by Tammy Walsh
Could they be real-life lightsabers? I wondered.
Their rotund bearers sure didn’t look much like the powerful Jedis from the movies.
Piggy marched toward the cigar-shaped building but didn’t ascend the hatch into the main room.
Instead, he proceeded until he reached the door at the end.
He rapped on it with his small gloved fist.
A moment later, a slat like a 1920’s speakeasy slid open and a pair of stained yellow eyes peered out.
The exchange they shared was short-lived.
The door squeaked open and Piggy marched inside.
The door shut behind him and we were left surrounded by enemies.
“What now?” I said, speaking at the corner of my mouth.
Even if these piggy creatures were hard of hearing, I doubted they couldn’t hear me.
“Now, we wait,” Egara said.
Well, thanks. That really helps.
“But what are we supposed to do?” I said, pressing him. “What if they turn us over to the prison guards?”
“They won’t unless the reward for us is more than what they can get out of doing business with us.”
“You think there’s a bounty on us?”
“Not much of one. Not yet. The prison guards will think they can find us themselves. Why pay for something you can get for free?”
“Then what are we going to do?”
“I’m going to get my shuttlecraft back. Then, we’re going to get out of here.”
“We don’t exactly have much to offer them.”
That gorgeous smile of his curled his lips once more.
His grin made me think he was carrying an ace up his sleeve that he hadn’t yet shown me.
Egara glanced over at the nearby building and surveyed the darkness inside.
I followed his gaze and noticed he took interest in a corner of sharp shadows that I couldn’t make out.
Most of the items in there were small and of varying blocky shapes.
Some were tall and thin with hydraulic arms on the front like protruding teeth.
Others were flat and broad with sharp blades and arms that looked like they could swing both up and down.
It had the appearance of a machine used for digging or clearing away.
Egara kept his expression empty but I was used to reading it by now.
I could have sworn there was a flicker of excitement behind his eyes.
It might have been there for an instant or I might have only imagined it.
When I turned back to the building’s interior, I looked again for what he had noticed.
I couldn’t ascertain what it was.
Was his ship on board? I wondered. Was it right there in plain sight?
The door ahead squeaked open and Piggy stepped out.
He backed away, bowing, and kept his head low as the entire wall lifted up and away.
A handful of creatures of mixed race pulled a platform on wheels out from the building.
The creatures were small, thin, and wiry.
Slaves, unless I missed my guess.
There was a resigned and helpless look about them.
Chains linked the collars at their necks and spiked cuffs about their ankles.
On the platform sat the biggest creature I had ever seen.
He was another pig but gargantuan in all aspects.
His huge stomach never seemed to end as the platform turned to face us.
His head was of a regular size and looked tiny on his bulbous frame.
He didn’t wear the black robes of the other pigs and instead sported white flowing robes cut from sheer fabric not dissimilar from that the Prizes wore back at Ikmal prison.
There were so many layers, they gave at least some protection against his rolls of fat underneath.
His arms were short and stumpy and hung uselessly at his sides.
The slaves pulled the platform across the desert floor—not an easy job when the sand kept slipping and giving way beneath their feet.
Luckily for them, most of the ground had been hardened by a thousand stamping feet.
“Behold, Draw the great!” Piggy said, waving his arms and bowing once more.
The slaves drew to a stop before us and quickly ran around to the front.
They bent down on their hands and knees and braced themselves as the giant pig used them as steps to descend to the ground below.
Draw looked me and Egara over.
He didn’t look impressed.
“Greetings, fair travelers,” he said. “Welcome to my humble merchant shop. We have everything your heart never even knew it desired.”
Egara surprised me when he bowed low, his body adopting a poise and style he’d never shown before.
“We are honored to be in your presence,” he said, making his voice light and lofty.
“I understand you are interested in discussing trade,” Draw said.
“We are. Some time ago, you came across a shuttlecraft in the middle of the desert. It is a C-class craft and of little value. I wish to have it back.”
Draw snorted and glanced at Piggy, who did not smile.
Egara smiled amiably.
“What we find, we keep, as per the law of the land,” Draw said.
He smelled strongly of perfume that’d been doused over his sweaty body, measured in buckets, not droplets.
“That’s true,” Egara said, “except this shuttlecraft already had an owner. Me. It was left by my crew.”
Draw’s eyes slid over to me and a greasy smile slid across his fat lips.
“A crew of one?” he said. “I doubt we have much to fear.”
“She’s not a member of my crew.”
“A pity. If crewmates looked more like her, I might consider joining a pirate ship myself.”
He leered at me vulgarly and worked his eyes over my body, not that he could make out much through the thick clothes I wore.
“I’ll tell you what,” Draw said. “I will return your shuttlecraft to you, in exchange for your female companion. She must have pleasured many fighters in her time. She is not worth much but I am generous.”
The tendons in Egara’s jaw grew tight.
He might be playing a role but that didn’t mean he couldn’t get angry.
He turned his head to one side and ground his teeth so loudly even I could hear it.
He raised his grin to Draw.
“I’m afraid she’s not for sale,” Egara said.
“Then I think our business discussions are over,” Draw said.
He turned to climb his living steps.
“We’re not finished,” Egara said aggressively.
I placed a hand on his forearm.
I didn’t think it was wise to anger this guy.
He had a dozen crazy looking creatures at his command, any one of which could open fire and claim our lives.
“I’m afraid we are finished,” Draw said. “You have nothing else to offer me and there is nothing else of mine you desire.”
He pressed his foot onto the first slave’s back and I heard a crack noise.
The slave’s eyes boggled and sweat dripped from his brow but he dare not drop Draw.
Egara took a step forward.
The guards moved to block him, their weapons glowing with luminous light.
My grip tightened on Egara’s arm but he took no notice of my warning squeeze.
“I am the captain of a pirate ship,” Egara said.
“A ship which could be anywhere, assuming it exists,” Draw said, falling into his throne. “I imagine the prison guards’ bounty won’t be much but it will be more than the cost I would incur to feed and clothe you. We’ll send up a flare and inform the guards of your location.”
He waved a flabby arm and the slaves grunted as they began to turn the platform around.
“You never checked the serial number of the shuttlecraft, did you?” Egara said.
Draw didn’t turn around and gave no signal he even hear
d him speak.
“The negotiation is over,” Piggy snarled.
He slipped the handle of his weapon from the scabbard at his waist and flicked the lock open.
“My ship’s name is the Wanderer,” Egara said.
Everything changed from that point.
Piggy’s eyes boggled in their tiny sockets.
He hesitated, his grip losing strength on the handle he’d popped free.
The platform did not stop but Draw turned his head to one side as if the ship name interested him.
The dozen piggy creature nearby raised their trotters to their goggles, twisted them, and squinted hard at Egara to get a better look at him.
Even the guards armed with the crossbow plasma weapons exchanged a wary glance.
The one with his weapon trained on me immediately took aim at Egara instead.
“Stop,” Draw said. “Take me back.”
The slaves turned the platform back around to face us.
Draw leaned forward in his chair and braced his elbows on his knees.
“If what you say is true, then that would make you…”
“Captain Egara Oskeileb,” Egara said.
Draw leaned back in his chair and pinched his lips between his fingers.
“But you still have no ship, no crew,” he said.
“My ship and crew are where I told you. And they still belong to me.”
“But you cannot call them.”
“Give me access to your communication equipment and I will. I will be at your command and will carry out any mission you wish.”
Draw thought carefully about the offer before throwing back his head and barking a laugh.
“Do you take me for a fool?” he said. “If the warden discovers I agreed to your terms and aided escaped prisoners he would destroy me.”
“Then give me back my shuttlecraft and they will never know I was here.”
I peered up at Egara with new eyes.
His name carried meaning with these people.
I wondered how much Egara had held back about himself.
I wondered why he hadn’t told me who he was.
Draw threw up his flabby arms.
“I can’t take the risk,” he said. “No. This is not a good trade. You will understand, I’m sure, as an individual of your… caliber.”
Egara seemed taken aback by Draw’s decision.
I glanced at the handles of the shivs held restrained and safe beneath Egara’s belt.
With the pigs crowding around and reaching with itchy trigger-happy fingertips for their weapons, it was only a matter of time before a fight broke out.
As fast as Egara was, even he couldn’t hope to defeat them all.
I moved first.
“Wait,” I said. “Wait, your Excellency.”
I bowed as low as I could.
My legs quivered due to the effort from earlier in the day.
“I offer myself to you,” I said, the words turning sour even as they formed in my mouth. “As a sweetener for the deal. Give us the shuttlecraft and I will spend the night with you.”
“Agatha…” Egara said.
I blocked him out and took another step forward.
Piggy moved to stop me but a glance at his master, who pinched his fat lips between his flabby fingers and nodded.
Piggy stepped to one side and let me pass.
Egara growled and attempted to follow me.
I turned back on him and threw out an arm.
“Don’t touch me,” I said. “I am no longer your property. Tonight, I am his.”
I put all my love and fear for his safety into my expression.
He alone knew me well enough to understand why I was doing this.
“Please,” he said. “Don’t.”
I couldn’t bear to hear those words from him.
I turned on my heel and approached the platform.
The slaves formed steps and I climbed up them.
I looked up at Draw, who wore a snarl of excitement.
A shiver of disgust crawled across mine.
I lowered my hand to his sweaty leg and gently massaged it.
I tried to ignore the varicose veins.
“One night,” I said, “and I will give you everything you ever dreamed of.”
Draw’s eyes bored into mine and his lip curled into a grin of satisfaction.
Not least because of the effect my deal had on Egara.
“Very well,” he said.
I wasn’t sure if I was pleased or not with his decision but for better or worse, the deal had been made.
Draw pulled me into his lap and felt at my chest as his platform turned and carried us toward the cigar-shaped building.
I couldn’t bring myself to look Egara in the eye but before we disappeared inside, I glanced back over my shoulder at him.
Piggy shoved him toward the external hatch.
Egara stood dumbly watching and refused to leave until I had disappeared from sight.
Maybe he was waiting for a miracle, something to stop this event from taking place.
I found myself wishing for the same thing.
Draw placed a hand on my thigh and I forced a smile on my face as he turned his head toward me.
As he leaned forward to kiss me, one of his huge fat slabs of man breast entered the space between us, preventing us from kissing.
Still, he leaned forward, shut his eyes, and opened his mouth with his tongue lolling out.
He expected me to climb over that mound of flesh to reach him.
I kept the curl of disgust off my face, though it turned my insides raw to do so.
I avoided his mouth and pecked him on the cheek, my lips coming away tasting of salty sweat.
As I pulled back, he latched a hand around my arm and yanked me closer.
He slammed his tongue in my mouth.
It was long and irritated my tonsils.
He pulled back and licked my cheek and brow.
Where I had been repulsed by the taste of his sweat, he reveled in the taste of mine.
He smacked his lips.
He glanced over his flabby shoulder back at Egara, who was now being forced into the main hangar.
“You can’t hurt him,” I said.
“He will only be hurt if he struggles. Or if you do not please me.”
He leered at me, an open challenge.
I glared back at him and he seemed pleased at what he saw.
His slaves carried us up one flight of stairs and then another.
The stairs were ludicrously wide, built to cater to Draw’s platform.
The throne leaned backward as the slaves took us up one flight after another.
I dreaded to think what would happen if the slaves were to drop the platform, for their legs to give out, unable to finish the job.
I suspected their lives would be on the line.
At the top of the stairs, Draw’s apartment took up the majority of the space.
It was surprisingly modern in style, minimalist.
Open windows ran along either side and thick shutters stood perched over the frames, ready to abseil down and lock into place the moment it was required.
“How do you survive on this moon?” I said. “There’s so little to eat, so little to live off.”
“There is always plenty,” Draw said. “It’s just a matter of finding it. This machine is one of the greatest wonders in the solar system. We can drill as deep into the heart of the planet as we wish. And for all its ugliness, there’s a great deal of wealth beneath the moon’s surface.”
I had heard a great deal about the warden who was in charge of the entire prison moon.
But I had never seen him, never come in contact with him.
I supposed that wasn’t much of a surprise.
The apartment was tastefully decorated with long leather couches and a device that looked much like a television but projected holographic images playing in the broad open space before the sofas.
Right now,
two aliens fought a deadly fight to the death, and unless I missed my guess, I would have said the aliens were none other than prisoners in Ikmal.
I wondered how many viewers the prison fight had.
If it was a popular show, the viewership could well run into the billions.
The slaves transferred Draw into a hovering armchair.
It made me wonder why he didn’t use that instead of his slave-powered platform.
I glanced back toward the stairs.
I could easily escape if I wanted.
A pair of servants stood on either side of the entrance, heads bowed, eyes facing the floor.
These were beautiful female creatures, nothing like the small but muscular platform carriers.
I empathized with them.
I imagined their situation was much like mine had been in the prison.
Trapped in this world, likely abducted, and forced to work for their alien overlords.
Draw floated over to the front room and came to a stop between the two long couches.
He cheered on the fighters, enjoying the bloody battle.
“Wine!” he yelled.
He whipped out an arm and smacked me across the ass.
“Now,” he said. “How do you intend on making my dreams come true?”
I gulped.
I really hadn’t given it much thought.
But with Egara’s life on the line, I had better think of something fast.
I pictured Egara sitting in that armchair instead of this fact blob of a man.
It was Egara looking back at me, not him.
And looking upon Egara was a pleasure.
I stood between the holographic fighters and switched the projector off and moved through the stations until I came to the music channels.
The music was alien and I couldn’t understand how anyone could find pleasure in listening to it.
Finally, I came to a tune with a slow sensual beat and a deep bass.
I fixed Draw with a look and began to dance.
I ran my hands over my body, the swell of my breasts, and narrow waist.
I kept my eyes on him and as I performed, stripped one item at a time.
Draw’s mouth fell open and drool seeped from the corner of his lips.
And there, protruding from the folds of his flowing robes, his cock.
I was relieved to see it wasn’t big.
As I danced closer, I reached for it, my arm protesting every inch of the way.
Before I could touch it, Draw snapped a hand around my arm and pulled me to his face.
