Chapter One
With the main engine offline – paired with a seemingly limitless number of rocky landing sites – it was near impossible to land my small ship on the planet. Ai detected some 'interesting wreckage' on her descent and managed to park us over a small creek near said wreckage. I gave cursory instructions to the slaves who stayed aboard my ship, and more detailed ones who went with. I watched with disconcerting ease as the Floran fashioned a spear out of nothing but a loose length of crabgrass, a sharp rock and a pretty hefty tree branch she picked off the ground. I was both terrified and impressed at her ingenuity and the deftness at which she could craft implements of death.
"Floran be back in a bit. Hour, maybe two at most. Bring back many meatss." She confirmed before disappearing into the foliage of the nearby trees. We were in a clearing in a forest, trees surrounding us and stretching into the sky, with a small creek of fresh water running under the ship. As far as landing sites went, it was a pretty picturesque view... but I didn't care for it much.
"Right." I spoke once the Floran was out of earshot, deep into the trees. "While she goes and gets us food, you and I are going to take a look at the wreckage that Ai detected on the way down."
"Will that be okay? To leave the ship unguarded?" I took a steady note at her concern and looked to the ship.
"Ai." A beep from the small belt-clipped device on my hip confirmed she could hear me. "Enter lockdown mode." The gangplank to the ship retracted up and the door behind it shut and locked tight. A red light above the door told me the ship was fully secured. I nodded happily. "Thank you, Ai." Unclipping the object from my belt, I looked it over. That Floran was wearing collar... fifteen, I think. Dailing the digital number to fifteen, I pressed the button and brought it to my lips. "Hey Floran." I spoke. "The Hylotl and I are going to check the wreckage. If you get back before we do, just see if you can't get most of that cooking." She could hear me, but couldn't respond. I knew she heard me... I just hoped she listened. "Alright, let's head out. Ai said the wreckage is this way. Keep your eyes peeled, and we should get out of this just fine."
To say I kept an eye on the girl would be an understatement. I constantly found myself turning around and looking behind me – checking the surroundings, I told her – just to make sure she wasn't going to stab me in the back. I know I told them all about the bomb collars, and the self destruct and the yadda yadda yadda but fuck me sideways if one of them won't try it.
"Mistress, why don't you let me take the lead? Th-that way if I take leave of my senses... you'll at least see it coming..." Clever-fucking-girl managed to peg me outright. I may not have given her enough credit.
"Yeah, alright. Sounds solid." I stopped walking and let her pull in front. "Just keep heading that way, we're almost there." I saw her nod as she continued walking. God, I need to walk more. As we moved through the forest, it became painfully obvious that my otherwise decadent lifestyle up until now had left me horribly out of shape for moving for long periods of time over rather rough terrain. The Hylotl slave, on the otherhand, seemed quite adept at scaling small rock foundations and balancing her way over log bridges. "Tell me-" I spoke as I finished crossing a log bridge. "You're quite nimble... did you do this sorta stuff a lot before... ya know..."
"My parents used to take me camping all the time." She mused. "I like the wildernesses of Pluto and Mars-" Both those planets were terraformed years ago into basically what equated to paradise worlds. Lots of lush forests and cool rivers. Mars was even shipped a two thousand ton asteroid made completely of ice from an off-world Hylotl benefactor to create oceans. They still get those ice shipments once in a while. "-so I suppose yeah... I did it a lot. And I do enjoy it, Mistress." She mused. "Though, if you'll excuse me, you don't look so good. Do you need a rest?"
"Nah... I'd rather get this done with and back to the ship before too long. Rest when we get back."
"As you wish, Mistress." We crested a hill and saw our target. Plowed into the ground at the base of this hill was a wrecked ship. Looked to be a wrecked Eagle-Class Protectorate Cruiser... human make, by the looks of it. "Is that a-" She began.
"-Protectorate Ship... yes... C'mon, let's see if anything survived." We started down the hill towards it. Judging by the amount of foliage growing around the nose and neck of the ship, it had been here for quite some time... a good maybe fifty or so years... Taking the last few meters to the entrance of the ship by landslide, I gazed upon the side of the behemoth. PNS Amarthine Sky was written in faded paint across the side of the ship.
"Th-" I stammered out. "The Amarthine Sky?! The original Amarthine Sky?!Jesus, this thing has been lost for a hundred and twenty years!" I blurted out. The Amarthine Sky was one of the first Protectorate Ships that went beyond the Sol System in the years before humans realized they weren't alone in the universe. Hell, it was five years after the Amarthine Sky was launched that the first alien races – the Hylotl and Felin – joined the Protectorate. The ship was launched, and never heard from again. Over the years, it's become a bit of a Protectorate folk tale – some believe it was sucked into a black hole and launched into an alternate reality, where others believe it was attacked and destroyed by hostile aliens. There have been – of course – several iterations of the Amarthine Sky, such as the one that was destroyed above Earth not too long ago. But this? This was the original. The first. And still admittedly probably the best... if not smallest. Been rebuilding the thing bigger and bigger every time. Before breaching the already breached main hatch, I took a cursory look at the exterior of the ship. There was no obvious damage done to it's exterior, nothing that would suggest as to why it crashed here. "How'd you get here of all places? So far from home... ghad I can't imagine what it must feel like to die so far from home and... no one even know." Grasping hold of the side of the door, I pulled myself in, my eyes adjusting nearly instantly to the all-consuming darkness that filled the interior of the ship.
"My, it's awfully dark in here..." The Hylotl muttered. "Be careful you don't trip and fall, Mistress." Thankfully, I could see very well in this old hulk, so tripping and falling wasn't something I was really worried about.
Cough... cough cough...
Now the dust... the dust was an honest-to-god concern of mine... woman could choke and die on all the fuckin' dust in here. Waving my hand in front of my face in a vain attempt to clear the dust, I continued on through the derelict corridors. "Hey..." I spoke to my partner, her red eyes shimmering in the low light. "Head to the engine deck, see if there are any spare parts we might make use of." She nodded and turned in the other direction, towards the rear of the ship. "And if there is anything dangerous aboard, don't stick around too much." I shouted back to her just as she disappeared around a corner. I turned back and began to work my way onward, towards the bridge. I may have been a slaver, and on the run from a hundred plus different factions in the known galaxy... but before all that, I was a young girl who had grown up with the story of the Amarthine Sky and like hell I was letting this opportunity to solve a century-old mystery pass me by.
I came eventually to the door to the bridge; bent and twisted all out of shape as vines coiled around it's access rails which carried it into the floor and ceiling. I could probably squeeze myself between the crack and slip in... Putting both hands on the lower door, I threw my weight forward and balanced on my hands, then thrust forward and rolled through the gap in the door, coming to a dusty landing on the other side. Heh... s'been almost ten years since I went to acrobatics class, and still remember a thing or two. Brushing the dust off my clothes (if you really wanted to call them that) I took stock around the bridge. It was fairly standard as far as Protectorate vessels went – a single chain in the middle for the captain and three consoles surrounding that lone chair. Bodies were in all four chairs; skeletalized and very old... they've been here for a while, that much was obvious. The corpse in the captain's chair was wearing a moth-eaten, weathered Protectorate uniform, his slouched pose hinted that he may have died in the crash. Another body was doubled over the navigational console with a splatter of long-dried coppery blood painting the console over which he leaned. The skeleton had a clean through-and-through hole in it's ribcage, several bones shattered from some kind of impact. The pilot's seat held no corpse, though it took little looking before I found it crumpled up behind the console; as though it had been thrown from the seat from the impact... made sense, these ships didn't have seatbelts, nor were they registered for such a hard landing.
The fourth and final body was laying in it's seat, head slumped forward and body on the verge of collapsing into the console. Whoever these people were... whatever dreams or aspirations they had... they set out to explore the universe at large... and they all died, cold and alone on an unknown planet years away from home.
"I almost hate to ransack this ship for parts but... well... you're dead, and we're still alive. So..." I ducked over to the captain's seat and dusted off the small console at the arm's rest. I poked a few buttons just to see – on the off, off, off chance – if the reactor still functioned. And of course it didn't... I sighed heavily, shaking my head at the sheer stupidity of the idea of a ship being this old and still functioning.
Something shimmered and caught my eye. Squeezed between a bony thigh and the arm of the chair was a metal device that the former captain seemed to wear on his hip. "Hello, what do we have here?" I reached down – fighting my gag reflex for touching something as disgusting as a hundred year old skeleton – before my fingers found the device and pulled it up. It was instantly worth the gag. In nearly pristine condition – much to my surprise – was an honest-to-god, completely undamaged (physically, anyway) Matter Manipulator. "...oh my god..." I whispered, afraid that my voice would raise the angry spirits from the dead. I couldn't go into detail about how badly I've wanted one of these things. The closest thing we have to a miracle device, the Matter Manipulator was a wonderous device that could break down almost any physical object into lines of digital code, store that code inside it's bloody massive internal harddrive, then reconstitute it back into it's original object at will.
The Terrane Protectorate had the fuckin' secrets to making these things so far under lock and key not even the Grand Protector herself had access to them. I would have sold myself into slavery for a chance to get my paws on this thing. Flipping it over, I studied it for it's on switch. I pushed button after button, hoping to find something that would turn it on. A small, almost invisible switch on it's back side eventually proved to be the on switch I was looking for. "Please work... oh baby please work..." I mused, watching the little flip-out screen on it's left side. It flickered for a moment then turned to a solid white. "Oh thank you, sweet baby Jesus!" The Terrane Protectorate logo appeared as the boot-up screen, which shortly took me to a blue screen with a message.
Internal Harddrive Malfunction. Internal Clock Malfunction. Please reset time and date. I quickly keyed in the date – August 15th, YP 531 – followed by a rough estimate of what the Earth Standard Time was. It's gotta be close to midnight, or something... I don't know. Time and Date accepted. Biometrics do not match previous owner. If previous owner is deceased, please scan body. I looked it over before gripping the handle in one hand and pointing it at the old captain's corpse. A gentle squeeze of the trigger caused a soft blue light to lash out and dance about the corpse. A few seconds later was met with a beep. Updating records. Captain Johan Mills; PNS Amarthine Sky confirmed deceased as of YP 388. Cause of death: blunt trama to head. New user, please scan self. Blinking, I turned the device around and used my thumb to trigger the scan on myself. The same blue light danced around my body for a moment before the soft blue screen lit up an angry red. Pysiology unknown. Please provide information. Species Name? I floundered for a while before it clicked. This thing was from before the other races joined. It didn't have all that data. I cleared my throat.
"Felin." I spoke clearly.
Confirmed. Species identified as 'Felin'. Gender? Fuckin' duh. "Female." I told it. After another few beeps and boops, it seemed to take my answer. Records updated. Was I going to have to do this with every new species? Floran, Apex, Novakid, Glitch!? Oh, god it was going to flip it's shit when I have to scan a Glitch! Please speak an identifying name: I took a deep breath before answering. "Lysylla Schatternae." I spoke plainly and quickly. The little circle appeared on the screen, telling me it was working. Please spell phonetically. I knew that was going to happen. I went about the painstaking process of spelling both my first and last name for the machine. Confirmed. It finally spoke. Welcome, Lysylla. Well, at least it could pronounce my name properly. I turned it over in my hand and examined it. For being over a hundred years old... it was in really good condition. I had heard rumors from my few contacts in the Protectorate that the Matter Manipulators were made out of some alien technology... that the things were actually somewhat sentient... at least smart enough to keep themselves fixed. Could this little thing been maintaining itself all these years?
"Mistress?" A familiar voice echoed in the dead corridor behind the door I struggled through. "Mistress, where are you?" She continued to call out.
"On the bridge. Are you okay?" I watched her head appear in the small gap in the door.
"Oh! Oh, there you are, Mistress! Yes, I'm quite well. I just wanted to tell you that there are actually spare parts aboard the ship! Quite a few! It looks like they never got around to actually using them..."
"That's because they all died in the crash." I motioned to the corpses around me. Wiggling the Matter Manipulator, I grinned. "Found a thing, though! It works. Hang on, lemme see if I can get that mangled door out of your way." I flipped up the little screen on the side of the Manipulator and pointed it to the door, the object highlighting with a soft blue glow on the screen. "Okay so... do I-" I squeezed the trigger on the handle, a pair of beams splitting out of the muzzle of the tool and began to... I don't really know how to describe it. It was like 3D printing... but in reverse? If that makes any sense. Instead of creating the object, it broke it down and absorbed it into the Manipulator. Once it was all finished – the ruined door clear and safe inside the Manipulator's storage bay, I grinned, looking at the tool. "Neat."
"Is that a... Matter Manipulator?"
"Sure is. The ol' captain here had it. Figured he ain't usin' it anymore so... I took it. Hang on." I flipped it back to scan mode and gave the Hylotl a quick scan down. Error: unknown creature. Please Identify. "Ah, figured it would do that. Hylotl." I spoke to the Manipulator, it beeping after a second. New Species identified: Hylotl. I shrugged to her. "I wouldn't take offense. It didn't know what I was, either." I took one last look at the Matter Manipulator, trying to find some place on my person to put it. "Damn, gonna need like... a hook on a belt or something..." I muttered. "Anyway, not important. Let's see these supplies of yours." She nodded and motioned me to follow her.
We wound our way through the bowels of the ship, pipes and wires hanging from the ceiling and more then one vine creeping in, eventually coming to a pried open door that looked like it had seen better days. Inside was the engine room – in relatively good state, if I do say so – complete with the Erchius Crystal storage. I hoped beyond any vain hope that the crystal had been able to survive the crash, but with how notoriously fragile those things are, I highly doubt it did. I dipped to my knees and punched the unlock code on the storage locker. Nothing. Of course 'nothing' because the ship doesn't have any power! I mentally chastised myself at the silliness of my actions.
"Mistress?" The Hylotl spoke. I looked up to see her holding a two-handed break bar. "May I?" I stepped back and motioned her to continue, keeping an eye on her, just in case she started swinging it like a mace. She stepped up and hefted the crowbar over her head, before bringing it down hard on one of the locks of the capsule, the fragile, rusted metal shattering with the overwhelming force of the blow. She switched up to the second lock. These capsules were decently insulated. If – and I highly doubt this is the case – but if the crystal had survived, her bashing it with a big-ass crowbar was about as likely to break the crystal as it would be to punch a hole in the ship. Plausible, but highly unlikely.
With the second lock broken, she jammed the prybar end of the crowbar into the capsule and threw all of her weight into prying the lid off. Careful of my footing, I shuffled over to give her a hand, throwing my weight into it as well. With a hiss and a thunk, the capsule lid popped open, letting us pull it the rest of the way out. "Aaaaah..." I growled when the crystal was lifted out. "Can't say that's a fuckin' surprise." The entire crystal – a pink, diamond-shaped gem with a milky-pink substance swirling inside – had been completely shattered, the pieces flopping every which way once it had been removed from containment.
"We... need this, right? This crystal?"
"Yeah... it's the whole core of the FTL system. Without it, we'd be slow-boating it everywhere..."
"Is it possible that there are others on the ship?"
"Oh, I don't doubt that. Protectorate ships usually carry three or four replacements, but they aren't usually stored in what one might call safe places. Erchius crystals are stupid fragile... a single nick and it might as well be broken."
"Where can we get another?"
"Well... Erchius Geodes are fairly common... they form on a lot of low-gravity moons from the liquid Erchius. The Crystals though... they're more rare. I know the Protectorate mined them off of Demos, Europa and Tethys... but we're way too far away to be thinking about going there. It'd take us literal millenia to slow-boat back home." I paused, a thought running through my head. "If... and mind this is a big if... but if there are other people out in this end of the galaxy – I wouldn't put it past them – but if there are... they may just have an Erchius mining facility somewhere we could get a replacement."
"How... big of an if are we talking about, Mistress?" I thought about an analogy for her.
"We'd have better luck walking in space without an EPP." She nodded, mouthing 'I see' as she went back. "Fuck it, no use bemoaning our luck. Even if we can't fix the FTL, we can at least get our main engines back online, and maybe our sensors as well." Suddenly, the little squawk box at my waist beeped.
"Captain-" It was Ai. I picked it up instantly.
"Yeah, Ai, what's up?"
"Short-range sensors are picking up strange anomalies just on the other side of the ridge from you. Continue south-south-west and you should locate the source." I blinked. An 'anomaly'? When Ai said 'anomaly' I never liked it. It meant it was something she couldn't identify.
"Uuuuh, sssssure..." I stretched out. "Has the Floran returned yet?"
"Negative. Her bio-signature is still some distance in the forest." I nodded, then turned to the Hylotl.
"Right, feel up for another trek before dinner?"
"Of course, Mistress." She nodded happily. I flicked the Matter Manipulator back and began to deconstruct everything that even looked useful. Even a spare screw could come in handy. I broke the entire engine assembly down into it's composite parts and stored them within the Manipulator. Hopefully, our technology isn't too dissimilar today then it was a hundred years ago, and the Matter Manipulator could patch the ship up nice and new.
Like hell I was going around this ship... Once I had disassembled the engine assembly, I set about carving a hole into the ship's hull to expedite our search for the 'anomaly' that Ai had detected. It didn't surprise me she just detected it. Gravitational arrays on planets tend to mess with sensors, so it usually take eight or nine passes to pick up a signal, and probably an additional ten or twenty to lock onto it's coordinates. I hopped out of the newly made hole in the hull (perfect square) and turned around to help the Hylotl down. She jumped down into my arms.
"Thank you, Mistress."
"Don't mention it." I muttered. "Alright... anomalies... Anom-nom-nomalies." I muttered, forgetting for a moment that I was with company – albeit she was smart enough to keep her gob shut about my penchant to talk to myself. Grappling the communicator once more, I brought it back up to extract more information from Ai. "Hey Ai, what kind of energy readings are you picking up? Nuclear? Solar?" She paused for a moment, trying to find an answer to my question.
"The signature is a close match to the same energy utilized in Protectorate teleportation pads." Teleportation. I instantly heaved at the thought. I didn't like teleporting... it made me feel all... funny. Plus, there was that overwhelming thought that getting broken down at a molecular level, traveling faster then light across a space of unknown size, and hoping the system can put you back together again just... didn't sit right with me. So, no. I was a 'land and hang with it' kind of girl.
The pair of us continued on our trek towards the strange energy signature. That sensation of 'I'm horribly out of shape' began to rear it's ugly head a few moments later, and by the time we reached the last hill on our journey – indicated by Ai telling me it was 'just over this hill' – I was ready for a sit-down break. "Captain-" Speaking of Ai. "The Floran Slave has returned with quite the haul of meat. She's built a small campfire outside of the ship and has been happily cooking."
"Excellent." I answered back with a heave. "Once we're... once we're done here, we'll head back and..." I exhaled sharply. "...get some dinner."
"I sense someone needs to walk more."
"Fuck you, Ai." I growled, returning the communicator to my waist. The Hylotl turned as she scaled the rock formation before her and held a hand down to me.
"Take my hand, Mistress. I'll help you up." Balancing myself on a rock, Manipulator hand on a tree for support, I took her hand with my free one and felt her pull me up.
"You're... quite strong." I heaved. "What did you do before all this?" She smiled at me, her three eyes shimmering at the question.
"Surley, Mistress, there must be some rule you set down for yourself to not get too friendly with the slaves, yes?" She answered as she climbed the rest of the way to the top of the hill.
"Well yeah..." I answered taking a deep breath to try to catch my otherwise shortness of it. "...yeah, but you know. Figured I should learn a little about you... for reasons." I put both hands on my back and leaned back to stretch. "Ugh, this is gonna give me such a stitch in my side..." I paused. "So, I can't just keep calling you 'Hylotl'. Do you have a name?" She looked me over and smiled sweetly.
"It's... Yuzuki, Mistress. Thank you for... asking."
"You understand it's purely because I don't feel like saying 'Hylotl' over and over again, right?"
"Regardless of the reason, Mistress, I'm happy you asked." Okay, so her name was Yuzuki. "If... you'd prefer... you could also call me Yuzu..."
"You're not my friend, you're a slave. Make me happy over the next two weeks, I might consider calling you Yuzu. Until then, you're nothing more then a body shield in case shit goes south." I heard her giggle at that.
"Of course, Mistress." We turned to continue our trek, and the moment we started down the mountain, the source of the energy source was apparent. "Mistress... do you see that?" Fuckin' hard not to. At the base of the mountain – some hundred, two hundred feet below – sat a sprawling structure that looked very out of place amongst the forest of the planet. Dark grey bricks created a near perfectly circular platform, in the center of which stood a massive stonework arch, with a control console in the middle of it. We descended cautiously towards it, Yuzu getting closer to me the closer we got to it.
It felt weird, switching from natural terrain to the obviously cut stonework which surrounded the structure... the grass and dirt looked almost afraid of the stone, and I could instantly see why. The moment my nearly bare foot hit the stone, small lines around the arch and in the floor lit up, humming with a bright blue energy. "Energy spike detected, Captain." Ai informed me the moment the energy spike hit. The console in the center – dormant and dark just a few seconds prior – suddenly lit up with a beautiful ice-blue hue as digits raced across it's tiny screen. "Captain... I'm detecting a communication coming from the console... I can probably boost the signal."
"Patch it through..." I muttered to her, holding the communicator in my other hand.
"If you're reading this... then you've come across an Ancient Gateway. Please... I have something I must discuss with you, as it's a matter of galactic porportions. The Gateway could be powered up by either mining Core Shards from the planet's core, or by utilizing some other power source. Please... power up the gateway and come find me... I must meet you." Fuck that, like hell I was going to dig to the center of the fucking planet for a couple of Core Shards. I mean... okay, I could collect a couple dozen of them to sell them on the black market and get rich while doing it but oh yeah the black market exploded! So... with that in mind, I set about the path of least resistance.
"Yuzuki." I spoke to her. Ghad, it was so much better to have a name associated to her. "Have you ever lit a campfire?"
"Dozens of times. Why?" I motioned to the wooded plain not too far from the stone clearing.
"'Cause I'm gonna go clear enough room for Ai to land the ship here, meanwhile, I want you to help the Floran cook us up some dinner. You okay with that?" I heard her chirp happily.
"Certainly, Mistress! Let me just go collect some wood, and-"
"Don't bother. I'mma make your life easy." I motioned her to follow me as I strode into the forest, detatching the communicator as I did. "Hey, Ai."
"Captain?"
"Prep the ship for launch, and inform the Floran she's to collect everything she's hunted and re-board the ship. Keep a bloody eye on her." I decided to add in. "Once she's on board and you're prepped, launch, and travel to my location. I'mma clear you a spot to land near the energy signature." A pause.
"Captain, if you'll excuse me for speaking out of turn... your 'chosen profession' was not one of physical activity. It would take me a total of fifteen minutes to complete pre-flight check and travel to your location... this ship is of sufficient length and width where you would be forced to clear-cut at least a football field's worth of trees to give me enough space to land. Ignoring for a moment that with a crew of fifty lumberjacks, that kind of job would take a whole day... how are you going to remove the stumps and logs?" I chuckled at her winded question.
"A crew of fifty lumberjacks don't have Matter Manipulators, Ai." I flipped the screen out of the Manipulator with my thumb, then turned it to the nearest tree, the blue line lashing out and slicing deeply into the tree's wooden trunk. "Just prep the ship and no back-sass."
"Yes, Captain." Once the gash in the trunk was deep enough, the entire tree shuddered and started it's descent down. "Watch out, Yuzuki." She leapt backwards expertly just as the tree came crashing down. "Sorry, I've never done this before... Don't quite know how to make it go where I want..." She gave a chuckle.
"Don't worry, Mistress. No harm done." I pointed the Manipulator at the stump and dissolved it down flat, flush with the grass. Even Ai couldn't complain about that job. Turning to the log, I collected it into the Manipulator's harddrive and then pointed to the stonework circle which was the foundation for this 'gateway' thing, before switching modes and depositing the log – handily chopped into perfect two-foot long quarters of tree – in a neat pile. "Oh my!" Yuzu gasped. "That's so cool!"
"I know, I'm so stoked it still works." I put on my professional face. "Alright, get to work."
"Yes, Mistress!" She nodded happily, going to the pile of wood to begin to start a fire. While she worked on that, I sketched out a rectangular-shaped landing spot for the ship, storing all the wood in the Manipulator's harddrive, and knocking the stumps flush with the terrain. To make an otherwise long story short, I spent fifteen minutes, and against all odds, I had managed to clear enough room for Ai to land the ship, just as I heard her engines overhead.
"Color me impressed, Captain. Beginning landing sequence." I was very proud of myself... but also in a significant amount of pain from all the work, and took a seat on the cool stone to watch Ai land the ship. Once the ship had set down and the ramp dropped, I watched the Floran come down the gangplank with what appeared to be a bear hide bag dragging along behind her. She dropped the bag by the decently sized campfire Yuzu had created.
"Fisshy make good fire. Good heat, fisshy should be proud." Yuzu giggled at the Floran's words and accepted them graciously with a bow.
"Alright, you two are currently the only two I'm trusting right now... and 'trust' might be a bit of a stretch. Once you've fed yourselves – Yuzuki because you helped me out a lot today, and you-" I needed to learn the Floran's name too, I guess. "-because you did a damn good job bringing quite the haul back – I want you to make sure the rest get fed. They're to stay chained and blindfolded for now. Feed 'em like you would a baby. The other Felin in there? She starves, understood? If I catch either of you feeding her, you'll be back in chains and you'll be starving as well, hear?"
"Yes, Mistress."
"Floran listenss." The Floran nodded. "But... Floran have quesstion?" I grunted a response, letting her know she can continue. "What good is kitty if dead? Sshouldn't we feed her ssomething?"
"It's like this. When it comes down to it, people will always save their own skins. Once she realizes she's only got one choice – bein' either she listen to me, or she starves to death – I can promise you she'll rethink her stance. Once she's starved enough, she'll recant. I promise you that." I waved to her. "She won't die. Unless she wants to, at which point... I don't care." Truth be told, I could afford to have one... maybe two of them die and still survive well enough. More hands were just more hands. Yuzuki and the Floran nodded. "Oh, and Floran?" She perked up, her big onyx eyes locking with me. "What's your name?"
"Floran iss called Nakadi." I nodded to her.
"Alright, Nakadi. You and Yuzuki eat your fill, then see to it the others get fed as well. Just... don't stuff them, okay. Give 'em enough to sustain themselves, then put the rest in the refrigerated locker near the bridge." I, again, don't feed layabouts. "I have a sinking suspicion I'm about to be very glad I had that fridge installed..." I got to my feet and sauntered tiredly towards the campfire, the warmth of the flames caressing my soft fur in their gentle love. Nakadi fished out a piece of steak – a nice cut, might I add – and placed it on a roughly hewn slab of wood that vaguely resembled a plate.
"Floran ssave best cut for kitty." She handed me the plate and gave a little nod. "Consider it gift for not killing Floran outright."
Eating with just a rough wooden plate was barbaric, but it was the only thing we were afforded right now. I'd worry about buying some fancy plates and shit later, but right now, we needed to get our strength back. I had stripped off my gloves and had picked up the well-cooked steak like one might take a cookie, and took a bite out of it. It practically melted in my mouth... shit was I glad I assigned the Floran to that. Floran were a barbaric at best people... but if you wanted a cook or soldier, you could literally not find a better.
Once Yuzuki and Nakadi had eaten their fill – a whole steak for Yuzuki and three for Nakadi – they cooked up a decent supply of the meat and placed it on a larger rough wooden plate, and brought it inside the ship. I picked up my gloves and stuffed them into the waistband of my panties, before carrying my own plate into the ship to watch. The two of them did exactly as I asked, each picking a side and helping the still-chained slaves get something in their stomach. I watched Nakadi pass right over the other Felin and to the Apex near the rear.
"H-hey... you passed me..." The Felin mused.
"Floran aware." Nakadi answered with a nod. "Floran under expresss orders not to feed kitty."
"Oh fer-" She growled. "Don't listen to everything that bitch says! She's a freakin' psychopath! Don't you know the moment you outlive your usefulness, she'll just toss your asses out the fuckin' airlock!" I heard Yuzuki laugh a little.
"Well, I guess we'll just have to make sure we don't outlive our usefulness, right Mistress?" I nodded.
"Righ'" I still had a mouthful of steak. The other Felin clammed up, not fully realizing I was – once again – standing right there.
"Bitch! Start fuckin' saying when you're there!"
"Nah. That's not fun." I finished my meal – hands drenched in meat juice – and walked over to her. She was right about one thing. "Here's the deal, sweetie. You start learning your place, start helping us all out and stop being such a selfish, ignorant bitch, and I'll consider to feed you."
"Please! Dammit, something! I haven't eaten in two days!" I smiled at this. It was pathetically hilarious how she slung all these insults my way, and then begged and pleaded for food. What did she take me for, a church?
"Oh good! That's just one more day I don't have to wait!" I smiled, looking down at my hands. "I suppose I could let you suck the meat juice off my fingers but... you're a daft cunt if you think I'm puttin' anything of mine in your mouth." I watched her growl, like she was hoping I would, so she could bite my bloody finger off. "For now..." I put both hands on her chest palm-down and drug both hands down the front of her chest, wiping the juice off on her. "...you're name is officially Napkin." Turning my hands over, I dried the back side of them off on her too. "Thanks, Napkin." I patted her head condescendingly and stood.
"Don't you pat me! Get back down here, I'll bite your fucking-" I dropped down and slapped her hard across the face, the impact stinging my hand and her face. She yelped, her sentence cut off abruptly. I grappled her neck with my other hand and slammed the back of her head into the wall.
"Listen up you fuzzy cunt." I growled to her. "I'm the Queen Bitch of this ship, you hear!? The only reason I haven't given Nakadi carte-fucking-blanch to cook you in a bloody stew, is because there is a slight... slight... slight chance I'm going to need you in some dumbass capacity in the coming months." My fingernails dug into her neck, causing her to gasp and wimper. "So you sit-the-fuck there... you keep your whore-mouth shut, or the next thing that's going into it will be a grenade. You said it yourself, I'm a psychopath." I eyed her up in down, what I could see of her face contorted into pain and sadness. "...you just don't know how bad of one yet." I released her neck, causing her head to roll downwards before she picked it back up. "If you talk out of turn one more time... I'm going to chop your tail off. Twice more, and it's your tongue. Fuckin' hear me?" She whimpered again. "Answer me when I speak to you!"
"Y-yes! Yes, I understand!"
"Yes what!?"
"Y-y-yes... m-Mistress..." I nodded.
"That's much better." I turned to Nadaki and Yuzuki. "You ladies are my eyes and ears, you hear? If she speaks out of turn at all, you're to slap the shit out of her. If she says anything bad about me... well... just don't kill her, kay?" Yuzuki nodded vigorously, probably more afraid of my outburst then anything else.
"Y-yes, Mistress! Of course, Mistress! Anything you wish!" I laughed at her.
"Don't get yourself so high-strung, Yuzu." I winked to her. "I'm not mad at you." This only made her feel slightly better. I turned to leave. "Ai! I need a favor."