Captain Emrah Jackson Ch. 11

This ongoing sci-fi series will contain non-consensual elements.

***

My world was so different. I wasn't a slave anymore, my owner was dead, and my home was now a place that I could never return to. I had no friends and no real purpose in life.

I had stayed on the yacht because of Orton, but he had been blasted into the cold vacuum of space. My life at the moment seemed tied to this red moon organisation. A group of people whose sole purpose was freeing slaves.

This ship seemed different. There were new people aboard, and I felt like a stranger in a place that had seemed so comfortable only the day before. Not that they were treating me badly. They smiled every time they saw me, and asked me how I was.

Their dirty overalls had been replaced with clean outfits. Delphine had explained that they had only worn the overalls to infiltrate the ore facility. She had told me it was all been part of an elaborate plan to rescue Juno. They knew Orton had bought her, after bribing a staff member of the auction. It had then been just a case of luring him away to take his ship . An emergency at an ore facility did the trick, and the dirty outfits helped the ruse.

A room had been picked out for me. A smaller one, but that was to be expected. My large suite I had shared with Orton was in tatters.

One of the crew brought me some clothes, and other essentials. As he did, he said, that I'd have to get used to not having servants around.

This new situation became apparent at meal times. There didn't seem to be a designated cook. Everyone just helped themselves.

My ship was full of strangers, who did things differently than me, except that it had never been my ship. I never really owned anything.

Delphine had been helpful, but she was their leader. She couldn't spend all her time with me, and I started to feel lonely. Due to my memory loss, I could count the people I knew on one hand.

Maybe, I had made a mistake in not going with the other slaves to the safe haven.

Presently, we were all sat in the dinning room eating dinner. I had never been in there with so many people before.

They were joking and talking about things I couldn't join in on. One of them kept joking about the state of his hair. It made everyone howl with laughter. I couldn't see what was so funny, and I guessed it was some in-joke that I wasn't aware of.

They did try, asking my opinion from time to time, but it was hopeless. How could I integrate? They were all so easy in each other's company.

"How's the food?" Delphine asked.

"It's nice," I said, but before I could ask her the same thing, one of the men asked her a question about the navigation equipment.

As she gave him a detailed answer, I realised it was just another thing that I couldn't join in on.

They talked some more, and one of them said something about explosives being set on the ore facility. I remembered that they told me about the yacht's previous crew being sent there.

"Are you going to destroy the ore facility?" I asked him.

He nodded, cheerfully.

"But the crew, they will be killed," I said, and he just nodded again with an even bigger smile.

I couldn't believe it.

"What have they done? They are just employees," I said, with some shock.

"That's the point, what have they done?" Delphine asked, rhetorically. "They happily ferried you, a slave around. Did they ever try to free you?"

I had to shake my head. They had been kind, but not that kind.

"What about their families?" I asked.

A man from further down the table spoke up. He was quite a bit older than the rest.

"What about my family, did anyone care when they were taken," he said, and looked down at his food. His words brought a silence to the room. I had a feeling they all had similar stories. I was in the wrong, and I knew it.

Delphine gave me a half smile.

"Sorry, please excuse me," I said, quietly, and left the room.

I felt embarrassed and ashamed, and started to walk back to my room.

There were footsteps behind me. It was Delphine, she caught up to me, and put an arm around my shoulder.

"Don't worry about it," she said. "You're new, it will take time to adjust."

I turned and wrapped my arms around her.

"I don't know about starships, or guns, or explosives. I'm useless."

She laughed. "We all have to learn. How about now?" She asked, cheerfully

I shook my head, but she insisted, and said we would go to the cargo bay for some target practice.

After seeing what happened to Orton in there, it was the last place I wanted to go, but she was keen to show me.

I really wanted to spend time with her too. She was a very charismatic woman. Her way with the crew was extraordinary. There were no harsh words, or grumbling about what she asked them to do, just an ease and devotion to her leadership. It was a very attractive quality.

There was another man in there. He looked as if he was fixing something, and he stopped when we entered. After a few words, he helped Delphine set up a makeshift shooting-range, using empty oxygen canisters. There were ten in all, lined up on a storage crate.

I wasn't sure about this anymore. I remembered when Orton tried to hand me the pistol in our room, and how I dropped it.

Delphine was patient, and showed me what everything did on her lazer pistol. As she handed it to me, I felt a bit more confident.

She was a patient teacher, and gave me some more guidance on how to stand. The engineer looked on, with a grin.

"Try not to put a hole in the hull," he said, scaring me a little. Delphine chided him and told me it wasn't on a high setting.

I gripped the weapon the way she showed me and pointed it at the target.

"Legs a little more apart," she said, quietly. I did as she said.

"Squeeze the trigger."

I fired, a beam of light jumped from the gun and cut the first canister in half.

"Wow, first hit," she said, excitedly.

The engineer said, it was luck.

"Try the others," she suggested.

There were nine other canisters. I aimed and fired, hitting the next one. I didn't wait this time, and I quickly shot each of them in turn.

"Like that?" I asked.

"What the fuck." The engineer exclaimed.

Delphine was laughing. "You tricked me, you've fired a gun before."

I shook my head, saying all I did was do what she had told me.

"Try this." The engineer said, picking up a canister.

He threw it high into the air. As it sailed through the air, I raised the gun and scored a hit on it.

Delphine let out a long whistle. "This can't be luck. Are you sure you've never done this before?"

I shrugged. I told her about my missing memories. As I did, a grave look appeared on her face. She questioned me further about the accident, asking how sure I was that it actually took place. I told her, all the information I got about it came from Orton.

"Are you thinking, a mind wipe?" The engineer asked.

She nodded.

*********

Together in my room, we talked more about my missing memories. She told me wiping someones mind wasn't an uncommon form of punishment. I was adamant that this wasn't the case, but she sounded very convincing. If I was the first slave she had come across with missing memories, she might have accepted amnesia as a reason, but I wasn't

I told her about the doctor, but wasn't sure where his home planet was. She wanted to look through the ships logs to track the location, but I told her that I had returned on a shuttle, not this ship. So that avenue was shut down. Lilly who belonged to Orton before me would probably know, but I had no idea where she was.

There was no one left to ask. She had to admit that there wasn't much she could do. She said, that once we got somewhere civilized, we could go and see a doctor, and have some proper scans.

It worried me, what if my memories weren't something I wanted back. The man at dinner looked so sad thinking about his family. What if I had been in a similar situation. It was something I would have to think long and hard about.

"You are amazing with a pistol. That's for certain," she said. "What other secrets are you hiding?"

I just shrugged.

"Come on. Tell me anything," she said, trying to cheer me up.

I said I didn't know, and that it'd be okay if she needed to get on with any work. She shook her head, and said that she wanted to spend time with me. That made me feel better. She seemed to know what people wanted, and I think that's why everybody liked her.

"Shopping." I said, like an idiot.

"That's great. I'm terrible at it. I just want to get in and out quickly as possible."

We laughed.

Even though she was a lot older than me, I felt very comfortable in her company. The more I looked at her, the more I thought that she had a real beauty to her. The grey hair, the wrinkles, even the scar added to her allure. It was a mixture of confidence and femininity, but everything offset with a slight masculinity. She had a strong jaw and a deeper voice than most women. If I was being honest with myself, I was finding myself drawn to her.

She asked me some more questions about Juno. I wasn't going to tell her about the way I treated her with the cane, so instead I told her about the escape attempt. Delphine loved the story, and laughed deeply. She told me she couldn't wait to see her again, but it wasn't going to be an easy task freeing her.

"We'll speak about it with the others in more detail, later," she said.

I asked her about the scar on her cheek.

She relaxed a bit more against the bed, propping her head up with her arm.

"I was a teacher," she said, with a sigh. "A slave, but a teacher to a family with small children. A very long time ago."

She told me about watching them grow up, and how they almost treated her like one of their own. They became her family.

"Then as one of the boys became a man, he decided he wanted me to teach him more adult things. When I refused, he gave me this," she said, pointing to the scar.

"What happened then?" I asked.

"His parents were furious. How dare I refuse him. After they made sure he got what he wanted from me, they sold me. On my transport out, I started to plan my escape."

It was a sad tale, but I was glad she told me. These were the sorts of things I hadn't been exposed too. I had lived a relatively sheltered life.

"Is that when you started Red Moon."

This made her chuckle. "I didn't start Red Moon."

I was confused, i asked her who was in charge then.

"No one. It isn't an organisation. It's an idea, a way to live. Any group of escaped slaves can become Red Moon. We recruit as we save. That's why they can never stop us. Destroy one group and another takes its place."

I asked about the safe-haven, and she said that there were many like it. "We started our own."

"Where did the name come from?"

"The Red Moon incident," she said, and started to tell me the story.

About one thousand years ago there had been a slave colony in a system that was just starting out. They started on a habitable moon, building infrastructure that they would use to fill the rest of the system. After a few years the slaves rebelled and took control. They sent their masters away and began to work towards building a society just for themselves. They became one of the first safe-havens. Escaping slaves form all around took sanctuary there. Eventually other systems got wind of it, and decided to do something. They formed a fleet of ships, and wiped them all out. There was so much killing it was said, that the moon turned red with blood.

I asked her if the system still existed.

She shrugged. "No one knows if It really happened or if it's just a story."

"That's why we keep the location of our own safe-haven a closely guarded secret."

As we talked more, her communicator went off.

"Come and look," she said, and took my hand, taking me to the window.

We could see the ore facility. I knew what was about to happen. Even after all the things I had heard, about the terrible way slaves were treated, it didn't make it any easier to watch.

Delphine must have sensed it, and put her arm around my shoulder.

"It's important that you watch," she said.

It started slowly, just a few bright lights from deep within it. They the whole thing disintegrated, fire and flame followed, silently blasting debris in all directions.

The yachts crew had been there. No chance of any survivors

She asked me how I felt, I turned to her. We were standing so close. I just wanted her comfort.

I lent forward and kissed her. For a moment she kissed me back, but then pulled away gently.

"I can't," she said. "It wouldn't be right."

I felt like a fool.

She told me that she better be getting back to her crew. Her cheerful nature returned, and she told me not to worry about things too much.

In bed alone that night, that's all I could do. I didn't know how to live my life like this. I was completely lost.

***********

In the morning there was a knock at my door.

"Enter," I said.

It was man from dinner the previous day. The older one who had the sad story about his family. He was holding a lazer pistol.

"Can you show me how to shoot better?" He asked, quietly.

"I think so," I said, not really knowing if I could.

We took our impromptu lesson to the cargo bay, and the engineer helped us set up a little range again. I was wearing my trouser suit again, it seemed appropriate for this sort of thing. In fact, I hadn't really worn anything else.

All I could do was show him what I did, and hoped he caught on.

"I think you need to relax more." I said, not really knowing if it would help.

As we practiced I realised that Delphine probably put him up to it. We were bonding now. The awkwardness at dinner, now forgotten. This is how a leader leads, I mused. They inspire rather than order.

We attracted quite a crowd. Then someone suggested a little competition to see who was the better shot.

Only six of us played, and an hour later, I was crowned champion. They shot well and I didn't get the impression that they let me win. I only missed one of the targets, and I was brimming with confidence afterwards. Everyone congratulated me except one taller man, who I think was a little put out at being bested.

One of them asked me what other skills I had. I shrugged, saying I didn't know. Then I remembered when I had the fight with Juno.

"I think maybe, I know how to fight," I said, a little unsure.

This seemed ridiculous to them. Being able to shoot was one thing, but nothing about my appearance screamed that I would be any good in a fist fight.

No one was keen on trying to test my claim. Not because they thought they might get hurt, quite the opposite.

Then a young guy stepped forward. He was about my height and said he would do some sparring with me.

Someone suggested that we wrap our hands and went to fetch some bandages from the medical bay.

A lot of the other people left to get on with their work. There were only a few of us left now.

He looked about my age, but I was still very unsure, the shooting seemed to come naturally, but I wasn't so confident about my fighting skills.

We wrapped our hands and he took a stance. I threw a few pathetic punches his way, which he easily dodged. He was patient with me, throwing me simple jabs I could easily dodge.

It didn't feel familiar at all.

Then he accidentally caught me on the chin, and something clicked into place. As his next punch came, I kicked him hard in his thigh, causing him to yell out loud. In his mind the fight had been paused, but it mine it was still going on.

I struck out with the palm of my hand, catching him square in the face. It broke his nose quite badly. It had been pure instinct.

There were a few nervous laughs, and I went bright red. I couldn't apologise enough. He had been so sweet for taking his time with me.

"I'm so sorry." I kept saying. He said it was okay, and that he should have known better. The others started to find the funny side.

Two of the crew took him to the sick bay. It had been a really fun morning. Even though I felt bad about hurting him, in a way it felt quite satisfying. It was another thing that I seemed to be good at.

I was feeling like things were starting to get better. It was a shame that Delphine couldn't have been here to watch, she would be proud, I thought

After I unwrapped my hands, I started to clear away the makeshift shooting-range.

"You wanna spar a bit more." A deep voice said.

I turned round to see the tall man who I had beat in the shooting competition. He was about a foot taller than me, and looked twice as wide. I just laughed and said, maybe next time.

"Come on, see if you can take me on," he said, with a challenging tone.

This guy was so much bigger than me, but I was still riding a high from before.

I nodded, with a grin.

It was only me and him in the cargo bay now. We circled each other on the bare metal surface. There was no way I could at take him, we were ridiculously mismatched.

"Come on then," he said, mockingly, as I was keeping my distance.

He looked like someone who had been a manual worker all of his life. His arms were thick and his chest looked like a slab of meat. The others had called him Tyrus, he was part of the security team. I think that's why he felt embarrassed when I out shot him.

I snapped a kick at his thigh, like before. He caught it easily, and twisted my ankle, making me drop onto my back. Then he pounced towards me.

I rolled out of his way. I was sweating now and breathing heavily. He didn't look phased at all.

There was a big smile on his face as we continued to circle each other. He knew he could beat me physically, but I felt a strong sense stubbornness. I had to test myself.

"Come on." I said, in an equally mocking way.

He rushed me, as I dodge to let him pass he managed to catch me. He wrapped me up a bear hug from behind and picked me up.

"You're so light." He yelled, as he effortlessly held me high in the air, my legs kicking out helplessly.

Then he threw me forwards. I landed funny, and did a few awkward steps forwards, before rolling over into a heap.

He was laughing loudly.

I tried to compose myself, but I felt the blood pumping in my ears. He had got my temper up, and I charged at him.

Instead of measured blows, I was swinging wildly, and recklessly. Punches hit his thick chest and arms having little effect. He caught a wrist in mid-air and then hooked his leg behind mine, and took me to the deck.

Tyrus was on top of me, I swung again at his face, but he grabbed my other wrist, and pinned both my arms above my head. I writhed underneath him, trying to get my leg around him. It was pointless, he was too big and strong. His legs moved and pinned mine. All my limbs were useless now.

There was a wide grin on his face as he held me easily.

"Not so easy now, is it?" he said.

As I struggled, my strength was beginning to wane. He just watched as I got more breathless by the second. There was just one of his hands to holding my wrists now. That's all he needed. I was almost spent.

"Do you submit?" He asked, as he loomed over me.

I shook my head, my chest heaving with the exertion.

He was in complete control. I was helpless beneath him, and he knew it. The way he was looking at me had changed, he was now looking proudly at his conquered prey.

His free hand took hold of the zipper of my top. He glanced at my eyes, as he tugged it down slightly. I felt my cheeks redden as I started to blush.

"Do you want to submit?" he asked confidently.

Something fluttered in my stomach, and I stopped struggling.

"Say it," he said, quietly, as his thick fingers teased the zipper further down.

As words formed on my lips, someone came into the cargo bay.

He composed himself quickly, and released my wrists.