Chapter 6: Okthi or Than

I knew I should have paid more attention to the Laurin Oghr, especially since I knew about the Bunthik subculture. The only excuse I had was the fact that I was drunk, but then this was no excuse because I should not have left my guard down like that in an environment that was less than familiar to me.

I should have suspected the presence of more than one spy.

If the situation was as serious as I believed it was, the opposing actors namely this Cam Elf-Na would not give up easily.

All this went to my mind as I drifted back to consciousness.

The first thing I noted was the smell of unwashed humans and the second thing I noticed was the cages. I was completely naked and inside a cage with a dozen other naked beings, mostly Dai females.

The humming vibration of the deck plates told me that we were aboard a ship traveling in quasi-space and towards an unknown destination. The nature of the ship was no mystery to me, I was aboard a slave ship.

“Where are we?” I asked one of the Dai women.

She stared at me with her bright yellow eyes.

“Han-Man. We are with Han-Man now.”

“How did we end up here?”

“Marhii does not know.”

Another Dai woman came closer.

“Yvii knows.”

“Then I think Yvii should tell me.”

“You are the one, that became Than, a female!”

“And this is why we are here?”

“The Hi now believe in you, but there are those who do not. They do not like females to be Than. I want to be Than! There are those who pretend to be Hi but are not Hi. They do not want Hi to be at Thana Shoo. If the Tar speaks, the Cam will be purged. The Cam does not want to be purged.”

I wrung my hands.

“You Dai females speak like idiots, I am sorry to say. Even a Poho makes more sense.

“I regretted my harsh response almost as fast as I uttered it.

“I do get the idea. There are those who do not like women to have a bigger share. Nothing new really, I have to admit I come from a very similar background, and there are spies and subversive elements planted within the Hi tribe to prevent them to get to Thana Shoo.”

She nodded.

“Many Daiyee want to speak not like idiots. Many Dai prohibit their Daiyee to speak, to learn. A Daiyee is owned by her Dai. A mighty Dai might have many Daiyee.”

I sighed.

“I can’t really stomp at your ice while sitting on thin ice myself. Nilfeheim society has a long way to go, but you are Union now.”

I then made a gesture towards the bars of the cage.

“That still does not explain this, and where are we exactly?”

“Those who serve, but are not spoken off opened the doors to Ku. They made us sleep and now we are with Han-Man, this is the merchant of Daiyee and he delights in selling us to those who want us.”

Another female said.

“Kiwii thinks we will be sent to the tribe of the Elf-Na. He has many Than who want more Daiyee.”

I had to think for a minute.

“This Han-Man is Dai?”

“Yes, he is Dai. He is not Than, because the Man do not fight. The Man trade things between other tribes.”

Cold anger started to grip my stomach.

“The trade of Daiyee is not unknown or against laws?”

“Daiyee are not Than. A pretty Daiyee able to carry sons can be the price of a Kahri.”

“I spend the last year hunting slavers and trying to stomp out this vile practice and there are slavery and the sale of sentient beings going on right here, done by a Union member. If this is a common practice, endorsed by Dai leaders and it comes to light. The Dai will be investigated and every Dai involved in the trade of sentient beings will be executed. This is our societies most sacred law, and you Dai accepted it.”

I talked in anger but saw that my words hit blank faces, who did not understand.

“Yvii does not understand all the words you spoke, but Yvii feels your anger and she is angry too. Yvii wants to be Than.”

“The first chance I get Yvii, I will help you to become Than. First, we need to get out of here somehow.”

“Where is she?” Har-Hi yelled.

The Laurin domestic spread her arms.

“She is declared Than. As such she has not shared her destination. All we know is, she left with her things packed.”

Har-Hi’s fingers flickered.

“Don’t lie!”

The Laurin Buthnik openly shocked that the Dai prince knew their secret language.

“She was sent to Han-Man with other Daiyee. Many Than wanted to get rid of their troublesome Daiyee, the Han-Man did good business.”

Har-Hi paled. While he had almost forgotten about it, he knew it had been a common practice among all Dai. Women had never been on the same level as men, the recent changes were still on the surface and it would take decades to reach the last corners of Dai society. As a Union citizen, he also realized how dangerous this particular practice was to Union Dai and Union membership.

But he had to deal with this first. To the Buthnik he said.

“There are not enough men on this mother to have her submit to this.”

“But there are enough Bunthik with Neuro Rippers.

“The domestic Laurin knew her life was forfeit so she spat her response in open defiance.”

“I will personally purge this tribe of all Laurin and sent your name and carcass to the Laurin king. You will be the reason your family dies.”

She whimpered in fear, but her misery did not last more than a heartbeat, the sharp blade of the Dai Prince had split her in half. The bloody pieces dropping to the gleaming floor while Har-Hi was already halfway out the door, running to find his father.

“Our departure was premature.

“One of the Androids concluded.

“This vessel we obtained is not as spaceworthy as initially considered.

“Our departure was necessary. The Last Servant is not impotent, it does not have the ability to decide, but it does have the ability to inform the new owner. The new owner controls the Inheritance, including casern bots. We are formidable but not able to overcome casern bots.

“The lead unit of the Androids answered.

“We do not suffer the needs of biological life. The loss of atmosphere and engines is regrettable but not a fatal condition.

“A third unit said.

The lead unit however objected.

“It is apparent that the gain of sentience and the ability to chose has impaired our ability to act on strict logical input. Our vessel lost the drive, thus we are adrift in deep space. At current speed, we will reach the next star system in 799,453 Seenian long time units. This exceeds the energy reserves of our bodies and we will cease to exist. We are not in the storage unit that kept us suspended and energized.”

The second unit managed to sound regretful.

“We are woken to determine our destiny and our destiny is oblivion.”

“One detects an artificial object within the range of one’s sensors.”

“Communication is attempted.”

The lead unit opened his senors to reception.

“This is the SII-Nocturne...”

Yvonne, the artificial assistant of Rex Schwartz stalked on her five-inch heels into the executive office of Rex Schwartz. There were less than ten individuals knowing that Yvonne was not a human being but perhaps the most advanced android, Union science could come up with. Her existence was technically highly illegal as she was created to be sentient. She was the roaming extension of OMNITRON, the AI of Schwartz Interstellar Industries and she carried enough firepower to take on a squad of Quasimodo wearing Marines. Yvonne was utterly dedicated to her owner and creator, she was also the only one able to walk into this office, the very hub of SSI might without being announced and admitted.

The bulky bald-headed man behind an enormous desk made of a single block of black Obsidian immediately paid attention to her.

“Yvonne?”

“Your feeling regarding the Seenian inheritance was quite correct, Rex. It was the USS Tigershark or more so her crew that located it.”

“I was certain those enormous ships suddenly appearing, weren’t found by that old warhorse. The Tigershark came back damaged and that gave us a chance to retrieve the hidden location recorder.”

He paused.

“But we could only trace her to a planet that is now occupied by the outcasts and former terminal ill of the Furze.”

“Indeed, Sir. However, SII sent several explorer units in that region of space. The SII- Nocturne made contact with sentient Seenian androids.”

There was no telling how long I was in that miserable slave transport. The food was served via a slot in the wall. It was an almost unbearably spicy stew of some kind.

I used the time to examine my new environment. A cage about twenty meters deep, ten wide and perhaps six meters tall. The cage had a perforated steel floor and nothing in terms of comfort. Water came from spouts installed in the wall, this box was shoved against. That wall also contained the food dispenser. The food was served in plastic bowls that slowly deteriorated and turned into a fine crumbling dust after about an hour.

The cage walls consisted of steel bars, about ten centimeters apart.

There were five such cages with about ten females in each.

The worst part was the total lack of hygiene. Other than a heavy shower of lukewarm water washing everything and everyone perhaps twice daily.

Not even the slaves at Alvor’s cove were treated this inhumane and bad. So I asked Yvii about it and she said.

“This is done to make Daiyee thankful when they are sold to their Than.”

My cagemate I knew as Kiwii said.

“Small tribes that come to Union not do this, but big old tribes do.”

I grunted, clenching my fist.

“I am sure going to show that Than my thankfulness.”

If I used the regular occurring showers as a reference, I assumed we had been perched up like that for about six or seven days, at least approximately.

I felt sore, from sitting or laying on the cold hard floor, but I kept a rigid regiment of exercises including pull-ups, using the top bars.

Yvii joined me after the third day and Kiwii the next.

I had just finished my exercises, trying to time them with the shower, when the vibrations of the deck plates changed.

That the other women were of a true space-born society became apparent, because they all noticed. Yvii had her hands on the cage floor.

“We are no longer travel between but returned to our space. Where ever we going to be, we will be there soon.”

We did not have to wait very long. The environmental noises changed once again. The distinct high pitched hum of Arti-Grav made me wonder. Arti-Gravs whistling like that meant the ship we were in was fighting the gravity of a planet. I somehow expected us to dock with another Dai Mother.

The Arti-Grav whistle died down and moments later four Dai men came in, laughing and making very rude comments ogling at the naked women, me included. Me being the only blonde and pink skinned one made me stick out like a blinking advertisement sign.

One of them, a tall scar-faced Dai; the first I have seen with short hair and armed with a single blaster, instead of long hair, crisscrossing harness and swords; came close.

“Oh, there she is, the famous female Than, a pink-skinned weak human bitch. The Tar of the Hi certainly went soft!”

My arm sneaked so fast past the steel bars grabbed his helmet collar and pulled him with all the force I could muster. His face and more so his nose impacted with a satisfying crunch into that unyielding steel. I relaxed my pull for only a heartbeat and pulled again. I had no problem taking the blaster out of his open holster. Silently thanking our instructors teaching us about non-Union weapons, I found the activation controls right away. The blast went past that mocking goons ear and roasted the head of a second to ashes.

“Oh, I am a bitch alright!”

Of the remaining two, one was pulling his blaster while the other turned to run back out. My aim was a tad off because I still held the dazed one that involuntarily kissed the steel bars. My second blast did not hit the shoulder, but the actual weapon. His blaster exploded with a violent release of a few grams of antimatter or whatever energy source the thing had stored. It vaporized him, caught the one that was almost out the door and set him on fire. I was lucky holding that short-haired Dai, his back took most of the blistering heat. He screamed on top of his lungs.

I was certain some of my long blonde hair was neither long nor blond anymore. The stench of burning hair and roasted flesh hung in the air. None of the women in the cages were unaffected, but since they had retreated to the far end, it seemed none of their injuries was life-threatening.

I did not waste time and used the blaster to cut several bars, making a big enough hole.

I was completely naked and realized that as the melted bars radiated torching heat.

There was not much time, I was certain whoever commanded this ship already knew that the unloading of the Slave women did not go according to plan.

My weapon was the Dai version of a Kermac Line blaster. It took me only a second or so to change the beam focus and fire a thin blast into the water service line that supplied the high-pressure shower nozzles installed above the cages.

Torrents of water gushed down, connected with the glowing surfaces instantly turning into billowing clouds of obscuring steam.

Yvii, Kiwii try to stay alive, I will come back for you. Right now I must stay on the move and see if I can not change ownership of this vessel.”

With two jumps I was out, gathered the blaster of the headless slaver.

The mechanical hum of the access door made me turn. Still crouched I catapulted myself towards the opening. I figured I had a better fighting chance past the slave holds, my first prerogative was to secure the situation, then determine where I was and either establish communications with Union assets or find a spacecraft I could operate.

At this point, I did not trust anything Dai, with the exception of Har-Hi perhaps.

Through the billowing steam, a Dai in combat suit appeared. The heavy downpour of water outlined his shields. I was rolling past him through the door frame into some sort of corridor. He was turning in a lumbering slow motion. It was his bad luck, that I had been there before.

I fired both blasters, not into his shields but right in the deck plates before him. He was still turning, lost his balance and fell with a shattering crash. In all my misery I grinned.

“This would have never worked against a Union Marine, amateur.”

The massive door was already closing. The second it hit the frame I blasted the controls and hoped it would disable the door for long enough for me to get away.

Back on my feet, I bolted down the corridor, since I had no idea where I was any direction was fine.

I just hoped I could take some sort of important hostage or escape before they got wise and used intruder containment measures.

Aboard a Union ship, I would have never made it this far. But perhaps these goons never expected a female to escape. Well, this would teach them a lesson.

The corridor was utilitarian, yet there was something odd about the light. After covering another twenty or so meters in that curved corridor I knew why there was an open hatch. The light was not artificial, it was the light of a sun. The wind I felt and air I smelled was that of a planet and not that of a ships environmental systems. Two Dai Than were guarding it, from their body language I could tell they had not yet been alarmed or informed.

Both died a heartbeat later I had two blasters and fired simultaneously, I felt no remorse. Aiming and firing two weapons sounded harder than it was, beam weapons were as easily aimed like a flashlight.

I glanced outside looking at a glaring landing field with other spaceships. Nothing looked Union, the ships I saw didn’t even look Dai. I dragged the smaller one of the now headless guards away from the door frame. I had to salvage as much equipment and if possible some clothing and boots.

Har-Hi did not sit down, despite the Tar suggesting it.

“No father I can not sit down. This matter goes beyond and it is a matter that must be handled by the Tar instantly and without delay. I am not before you as your son, or as the declared Vant-Kath. I am here as Union Officer. Do you have any idea what kind of storm this will cause? A Union citizen and Union Captain sold by our tribe into slavery?”