===== Part 11 ===========
They throw a cover over the cage so she's left in darkness for maybe a day. She sleeps and rest and listens, she can tell the ship comes out of hyperspace, manoeuvres and docks soon after, which makes her think it's an orbital station rather than a planet. The air pressure changes, the musty dry cargo smell shot through with the spicy odours of cooking.
The cargo gang that move things are Deymasollians, short high gravity dwarves with huge shocks of white fur. They chatter happily as they cart off all the blasters, leaving cargo droids to move the rest of the containers.
She's left in her metal crate in the middle of an empty hold, lit only by a few emergency lights.
She idly hopes they've forgotten her, that they'll leave her when they vent the holds and she can die quietly in the vacuum of space.
She shifts again, can't find a position to sit that's comfortable between the cramps in her legs and the ache of the brand on her back. Then the hold cargo doors open and the captain leads in a motley crew of strangers; A squid headed Quarren with a pack of hairy little Hassk surrounding him. The Hassk are small bestial primitives with a reputation for scavenging but all seem well armed. Coming up the ramp behind them is a man sized quadruped droid with a repeating blaster mounted on its back, with another Hassk sat astride it as gunner.
The Quarren and the Captain are bickering over price and its clear the captain isn't happy.
"that's nothing near the price she was shipping for!"
"I've no idea what maniac was willing to pay that sort of money for one slave, but I think you'll find the offer is quite fair, considering she's high rated but unproven, plus an uncancelled Crimson Dawn brand says she's stolen and could get someone into serious trouble. Final offer and you're lucky we were in the area, most slavers would just tell you to space her and claim you never saw her"
"Doesn't feel like a lucky break for me, but it's better than nothing. Deal"
They shake hands and exchange tokens.
She jumps as a blue haired Hassk pops up at the grill in the cage, two big nocturnal eyes with slitted gold pupils and a small mouth full of sharp spiky teeth. It hisses at her then ducks down again with a gurgling laugh.
The cage lurches upward – the Hassks have fitted lifter pods to the corners so it floats a little above the ground. They harness it to the weapons droid and the jump aboard, riding on top of it as the droid starts to slowly amble out of the hold. They make a weird procession as the Quarren leads the way, followed by the droid, it's rider swinging the muzzle of the blaster left and right as they go, then the floating cage with the pack of chattering Hassk. Qi'ra tries to muster enough enthusiasm to watch people go by, maybe get some idea of where they were, but the walls look fairly nondescript and the crowds they move through are a mix of races, all smart enough to give them a wide berth. No sign of any law enforcers or imperials, just the occasional group of armed thugs probably from a local gang running a protection racket.
They head down into a section that's less inhabited, less lights and the volatile smell of leaking ship fuel and spilled coolant the tell-tale signs of an industrial sector. But past that they go through an armoured airlock and a series of barred gates into a section that stinks of unwashed bodies, sewage and misery. The walls are just row after row of cells, each full of a chaotic mix of beings, all looking dejected and half starved.
At the end of the corridor was a brightly lit vertical section of clear pipe that had been converted into a makeshift incinerator, from the charred skeleton hanging inside. Obviously someone was taught a lesson in the consequences of disobedience and left hanging as a warning.
Qi'ra huddles at the back of the cell, drawing her legs up to her chest. This is looking worse and worse.
They go through the cells and out onto a loading dock where a line of shackled slaves were being led down a docking tube onto a huge ship. Through a view window she can see the sheer scale of it – it's an old trade federation bulk freighter, a huge multi-levelled hulk over a kilometre long. The Federation insignia and name plates have been carbon scored away and the symbol of a snake poised to strike painted over it.
At the top of the loading ramp stands a tall, well build grey skinned humanoid, broad shouldered and muscular. No species she'd seen before, almost human but for the four short fleshy tendrils that sprouted from his chin. His boots were shiny black and almost up to his knee, his pants and shirt a dark blue and over it all he wore a long purple blue coat in a military cut.
He towered a full head over the Quarren as he greats him with a friendly grin that shows long canine teeth.
"Sekki, My friend, what was this last minute bargain you said you'd found for us?"
The Quarren gurgles a chuckle and hands him a token. "Bunch of pirates hit a Hutt trader and lucked into a secret Crimson Dawn shipment. Mostly weapons, few exotic metals plus a pleasure slave. They were looking for six figures for her; apparently that's what she was sold for. Once I stopped laughing I talked them down to 2500 as she's no history and clearly marked as Crimson Dawn property."
The massive slaver slaps him on the back "So we just fake up some papers, skin over the mark and we can ship her on for twice that. Nice work!"
He gestures to the Hassk on the cage "Put her down there with the rest of the slave cargo."
They hiss a barely understandable "Yes Captain" and open the cage. Tugging the chain leash they pull her from the cage. She can't help but be reluctant, naked in front of so many people but the mob of slaves pays her no attention. They're all dirty and dressed in chains and rags, a mix of mostly humanoid races but united by a universal broken spirited hopelessness.
The Captain strides up a few steps onto a gantry overlooking the bay where the slaves are huddled and addressed them.
"I am Captain Hawal Lan, known by many as Snake beard the Slaver and I now own you all. I try and be a fair owner, so If you do as you are told you will probably survive this trip, if you do not your punishment will be swift, and your death will be painful. This ship is called the Snakehead, She's a bulk hauler, we move raw materials about and you slaves are just a lucrative side-line. Understand that, you are all expendable. Now, we're shipping goods and ore to Ord Mantell so those of you with mining experience will be moving ore from the bunkers to the processors. The rest of you will be taught how to sort and recognise machine parts. The Ship is big and slow, you'll be on here for weeks."
"On arrival the best of you will be sold to a new mining operation setting up on Quantxi, the junk moon. Good work, temperate climate, no natural predators, a breeze after working the Jabiim mines."
He pauses "The rest of you will go to general auction, so could be anything. But they're usually kinder than the Hutts."
Crew in shock armour walk up and down the rows of chained slaves, stamping numbers on their skin.
"You have been given a cell hold number. If you are found outside that hold without a guard, you will be shot."
An armoured guard grabs Qi'ras arm and hold it up "What about this one?" he asks the Quarren.
He shrugs, looks her over. "Put her on food detail for now"
The guard stamps a blue symbol on her hand and points up a set of steel steps. "That way"
QI'ra hurries to obey, wanting to find somewhere safe to hide for a while.
The floor is industrial metal mesh that hurts her bare feet as she runs. She stops and looks down through the mesh. She can see a curved metal floor plate just underneath. Looking round it's clear the corridors and rooms are build inside the circular pipes and huge tanks of part of the bulk haulers cargo system. The spaces under the floor grills seem to be used as sewers, they probably wash the whole ship down after runs. Perhaps she could find a way down, hide in the spaces underneath? Then she remembers the Hassk. Small, fast, vicious and with keen senses, they'd be ideal for hunting down people trying to hide like that.
She hugs her arms around herself and hurries on.
The Ships galley is warm and well lit after the bare metal of the holds, but it stank with a fetid odour that made her gag. She realised why when she saw the cook, a huge beast of a Gamorrian in a stained apron, its thick green skin sagging over its belt in rolls of fat and its little pig life face twisted up in rage.
It lets loose a squealing roar and grabs a huge metal ladle then starts to beat a slave who'd dropped a sack of some pale green flakes. The first blow hits the slaves arm that he raised in self-defence and breaks it with an audible snap. The second and third land heavy blows to the head and back
The Gamorian roars and grabs the concussed slave by the head, shoving him face first into a huge pot of boiling water. He thrashes and struggles, splashing boiling water about then slumps down, dead. The Gamorian lets go, grumbling as it flexes its leathery fingers, hardly scalded. The slave was not so lucky, the whole head of the corpse on the floor is scalded bright red.
Wiping it's hands, the Cook turns and addresses a battered silver protocol droid propped against the wall. It's missing a leg, so it's kept upright by a rope knotted under its arm pits tying it to a pillar.
"Oh dear. GrrDan the cook wishes me to inform you that clumsiness and waste will not be tolerated. This is a long trip with many to feed and we do not carry enough food for the larger carnivores in the lower hold, so he will probably have to pick at least two of the cargo slaves to feed them. He suggests you don't disobey and make his choice easier"
The Gamorian takes a large cargo hook off the wall, stabs it into the slaves corpse and drags it to a chute, lifting it one handed and dropping it in with a sickening thud.