Songs of Space - Eryvan oy Ash

The mechanical voice returned

"Launch in three..."

My hands held on tighter to the captain's chair.

"Two..."

The drone stood perfectly still in the air, a dry bang reached my ears.

"One..."

My hand slipped, my knees buckled. Pain shot through my chest, danced along my spine, rattled my limbs.

Everything went black

A faint beeping brought me back to consciousness. It was an annoying pitch, just perfectly hard to ignore. The world around me was a mess of debris and smouldering synthetics. My limbs protested as I slowly sat up. My head spun. A resemblance of pain snaked slowly through my torso, circling over my shoulders, arcing over my back. My muscles groan. Most of my skin was covered in little bruises or scrapes. My arms stained dark with soot and grime. The ship was probably thrown around like a children's toy after I launched the emergency sequence.

Two fine wires were lodged in my bare chest. They extended over the wrecked table, leading to a crushed mess on the other side of the room. I carefully removed the barbed pins connected to the wires and got up. I had to steady myself on the wall, as my legs ached and stung, threatening to buckle under my weight.

The light flickered a little as I hobbled across the room. The drone which powered a few thousand volts through me was dead as far as I could tell. The separation from the ship must´ve launched the machine hard enough into the wall to break something major. What was a magical movement across the walls before, was now a staccato of flashes and occasional sparks, as the lighting panels installed around the chamber where partly shattered. The one which was struck by the drones sudden change of course was barely hanging onto its framework.

I turned around. He was still there. Half buried beneath the rubble of his murder machines.

My face contorted into a grimace as the memories, the pictures flooded back into my mind. A burning planet, a featureless room, a dark voice. This monster unbuckling his pants. A scream tore free from my lips. All my pent up rage and anguish given room and sound. I cursed, spat and screamed. Must've stomped on his remains for ten good minutes before I sank down, my back to the wall. I had no power left. Nothing more to give. All my emotions burned up, turned into ash like my home.

I cried myself to sleep.

My mind was clear when I awoke. I knew I'd have a chance, now that I´ve escaped. Though I still needed my wits and my full capability to handle this smart.

I began to explore my new confines. Turns out all the captains quarters, office and lounge were actually part of a smaller separate ship, once nestled inside the giant one. There where rooms full of wiring and consoles, crates, tanks and foodstuffs. Walkable wardrobes filled with all kinds of garments, though most of them likely belonged to the dead man in the office.

The biggest of the chambers, just besides the ruined office, contained all sorts of oddities positioned randomly around a big seating ensemble and a few little tables. Some of the things were stored in transparent cabinets and shelves of glass, some levitated freely in the air, held by an unseen force. From pots and helmets, to intricate glowing devices, odd-shaped metallic objects and foreign plant-life, any number of things unknown to me could be found here.

I was back in the lounge, indulging in my curiosity when a loud clang echoed through the structure of the vessel. By now, I had checked all the rooms and little compartments, examined what I thought to be the navigation consoles and found myself some clothes which seemed to not belong to the former captain. I had to go slowly and carefully. As far as I knew, there could be more drones waiting somewhere. If I triggered some alarm or tripped a security system, I'd be dead in seconds.

The nav consoles were dark when I found them, and I was unable to figure out how to make them work. But a ship like this was surely hailing for help as soon as something happened, right?

I should find out soon enough...

The whole of the ship rocked slightly. I stood there, frozen, listening for more sounds. Any indication of what was happening. Had something hit the ship? Had someone found me maybe? Was I falling down onto a planet?! A dull roar arose, and suddenly multiple alarms began to blare. The lighting turned red immediately, concealing my lithe body as I shuffled into a corner packed particularly tight with pedestals and cabinets.

I hunched there, hoping for the best yet fearing the worst. The moment stretched. Seconds running longer than they should. Questions filled my head, as the sound went on, wavering every now and then. What was barely a minute felt like an eternity.

Whatever caused the rumbling roar died down. The following silence was cut short by a massive crash, which shook the floor and made my limbs go all noodly on me.

Please be nothing bad. Please be nothing bad. Pleas be someone who saves me. Please be nothing bad. Please be ...

The door slid open without a sound. Heavy footsteps barged into the lounge, a bright cone of light flooded the dimness. It cut a clear path, illuminating a couch, a table, some hovering objects. Contrasting shadows dashed across the walls, hard lines of white and dark, sometimes tinted with red.

My self-preservation reflexes kicked in and I vanished behind a cabinet. Even though I don't know, if they mean any harm to me I should be careful. Crackling sounds filled the air, an occasional hiss followed. It reminded me a lot of dunehoppers from our beaches back home. They would cackle and hiss whenever they were fighting.

I spotted a bulky form mirrored in one of the glass panes surrounding me. It was a bipedal creature, towering easily two heads taller than an average vana, clad in dark apparel. Another one followed, a blur of red and shadows in the mirror. The cone of light swept by, like the gazing eye of a predator, and I pulled my head down as far as possible.

They began to roam around the lounge, presumably inspecting the various exhibits. The footsteps stopped every now and then, as they'd look into some glass box or vitrine.

Suddenly the cone of brightness swept over me again.

Had I made a sound? Did they spot me?

The light painted a dark square of shadow on the wall. I hunched down even lower, melding into the last little shadow left behind my cabinet. My breathing was quick, and probably loud as well. Fear was taking over my body. Two pairs of footsteps cautiously approached and my shadowy patch shrunk down until I was blinded by the flashlights. I pulled up my arms to shield my eyes.

They had found me.

More hissing and snapping sounds erupted around me. I peered up with what must have been terror in my eyes. The lights where too bright to make out anything.

I was grabbed by strong, gloved hands and dragged across the floor to an empty space. I was too spent to try anything. I don't understand them. I don't know them, don't know what they want. But I stopped caring. I truly believed that fate just had particularly cruel streak when I was concerned.

The normal lights turned back on, and I could catch glimpses of the creatures surrounding me. They were massively built. At least two and a half meters in height. Their head covered by helmets with glinting visors. What little skin was uncovered looked like rough serpent scales or thick leathery folds.

In retrospective I can only count this circumstance a stroke of luck to be honest. I was captured yet again on that day. Tarakath pirates had received and cracked the encoded distress call which was directed at all ships of Antaria. Hadn't the pirates smelled a fortune in plundering the source of the emergency beacon, someone from the Megacorp would´ve likely found me sooner or later. My spine tingles when I think of what would´ve happened to me then.

The Tarakath didn't handle me kindly either though. For them I was some exotic animal at best, sure to fetch a good price on the market. They ransacked the ship, looting all the exhibits, packing up plants, carrying out furniture. The really hit gold with this catch.

Not all species function the same way of course. Tarakath for example don't need oxygen, and thus their ships usually have an ammonium/nitrogen mix for atmosphere to combat fires and other incidents. A large part of developed species do still rely on oxygen, making it the galactic standard for trade hubs and stations.

To simplify travel and transportation of lifeforms, some smart guy invented the "amorphous atmo-suit" aka AAM. It's basically what it says on the tin. A suit made to fit (almost) any creature of every shape and size. They figure out what gasses the creature needs and keep them safe and happy in their own small little micro-sphere.

Of course there are variations to this. The R&D department of the Reelyan Trade-Alliance for example began to produce the "support lifeforms and varying entities"-Suit. Yeah, that makes "SLAVE". And no, that's not really a coincidence. While the original AAM's are still the golden standard on all unity stations, trade hubs, freighters and shuttles, the SLAVE-Suits are the standard aboard smuggler vessels and pirate ships. Some can occasionally be found in the more shady brothels and pleasure houses around.

So, it's fair to say that the furniture wasn't the only thing getting packed up.

The pirates got their suit-weaver, the portable device to create and disband slave-suits, from the shuttle. Its honestly pretty interesting to watch the machine work, though I hope you'll get to see some hooker get wrapped up instead of yourself. I was picked up by my arms and dangled above the device. It extended little appendages upwards which began to whirr around me, coating my body in a dull black layer. The formed coat was about a centimetre thick, masking and blurring most of my body's features. On the outside, the upper part of my face was hidden by a perfectly smooth curve, while my lips still remained free. My coated quills lay tight on my skull, forming bumpy irregular outcroppings in the suit and saving me from looking like a bald rubber doll. The ridges and webs running along my arms and legs vanished beneath the black. My breasts where the only major feature that stood out from my smooth body, their taut perkiness unperturbed by the new paintjob.

As soon as the Material dried, it got stiff and hard, trapping my body in a skin hugging prison. The mechanical arms of the weaver held me up, as the operator installed two interface units on my neck and upper back. One of them is the computer running the suit, the other is the terminal for the pipes and cords that support my body with breathable gasses and my new "skin" with power. Lastly a flimsy respirator was cupped over my mouth, ensuring I wouldn't die of asphyxiation till the suit got plugged in somewhere.

I was nothing more than a humanoid puppet at this point. And the suit made sure it stayed that way. These slaver devices come with many features. They can filter what you´ll see on the inside, what you hear. Make you feel touch on your skin, make you move even though you don't want to, make you love things you hate, bring you pleasure and pain, or simply take your life. Luckily for me, mine was of the most basic configuration and seemed to not have any extensions included. These suits are pricey after all, even stolen ones on the black markets.

As the suit was yet powerless I couldn't see or hear and only barely got a haptic feedback from my skin. I got moved to the cargo bay of the pirate's vessel where my suit suddenly made a chirping noise, and apparently began to boot up as it got supplied with power and oxygen. I could feel the material soften around me. It felt like I fell into a tar-pit, and only just made it back to the burning warmth of the sun. Hard turned to sticky, sticky to soft. The coat was pliable yet firm. It began to creep up and over my lips and pushed of the respirator, now that a separate supply of gasses was available. A tickling sensation ran down my body as the black stuff rippled, shifted and tubes were formed in the suit itself, running from the hub at the back of my neck to my nose and groin. The texture of the material in my groin changed, turning even softer and somehow pressing to my skin a little more, feeling oddly like a wet sponge.

Suddenly two prodding feelers began to squirm between my legs. A scream of outrage and surprise tore from my lips, - only that it didn't. I just stretched my lips, but the suit swallowed all the sound. I started breathing heavily, which was harder said than done with only two small lines supplying oxygen to my nostrils. I remember rage flaring up inside me, as I could only pant and squirm, being trapped by what just felt like my own skin. As if my body itself revolted and decided to rummage around in my nethers. The two probes quickly found their quarry and unceremoniously pushed into my vagina and rectum. They were barely the size of a small finger, yet their invasion was not really comfortable. Images of the last "test" aboard the Antaria-ship surged through my mind and my rage burned hotter. Fucking perverts! But the probes stopped after just a few centimetres. It felt like they might've extended or inflated a little afterwards, but not much else happened and soon enough I didn't notice them at all anymore.

A fully enclosed, hermetically sealed suit has a big problem of course; waste management. Whilst the remains of respiratory activity could always just be piped away as they came, nourishment and the disposal of metabolic waste was a whole different story. The egg-heads at RTA decided for an in-situ approach to the problem, meaning that those two probes that had invaded my orifices take the waste right out of the wearers body, transform it into a easily to handle state and pipe it away. Gross but surprisingly effective. You also shouldn't think too much about the fact that your own shit literally runs through pipes right on your body...

After its booting and installation sequences were completed, the projection in front of my eyes flickered to life. The suit greeted me happily, and an exotic figure, clad in a skin-tight black suit of course, appeared and explained why I should count myself lucky being stuck inside a "S.L.A.V.E. Unit"!

"Imagine all the possibilities! Spacewalks? No Problem with the EVA-extension kit, available at your local RTA-Hub! Scuba-diving? Piece of cake with the sub-aquatic extension kit, available at your local RTA-Hub! Volcano dipping? Nothing easier than that, with the high-temperature shielded sun-blazer kit! Available at your local RTA-Hub!"

Fuck those guys, honestly.

"Here are some suggestions that might interest you, concerning your current situation! Have you heard of the transformation-kit? Your humanoid layout enables the use of over half a million different, exotic and lewd forms! We also have highly specialized singular add-ons, for a fraction of the cost! Fox? Dragon? Snake? You name it, we've got it! Or have you thought about the modular-maker-kit? Enable a patron, your master, partner or yourself to change your form at will! Augmenting anything that this suit is capable of! (We hereby declare that RTA will under no circumstances be liable for serious injury and/or death caused by unauthorized/inappropriate use of our products. In case of problems: read the pack insert and consult your local doctor or pharmacist!)"

Ah well. Technology advances in all fields I guess...

The pirates didn't seem to trust the suit all too much, as they locked me into a big cage, occupying one whole wall of the cargo bay. I was astonished at the time, that this strange suit seemed to know our language, though I didn't know that these things are capable of basically reading straight from their wearers speech centre to facilitate communication between foreign species.

The room I was in was cluttered with hundreds of containers of varying shape and size. Gigantic boxes, tiny tubes, piles of barrels and odd shaped synthetic-wrapped objects. Somewhere I could make out the bright pink plant from the captains office, or what was left of it after the events that took place there.

It took not long for the pirates to mop up what was left on the ship, a few times one of the bulky figures walked into the cargo bay, carrying and storing some pillaged device or rare piece of art.

Just as the engines began to spin up, I wondered where my fate would lead me now, trying to think of my future, trying to plan further ahead...

At some point a hysterical laugh shook me. Planning ahead, how funny. My life seems to know every idea of mine, carefully takes them into account and comes up with something that smashes all of them to pieces.

If I think too much about what transpired back then, in those first weeks of my "awakening" as I like to call it, I get harsh and furious. The hate and anguish rises up again. Sometimes I wish I could go back. To the simpler life on Marna, enjoying the ocean, the sun, the wind. Though mostly I accept and even relish my new life. This "awakening" from the unknowing, small nation on some backwater planet, to this: a universe full of new things to learn, people to meet, friends and enemies to make, planets to see!

I do of course wish it would´ve all come to this in a different way. I am still grieving for my planet. My people. I never really felt part of them, never really well accepted. But knowing that you are alone, completely and utterly alone, and that so many must have died is something else.

It didn't take too long for my curiosity and preservation drive to make me wander around the cage, taking in the stuffed bay from different angles, and trying to draw some conclusions. Judging by the sheer amount of stuff piled up here we are likely heading to a market of sorts, though that doesn't help me much as I don't know where something like this could be or how far it is. I am the only prisoner here, so they didn't encounter other people? No, that didn't get me anywhere either.

At some point I began inspecting the pile of stuff stacked outside one end of my confines. It was mostly bigger parts, some long metal boxes with straps wrapped around, an assortment of spheres held by a plastic form, multiple semi-transparent tubes, a big dark barrel and so on.

This was the moment my luck returned. And oh boy, what it had to make up for!

Between the big glass vials, deep inside the pile, a smaller vial lay on the ground. Maybe it just rolled there at some point and was forgotten, maybe someone stashed it there, who knows. To me, it was something in my reach and as it turned out just small enough to fit through the bars of my cage. Something that could maybe be useful. I quickly went for it, just for the suit to suddenly solidify around me.

"Damn!" I muttered under my breath. That was one of the basic functions every slave-suit comes equipped with. The option for automatic restraining if the wearer moves to quickly. This inhibits almost all attempt of escape or assault.

I had to wait like this, arm stretched through the bars for a full minute, hoping that my luck wouldn't leave me as quick as it came. But nobody walked in right in that moment and I could finally feel the suit soften around me again, melding back softly to my skin. I reached out again, slowly this time. I could just barely reach the bottom of the container and roll it left to right to gently coax it in my direction. After a couple of passes it was close enough for me to grab it securely. It was about the length of my forearm, roughly twenty centimetres in diameter and surprisingly heavy. Behind the semi-transparent glass one could make out a swirly bluish substance. I tried shaking it gently, rolling it around in my hands, but nothing would move which made me think the content is likely pretty solid. On closer inspection, I could see a shallow engraving at the bottom seal of the cylinder. It was smeared with a little grime making it hard to spot at first. I tried deciphering the letters, and while most where complete gibberish, some popped right out at me.