NASTRAGULL: Pirates (35 page)

Behl and Captain Zlo were still in shock, and couldn't believe what they had just witnessed. At that moment, one of the
K-13
's security officers walked up and asked if he and his crew could go. Behl shook his head without answering, still staring at Alec, who was still standing on the crate, looking pleased with himself. There was a small,  stocky being, parti-colored in gray and white, still standing and looking at Alec while picking its nose.

"Well, at least we have one volunteer," Alec announced proudly, and jumped down the crate to embrace the little being. It immediately began trembling with fear. Alec tried to calm it down, but the little creature started to scream out something in an unknown language. "Get me a translator android," shouted Alec, as he let go of the little guy. A hovering orb flew up and over Lady Fuzza's head, brushing her crest, and settled down to the little being's level. Alec walked over to his senior officers and said, "I know what you're all thinking, but remember, we need volunteers or we'll certainly have a mutiny on our hands." He glanced toward the little piebald fellow. "Is the translator done?" he demanded.

Behl nodded his head and said, "Yep!" The little spacer was hobbling away as fast as its bandy legs could take it, clutching its debit card tightly.

"Perhaps Captain Behl and I should go and try to buy or recruit some more crew, while the two of you go to that VIP auction?" recommended Captain Zlo, unable to conceal his disappointment.

Chapter 22

Aboard a Florencian border station several light years distant, the Commander pondered a message from one of his spies. After considering it for a while, he roused himself, handed the encrypted datapad to a waiting officer, and said, "Lieutenant, take this message to Admiral Jonas Nass of the Ninth Galactic Fleet at Handover. See to it that it's delivered personally. It's urgent, but I don't want to send a transmission, in the event someone might intercept and decode it."

The young courier looked at him curiously, and her commander said, "It appears that Nastasturus is preparing for something. One of their Galactic fleets has entered the neutral zone a few light years away from New Frontier."

The young lieutenant saluted her commander, and then immediately hurried away to a waiting shuttle.

***

Alexa woke up from a very long dream of pain to the depressing reality of more pain. Every muscle she possessed ached, and the leather cords wrapped around her fingers and big toes offered an agony all their own. She was strung up spread-eagled, naked, with each of her fingers and big toes tied individually to a large, magnetized metal hoop atop a small hovering podium.

A mechanical orb flew around her, taking measurements; from time to time, tiny lightning bolts speared out to test her nervous system. Sweat poured down her muscular, flawless body; her hair was soaked, and stuck to her head and shoulders like glue. Every time she moved her head, she felt faint. She was thirsty and her tongue had swollen, making it difficult to breath. She was panting harder and harder just to get enough oxygen to survive.

Alexa had no idea how long she'd been strung up like an animal ready for skinning. When she looked up and saw her fingers, she wanted to cry. They were swollen and dark purple, almost disfigured. She couldn't see her own feet, but knew that her big toes wouldn't be a pretty sight either.

She noticed for the first time since she'd come to the four guards standing by an entrance on the other side of the chamber. All were looking at her with hungry eyes, their expressions dull with lust. She wanted to snarl and scream at them, but just then the orb moved in front of her and stole her attention. Alexa made several futile attempts to butt the flying medical andy with her forehead, but to no avail. The orb had examined her for a very long time; for how long she had no idea, but every time it fired its tiny lightning bolts at her vulnerable body, she twitched. It didn't hurt but it tickled, and that was something Alexa hated above anything else. She remembered how she and her best friends—and even her siblings—had all gotten into tickle fights, and for a second she forgot her dangerous predicament...until the orb zapped her again. Being tickled was her biggest weakness. From their expressions and laughter, the guards seemed to enjoy her torture.

Alexa emitted a short, hysterical scream—and then she laughed, more from her ridiculous situation than anything else. She kept laughing and shouting every time the orb zapped her, first in the tender skin under her arms and then down across her stomach and navel. As she writhed and giggled under the torture, she didn't notice as several people filed through an entrance she couldn't see.

"It is happy?" asked a soft-spoken, surprised female voice behind her.

When Alexa heard the voice, she immediately stopped giggling and strained to look over her shoulder. Something cold touched the back of her neck and trailed down her spine, giving her chills and ridging her skin with goose bumps. Something was touching her with its nails or claw tips, she thought, and she was afraid she knew just who, or at least what, it was. Alexa bit down on her lower lip, trying her best not to laugh. The nails moved on over her buttocks and behind her right leg, and she noticed a faint hissing sound, there on the very edge of audibility.

That's when she began to feel strange and afraid. Her skin turned ice-cold, and there was no longer a tickling sensation from the touch. She began trembling like she had never trembled before when the hissing ceased, and the thing behind her emitted a laugh of pure, poisonous malice.

At that moment, Alexa was the more afraid than she'd ever been in her life.

She lowered her head, closing her eyes, too afraid to even cry. The only sounds in the room came from her chattering teeth and from her fast, heavy breathing. Her trembling was using up all her physical energy. She felt something touching her chin, forcing her head up gently. Alexa opened her eyes, and screamed in pure horror.

In front of Alexa stood the source of many dark horror tales, the boogeyman of all boogeymen, except it was no man. It was a woman, a woman whose name was used as a metaphor for some of the most dreadful deeds in the universe. When Alexa saw the monster, she knew instantly that all those horror stories had one thing in common; they were based on reality. She had thought that Zuzack had lied to her about the infamous Black Lady—a legend, a tale to scare children—but she knew now that he had not.

Just as in the stories, the Lady was dressed in a black cloak covering her entire body. Her pale fingers were three times longer than Alexa's, and their skin was stretched very tight across the bones. Her nails were half as long as her fingers, and Alexa could feel her own blood trickling down her back and the stinging sensation from her own sweat when it dripped into the cuts made by those razor-sharp nails.

A motherly and loving voice said something Alexa didn't understand, but the strange sound of the voice made her calm down. A hand touched her gently, comforting, lovingly. Alexa stopped screaming. She mustered her last strength to compose herself, to regain some small measure of dignity and self-respect. Alexa glared boldly at the monster and two lifeless eyes stared back at her, two gaping black pits that held no trace of a soul. Small reddish-gold dots glittered in their depths; they reminded her of hellfire, and the hell of being eaten alive.

The thought of being cannibalized was the worst possible death she could imagine, worse than slow, painful torture, and certainly worse than being burned to death or flayed while conscious.

Alexa knew that she would soon meet her demise in just the way she feared, though, and her natural instinct for survival took over. She began struggling like mad against her tight bonds. She didn't care about the pain in her fingers and toes, or the blood slipping down her wrists as she jerked against the tight leather straps. She snarled defiance at the creature in front of her. Behind the monster stood Zuzack, smiling, and a laughing Hughes. Alexa's defiance deepened to pure hate, and once again, in a desperate effort of demonstrate some dignity, she forced herself to stopped struggling. She looked into Zuzack's eyes and whispered, in a voice colder than the absolute zero of deep space, "I forgive you...until next time."

Her words made Hughes beat on his knees and laugh so hard that tears poured down his rattish face, but Zuzack's smile flickered. In that instant, Alexa recognized in Zuzack something she never seen before: perhaps it was fear. Whatever it was, she didn't care: she gathered her last traces of saliva and spat it at the monster in front of her. But before the spittle reached the intended target, a long white tongue edged with tiny teeth shot out and caught it. With a snorting hiss, the tongue went back into the mouth; the monster just smacked her lips and said in that misleadingly motherly voice, "Oooh, feisty. And she tastes good, too, beautiful and perfect. I'll take her."

***

Alec and Lady Fuzza stood in an enormous chamber. The air stank of misery. In front of them stretched several lines consisting of hundreds of slave blocks, holding thousands of prisoners in bondage. There were all types of Omans, omanoids, and transgenics present, along with more alien species of every type in the known universe, and possibly a few more besides. They ranged in age from larvae and toddler to very old. The sentients were organized by species, age, gender, and family in some cases, and further subdivided by special expertise. As the earlier auction had, the scene brought back bad memories for Alec, and he begun to feel faint while observing all those poor people from all their different worlds.

Lady Fuzza noticed Alec's face turn pale and whispered, "If you don't feel well, then perhaps we can do this some other time?"

"No!" he said sharply. "I'm all right. Let's get this over with, before the real crowd gets here." Thus far, only they and about another dozen VIPs had been allowed into the vast room to inspect the "merchandise" prior to the arrival of the hoi polloi. Said commoners waited in their multitudes several levels up, behind large windows and electromagnetic screens: thousands of prospectors and merchants and equally many tourists, staring down at the VIPs in envy. They were all waiting, with eager anticipation, to be allowed onto the floor below.

There was a distinct odor of antiseptics in the room; it reminded Alec of the fresh smell of an infirmary or hospital. Everything was very clean, and the space station provided the slave traders with their own unique slave blocks to enhance the impression made on the buyers. The only thing any slave wore was a thin white shift, the better to show off the merchandise. Towards the center and at the corners of the room were areas with circular platforms, each with one or more slaves attached to a metal pole while the podium moved round in circles. Alec noticed that only very important slaves, such as those with higher education or expertise ratings, the more extraordinary sex slaves—or to use a more politically correct term, "pleasure servants"—and a few so-called "former celebrities" were displayed on the podiums.

A large female omanoid was their tour guide and salesperson. She had pale greenish skin and long yellow hair that was braided into an ornate curl on top of her oval skull; physically, she was very muscular and well-toned. The first impression she gave was of limited intelligence...but then Alec noticed the glint in her eyes, and suspected that she was very experienced and very intelligent indeed.

"I noticed that none of the slaves has been molested or otherwise hurt by any of the guards," Alec said to the slave trader.

She looked a bit baffled and answered, somewhat surprised, "Of course not, good sir. These beings are valuable products, worth many credits apiece. Why would anyone want to damage them? What do you think of us, that we are animals?" The trader shook her head and walked away down the aisle of slave blocks, muttering something under her breath. Alec followed her—but before he could catch up, he noticed several young Oman children sitting in their own miniature block, their hands and feet extended before them just as his had been a few months before. A young, very sad face caught his eye: it was that of a little girl, ten years old, tops. Her innocent expression practically shouted out,
Why, why me, what have I done wrong?
None of the young ones was gagged and Alec thought he knew why: if they dared speak or cry, or worse, make a scene, then they would be punished—perhaps even electrocuted, or something much worse. The thought of it sent cold chills down Alec's spine.

He passed by, unable to speak.

He stopped in front of one slave block and looked at two young girls, whom he estimated were no more than ten or twelve years old. They were giggling and sticking out their tongues at five boys of a similar age on the opposite side, attached to another slave block. The boys behaved as the girls did. Alec thought,
Strange... they let them laugh, but not cry?

The trader, who had returned to his side, read his mind—perhaps from his body language—and explained, "It is easier to sell a happy product than a sad one."

Alec ignored her remark. Instead, he turned to one of the laughing girls and asked, "What're you all laughing at? What's so funny?"

The little girl tried to wipe her teary eyes with her shoulder but failed. She looked towards the floor in an attempt to hide her expression, and then she replied shyly, as the rest of the children stopped laughing and took up similar submissive postures, "Ollie made a funny face. Master,
forgive us. We, we are not spoiled merchandise, and you will be pleased if you buy one or all of us, for we are experts in our field."