Firefly
Chapter 12
He was in charge. He wasn't even really sure just where he was. He'd certainly never heard of an Iconian. So he had no idea just what to do next.
However Liara beat him to it. "What are these on your hands?" She was not used to seeing anything like them on any Iconian hands before they were recalled.
"My tattoos." Kate didn't know how to hide them. Not that it mattered much when what she was trying to use to hide them when in public was back on the ship.
"Do they serve a purpose?" Liara questioned both of them.
"I'm a slave. My tattoos show me to be a slave," Kate answered.
"Slavery is not permitted per Iconian law." Liara looked at Rick believing that she was his slave.
"Kate was a slave when I found her. Her tattoos can't be removed. I would if I could," Rick said defensively. "The Browns fought a war with the Alliance to prevent slavery. We lost, so now billions or more are basically unmarked slaves."
"I see. …Come with me, please." Liara could fix this problem and was going to so that neither of them were in violation of Iconian law.
Just as they reached the elevator Rick and Kate saw several of the androids leave the room. Rick immediately thought they were only there to meet him.
They found themselves in either the same wide corridor or a different one since all Liara did was ask for medical and there they were. In fact all they did was walk across the wide corridor, through another door, and into a room.
This room was almost all white and extremely bright and hard on the eyes. There were only two beds though there were also two glass enclosed rooms as well as what looked like an open office.
"Place your hands on the bed for me, please." Liara patted the bed and waited for Kate to comply.
Kate did as she was told since that was what slaves did. Then they both watched as this light bar came up out of the bed on one end, passed the length of the bed, then went back into the bed.
Rick hadn't seen her retrieve one but Liara had something in her hand. "Interesting. This is not just ink. Unless I'm mistaken your hands were burned then this mixture was poured into place. The mixture itself is made of several components." Liara left Kate behind and sat down at her desk.
It allowed Kate to leave the bed and go over to Rick who put an arm around her. At first she had thought her tattoos were going to be removed easily, however it was sounding like that wasn't the case. She knew from bitter experience that getting her intricate tattoos had been very painful and had hurt for weeks.
Rick took Kate with him and stood in front of Liara. "Can you remove her tattoos? Tell me what you need and I'll go find it," Rick said. Kate turned to look at him. He was such a kind man. Far better than she deserved.
"At first I had thought this would be easy. However the mixture they have used is proving to be a challenge. Even if I find a way to remove the mixture her hands will still be badly marked. I need to determine a safe way to remove the mixture without doing additional damage." Then suddenly Liara was back up and standing next to the bed.
"Lie down on the bed for me this time, please," she asked Kate and waited.
Rick nodded since this might mean she lose her tattoos and could become a free woman. Kate hopped up then lay down on her back and watched that light arm pass over all of her this time.
Liara had her hand unit that she was consulting. "What is going on here?" Her readings weren't making any sense. "There is a massive amount of a synthetic substance in your blood that needs to be removed."
"My drug. Please don't remove my drug." If she removed her drug she wouldn't want nearly as much sex and she was really addicted to all she could get.
"This drug serves no useful purpose," Liara argued.
"Please leave it. I want the drug. It serves a useful purpose to me," Kate maintained. Rick knew he was the reason for the drug. But he'd never known Kate wanted the drug that badly. He knew what it did to her.
"It does not appear to be causing any damage. So if you insist." Liara would rather get rid of it but it was not her body and she was there to do medical work and meet the needs of her patients.
"You have had an operation." Liara had found one more thing to fix.
"Yes." Kate knew what they had done. Every slave had an operation or so she had been told at the time.
"You have been rendered sterile due to this operation," Liara stated.
"What!?" Now Rick moved up next to both of them.
"Both of her Fallopian tubes have been removed. This has effectively rendered her sterile," Liara said. "The female is still producing eggs and releasing them. However, her body is absorbing them and preventing her from producing a baby."
"Kate?" He hadn't know this had been done. Not that he knew everything that happened to a slave save for the obvious tattoos. If her previous owner had paid for this now his opinion of that idiot just went a lot lower.
Kate felt tears well up. She was a slave and even if her tattoos could be removed or covered she was still going to be a slave. "I'm sorry." This time she used his hated word on purpose.
"Oh, Kate." Rick took one her hands in his and lifted it up to kiss her tattoo.
"I can repair that damage if you wish," Liara offered.
"WHAT!?" Both Kate and Rick said at the same time.
"I will need to take a DNA sample and grow new Fallopian tubes first," Liara informed them.
Rick looked at her, his brow furrowed. "You're talking about cloning, are you not?"
"Correct. We can clone body parts and use those cloned parts to replace parts should they fail while within your body. This will take a few days. I can use those days to create a plan to remove your tattoos. Stay right where you are." Liara left her and went to a wall to retrieve a device.
She returned with something long that looked eerily like a huge syringe. "I need you to lift your top for me. I need to remove your DNA from your abdominal area. This should not hurt but it will be uncomfortable to feel."
Since Kate had pulled back her top Liara placed the device in position then slowly plunged it deep into her stomach area.
Kate moaned since just watching it meant it should be painful in the extreme.
"Are you feeling pain?" Liara didn't understand how that could be, however, she had moaned.
"No, but I'm scared. It looks and feels like it should," Kate replied.
"Just a moment longer." She needed to fill her container, as small as it was, with material for her to use. Then she pulled it out. "All done. I suggest you rest there for now." She took her device to another section of her medical bay and inserted the contents into a different implement.
Rick was back at her side. "How do you feel?"
"Fine, I think. A little tired now, actually," Kate admitted.
"That is a side affect of the device. It will pass in time with no lasting damage." Liara had heard everything while she worked.
"You didn't tell me. Why?" Rick inquired quietly while he looked at her.
Kate's eyes were downcast. "There was nothing you could do about it, Rick. They removed something. No one could just give it back." It wasn't like Rick could fix her.
Instead of being angry at her he leaned down to kiss her and felt her kiss him back.
Liara was back and standing next to him. "This female is your mate, Commander?"
"I… Kate is… It's complicated." Thanks to her being a slave everything was complicated.
"What is the purpose of the piercing? Is it a personal preference?" She didn't understand why the female had that thing, either.
"Our society accepts slaves as sickening as that might be. Her previous owner didn't tag her with a method that would allow him to get her back if they were separated. Knowing that I tagged her so that if we got separated I stood a chance at getting her back. That's also the reasoning for the tiny tattoo she also has.
"Kate isn't a slave to me," Rick insisted. "She's so much more than that. If we got separated and she wasn't tagged she would remain a slave all her life and that just wasn't acceptable. Her tag contains enough information to contact me so I could retrieve her from whoever found her."
"I see. …Well if her hand tattoos are removed I would recommend that her tag piercing also be removed. As to the other tattoo, that is up to you two," Liara said.
"I will escort you back to the correct elevator so that you can reach your quarters. The female will need to rest after this. Contact anyone if you need instructions on how to use the replicator in your room when you are hungry."
"Replicator?" Rick understood the word but not the context of how it was used.
"All of this outpost uses replicators to create food. They use energy and subatomic particles which are everywhere in the universe and turns them into the component molecules of a thing then forms the thing itself from those molecules. Food and water in this case. There will be tiny errors in what is replicated in the taste or texture. The complete subatomic structure of something is required to make it.
"The computer attached to each unit is capable of displaying any item asked for or selected from the list it can display for consumption. There is such a unit in your quarters." Liara went toward the door. "If you will follow me, please." She was ready to take them to the elevator.
"There is a communication station at your work desk. Simply ask for help and someone will arrive. State where you want to go once in the elevator. In this case it will be the Command deck," Liara told them.
"That's nice but I can't read a word it says. Or anything in the medical bay, for that matter," Rick grumbled.
"Oh." Liara hadn't anticipated this problem. "Follow me back into medical, please."
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Minutes later after having contact lenses placed in their eyes they both suddenly understood every written word in medical.
"Your contacts send a signal to the outpost computer and convert every symbol of the Iconian language and superimposes English over it for you to read. Verify for me that they are functioning correctly." She was going to have to find another pair if not.
Once Liara was satisfied she let them leave medical and go to their quarters on their own.
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"You want to sleep?" Rick questioned her as they reached their room.
"No." Kate had other ideas and pulled Rick behind her into their bedroom, trying to figure out how to get him out of what he was wearing. She wanted sex instead.
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Kate was totally satisfied as she rested naked next to a naked Rick. Four orgasms later usually did that to her. At least for a few short hours.
"Rick, if they fix me will that mean I could be pregnant and have a baby?" All this sex with no downside that she could see like ending up pregnant was great. However if she was going to end up pregnant a lot maybe this wasn't such a good idea.
"That's usually the end result of sexual intercourse over an extended period of time." Rick held her close; he loved having a naked Kate next to him. "You don't want to have a baby?"
Kate was silent for a short time. "I don't really know. If I end up pregnant each time we have sex I'm going to be pregnant a lot." That was what had Kate worried.
"There are birth control methods. Not all of them that I know anything about are 100% effective. We can talk to her about it next time we see her." Rick just lay there and reveled having her in his arms.
"Do you believe her?" Kate questioned him next.
"That I'm a descendant from this Iconian Rodgers from 200,000 years ago? That one's a little harder to swallow. …I suppose with interplanetary breeding of Iconians and us that it's possible. What I want to know is what happened to these Iconians. Why did they need to interbreed with us? Based on what I've seen so far their technology is superior to the Alliance.
"The ability to hide this place and only be found because they're having a power issue is something I've never heard that the Alliance has ever had." Rick was thinking that if the Browns had this technology they would either have won or won far more advantageous terms for a ceasefire.
"Do we stay here?" Kate asked him since they could retreat to their ship.
"If they're going to keep calling me Commander and actually do what I ask, I don't see why not." Rick shrugged. "Besides we've barely seen anything. Just that control room and medical bay. There's still a lot to see.
"If you're asking how long we're going to stay, that I don't have an answer to. I think we're just going to have to play this by ear. Though it would be nice to have some friends."
"Like your friends Frankie and Liz. I kind of liked those two." They were the first people besides Rick who didn't see her as a slave and actually talked with her, not at her.
"Similar maybe, just not the same," Rick agreed.
"Maybe we can go get them and bring them here?" Kate suggested and twisted her head to look at him.
"The problem with leaving is finding this place again when we come back. If they fix their power problem we'll never find it. Especially if this place is capable of moving." For all Rick knew this place wasn't stationary and could move.
"But you're their commander. Don't they have to do what you say?" Kate challenged him.
"Except they said they weren't risking communications since it might give themselves away. If they don't talk how do I find them again?" Rick wasn't sure how to solve that problem.
Suddenly Kate's stomach growled. That was one of the downsides of all this sex she craved. She used up a lot of energy and made her hungry.
"Sounds like we need to figure out how to use this food dispenser of theirs." Rick smiled since he was a little hungry as well.
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Still nude, both of them stood in front of this device on the wall close to the dining room table. Rick was wrestling with the first problem. "Well I know what it says, just not what it means. Most of this stuff means nothing to me even if I can read it."
"Didn't she say there was a computer that had a list and could show us something? Maybe that will help?" It was all Kate could think of.
"Okay, let's see. Maybe it works on voice command like the elevator does." Rick still stared at the device. "Computer, show us a list of all cold and hot sandwiches." He instantly saw a huge list start to scroll down. "Stop!" He was never going to keep up at this speed.
"Show us hot sandwiches only, one at a time, with 15 second intervals." Rick tried that and saw a picture of the first one appear.
A number of pictures later, "Stop." Kate saw something she liked. "I'll try that one."
"Computer, provide the hot sandwich presently shown," Rick ordered and they both watched as what looked like a bunch of angry electrical bolts turned into the sandwich. Just the smell alone had Kate's stomach growling. It was even on a plate. Rick took it out and set it on the table. "Water, please," Kate asked. "Computer, one glass of ice water, no gas." Rick watched as what he asked for showed up in the same manner. He handed it to Kate who sat down and taste tested her sandwich.
"I don't know what it is, but it's not bad." Kate took a bigger bite and made contented sounds.
Rick ended up asking for the same thing and sat down across from Kate who was almost half done already. One bite later and Rick was ready to agree. "Not bad."
"I wonder if there's a way for it to scan what's in my food packets and bottles on the ship? At least then we would know what we are eating and drinking," Rick mentioned and kept eating.
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They were done eating and were both dressed. "You sure we should?" Kate questioned him even though he had talked her into getting dressed since she was more than happy to just stay naked and have more sex.
"Well, they say I'm the commander. So let's go take a look around. If we get lost we can ask someone how to get back here. Besides I'd like to try and find my ship in case we need to." Rick reminded her why he had talked her into this.
"This better work," was all Kate was willing to say.