NASTRAGULL: Pirates (6 page)

After they'd finished with Alexa's knight, they did the same thing with the rest of the Nastasturus cadets, though perhaps less gently. Later, they moved on to the other unclaimed prisoners. For some of the larger aliens they altered the block, aided in their work by colorless little androids.

Chapter 3

There were tall mountains. He could fly, and thought surely he would soar over the peaks... and then he fell screaming toward the ground and then into it, deeper and deeper, as everything turned darker.

There was silence.

He stood at the top of a mountain, holding a young boy's head in his hands, and stared at it. It stared back at him. The mouth opened as the head tried to speak, but it couldn't; it was dead. The young boy could only look down at the head in his hands. A head without a body, looking back at him with a guilty and wondering expression. "What have I done?" the boy asked himself.

From the background came a faint keening sound; and then there were drums. The peal of a horn filled his ears, and he realized that he was surrounded by the sounds of warriors fighting a fierce battle: the clash of steel, gut shots, the muffled whump of artillery, the screams of the wounded.

His gaze wandered across the battlefield and affixed on two figures. One was male, the other female, and they fought side-by-side with a singular passion.

There was a bright light, and a wave of searing, excruciating pain passed through his body. He screamed and lost consciousness. When he awoke, his head was lolled to the side; and he saw a young boy lying face-down on a table, with several horrible creatures standing around him. The boy screamed out from fear and pain.

The white light blinded him again and something moved inside of him, his rectum jolting with pain as something was forced inside. It seared all his nerves with an electrical jolt. Meanwhile, millions of needles were stuck into his skin, and each caused a different pain than the last.

Everything turned dark.

The sky was filled with a vast black cloud, and bloody rain turned the ground a ghastly red. Quaking with horror, he realized that the roiling cloud formed the features of a horrible beast; and as he watched, a great wound of a mouth opened and thundered, "Find me and bring me back. Bring me back, find me, and you shall find the truth."

Was it the monster speaking—or someone else?

One person knelt at the center of a battlefield littered with millions of dead, surrounded by tongues of fire hotter than those of Hell. "Father and Mother, forgive them not," the figure prayed. "All of them knew what they were doing. Awaken, awaken young one, it is time…"

Two dark eyes stared at him from the clouds, and for an instant a crown of laurels flashed above, on a noble brow. Then the boy became aware of the stench of the battlefield, and the unbearable miasma filled his nostrils, and…

***

Alec woke up with a splitting headache, his vision blurry, and was almost overcome by the stink of urine and excrement. He tried to focus his eyes, but that just made the headache worse. That, combined with the horrible reek, made him vomit—and dammit, that didn't help either.

When he tried to focus his eyes next, all he could see was a dark blur. He heard people crying and moaning around him, begging for help, food and water. Some were screaming. What had happened? Had there been an accident?

When his eyes finally focused, he noticed that he was sitting in a crouched position, with his ankles and wrists clamped into four padded holes in front of him. He couldn't see his hands or feet, but he could feel that they'd removed his gloves and boots.

It was uncomfortable as hell, but he could bear it, he thought. A second later, he was hit with an intense cramp, and suddenly understood the screams.             

That was when he realized his neck was all but immobilized in some sort of collar that was attached to the wall behind him. He wore some sort of pale tunic and that was all. Every time he moved his neck, he felt a little jolt of electricity surge through his body. He tried to scream, and the mask that covered half his face gagged him so that only a muffled noise left his lips. He started to panic.

A cramp in his leg muscles made him spasm, and it hurt so badly that he screamed again and lost control of his bowels. He panicked some more and started to struggle against his bounds, but it was soon clear that his efforts were in vain. He was stuck. 

"The neck controller is programmed to do that so that you can learn your first lesson in submission," a young female voice explained in a friendly tone. She sounded more like a grade-school teacher than a malicious pirate.

Tears in his eyes, Alec looked up towards the sound of her voice. The neck controller attacked him, causing his entire body to shake even harder; he bit down hard on the soft rubber gag-ball stuck in his mouth. Fortunately, his bowels were empty now, so he couldn't embarrass himself further.

He looked up again, after his recovery, and he saw her. Despite his predicament, he stared in shock. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes on, bar none. Her black hair was twisted up in dreadlocks that hung straight down to the middle of her back; but what particularly captured his attention were the warm doe-brown eyes. She seemed a bit apprehensive, yet stared at him with the curiosity of any young woman who sees something she likes and wants.

Everything that Alec saw was perfect until she smiled at him, displaying a dark gap in her smile where several teeth were missing. He blushed, embarrassed to be sitting half-naked, in a pool of his own waste, in front of such a beauty.             

She ignored the smell and pushed a button. The gag fell from his face and was winched up into the ceiling. Alec trembled and shrank back like a scared animal; he hated himself for it, but couldn't help the reaction—it was automatic. He tried to catch his breath and relax in an effort to maintain a little dignity and demanded, "Where am I, and who are you?"

"Doesn't matter," the young woman answered in a neutral tone. She stepped closer to the stock, and looked at Alec with a calculating expression on her face. "Not bad. I might just buy you myself." She tapped her fingers on her lips. "Can you cook?"

Alec spat, and hit the girl in her face. At first, she looked taken aback; then disappointment flashed across her face, followed by rage. Pursing her lips, she spat back in
his
face. They stared at each other for a long moment and then, astonishingly, both burst into laughter. 

"What is going on here?" A deep, throaty voice demanded. A tall saurian woman clumped up next to the human girl, looked over the scene, and taunted her. "Fraternizing with the cargo, Alexa? Wonderful!"
             

The girl muttered, "Idiot. Now he knows my name,
Myra
."

"Big deal. What do you think he's going to do—write you after he's sold?" The lizard woman flourished a thin cane in the air to punctuate her remarks, then laughed cruelly and smacked Alec smartly on his exposed hands and feet. It didn't hurt much, but the strike caught him off-guard and his body jerked involuntarily—so the neck controller hit him like a sledgehammer. Without the gag, his scream echoed through the cargo hold. Myra snickered. "That shit gets me every time. Did you see his face?" She laughed as she patted Alexa on her back and moved on.

Alexa looked after Myra, fury writ large across her face, then turned back to Alec, who was trembling like a scared rat and coughing up blood. "Um, sorry about that, I'm truly am, I never wanted..."

"You
will
be sorry, pirate. You
will
be." Alec looked up at her with hooded eyes.

Just then Myra's voice came over the intercom: "Stand by for cleaning." Alexa looked at Alec, shook her head, and walked away. A moment after the hatch slammed closed, a series of sprinklers began to shower the room with powerful streams of water from all directions. The filthy runoff drained out through gridded holes in the floor.

"You always have had a way with the women," a weak voice said over the hiss of the sprinklers, barely audible.

Alec strained to look to his left without moving his head, but he could barely see the speaker, who sat right next to him. "Andrew, that you?"

"Who do you think it is, your mom? 'Course it's me. C'mon, Alec! Get your chin up and show some damned dignity. Ever since we got captured you've behaved like a fresh recruit."

"Watch it, pal, I can still beat the crap out of you. If I could get loose." It wasn't an idle boast; Andrew Bow
was several inches shorter than Alec, if as impressively muscled. He was from the capital world of the Nastasturus Federation, Tallas. His family was wealthy, members of the Royalist hierarchy, and he would one day inherit his father's title as Baron of the Three Lakes. If he survived this, of course. His voice had a rather high pitch and could sometimes be annoying to the people around him—but he was loyal and knew how to keep a secret, which resulted in him having the dirt on all his friends. Not that he would ever use it. He could talk to almost anyone about anything, and was overall a likable guy.

"How you holding up?" he said now.

Alec answered, "Lovely, and you?"

They both laughed; it was bitter, but a laugh nonetheless. Andrew said, "Man, she's one hot little pirate, isn't she?"

"I guess she is, but that doesn't change what she is, now, does it? Vermin is vermin." Alec glanced sideways at the blurry figure of Andrew. "Where are the others?"

"Dunno. I just woke up when that gag was removed."

Someone behind them on the slave block said, "We're here. This is Sal...I'm behind you, along with Mat and Tech. Dunno where Jack is."             

Sal had been born on the backwater planet of Zuma, but his family had been raised to the level of Elite citizens for distinguished service to the Federation, and therefore lived on Tallas now. He was a wheeler and dealer, and if money had an odor, he could smell it. Like Andrew, Alec, and Tech, he was an Oman, and his family belonged to the Presidential clan. They were very wealthy, and unlike most of their fellow Elites, had worked their way up from scratch. Their main wealth came from communications; they own several satellite production and research companies.

Mat belonged to the Herrier species, and he and his family were also Elite citizens of the Nastasturus Federation. They were not considered especially wealthy, but his family had belonged to the Superior Senate for more than ten generations, which meant that they never had to work and their offspring were born into retirement for all eternity. This was one of the highest honors under the Nastasturus regime. Mat was the only volunteer in their squad.

Tech was a citizen of Tallas, where he had been born, and because of that he automatically belonged to the Elite. Most of his family, except for his mother and older sister, had disappeared on a deep space voyage before he was born. He'd lost his mother when she left him with her sister on a search-and-rescue mission and was never heard from again. When he got older, Tech had sworn never to stop looking for them until he knew for certain exactly what had happened to them. His interest in pirates and abductions had made him into a fanatic on the subject.

As for Jack—he was the squad leader, and no one knew him well, beyond the fact that he was a cadet in the School of Military Intelligence. That meant he had to belong to the Elite, since only they were ever recruited into military intelligence. As for his species, everyone assumed he was a standard Oman, but it was hard to tell. He might well belong to one of the hybrid or transgenic races.

Andrew demanded, "Anybody see what happened to Jack?"

"Last I saw of him, he was taken away by a couple of pirates," Sal answered.

"Missing an eye," Alec added dryly.

"Ugh." Andrew was quiet for a moment, then: "Anyone seen Major Nesbit or any of the girls?"

Alec muttered, "Nesbit's an officer, so they wouldn't keep him here. The girls must be in another area." What he didn't want to say—but couldn't help think—was that they were probably being gang-raped right about now.

Sal cut in, "The major could be dead for all we know."

Mat spoke up for the first time, in that rough voice of his, "Wonder what happened to him. Did anyone see him once the attack started?"

Like his crew, Major Thore Nesbit was an Elite citizen. He belonged to the Royal class, was extremely intelligent, and very well respected among his family, friends and foes alike. His full name was actually Nesbit Thore Af Hornet, and he and Alec shared a secret from the others: they were cousins.

No one replied to Mat's question about Major Nesbit. Raising his voice in anger, Andrew yelled out loud, "You bastards, you will all
pay
for this!" His shout was interrupted by an electric zap as the collar kicked in, causing him to gurgle and spit blood.

A voice from an intercom warned them, "Any more lip out of any of you and you'll be gagged again, boyos. Now shut up!" Alec tried to whisper something, but a mild tingling from the collar made him stop. From the intercom came, "That goes for whispering too."

None of the cadets had anything more to say after that; they dared not even sob. Alexa stood behind pillar a dozen yards away, gazing toward Alec and his friends in their barbaric slave blocks. There was a deep sadness in her eyes, but her tears were concealed by the water pouring from the sprinkler system.