We Are Not Prey

by Taki Drake

  We Are Not Prey

  By Taki Drake

  Legal Stuff

  Copyright © All Chaos Press, All Rights Reserved.

  Reproduction of any kind is strictly prohibited unless written permission granted by the author.

  This work is fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Legal Stuff

  Dedications

  Chapter 1 - Slave and Cattle

  Chapter 2 - Desperation

  Chapter 3 – Mage Crisis

  Chapter 4 – Taking Control

  Chapter 5 - Transformation

  Chapter 6 – Wisdom of the Heart

  Chapter 7 – Mage Emergent

  Chapter 8 – Justice Day

  Chapter 9 – Command and Control

  Chapter 10 – Private Quarters

  Chapter 11 – Field Trip

  Chapter 12 – The Mandrake

  Chapter 13 – Gathering In

  Chapter 13 – Arkken Planetfall

  Chapter 14 – Balancing Obligations

  Chapter 15 – Force X

  Chapter 16 – Recruitment

  Chapter 17 – Finding Home

  Chapter 18 – Settling In

  Chapter 19 – Mage and Consort

  Chapter 20 – Death Gift Meeting

  Chapter 21 – Borachville

  Keep Connected

  About the Author

  Dedications

  First and foremost, this book is dedicated to my husband. His support and devotion have created an environment in which I have been able to dare to extend myself into new areas with the absolute certainty that someone will always have my back. Thank you, John. Thank you for your love and support, and being there in my life.

  This book is also dedicated to Michael Anderle and the folks at 20Booksto50K. Those supportive, encouraging, and crazy indie authors have provided guidance, encouragement, and participation in my growth as writer of fiction.

  My loving thanks to you all!

  Chapter 1 - Slave and Cattle

  It seemed like forever. An eternity of gray walls and fear. The memory of different lives had been numbed by pain and terror. There’s only so much that any being can handle without retreating into themselves. Without bringing memories of happier or safer times into the forefront of their vision, so that they can live for just a moment in happiness or contentment. The remembered touch of her husband’s hand and the feel of soft, warm fur as her dog leaned against her leg. Those were her touchstones. Determinedly she focused on those rather than more recent memories of bloodied death and desecration.

  It was a large room, nearly the size of an Earth-style football field, and it was filled from wall-to-wall with a variety of beings. Some of the people in this room had two legs, some four, but all were intelligent and sentient organisms that have been crammed into what was basically a slave ship.

  There are clusters of people in the corners of the room. When a new group of people was added to the population, they tended to stay with others of their kind. As time went on, and the horrors that occurred on a daily basis eroded hope and energy, the groups would break up. Some of the more damaged would retreat into themselves, shunning all interaction with others. However, more often a blending of races and types would occur.

  One such blended group occupied the corner farthest from the door. There were small family groups that were clustered together and talking quietly, but animatedly. An older woman held a sleeping five-year-old gently, as she spoke with a middle-aged man. Similarities in expression and posture betrayed the relationship between the two adults.

  “Cal, I don’t think there’s much of anything you can do at this point. The only thing you can do is try to keep up your spirits, and protect Troyer.”

  “Mom, I’m not too sure how long I can keep going like that. I feel like I’m going out of my mind and that I’m just going to explode and run over and try to kill one of the sons of bitches. Even if by some miracle he got out of this, Troyer is never going to be able to forget the horror of watching somebody being eaten alive in front of him.”

  The man put his hands over his face and then leaned forward, so the tears that trickled from his eyes did not splash onto his sleeping son’s head. His mother gently brushed her hand across the surface of his hair. Her face which had been set in a calm expression relaxed into deep sorrow when she knew that he was not looking at her. Echoes of a fathomless grief showed in her hazel eyes, turning them brown in mourning.

  The sound of a clearing throat interrupted her introspection. An accented, but precise and careful English warned her, “Another damaged one approaches, Lady Ruth.”

  She looked up and forced a smile to her lips as she focused on a tall, broad-shouldered warrior standing in front of her. He was flanked by three other men in similar uniforms but with slightly less imposing physiques. They reminded her of the sergeants she had known back on Earth. Competent, dependable, and supportive. This one, however, this one was different. He had an air of command about him, from the long black hair braided in a single thick rope down his back, to the worn leather boots that covered him from his knee to his toes. He stood as if commanding the deck of the ship. Relaxed, but ready. His uniform had seen better days too. Traces of old blood could be seen if one examined the dark fabric carefully, but he stood proudly and looked her calmly in the face without signs of any embarrassment.

  Once he saw that he had her attention, he motioned with his eyes to her left. Ruth found herself looking at a being much like her son. He had the same number of arms and legs, was about the same height, but was possessed of a stiff bridge of hair running from the center of his forehead over his crown and to the back of his skull. His appearance was of a warrior. He was exhausted, anyone could see that in the small amount of trembling in his hands that he couldn’t suppress. Standing carefully erect, he was dressed in a ripped and bloodstained uniform.

  “Lady, my name is Hendrik, and I come to beg your help. Not for me, but for one that I have tried to protect.” He waited for her response in apparent calm, betrayed only by the increased rate of trembling in his limbs.

  “I am not sure what help I can provide to you, Hendrik, since I am on this ship also. But please tell me and my friend, Pawlik, how it is that you think I can help you.”

  He extended one hand down toward his knees and seem to pull a small winged female child out of the empty air. She was obviously frightened, hiding her face against his arm and making small whimpering sounds. Looking like a five-year-old human child, she was possessed of a pair of gossamer wings that shimmered slightly in the artificial light. One wing was pristine, beautiful, looking like a cross between a dragonfly and a swallowtail butterfly, with articulated points and colored veining. The other wing was a tattered ruin.

  At some point, a three-clawed hand had slashed through the wing leaving destruction and pain behind.

  Hendrik said, “I am all that she has had left for many day cycles. I am the last of my race here, as she is the last of hers. She has been in my care since the Insectoids ate her mother. It is my belief that I will not last too many more days. None has survived this ship for as long as I and I worry what will happen to her when I am gone.

  “She is very young for her people, I think perhaps the equivalent of a three-year-old in your culture. Children of her race are highly protected and gently nurtured. They have very few survival skills until they are older. I would like to ask you to take on one more burden. Would you care for Techla if I am killed?”

  The response was instantaneously offered, “Of course. It
would help however if you gave me some information on what she needs and where to find her people.”

  The men around her laughed, a foreign sound in that chamber of gloom which caused many to look up and stare. Hendrik said with a trace of a smile, “Your belief that you will not die here is the reason that I want you to have her.”

  “Well I’m not sure why that should be grounds for amusement, but I’m pleased just to have managed to remind you what it is to laugh.”

  “Lady Ruth, that is the most enchanting thing about you. Even in this form of hell you are convinced that some of us will somehow survive and be rescued,” contributed her dark-haired friend.

  “Mom, I don’t know how you can think that way, but I’m thankful every day that you do.”

  “Cal, you and Pawlik, not to mention the trio of grinning idiots over there, are ridiculous if you think that I am going to throw my hands up in despair and give in. For some reason, if we die here, even with pain and grief, there is no reason for us to go quietly into our deaths. I may very well die here. But I will not allow those slime sucking, vicious unreasoning sadistic idiots the pleasure or satisfaction of taking away the part that makes me intrinsically me. So if you find that funny then go with it,” she replied heatedly.

  Pawlik cocked one of his strong eyebrows at Ruth and said, “And that is why we have all the broken birds.”

  Extending one arm toward the frightened little girl, Ruth gentled her voice and coaxed the little one to come over closer to her. She said gently, “My name is Ruth, honey, what is yours?”

  The little girl whispered, “Techla, my name is Techla.”

  “Well, this boy sleeping on my lap is my grandson Troyer. He will be happy to have a playmate when he wakes up.”

  Techla crouched down next to Ruth and put her hand on Troyer’s sleeping head. She looked up at Ruth and asked, “Is he dead?”

  “No, honey, he’s just sleeping,” was the reply.

  Silence came over the group as each one retreated into their own thoughts. The men staring out into the distance with unreadable faces. The woman holding her sleeping grandchild and the newest member of her family close to her side.

  Chapter 2 - Desperation

  The screech of the door alerted them all to the danger entering. Four large insect-like creatures strolled in. They were very similar in height, looming over the other beings in the room by a considerable amount. They were about 3 meters tall and broad with exterior spikes protruding from random places on their body shell.

  The overall color and markings on them were very different. Ranging in color from a modest medium brown to a virulent green, there were apparently random splashes of clashing colors on their chests and lower limbs. Their chitin heads were marked with a delicate tracery of patterns. Big compound eyes appeared to watch everyone in the room at the same time.

  As they walked, a blue-green ichor dripped from their mandibles and sizzled slightly as it landed in the middle of the floor. The smell was nauseating, burning the nostrils and creating a fog in the throat. One of them wandered over to a woman curled into a tight ball. An upper limb stretched out, and the claw caught her hair. She was dragged upright and shaken, but made no sound, as her embroidered trousers flapping with the force of her handling.

  A diabolical screech and warble came from the chest of her captor. In a mechanically translated voice, the large bug said, “This one looks about ripe enough!” He turned and rapidly scuttled out the door dragging the woman with him. She made no sound and hung limply from his claw.

  The others continued to stroll around the room, pausing to poke and prod. Fear followed them like an invisible shadow, but slaves learned early not to resist. Resistance only brought faster death.

  After a few minutes, the insects abandoned their torture and left the room. Just before the door closed, the horrible, screeching laugh sounded, and a bloody, severed leg was thrown back into the chamber. A familiar embroidery pattern ran down the trouser leg that was still attached. Drenched in blood, it made a silent witness to one more death on the slave ship from hell.

  It has been four days since the last death. The holding room was no longer crowded. Everyone could have as much space as they wanted, but the effects of fear and distress had molded them into fewer and fewer clusters. Cal, Ruth, and Pawlik had not only kept their group together but added to it.

  Hendrik had proven to be right. One morning after their allowed hygiene break he had disappeared. His uniform jacket was contemptuously thrown into the room an hour later. Techla cried herself to sleep for many nights afterward.

  The next day a cloven-hooved female quadraped with auburn hair and a pale face simply started sleeping next to Ruth. Never saying a word, she helped with the children and any other chore or effort. Ruth and Cal started calling her Mary. When Pawlik asked them why, Ruth said, “It just seemed right.”

  As each day went by without another death, the tension ratcheted higher and higher. The room started to feel like a spring that had been overextended, ready to snap at any moment. In some ways, it was almost a relief when the screeching door once again opened.

  “Out, out, all of you out,” one of the insects shouted through his translator. Lashing out with an electric whip that sparked and scarred what it touched, he drove them rapidly out of the room and down the hallway. A large double door opened ahead of them with the cold slide of metal on metal.

  Stumbling and bouncing against each other, the helpless captives were herded into what appeared to be a small amphitheater. They were driven into a central area with a sand-covered floor. Surrounding them in the seating were hundreds of Insectoids. The buzz of alien conversation filled the air, as the Insectoids pointed and nodded at the captives in front of them. Rapid exchanges of some form of counters or discs could be seen by the frightened people.

  Cal grabbed his mother by her upper arm, demanding in an undertone, “Mom? What are you thinking? What is wrong?”

  Ruth looked at him with a strange glow in her eyes. Her hazel eyes had turned bright blue, and she had a wild stare. Cal turned to Pawlik and tugged on the man’s shirt urgently. “Pawlik, Pawlik! Something wrong with my mom!”

  Pawlik turned his attention to Ruth. His look of concern changed to confusion, before morphing into a combination of horror and hope. He grabbed Cal upper arms and whispered quickly, “Do your people have Mages? Quick you have to tell me!”

  Cal looked at him in confusion, stuttering as he asked, “What do you mean? Mages are real?”

  There was no time for further conversation. The Insectoid that had herded them into the room grabbed a woman with feathers for hair. His dripping saliva burned her arm as she fought weakly to break his hold. He didn’t even appear to notice her actions as he dragged her to the edge of the amphitheater and threw her up into the stands. She was immediately surrounded by four of the aliens. There was an agonized scream of pain before blood splashed high and her voice was silenced forever. The aliens separated and went back to their individual seats casually munching on bloodied limbs.

  Three more times the slaver made selections, dragging his victims to their fate. Some were ripped apart by clawed arms while others were bitten apart by acid-dripping mandibles. The sobbing of the remaining slaves was punctuated by the death screams of those that have been selected. The watching audience was becoming more and more excited, exchanging larger piles of counters even more rapidly.

  Pawlik used his body to block as much of this horrific vision as possible. Trying to provide some solace and protection to Ruth and the children, he and his men formed a wall of living flesh.

  The slaver noticed. Scuttling over to the group, he moved in a circular motion trying to cut one or two of the members away from the rest. Cal and Pawlik worked in concert to block his movement as best they could.

  The blue-green slime of the Insectoids saliva had increased, falling like a particularly noisome rain of clinging acid. It sizzled and produced a fog the burned the eyes and caught in the throat. In t
heir focus on the slaver’s movement, the defenders were taken unaware when a second slaver dashed in and snagged Troyer’s sleeve, yanking him out of the circle of his grandmother’s arms and beyond the scant protection of the men.

  “No!” screamed Cal and Ruth simultaneously. Cal charged the Insectoid attempting to rest his son away from the slaver. Troyer made no sound, but his white face and frightened eyes as he looked desperately at his father further enraged Cal to the point of madness. Drawing hysterical strength from the center of his being, Cal ripped his son out of the slaver’s grip and threw the child bodily to Pawlik. The unexpected impact of the boy knocked Pawlik off balance, causing him to stumble slightly against two of his men.

  A screeching cackle of amusement erupted from the Insectoid. Slamming his forearm into Cal’s head, he shifted his hold to the stunned man’s shoulder and started to drag him toward the edge of the amphitheater.

  “No.”

  The world seemed to stop in an instant. There was no sound. All over the room movement ceased. Ruth rose to her feet in a controlled and prolonged lunge. Gently pushing Techla into the astonished arms of Mary, the woman stepped into the empty center of the amphitheater. She repeated, “No.”

  “You shall not do this.”

  The blue of her eyes seem to reach an incandescent force and sparkles of light started to drip from them as if she were crying stardust. The slaver that held her son shrugged and began to once again to drag the man to his death.

  Light coalesced around Ruth, intensifying in a whirling network of multiple colors that shrunk and grew in some unknown pattern. Pawlik shook his head and muttered, “Oh my God!” He pushed Troyer’s trembling body to one of his men, commanding, “Protect him and protect her.”

  The unexpected burden caused the sergeant to almost drop Troyer. In attempting to catch the boy, Pawlik stumbled and went to one knee, just as an elaborately painted Insectoid stood erect and commanded in a loud voice, “Kill her! Kill her quickly!