Her satisfaction was short lived, though. Slowed by the paralytic, numbed by the stun charges, Sigrid was too weak to push him off her. He collapsed onto her chest, dead weight. His four companions seized the opportunity, leaping onto the pile. And when their stun charges failed to subdue her, they took to beating her, clubbing her over and over.
Even for Sigrid this was too much.
"Bastards—" was all she managed before everything went dark.
~ - ~
Sigrid was bounced awake. Literally.
There were no fading dream images this time, only the pounding of her head as it banged against something cold and metallic.
Blinking her eyes open, her blurred surroundings came slowly into focus. She was lying flat on her stomach on a metal bench in the back of a truck and bouncing along a potholed road. Her wrists were bound and tied behind her back. They'd even gone so far as to hobble her, first by binding her ankles then by pulling them back and tying them securely to her wrists. They'd attached a choke harness as well—pulling with her wrists only yanked at her ankles, while straining with her ankles only tightened the choke collar around her neck.
Moving was impossible.
Four of her captors sat across from her. They wore grim expressions and held firmly to the stun batons in their hands, which they patted against their open palms.
"Ready for round two?" Sigrid said, though it came out more as a rasping croaking sound than words. Her throat was dry and cracked, and her mouth had a foul taste, a leftover of the toxin Nuria had dosed her with.
Nuria?
Nuria sat huddled in the corner of the van. Still in her nightgown, she was sporting an impressive black eye, bruised and swollen. Her bottom lip was split and bloodied, and the shoulder strap of her nightgown had been torn away.
These men, they'd beaten her.
She'd assumed Nuria was in on the assault—she'd thought her a coconspirator—but seeing the vicious beating Nuria had taken, it was obvious the girl had been coerced. They'd probably beaten her for not subduing her before they arrived. And judging by the torn state of her nightdress, they'd tried to take their liberties with her as well. For that alone, Sigrid would make them pay.
Sigrid turned back to the men.
Four?
There were only four of them, yet five had attacked her in her room.
"What happened to your friend?" Sigrid said. "Last time I counted, there were five of you."
"Poor Jürgen," the youngest of them said, with a trembling lip. "You killed him!"
"Quiet!" the one beside him said, cuffing him across the ear for good measure. "You heard what Fryer said. No talking to her."
Jürgen? That must have been the fat one. She remembered hitting him with the stun baton. Probably stopped his heart cold. "Sorry about your friend. I suppose he should have taken more care."
The man raised his fist to strike her.
"I wouldn't do that," Sigrid warned.
"Why? What're you going to do about it?"
"I just wouldn't want you to hurt your fist is all."
The fist landed hard, five knuckles planting themselves squarely on her jaw and knocking her head back against the wall. Sigrid spat out blood. "You like beating helpless girls? Why not untie me, make this a fair fight?"
"You ain't so helpless."
"What about her?" Sigrid asked, with a glance to Nuria. "Was she also good sport for your fists? Was she a challenge?"
"Quiet!" the bigger man said. He took his stun baton and pressed it against her chest. "Nuria knows her place."
The truck lurched again, tossing Sigrid from her place on the bench. She landed hard, face down on the floor. No one bothered to help her up. Not too surprising. Hobbled and bound as she was, it was impossible to right herself. About all she managed to accomplish was to shift herself around until she was staring up at the four men—that, and to allow the hem of her nightgown to ride up over her hips, as if purely by chance.
"A little help?" Sigrid said, blinking her lashes at them.
A little distraction. Wasn't that what her old instructor, Felix Rosa, was always on about? Distract your foe. Never let them see you coming.
The men glanced at each other. The youngest of them reached out, but the big man pushed him aside, jostling to get his hands on Sigrid first. He leaned forward, his hands reaching for her, his eyes glued to the soft, inviting flesh of her thighs.
Sigrid shifted her weight, allowing the nightgown to ride up even more. All she needed was for him to move a little closer, and then she'd—
The truck ground to a halt, and the rear doors were thrown open. Eight men, all of them armed, clambered up into the truck. They weren't soldiers, but there was something about the way they were dressed that struck Sigrid as familiar.
They shoved her captors aside, even knocking the big man to the floor. One of them carried a long pole. He shoved this through the loops of Sigrid's bindings. Without a word, two pairs of strong hands grabbed hold of the pole, hoisting Sigrid from the ground and carrying her from the truck like a pig on a spit.
"Her, too," one of them said, pointing to Nuria.
"That wasn't the deal," the big man said. "We're keeping her."
"Fryer says we take her, so we take her."
There was some arguing and jostling, but in the end the armed men with their guns won over the goons with the stun-sticks, and Nuria was dragged from the truck.
Good,
Sigrid thought. At least here she could keep an eye on her, even if she couldn't exactly do anything to help her herself.
Outside, they dropped Sigrid face down in the mud. She did her best to slither around, trying to catch a glimpse of her surroundings. The truck was parked on a muddy patch of road somewhere deep in what looked like a forest. Tall trees stood on every side of them. Sigrid could detect no other sounds of traffic. It was only just growing light, so wherever they were, they couldn't have come too far from the Crossroads.
With Nuria being shepherded behind them, Sigrid was hoisted again on the pole, carried along, face down. The bindings of her wrists and ankles cut deep into her skin, and her chin and stomach kept dragging along the ground. She was filthy and sodden within fifty paces, not that her captors seemed to care. They carried her deeper into the woods, walking tirelessly for several kilometers.
With all the bouncing and jostling, it was difficult to keep her head up, but Sigrid did her best, determined to take in every detail she could, marking their paces and direction.
They finally came to a halt at the top of an embankment. Down below, she saw what looked like a narrow river basin. Most of the trees had been bulldozed and burned away. This had been done to make room for what waited for them now.
"Shit," Sigrid said. "You have got to be kidding."
For there, nestled in the hollow and hidden from prying eyes by the hills on either side, was a ship. And not just any ship. It was a freighter, and a rather grand one at that. Sigrid saw the distinctive gold and red piping running the length of her 150-meter hull. She would recognize those markings anywhere.
"Merchantmen," Sigrid rasped. "I hate
those guys."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Pirate King
"Merchantmen," Sigrid said again, cursing.
It was a fitting end to the night. Sigrid didn't need to wonder what they wanted with her. The Merchantmen might call themselves traders, but Sigrid knew the truth: they were pirates. They were pimps and slavers, scum of the worst kind. And after their last encounter on Konoe Station, where she'd destroyed their flagship and killed its crew along with their commander, Corbin Price, she didn't doubt they had something particularly unwholesome planned for her.
Two beefy sailors carried her between them as they scrambled down the embankment toward the freighter. Sigrid had a better view of the ship from here. The incredible weight of the 150-meter vessel had driven the landing pylons deep into the loose shale of the riverbed. The ventral hull sat firmly on the rocks, if slightly off kilter. In fact, the entire ship sat at a pronounced angle. Tendrils of oak leaf grape ivy covered a good portion of the portside hull, while a family of blue honeycreepers had taken roost next to the reactor housing.
This Merchantman freighter had been stuck here for some time, and it wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. They were marooned here, just like her.
A lower portal slid open at the base of the hull and Sigrid was carried inside. Getting her through the narrow airlock proved cumbersome and she was treated to some rough treatment as the sailors dragged her along the deck plates. Once inside, she was dumped unceremoniously to the floor. Sigrid watched as a grizzled sailor counted out several bills and handed them to the big man. He stuffed the money in his pants, turned and left, without a word.
"You're not joining us?" she called after him. The man snarled something, which Sigrid chose to ignore, and the airlock portal sealed shut behind them.
Sigrid rolled onto her side and looked up. The sailor's unsmiling face sneered down at her.
Merchantmen didn't wear uniforms, so she had no idea if this man were the captain or his cabin boy, but he seemed to be in charge. At least for the moment.
"You must be Fryer. Permission to come aboard?"
"Joke while you can, Ms. Novak. You won't be laughing much longer."
Two burly sailors reached down and hoisted her from the ground.
"No," she muttered. "I don't suppose I will."
~ - ~
For a ship this large, the narrow corridors were all but empty. There were none of the familiar sounds of shipboard life. More than grounded, the ship was a near derelict. The few skeleton crew they passed stepped to the sides, making way as the sailors hauled Sigrid along.
"I'm so sorry," Nuria said between shoves, doing her best to keep hold of the broken strap of her nightdress. "This is all my fault. I never should have—"
"It's all right, Nuria," Sigrid said. She was hanging upside down now, as one of the sailors had chosen to hoist her by the hobbles of her ankles. He had her draped over his immense shoulder as he climbed the ladder to the deck above. "We'll get out of this. I promise."
Rather than taking her to the brig, as Sigrid suspected, they took her directly to the captain's quarters. The suite was spacious—generous, for a spacefaring vessel, where space was at a premium—though it was jammed from floor to ceiling with what could only be described as booty. All manner of plunder was on display. Paintings. Sculptures. A safe brimming with currencies from across the Federation sat open, its collection of coins spilling onto the ground. Over in a corner, a particularly lurid bronze statue, complete with a working water feature, sat gurgling and splashing. And in the center of it all sat the ship's master.
Her PCM found and confirmed his identity instantly—not difficult considering the number of outstanding warrants for unpaid brokerage levies held against him. His name was Thuan Lai. He was a thin wisp of a creature. And he was old. Good lord, he had to be at least a hundred and thirty, if a day. He was dressed in a long
áo giao lĩnh,
a long, cross-collared robe
that,
like his grounded ship, had definitely seen better days; the dark blue fabric had been patched more than once, and the gold brocade down the lapels was frayed and fading.
Three young girls sat at his side. The youngest couldn't have been more than thirteen. Two of them sat clinging to his thin arms, drenched in a narcotic haze, while the youngest tended to his pedicure.
The girls were
wianbu,
or
comfort girls, as the Merchantmen preferred to call them. These were girls—and often boys—either stolen from their homes or enticed by the promise of a life of leisure and riches, free from the factories, only to find themselves trapped in a form of sexual servitude. A steady diet of narcotics ensured their compliance. When that failed, Sigrid knew there was always the whip.
When one of the girls reached for the tray of pills and powders at his side, Lai slapped her hand away.
"Not now, Hien. We have guests!"
At the word "guests," the sailor holding Nuria shoved her forward. The one carrying Sigrid dropped her to the floor. With the toe of his boot, he rolled her toward the dais. Sigrid found herself looking up at the ancient pirate, who smiled down at her.
"So glad you could join us, Ms. Novak. I do hope you can forgive the manner in which I brought you here, but I wasn't sure if you could fit us into your busy schedule."
"Nonsense," Sigrid said. "I was hoping to take a cruise sometime. Where are we headed?"
Lai smiled, as if pleased with her answer. "Indeed. But I'm sure you've already surmised that this ship isn't going anywhere in its present condition."
Sigrid craned her neck, looking about. "Oh, it's not so bad. A little paint, some elbow grease, I'm sure we can get her up and running in no time."
The merchantman sat back and chuckled; it was a grating, tittering cackle that made Sigrid wince.
"I can't tell you what a pleasure it is to meet you," he said. "You are indeed everything my compatriot said." He sat back, letting his eyes linger across the length of her body, all the while twirling the thin wisps of his long mustache. "Everything…and more."
"Sir." Sigrid allowed her voice to drop into a low register. "I do believe you're going to make me blush, Mr. Lai."
"You know of me? I am even more intrigued, Ms. Novak."
"But of course! A man of your reputation? There's not a man or woman from here to Vincenze Station who has not heard of the master merchant of the trade ways!" Sigrid attempted a bow of her head—which proved more difficult to pull off, lying on her side and hobbled by the choke harness. Gagging twice, she continued. "And how is your dear friend Mr. Price?" she asked, in reference to the merchantman she had killed on Konoe Station. "Oh… Do forgive me. He is dead. For a moment, I forgot."
Lai sat forward, waving a cragged finger at her. "Do not test me, Ms. Novak. I am not a man to be trifled with. While I am pleased to enjoy your company, I have not forgotten what you did on Konoe Station."