Alien Prince

I clawed my way back to consciousness and awoke on the metal plates of the bottom of a cage. I sat upright and rubbed at my eyes; I could feel my heartbeat in my temples, hard and fast, and my head ached from the sudden change in angle. The cage wasn't large enough for me to stand in, and if I stretched my arms out at my sides, I could touch both ends with my fingertips. I tried to force myself not to panic.

"Lore!" I blinked rapidly at the whispered hiss of my name, and made my eyes focus on the space around me. Immediately to my left was Teldara, in a cage of her own, and hunched over where she sat.

"Tel!" Glancing around, I saw the other three women: two other humans and one other Europax, all of whom were slowly rousing to consciousness as well. "What's going on?"

"Slavers," she said. "I knew immediately when they walked on board."

"How did you know?" I asked, willing myself to focus even though my head was swimming from whatever it was they'd drugged us with.

"Insignias on their uniforms," she said. "The crossed-crescent-they're the Quarter Moon slavers." I'd never heard of them, but Tel's expression told me that they were not to be trifled with. "Where are they talking us?"

"To Keldeer, probably," she said, curling her delicate fingers around the bars of her cage. "That's where they'll have the most need of us."

"What will they do with us?" I asked, envisioning fields to plow, cargo to hoist, that sort of thing. Manual labor. Maybe some house service. I knew I'd burn if they had me working outside too long and assumed that they did not provide sunscreen to slaves. Housework, that I'd be better suited for. I began to construct a little speech in Keldeeri to convince them to keep me indoors.

"They'll test us for fertility," Tel said, "and if we'll breed, they'll send us to the auction block. If not, to the brothels."

I started. "Fertility?"

"Yeah, Lore," Tel said gently, catching onto my naivete, even before I fully did. "They'll want to see if we can produce offspring."

"Oh, shit," I muttered, eyes so wide that they began to sting from the air. Of course they wouldn't have been seeking a group of women to put to work in fields or factories. In houses, yes, but it wasn't cooking and serving and cleaning that I'd be doing there. I swallowed hard. "What do we do?"

Tel's gaze darted furtively around the expanse of the room. We were five women in a room that was approximately thirteen or fourteen square feet. The six cages-with one left empty-were the only things in the room. There was a small console next to the door at the front, and an air vent on the back wall, and that was it. Everything was metal. Nothing gave us any indication about the Quarter Moon's intentions. "We do what they want," Tel said, "we keep a low profile. And we figure out where aboard this ship there are escape pods. Then we take any chance we can get to make a break for one. If one of us gets away, then that's good news for all of us."

I nodded, and Tel began to snap her fingers to get the attention of the other women. One of them was crying, and trembling in her cage, and the other two were quiet, calm, but plainly terrified.

"Listen to me," Tel said, "Hey!" she whisper-shouted at the crying girl, "Hey, I need you to focus for a second, ok?" The crying girl sniffled but nodded her head. "All right. I need you to cooperate with them, ok? I need you to do what they want, until we can figure out where the escape pods are. If you find them, you run any chance you get. You get off this ship, you get to the nearest planet, and you send up your distress beacon. After that, you hide, and you wait for someone to come find you. Got it?" The women nodded. "And then you have to help them find the rest of us. What are your names?"

None of the women spoke; they all looked like petrified children, and I'm sure I was no different. Tel, on the other hand, was in total command. I swelled with pride in that desperate moment to see her shine under the weight of leadership. "I'll start," Tel went on, and pressed her fingers to her sternum. "My name is Teldara Kinesse. All right? I need you to remember each name. Teldara Kinesse. Say it." She paused, then said again, gently, "I need you to say it."

And we did, all of us together in a chorus of tremulous voices: "Teldara Kinesse."

"Good," Tel said, and looked at me to go next.

"I'm " I cleared my throat. "I'm Lorelei Vauss."

"Lorelei Vauss," they said, with Tel's voice coming in strong.

I looked at the familiar blond Europax next to me, and she cast a series of dubious glances around the group of us. She was exquisite, with skin the color of peaches and cream, her blond hair hanging past her waist to trail its delicate tendrils on the cold metal floor. Her cheekbones were high and pointed, and her eyes glittered a limpid blue. "Tierney Mafaren," she said, trying to make her voice sturdy, trying to make her posture sure.

"Tierney Mafaren," we all said. And I suddenly realized why she looked so familiar: her mother, Mireena Mafaren, was my mom and dad's boss in the Echelon. Truth be told, I was grateful she was with us, even if I didn't know why she was there: if someone as important as Mireena Mafaren's daughter was missing, the entire galaxy would be looking for her.

Next was the crying girl, red-haired and befreckled. She was human, and very young, not more than seventeen or eighteen years old. She was thin and reed-like, but short, no more than five feet tall. A wisp of a girl. "Ciara Zehr," she choked out between sobs. "Ciara Zehr," so said we all.

And last was the human woman who was older than I was. She had black hair and brown almond eyes, and lines around her lips from years of smiling. She reminded me a little of my mother, if my mother had been twenty years younger. "Sara Yve," she said, her voice quiet but strong.

"Sara Yve."

"Good," Tel said at length. "Hold those names in your mind like a mantra. Know nothing but those names and your own survival. And when they come for you "

And like we'd summoned them, they came. The door to our makeshift prison whooshed open, and two Keldeeri Quarter Moon slavers came into the room. They went to tiny Ciara Zehr's cage first, and I watched her scramble against the back bars. For my part, I leaned forward to watch, gripping the bars with a white-knuckled fist as they opened Ciara's cage and dragged her literally kicking and screaming from therein.

Ciara was shrieking, flailing, kicking her feet as one of the Keldeeri gripped her under her armpits and the other clung to her ankles.

"Make it stop wiggling," one of them said in irritated Keldeeri.

"You want I should make an example of it?" The other asked. "Put a bullet in its skull?"

"Ciara! Stop fighting!" I shouted, and after a moment she stilled herself, her eyes locked on me. Clearly, she didn't speak a word of Kaldeeri.

"Worth too much," the first slaver said, as they hauled Ciara bodily out of the room. "This one is the youngest."

And as soon as they'd cleared out, two more came in. This time one of them was slightly orange in color, and the other-greyer-had had his mandibles ripped off so that it left two gaping scars on either side of his face. He looked sternly at me as he and his compatriot approached and opened my cage.

"Are you going to come out?" He asked in low, smooth Keldeeri, "or do we have to drag you out?"

"I will come out," I replied. My accent was off from lack of use, but my Keldeeri pronunciation was spot-on. I saw a look of surprise cross the grey one's face, and he threw the door to the cage open wide and made a show of gesturing that I should exit. And I did, casting a glance back at Tel as I moved. She gave a stoic nod of her head, and I wished her silent luck as I was escorted out of the room.

The orange Keldeeri had a pistol trained at my skull, so I elected to ignore his presence altogether and focus, instead, on the grey Keldeeri at my side. He was taller than most, several inches taller than myself, and even beneath the burgundy fabric of his uniform, I could tell that he was made of muscle, and sinew, and the hardened carapace of his people. If I stepped out of line, he could easily rip me limb from limb.

"My name is Lorelei Vauss," I said, because I'd read somewhere that if you humanize yourself, your abductors won't want to murder you.

"You may call me Mixrathi," the grey one said. The orange one did not speak, so Mixrathi spoke for him. "His name is Nug, and he doesn't say much. Largely because the Quarter Moon relieved him of his tongue." Mixrathi led me down a long corridor, and through a pair of double-plated glass doors that required a keycard to get through. Through the doors was a room that looked very much like a doctor's office, with shelves and cabinets on one side, and a table in the center. "Please undress and climb up onto the table, and we'll get to know each other a little better."

When I hesitated, Nug pressed his pistol into my spine, and I reached up to unzip my leather jacket. I let it fall to the floor and kicked off my boots and plucked the socks from my feet. Then I shimmied out of my black jeans and tugged my tee shirt off over my head so that I was standing there in a set of purple panties and a matching bra. "Undergarments as well, please," Mixrathi insisted, the request punctuated from a little pressure care of the nose of Nug's pistol.

I felt the heat of a blush rise into my cheeks as I reached behind my back to unclasp my bra. My full breasts bounced free as I cast the undergarment to the pile with the rest of my clothes, my nipples hardening in the cold air as I slid my panties down over the curve of my bottom. "Lovely," Mixrathi remarked, his gaze drinking in the sight of me. "Now, climb up here, please," he said, and I could do naught but obey.

"On your hands and knees, please," Mixrathi said, and I tried not to look over at Nug, whose eyes were locked on me like I was raw meat, and he was a rabid dog. I got onto my hands and knees on the ice-cold steel table and closed my eyes. Tierney Mafaren. Ciara Zehr.

Sara Yve. Teldara Kinesse.

Their names were a mantra as I felt Mixrathi's hands on my naked skin. He forced my knees apart, thus exposing the flower of my sex to the open air. Using his thick fingers, he spread a cool gel all over my nether lips. "Please relax, Ms. Vauss," he said as I felt the insistent probing of something at my most sensitive opening. "This is a medical device." He thrust the device into me to the hilt, and it slipped easily in with the assistance of the artificial lubrication, and my own odd sense of arousal. I felt a pulse in my clitoris as he moved the device around until he got it into an optimal position. "Stay very still, please," he said, and left me there, the probe impaling me as he moved to read the data it was collecting on the screen of his tablet.

So this is the first part of my enslavement, I thought wryly, deigning to peek over my shoulder back at whatever it was he'd shoved inside of me. The probe had descended from the ceiling, and I saw another one, smaller than the first, and did not care to learn where that was supposed to go. I swallowed hard, adjusting myself slightly as my wrists grew sore, and marveled at the fact that I was not more upset. I would have thought that I'd have reacted more like Ciara Zehr, a mess of tears and sniffles. Instead, I was there with my ass proudly in the air. Or if not proudly, at least confidently. Though perhaps I would change my tune if I were made to lie with someone as hideous as these Quarter Moon slavers. After a moment, Mixrathi returned to my side and removed the probe, coming around to stand in front of me as he pried my mouth open with his fingers to get a good look at my teeth. "You'll be pleased to know that you are fully fertile," satisfied, he allowed my mouth to close and patted me condescendingly on the bottom as he moved to tug the probe free of my invaded pussy. "And such a pretty thing I'm sure you'll fetch a hefty price."

"Oh, Good," I said in monotone Keldeeri. Then he spread my ass cheeks apart and peered down at me before pulling away to fetch something from one of the cabinets.

"Lay on your back, Ms. Vauss," he said, and I did, clamping my legs tightly together. But when he returned, he had me bent my knees and let my legs wing out to the side. Then he proceeded to apply hot wax to my bikini line before pressing a strip of cloth to it and tearing it-and my body hair-away.

I let out a little yelp, but he had no time for my discomfort, he simply moved on to the next patch of hair, and the next, and the next, until I was bare as the day I was born. "You would think," I said through clenched teeth, "that with all this technology, they would find a less painful way of doing this."

"Well, there is the laser," he said, "but I prefer to do it this way. So much more intimate, don't you think?" And it was in that moment that I decided he would be the first one I killed, if given the chance.

He waxed me from chin to toes, scrubbed me clean until I glistened, and styled my hair so that my black curls were twisted into a neat knot at the nape of my neck. Then, he presented me with my clothing. No, "clothing" is entirely too generous a word for the things he gave me to wear. He gave me this piece of jewelry that he slid into my cunt, that covered me only from pubis mound to perineum, and was held in place by two thin leather straps that went over my legs. Then he draped what looked like a series of gold chains around my neck, but when he fastened them behind my back, I saw that they were meant to thinly conceal my nipples. The finishing touches included gold earrings, and bands around my wrists, and when I was finished, he opened the door to the exam room, shoving Nug out in front of us. Nug, for his part, had a rather obvious erection in the red pants of his uniform, and I could hardly stifle a groan.

He led me out of the room, and I looked desperately around, my arms crossed tight over my breasts, until we fell into a line with the other women. I looked back and made desperate eye contact with Tel, who looked even more uncomfortable and abashed than I felt in our ridiculous getup.

For every girl there were two Keldeeri guards, and all of us looked demure with our eyes cast to the ground. Except for me. I was looking all around for signage or placards that would give me some indication as to where we were on the ship, and where any escape vessels might be located.

They held us in wait in front of one of the lifts, and I peered through the porthole window in the door at the far end of the corridor, squinting so that I could better see through. But I didn't need to, because another contingent of guards, with another collection of girls, burst through and I could gaze past them and into the bustle of activity from whence they came. I saw the Keldeeri word for "exit" and snapped my fingers to get Teldara's attention. She looked up at me and quirked a silent brow; I canted my head to the side, trying to get her to look in the direction I indicated. She did and nodded to indicate that she understood my meaning.

Or, rather, I thought she had. In a burst of energetic movement, Tel leapt into action, throwing herself bodily into the nearest Quarter Moon guard, and wresting his rifle from a grasp that was startled into opening. I hear Ciara shriek as Tel rolled to the side and righted herself, shooting the other guard that was with her at point blank range. The Keldeeri dropped where he stood.

But this was only the first shot fired. The guard from whom she'd stolen the rifle was on her in an instant, and he overpowered her utterly, even as other guards-Nug included-open fired in her general direction. I recoiled, holding my hands lamely by my head, but didn't think to drop to the floor until Mixrathi gripped me by the shoulders and threw me down. I thought he was protecting me, and perhaps at first, he was, but I felt the hot flow of his blood over me and knew that he was a shield of dead weight who had taken a bullet for me, even if inadvertently. I yelped as I tried to wrench myself free of the dead Keldeeri and saw that the other girls were similarly laid low, their arms over their heads, as though their meat and bones could protect them from flying bullets. I crawled on my stomach toward the door, sparing a glance back at the confusion:

I couldn't see Tel—she was underneath a pile of enraged Quarter Moon Guards-but I could see Sara Yve who, when she noted my inconspicuous exit, went about drawing the Guards attention so that anyone who was not dealing directly with Tel was dealing with her.

I didn't stand upright until I'd made my way through the second group of girls, girls whose names I would never learn, and got to the door. But when I got there, I did stand, I pushed through the door, and I ran.

I ran full force and breathless and counted myself fortunate that no one was there to round the corners. The soft heels of my feet dug into the metal grating as I went, and I pumped my arms to get as much speed out of my soft body as I could, and I ran. I ran and ran, following the Keldeeri "exit" signs, through harshly lit corridors full of glass doors that led into rooms where girls were losing their dignity.

I ran until my lungs burned and my limbs ached, until I wasn't entirely sure where I was, until I needed to stop to get my bearings. I tried to catch my breath by another set of lifts, dark and abandoned in a little traveled part of the ship. I pressed my hand against the wall to steady myself and tried to think of where it was most logical to go.

Maybe into one of the lifts themselves. Maybe they'd have some sort of directory I could use to find the escape vessels. I pressed a button to call for the lift, and waited, my chest heaving with every breath I took. I thought perhaps that I could hear shots ringing out in the distance. I'd left them, all those girls. I'd left them to their fates, and I wasn't sure that I would ever see Teldara Kinesse alive again.

The lift doors swished open, and I stepped inside, profoundly grateful to have found it empty. As the doors closed, I examined my options. There was, in fact, a directory, though it took my mind an addled moment to translate from Keldeeri to English. Living Quarters, no thank you; Cafeteria, nope; Bridge, not unless I was planning to commandeer the ship; Hangar Bay. That was promising. If it didn't have escape pods, perhaps I could steal a fighter jet or something. What? Steal a fighter jet? Come on, Lorelei. I heaved a sigh and hit the button for the Hangar Bay anyway. It was my best chance for some sort of automated escape vessel, something that was meant for the layperson to use to get off of a damaged ship. But if it came to stealing fighters, I was shit out of luck. I couldn't even pretend to know how to fly the things, and I'd frankly rather take my chances as a Keldeeri sex slave, than freeze to death in the outer reaches of space. The doors opened, and I peeked around the corner: more metal hallways with bright LED lighting that could not have been terribly flattering to anyone. Not that I think the lighting would much improve the complexion of a Keldeeri, but that is neither here nor there. I crept on tiptoe into the hall, trailing my fingertips along the wall, and peeked around the corner: more emptiness. Then: more running.

There were no rooms on this floor, so I imagined that when I reached the door at the end of the hall it would open into a wide space. I opened them slowly, just a crack, and slipped inside to find that I was right. I was on a scaffold platform high above the giant room that was the hangar bay. There was a bustle of activity below me, with dozens upon dozens of Keldeeri Quarter Moon going about their business. All a single one of them had to do was look up, and they would spot me. I was exposed, in more ways than one, and I needed to find some cover.

My heart was a railroad spike that hammered into the hard earth of my chest as I ran on my toes across the scaffolding. I darted down the spiral stairs, praying to any Gods that would hear me that none of the Quarter Moon would look up, that they wouldn't see me, fleshy and white and full of fear.

Somehow, I managed to scramble unseen down the stairs, and take cover behind dozens of large crates that they were loading onto one of the larger ships in the Hangar Bay. I swallowed hard and tried to force myself to breathe evenly, but I could barely hear myself think, my heart was pounding so hard. I was running on pure adrenaline, my survival instinct keeping me sharp. But in that moment, I was in a loss for what to do.

I leaned against the crate as I peered around its corner to see into the open part of the hangar bay. And there, like a beacon in the night, was a set of escape pods. Like rows of quail eggs on the right side of the room, there was my way home. The only problem, of course, was that there were thirty, forty Keldeeri slavers between me and the pods that would take me away from this place. I needed a miracle, and I needed it fast.

My gaze darted furtively around the room, trying to find anything that would help me. Then I finally read the labeling on the crates against which I was leaning: Live Ammunition.

I sucked in a joyful breath of air upon seeing several ammo crates that had not been nailed shut, and I darted over to them, rifling with great care through the rough, dry straw in which they'd been packed. I pulled something out, the size of a pomegranate in my fist: a grenade.

I didn't know anything in particular about grenades, only that you pulled the pin out and threw it. So, with the smallest wisp of a prayer on my lips, that's precisely what I did. I pulled the pin out, and I threw.

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The grenade made the clunking sound of metal against metal, Which immediately drew attention in the direction I threw it. A few Quarter Moon even began to walk toward the sound. I squeezed my hands into fists so that my nails dug into the flesh of my palms, wondering if perhaps I'd chosen a dud and they'd find me there behind the crates. But just as I was beginning to worry that I'd never make it off the ship, the grenade exploded with such force that it threw me to the ground.

I got up fast and shook myself back to alertness-I guess I hadn't thrown it far enough. But the grenade had done its job, and the Keldeeri were rushing toward the subsequent flames, their fire extinguishers gripped in their grubby little fists. Me, I snuck around the periphery of the room, because no one was looking in my direction; everyone was looking at where a fire had exploded near a box of live ammunition. I realized, much too late, that it was perhaps unwise to ignite explosions in pressurized chambers around countless rounds of live ammunition, but desperate times and all that.

I climbed into one of the escape pods, and strapped myself in. It looked much the same way the pods aboard the Atria looked, and I had been taught how to command those. They were bulbous, egglike things, inelegant but good at getting one or two people out of a ship at top speed and keeping them alive long enough for help to find them.

This one required only two things to initiate: that restraints be fastened, and that a button be pushed. I did both things in short order and found the launch countdown began just as a few snarling Keldeeri turned their attention to the nearly naked human girl in an active escape pod. They turned on me, advancing on me slowly at first, and then with more speed, until they were running toward my pod.

"Come on!" I shouted at the countdown, which was still at "Twelve". "Come on, come on!" But seconds take as long as they take, and the Keldeeri were quick.

One reached me, and we were face to face, the saliva dripping from his mandibles onto the glass window of the pod. He slammed the butt of his weapon against the glass, and I was terrified that he would break it, that he would interrupt the launch and that I wouldn't escape. Or worse, that he would crack the glass, and I would escape, only to suffocate in the vast vacuum of space.

He slammed the butt of his rifle into the glass again and again, until there was a swarm of Keldeeri on the escape pod. "Eight," said the Pod's computer, as the Keldeeri Quarter Moon Guard tried to lift the entire pod up and me with it. Five...Four...Three... Two...

Some sort of alarm, a blaring of an internal siren. They'd jostled something out of place, damaged the escape vessel with their slamming and their grasping, thick three-fingered hands. But then the computer said, One. And I was shot down a tube, pneumatic and pressurized, at top speed, until I was evacuated from the ship and out into open space.

I shot away from the ship and got a good look at it for the first time: It was hulking and dark, as though it were made of black crystals made deep within the earth. Although it was probably only half the size of the Atria, it was much larger than I had originally thought. Somewhere on that ship were the women I vowed to save. I may very well be their only hope.

The siren insisted that I turn my attention away from the ship I'd just escaped, and to the tiny little lifeboat I was currently occupying.

Warning, the little vessel's robot was saying in monotone Keldeeri, life support systems compromised. Life support at twenty two percent and falling.

I leaned forward and tried to see what, if anything, was around me: but I didn't dare send out a distress signal, not yet. At this range, the Keldeeri Quarter Moon would be the only sentient beings to receive it, and they'd pluck me out of space, and I'd be right back where I started.

Warning, the robot said again, Life support systems compromised. Life support at nineteen percent and falling. Yeah, no shit it's falling.

The pod's navigation systems scanned the area, and reported two planets within range, though none were exactly "close" by human standards. The first bore a name I had never seen before and couldn't pronounce and the second was Qetesh.

I knew something of Qetesh, and I could speak the language. Although I recognized the inherent risk of traveling to a more primitive planet, I didn't see what choice I had. So I took in a deep breath like I was going under water and set a course for Qetesh.

Then, there was nothing to do but wait. I was propelled backwards, away from the Keldeeri ship, and it grew smaller and smaller in my window until it was invisible against the endless black of space. I shivered, hugging my arms close to my torso as I moved through the emptiness, toward an unknown future. Life support at twelve percent, the robot said, and I knew I had only minutes of consciousness left. I didn't bother to look to see how long it would take me to reach Qetesh. I knew only that I needed to breathe slow and shallow and hope that I hit the ground before I suffocated.

I thought about my mother and my father and hoped that I could spare them the insurmountable grief of losing their only child. "I'm sorry," I whispered to the empty air.

I had my tonsils removed when I was ten years old, and before I had the surgery, the doctor put the gas mask over my nose and mouth and told me to count down from one hundred. Ninety-seven was the last number I can fully remember saying before I went under. Life support at zero percent.

I took in one last, deep breath and began to count backwards from one hundred. Ninety-nine, ninety-eight, ninety-seven... And I said the names of the girls I would come back to save, if I somehow, miraculously, managed to survive my escape. Tierney Mafaren-Ninety-six;

Ciara Zehr-Ninety-five;

Sara Yve-Ninety-four;

Teldara Kinesse-Ninety-three...