The Saiyan girl was once again waiting in a healing pod, the wounds on her legs apparently the result of a compressed explosion. She was something special. An anomaly of biology the doctors had almost never seen before. Every time the adolescent was sent back to lick her own wounds, her body somehow forcibly acclimated to the environment that had damaged it. Many species' bones healed stronger when they broke, taking more force to shatter if damaged from the same angle and with the same pressure.
The girl's condition was similar in a way, but massive in scale. Most importantly it was proportionate to the damage she had received. Raw numbers had her battle power jumping as much as seventy points at one time, and while todays injuries were far from as severe as those that had lead to such a titanic boost in strength, The Drexian doctor looking over her charts knew that it would be at least ten when she was back to full strength.
The Saiyan had a potential that seemed almost endless at every turn. Not a single piece of evidence noted a particular weakness of any kind. So long as the girl wasn't outright killed there might not actually be an upper limit to her battlepower.
This hadn't been the first time the woman had examined the alien child, and it wouldn't be the last. Apara, and possibly Saiyans at large if the rumors were true, were built and bred warriors. It didn't seem to matter to Apara that she had the face of an innocent if relatively feral little child. It definitely didn't matter to the crew and it barely mattered to the scattered slaves that had actually survived more than a few weeks aboard the Diligent Frost. That little girl was a killer through and through.
A few years ago, when she hadn't been a slave, the woman now known as doctor 8282 might have cared about keeping that child from the horror of what with this ship made an every day task. Nowadays 8282 didn't have the luxury or the energy for sympathy or kindness like that. She wasn't even really a doctor anymore. Just a novelty barely allowed to look over the medical readouts of slavers and bandits. She didn't have what was known as "worth" around a place like this. Her qualifications, the years of experience she had and the school she attended in her own adolescence was of no consequence to these… things that walk or crawl about the ship.
Her worth was ultimately reduced to a single number. One hundred and five. Somewhere right in the golden range most of the Planet Trade Organization considered ideal for cheap, disposable slaves. Entire species of people considered relatively useful garbage to be sent out en-masse to serve the beings the Cold Clan, alien royalty she had never seen pictures of, thought of as valuable. Warriors that were rumored to kill worlds all on their lonesome. Fighters they threw women, wealth, slaves, and planets at in droves.
Doctor 8282 existed in a system built to feed people with numbers higher than her own. When she was first brought aboard the ship she now had to call home, she had thought that maybe her skills as a medical professional would keep her safe. It had even been promised to her in processing when she made to stand in a crowd of people taken as prizes, her legs still shaking, blood pooling down below her navel and mixing with fluids she refused to think about.
Given the way things started she might have known better. Instead she was reduced to a warm, nubile body. A pink pair of tits and legs for people to gawk at before they forced her down and did what animals do.
She had been married just a year before everything she knew had been reduced to numbers and cruel calculus in the name of profit and greed. 8282 hoped Atreus was still alive, and that he had escaped and made a better life for himself somewhere in the cosmos. Theirs was not a primitive people, and unlike some of the poor barbarians who sometimes decorated the halls of the Frost and prayed to their brutal captors as gods, he might have been able to pilot a man sized craft with enough motivation. With enough contact with PTO technology 8282 was certain he could have overcome the local programs and seen a sort of freedom the doctor knew was lost to herself now. While she used to dream of such a day, even if an ancestor spirit whisked her away back in time to a universe where the PTO never existed and she still had her lover in her arms 8282 couldn't step away from the atrocity that had seeped into her heart.
Sometimes she could feel it. It felt like every evil she had ever witnessed, every simple transgression and monumental sin was seeping into every pour of her skin, every cell of her blood and every atom of her being. She had woken up hyperventilating time and again in those few treasured moments of solitude, and a great many more in the arms of a whatever warrior fancied 8282 enough to protect her from the others. She had tried fighting back, laying still in silence and screaming every terrible moment. She found things were easier when she had some modicum of control, and only a single "partner" to suffer through.
She used to cry when she stopped and thought about how it was getting easier, how the things that had left her stomach curdling in disgust and her mind ringing in betrayal against itself were soon becoming second nature. Now everything was just another way to survive as a slave in a place were slaves didn't survive long.
Her Atreus wouldn't recognize what she had become, but he would hate it, and she would hate herself for being what she was made into once again. She couldn't go back to that kind of state of mind. She couldn't feel that kind of fear again just to be a woman once again whole.
She hadn't shed tears like that in some time, and if it hadn't felt like admitting defeat or proving her own pathetic nature to her captors, Doctor 8282 might have ended her own life. She had even considered hacking the ships systems and crashing the whole damned vessel into a local star. It would have been glorious to see this collection of beings who consider themselves so superior panicking and begging for mercy as they hurtled towards destruction.
As it turned out only the captain's terminal had any real control over their destination. She could rewrite coordinates, override commands, and break through a hundred different security measures. The captain, Jernus now, just had to click a few buttons to undo everything she could have even thought of.
And wasn't that the grandest irony of all? 8282 was reduced from a doctor to a slave to a whore, and the only man on the ship who wouldn't sleep with her was the one she needed to fuck to if she wanted something so base and simple as revenge. He had been one of her first "partners", and she had still been of a mind to fight and kick and scream. When one of the old hat commanders offered his own protection after a particularly violent day, she had leapt at the opportunity, and the whole ship had apparently laughed at how Jernus had been cucked. He still shot her glares on occasion. 8282 figured he hadn't tried to kill her yet half because he didn't want any more commanders as enemies, and half because killing her would remind everyone what had happened in the first place.
Besides, from what she had heard he had his hands full with another female just like her. Someone with credentials and skillsets, a person with drive and ambition who was now just a fun distraction with big tits.
Honestly she wasn't even sure if she wanted revenge anymore. Having been left with only the instinct to survive for so long she honestly wasn't sure if she could do it. Nowadays it was only the honest curiosities that came her way that kept her going. A plethora of different species with their own unique biology to look over and study. The new technologies from new worlds that were passed around like trinkets by powerful males with every reason to show her something that interested her. Things she could take apart and put together in minutes, many of which she could now assemble almost from scratch.
After all she played the whore for them now, made herself look pretty with stolen dresses and makeup taken off the corpses of those less or perhaps more lucky than herself. Some of it took some imaginative stitchwork, but she hadn't been outright assaulted for long enough that she knew whomever she attached herself too was more than motivated to protect her. Even the damned scrubs she wore had been an effort at seduction, the dimensions tightened in a few key places and a tasteful amount of cleavage to display. The very picture of a trophy.
But that didn't matter now. All that mattered was the cells visibly repairing themselves at a pace any sane medical professional of her world would consider outright insane, and that was before healing tanks came into the equation. Between both wounds that might have crippled someone else were the work of a good day's rest to heal, and half of that was just letting the fatigue fade.
Just what kind of secrets does a body like that hold? What kind of power was this girl capable of channeling with the right motivation and a life of applied violence behind her back? It was intoxicating to guess at, and she hadn't been the only one interested in studying it, even if doctor 8282 was the only one brave enough to find out.
There were a handful of other doctors on the ship. Some hadn't been killed off by sheer luck, some were bound to the beck and call of commanders who didn't trust their comrades and wanted constant oversight, and some who even had family aboard the ship. 8282 would bet those last ones would die off first. Family bonds were not a desirable quality in world ending killers.
All of them except her had been scared off by the ship's cook. The man had even spilled guts and made enemies a few times to make sure Apara was never examined too hard. 8282 had been among the others when Dennis first demanded they drop their findings and report the girl's change in power level as a natural one caused only by her species version of puberty. He had made that assertion once just after they had nearly died on some bug planet, and another time after that in a much less kind manner. No one had actually seen Dennis do it, but three missing doctors and a few satisfied cannibals among the crew were enough.
Dennis, the only human on the crew and the only human she had ever heard of. He joined not long after 8282 did, but his circumstances were worth taking note of, if nothing else because he was clever enough and apparently strong enough to make a nearly unheard of jump in rank.
From slave to warrior. Victim to perpetrator. In a few short years he went from another quiet, beaten slave to an actual crewmember of some notoriety. Dennis was no commander, but no warrior challenged him alone anymore and no commander challenged him easily. Whatever quirk of his biology that left him able to defy scouters predictions and use bladed weapons made people leery of fighting him. Half of the crew called him a coward. Half said he was an up and coming commander for having a Saiyan at his side. The new meat in their entirety stayed out of his way.
8282 wasn't eager to see what he might do if he found her watching the little girl. The doctor wasn't sure what to make of their relationship, but it was close enough that she balked at the consequences of discovery. She was lucky enough already the Saiyan seems to have decided to ignore her presence whenever 8282 came to examine her.
Anything else but what she was seeing right at that moment would have her fleeing the pod bay every time the girl so much as looked inside. Instead she almost couldn't hear herself think over the sound of her fingers flickering over the keys of her personal notation device. A neat little thing she designed some time ago.
In fact, she almost missed the sound of the pod bay doors opening. Her fingers twitched with the effort of keeping them still before 8282 looked over at the male towering at the entrance of the room.
Tugor. A brown furred mammal over twice her size and eight times her energy even if she had been trained for combat. His head was ursine, and the heterochromatic nature of his eyes might have made him interesting if he ever smelled of anything but piss and raw meat. A frequent suitor who she had only barely managed to avoid in the past. She still had standards. Animals that smelled like animals was not something she'd make an exception for. Even if he hadn't tasted her when the dignity of choice was unavailable years ago. Rotten memories, blood, and calls for mercy were not memories the doctor was eager to revisit.
"Times up, beautiful." Blood dribbled down his face, and it took her a moment to realize it belonged to the warrior, his already ugly features marred by the absence of an ear. She recognized the purpose of his first step towards her. She grimaced.
"Don't you think commander Sabone might have a problem with you touching what's his?" 8282 said. She was long past fear for the old hat crew member. If it happened it happened. She'd find a way to right that wrong if she had too.
"He got ambushed. Died along the way to the healing pods actually. Shame you missed his body getting carted off. " The doctor could tell by his tone that the circumstances of her latest protector's death hadn't been quite so cut and dry.
"You're all alone, and I think it's time you convinced me to give you a name to hide under." Her grimace deepened at the males words. A direct no would be difficult without anyone directly on the ship. Most of the crew were on the surface, fighting.
She had been about to reply before the sound of another set of bootsteps echoed down the hall, the confidence she could hear in the beings stride told her it was warrior over a slave. She wasn't sure whether to be relieved or concerned when Dennis strode into the room, not even bothering to look at them as he walked past before knocking on Apara's pod. He would have been considered tall on her planet, but the human was of average size aboard the ship, a ragged bearded male with missing teeth on the rightside of his face. Far from her first choice of bed partner, but he did keep himself clean, and no nightmares whispered through her subconscious in vulnerable moments about the things he'd made her do when she was still naive. The glass shuddered with a meaty thunk thunk thunk.
"Get out, we're fighting robots now." It might have been amusing to see the way the Saiyan girl's eyes snapped open in different circumstances. She was vibrating with enough excitement that it was actually visible through the glass. 8282 swallowed, taking another look at the oozing wound on the side of Tugors head, he actually smelled worse than normal. She'd rather take a gamble.
"What about Dennis?" She asked, gesturing to the human as he pulled the release lever on the terminal, letting the healing liquid drain way. He looked over at her in curiosity, recognition dawning in his eyes. His head tilted in a way the doctor knew usually preceded danger.
"What about Dennis?" Tugor laughed. "-You think he can keep my hands off of you?"
Her eyes remained on the cook, watching as he processed the all but direct challenge. He hummed, his eyes looking into her own before he glanced at Tugor. The human shook his head with a frown.
"This is a pickle." Now it was 8282's turn to tilt her head. She knew he was the cook but this was interesting time to talk about it.
"What?" The doctor found herself asking, annoyed to see her words mirrored by Tugor. Dennis huffed, elbowing Apara before she could supposedly ask for a pickle. The girl loved her food.
"Never mind that, I don't feel like explaining human vernacular to a rancid bear man and a slave in a slutty nurse costume. If you want the woman, fine, but you can only have her after you get on hand and knee and apologize to me for insinuating I can't kill you."
Tugor snarled, a response on his lip as he took a threatening step forward. Dennis had a knife in his hand where 8282 had been certain there wasn't one before, the blade coming up and plunging into the soft meat just where the ursine warriors jawline met his throat with a disturbing ease against an opponent she had personally seen take anti-aircraft fire.
The human stepped past his opponent, or victim with a practiced gait, the blade traveling around his throat and down the massive warriors back with him. With a few practiced sawing motions Dennis pulled out a portion of a spine into open air, before stepping back and letting the newly made corpse hit the ground.
The doctor raised her hands in surrender when that same knife was pointed in her direction, sucking at her teeth in concern at the sudden change in circumstance.
"I don't like being manipulated." Dennis drawled, a grin growing on his face.
"WAIT!" She yelled, before reclaiming her calm. "Wait!" His blade lowered a fraction, and she took that as an opportunity to speak.
"Isn't there something I can offer you for protection? I'm sure you're aware of the arrangements I've had in the past." Dennis blinked, before slowly shaking his head.
"That kind of exchange doesn't do it for me. I can get my dick wet at my leisure on the next PTO controlled planet we come across." He stepped forward, her own legs stepping back to match him. The doctor thought, mind desperately searching for something that might be a worthy trade for her life.
"I know things about the other crew members. Likes, dislikes, fears and humiliations. You could blackmail anyone you like!" She hated that she could hear the desperation in her tone.
"More tempting, but not interested." The humans advance had taken him halfway across the room, and soon her back met the wall.
"I can make things! Tech and devices for whatever purpose you like. A scouter without a PTO listening device!" He didn't stop marching, not even bothering to answer her. She leaned her head back as a knife came to her throat.
"I'm a doctor, I've been studying that girl for weeks now! I could tell you everything you don't know about her and more! I know you want to learn more about what she can do!"
The blade at her neck stopped, drawing a thin trickle of blood just under her chin. He leaned in, the already feral grin on his sharpening further. Dennis nodded.
"Bingo." The human drawled.
And that was how 8282-Hera of Drexia came under the protection of 4561-Dennis of Earth.