"What the fuck is going on here?"
A book I'd read provided me with a mental image, and I decided to run with it.
"I'm Judge Thorn. Your client is on trial for slavery. The punishment is death. How do you plead?"
"Not guilty."
He didn’t even blink, or think. Just an automatic not guilty.
"There were three girls on your ship a short time ago. How do you explain the slave collars on them?"
"What do you mean were?"
"Shut up Nigel!
"A plea of guilty has been entered by the client, against the wishes of his lawyer."
"The hell he did!"
"Is there an explanation forthcoming?"
"I have the right to do whatever I like."
"Shut the fuck up Nigel!"
"Is your right in the name of being born rich?"
"Only someone who's poor would ask something like that."
"Jeez Nigel."
"So owning other people is some sort of status symbol for you?"
"Of course it is. How stupid are you?"
The lawyer simply groaned. I turned to him.
"It’s a good question."
"What is?"
"How stupid are you?"
"Don’t call me stupid. Who the hell do you think you are?"
"I told your client's son already. He didn’t believe me. Death. What makes you defend a slaver, instead of protecting the slaves from people like him?"
"Huh?"
I took a moment to refresh the air in the bubble. This was taking longer than I’d thought.
"Slavery. You obviously support it?"
"Me personally?"
"Of course you personally."
"I don’t do anything personally. It's business. Who pays most gets my services."
"So you'd sue your client if I offered you more?"
Their eyes met. Nigel didn’t like what he saw.
"It's business!" exclaimed the lawyer.
"No mitigating factors presented. Sentence will now be pronounced."
They were both shivering now.
"You can't do this."
"Nigel, for fucks sake show a little dignity for once in your life."
I think the lawyer understood.
"I will not be treated this way!"
I didn’t even bother with the sentence. I shifted back to the main bridge, taking the bubble with me.
The three girls were now in ship suits. I raised my eyebrows at Lea, who was fussing around them. She nodded back. I gave each of them a card with funds sufficient to take them where they wanted to go.
"Jen, stop us here. We don’t need to dock, or stay here much longer."
She nodded, and the ship slowed. I took the hand of the nearest girl, joined it with the one next to her, and also the third. I moved the four of us into the empty ladies room in the main departure lounge, and let go of their hands.
"You're free," I told them. "Go home, or go where you need to. There is enough on the card to get you anywhere. Stay away from slavers from now on."
They looked shaken, but I waved them out the door, and moved myself again.
The captain almost had a heart attack when I appeared on his bridge right in front of him.
"How?" he stammered. "Who?"
"You are hereby informed if slaves are discovered on any ship owned by this company ever again, the entire fleet will be scrapped, with the crews aboard. Do you understand?"
"Slaves?"
"You cannot be that clueless. People walking around with collars around their necks."
"Indentured workers."
"Slaves."
He flinched.
"You're sure?"
"Yes."
"It's none of my business. The owners and board can do whatever they like on their own ships."
"Not any more. Now it's your business, and your life depends on it."
"My life?"
"The penalty for slavery, or turning a blind eye to it, is death, and destruction of the ship."
"I need to get the owner and his son to come and talk to you."
"Fine. You'll find them with their lawyer, at one of the side airlocks."
He sent a crewman off to find them. I waited. In the distance, there was a scream.
The captain went white.
"Who did you say you were?"
"Death."
I moved back to my bridge, and sat.
"Next!" I yelled.
Eleven
I sat through the entire recording session.
It was a typical 'come join the military' display of all their toys. Even I’d seen some of the early version ads, playing on monitors as I walked around stations, back when we were traders. This was something again. Now they were serious about suckering poor saps into volunteering to be alien fodder.
When the recruitment session was done, they started in on the government's financial drive, getting people to invest in the war, so they could build new ships. The main theme was fear. Failure to build enough ships would mean the aliens will kill everyone.
He made all of it sound convincing.
Invisible as I was, sitting behind the technicians, I had a running commentary between takes, of how the war was going, and how much they hated the man being recorded.
Mouth with a mic, had bounced back from the damage I'd inflicted on his vocal chords. He had everything he wanted to say pre-recorded, and just needed to select it on a small keyboard above his wrist. One of the techs had even told the other about how he'd used the studio to make all his sentences out of old recordings of himself. At which point I found out this was his day job, and selling slaves was his hobby.
Fingers moving rapidly, he appeared now to be renegotiating his salary package, with someone who turned out to be his agent.
"They say that fuckwit used to auction off slaves," said one tech to the other.
"How can that be?"
"He was caught in the act apparently."
"So why isn’t he in prison?"
"Government cut a deal with him. Too damn useful to the war effort, apparently."
"Someone shot him once."
"Why's he still alive?"
"Whoever it was missed. Hit him in the shoulder."
"Wasn’t that his war wound?"
"So he says."
There was silence for a short time, the recorded voice droning on out in the studio.
"You know what I’d like?"
"What?
"To see someone shove that keyboard down his throat, and pull it out of his arse."
His fellow tech laughed, and both of them seemed to enjoy the suggestion.
I rose, clothed myself in a black cloak, the hood covering my head and face, and made my right hand look skeletal. It reached towards mouth with a mic.
His keyboard tore off his arm, flew up to his head, and rammed solidly into his mouth, breaking teeth. I pushed it all the way in, and pulled it down through his body, ripping its way out through his pants, and dropping bloody to the floor.
Both techs were on their feet now, surprise slowly becoming terror. The now lifeless body toppled forwards, causing the agent to shriek, before turning and running from the room.
One of the techs threw up all over the recording gear.
The other one looked at me, seeing me for the first time. As he began to faint, I moved back to my bridge. My sight saw him react in abject terror instead, running from the room, screaming something almost incomprehensible about having seen death. The other one was out cold on the floor.
"Is that you Thorn?" asked Tasha.
I’d forgotten to change back, so I removed the cloak.
"I can't say I like that other look."
"You're not meant to."
"Job done?"
"Job done."
"Did you make a mess?"
"Afraid so."
"Good," said Jen from the doorway.
Eleven
"Thorn?"
"Yes Tasha?"
"If we hadn't turned up when we did, would you have stayed there for the rest of your life?"
I pondered this for a while. She waited for me.
"Maybe."
"Seriously? Alone on a planet your whole life?"
"If it meant keeping everyone else safe, yes."
"You don’t believe you’re a real threat, do you?"
I imagined her naked, with yellow tassels over her nipples, and a red heart between her legs as she sat. She saw me looking, and looked down. Her eyes went wide.
"That’s what an errant thought can do."
She nodded slowly. When nothing happened, she made a point of pointing to herself. I put her clothes back on her.
"So you worry that someone who makes you angry, might end up dressed in yellow tassels, and a red heart?"
I chuckled quietly, and she joined in.
"No, I worry about killing everyone in an eye blink, before I realize I thought it."
"But is that likely to happen?"
"Did I tell you why meat is so plentiful back on that planet?"
"No. Is this relevant?"
"Yes. I was hunting one day. Jump in, kill with a thought, hand on carcass, jump out. Only one day, I jumped in on top of a rock, twisted my ankle, and fell over."
"Relevance?"
"I said the word 'fuck' really loudly."
She looked at me until understanding hit her. She fell off her chair laughing. I looked at her down on the deck.
"Now I'm very careful of when I say that, and make sure I'm not actually thinking it when I do say it."
She kept on laughing, so I left her there, and took myself off to the kitchen for a drink.
She was back in her seat when I returned, and the next set of system and station charts were up on the screen. This time though, the target was in space.
Lea walked in before I could move us, standing there in full marine combat gear. She nodded to Tasha, who left.
The destination was six jumps away, towards the frontier, where we needed to go anyway. I cast my sight out, expecting to not reach as far, and was surprised to see the ship quite clearly. Inside, I found twelve people with slave collars on.
I sighed. Slavery was supposed to have been wiped out again, but apparently not. Maybe this indentured worker thing had been a loophole, and all the remaining slavers were using it to be legal.
Well, they had one problem.
Me.
"Jen?"
"Thorn?"
"Stop us. But be prepared to avoid a collision."
"Wait. What?"
I moved us.
The ship was coming towards us at a slow speed, and appeared to be badly beaten up. But it was all outside appearance. The inside was quite pristine. I wondered if they were pretending to be war survivors.
Tasha came back in, wearing full marine combat gear. She tossed a heavy rifle to Lea, and they started towards me.
"Wait."
I moved to the main lounge.
"Slaves coming in."
I moved over to the other ship, and one by one, took off collars, and jumped the slaves back. The collars I left in a neat little pile on one of the sleep pallets. As I left the last one, I noticed there were thirteen pallets. Teeth clenched, I jumped back to the medical facility instead.
In one of the morgue storage trays, I found a corpse without a head, and a good part of the upper chest missing as well.
Tasha looked concerned when she saw my face, after jumping back there to get them.
"Are you getting angry Thorn?"
"I am angry."
"Be afraid," murmured Lea, "be very afraid."
"I'm not," snapped Tasha.
"No, they should be."
I cut them off, by jumping us to the bridge of the other ship.
Twelve
I force punched the bridge crew all at once, and they slumped in their seats. Tasha went over to the main controls, and stopped the ship. She quickly slaved the ship to Jen's control, and sent over the crew and passenger list.
I looked out the front view, and saw nothing.
"They didn't stop," said Lea. "Jen had to get us out of their way, and is now behind us."
"Is the man who bought you here?"
"No."
"Go find him. Try not to shoot anyone. Don't shoot him!"
"Spoilsport."
They both left. I pulled the captain out of his seat, dropped him on the deck, and sat in his chair. There had to be a stock of collars on board, and I set about finding it. It took a while, but I found them in main engineering. Which meant the engineering officer was in on the slavery. There was no-one there, but the engineer turned out to be in her cabin. I punched her too, and she slumped off onto the deck.
I sat there for a while, waiting for something to happen. Finally, a message came into my pad. It had a series of images of people. The note with it, said 'bad guys'. There were thirteen of them.
Fifteen people came back. Nine of them were walking with their hands raised. Two were dragging two others. One of them had blood all over his face. I looked at Lea.
"You said not to shoot anyone."
I could see she hadn't shot anyone. Apparently I should have told her not to hit anyone either. It didn’t matter.
"The prisoners will kneel before me," I announced.
Tasha brandished her rifle, pointing to the place, and the prisoners shuffled over there, and knelt in a line. Lea slapped the two lying on the deck awake, and they were soon kneeling as well. The bridge crew were stirring by now, and Tasha soon had them sitting up against a wall. The captain had been too groggy to protest.
I'd already decided to keep going with the Judge thing.
"Court is now in session. Judge Thorn presiding." I looked at Lea. "Read the charges."
"Slavery. Torture. Deprivation of liberty. Rape."
"All of them?"
"All of them."
"How do you plead?"
The one with blood on his face was the only one to answer.
"I don’t recognize the validity of this court. Who are you?"
"Guilty plea has been entered."
"What? I said no such thing? Do you even know who I am?"
"You are a slaver, and a rapist. Nothing more. Is there any plea of mitigation?"
"I am not a slaver."
I shifted the twelve collars into a pile beside my chair, and added another one from engineering.
"And these are?"
I waved a hand towards them so he couldn’t miss seeing them.
"Control collars for indentured servants."
"Is that what we're calling slaves these days?"
"It's perfectly legal."
"Not in this court. In due course, those who allowed this travesty to exist, will also be judged."
"You can't judge me. Or any of us."
"The sentence is death. Method of execution will be your own collars."
The collars vanished, and appeared around the neck of each of them. There were various levels of shock and outrage. I looked at Tasha.
"Did you search them?"
"No weapons."
"What about control boxes?"
"Oh. No, didn’t check."
"Fine."
I vanished all their clothes, leaving thirteen naked men kneeling there. As a shock factor, it worked quite nicely. Also, no control boxes left on any of them. I nodded to Lea.
"Any last message for these rapists?"
I emphasized the last word. She nodded, and went up to the one with the bloody face.
A military issue boot shot forward, and kicked the man solidly in the groin. He went over backwards, and lay on his side, clutching himself. The others moved restlessly.
"Don't move!" I bellowed.
They went rigid, hands moving to protect their manhood, but stayed upright. Several of them were white faced.
Lea was looking at me. I nodded. One by one, she kicked all of them in the same place. Most of them were incapable of cupping themselves after
wards, due to broken fingers as well.
"Who are you?" croaked the bloodied one.
"Death."
I moved all thirteen of them out into space, with a good swing on it, so they kept on moving away from the ship. One by one, the collars exploded, as they moved out of range of the remaining control boxes. I didn’t watch closely, but I think the collars beat asphyxiation and freezing to death. Although, it was probably a close thing with all three.
The captain was sitting there with an expression of disbelief. When the rest of his crew popped onto the bridge one by one, the last being a still out engineer, his head slumped against his chest.
I looked at Lea, nodded, and she woke those still out.
"Court is still in session. All those here are charged with knowingly condoning slavery and rape. How do you plead?"
I looked directly at the captain. He flinched.
"Not guilty," said a crewman.
"Convince me."
"Six of us protested the first group of slaves coming on board. We were told to shut up and ignore it, or our contracts would be cancelled with full penalties. None of us could afford the penalties."
"Can you prove that?"
"It was logged with the captain."
I shot a glance at Lea, and she was already moving to a console. A few moments later, she nodded to me.
"The six of you will rise."
They unsteadily got to their feet, and stood there looking frightened.
"You are found not guilty. You will move through this ship telling those who remain to pack their things, in preparation for leaving the ship at the next station."
I turned to the captain.
"You will release these people from their contracts, and supply them with documentation to that effect."
He nodded, but didn’t move.
"Now!"
He flinched, but rose, moved to a console, and started pulling up and noting civilian crew files. Lea watched everything he did, and made sure he knew she was watching.
My eyes moved to the engineer.
"How do you plead?"
"I'm not pleading. This so called court is a joke."
"No-one is laughing."
"You have no authority."
"I am authority. Do you deny stocking collars to go on slaves?
She remained silent and defiant.
"Do you deny being responsible for the death of the person down in the morgue?"
Today's Spacemage Page 4
