by Jay Toney
"It is highly unusual to purchase a wife without a contract. I recommend that you negotiate the terms for your own protection," Charlie urged Doc.
"There is no need. I will take the woman as is without warranty. Options for children are not needed." The salesman pulled up the purchase order on his comp and handed it to Doc for his signature. Doc signed the purchase order, leaving the amount of the purchase blank for the salesman to fill in. Then he gave the comp back to the Charlie.
The salesman led the group to a private room. "You can examine your purchase in the privacy of this room to ensure that she meets your son's expectations. If she doesn't, she can be exchanged for another woman, but once you leave this establishment, she is all yours as is without a warranty." The salesman handed Doc the remote for the girl's control collar.
The group entered the room and closed the door behind them. "My name is Juliet, the woman introduced herself to her new husband. "I am yours now. How may I please you?" The young lady asked Nathaniel. Her voice sounded as good as she looks. The sight of her and the sound of her voice made his memories of Loretta and how she humiliated him fade from his mind. Somehow, he would have to find a way to thank his father for this wondrous gift.
Doc made an adjustment to the collar's controller, setting the punishment level to maximum. Then he handed the controller to his son and said, "Press and hold the button."
Nathaniel knew better than to defy his father. He did what he was told to do. The woman screamed in agony grasping at the collar, trying to hold it away from her neck. She dropped to the floor and convulsed in agony. Nathaniel dropped the remote to the floor ending the girl's suffering. He couldn't believe what he just did to the young woman. Nobody deserved such treatment. Certainly, she didn't do anything to deserve a punishment of any kind.
Doc picked up the controller and handed it back to his son. "Press the button," he ordered his son.
"I can't," Nathaniel told his father. "She hasn't done anything to deserve it."
"If you don't do as I say, I'll have a collar placed around your neck, and I will give the lady its remote to use on you," Doc threatened his son. His father didn't make idle threats. If he said that he would put a collar on his neck, he meant it. Nathaniel pressed the button again. The lady screamed and convulsed on the ground. Fortunately, her screams didn't last long. She lost consciousness, but her body continued to convulse. Nathaniel released the button.
"Press it again," Doc ordered Nathaniel.
The moment that he pressed the button, Nathaniel could hear the girl's silent screams in his head. Her body twitched on the floor, then it went still. She is dead. Nathaniel dropped the collars remote and swore, "Never again. I will take my own life before I do that to anyone else."
"This is what life under the Alliance means. There are only two classes of people; those with collars and those who control them," Doc explained to his son. "Once you accept a collar, you are property to be disposed of when you are no longer needed or wanted, like the girl."
They left the privacy of the booth. Charlie is waiting to greet them outside of the privacy booth. He noticed that the newly purchased bondwoman isn't with the group. "Is there something wrong with the girl?" he asked Doc.
"Not at all. The young lady completely satisfied my needs," Doc answered. He reached into his pocket and removed a 100 credit chip and handed it to the salesman. "This should be more than enough to cover the disposal fee. Keep the change."
Doc, Natasha, and Nathaniel headed back to their shuttlecraft. Their business on the space station was concluded. On the way back Nathaniel noticed, for the first time, how many of the Alliance citizens, male and female alike, are wearing control collars.
Afterward
Only the most desperate contractors agreed to hire the Queen Anne's Revenge. No one wanted to deal with a pariah that is constantly followed and inspected by military patrol ships. That meant that the only jobs that Captain Roberts could get either dealt with the disposal of hazardous industrial chemicals or radioactive waste, giving the starship a reputation of being a garbage scow.
Even those people wouldn't pay Doc full price on the contracts, but they paid him enough to satisfy the tax collectors that visited the starship monthly to collect his share of taxes and then some. The Queen Anne's Revenge is routinely visited by military inspectors to make sure that Doc's starship is incapable of defending itself.
The inspectors confiscated all but four of the starship's Marauders telling Doc, " You have no need to maintain two squadrons of starfighters. Besides, you don't have enough pilots to fly them." The inspectors left four Marauders only because they are not functional. The effort to make them flyable wasn't worth the price of the parts that need to be replaced and the amount of work necessary to repair them.
All of Nathaniel's lessons stopped. That is, all but one of them. His father took over teaching Nathaniel how to fight. They spent two hours each day target shooting with blasters that are carefully hidden from the inspectors and fighting with energy swords.
Doc was merciless in his teaching. Nathaniel learned early on that he had to fight as if his life depended on it; because it did. Doc took every opportunity to sting his son with his sword. The first time Nathaniel sparred with his father, Doc disarmed him and spent the rest of session swatting his son with his sword's energy blade. The blade hurt like hell in training mode. Outside of training mode, the energy blade would slice him to pieces. After that lesson, Nathaniel never dropped his weapon again.
In the first few months, Nathaniel's body was covered with painful welts from his father's sword blade. He frequently walked with a limp or one of his arms in a sling. Over time the wounds faded becoming fewer and fewer until they disappeared altogether. Later, Doc frequently had a limp when he walked to the bridge. Nathaniel's blade only found its mark once, leaving a painful red welt on his fathers face that took weeks to heal. He is careful not to hit his father where it will show after that. It isn't out of any respect for his father. Nathaniel is terrified about what would happen if he ever did it again. After the lesson his father gave him, he is sure that his father would kill him the next time.
With each inspection by the Alliance military, there is always a member or two of the crew that is conscripted into service or put into a collar and taken to a re-education center to be mind-wiped. Bill and Angel are the last two members of the crew to be put into control collars. When the soldier fastened a collar around Angel's neck, Nathaniel snapped.
Either his father wouldn't or couldn't stop his son from attacking the soldiers. It didn't matter that the soldiers are wearing armor and are armed with blasters and pain sticks. Nothing the soldiers could do is enough to stop Nathaniel. The soldiers are under orders not to harm any of the Roberts family. The new High Lord wants them to suffer, but they are authorized to defend themselves.
Nathaniel attacked the troopers with wild fury acting more like a wounded beast than a man. "Nathaniel stop!" Angel screamed. Either he didn't hear her, or he ignored her pleas. Nathaniel punched the first soldier in the face. Before his partner could react, he spun and kicked the other man in the balls. One lesson that stuck with Nathaniel is that cheating and dirty fighting is okay if he is outnumbered or outclassed. He is both. Nathaniel used every dirty trick that he could think of to keep the advantage.
One of the soldiers pulled his blaster from its holster. Nathaniel spun low sweeping the grunt's legs out from under him. His shot went wild and hit Bill with a stun bolt. Nathaniel pinned the soldier to the floor and unleashed his fury on the trooper's face. He put all of his attention to turning the soldiers face into a bloody mess. He didn't notice the other soldier regain his feet.
A red stun bolt hit Nathaniel in the back. He fell to the floor unable to move. Then the soldiers took turns putting their bo
ots to him. They didn't stop until they finished venting their fury. Doc didn't do anything to stop them.
Nathaniel was finally pulled to his feet, his face bloody, and some of his ribs broken. "That took guts kid or a great deal of stupidity. The next time you so much as look at us the wrong way we will put a collar on you and give you a lesson that you will never forget." The soldiers laughed and turned to walk away leading Bill and Angel to the airlock their shuttlecraft is docked to.
"You can't take them. We are Alliance citizens in good standing. I know my rights," Nathaniel yelled at the soldiers. "I will kill all of you."
It isn't fun and games for the soldiers any longer. There is no way that they are going to let a smart ass kid tell them what they can or can't do; not to mention allowing him to threaten to kill them. The kid needs another lesson in humility.
One of the troopers held Nathaniel's arms while the other one fastened a control collar around his neck. After the collar was locked in place, the soldiers took turns administering punishment to Nathaniel and laughing at his convulsing body.
Doc finally spoke, "Stop! You will kill him if you keep punishing him."
That got the soldiers attention. If they killed the kid, their lives would be forfeit. "Teach him some manners or the next time we won't let him go so easy on him. One of the soldiers gave Nathaniel one more jolt with the collar before handing the collar's remote to Doc.
Nathaniel woke in the infirmary with his father looking down at him. Dr. Marcus is gone; another member of the crew taken to a reeducation center to have his mind wiped.
"I think you may have finally learned the lesson that I wanted you to know. It took you long enough," Doc said to his son.
"Learn? Other than sword fighting and weapon training all of my lessons stopped since returning to the Alliance. I wish that we never came here," Nathaniel told his father.
"You learned the most important lesson of all. You know what the Alliance is," Doc told his son.
"All I know is that I hate the Alliance and I hate it here. I wish that they would all die and go to hell."
"Well, what are you going to do about it?" Doc asked Nathaniel.
"Do? There is nothing that I can do."
"As the Queenie's captain, there is a lot that you can do, but first, we have to..." Doc was interrupted by his son. "First we have to get the hell out of here." Nathaniel sat up and winced from the pain in his ribs. The broken bones hadn't finished mending.
"It can wait a few days until you finish healing," Doc told his son.
"No, it can't. Help me get up. We are leaving right now. I don't want to go through another inspection and conscription if it can be avoided."
Before they could leave orbit around New Terra, they needed replacements for some of the crewmen that were taken by the military. They lost too many key crewmen to operate the starship. If nothing else Nathaniel needed someone to handle communications and sensor scans. Natasha can multitask, especially with her avatar helping, but she can't do everything.
Doc and Nathaniel took one last trip to the space station. They need to find someone to fill in for the ship's comms and sensor stations. That person not only needs to be a techie, but he or she needs to be desperate enough to sign on as crew. The Queen Anne's Revenge is considered a pariah and off limits to Alliance citizens.
They left the green docking ring and descended down to the red ring. No respectful crewman with experience will sign onto their crew. Nor, would any freshly graduated newbie. That meant that their only chance of finding someone to fill the positions needed will have to come from where the starships and crew with questionable reputations docked. The red docking ring is where merchant ships and crew with questionable reps go to do business. It is where smugglers and traders who do illicit business in the gray and black markets hang out.
Nathaniel and Doc walked passed a group of three people, two men, and a woman. At least Nathaniel thought it was a female. It is hard to tell with all of the bruising and swelling on her face. One of the men pressed the button on the remote for the collar that the woman is wearing delivering a punishing shock. She collapsed to her knees screaming and sobbing. The two men kicked her while she was down on the ground; then they pulled her back onto her feet.
"Is there a problem?" Nathaniel asked the men.
"Huh? No. There ain't no problem. The bitch is just moving too slow and needed a little encouragement to pick up the pace," the man holding the collar's remote said.
"Is she for sale?" Nathaniel asked the man.
"10,000 credits and she is all yours," the man answered.
"She is damaged goods. I was thinking more like 200 credits, and that is being generous," Nathaniel countered.
"Sure, for unskilled labor, but she is a techie and a damned good one at that. If she weren't, she would have been spaced long ago. She is trouble, but, she has other uses that make keeping her around worthwhile. The fem knows how to please a man.
Strip Tanya! Let him see what you've got."
The woman turned and spat on the man who ordered her to remove her clothing. The other man pressed the button on the remote administering another punishing jolt. Tanya screamed and collapsed to the ground, pulling at the collar, trying to get it away from her neck.
The men pulled the woman to her feet again. Tears covered her face. One of the men opened her coveralls and pulled them down around her legs, exposing her naked body. Then the other man grabbed her breasts from behind and squeezed them. "She sure is fun to be with, kid. I am thinking, I might keep her for a while longer. The price is now 100,000 credits if you still want her."
"There is no way that I am going to pay 100,000 credits for her or anyone else," Nathaniel replied to the man's offer.
The man gave Tanya's breasts one more squeeze then stepped back. He found Nathaniel's weakness and gave the girl another jolt. She screamed again and collapsed. "The price is 200,000 credits, or we will kill her right here in front of you."
"Let me handle the payment negotiations." Doc told Nathaniel. He led the two men a short distance away to discuss payment arrangements privately with them. Nathaniel thought he heard the muffled sound of a blaster firing. One of the two men fell to the ground dead. The other turned to face Nathaniel, then he dropped to his knees. His hand grasped the black handle of a knife that is buried to its hilt in his chest before collapsing next to his partner.
"Help the girl to her feet and help her dress. We need to get out of here before people see us and start asking questions."
After Tanya got her coveralls back in place, the group headed to the lifts that would take them up to the green docking ring and the hangar that their shuttlecraft is parked in. Along the way, Tanya asked, "What is the deal?"
"Nathaniel answered, "You owe me six years for your life. After that, the choice about staying on as a member of my crew is yours. First though, after we get back to the Queen Anne's Revenge, we will get you fixed up and get that collar off of you. As our comm and sensors officer, you are entitled to a private cabin, basic supplies, meals, and payment when I can afford it."
"I owe you that and more. I consider my life as being worth more than a six-year commitment," Tanya told Nathaniel.
"You say that now, but after you understand what you have gotten yourself into you might wish that you had stayed with your previous companions," Doc warned Tanya.
Tanya looked back over her shoulder, then turned forward. She spat, then said, "There is no way in bloody hell that I would ever consider going back to that life."
More By This Author
Space Rogue Series:
Exiles
Hunted
Freedom Flight
Star Bridge
Lost: No Return
Earth Quest
Soon To Come:
Space Pirate Roberts and The Dark Citadel
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