Chapter 1

Death.

“Ninety-seven, Ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred,” Sarina Deschanel counted before sighing and putting her hairbrush in her vanity’s drawer. One hundred brush strokes every morning and evening for forty-one years. Well, less, Sarina thought. She wasn’t sure how old she was when her nanny began brushing her hair. Five, maybe? Six? Call it thirty-five years. Thirty-five times three hundred and sixty-five times two hundred equalled ... a lot, Sarina thought defeatedly, giving up the math.

She stood and glided sedately to her bathroom. “A lady never rushes, Sarina,” her mother’s haughty voice told her. “Plebes and serfs rush because they have to be somewhere. A lady only has to be where she is, and she never gets there rushed.”

Picking up her silver handled toothbrush, Sarina placed a bead of toothpaste across its centre, pulled her long, straight, glossy black hair off one side of her face and readied herself to brush her teeth. Selena Deschanel, Sarina’s mother, would be horrified by this blatant protocol breach.

‘The last thing a lady does every night before she takes her rest is brush her hair,” Lady Selena, who wasn’t an aristocrat but liked to refer to herself as such, instructed her only child airily.

But Sarina had business in that bathroom and didn’t want to complete her preparations and then return to her bedroom to brush her hair because she knew that, as she had on so many other nights, she would lose courage and not complete her goal. Having finally completed stage one of her tasks, Sarina couldn’t stand the thought of not completing the final stage. Sarina spat, rinsed, and spat again. Then, she retouched her lipstick and put some eyedrops in to ensure her corneas were crystal clear.

“One shall never be seen with red eyes no matter how much one has drunk or how hard she has wept,” her mother’s haughty voice rang in her ears. “One is a lady and shall remain in control at all times.”

Stepping back, Sarina examined her figure. Long, lean, and elegant. B-cup breasts deliciously but modestly displayed by her clinging, cross-over ballgown. Her elegant stole over her shoulders and across her bosoms, hiding their firm, full glory.

“One needs to tease but never reveal, Sarina,” her mother’s voice gratingly droned in her ears. “Cheap, classless women reveal, Sarina. You do not wish to be categorised with them, do you, my dear?”

“Shut up,” Sarina whispered. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!”

Sarina twitched her gown’s long side-split aside. Long, lean, shapely legs deliciously encased in sheer black silk stockings. Suspenders above those. Black silk bikini briefs, beneath the suspenders, of course.

“Unless you’re a cheap hussy, Sarina, and plan on letting a man have his wicked way with you, why do you need to be able to remove your undergarments quickly?”

Sarina grimaced. She knew from long experience that her mother’s voice would drone on, lecturing her no matter what she did. She muttered, “Shut up,” again, anyway.

Lastly, Sarina checked her shoes. Black with low stiletto heels, of course. They, too, were perfect.

Sarina stepped into the bath and lowered herself into the hot water. She closed her wide, round, wet-looking brown eyes and sighed as the water seeped through her clothes and warmed her skin.

“One must always be elegant, well-dressed, and in control,” Lady Selena’s voice chastised. “Other than your husband in the brief moments you allow him to rut on you, a lady shall never be seen naked.” Husband? Hah! If it weren’t so sad, it would be laughable.

Sarina opened her eyes and picked up her grandfather’s Vietnam War army knife, honed to razor-sharpness by the mansion’s handyman. She examined it fascinatedly for a moment, her skin crawling at the sight of the blood drying on the hilt, before pushing it into her left wrist just above her hand and slicing a deep cut six inches vertically up that arm’s vein. Knowing her courage had failed, Sarina quickly swapped the knife to her left hand and repeated the cut on her right arm.

Sarina looked around, glad that none of her blood had spurted over the bath’s rim onto the floor. Such a mess could not be tolerated. She took her last moments to wash the blood off the tub’s sides and to rinse the stains on her gown above the water line. One should never be seen in disarray. Sarina had time to wonder if she shouldn’t have done her makeup, too. But it would have run in the bath’s steam, leaving her inelegant. No, clean-faced was best.

Sarina’s head sunk onto the tub’s edge, her mother’s voice finally, blessedly, silent.

Sarina Celeste Deschanel: Forty-one years old. Stunningly beautiful. A body the world’s top models would kill for. Sole inheritor of her grandfather’s four-billion-dollar empire and his last living descendant. Virgin. Never kissed. Never loved.

Dead.

What?

“You’ll be dead if you don’t remove your clothing immediately,” an impossibly deep, sonorous voice told her.

‘Dead?’ Sarina wondered. ‘Isn’t that why I cut my wrists? Am I not already dead? I distinctly remember the blood pouring copiously from my wrists.’ She opened her eyes and saw the impossibly tall, handsome, muscular man who went with that impossible voice. He was naked and chained to a stone wall by an iron collar around his neck. “I beg your pardon?” She asked, averting her eyes from the man’s massive cock. Surely that was impossible, too? Not that Sarina had anything to compare to.

“I said, ‘If you don’t remove your clothing immediately, you’ll be dead,’” the impossible man said.

“Why?” Sarina asked confusedly.

“Slaves aren’t allowed clothing,” the man explained as if that made sense.

Unconsciously falling into her mother’s haughty demeanour, Sarina looked down her nose and said, “I am the heiress to a four-billion-dollar empire, not a slave.”

“Yeah, most of those sounded like words,” the impossible man said. “But I have no idea what they mean. But if you have a collar and chain like this,” he hefted his, “and you’re chained to the wall, then you’re a slave. If you don’t already have one, the overseer will brand your ass when he gets here.”

What?

Huh?

I’m experiencing some kind of delirium my mind’s creating as it dies, Sarina decided, lying back down and closing her eyes. She’d be dead soon, and this, whatever this is, wouldn’t matter.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” the impossible man said resignedly.

“Who, or should I say, what is this?” a loud, grating voice above Sarina asked.

Even in her addled state, Sarina knew the voice’s owner expected instant obedience to his every command. She left her eyes closed, ignoring everything. Sarina was well-skilled in doing that. It was the simplest way to survive her mother.

A massive hand grabbed her iron collar and unceremoniously dragged her to her feet. “Why is it clothed?” The grating voice asked.

“New girl, recently harvested from those dying on Earth,” the man holding Sarina’s collar stated. “The harvesters must have forgotten to remove her clothing when they took her.”

‘This was too much,’ Sarina thought, on her tiptoes but hanging limply from the gripped collar, her weight only minimally supported by her calves so she wouldn’t choke to death. Another trick she’d learned as a child when her mother had lost the plot and was shaking her like a rag doll—be that rag doll. Do not react lest you be hit. ‘Harvested? Harvesters? Taken from Earth? If this was dying, it sucked as badly as living.’

“Strip it and then flog it. It needs to learn the rules.”

‘Flogged? What? No possible way!’ Opening her eyes, Sarina said as haughtily as she knew her mother could, “I am The Lady Sarina Celeste Deschanel. Unless you want me to have you arrested, I suggest you release me immediately.”

“Double the amount,” the grating voice demanded.

“This one’s destined for The Masters’ Mansion,” the man holding Sarina’s collar warned. “Sending it whipped and bleeding might not be the smartest move.”

“Let me see,” the man whose voice grated said. There was a delay, and then the paper rustled before the grating man muttered, “Age: 18. Weight: 55kg. Height 178 cm: Measurements: 34C-22-34. Beauty Index: 9.5. Sexual experience: Virgin for vagina. Mouth and anus, unknown. Yeah. It’s definitely headed to The Masters’ Mansion. Strip it, brand its right butt cheek with an M, and put it in the cage for delivery to Kingsholme.”

“The paperwork says to send it naked but unmarked,” the man holding her collar said, fearing the grating voiced man’s response.

“Huh?” The grating voiced man said. “All slaves need to be branded so we know who owns them. Fuck! Whatever!”

Sarina heard his voice fading as he stormed off, raging about finding and punishing whoever fucked up his paperwork.

Where?

The man gripping Sarina’s iron collar had been holding her on her tiptoes for an incredible length of time. Sarina’s calves had cramped from supporting herself so she didn’t strangle on the collar, and only years of remaining limp while her mother abused her allowed Sarina to maintain her stance and endure silently. She hadn’t dared keep her eyes open because to do so would have enraged Selena. “Do not challenge me with your defiant eyes, Sarina,” her mother would say icily. Even when Selena was enraged, her voice was calm and serene, even if her actions weren’t.

Sarina heard more than felt the razor-sharp knife slicing her ballgown’s back. Swift slices along her arms, and the $3,500 gown was peeled off her body. Even though she kept her eyes tightly closed, Sarina blushed at being so exposed. Not since she’d turned thirteen when her mother had dispensed with her nanny had Sarina been before others other than entirely and appropriately dressed.

She whimpered when she felt her bra straps being cut, and despite fearing what her mother would do, she cried out when her suspenders, stockings and panties were sliced off her body. Naked! Naked before others! Sarina was never to be naked other than when bathing, getting dressed, or changing for bed.

“Sluts and tramps enjoy being naked, Sarina,” Selena haughtily stated after her she had found Sarina naked on her bed and exploring her youthful body. “And only sluts and tramps enjoy the sins of the flesh. Are you a slut or tramp, Sarina? Is that why you’re naked and touching yourself so disgustingly?”

“Why does it have hair?” A voice asked. “It’s disgusting and makes me want to throw up.

Sarina’s mind couldn’t keep up. She’d noticed that the man who’d spoken to her first was bald, but she’d assumed it was an affectation like some house servants’ had worn. They had typical male-pattern baldness, so they shaved all their hair off rather than have that often ridiculous hair ring.

“The paperwork that goes with this one says it’s allowed to keep her head hair but to remove the rest.”

“Don’t touch me,” Sarina demanded, keeping her eyes closed so she didn’t have to see the men ogling her body, but not wanting to be touched to remove her pussy hair as the man had intimated.

“Hairy, and it talks too much,” the voice who observed she had hair said disgustedly. “Why don’t you gag it, brand it, and toss it in the pen with the others to be sold? Save The Masters the trouble of trying to train it.”

“A gag, for sure,” the man holding her said. “Bring that rubber ball one, and do the honours, would ya?”

The man who had expressed disgust at Sarina’s hair loomed before her, holding a traditional rubber ball gag. Not that Sarina knew what it was, but its purpose was evident in its construction. She tried to turn her head aside and keep her mouth closed, but she might as well have been the mouse between the cat’s jaws. The man holding her wasn’t affected by Sarina trying to turn, and the disgusted man gripped where her upper and lower jaws met. He squeezed hard, and the pain popped Sarina’s mouth open like a triggered Jack-in-the-Box. The ball gag was tied in place seconds later.

“Great tits on this one,” the disgusted man observed. “Must be a full C-cup.” He casually groped Sarina’s never-before touched breasts, and her nipples responded as they were supposed to when stroked. “Likes being touched, too,” the man chuckled, running his thumbs over the swollen nubs. “Do you think The Masters will mind if we have a bit of fun with it before we send it up?”

“It’s a virgin, Petrus,” the man holding her said. “I’d say that if you don’t want your balls and hands cut off, and your eyes gouged out, you release it immediately.”

“Jaysus, Paolo!” Petrus said. “A virgin? You know, it’s no wonder they send the harvesters to Earth so often. Where else do you get so many legal-aged virgins?”

“Yeah,” Paolo agreed. “Ever since The Bishops banned progression treatment to mature those young enough to be virgins to the appropriate age for sex, Earth’s become their favourite garden to harvest. There are apparently more virgins over the age of eighteen there than anywhere else they take from.”

“They used regression treatments on this one?” Petrus queried.

Paolo checked his notes. “Yeah. It was forty-one when it committed suicide. They increased its breast size to a C-cup and regressed it to eighteen. Otherwise, it’s unchanged.” Paolo checked his notes again and musingly added, “There was a sixty-year-old human female in the place they got it from, but she was too damaged and had been dead for too long when the harvesters got there, and they couldn’t pluck her.”

“Where was that?” Petrus asked as he took out a spray bottle from his kit.

“It says Manly West, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, Earth.”

“Where?”

The Deschanel Mansion, Manly West, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

“That wraps it up,” Detective Mike Brodie said after taking one last look around. “Definitive murder/suicide. The younger woman enters the elder’s bathroom and stabs her eighteen times as she lies in the bath. Next, the younger woman cleans up, undresses and places her bloody clothes in the hamper before washing the blood off in the shower in the same bathroom. Then, she comes down the stairs to her room and dresses in a ballgown, etc. Finally, she gets in the bath down here and cuts her wrists. Fucking nut bag. The coroner will have to confirm, but my guess is the suicide knife is also the murder one.”

“There’s been a lot of death in this house,” Mike’s partner, Detective Stan Alves, observed. “We’re sure the son killed old man Deschanel but can’t prove it. We’re certain The Lady Selena killed the son, her husband, but we can’t prove that either. Now, the granddaughter of the old man has killed her mother and herself. At least we can prove that!”

“Even in death, the granddaughter’s a fine piece,” Brodie stated. “It’s a waste, really.”

“Yeah, don’t let Captain Tucker hear you say shit like that,” Alves chided. “Or she’ll send you back to suck up to those hags in HR again.”

“Yeah,” Brodie agreed before chuckling. “Better not let those hags hear you either.” Brodie called to the constable guarding the door, “You can send the ambos in to pick up the bodies.”

Transported.

Unbelievably, Sarina remained held on her tiptoes by Paolo as Petrus knelt before her and sprayed liquid over her nether regions. Petrus even parted her pussy lips and butt cheeks to ensure her got the liquid wherever there was hair. Sarina thought that if she weren’t already dead, she would have died on the spot from embarrassment. Her shame was compounded when Petrus’ thumb brushed her clitoris, and it engorged. When Petrus stood and moved away, Sarina was ecstatic because she was terrified that he’d realise she was wet.

Petrus returned with a hose and a brush with rubber nodules. He poured another type of liquid on the brush then sprayed the warm water on Sarina’s pussy. The brush followed, scrubbing her hair away. Petrus repeated these actions on Sarina’s perineum, ass, rosebud, and her armpits. Further inspection revealed that Sarina’s arms were covered with light hairs and her legs by shaved ones. More hair removal liquid was sprayed across her entire body and then removed, eliminating all traces of body hair.

“Shall I fetch the brand?” Petrus asked?

“No,” Paolo said regretfully. “It says to leave her unmarked.”

“It’ll serve The Masters right if one or more of the transporters decide to use it on its way to The Mansion,” Petrus shrugged, washing his hands of the situation.

An unbranded slave, like an unmarked steer, was free to be claimed by any who came across it and wanted it. If the unbranded slave was not in a travel cage or it was outside and not collared and accompanied by its owner, anyone who desired it could place their mark on it and claim rights over it.

Petrus thought such sweet meat as Sarina wouldn’t make the one-hundred-kilometre trip unbranded and not be claimed by someone along the way. Then, all the claimer had to do was say it was outside the cage and, therefore, fair game. They’d have to leave no witnesses, though, like those pesky transport drivers and guards.

Paolo finally let Sarina sink onto her heels. Still holding the collar around her neck, he picked up wrist and ankle shackles and told Sarina to put them on. The strength of her captor prevented Sarina from protesting, and she reluctantly complied. Paolo then undid the chain holding Sarina to the stone wall, and he connected a shorter chain to her collar, hand and ankle shackles. Although the thick chain ran between Sarina’s breasts, emphasising their lush fullness, it also ran between her legs, and partially obscured her freshly denuded pussy, which Sarina was grateful for.

Paolo dragged Sarina to the cell’s front and opened the locked bars. Relocking them behind him, Paolo forced Sarina up the stairs and out onto the street. Sarina blinked at the bright light and looked around. If she’d been asked where she was, she would have guessed at Mexico or perhaps one of the South American countries she’d only seen in movies or on TV. The adobe-style buildings of whitewashed brick looked familiar and soothing. However, the twin suns above her head standing at six and four p.m. on a clock told her this wasn’t Mexico, or even Earth for that matter.

The town (City? Settlement? Village?) was a strange mixture of Earth’s past and a possible future. Animals resembling horses and bullocks were interspersed with hovercrafts that seemed electrically driven. Aircraft that more resembled sci-fi spaceships than Earth planes dotted the sky, but most of the men walking past wore simple white clothing made from cotton or linen. Crude sandals covered most walkers’ feet, and wide sombrero-type hats hid them from the sun.

Cowboys, looking like their film counterparts, complete with leather chaps and pistols in holsters, tied by leather thongs to their thighs, strutted down boardwalks or the dusty street looking for a fight or gun battle. Their pistols weren’t classic six-shooters. Instead, if Sarina had to guess, they were laser pistols. She doubted they were the safe ones used in laser game parlours on Earth.

Saloons and honky-tonks with self-closing wooden batwing doors dotted every street corner. Piano music issued from within. Sarina could easily imagine she’d somehow been sucked into a Sergio Leone movie. Hmm, except for the hovercraft. Star Wars, then?

It was hot! And she was naked. But the many men walking by carefully avoided looking at her directly. An accompanied, collared and chained woman in public could only mean trouble for any man who studied her obtrusively, especially in a world where breeders were so few.

The sights were so foreign to the sheltered, city-raised Sarina that she stared around, momentarily forgetting she was naked, outside, and in public. A hover vehicle pulling up before her returned Sarina’s attention to the here and now. She blushed embarrassedly when two men got out and stared at her. “This is the virgin human from Earth?”

‘Where else did humans come from?’ Sarina wondered, but then looked around at the men in the street. They certainly looked human, if far better put-together examples than those she knew from Earth.

“This is it,” Paolo confirmed.

“You have its papers?” The man asked, holding out his hand.

Paolo sighed regretfully because he knew this trip would not end well for one or more of them, and he feared the ‘one’ would be him. He handed over his papers, saying, “I have my orders. I go with to ensure she makes it to The Masters’ Mansion alive and unmolested.”

“That’s highly irregular,” the hover driver stated, taking Paolo’s papers and reading them.

“Too many slaves have somehow gone missing or been taken on their way to The Mansion,” Paolo said evenly. “I cast no aspersions, but your transport service has been unreliable recently.”

“We’re the largest transport division in these parts,” the driver bristled. “We lose no more by percentage than the other services do.”

“Still,” Paolo insisted. “I have my orders, and so do you. Unless you wish to challenge an order from a Master?”

“Not likely,” the driver swiftly denied. “I do need to check in with base first, though.”

“Be my guest,” Paolo said negligently. “I ain’t got nothing but time.”

The driver slid into the hover’s cabin and picked up a cylindrical item Sarina assumed was a communications device similar to Earth’s CB Radio or perhaps cellular network. He exited the vehicle before saying, “Base confirms your orders. “But you ride in the cage with the slave.”

“Where I’m helpless if the raiders strike.”

“It is what it is,” The driver said, chuckling evilly. “You don’t have to ride. We can always say we left without you.”

“I’m riding,” Paolo said definitively. He reached back inside the doorway and brought out what Sarina’s mind interpreted as a laser shotgun. It had a thick energy canister like she’d seen in sci-fi movies instead of a magazine. Paolo lifted Sarina into the cage and climbed in after her. His eyes glittering maliciously, the driver shut and locked the cage door. “You die first when the shit hits the fan,” Paolo said flatly.

The driver chuckled, patting the hover’s cabin. “This can take a direct hit from a ship’s laser. Your popgun will only bounce off it.”

“Even so,” Paolo grated as the driver got in. Seconds later, they were off.

Sarina hadn’t been inside an electric car yet—limousines weren’t typically fitted with electric engines. But the hover was as she had read and imagined an electric car would be. She could hear little more than a faint whine as the vehicle lifted off the ground and moved forward. It made a harsh U-turn that would have thrown Sarina into the cage bars if Paolo hadn’t caught her before heading back the way it came.

The heiress wondered how far away The Mansion was. It sounded like it had to be some distance out of town if Paolo was concerned about being ambushed. Sarina also wondered how dangerous the trip was. Paolo certainly seemed to think it was. Sarina believed Paolo suspected the driver and his offsider were in on the raids on the delivery service’s vehicles, which worried her. Sarina definitely did not trust Paolo. But her admittedly atrophied instincts warned her that the driver was even less worthy of trust because he was the only man in the street who had openly ogled her.

‘Was she desirable?” Sarina wondered. Her mother certainly had never indicated she was. Instead, Selena took every opportunity to criticise Sarina’s skinny body, which could never attract a man. Proof? Sarina was unmarried and unkissed. Selena stated she’d been unable to find a single man who would even consider entering into a marriage with her. However, the man called Petrus had admired her, and now the driver had ogled her blatantly. So?

“When the shooting starts, flatten yourself on the hover’s floor,” Paolo said tersely. “It’ll take over an hour to get to The Masters’ Mansion, and it’ll be dark by then. I guess the raiders will hit us on dusk.”

Sarina, whose sheltered life hadn’t prepared her for any of this, squeaked and immediately spread herself on the floor as best she could, given she was shackled.

Paolo looked at her and shook his head. It was gorgeous. That was true. But it was a mouse, and Paolo liked his lovers to be passionate and aggressive. He thought fucking the human would be similar to humping his pillow like he was occasionally forced to do when he was on tour with his squad guarding the kingdom’s borders. He sighed again. How the fuck had he been unlucky enough to pull this gig? If Meester Dawid, the Master who had requisitioned Sarina, thought there would be trouble, why hadn’t he allowed him to bring his entire squad?

The journey continued uninterrupted, and eventually, Sarina felt ridiculous and sat on the bench seat opposite Paolo. But then she felt awkward under his gaze, even though he barely looked at her and kept his eyes on their surroundings. Sarina changed sides but sat as far from her captor as possible. But now that she was closer to him, Sarina could smell his man smell, which wasn’t something she was even remotely accustomed to.

Her father died when she was less than five years old, and she could barely remember what he looked like. Her Grandfather died not long after she’d been born. Sarina had been home-schooled by her nanny, who was also a qualified school teacher, until she was thirteen. She then attended a prestigious girls-only school in Suffolk, England, until she graduated at age eighteen. So, she had virtually no contact with men except when she dutifully accompanied her mother to the many charity events Selena patroned. Those men didn’t smell of musk and fresh sweat; that was for sure!

Lifting her wrists, Sarina examined the iron bands on them. They were another example of this world’s dichotomy, she thought. Surely, a society capable of building electric hover vehicles would have discovered steel, if not stainless steel? A prison with stonewalls and iron chains but illuminated by electric lights? Horses and bullocks for transportation, but battery-powered laser pistols and rifles? Muslin cloths covering glassless windows, but electronic touch door opening on their vehicles? Sarina decided this must be some kind of post-life/pre-death dream that would end when her body finally gave up the struggle to live.

She frowned, examining her wrists again. ‘No scar. WTF?’ Wait! What had the overseer said? Age: 18. Measurements: 34C-22-35. But she was forty-one and only a B-cup. She knew that because her measurements remained unchanged from her last year at Ipswich High School twenty-three years ago. Her shackles prevented Sarina from cupping her breasts to estimate their size. Not that she would have with Paolo watching. But still. A mirror would have been nice, too.

The Mansion.

Paolo unceremoniously slamming her face first onto the hover’s cage floor, woke Sarina up. Even her jaw aching from being held open by the gag hadn’t prevented Sarina’s overwrought mind from shutting down and casting her into a troubled sleep. In her dreams, she stabbed her mother over and over again. She’d meant to slip up behind her and cut her throat, but the woman looking up at her with her accusatory eyes enraged Sarina. Her mind turned to white-hot heat and snapped. All the years of physical, mental and emotional abuse raged through her, and Sarina shifted her grandfather’s army knife to an overhand grip, her thumb on the hilt’s top as she’d been shown, and stabbed it into Selena’s chest.

Sarina continued stabbing until her mother stopped screaming, and then she stabbed several more times to make sure she’d never condemn Sarina with her words or eyes ever again. Sarina stood, looking around, disgusted, although not by her mother’s stab wound-riddled body. Instead, Sarina was appalled by the mess she and the bathroom were in. Her body working autonomically, Sarina collected a bucket, rags and a mop from the hallway cupboard and cleaned her mother’s blood from the walls and floor around the bath.

When she was satisfied that her mother couldn’t find fault in the bathroom’s cleanliness, Sarina undressed, carefully placed her blood-soaked clothes in the hamper, and entered the shower. Sarina, carefully ensuring her mind remained blank and unaware of her mother’s dead body, washed herself until she was certain all traces of gore had gone down the drain. Then, daringly, because she’d only ever done it once before, Sarina wrapped a towel around her sublime body and glided down the stairs to her bedroom.

Her face smacking into the cage floor snapped Sarina out of the dream. “Stay there!” Paolo snarled, peering over the low solid side. Like the hover’s cabin, the sidewalls of the cage could take a direct hit by a ship-to-surface laser canon and survive, although the entire vehicle would be tossed dozens of feet through the air. “Fuckers!” Paolo shouted after the fleeing driver and his offsider. He wasted a shot at them before flattening himself beside Sarina to escape the returning fire from the raiders surrounding the hover.

Paolo was fucked; that he knew for sure. However, he would take as many of these fuckers with him as he could. The raiders might be able to keep him pinned down in the hover’s tray, but if they wanted the prize of the young woman he was escorting, they’d eventually have to come close enough to open the cage.