“Get out of here,” I growl at them. “If your ship is still here in five minutes, I will incinerate the interior of this bay, and you all with it.”
The smiles do not drop off their faces, not for a second, even as they run toward the ship as fast as they can move on their round little feet.
I leave the bay with my very precious human cargo, and carry her to the room I have set aside for her, a room which just so happens to also be my room. I do not want this human out of my sight, even for a moment. I want to observe her closely, train her intimately. I want to make her my own in every way possible - and I cannot do that nearly as effectively if she is in one of our cells.
I know she has escaped from many prisons in her time, but our prison is different. This one is surrounded by the void of space, which makes escape almost impossible unless we land, or unless she finds a shuttle. The shuttles are all locked down in such a way as to ensure no human could launch them. They need a dose of purse scythkin blood from one of our clutch members in order to be activated.
I hesitate for a moment before laying her down. I like the way she feels in my arms. I like the way she smells. I like everything about her immediately, though I have barely known her for more than a minute. After a moment of connection, which lasts as long as it can last without becoming an obvious sign of weakness on my part, I lay her down on the soft bedding I have placed on the floor. This is where she will sleep, chained at the foot of my bed. For as many hours as I can muster away from the duties of the first hatched, she will not leave my presence, or my sight, for that matter.
I take the blindfold off first, and see immediately why she lost her battle with the murketeers. Her eyes are bloodshot and glazed. They’ve sedated her, and somehow still not managed to dull her spirit. The gag comes out next. I want to hear her voice, even if all she speaks are words of rebellion and rage.
I wait for her to say something, but she just blinks at me slowly. I wonder if they slipped her extra sedation when she was being unloaded, and if it is beginning to have late effect on her.
With her lying quietly, I gently and carefully strip her naked. I want to see her nude, but I also have to inspect her from head to toe. I need to know precisely what kind of condition she is in, if there are any blemishes I should take note of, or other concerns. Because she is my prisoner, I am fully responsible for every inch of her. She is mine, not just to punish and contain, but to care for.
As the clothing and packaging falls away to reveal the flesh beneath, I find myself taking in a deep breath of amazement.
She’s beautiful.
She is not a young woman, and her body is fuller and more shapely as a result, but it is also strong, and marked with the stripes of growth and change.
Mine.
The word pops into my head without bidding, an instant claiming. She’s mine. She’s beautiful. Her dark hair is streaked in places with hints of silver. I wonder if that is where she got her name from, though somehow, I doubt it.
I could stare at her all day, but I do not like the condition she is in. She’s breathing lightly, and shallowly, making me wonder if they have used too many drugs, or perhaps starved her of much needed oxygen when they subdued her.
I grab the medical scanner I had ready for her arrival. Sometimes prisoners come sedated, other times they come off the ship fighting. I suspected she might be a fighter, so I have all the supplies at hand to mend basic human injuries.
The scan reveals that her heartbeat is steady. Her reflexes are repressed, but that’s to be expected after sedation on top of sedation. She looks at me, but with glassy eyes, barely recognizing me as another entity.
Those murketeers have doped her to the gills, but I think she will come around in a few minutes. Until then there’s nothing I can do — besides complain.
Somebody is going to pay for this.
I call the IHPZ from the terminal on the other side of my quarters. The same terminal I first took their unlikely call from.
A human female responds to my hail.
“Karen speaking, how may I direct your call?”
“Give me your master, human.”
There’s a pause, and then an exhalation of breath which I can only interpret as annoyance.
“I have no master. I am the manager. My name is Karen, and you will speak to me with respect.”
I do not know what the hell is going on at the IHPZ, but their human women are out of control.
Fortunately, I don’t have to worry about them. I have to worry about my human. At least, until there are more humans being sent here from there, thanks to the delinquency they are clearly encouraging among their ranks.
“Put me on to the first scythkin male you see.”
“Sexist,” the woman on the other end of the line mutters to herself. She does, however, do as she is told.
“Tyank here.”
“It’s Warden.”
I need no more introduction than that.
“Oh, you got the package?”
“I have a doped up, plastic-wrapped human who is dehydrated and weak.”
“She’s not weak. Don’t ever make that mistak…”
He doesn’t manage to finish the sentence before my head explodes, or at least feels as though it has exploded. I recognize the sensation of every single neuron being stimulated at once. I’ve been hit by an electrical bolt, one almost powerful enough to knock me unconscious. It is certainly enough to anger me into intense and immediate rage which makes every blade on my body extend at once in a fanning motion of death.
I swing around, just barely avoiding eviscerating my human, who has made a miraculous recovery from her sedation. She has also, apparently, been concealing an electronic charge device somewhere on her person. I can only begin to imagine where that might have been concealed, and for how long. She must have planned this before she left the IHPZ, secreted it in one of her tight human cavities and waited patiently for the most opportune time to deploy it. I am impressed.
She looks at me and I feel the full force of her human rage. I feel it like a force sweeping from her fragile body toward mine. She hates me. She hates me fully, completely, every cell of my body, every inch of my blades.
She’s waiting for me to retaliate. I wonder what happened the last time she hit a scythkin with a weapon. I wonder if she was beaten. I wonder if that last unfortunate scythkin gave into the flash of rage resulting from her impudent action. He can’t have completely, or she would be dead.
“You take one fucking step toward me, and I will hit you again,” she says, still clutching the weapon as she starts rattling off her demands. “I want off this ship. I want a small shuttle fully stocked with provisions. I want…”
I lean back against the communications deck, my arms folded over my chest, and wait to hear the extent of her demands. The tail end of the charge is still working through my nervous system, sparking off the tips of the few blades which remain erect. She knows how to get a scythkin’s attention.
“... And all the potatoes I can eat,” she finishes.
“You get nothing,” I tell her when she finally stops talking.
“I’ll shoot you again.”
“Did it seem particularly effective the first time?”
“I’ll use full power.”
“You didn’t use full power to begin with?”
“I did not. I wanted your attention so you could get me those things. If you won’t get me those things, I’ll have to just kill you.”