“What are you, Coora? A species from the outer planets?”
“I’m a Dystyr. I’m a citizen of the Republic.”
“Not any more, you’re not. The Republic won’t come and save you here,” he leers. “Can your species have sex with humans?”
“Yes,” I blush, unable to think of an answer other than the truth, “but…”
“A lotta guys have a thing for the alien girls. You’re gonna get pounded raw.”
He says it as though I’ve not thought of that. As though this is all my idea.
“What’s that stuck to your face?” he asks.
Mercifully, I don’t have to answer.
“Keep moving, slaves,” commands one of our guards, and we comply, eager to escape this public beasting.
The lines of women only begin to slow as we approach the far end of the Mezzanine, where the shuttles ferry Slaver male citizens and their captives to and from the surface.
The urge to flee rises in me. Perhaps it’s the horror of what lies on the surface – the implant, the slave mark, and my doom. Perhaps it’s that I’ve not been goaded for a while, and I’m beginning to forget how painful it feels. Perhaps as I’m still young, I’m beginning to recover some of the resilience drained by the gang rape I endured on the ship.
“We have to do something,” I whisper urgently to the women nearest me. “I’m a Republic citizen, studying political theory. I’m meant to go and work for the Republic government.”
“We’re all Republic citizens,” says Tana, the model contestant who was just humiliated by the tourist. “Look where being a free citizen got me. That man…”
“But I can’t be implanted,” I moan, my voice breaking.
“I’m sure the Slavers will be fine about it if you just explain that to them,” says a sarcastic woman’s voice from behind me.
“We could make a break for it,” I suggest, making my voice loud enough to be heard by the other chain of women at our side. “If we all go at once, we might seize some of their weapons, and fight our way to the docking level.”
“We’re stark naked, and we’re chained together by our necks,” a stocky female close by in the parallel line replies angrily. “How far do you think we’d make it? Each one of us they stunned, the rest of us would have to drag her.”
“But we have to do something,” I plead as we get closer and closer to the guarded shuttle bays.
“The something you can do is shut your hole, forty-nine,” the stocky female almost spits at me. “Think you’ve got it bad? You premium bitches will be trained, you’ll get a high-status owner, because only someone like that can afford your perfect bodies. You might end up lying by the pool, when you’re not sucking his dick. Want to swap that for my future? Thirty-one – that’s my number. Sold in a batch to a brothel for lowlifes, and that’s if I’m lucky. So shut up, go get your implant, and smile that vacant smile.”
“You’re bitter because you’re ugly,” I say, shocked by her spite.
“And you’re nothing but an overpampered princess,” she retaliates.
Perhaps I should be grateful to her, for all my terror, my anger, my humiliation, suddenly has a focus. I fling myself at thirty-one, nearly breaking my neck as the chain goes taut when fifty and the forty-nine behind me are dragged along. Not expecting an attack, thirty-one is thrown to the ground, and I’m on her, pummeling, trying to get past her blocking arms and land a good punch on her mean, ugly face.
Voices are shouting, but I’ve forgotten everything around us, so intense is my rage. It takes a moment before I even reconsider my surroundings. I’m lying naked on top of her – more intimately in contact than I’ve been with any other female. Perhaps that’s why the guards let us carry on for a minute. Neither of us is in any danger of doing real harm to the other one, and the sight of two nude women struggling is erotic to them.
I have the advantage of weight, as I’m on top, but Thirty-one knees me repeatedly between the legs, which even for a girl is unpleasant. We’re too close to each other for me to get a punch through her guard, and she can’t do much from on her back except use her knees. When we slow – both of us breathing heavily – I guess we’d have to call it a draw.
I’m looking right down into her face, she’s looking right back, and it’s the first time I feel any closeness between us.
“Up,” orders a guard. “Back on your feet.”
I scramble to obey. The male who commanded me has developed a prominent erection, and I don’t want to be raped yet again.
“Nice show, forty-nine,” he explains, and our lines begin to move again.
Closer and closer we pad towards the docks where we’ll board shuttles, be carried down to the planet’s surface, and be lost forever into our futures of slavery. But there are no more incidents which delay us, and not even a suggestion of attempting to escape. It looks as though I’m going to Aghara-Penthay.
6 – Planetside
Women passengers on the shuttles which descend to the surface of Aghara-Penthay are not given seats. We are packed tightly into the shuttle’s cargo hold, as though we are goods, rather than humans. Hanging from the hold’s ceiling like fronds of a tree are numerous short cables, and each of these is clipped to the collar of a captive, so that we must remain standing in a parade formation, or choke. The women either side of me, and those before and behind, are close enough that we nudge bare bodies each time we are rocked by the movement of the ship.
Thus, naked as part of this shameful formation, we undock, and begin the journey to the next phase of my downfall.
It is almost exclusively the Slavers who can use the seats, which are arranged around the bulkheads boxing in the room. Almost exclusively, for one female captive does sit across the broad thigh of one of the men. This one, an exceptional beauty, is clad, unlike the rest of us. She wears one of the red wraps, the wrap which identifies her as a woman who is property of Aghara-Penthay. Her covering is not much, but it is vastly better than being nude.
Or perhaps not, for her clothing privilege seems to come at a price. The guard’s penis, rampantly hard, has been freed from his pants and points upwards, blatant and obscene, at a forty-five-degree angle. The woman is pulling at it with both her hands, attempting to pleasure him, although even with my limited knowledge I can see she seems inexperienced at the job. Meanwhile his hand is inside her wrap, groping her breast. The man slaps her face, although not as hard as he could. It’s a warning. The female’s face does not carry the slave mark, which is unusual in someone already wearing the wrap.
She seems familiar, although in this horrific context it’s hard to place her. A woman I saw on the transport, perhaps?
“Look, that’s Donaya Oshanka – the news anchor,” one of my fellow nudes gives the answer in a loud whisper.
“How come she gets a wrap?” another captive complains.
“Don’t you know? She must be here for the Rape Run. Runners are the only women who don’t get stripped. They let the audience anticipate seeing them undressed, once they’re caught.”
Donaya, perhaps hearing us, looks in our direction for a moment, fixing us with the intense gaze she’s known for using in interviews. But she bows her head to resume her work, her brunette curls falling forwards to hide her face as she concentrates. Her guard gives a lewd grunt.