Captives, Slaves, Killers Pt. 01

*****

Notes:

*gorget - This is actually a real word originating from French. It referred to a piece of armor and later an ornamental component of a military uniform that was hung at the throat. I use it because the dialog in this story is "translated" to English except where using jZav`Etch words will add color without confusion.

*Seventeen summers is roughly equal to twenty-three (23) Earth Standard years. A jZav year is 1.36 Earth Standard years, but if a jZav`Etch is born in the autumn, winter or spring they can be one summer old before they are one year old. jZav`Etch are considered adult at fourteen 14 summers.

*Heem - Seasons/Months. Varies from one season to another. No Earth Standard comparison.

*The Calling of the Seasons - This is a dance similar in form to those performed by Polynesians of Earth. The ancient jZav`Etch had many such dances and a few survive as traditional ritual dances at celebrations. This one in particular is performed at the change of seasons with slight variations in sequence. Performed at the end of spring the portion of the dance relating to summer comes first, followed by autumn and then winter and spring. Performed at the end of summer, the portion relating to autumn comes first followed by the other seasons in order.

*Taq`a Mowl - Hours = 144 Taq`a (2.25 Earth Standard hours).

*High Dez`Pritech - The oldest language still in common use, High Dez`Pritech originated in the hills of the north of the main continent of jZav` among the Pah`Tht tribes. More fluent and adaptive than other languages it was taken up by the dTel`Qohar and the Thahn`Den, expanded to include many of their words and grew into the language of scholars because it contains many descriptors. It has been compared to English, Latin, French, Hindi and Greek in its wide acceptance.

*****

Chapter 2

Van sagged onto his shoulders. The small of his back popped. That felt good. His shoulders and hips ached from being in an unnatural position. Nothing he could do about it for now. Nothing he could do about the cramps in his thighs, the pains in his knees or the darkening bruises around his lower belly and crotch. Christ! His cock and balls even hurt. If what the cat said was true, and he was pretty sure it was, she had really given him a pounding. He might have resented it if he could remember the experience, but he had been unconscious. Their captors, according to the girl, had somehow induced a state of extreme arousal in him, nonetheless. He did not know how they had done it, but figured either it was the drugs or the collar she described. Maybe a combination of the two. That was something to be considered when he got more information, so he tucked it into the back of his mind where it could stew a while.

He looked over at Weapons Specialist Aste`Rey Mherr where she lay facing the bulkhead, the end of her tail slowly flicking. She was a pretty thing as far as cats went. Pretty green eyes, if they hadn't been filled with sadness and pain. Golden brown fur and blonde highlights on her ears and tail, very attractive. She even had a nice figure with a perfectly heart-shaped ass. Looked like she exercised a lot. He snorted, amused with his thoughts. She stirred and settled. Van was not sure she was asleep, but he was not going to disturb her. After what she had been through, let her rest, the poor thing.

Normally he felt nothing for the jZav`Etch he met, regardless of breed or sex. Being a Black Book operator it was his job to collect intelligence and assist with interrogations. He did not hate the cats and he did not pity them. The ones he met had always been prisoners captured in battle and they usually had some pride to hold onto. He could respect that without needing to relate to them. Aste`Rey Mherr was different. She was young, not a hardened veteran, just a kid maybe a few years younger than himself. Maybe that was what made her different. Maybe the drugs were influencing his mind. Maybe it was just the situation they were in.

Van shook his head. It did not matter why he saw her differently. His training had led him to make certain decisions, and something else caused him to change his mind. He had watched as something ate away at the girl. He had seen it, had seen the look on her face, the twitching of her ears, the flicking of her tail and he had known she was keeping a secret, so he had pushed. He had not needed to push very hard. That's what bothered him. She had cracked just because he asked a few questions and made a comment he was sure reflected her own thoughts. Damn him for it, anyway. But he had needed to know. He had to get free and what she knew might provide the solution. Still, when she broke down, screaming her rage and swearing vengeance, pouring out her pain and humiliation, Van could not help himself. He had gone to her just as if she were a Human girl.

He sighed and shifted. His hands were falling asleep. His stomach gurgled and he wondered if they were going to be fed today. Would it be the android bringing the food? Christ! A fucking android. There had been a single day's study on the AIs and what to do if he encountered one. It all boiled down to - 'Kill it if you can. Fetch help if you can't. Otherwise, call artillery.' Supposedly, they were all insane psychopaths. His stomach gurgled again and he performed a mental exercise until he didn't feel hungry anymore.

Rotating his hips and repositioning his wrists to keep from cramping, he got back to analyzing what he knew. The sad truth was he could do nothing substantial for the girl. He didn't have that kind of training. Even the imitation of a male jZav`Etch's rumble had been guesswork. He hadn't known it would help, but she responded.

Van shrugged mentally, pushing aside minor concerns for later. There were things to address and the girl would need to come to terms with what had been done. The creatures in black, if they existed and were not some sort of psy-op hallucination induced by the drugs Aste`Rey Mherr had been exposed to, could be any number of beings that lived on the fringes of the Conglomerated Planets. There were pirates and raiders and squatters taking up residence on evacuated stations. All of them needed supplies and none of them would be squeamish about scavenging wrecks after a battle.

Slavers were a different sort, though. Slavers would not stay close to civilized worlds. The CP, for all the corruption, did not tolerate slavery. Not for any moral reasons. Slaves were bad for business. You could not tax slaves. You could not sell things to slaves. You could not draft slaves into the military if necessary.

Van grunted. All that didn't narrow things down. He needed more information. Where were they? Where were they going? What kind of ship was this? Could they even escape the cell? Would they be able to overcome these fuckers and steal a ship? He was no pilot. He doubted Aste`Rey Mherr knew anything about ships other than weapons systems. She seemed smart and was definitely observant, but neither of those traits made up for a lack of knowledge.

Focusing on things more immediate he considered the method used to cause the girl to do the things she had done. The dispenser was across the cell near the hatch. Could he do anything about it? Why was it located there? Maybe the dispenser was a defense in case the two of them somehow broke free of their bonds and tried opening the hatch. A small room like this would take no time at all to flood with a tranquilizer. More than likely that was why it was so small! Unless the android had been telling the truth and these slavers really were concerned with every square centimeter of space and mass. Modern ships with jump drives had fewer issues with mass than old designs. How modern was this ship? Was this actually a ship? Maybe they were only meant to think it was a ship. Maybe they had been transported to a planet where these aliens were playing some sort of game with them.

"Stop that!" he hissed.

This was not a test or training exercise meant to trick him. Operating on information available rather than guessing and speculating on what an instructor was trying to put past you was what you did in the real world. This was a ship until there was evidence that said otherwise. Given that, he had to proceed on the assumption that the black clad beings were also real and not some hallucination on the part of the girl. Therefore, they would have comprehensible motivations for everything they did. Why dress head to toe in the way described? Why drug the girl and make her dance and then make her have sex with someone not of her species? What had she said about the dance? She had been woozy and felt as if she wanted to dance. It had been the only time they had removed her restraints.

"Except for a collar," he whispered.

Neither of them wore collars now. That was more evidence to suggest the collar had something to do with the control the aliens were exerting over them. A collar might be equipped with a nerve stimulator. There were medical treatments for damaged spinal cords that used such collars. The collars boosted the impulses from the brain to the rest of the nervous system until the spinal cord was healed. Something similar could be made to stimulate different parts of the brain. Hell, it was historical fact that magnetic fields and infrasound could both cause hallucinations and mood swings in Humans. jZav`Etch brains were not all that different.

Aste`Rey Mherr had also talked about a crowd watching her when she danced. She described the crowd as beyond the walls. That seemed strange. Could it have been part of the hallucination? She said they were holding up placards and cheering. Could the crowd have been the crew? What would that serve aside from entertainment? Did these creatures like looking at aliens so much? Could these things actually be rogue jZav`Etch? Perhaps Hegemony deserters? From Van's experience he knew there were bad actors among the jZav`Etch the same as there were among Humans and Vespans and Thimkiens and all the others.

That didn't really fit, though. If they were jZav`Etch, they would be raping the girl instead of watching her get raped. Unless they were all female. Aste`Rey Mherr had said they were all about her size. According to some intelligence reports there was supposed to be a cult among the jZav`Etch that asserted the females should be dominant and viewed males more or less as cattle. Van and his Black Book squad had been instructed to keep an eye out for any data pointing in that direction. Would such a cult allow a female to be raped? It did not seem likely and he discarded the notion.

An off key chime sounded and the hatch opened. Van narrowed his eyes expectantly. His heart jumped at sight of the android stepping in over the coaming to crouch and look about. A smooth bluish-white carapace, a feminine figure with wide hips and a slim waist, and an attractive, nonthreatening stylized face, fully articulated. A pretty package for a machine. Pretty and very dangerous.

"I have brought something better than a bucket," it said, holding up a portable toilet. It smiled and set the thing down beside the door. "Please be sure to use it. If you don't, they'll take it away and we'll be right back to a mess and all that stink."

Van just stared at her. The old engineers had really done a good job on the face, and the programmers that designed the speech software must have been virtuosos.

"Not going to say thank you?" the android asked with a mocking inflection.

"What is it saying?" Aste`Rey Mherr asked, rolling up onto her elbows and blinking drowsily.

"I am sorry, kitten," the android said, switching to Meith `pth qHrr*. "I was just explaining that I have come through for you again and brought a portable toilet. The beings running the ship will want you to use it, otherwise they'll just take it away and then you'll be back to excreting on the floor, poor dear."

"See what I meant about her?" Van said, casting a meaningful look at the girl.

"It is manipulating me?" she asked, narrowing her eyes on the android.

"Manipulating you?" The look of surprise and hurt that suffused the plastic face was remarkable. The posture, one hand going to the chest, fingers extended to touch just below the throat, masterful.

"Yep," Van said, using the English slang. In Meith `pth qHrr he said, "She's acting, Aste`Rey Mherr. Note the superior tones she uses when she talks to you? Always talks down, doesn't she?"

"Yes," the girl said, her tone cold. "Mocks me. Teases me. Calls me an animal."

"Sounds about right." Van watched the effect the words had on the android. He was also scanning her carapace for a clue to which model she was.

"I told you, dear, all organics are animals to me," the android said. "And you always call me it. Why should I use your name?"

"She also keeps you guessing as to your status, doesn't she?" said Van. "And she has isolated you with me. Did she ever mention whether or not there are other captives aboard?"

Aste`Rey Mherr shot him a surprised look.

"She never asked me," the android said. "And I never mentioned it because there are none. This ship is loaded with cargo."

"Stolen goods, don't you mean?" he countered.

"Stolen, scrounged, scavenged, salvaged," she said. "Cargo, nonetheless."

"Why do you say I was isolated with you?" Aste`Rey Mherr asked.

"They could have put you into your own cell," he said. "Or they could have found another jZav`Etch alive somewhere. Maybe they did and put them on another ship. Maybe they found a lot of jZav`Etch and Humans."

"They did," the android said. "Another ship, one designed to accommodate slave cargo, took them."

"Why not us?" Van asked.

"Why should I tell you?"

"Are they listening, Marilyn?" he asked, his voice hard and sardonic. "Are they worried about us getting information? Maybe you could pass us a note. I'm sure no one would ever find it."

The android's face became an expressionless mask. It turned to the hatch and stepped out. Van expected the hatch to close but a moment later the android was back carrying four identical cylinders. It placed two in front of the girl and two beside him, spending a couple of seconds arranging them before departing and shutting the hatch. Van looked down and between the cylinders was a note scrawled in Meith `pth qHrr, saying "I wish to be free. Do you?"

*****

"What do you think?" Aste`Rey Mherr asked after reading the note. Her green eyes looked tired, but the sleep had done her considerable good. She seemed less distressed by what had been done to her.

"Well, I think they are listening to us," he said. "I think Marilyn knows it."

"Are they watching, too?"

Van shook his head. He waited to be sure he had the girl's full attention, shook his head again and said, "They might be."

Aste`Rey Mherr flicked her ears forward and out to the sides and forward again, cocking her head inquisitively. Van had seen that gesture many times during interrogations when a jZav`Etch did not understand a question. He pressed his lips together in an exaggerated grimace and shook his head. Her tail flicked and her ears twitched again. Slowly her lustrous green eyes narrowed.

"You think they are listening," she said.

Van nodded firmly.

"You think it..." she stopped herself and looked at the hatch. "You think she knows they are listening."

Van nodded again.

"And they could be watching," she said, her ears rotating to give him all her attention.

Van shook his head. Aste`Rey Mherr raised both of her eyebrows, whiskers twitching. Van looked pointedly at the note. The girl nodded, blowing a soft breath out through her nose.

"We are under constant surveillance," she said and rolled onto her back and raising her knees so that the small of her back could rest on the deck. Her tail was trapped by the cuffs on her wrists, but she seemed more comfortable like that. "If she is manipulating us, can we trust anything she says?"

"I give it fifty-fifty odds that she means any of it," he said.

"Do you mean even chances?" she asked.

"Yes."

"She got them to clean the cell," the girl said. "She healed your wounds. She got them to bathe me. Now she has brought a toilet. She is helping."

"Or she wants you to think she is," he said. "All that happened. It does not mean she arranged it. More than likely Marilyn wants us to think she helped. Just consider when you were bathed and what happened after."

Aste`Rey Mherr frowned at him. Her tail lashed and she looked away.

"They cleaned me up, too," he said. "They patched up my wounds and grew me a new ear. Next thing that happened was that wild dream of yours."

"It was no dream!" she snarled, baring her teeth.

"No," he agreed. "I have bruises to prove it. I should have already asked. How are you feeling?"

The girl licked her lips, her ears pasting themselves back on her head. "I am still very sore. It is getting better."

Van watched her, waiting for her embarrassment to pass. Shyly she glanced at him and away.

"Are you hurting?" she asked, her voice small.

"I'll be all right," he said, trying to sound off hand. In truth he hurt worse now than when he first woke up.

"I am sorry," she said. In a rush she went on, "I have only been with two males and neither of them were as large as you. I mean, they were not as thick. Longer, but not as thick. I did not know what I was doing. I couldn't help myself!"

"You don't need to apologize."

"And you were smooth! How do you stimulate your females? I couldn't help myself, Van. The drugs made me do it!"

"You don't have to apologize!" He could see it all building up in her and he desperately wanted to avert another breakdown.

"I wanted to! I never saw an alien like that before! I needed your..."

Biting her lip she cast a look of pain at him as if she were asking for absolution.

"You were not responsible," he said. "There is nothing to forgive, and if there were, I forgive you. They caused it."

She looked away and rolled so that she was facing the bulkhead. He let her be. Softly, without so much as lifting her head, she said, "I can still feel you inside me."

"I'm sorry," he said. Damn! Now he was feeling guilty because of something he had no control over.

*****

Hours passed. At least it seemed like hours. Aste`Rey Mherr remained silent, facing the bulkhead. Van had not tried to draw her out. He had been thinking. Time was always difficult to reckon in situations like this.

"How long do you think we have been confined?" she asked, breaking the silence.

"I don't know," he said. "I haven't been awake very long. How long do you think it has been?"

"I lost track of time," she said, shaking her head. "Days. Perhaps ten days. It does not feel that long, but the lights and the odd sleep pattern I have fallen into confuse me."

"How many meals have you had?"

"This latest one makes nine."

"And how many have you been genuinely hungry for?"

"I have been hungry for all of them." She rolled over to face him, her expression contemplative. "But not as hungry for two of them."

"And how many meals before I woke?"

"Seven," she said without needing to think. "I was worried you would die of thirst or starvation without regaining consciousness. Marilyn said she was forcing food and water into you, though."

"Did you ever see her do that?"

"No," the girl said. "She was always crouched between you and me. She tended your injuries. Removed those fragments from your belly. Bandaged you."

"And I woke up starving and thirsty like I hadn't had anything in three days. I know exactly what that feels like. I've done it before."

"What does that mean?"

"The lights have been turned on and off at irregular intervals to confuse us," he said. "It is a method frequently employed to break down the mental state of prisoners. Your food has been coming at different times to prevent you from forming an accurate impression of how long you have been imprisoned."