Chapter 6
Staying out of his way seems like a really good idea. Seems like the only thing to do. I stick around Boss and Sharp almost exclusively for a day or two, but after a while, I find myself drawn back to him.
Maybe it’s because I’m stupid, or maybe it’s because I feel uncomfortable at the idea of a massive alien just lurking around the ship being angry at me. That makes me more nervous than just confronting him directly.
I pace back and forth in front of his door for what feels like an eternity before getting up the courage to go in.
“Kronos!” I shout his name and walk into his room. I guess I’m trying to project a strong front?
“What?” He looks up at me from a book he was reading.
“Are you mad at me?”
He looks at me, and for a moment there is so much fury in his eyes I think he might tear me apart. Then he bites it back, or fights it down, or whatever it is an alien like him does in order to not rip me to pieces.
“There is no point in being angry with you,” he says. “You have always been uncontrollable. That’s why we lost you the first time, and it’s why we’ll lose you again.”
I frown slightly at that.
“You got to evaporate people the other day. Doesn’t that make you feel better?”
“No. Knowing that I have you safe, knowing that you’re not an amnesiac time bomb waiting to go off, and being able to complete simple missions without you interfering would make me feel better.”
“So you’re giving up?”
That should make me feel good. If I can talk them into letting me go because I’m so annoying, that’s kind of the best escape. It means they won’t come after me again. It means I’ve won?
Winning should feel better than this sick sense of sadness and guilt.
“Are you going to…”
“I will deal with you,” he growls. “Later, when I am less angry.”
I nod and walk away. I guess that went pretty well. I shouldn’t really care what he thinks about me. He’s my captor. I’m his captive. I’m not really here to please him. I’m here to escape.
So why do I have this feeling of guilt and angst around disappointing him?
Seems kind of mad really. I need to get my head straight.
No matter what happened in the past, I have to live with the future.
I have to decide if I like these aliens or not.
Maybe I just have to admit to myself that I do like them, and they all clearly seem to like me. Even Kronos.
Later that evening, the worst thing that has happened yet, happens. I have been spanked, fucked, zapped into instant orgasm over and over, but I was not prepared for my three mates to sit me down for an earnest conversation.
“There’s tension,” Sharp says. “And I want to address it. We worked long and hard to find our pet again, but we cannot go on like this. We cannot keep her against her will, and we can’t function with constant rebellion.
For this to work, we have to all decide we are in agreement as to our roles.
” He looks at me quite seriously. “We can punish you from time to time, pet. But we cannot constantly watch you, unless you want to live your life in a cage.”
“It was always going to end this way,” Kronos says, gloomily fatalistic. “We never really had her under control.”
“We could go to an inhabited planet,” Sharp suggests. “Somewhere safe that has no major predators, no human sellers, and a peaceful culture. Somewhere we can work out our relationship between ourselves.”
“It won’t be peaceful with us there for long,” Boss points out. “We’re restless. All of us. All four of us,” he adds more pointedly.
“I want you to tell me what happened in the days before I disappeared,” I say. “I want to know why you’re saying this was never going to work.”
“You were obsessed with saving humans from alien fates. It was our fault. We used to do a lot of human rescues where we could. When we met you, we decided to keep you and breed with you,” Sharp explains.
“You were similar enough in temperament to us that we all felt drawn to you, and that your genes would provide our offspring with necessary strength. But you became obsessed with freeing humans from their owners. It was very dangerous. We tried to stop you, but you always found a way to get into trouble.”
“Sounds like me. Story checks out. Continue.”
“That’s it. You disappeared,” he says. “We thought you had been captured while trying to save other humans and gotten yourself taken away. You were not easy to trace.”
I think about that.
The idea of women being dragged off the planet and given to aliens who fuck them or eat them or what the fuck ever still horrifies me. I was prepared to lose my life for it when I had a good job and a comfy apartment, and I still am now.
“She’s got that look in her eye,” Kronos sighs.
“Can’t we just stop the illegal human trade and be done?
I know the aliens doing this are doing it with human help.
Here’s what we need to do. We need to go back to Earth and we need to hunt down the people who are supplying wild caught humans to aliens.
Oh, my god! Okay. Here’s a plan. I go back to Earth and I go to the contaminated ground.
And I get myself caught. And then I’ll be inside the smuggling ring, and I can bring it down from the inside out. ”
Boss snaps his fingers and points at me. “That’s pretty much what you said on the day before the day you went missing.”
“Did you guys try to stop me?”
“Of course we did. It’s a mad plan. Getting caught as a wild human doesn’t get you any closer to the people enabling the alien trade.”
“Okay,” I say. “So. I must have gone to Earth to execute that idea and they must have wiped my brain when they realized I knew too much. They could have killed me, but I bet they wanted to test their tech on me. See how well it would work. And it did work. Until you found me. Which means…” I stare at Boss.
“They might be looking for me now? I might know too much. They might have had me under surveillance.”
“They might. They won’t find you.”
“But what if we let them find me?” I open my eyes wide. “What if we let them get me, and then we see what happens. We can get them, if they get me.”
Kronos, Sharp, and Boss all exchange looks that I can only describe as concerned. They’re the sort of looks people give each other when they like you a lot, but they think you might be losing your mind.
“You’ve also suggested this plan before,” Boss says. “About four years ago.”
“But this time it could work,” I say. “We must have messed it up somehow. You must have not known where I was.”
“We did not know where you were. We knew you’d run off, and that was it.”
“Well, this time, what if I tell you?”
“No,” Sharp says. “You cannot risk yourself again. This obsession with freeing humans from the alien trade is going to get you killed.”
“But there’s humans being sold to the alien trade.”
“There’s always bad things happening in the universe. You can’t try to fix them all. You have to find your own happiness where you can. We want to start a family with you, pet.”
“Then why aren’t I pregnant?”
“What?”
“If you’ve been fucking me all this time, how come I never had a baby?”
“We don’t know,” Boss says. “But sometimes it takes time.”
“We were going to take you to the human pet vet to be checked out before you disappeared,” Kronos says.
“We should do that,” Sharp says.
They start talking amongst themselves while I try to come to terms with things.
They don’t get it. They tell me to just be happy and selfish, but I can’t find happiness when I keep running into other people in pain, people who could easily be me.
People who sort of are me. I’ve been stolen too, and even though I guess I kind of like the aliens who ruthlessly dominate me, I don’t really have a choice in the matter.
I’m ambivalent about my own life, and I am damn sure I need to save the other humans.
I need to stop aliens from swooping down and stealing us from the world below. I’ve got to do it, no matter what.
Three days later, we dock at a station. I haven’t said much about anything.
I’m letting my mates think I’m giving my mission up.
The station is pretty filthy and criminal in nature, because that’s the sort of place mercenaries dock to get jobs, and once again, there are humans for saving.
Women who come from the wild parts of our world being traded to monstrous aliens who will ravage and punish them at best, and kill them at worst.
“Stay here,” Sharp says. “We are going to go and look for work.”
I thought they weren’t going to take on any more jobs, but I guess they’ve decided they’ll just cage me when they’re busy. They don’t say that outright, or at all, but I assume it’s true so I can justify what I’m going to do the moment they leave me alone.
I steal the ship.
I don’t think they know that I know how to do this, but I’ve been hanging around on the bridge for a reason. I paid attention when they were flying. I learned where the controls are, and what buttons to push.
I know it’s wrong to take a ship that isn’t yours and set a course for the third rock from the sun, but I want to sort things out from the beginning.
Hanging around three aliens and bickering with them while thousands of humans are being sold is not useful to anyone.
I’m actually doing the universe a favor by stealing this ship.
I’ll go back to Earth, and I’ll confront the CEO of Zeal.
I’ll let him know what’s going on, and I’ll threaten to expose him if he doesn’t agree to put an end to things.
Or something. I’ll sort it out when I get there.
This time, it’s going to work.