she thought of her former friend. They’d grown up together, planned their takeover of the planet together. Jun-Su even purchased the poison that Arees used to poison Empress Drell with.

  I used to think that she was my closest friend, but now I know I was wrong. I was nothing but a stepping stone to her.

  A single tear slipped from her eye and ran down her cheek. She angrily wiped it away.

  I was such a fool. I should have known that she couldn’t be trusted after she nearly forsook Venus for the comfort of a man’s bed.

  Arees shuttered with disgust at the thought.

  I must be careful. Jun-Su may be a back stabber but she’s smart. She would have known that I would find her. She’s probably contacted her children’s father and begged him to assist her. Knowing him, he’ll run to her aide. She smirked. He’s a far greater fool than I.

  She turned and sauntered to her long, white table. It was supposed to be a place for her and Jun-Su to discuss their plans. Arees bit her lower lip, and ran a finger across the stone top.

  Her new office had previously belonged to Empress Drell, the last leader of the High Council. After Drell’s murder, Arees and Jun-Su made over the office in secret. They removed all of the portraits of Drell’s friends and family, and replaced them with portraits of themselves and the founding mothers. The room was darkened with heavy curtains and deep colored furniture. The only bright spot came from the long white table that sat in the center of the room. It symbolized the clean state of the new Venus that they were constructing.

  But now Jun-Su was gone, and no doubt planning to return with an army. Arees couldn’t contain the anxiety that raced through every inch of her tall, spoon-shaped body. She picked up a goblet of blue Wexlinian Wine and raised it to her lips to calm her pounding heart.

  If they do come here, my armies won’t be strong enough to hold them off. I’ll have to find another way to protect myself.

  Her gaze landed on a portrait of Jun-Su. She’d had it placed on the ground near the unused fireplace. Though the eyes were gouged out, she seemed to be staring at her, mocking her.

  Arees walked to the portrait, drew back a foot, and kicked it. Her boot went through the canvas, slamming into the stone frame of the fireplace on the other side.

  She screamed in pain, sloshing wine onto her navy blue jumpsuit. Swearing, she pulled back her foot and hobbled to the table, fearing she’d broken a toe. She cursed Jun-Su’s name again.

  “Excuse me, Czarina.”

  Arees turned to find Sergeant Bragnia standing in the doorway. She cleared her throat, tried to think past her throbbing toe.

  “What is it?” she barked.

  “The Residential has been secured,” Bragnia said. “Now that Omega and Zephta have fallen, that leaves only Beta Sector. I’m on my way there now.”

  “Great work down there. You put on quite a show.”

  Bragnia nodded. “Thank you, Czarina. Before I go, I wanted to inform you that there has been another uprising in the jails. The Countess has been causing a commotion ever since she arrived. The enforcers in the jail want to know what to do with her. They are reluctant to use brute force because of her status—”

  “Former status.”

  “Yes, former status,” Bragnia said, clearing her throat.

  “Take her out of the general population and put her in solitary confinement. Gag her. If she gives you any more trouble, beat her.”

  “Yes, Czarina. And what of the children? The ones who came in with the Countess.”

  Arees stayed quiet for several minutes, weighing every option.

  If the father gets wind that anything happened to the children, war will be inevitable. But, if I keep them alive, Jun-Su will have something to fight for. I have to take away her will and, to do that, I have to destroy her heart, just as she destroyed mine when she betrayed me.

  The thought of vengeance was as sweet as the wine on her tongue as she turned to Bragnia. “Kill them. Make Jun-Su watch. I want her to know what it feels like to have your heart ripped out. When you’re done, put her back in solitary. Make sure you burn the children’s bodies. I don’t want a trace of them left.”

  Bragnia swallowed. “Yes, Czarina.”

  There is no stopping it now. There will be a war. I must fortify Venus, and I know exactly who can help me.

  “I’m taking a trip,” Arees said. “I want Beta Sector well within hand when I get back.”

  “Yes, Czarina.”

  “You may go.”

  Bragnia gave a polite bow and walked out of the room.

  The Czarina drifted toward the window.

  As the fire in the Residential raged, she imagined her perfect world.

  No politicians, no resisters, no men, no betrayal.

  A world filled with peace and order.

  A world filled with enforcers.

  CHAPTER 3

  The Omni

  The hallway outside Jun-Su’s throne room was quiet.

  Nadira stared, unseeing, into the room where the children once sat. A tear rolled down her cheek.

  “I shouldn’t have left them,” she said. Her legs felt weak. Her back slid down the cool metal wall.

  Kiln crouched next to her as Lex and Eva looked on. He placed one warm, large hand on her back, his fingertips tracing slow, soothing circles.

  “There was nothing we could have done,” he whispered.

  “We should have stayed with them,” Nadira said.

  “The enforcers would have killed us and taken the children anyway.”

  Nadira sighed and raised her eyes to him. “What are we going to do?” she asked.

  Kiln let out a breath. “There’s only one working ship left. The crew is downstairs right now deciding the best way to use it.”

  Nadira’s eyes widened. Surely he couldn’t be suggesting what she thought he was suggesting.

  “What are you saying?” Nadira asked.

  “We have to take that ship and go to Zenith,” he said.

  She gasped. And leave these women to die? No, I won’t do it. There has to be another way.

  “Kiln, no!”

  “It’s what your mother would have wanted,” he said.

  Mother, Nadira thought. She closed her eyes, replaying her mother’s death in her mind. Her lungs tightened and her heart raced as she watched her mother’s slender frame shutter under the hail of gunfire.

  Don’t fall apart, she begged herself, her eyes burning. Not now.

  She took a deep breath, willing the tears not to fall. “We can’t steal these women’s
only ship and leave them to die. It’s cruel.”

  Kiln moved to the front of her, and took her hands in his. His massive figure nearly blocked out Eva and Lex behind him. “Before she died, Grand Empress Marie made me promise to take care of you and to keep you safe. I swore to her that I would do so.”

  “At the expense of the lives of others?”

  Kiln’s gaze bore into hers. “I can’t think about them now,” he said. “Not until you are safe on Zenith. It’s what your mother would have wanted.”

  “And you?” Nadira asked. “You would abandon these women in their hour of need?”

  Kiln slid his pale hand along her cheek. She allowed her head to rest in his palm.

  His blue eyes sparkled like sunlit crystal. “I want nothing else in this life but to see you safe, my Empress.”

  She squeezed her lips together, her mind wrestling with her decision.

  The ship’s navigational systems were fried. Their only hope now was if a passing ship picked up their distress signal, but they were probably too far off the grid for anyone to hear their pings. Jun-Su had been hiding from Arees before she was taken. She wouldn’t have allowed herself to be found so easily. And hadn’t the enforcer said that there was barely a week of life support left? If they took the ship, these women were as good as dead.

  Nadira shook her head, tears stinging her eyes. “I don’t know.”

  “Think about it, Empress,” Lex said. “We’re stranded in space. Who knows how long it will be until we are rescued. We have to have a plan.”

  “And what about everyone else?” Nadira asked. “What’s the plan for them?”

  “I’m sure they can manage on their own,” Eva said, her eyes downcast.

  “And the children?” Nadira asked. “Can they manage on their own?”

  Her question was met with silence.

  “We are not Jun-Su or Arees,” Nadira said. “We cannot trample on other people’s lives for the benefit of our own.”

  “Don’t you see,” Eva said. “If we stay on this ship, we will die. Is that what you want? To die among strangers?” She huffed and knelt down next to Nadira. “What if we make a promise? We find a way off this ship, just us four. Then, when we get to Zenith, we send someone back for them.”

  Nadira’s eyes slid to Eva before she looked back down at her hands. She suddenly found it very hard to breathe. “And the children?” Nadira asked.

  “The Magistrate will save them. I’m sure of it.”

  How can you be sure? Nadira wondered. We don’t even know if the Magistrate will see us, let alone help us. She sighed, her conscious warring with itself. Her stomach clenched. She hoped she was making the right choice. She prayed to the Mother Goddess that she wasn’t sentencing the women on this ship to death.

  We may be their only chance, she thought.

  Without a word, she stood, and marched down the long, grey hallway.

  They jogged to keep up as she turned into the fire-eaten flight deck.

  “Who’s in charge here?” Nadira asked.

  “Who is looking for me?” A tall, muscular woman barked back. “The name is Captain Emon.”

  She’d be better suited to run an enforcer camp than a ship, Nadira thought.

  Emon wiped her hands on a white cloth, threw it aside, and crossed her beefy arms in front of her.

  “I need a ship immediately,” Nadira said, approaching Emon with all the confidence she could muster.

  “Negative on that. For one thing, you are still a prisoner. For another, there is only one ship left and we need it to send a scout for help.”

  “What about the ship we came in on?”

  Emon eyed Nadira with amusement. “We left that one behind. It’s probably burned up somewhere by now.”

  “We must have a ship,” Nadira said. “I promise you that we will go to Zenith and send back help. For you and for the children.”

  Emon smirked, but said nothing.

  “My mother was a Zenithian ambassador,” Nadira said. “She has made arrangements for me to meet with the Magistrate Embrya.”

  “I know who your mother is, Empress Nadira.”

  “Then you know that she has contacts on Zenith. We will go there and send help. You have our word.”

  “Right now, I need more than words, Empress. I need hope. Go back to your cell.” Emon turned away from them.

  Nadira looked at Eva, then back at Emon.

  “You must give us a ship,” Nadira pleaded. “If you don’t, you’ll die.”

  “I’m not giving a bunch of criminals a ship, and that’s that.”

  “We will succeed. You have my word as an Empress. I swear on the Mother Goddess Venus. I swear on my mother that we will send help!”

  “Enough, Empress!” Emon cried, slamming her hands together. “Go back to your cell, now!”

  “You stupid fool,” Eva said, her voice on the edge of a growl. “You don’t know anything.”

  “I’m warning you.” Emon stepped closer to Eva, her large body dwarfing her.

  “You say that you’ll get help yourself?” Eva asked. “From where? Where will you go? Mars won’t allow a Venian ship in their airspace unless it’s an ambassador ship. Arees will kill you the minute you show up at the porticos. Maybe you’ll find another, small planet to beg for help on, maybe not. Maybe you’ll find a passing ship to pick you up, maybe not. But we have a direct tie to the Magistrate. She loved Nadira’s mother, and she will see us. We are your best chance at survival.”

  Emon’s lips twitched as she glared at Eva. They stood in silence for a long while before Emon’s face softened.

  “Take it,” Emon said. “Remember your promise, or may the Mother Goddess Venus count it against your lives.”

  Eva inclined her head. “Thank you.”

  Emon gestured to a single, undamaged ship at the end of a row.

  “Don’t forget us,” Emon called.

  Nadira turned to her. “We won’t.”

  “Our supplies. We only have a week at the most. If you forget us-”

  “We’ll be back for you,” Nadira said. “I swear on my life we’ll be back for you.”

  Nadira jogged toward their salvation. She wondered how many women were left on this ship. She wondered how many would die if she failed to return.

  Think of these women’s lives, she thought. Think of the children. Don’t fail.

  Lex piloted the ship through the blackness of space as Kiln prepared them for hyper sleep. The journey through space would be so rapid that, if they were awake, they’d aneurysm in minutes.

  Nadira stared out of the dark window. She’d always thought of Zenith as her mother’s planet. After all, Marie had been ambassador there for most of Nadira’s life. What would she tell the Zenithians when they asked about her mother? How could she explain that the person closest to her in the world was dead? She felt Eva take the seat next to her, and grasp her hand.

  She sniffled.

  She’s dead. My mother is dead.

  She felt Eva gently pull her head onto her shoulder, offering her comfort. Nadira took it gladly.

  “I miss her too,” Eva said. “I miss both of them.”

  “Both of them?”

  Eva sighed. “Don’t you see, Naddie? We left my mother behind. Arees would never allow her to live. Not after what we’ve done.”

  Eva pulled back, allowing Nadira to look into her tear soaked eyes.

  “We both lost our mother’s today.”

  The two women cleaved to each other. They mourned until Kiln announced that the hyper sleep pods were ready. They cried when they were forced to separate. They wept as they climbed into the tubes that would protect their brains from certain death. Their tears streamed as they took in a deep breath, and the air grew thick around them.

  And then, there was peace.

  CHAPTER 4

  Zenith

  Two stars, red giants Phaeton and Zimra, appeared in the front window.

  Between them, six gray moons were set
equal distances apart, silent sentinels around Zenith, a purple-speckled, ringed planet.

  The ship maneuvered around icy rock and zoomed through a black strip of space, slowing to a stop as it joined the hundreds of ships that hovered in the space around Zenith.

  Lex yawned. Only moments ago, the ship had awakened him from hyper sleep. Like someone shaken from the deepest of dreams, he initially fought to stay in the darkness. But, as his hyper sleep tube shook, beeped, and cooled, sleep slipped further and further away. By the time he opened his eyes and blinked, sleep had fled him completely, leaving behind only drowsiness and cloudy vision. He was still shaking off the effects of the hyper sleep when he typed the code into the terminal to awaken Kiln. Stretching his back, he sat in the pilot’s chair and awoke Eva.

  It took several minutes before Kiln strapped himself into the co-pilot’s chair next to him.

  “Have a good sleep?” Lex asked.

  “The sleep was good,” Kiln replied. “It’s the waking up part that’s the problem.”

  Lex smiled, then gestured to the planet before them. “Do you think we can we go right in, or is there protocol?”

  “There must be something,” Kiln said, pointing to the other ships hanging in space. “Why else would they be out there?”

  “I don’t know,” Lex said. Behind him, Eva’s hyper sleep chamber buzzed.

  “Everything is going to be different now,” he said, mostly to himself.

  “What do you mean?” Kiln asked.

  “Now that we’re off Venus. Everything is going to be different.”

  Kiln frowned and looked out of the front window.

  “Look, Lex, I know that we don’t know each other that well, but can I give you a piece of advice?”

  Lex nodded.

  “Be careful with Eva. When she’s happy and gets her way, she’s fine. But, when she doesn’t-”

  A red light overhead buzzed, indicating an incoming comm.

  Lex kept his eye on Kiln, willing him to finish his thought. Kiln only sighed, and sat back in his chair, returning his gaze to the blackness of space.

  Frustrated, Lex pressed the black button next to the light, accepting the comm.

  Their front window fuzzed with static, then blanked. A white background faded in, followed by a strange creature. Wild, frizzy, purple hair sat atop its head. Three purple eyes formed a triangle on its forehead. Its skin was porcelain. A set of clear wings gently fluttered behind it. It wore a bright, lipless, toothless smile.