Calypso Slaves - Ghost Story

"I don't owe you anything," Andraste hissed.

"Your funeral," the guard said, and gave Andraste a shove just hard enough to get her moving towards one of the exits, but not hard enough to send her off-balance on her shackled feet.

Cassie knew the construction of this ship. She was a rather incorrigible dilettante and knew a little bit of everything. The construction looked like a Warsaw build, probably one of the Old Federation miner hulks that'd been retrofitted eighteen times. The ship was a tower ship, using constant 1G acceleration to simulate gravity, but it could convert to a ring ship that spun in place using centrifugal forces when it was docked to an asteroid. The lift that took her down to the bottom most deck of the ship said it had got seven decks. Looked like a Volov class miner. On the one hand, that meant she knew the basic construction. Very modular, each deck had four segments except for the top deck, which was just the bridge. On the other hand, the fact that it was nearly two centuries old and had undoubtedly been retrofitted again and again and again meant that she couldn't have any idea what those modules were now. Except for the bridge, anyway, safe bet that was still located at the top of the tower.

But why was she thinking about this? Escape? The lieutenant wasn't wrong. She was in fucking space. Escape to where? The corporal said the lieutenant would 'work with her' if she paid her dues. What did that mean?

The corporal was talking again. "The rules here are pretty simple. Number one, do as you're told. Second, no fighting, no gambling, no drugs. Do not get involved with gangs or other slave organizations in any capacity. Don't join them, don't participate in their courts, don't do them any favors, just leave them alone. And don't masturbate yourselves or each other. Your cunts belong to the commander, now, and by proxy the lieutenant, she'll let you know when you're allowed to touch. There's a schedule in your cell. Starting tomorrow you'll be following it. When the lights come on in the morning, get up and get moving. This whole place is wired with cameras and we can track your collars. We'll know if you're slacking off. Any questions?"

Cassie swallowed, finding her courage. "What exactly are we here for?" she asked, and then hastily appended "sir."

"The ship mines out asteroids. Ore gets brought in through the lower deck, refined, and turned into finished parts by slave labor. Hydroponics keep us fed, there's janitor and laundry positions, some slaves get assigned to medical, maintenance, or administration once they start moving up to higher class. Don't worry about that right now," the corporal said.

"You bought an AI hacker, a witch, a terrorist, and God knows what else to stamp ore into license plates?" Cassie asked.

"Mostly motor parts, actually," the corporal said.

"Not what I meant, sir," Cassie said.

"I don't work in administration, I don't know who bought you or what for. My job is just to get you in your cell and keep you in line," the corporal said, stopping as they arrived at said cell. They'd walked past a dozen just like it. It was a semicircular cell with five slabs of steel jutting out from the wall, each one covered with a pair of blankets and a thin pillow resting on top. There was a sink and a toilet at the far end, a pipe running out from the back of both across the ceiling, a shower spigot coming down from it in the center of the room, and a grated drain underneath. "Don't get caught outside after lockdown," he said. He turned to leave, but after two steps he turned back and said "you know, between you and me, the lieutenant mentioned we're operating on a skeleton crew right now? No one's ever been off duty from riot injuries longer than three weeks. I don't know where all the guards go." He glances around. "You didn't hear that from me, though."

"Yes, sir," Cassie said. The corporal nodded his head towards her and then turned to leave. "Was anyone here not convicted in the past couple of days? Lily? Tanirt?" Cassie asked. Andraste ignored Cassie completely to go throw herself face first into one of the beds.

"Not me," Tanirt said, sitting down on one of the beds and giving her cuffs a resigned tug. When exactly were they planning on letting her out of those?

"Me either," Lily said.

"And you and Giovanna were possibly set up by the same guy," Cassie said.

"Don't even talk to me about that shit," Giovanna said, walking down the hall, "I'll deal with him when I get out, fuck, if they take me to another system and keep me in here forever I'll still find a way to get back at him. I'll find a way."

"Bernard Cato has a good reputation," Lily said, "he's halfway from criminal to revolutionary. It's weird that he'd be working with the authorities."

"Maybe they had something on him," Cassie said. She'd nearly sold her friends out to get a shorter sentence, she remembered with an internal wince.

Lily shook her head. "Wouldn't be the first time. That man's been to prison plenty. He's never snitched or anything before."

"How'd he go to prison so often without getting sold?" Cassie asked. Did he have connections with the slave market? Maybe he cooperated more than people think and was just good at hiding it.

"No one wants to buy a slave who's really dangerous," Lily said.

"Well someone just bought lots of slaves who're really dangerous," Cassie said.

"Yeah, it's, uh...Really weird," Lily said, "I'm...I'm an assassin. I was sure I'd never get bought by anyone. I am the worst person to ever have as a slave."

"If you're the worst, I'm a close second," Cassie said, "I'm a mesmer."

Lily's eyes widened for a split second. "You can read minds?" she asked. To her credit, her tone was perfectly casual, but Cassie saw the look of shock cross her face for just half a second. There was something she was thinking that she didn't want Cassie to know about.

"I'm not that good at it. I can tell the difference between someone's thoughts, sleep, dreams, stuff like that, but I can't pick out individual thoughts," Cassie said.

"Too bad. How long would it take you to learn?" Lily asked.

"I dunno, I was always focused on other things," Cassie said, declining to mention that those other things were such hard bitten criminal pursuits as photography and ethical philosophy. "It only takes a couple of years to get good at it, though. And then I can read thoughts, or make people think what I want them to, or make them never think again, and for every slave on the market who can do that kind of thing there are literally a million who can't. It's not like it isn't on my record. So why buy me and you?"

Lily pulled her hands away from shielding her sex from prying eyes to rest her chin on one hand and that hand's elbow on the other hand. "Maybe he just gets off on the thrill?" she asked.

"I guess it's possible," Cassie said, "but he hasn't even bothered to come and talk to us yet. Seems to me...I know this sounds weird, but it seems to me like he's trying to put together a team. Like, some kind of commando or superspy thing."

"Sounds like a vid," Lily said, "there are way easier ways to make that happen. For example, instead of using Bernard Cato as some kind of incredibly deep sleeper agent to set me up on a fake assassination contract, he could've just sent me a real assassination contract."

"This way he has us under his thumb indefinitely," Cassie said.

"Only if we're on the ship. You think he'll send us after those gangs? The lieutenant mentioned they were having problems with them," Lily said.

"Possibly," Cassie said "but I don't think his influence is limited to the ship. You haven't noticed our collars are plugged into our spines?"

"I noticed they were plugged into something," Lily said, rubbing a hand over where the collar is buried in the nape of her neck.

"That's our nervous system. Deliver enough volts to that and we're dead, and that's easy to do from a distance. And that's assuming he isn't just going to neurohack us," Cassie said.

"Neurohack?" Lily asked.

"Yeah. Have you never heard of it?" Lily shook her head. Cassie had been trying to avoid thinking about it herself, but she took a deep breath now. Just explain it like it's an interesting bit of trivia, she thought, don't imagine it actually happening. "The human brain can be rewritten just like a computer, a computer just needs a point of access. Like plugging a transceiver into the spine," she tapped the back of her collar for effect. "The brain is way too complex to try and manipulate in real time using computer code, but he could adjust chemical levels and fire or selectively fry neurons to rewrite and eliminate personality traits or memories he doesn't like."

"He can really do that?" Lily asked, tugging slightly at the collar.

"If it's a transceiver he plugged into us, yeah," Cassie said. She wasn't actually sure 'transceiver' was the right word, she was no hacker, but she knew that this kind of thing could be done.

"I wanna be me," Lily said.

"Me too," Cassie said, "I guess...I mean, we don't know for sure that's what he's up to." She looked down the empty corridor lined with cells from one end to another. "So...Can we just wander around?" Cassie asked.

"Giovanna seemed to think so," Lily said.

"Let's look around," Cassie said, "probably if they don't want us somewhere the door will be locked."

Three of the four modules on the bottom deck were open. The first was the cell block Cassie and Lily were in, with about two dozen of those five bed cells. In this module were also two rooms that don't seem to be in use at all. One of them was split in half into two sub-rooms by a long wall with an empty frame where you might put a door. Next to the door was a long gap where you might put a window, but this window was much longer than it was tall. Cassie had no idea what this thing was for. There was no furniture in the room, no labels on anything.

The next module was a massive docking bay, the far walls dominated by heavy, sealed airlocks, each one over fifty feet across, big enough for a freighter shuttle to pass through. This wasn't the bay Cassie was brought onto the ship from, it was bigger, both in its total size and the size of the ships it could dock with. It was also totally deserted except for a lone guard standing watch over a small stack of crates, taking up maybe one percent of the massive bay's total capacity. Unlike most of the guards, he was carrying an assault rifle, and he watched Cassie and Lily from the moment they entered. Most of the bay was occupied by gigantic drill pods, some on treads, some hooked up to thrusters, and other earthmoving machinery. The door wouldn't let them out until they placed their hands behind their head for a scan, the scanner sweeping up and down before a tinny chime unlocked the door for them.

The last module they could reach was the workshop. This place was bustling with activity. Naked slaves operated hydraulic presses to stamp out the basic molds of various machine parts, while others carved the molds into specific parts, exactly wide enough and long enough to fit with their counterparts in whatever machine they'll ultimately be assembled into. Each of a dozen different assembly lines seemed to be working on different parts and Cassie couldn't make heads or tails of how they fit into one another, or if they fit into one another. A pair of guards patrolled along the shop floor with crops, occasionally whipping one of the slaves.

Cassie could see a girl in a blue jumpsuit, the first person she'd seen wearing anything but the armored support suits, tinkering with the machines on an assembly line that was otherwise deserted, and across the clamor and heat of the workshop Cassie could also see two more similarly dressed operating control terminals on some kind of refinery, liquid being stirred in vats and sloshed through pipes and sluices. It was difficult to tell from this distance, but it looked like the girls were collared.

Cassie walked up to one of the slaves in jumpsuits working on the refinery at the far end of the work floor. "Excuse me," she said, raising her voice a little to be heard over the din of the workshop.

"What's up?" the girl asked, not looking away from the readout on her terminal, occasionally adjusting a dial.

"You have a collar, and that jumpsuit. How did...?" Cassie asked.

"If you don't know, you're not supposed to be thinking about it," the girl said.

"Um, sorry," Cassie said, and started groping around for something to say to make her open up.

"But, hey, maybe if you knew you'd think about it less," she pulled a lever down and the vats stopped circling and the mystery fluid in them began to drain. "I could tell you. If you make it worth my while."

"What do you want?" Cassie asked.

The jumpsuit slave glanced over her shoulder. "I want your tongue in my cunt," she said.

The bluntness of the request stunned Cassie for a moment. "I take it that's not allowed for you anymore than me," Cassie said, still not sure if she was making an excuse not to do it or just trying to figure out details. It wasn't like she didn't swing both ways, but this was uncomfortably close to prostitution.

"The mining bay has plenty of places to hide," the jumpsuit slave said, "lunch is in a few minutes."

The other jumpsuit slave spoke up now. "You're gonna skip lunch?"

"Nah, I'll take hers," the first jumpsuit said with a quick gesture to Cassie, "gonna need that too, by the way. Bring it with you when you meet me in the bay. If you lick as good as your tits bounce, you can probably get half a meal off someone else anyway."

"I'll do it," Lily said, and Cassie breathed a sigh of relief.

The jumpsuit looked Lily over and shrugged. "Good enough for me. Lunch is in a couple of minutes, just wait between the equipment in the mining bay."

"Where do they serve lunch?" Cassie asked. She didn't find any sort of cafeteria down here, "if we're first in line there should be plenty of time left for, uh..."

"They send it down in the elevator and give it out there," the jumpsuit slave said. Give it out? And then you, what, wander off and eat it on your own? Cassie wasn't looking forward to finding out how lunch works around here, although having missed breakfast she wasn't really in a mood to be turning it down, either.

Cassie and Lily headed to the elevator and waited a few minutes until a buzzer sounded throughout the deck. Other slaves filed into line behind them. A half-dozen dragon-tattooed girls walked in front to take their spot at the front of the line while the elevator trundled downwards. An objection on autopilot got halfway out of Cassie's throat before she caught it and swallowed it back down. If this were a vid, making an enemy of the local gang would be visual shorthand for a clueless courtier way out of her depth.

The elevator arrived with a crate marked "SLAVE RATIONS - 5TH CLASS" in big block letters, a guard swinging his stun baton idly, and a pair of slaves in skirts barely covering their groin in front but dropping down to their knees in back, and dancer tops covered in jangling coins held up by straps looped behind the neck. The slaves opened up the crate and began handing out what appeared to be some kind of food bar. Like a candy bar or a power bar or...Something. Cassie examined hers while walking away from the line. Plain white wrapper, no label, no nutritional information.

Cassie opened it up. It was a mottled, reddish-brown, grainy bar of what she could only hope was all the nutrients she'd need to survive. She ripped it in half and asked Lily which half she wanted. The thing was tough as leather so Cassie's rip job ended up less halves and more two-thirds to one-third. Cassie was wondering if maybe she should've let Lily divide, but Lily took the smaller piece.

"Are you sure?" Cassie asked while walking towards the mining bay.

"Yeah," Lily chirped.

"I mean, mine's bigger," Cassie said.

"I guess," Lily said.

Sure, the tear was jagged and slanted but even so she'd have to be blind not to see it. But pushing the point any further would just be rude. "Thanks," Cassie said.

"No problem," Lily said, and with a bit of a grin, "besides, I'm gonna get something extra to eat anyway." Cassie blushed, and Lily giggled. "Oh my God, Cassie are you still a virgin or something?"

"No," Cassie said, "I just...People in Toluca just aren't that open about this kind of thing, I guess." Cassie wondered if it was a class difference, but she didn't want to admit she was brought up rich. Ish. Sucking on the teat of the rich, anyway.

The two poked around behind the mining equipment for a minute or two before finding the jumpsuit slave, sitting with her back against one massive tire of one of the ground bound mining machines. Lily handed her the food bar...Thing, and the jumpsuit slave smiled and pulled down the zipper of her jumpsuit, easing it down to expose an already damp slit. Silently, Lily bent over and pressed her face into the mechanic's sex, and Cassie could tell from the mechanic's expression that Lily knew her way around inside the pink hole. The mechanic's breath started growing heavier, her ample chest rising and falling while Lily licked, rubbing at her own pussy.

Cassie sighed, cupped her hand over Lily's, then threaded her fingers through Lily's to stroke at her pussy. Lily pulled her hand away to let Cassie attend to her, her own breath growing heavier while Cassie rubbed at her. The jumpsuit slave (she never even gave her name) was holding Lily by the hair, pressing her deeper inside of herself. Cassie swallowed down the awkwardness. She'd been with a woman before, and she was doing this as a favor for Lily, not herself. She began rubbing at Lily's clit, Lily let out a soft moan, and Cassie pulled her hand away, fearfully looking around. There was still that guard in here. He couldn't see them, but he still had ears.

After a few more moments of licking, Lily squeaked quietly in protest, and Cassie returned her hand to Lily's pussy, rubbing her gently. After a while Cassie cautiously caressed her clit and could hear Lily, just barely, draw in a sharp breath, smothering her moans of pleasure. The jumpsuit slave was covered in a thin sheen of sweat by now, hips bucking into Lily. Cassie slipped a trepidatious finger into Lily's slit, and she took it silently, so Cassie added another.

The jumpsuit slave began to cum. Her moans seemed to come through her nose more than anything else, and after a moment she pulled herself away from Lily. Cassie turned Lily onto her back, pressed her hand over Lily's mouth, and started pumping her fingers in and out of Lily at high speed. Lily's chest heaved and her own hips started to buck until, moments later, she came too, her moan muffled both by Cassie's hand and her own struggle to remain silent.

The mechanic pulled out an oil rag and mopped up the cum from the ground and herself, then handed it to Lily and Cassie to clean up. She gestured for the two of them to follow and left the mining bay, leading them back into the workshop, now deserted except for the two guards and silent except for their conversation. After arriving back at the refinery, the jumpsuit slave turned a few of the machines on. Fluids began to flow through pipes and the pumps that circulate them filled the air with enough noise to provide cover for conversation.

"Alright, here's how it works," she said, "different jobs come with different uniforms, except the real shit end hard labor jobs down here in the workshop, which are naked. You might've heard or noticed that you're fifth class slaves. The hard labor is all that's available to fifth class, so if you want better jobs, better food, and something to wear, you have to get promoted up the classes. But the criteria for that are totally secret, they don't want people gaming the system or something. I'm fourth class, and I work in Maintenance. We do all the grunt work for Engineering. Agricultural and Mining are fourth-class jobs, too, and I know Administrative, Medical, and Engineering departments take slaves, too. Those girls who deliver the food on the elevators? They're Administrative."