Second Life

Chapter Twenty-Eight – Stairway to Purgatory

The shuttle landed on the cement patio high above the valley. The neatly lined prefab buildings sprawled below the plateau that served as a spaceport. The living area was as big as a small town, dotted with people who were moving about their daily business. Beyond the uniformed gray buildings, a grain field reached almost as far as the forested hills on the other side of the valley. It was near harvest time, and rows of wheat and barley waved their heavy heads in the wind, creating a view of a waterless sea. Pulling his eyes from the serene scene below, the shuttle driver took out his modded, oversized shotgun and exited the craft with his co-pilot. He walked around the shuttle and positioned himself in front of the cargo door and pumped his gun.

"Get out of the shuttle one after another!" He barked the order as he opened the door. The offensive odor of human sweat mixed with urine made him turn his head. "How many times have I told you to pee when we're at a stop? Animals!" He cursed, ignoring the fact that he had not let his captives out for nearly two days.

Bound and chained, the occupants of the cargo hold exited the shuttle one after another, carefully keeping the silvery blue energy chain connected. They'd experienced the unpleasant jolts the energy chain released when they went too far from the next person.

"You keep an eye on this lot while I fetch our princess." The shuttle driver received a nod from his co-pilot who aimed two large pistols at the subdued captives. The driver hopped into the cargo hold and walked past the stinky general storage area with his fingers pinching his nose shut. In the back of the shuttle, a metal wall carved a small area into a standalone holding cell where a metal pole was welded from floor to ceiling. Energy chains circled a fully tattooed body from head to toe, tying it to the shiny pole. Inside the bonds, the small woman was sedated; only the energy rings kept her upright and bound to the metal anchor. The driver took out a ready-injector and slowly took aim at the woman's neck, careful not to touch the energy chains, and he pushed the injector. After he emptied the syringe, the shuttle driver quickly tossed the used injector and pointed his shotgun at the woman.

Slowly the woman opened her eyes and her small frame started to glow with biotics. The driver took out a device from his leather jacket pocket and warned, "I'll zap your tits off if you try anything stupid."

The woman's eyes focused on the large man holding a gun and an energy chain trigger. She sneered at the man and with a loud grunt, she freed her hands from the omni cuffs and pushed the man through the metal door into the general holding area with a biotic wave that broke the energy chains easily. The man fell and his hand hit the metal floor and he lost the device. Before the man could gather his shotgun, the small woman was already on top of him. Straddled onto the man's chest, the woman's biotic fist pummeled his face until the driver curled up his body and held his nose that was bleeding. The woman stood up and walked towards the shuttle door. "I have to piss, you asshole!"

Inside the gate of the town, the chained slaves walked towards a small tower at the end of the main road that was three stories higher than the prefabs. The co-pilot was leading the captives in single file and the shuttle driver followed at the end of the line still holding his broken nose and moaning in pain. The medi-gel his buddy slathered on his face apparently hadn't helped much. The tattooed woman was once again laced with energy chains from neck to her ankles, but she didn't seem bothered by the unusual constriction and she looked around at the people who had gathered on both sides of the road and were gawking at the newcomers. Most of the townsfolk wore their gray day robes, some carried farm tools on their backs and others pointed at the chain gang. The small woman's eyes landed on a pair of youngsters who wore white shirts and dark trousers, hem stitched on the outside. The older one, a boy, was tall with gentle wavy hair and the younger one, a girl, had large eyes and shaven head. She had a bag of newspapers on her shoulder and an animal stood next to her.

A push behind the small woman broke her stare at the kids. She turned around and looked at the driver who shoved her. Her threatening sneer came back and the shuttle driver didn't take any chances this time. He took a couple of steps back and pressed the energy chain trigger on the device in his hand, and the small woman screamed in pain and fell on the ground. The big man started to laugh but stopped and put his other hand on the tender wound of his nose again. The woman took the opportunity and leapt into the air with her biotics encasing the energy chains, and the biotic explosion that followed was so bright that everyone nearby had to shield their eyes from the light. Now the tattooed body was free of constriction, and the woman focused her eyes on the driver who had his shotgun leveled. Faster than anyone's eyes could follow, a string of biotic energy ripped the shotgun from his large hands and the tattooed body was charging at the driver. Without his weapon and a useless chain control, the man turned around and started running away from the woman as fast as his heavy legs could carry him.

Even without her biotic charge, the small woman was faster. Just before she caught up with the man, she charged past him and stopped in the front. The man slid his body on the ground to halt his mad dash; as his body slid he watched the energy ball in the small woman's hand with horror. "Not again!" He muttered.

Just as the hand rose to throw the biotic orb, a tranq dart landed on the woman's neck. She pulled out the dart and only pushed out "fuckers" before dropping on the ground.

"What's your name?" The tattooed woman woke up in a large hall draped with brightly colored banners from the cornice to the floor. The loud chatter and occasional bursts of laughter along with clinking of drinking cups on the long center dinning table told the woman that this was a banquet hall of sorts. Swiping her gaze on the men sitting on the long benches at the table, the woman tried to stand. Strong hands gripped her arms and kept her seating on the wooden chair. One of the men holding her had hair clippers in his other hand.

"What's your name?" A man in a gray robe stood out among the feasting crowd who wore black leather and armor. He was a slim man, his face was thin with a prominent forehead and he wore glasses that dropped too low on his nose for correcting his vision.

"Jack." Still a little groggy from the sedatives, the woman shook her head trying to sharpen her vision and hearing. She answered the thin man, and her voice carried in the sparsely furnished hall with high ceilings.

A round of laughter came from the men who heard her. The thin man in the gray robe laughed with them. "I'm Zatti, the leader of this small colony." He pointed at a bulky guy in a black leather jacket that looked similar to the one on the shuttle driver. "He's Jack. You're not Jack. You're a woman. You're Jacqueline."

The man named Zatti gave a quick nod to the guy with the clippers, and then turned his attention back to the woman. "We're helping you cleanse your sins in our own cleansing ritual. Trust me, they won't hurt you."

The guy activated the hair clippers and the woman tried to jump out of her seat. "I'm not Jacqueline."

Zatti put a hand on the woman's head lightly as the clippers took off the first line of black hair. He turned to his men at the dinning table, "Friends, in our most generous spirits, we welcome Jacqueline!" The crowd raised their cups at their leader and cheered loudly.

Jack wrestled with the two men who were holding her down and screamed at Zatti as she gritted her teeth in anger. "I'm not…" Her voice was lost in the loud shouting from the crowd of diners. "Jacqueline…not!"

Zatti moved a pace back, avoiding a kick from the woman, but he wasn't discouraged by the act of rebellion. "Jacqueline Naught! Welcome to our sanctuary."

After the banquet was over and the woman had spent most of her energy fighting the two large men who did their best to keep her seated while Zatti gave his sermon and led evening prayers and chanting, the leader of the colony signaled the men to bring the woman into his private study and closed the door as they left.

Zatti disrobed and revealed light maroon colored armor that was hidden under the large robe. The man looked even thinner in the form fitting armor, but his muscles were visible and well defined. "Have a seat, Jack."

Jack scanned the room for any sign of hidden weapons and surveillance. I can destroy you! She thought. But then what? Where would she go with bounties on her head and slavers just around the corner? She crossed her arms in front of her and snorted. "I thought I was Jacqueline."

Zatti didn't look up, unafraid of the potential threat that he clearly knew the biotic woman posed. In his smooth tenor voice he explained: "In private, I grant you your deepest wishes and most desires. But out there, I have to rule and I have to be fair." He pushed a pack of ready-injectors on the desk towards Jack. "The slavers said you were having withdraw from narcotics. Here's something to tie you over. When you have pulled your weight for our society, I'll see to it that you get what you need."

Jack's face was a picture of surprise then an understanding quickly overcame. "So you want me to kill for you, just like everybody else."

"Perhaps and only when it's necessary. But I want you to know that killing disgusts me."

Jack shifted her weight. "You don't want to get too close to death."

Zatti waved a hand to dismiss the thought. "Not that. I'm disgusted by the idea. Killings, murders or battles, they're counter productive to survival. We are stronger in numbers and the stronger the better chance we have to survive." He peered into the eyes of the biotic as though to check if she had grasped his meaning.

Jack uncrossed her arms. "It's easy to say that when you have people to do all the shit for you." Watching a smile spreading on Zatti's face, Jack snorted. "I get it. I'm here to help ensure your survival..."

"Our survival." Zatti corrected her. He pushed the injection pouch closer to Jack, "And working towards a common goal has its advantages."

"The privilege of being your personal bodyguard." Jack was fully aware that by accepting the "gift" she had accepted the power of this mysterious man had over her, but she didn't care. In the cold night when she was surrounded by piss smelling slaves in the holding pen, all she wanted was a shot of chemicals that were beckoning in these syringes in front of her, the warm liquid she felt flowing through her veins and the euphoria the drugs made her feel after she killed one of the guards who had stuck himself inside of her the night after she was picked up in Dakka system. She swiped the pouch from the desk and stuck it in her pants pocket. "I'm not wearing your pathetic robe."

Jack woofed down a meal that was put together with the scraps from the giant banquet table, but it was plentiful and it was better than anything she'd had in many weeks under the captivity of the slavers. The old man who searched the banquet table and made her the plate came back and took her empty plate away. He had only one hand and when he saw Jack staring at his stump just below the elbow, he covered it with the sleeve of the gray robe and he asked. "Would you like some more?" Jack looked up at the man's face, his eyes were watery and the lines on his face were deep. Jack couldn't tell the age of the man, but she recognized a kind face behind the weathered surface. She shook her head.

After the two guards shaved her head, a man with a tattoo kit showed up to give her the branding of the colony. Jack was actually enjoying the fact that she was getting a new tattoo and didn't have to pay for it. She was assigned to the bunkhouse just outside of the tower with Zatti's other guards who were all guys. Her bunkmate grumbled at the fact that a woman was to share his bunk, "I snore very loud, if you got problem with that, go sleep somewhere else."

"Where?" Jack couldn't stand snoring.

"Streets, storage container, what do I care?"

Jack smiled and the man turned in his bed to face the vid screen built into the wall that was displaying some kind of porn with humans and asari. Jack couldn't believe her fortune—she wasn't confined anymore, and she could walk outside and hang out wherever she wished.

As nightfall quickly approached, the streets were filled with people after dinnertime. Jack wandered to the gate of the town where she had come through earlier with the slavers and she watched the guard turn on the energy fence. Not so free after all. The guard told her it was to keep wild animals from the population. He pointed at the hills surrounding the valley, "All around us, there are forests where we harvest for wood and energy. There are some large and dangerous animals native to this planet."

Shouting voices came from behind Jack and the guard. Jack turned around just quickly enough to dodge a small animal leaping in the air at the brightly lit energy fence. The biotic instinctively trapped the animal with a small stasis field just before its pink nose hit the deadly current.

"Boots!" A young girl's voice rasped from repeated shouting for the animal to stop. Jack turned around and saw the young girl she had seen earlier. The girl was out of breath and bent over to grab the animal that was still in Jack's stasis field. "You can release him now."

Jack did. "Boots!" Another set of footsteps reached them by the fence, heavier this time. Jack saw the older boy who was with the young girl earlier stopped his dash and put his arms around the girl and the animal. "Are you guys okay?"

The young girl stood up and stroked the animal's head while pointed at Jack with her chin. "Boots was chasing a mouse that just slipped through the fence before it was turned on. She saved Boots from the lightning fence."

Jack watched the boy squat down and encircle his arms around the girl and the animal, and she could see the girl shaking a little bit. The boy made small comforting sound and rubbed his fingers on the animal's ears. "It's okay. Boots is fine. Everything's okay." He then looked up at the woman and offered, "I'm Blake and this is my sister, Gabrielle. Would you like to come with us for some tea? I think my sister and my dog would like the opportunity to thank you properly."

Jack followed the pair and the animal to a small prefab unit that had just enough space for two single cots, a couple of small tables, a few crates as chairs and a wall storage unit. The boy pointed at a crate near a small alcove on the far end wall that had built-in heating unit and water outlet. "Please have a seat." The girl went to the heating unit to make tea.

"What's this place?" Jack asked.

"It's called Hog. Each prefab is assigned to house appropriate number of people." The girl answered.

"No, I meant this colony. What planet is this on?" Jack looked around the sparsely furnished room and noticed a stack of newspaper on the corner table.

"We're not sure." The boy went to the wall unit to get three cups. "They won't tell us and we don't have access to the Extranet here."

"How long have you been here?"

The boy answered again, "A couple of years. We were kidnapped when I was five and my sister was two, and we've been mostly traded to families who needed children and then decided not to keep us and sold us back to slavers."

"How old are you now?"

"I'm eighteen going on nineteen." The boy answered again.

The girl handed everyone a cup of tea and she looked at Jack, "Did you come with anyone you know?" Seeing Jack shaking her head, she continued. "Did they give you a place to sleep?"

"With the guards. But I'm not going to sleep in the bunkhouse. I saw a large container at the other edge of the town near the grain field that was empty."

Blake explained. "Workers use it as a break house during the day. There's no bed, only some crates."

Jack shrugged, "I don't need a bed. I just need somewhere quiet to be alone. Is it safe to sleep there?"

Gabrielle let out a chuckle, "After watching what you did to that slaver today, nobody would mess with you."

Jack scratched her bald head, the branding tattoo that circled her shiny head was itching. "Why do they shave girls' heads here?"

"So they can put an implant in you. It works like a tracker. If you step out of the colony unauthorized, the central control will know it from your tracker." Blake explained.

"But why don't they shave guys' heads?"

Blake rolled up his sleeve, "Our implants are in the forearms. If we tried to escape, they cut off your hand and put the implant in the other forearm. Nobody ever tried to escape twice."

The streets at night were quiet, only the pale white streetlights washed out the starry canopy of the sky. The storage contain was giant. It used to store grain bags at harvest time, but the robotic arm holders on each side of the container had broken off. The workers put it here to shade them from mid-day sun when they took breaks from their fieldwork. There was no light inside. Jack flared her biotics faintly and walked to the deep corner and lay down on the metal floor.

Other than the strict rules of not leaving the colony unauthorized, Jack begun to enjoy her stay in the new place. She only had to fight once with some bandits from another valley that were notorious in these parts. Zatti had asked Jack to accompany his best fighters to deal with the bandits and had rewarded her with some narcotics after Jack threw a guy into a tree trunk and broke his neck. Zatti had been very pleased with Jack's performance, "There are no good killers to be found anymore. Ones who just want to kill, not to ponder how many credits it takes to ease their conscience afterwards. I've found a good killer in you, Jack."

During downtime Jack often wandered to the Hog where Blake and Gabrielle worked. Blake repaired farm tools and Gabrielle made the colony's only newspaper, from producing the content to making the ink that printed it and the rough paper made with processed wheat stocks. Zatti was amused by Gabrielle's endeavor and he allowed it. "Who reads on paper anymore, but the girl has a quaint idea." He commented to Jack once.

Jack also received more meat allowance as Zatti's personal guard, and at first she brought what she couldn't eat to Boots until she discovered that Blake and Gabrielle were given strict meat rations. She started to eat her meat allotment every other day to save up the meat for the brother and sister. Her action surprised even herself, but Blake's gentle and observant stares, young but strong features and reddish blonde hair stemmed her desire to rip every guy's genitals out. Jack realized it wasn't just his handsome looks that made him pleasant to be around, but his persisting gentleness, patience and kindness towards his sister and the small animal that had attracted Jack intensely. And Jack found herself softening her gaze when she looked into Blake's pale blue eyes.

Her friendship with the kids wasn't without its challenges. She had made the young girl pout at her when Jack craved the narcotics.

"When you drug yourself, you turn into…a different person." Gabrielle once commented. "What happens if you don't inject?"

Jack bit her lower lip at the thought of withdrawl. "It fucking hurts!" But Jack knew Gabrielle was right. Her dependency on the chemicals would only tie her neck closer to Zatti and she disliked the idea. "But I'm used to pain." Jack decided to kick the habit and she'd do it alone in the storage container. She didn't want Zatti to know it nor let the kids watch her.

Night was usually the toughest time when she was alone and having nightmares. Those horrid images of Teltin often sent her to grab whatever chemicals she had in her pocket, but she remembered she had tossed them in a ditch by the grain field and her pocket was empty. Sweat beaded on her forehead, and Jack felt her body turning into nothing on the cold metal floor, not light but the feelings of her nerves were missing, and then came the sudden shivers of her flesh and bones, the feeling was gross. "Fuck!" She shouted, but she didn't hear any sound. Why is my forehead burning?

A cool towel pressed against her face, Jack opened her eyes and saw Gabrielle sitting next her and dutifully wiping the sweat from her forehead, her cheeks and above her lips. The cold dampness felt refreshing and Jack all of sudden could feel her body again, her center, her skin and her hands. The kids had moved her from the storage container to their Hog and put her in Blake's cot while he slept on the floor.

"The worst is over." Gabrielle's voice came as a soft caress. And after a week, Jack was off the narcs.

The affinity she felt for the boy and the girl came naturally, surprising Jack herself. When they found Jack bouncing a small biotic ball around Boots who chased it with such an enthusiasm that his panting had become small yelps as he clamped his teeth trying to bite into the energy ball. The small zap of energy seemed to excite him.

Blake smiled. "He's quite taken with you."

His voice startled Jack who quieted her biotics. The dog was sniffing around her feet looking for the ball that had suddenly disappeared. The girl squatted down and started to rub the dog on his head and ears and muttered terms of endearment, and the dog nuzzled his nose into the girl's neck and licked her, neither showed any reservation of their mutual affection.

Watching Jack stare at his sister and the dog, Blake added, "But he certainly loves his mommy." As though he understood the words, Boots let out a small bark to confirm the statement. Shifting his gaze, Blake pointed at the grain field. "It's harvest time." The field was buzzing with activities. The workers, the robots and drones worked as a harmonious force, shaving the crops from the field like hair. Jack touched her bald head.


"Let the sunlight drench me, let it seep through the pores it touches on my skin, I am a sun child," Jack snapped the small datapad out of Gabrielle's hand who was reading from it out loud.

"Hey! That's private shit." Jack yelled reactively, and then she simmered down. "It's not even finished."

Jack had hidden behind an inactivated hovercart that the townsfolk used as a carrier to move the grain bags to storage. It was mid-day, and everyone was inside having lunch. The field was quiet and Jack often came out here when everyone else escaped the heat. Gabrielle had found her dozing and took the datapad in her hand and read what Jack had written.

"It's good, Jack. I'd like to read it when you finish it." Gabrielle smiled as she sat down next to Jack. "Why didn't you tell me you write poetry? All this time I went on and on about my ambition with the newspaper. You held out on me!"

"I don't. It's just…it's just how I feel. Sometimes I just write down how I feel. It's usually very dark, not like this one." Jack stuck the small datapad in her large pants pocket. "Besides, I'm not a fucking poet."

Jack sat back down on the ground and leaned against the hovercart. She closed her eyes and tilted her face upward to get more sun. Gabrielle imitated her companion.

A high-pitched shriek broke their calm. They both jumped and hunched their backs to peer over the cart at the noise. A girl was running, hysterically, towards the empty grain field. As several guards tried to grab her, she squirmed out of their grasp, shedding clothes as they were ripped from her body, first they tore the common gray robe off, then they ripped the bright red shirt and a long purple skirt under the robe. She was now half naked, but she didn't stop her mad run towards the water tower.

Jack asked with widened eyes, "Why is she running to the tower?"

"She means to jump off of it, probably." Gabrielle gasped. "But she won't make it though. They'll shoot her with a tranq dart and take her to the dungeon."

"What happens to her in the dungeon?"

"Whatever it is, it must be worse than throwing herself from the water tower."

Jack recognized one of the guards chasing the half naked girl, his name was Jack also and he had a tranq gun in his hands. Jack wondered if he was the one who shot her with a tranq dart the first day she arrived here. It was good aim but then again, she was standing still. The hysterical girl was running madly towards the water tower, tumbling and stumbling as she went on her naked feet. All three darts missed her and the guard cursed at the running girl's direction. "God damn it! You know how expensive those tranq darts are?" He docked his dart gun and took out a short sniper rifle.

Gabrielle's breathing quickened, "They're going to kill her, not just capture her."

Jack stuck her head over the hovercart and saw the modded sniper rifle in the guard's hands. Yup, he meant to kill this time. There was no way that gun used tranq darts.

Gabrielle squatted down and tugged Jack's arm. "We have to do something! We have to save her! You're powerful, do something, Jack! They're going to kill her!"

Jack moved her eyes away from Gabrielle's pale blue eyes and remained immobile. Gabrielle tugged her again, "Maybe I'll make noise and get the guards' attention and you can get the girl into the forest to hide."

Jack shook her head. "No, something happens to you, Blake is going to give me shit. And besides, there're too many of them, you can't distract all of them. "

"But you can take them all if you wanted, can't you?"

"Probably."

"Then we have to try!" Gabrielle stood again to check what was happening when a small popping sound came and the girl's hysterical screaming stopped. Gabrielle froze.

The girl's body weltered in the new mud that the rain had beaten up overnight, and her limbs were laying about her in odd angles. All three guards walked up to the body, one of them patted Jack, the guard, on his shoulder as though to congratulate him for the kill, the third guy took out his pistol and shot the body three more times. Then they picked up the limp form and walked towards the forest and disappeared beyond the edge of the wheat and barley field.

Jack popped her head up and saw the coast was clear. She grabbed Gabrielle's arm and dragged her back into town and entered the storage container. The young girl was shaking now, "They…they killed her. They just killed her…"

Blake heard the gunshots by the grain field. Even though the guards often shot their guns at the practice field next to the growing land, he thought he'd come and check. He saw Jack and his sister going into the large container and he followed them in.

"What's going on?" A quick glance at his sister's ashen face and trembling body, Blake took her shoulders and turned her body around to check for any sign of injury.

Jack said in a flat tone. "The guards shot a girl. Gabrielle saw the whole thing."

Gabrielle didn't pay attention to her brother. Still shaking visibly, her eyes focused on Jack. "You could've saved her! I've seen your biotic powers, we all have. Why didn't you even try to save that girl?"

Blake took his sister's shoulders and tried to turn her away from Jack. "Come on, let's get you back to the Hog." Then he turned to Jack, "Shouldn't have let her witness that." The tone was heavy in his still thin and piping voice with thick blame that made Jack feel like shit.

The girl walked out of the container under her brother's nudging hands, but she turned back to look at Jack once again, "Would you have done anything if it were me they were after?"

Jack was relieved that Blake had taken Gabrielle out of the container and she didn't have to actually answer that question. But it rang in her head nonetheless.

Blake came back a while later and explained to Jack. "Zatti picks pretty girls and takes them to the dungeon. Nobody knows what he does to them. He usually sells them back to the slavers after keeping them in the dungeon for a while or we never see them again. Anyone who asks too many questions gets shipped off too." He paused for a beat, "Presumably to the slavers as well."

Jack crossed her arms in front of her. "It was none of my business. I got it pretty good here. I don't want to fuck it up, you know?"

Blake's usual gentle stare was replaced by something else, something Jack couldn't put a finger on, doubts, guilt, sadness, or all of them. His expressions confused Jack—it wasn't him who didn't save the girl, why did he feel guilty? Noticing the biotic studying him, Blake quickly collected himself. "I understand. I've seen the ugliness and violence in this place, and I'm trying to shield it from Gabrielle as much as I can."

"Is that why you want to escape this place?" Blake had brought up the idea of escaping the colony and going back to Earth, to his parents, several times. He said he didn't need anyone to take care of him anymore, but his sister still needed someone to care for her.

Blake closed his eyes to avoid looking at Jack's searching gaze. "It was my fault that we ended up with the slavers. We were at a shopping plaza and I left my mom's sight to look at a toy car kiosk. Gabrielle followed me and we got grabbed. I should've known better, our mom told us it was dangerous in the Terminus colonies we were visiting." He looked down on the floor, and when he looked up again, his stare turned sharply penetrating. "But Gabrielle did ask a good question: what if it'd been her that they were chasing. What would you have done?"

The following few days Jack kept busy. The harvest was almost complete and the drones had moved grain sacks on robotic platforms to the temporary warehouse, waiting for the trading ships to arrive. Jack took extra guard duty to watch the grain stock and even hopped on a shuttle with Zatti and his men to meet a merchant ship to negotiate the grain price. At night, she didn't come to the Hog. Instead she slept in the container where bugs bit her and the bird's chirping woke her early in the morning. She missed her friends and she missed Boots. On the third night after the girl's murder, she was shaken awake by two robed and hooded figures. Before she had time to call up her biotics, Blake and Gabrielle pulled their hoods back and Boots came from behind them and jumped on Jack and started licking her face.

"We're going to sneak into the forest." Blake took out another hooded robe from a large fabric bag over his shoulder and pushed it to Jack. "Put this on."

Jack followed the instruction without asking any questions, and once she put the robe on and moved the hood forward to shroud her face, Blake and Gabrielle turned and hunched behind the crate at the entrance of the container. Blake looked up at the bright moonlight and frowned a little. Then he instructed again, but this time to everyone including the dog. "Don't make any noise, especially you, Boots."

The dog wiggled his tail and spread his mouth wide into a smile but he didn't make a sound. Blake patted him on his head and said in a hushed tone. "Good boy! Keep it that way." He checked the empty streets. "Follow me." And then still keeping his back low, he broke into a run across the clearing towards the grain field.

The running party moved in silence until they reached the short barrier separating the town and the field. Blake and Gabrielle stopped and leaned against the short wall, squatting and catching their breaths. Jack wasn't breathing hard, and she started to say something, Blake put a finger on his lips to signal her not to make sound. Then after a few more moments, he led the small party into a run again to clear the distance between the wall and the field.

There was a ravine between the grain field and the training field where the guards used for target practice and combat sims. The moonlight illuminated the dark channel. Blake jumped down into the ditch and helped Gabrielle and Jack hop down, and then he signaled Boots to jump and caught him when the dog leapt from the edge. The ravine was over 7 feet deep. Blake pulled his hood down and whispered, "Don't talk, we have to hurry through this part. Sometimes guards patrol this area."

They made the journey quickly and quietly in the damp ravine until they reached the edge of the forest. Once they entered the woods, Blake relaxed his shoulders and slowed down his pace.

"Where are we going?" Jack finally got to ask.

Broken branches cracked under their feet, and Boots scouted ahead. "We're going to bury the redhead." Blake answered simply.

Jack remembered the guards who shot the girl took her to the forest. She hadn't thought about what they'd do with her body. Did they just leave her to the animals? "Wait, how do you know she was a redhead?"

Gabrielle answered. "We came here on the same slaver's ship. She had fire red hair and big green eyes. Blake had the hots for her."

Her brother turned his head and shot his sister a look. "No, I didn't! She gave me some food she'd hidden from the guards, I was hungry."

His sister didn't back down. "Yeah, what about the bouquet of wild flowers you left at her Hog?" The girl smiled triumphantly when she saw the surprised look on her brother's face. She knew she had made her brother blush. Blake picked up a small acorn from the forest floor and threw it at his sister as revenge. Then they both laughed.

Jack suddenly felt a wave of coldness inside and she slowed her steps. "Shit!" She hissed at herself. She sounded louder than she realized. Both the brother and sister turned back and looked at her.

"You okay, Jack?" Blake asked.

Jack stopped and pursed her lips. Even under the rich foliage, moonlight seeped through, casting shadows on Jack's face but highlighted her eyes that expressed what her words couldn't. Gabrielle moved next to Jack. "It wasn't your fault, Jack. I was wrong to have accused you. They would've killed her in the dungeon or sold her off anyway given how crazy she had turned. Zatti doesn't like girls who aren't obedient." Her reasoning didn't relieve Jack of her heavy thoughts.

"I should've tried something so she didn't feel alone in this. Even if she'd die later at least she'd known someone gave a shit about her." Jack's eyes welled up and she bent her head. Sometimes a thought makes all the difference. I should've known that better than anybody. When she pounded her hands at the one-way mirror in Teltin, she wondered where her parents were and why they didn't come for her, and why nobody gave a shit about her.

Gabrielle wrapped her arms around Jack. "We'll give her a good burial. She'll know that we remember about her wherever she is now."

Boots had sniffed out the location of the body and led the small party to it. Wild animals had indeed helped themselves to the carcass, but the half torn red shirt was unmistakable. Blake tossed his bag down and took out a blanket and covered the mangled body. Then he took out a folded shovel and started digging a hole under a group of young trees. Gabrielle took out several half used candles from the bag and placed them near the body and lit them up. Jack stood a few paces away with Boots and watched her friends until Gabrielle waved her over.

"We'll say a prayer for her." Gabrielle gave Jack a candle and then picked up another one and said her prayer in front of the covered body.

Jack who didn't know any prayer stared at the blanket trying to think of something to say. Finally she said, "Hey Redhead, sorry about what happened. You're probably better off where you're now." She looked at Gabrielle's amused expression, and she added. "We'll be thinking about ya."

The journey back was quiet until they reached the edge of the forest. Jack stopped and stared at her companions. "You want me to help you get out of this shit hole?"


"Can you do it or not?" Jack asked impatiently.

The one-handed man shushed her. "Not here! Grab that bin and follow me." He took a large bin of garbage in one hand and wedged it against his hip and started for the garbage compactor room.

Jack grabbed another garbage bin and followed him. When Jack wasn't on guard duty, she'd picked up shifts with the old man who brought her food the first day she was in the colony. He was a caretaker, garbage man, maid and he was the only one who wasn't in Zatti's little inner circle that worked in the dungeon. Jack volunteered to help him in his daily chores when she was bored and she enjoyed listening to stories the old man told her.

"They call me Luke here." He had told Jack when they first worked together.

"That's not your real name?" Jack snorted at the thought of Zatti calling her Jacqueline in public. "They like to change your names here, don't they?"

Luke only shook his head. "After they cut my hand off, the guards gave me that name. There was an old movie about a chain gang called Cool Hand Luke. I think they miss-remembered the name of the movie, thought it was called One Hand Luke."

"Idiots!"

Luke nodded. "That they are. Except Zatti. He's anything but. I'm still useful to him. That man! If he could turn the mice here to increase his profit, he would." Luke told Jack how he lost his arm. He tried to hack the tracker on his forearm and escape the colony. He was quite good at hacking computer chips and he only made one mistake: when the chip was taken out of his arm, he didn't find a suitable place to implant it. The chip would go offline when it wasn't implanted in flesh. Zatti ordered to have his hand cut off as punishment and that had set an example to those who had ever thought to try and escape.

"You never want to skip town again?" Jack had asked Luke.

"Nay. I was young back then. Had a girl I liked and wanted to go back to her. She's definitely found someone else by now and had kids or even grandkids."

Presently in the garbage compactor room, Luke flipped the garbage bin to the edge of the compactor by swaying his hip and dropped the content of the bin into the machine and the disposal gears whined loudly to start the compacting process. Luke motioned for Jack to bring the bin in her hands over. "There's surveillance in that room. Now the compactor is running, they can't hear us." Watching Jack dump the garbage in the large mouth of the disposal, Luke asked. "Why do you want to remove the tracker?"

Jack followed Luke's lead and lowered her voice. "I want to break some people out of this place."

"Those kids you always hang out with?" Luke ignored Jack's surprised look. "You're not hard to read, Jack."

Jack started feeling uncomfortable for not putting up her guard around the old man, but she asked again. "Can you do it or not?"

"I can, but I'm not going to risk your life and those kids' lives to help you try." Luke dumped more garbage into the opening.

"Look." Jack pushed herself in front of the old man. "I grew up in a facility. Kids there were mean to me, they beat the crap out of me and tried to kill me. These're the only kids I met that were nice to me. You see the shit goes on in the dungeon. I don't want the girl to end up in there, you know what I mean?"

Luke stared at Jack for a few moments and then he patted his large workman's belt. "I've been tinkering with the disc that I used for my escape. It now can simulate any implant long enough to move it from one host to another."

"I knew you had some tricks up your sleeve, old man!" Jack slapped Luke on his back. "How come they didn't take that away from you when you were caught? Didn't they search you?"

"I swallowed it, and had to fish it out later in my own shit."

Jack laughed. "I have a plan. You just get your little shit disc ready when I ask you, alright?"


The wait for the ship to arrive was interminably long, Jack cursed. "What the fuck is taking them so long?"

Blake, Gabrielle and Jack waited by a dank wall that circled the cement spaceport, and the night chill stayed in the tall grass and the occasional early morning breeze was penetrating. Gabrielle shivered. Jack flared her biotics at a low intensity and surrounded the girl with the energy to keep her from shivering. The girl had been crying all day for leaving Boots behind and it took her brother's soothing voice and Jack's repeated assurance that Luke would take good care of the dog for Gabrielle to reach this point without turning back.

First it was a faint thruster sound and then loud booms of hydraulics releasing landing gear on the giant cargo ship came as it settled down on the spaceport. A dozen crewmembers came out of the cargo ship and walked towards the grain storage. Jack waited until they entered the large warehouse and then she turned to Blake, "Remember to hide in the small nook by the engine. Don't come out until they reach Earth. Check the flight manifest I gave you…"

Blake interrupted her. "Jack, we went through this many times. We brought enough food and water and we'll catch our own shit and piss. Nobody will know they have stowaways. We'll make it, Jack."

Gabrielle looked at Jack. She had tried hard to prevent tears, but they came despite her efforts. She put her bald head to Jack's, "I'll keep my head shaven so when you come to Earth, you can spot me when you visit us. You promise you'll come and visit!" Her tears were free flowing now.

Jack grabbed the girl's head with both hands and rubbed it against her own. "You just make it there. I'll keep my head shaven too and I'm going to come one day. You'd better have some good food and booze waiting for me!"

Gabrielle broke out in a short laugh and nodded. When she looked up she froze. In the first light of the day, she saw Boots racing towards them, his ears floating behind his head and his back making sinuous line in the tall grass as he ran. Jack turned back and followed Gabrielle's vision. "Shit! No, Boots!" The dog carried the humans' implants and he was a decoy. "Shit, shit!" Jack repeated.

Gabrielle got down and hugged Boots as he reached his owners. Jack immediately got down on her knees and checked the dog's hind legs. Both spots for the implants were empty. "Shit!"

Blake who had been watching the warehouse door warned. "Movements at the warehouse. We'd better move!"

Jack pushed them into the small loading port where a conveyer belt sat ready to admit grain bags. "Luke must have changed the locations of the implants. Boots is safe to go with you. If the shit hits the fan, shoot anyone that gives you trouble." She had stolen a small pistol that the guards used for target practice and put it in the bag Blake carried. "Go!"

Jack watched the cargo crew escort the robotic platforms with grain bags to the large ship and loaded the bags through the conveyer belt and then took off. So far, so good. She raced down the plateau in the opposite direction of the town and came to a small area where a stream made a drastic turn. The broke of the stream created a pebbly flat where a shuttle was waiting. Jack hopped on the shuttle to find only the driver.

"Where's Moody?" Jack didn't like any changes in dealing with these bandits.

The driver shrugged. "I don't know. I'm told to wait for you and pick you up. That's all I know."

Before the shuttle driver started his engine, a small caliber sniper bullet ripped through his head. Blood and gray matter spattered on Jack's arm that was resting on top of the driver seat. "Shit!" Jack hit the deck.

Jack peered out of the shuttle door while listening to heavy boots stepping on pebbles of the riverbank. She took the pistol from the dead drive's belt. A man's voice came from behind the shuttle.

"Jacqueline, come out with your hands in the air." Five of Zatti's most trusted guards moved to encircled the shuttle door.

"Shit, it's still open." Jack cursed at the shuttle door. Now that she could see clearly the guys surrounding her, she broke out a smile. The guard named Jack had a tranq gun in his hands—so they don't want me dead. Another realization sent Jack's heart fluttering. If Zatti's most trusted guys were here, it very well meant that they hadn't figured out about Blake and Gabrielle, and Luke had kept his promise. There was no doubt in Jack's mind that Zatti was monitoring these guys here. With a smile on her face, Jack put the pistol on the shuttle floor but within reach, and then she hopped out and leaned on the shuttle's doorframe.

"Guys, I'm just out here having fun. It gets fucking boring in this shit hole, you know?" She kept a smile.

The guard Jack shook his head. "You think Zatti doesn't know your little deal with the bandits who'd been trying to steal our grain every harvest? They always make deals with some fool every year to sell us out and get free food. You're the fool this year."

Jack feinted a disappointing look and crossed her arms in front of her. "Man! If I knew they were this pathetic!" The longer she held these guys and Zatti's attention here, the longer the merchant ship carrying Blake and Gabrielle would be gone, and by her calculation, they should have passed the planetary defense system and well on their way to the system's Mass Relay. "Guys, don't need to point the guns. I've had my fun, you've got me." Nobody lowered their gun, Jack cursed again but didn't voice it.

The small woman waited for the guards converge on her. As the circle got tighter, she suddenly flared her biotics and quickly sent out a biotic burst that was so strong that it knocked all five guys over. Jack quickly picked up the pistol from the shuttle floor and shot four of them in the head before they had time to aim their weapons. The last guy took out his short sniper rifle from his back, but before he had chance to do anything with it, Jack pushed him into the shuttle's metal wall with a thick biotic wave and followed up with a biotic fist. The guy fell on the ground, but the small woman didn't relent. She jumped on top of him and kept pounding his face with her biotic fist. "This is for the redhead you fucking killed!"

She waited for a response, but the man was already unconscious. Jack took a deep breath before standing up and aimed her pistol at the man's head.

"You fucking useless piece of shit!" She pulled the trigger four times. "I am Jack, and you are dead!"

Jack tossed the driver's body out of the shuttle and started the engine. The mothership responded to her hail and gave her coordinates in orbit. Once Jack cleared the long valley that nestled in between two mountains, she let out a long breath. She had done it! She had saved two nice kids and she had escaped that creepy place. "I'll miss the food." Jack muttered to herself.

A holocall alert sounded on the shuttle, Jack hit the answer button. Luke's face appeared on the holo. "Jack, good to see you're out!"

"What the fuck do you think you're doing, Luke? It's not safe for you to contact me right now!"

Luke shook his head, "I only have a few minutes, and I just wanted to tell you that I've put both kids' implants on myself."

Jack shouted, "Luke, that's dumb! We had a plan!"

Luke only smiled, "When they figured out who helped you, I'm dead anyway. Zatti knows I'm the only one who can hack the implants."

Jack cursed inwardly for not having thought about that. "Fuck you, Luke! Why would you sacrifice yourself for some kids you don't even know?"

Luke didn't answer her but kept smiling. "When you have your own pirate fleet, come and get me, would you? I'll work for you."

Jack's eyes welled up. "You hang in there, old man! I'm going to scorch this fucking place when I come for you and get everybody out. You just hang in there, you hear me?"

The connection was scrambled for a moment, and then Zatti's face appeared on the holo. "Jacqueline, Luke can't hear you anymore because he's dead." The holo zoomed to his back, Luke was kneeling on the floor and a guard pulled the trigger that aimed at the old man's temple.

"You mother fucker! I'm going to end you, Zatti! You fucking piece of shit!"

Zatti returned to the holo and sneered at Jack. "You might have to take a long time to fulfill that promise, Jacqueline. The ship you're headed to will take you to a prison ship that's full of the most heinous criminals in the galaxy. The bounty hunters paid a high price for your head. You might find that place more suitable for your kind."

"You fucking sold me?"

Zatti's face turned cold. "You cost me three colonists. I have to make the credits back somehow." He paused as several guards came into the room to remove Luke's body. Zatti changed his tone. "I'll pray for your spirit, Jacqueline."

"Fuck your prayers and fuck you, Zatti! You're just another common slaver and a sick fuck!"

Smoke seeped through the vents before Jack realized the shuttle was blowing nerve gas, her arms fell on her sides. "Sick fucks!"

When Jack woke up again, she saw a turian in blue and white armor towering over her chair.

"Jack, welcome to Purgatory."


A/N: Several of you have asked when we'll see more fluff, and here's the answer. We'll have a big fluff chapter after the next one. And it won't be just FemShep and Liara fluff, it'll be fluff everywhere! So get ready.