Galactic Slave Ch. 08

Just a heads up to my readers. This chapter is primarily devoted to advancing the greater plot of the story and contains no sex acts. The only references to sex are in Susan's and Master's attempts to keep her from experiencing arousal. If you're into this series just for the hot sex scenes, you can skip this one and miss nothing.

Chapter eight

Traitor

I woke up early, needing to really go. I barely made it to the facilities where I voided a liquidy mass colored blue and green. It sees my supposition was correct, The anti-toxin to Halsted seminal fluids was merely a coating that prevented absorption. Whatever works, I suppose. It was the best tasting cum I had ever had.

I had time while sitting there to come to terms with the last few days. I knew I was a slave and Master never let me forget that, from his insistence that I remain naked unless there was a need for clothing to his willingness to punish me quite harshly. Yet, I found myself respected. Master did not see me purely as an object, I think. This was, in my opinion, one of the failings of legalized slavery. Slaves are sentient beings, deserving of respect. Yet many slave owners treated their slaves like things, usually less well than they treated their vehicles or data pads.

Case in point. Until last night, I was always simply 'slave', yet there was no malice or disrespect in the term. It was simply what I was. Collin called me the same thing when he took me as a slave, yet from him, the word was derogatory, a put down of the highest order. Master also genuinely cared about my welfare. My day of punishment, as he explained, was to instill in me the importance of obedience. He would not always have the time or luxury of explaining why, and the unexplained why could be a life or death thing. Yesterday he was truly upset at the sodomy I suffered last night. It was not the anger that a possession had been damaged, by the distress that someone important to him had been injured.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not attributing anything like love for me to him, but he does respect me as a human being. I'm about as much his subordinate as one person can be to another, but I am still a person in his eyes and he respects me. I still want my freedom and if he should ever make the mistake of taking me home, I will invoke the law and declare myself free. Until then, I can respect him and support his mission. I'm not sure I understand yet, why it's so important to him, but I respect him enough to trust his judgment until I do understand.

Once the fluid mass had been expelled, I returned to our shared room. He was still sleeping, though I saw that the conference was just two hours away. He would be up shortly. I took the opportunity to indulge to two of us in one of my passions, alien foods. Looking through the shelves in the kitchen area, I fixed us what could be called an omelet. I used some large eggs with green shells, some vegetables from both Halstred and Ixtlicit and a meat of some sort from Ixtlicit. It had a tangy taste that required very little additional spicing. The local vegetables were extremely favorable, seeming to have spices within them. Tasting the finished product was heaven.

My "Mmmmm" was interrupted by a voice behind me, "So you are also a cook. It seems Susan, I found just the right slave."

"Thank you Master. Would you care to try it yourself?"

"Go ahead and serve up."

He seemed to enjoy my little concoction. While we were eating, I decided to broach a delicate subject. "Master, may I make a request?"

"Yes you may Susan."

"Would you take my name away from me again?"

He stopped, fork halfway to his mouth. "That's a very unusual request. Most slaves find the lack of a name extremely humiliating. Why are you asking for something that normally considered a punishment?"

"Please don't take this wrong. You are a wonderful Master who has always treated me with respect, albeit harshly at times. I've seen infinity worse in slave owners. But I still dislike being a slave. I want to be free and will actively pursue it when I can do so without betraying you. When I achieve freedom, I will go back to being Susan Melnin again. As a free person, I will not want to continue using the name I had as a slave."

He set his fork down, laughing uproariously. "You are an uppity little slave, aren't you? Well, one of the things I wanted from you was an independent mind, willing and able to speak the truth. I'm not going to take away your name, but I will change it. And I have the perfect name for you. From this moment forward, your name shall be... 'Slave'. Does that suit your sensibilities better?"

I could only smile. It seems Master had a sense of humor. "Yes, Master, I think I can live as Slave."

"You do realize that you will never regain your freedom."

"It may be unlikely Master, but the hope for it is what enables me to keep going. I think if I truly believed that I would live the rest of my days as a slave, I would take my own life. You are a good Master, but I am still your slave and you will feel no compunction about demanding things of me that I detest, if it helps your mission or simply pleases you. I will obey you, because I can think of slavery as being my job for the current time. But please don't take my hope from me."

"I can understand that. The human spirit thrives on hope, Slave, so I would never dream of taking it away from you. It is my hope that you will come to see me as more than your owner. But that is for another day. The conference starts in an hour. Neither species has any form of nudity taboo, so you'll present in your usual lack of attire. Spend the next 30 minutes putting together a presentation on Voratex crystals. We need everything to go as smoothly as possible."

"Yes Master."

Information on Voratex crystals is sketchy at best and I did not have access to a major Federation database. I compiled what I could remember of them along with what little was in the memory banks of my virtual room. With luck, the delegates should have enough to realize how dangerous a situation we were dealing with. Fortunately, I did have a video of a Spidex and a human under the influence of a crystal. I could illustrate the motor function impairment that always accompanied implantation. If Third's sisters could see the effects themselves, it would go a long way towards convincing them.

Thirty minutes later, Master was leading me towards the conference room(formerly the banquet room). I had a thought as we were talking and asked, "Master, will my presenting the report in a confident manner cause problems with the Wren'kt and their sexism?"

"It might. I'm hoping that we've established you subservience to me sufficiently by now."

"It occurred to me that if you were to order me to present the report over visible nervousness on my part, they would attribute my confidence as following orders instead of being a capable leader."

"You don't mind being made to look timid before such an important report?"

"I do, but I mind Voratex crystals even more. I'm a slave, but I still have free will. I can choose to defy you and suffer the consequences. Third has had her free will stripped. If she's unlucky, she will fall into the 25% whose personalities are irrevocably wiped out by the crystal. If the people opposing your mission are using Voratex crystals, I tend to believe that your mission is right, or at least more in the right than those opposed to it. Plus, every member of the Halsted delegation had used me sexually while I was strapped into a harness. I suspect that I can't be any more humiliated in front of them."

As we walked towards the conference room, something strange began to happen. I was becoming extremely aroused, even though there was no stimulation happening that would cause it. The last time this had happened while simply walking, Collin had had the Hydromel running constantly.

"Master, have you activated the Hydromel dispenser?"

"No, Slave." He noticed my condition, "What is happening to you?"

"I don't know Master. The closer we get to the conference room, the more aroused I get. At this rate, I will be climaxing when we get there. I don't think I can present anything coherently in the throes of an orgasm."

"No one could." He was checking the control pad for my collar, seeing if any of the functions had become inadvertently activated. "Nothing seems to have been activated, yet you are definitely becoming aroused. Wait a minute! There's an outside signal being picked up by your collar. It seems to be directly stimulating your erogenous zone nerve endings. And it seems to be coming directly from the conference room. I can't override it because it is not interacting with the collar directly, just being detected by it."

"Does the collar still work properly?"

"Yes, I can perform any normal function. I just can't stop the incoming signals."

"Can you give me pain?"

"Yes... Why?"

"You know the phrase, 'Sorry, not tonight I have a headache'."

"Yes, a classic excuse for no sex."

"For me it can be very true. Headaches kill any arousal I may be feeling. If I had a bad enough headache, I could be receiving direct clitoral stimulation and not be aroused in the slightest. I hesitate to ask because I suspect that the intensity of arousal once we get to the room will require a near migraine to overcome."

"But, this is clearly the work of our unknown adversary. I'm afraid that you're going to have to suffer with a severe headache for the duration of the conference Slave."

"Yes, Master. Hit me with... arrrg!" I staggered against the wall, my head feeling like it was going to split. I tried to gather my thoughts, pushing past the pain, using techniques I have used in the past. The only good thing is that my arousal was a thing of the past, shoved out of me by the pain. It took a few minutes, but I was able to clear my vision and move slowly without my vision going all fireworks on me. Master was not taking any chances and gave me a full blown migraine, albeit a mild one as migraines go. I could function, just barely. "Oh Gods, Master. I'd forgotten how much these hurt. I'm not going to have any trouble acting meek and submissive. How long is the conference going to last?"

"It depends on us. The clearer the case we present, the easier it will be to convince the delegates of the truth."

"So I'm in control of how much pain I have to suffer through?"

"That's about it."

"I never thought I'd be glad for that punishment back on the freighter, but after that, this pain is doable. Let's get it over with."

Master had to lead me by the hand, as walking quickly sent bursts of light exploding in my vision. I so wanted to just lie down in a dark room and keep them shut, but that was impossible. In the room, there were three tables in a rough triangle formation, one for each faction, including ours as negotiators. The center had another small table, just the right size for my data crystals and virtual room. We sat down, the last to arrive, and there were several opening speeches, allowing me to husband my endurance, sitting silently with my eyes closed (another inadvertent evidence of my subordinate position).

After the diplomatic bull shit was over, Master introduced my report. "Assembled delegates. My slave has investigated the financial information you provided and has made several discoveries that impact these negotiations directly. These discoveries were of such a surprising nature, that I have instructed my slave to guide you through the discovery process so that you can see for yourselves just how serious the information is, and its validity, in spite of any desires we might all have to reject the data." Turning to me, he ordered, with a harshness that even I could not tell was feigned, "Slave, present the report. In the interests of time, answer all questions put to you by any delegate without consulting with me first."

I stood slowly, gathering my materials and walked over to the central table with a meek, "Yes Master." Once there, I inserted the first data crystal into the room and activated the projection. Virtual spreadsheets appeared in the air, aligning themselves to my position. "As I proceed, please feel free to enter the virtual room and examine the data for yourselves." A Halsted and a Wren'kt entered right away. I assumed they were the financial experts for each side. While I addressed the delegates in general, my comments were given in terms that they could understand professionally, trusting their ability to explain the results to their comrades (I had planned pauses into the presentation for just that purpose).

I started by explaining my rational for not using a frame of reference, to the great interest of the financial experts, showing how some of the data vanished in the frame. That done, I walked them step by step through the analysis. I was grateful that both experts were competent enough to be able to begin to spot the discrepancies themselves. We worked our way through 127 separate time stamp discrepancies, detailing the effects on the prices of various cargos. Individually, none of them were enough to set off alarms, but together they represented a full 2% of the two planet's gross planetary product (GPP).

When I indicated that I had prepared holographic interfaces modeling the discrepancies visually, it was pointed out that we had been going for seven hours, and a break for eating needed to be called. As I stopped thinking about the presentation, my state hit me full force. I cringed visibly from the severe pain in my head and I realized that I was covered in sweat. It had taken physical effort to ignore the pain enough to make a competent presentation (a skill I had learned in a year stationed on Malfease). I staggered to our table and sat down, my vision whiting out in the pain.

Then everything changed. The pain shut off, like a switch and arousal hit me hard and fast. I cried out in shock at the change, segueing to uncontrollable moans as I climbed rapidly towards climax. I was oblivious to my surroundings, lost in a tidal wave of pleasure, as it swept over my with unrelenting persistence. Orgasm hit me in a matter of minutes, an orgasm that seemed to never end. My body shock and quivered, waves of ecstasy rolling over me again and again until the pain, even greater than before hit me like a sledgehammer. I recall screaming in pain, clutching my head as I collapsed to the floor.

Slowly, the pain seemed to diminish. I could feel both low level arousal and barely less than severe head pain. Master's voice called through the sensations. "Slave, are you okay?"

"Master. It hurts. What happened?"

"I was giving you a break from the pain and you entered a constant state of orgasm that was literally killing you. I had to reassert maximum pain to break the overload of pleasure. How is your pleasure level?"

"I feel like I've been fantasizing about hot sex for several hours, but without physically acting on it. It is slowly building, however." I noticed as I spoke that I was covered in sweat and vaginal fluids. The room smelled strongly of sex. I really needed a shower.

"I'll leave you at this level during the break. But you're going to have to return to your headache when we resume. Growing arousal is not conducive to a solid presentation."

"Master, will we finish today?"

"I doubt it. With luck, however, most of your participation will be over today. Then it's up to my skills as a negotiator."

"I don't know how long I can function under a low level migraine. I've never tried to go a full workday before, let alone as long as we're going."

"You don't have a choice, really. Convincing them about the Voratex crystal is actually more important than the financial report. They have to believe that it is possible for a hive creature to betray the hive. Without that, nothing we say will be believed, no matter how good our evidence."

"I understand Master." Well, he did promise me that many of my duties would be unpleasant.

Our food was delivered and we ate well. I was in enough pain and arousal together that I was unable to enjoy what I'm sure was a fabulous example of Halsted cooking. By the time the meal break was finished, I was feeling desperate for sexual contact. Pussy fluids flowed liberally and my nipples were taut. The empty feeling in my cunt was almost unbearable and I was so flushed that I looked like I had a sunburn. I cringed as I saw Master pick up the control and the pain shot up. I moaned in agony and loss as the arousal left me and the low level migraine returned. I felt exhausted from fighting the pain and was running on sheer will power. The delegates returned and the conference resumed.

Reactivating the Virtual room, I walked the delegates through the virtual tour, demonstrating how the records at each location showed cargo either present when it wasn't or absent when it was there and how that affected the sale or purchase price of the cargo. I found it interesting that the financial experts nodded knowingly, as if such a type of fraud was well known to them (I discovered later that they had something called futures trading that included something called selling short, selling something you didn't have in the future at a price you hoped to be able to buy lower than before the sale commitment--- don't ask, it sounds like bad gambling to me).

I had them up to the point were the culprit was going to be exposed, but I needed to prepare them. The Wren'kt would never believe at this point that one of their own could betray them and the Halsted would never believe that a Wren'kt could act that independently. Time for the Voratex crystal presentation.

"Gentle beings. We need to digress from the financial aspect of our report to explain how this activity can be happening without the knowledge of either of your governments. I call your attention to the hologram I have on display. This is a Voratex crystal. If you'll notice, the crystal has two distinct parts. When whole, the crystals are totally harmless. However," I changed the picture, "when separated like so, they have the ability to maintain a virtual contact over interstellar distances. It is theorized that the crystals are actually alive and exist in part in a non-Euclidean space where distance does not exist as we understand it.

"What makes these crystals extremely dangerous, is the effects that they have if the smaller half is implanted into a living being. It blends with the nervous system of the poor creature, taking over the autonomic functions. This alone is not dangerous, as it is actually better than our own natural controls. But, the creature that has the larger crystal implanted in it can receive sensory data from the smaller AND control the voluntary nervous system of the other creature. In effect, the smaller crystal makes its bearer the total slave of the bearer of the larger crystal. It has no choice what so ever in these commands. In many cases, it does not even remember them, or at least attributes them to its own decisions. The creature can even be ordered to kill itself and it will follow such a command without fail."

By this time, I had to stop, the delegates were clamoring with questions.

"Is there any way to free the poor creature from the crystal?"

"Is this some kind of joke? Robot slaves from a piece of rock?"

"Is it possible to identify someone who has been implanted?"

"Are you saying that someone from your Federation has enslaved members of our races?"

As the questions barraged me, I noticed that I was becoming aroused again. Whatever was happening was getting stronger. And it was happening fast. My pain was actually being erased by the extreme levels of arousal. If the pain didn't go up, I would start to climax soon. I had to do something.

"Delegates!" I yelled. "Please! Control yourselves. I will answer all your questions one at a time." They slowly quieted. Turning to Master, hoping he would understand my double speak, I asked, "Master, all the excitement has given me a bad headache. Could you please adjust the levels of my pain sensitivity"