When the Ascetics found them in Irina’s cabin, they initially thought Terri was a man. Irina convinced them otherwise. When they reached the sales arena, Irina kept her close. The two of them were pushed into a cage holding older female captives. Irina and Terri were sold as part of a block of 100 female workers for a piece goods factory. General Irina Bugarov, veteran of two wars, Senior Fighter force commander for a battle fleet, Vice President for Debran Defense Industries, would be a seamstress. She told herself if she was going to be a seamstress, she was going to be a damned good one.
The Vigilant hovered just outside the Pleiades star cluster, where Alistair Bennett had lost the mysterious ion trail. Kelly had the gravimetric plot on his command display. He studied the readouts, then switched to the 3-D display. With some adjustment, a tunnel of low gravity fields appeared before him. He could see a clear path ahead into the star cluster.
He and Alistair had agreed that one of the several Sol-type suns should be their first target of investigation. Kelly ran through his mental calculations for choosing this system over the other one more time. He couldn’t find any reasons to argue against that choice.
Kelly called all hands to battle stations and ordered the helmsman to move ahead. The helm and navigator worked closely with the Exec and Chief of the Watch to keep them in the middle of the gravity channel, as they moved resolutely ahead at FTL Power 3. Kelly stayed on the bridge for the first few critical junctions then moved back to sensors.
As Kelly walked by, Chief Johnson had his section at maximum effectiveness. They were monitoring external gravity, X-rays, and stellar radiation, in addition to the normal communications, early warning, and self-defense sensors. They had already detected terrestrial communications ahead.
Kelly walked back to snag a coffee from the galley and returned to sensors. He watched over the operators’ shoulders as they monitored their screens. He had sat position beside them often enough, during work ups and in his previous job as Exec, that they no longer were nervous over his presence. Sensors and the galley were two areas of his ship he had yet to master. He had a deep respect for their capabilities.
The sensor operator, Chief Johnson, and Kelly saw it at the same time. An indicator for a laser burst transmission ahead of them showed on one of the monitors.
Chief Johnson spoke first. “Looks like we are on the right route, sir, and they now know we’re here.”
Kelly replied, “I have to agree with you on that. Is there any chance you could break out what the message was?”
“No, sir, we only got the indicator because there is so much dust in this area. It was facing mostly away from us.”
“Chief, can you get a close up view of that thing?”
Chief Johnson nodded at the sensor operator and he zoomed in on the early warning satellite. It looked like a rock with an antenna sticking out the top.
“Let’s let this one go. Maybe if they only get one report they won’t react. Yes, I know it’s wishful thinking on my part. Good work, Chief, but keep your eyes open. I suspect we may see company soon.”
Kelly walked back to gunnery and found Chief Pennypacker, “Chief, we just tripped a burglar alarm, it seems. Heat them up and keep your gunners fresh and focused. I suspect we may have some company soon.”
“Nothing to worry about, sir, we’ll be ready for them.
Irina adjusted to the work relatively quickly. Terri let her hair go dirty and kept a disheveled look about her. This kept the male foremen off of her. Irina found out one of the worst offenders of women was a captive himself. She arranged a meeting with him.
When he arrived, three other women grabbed him from behind and held him while Irina approached him. She unbuttoned her shirt and knelt in front of him while undoing his trousers. He kept asking them why they were holding him — he would cooperate fully.
When his trousers hit the ground, Irina pulled out a set of industrial scissors and menaced his manhood. He fainted. Irina brought him to and told him that if they ever saw or heard of him bothering another woman in the factory, he would see those scissors again. She also told him to pass the message to the other captive foremen. She scared him so much that he soiled himself.
Treatment of the women improved dramatically at that point. If ever a man started bothering a woman, the scissors came out and a snick-snick sound echoed through the room. It had a very chilling effect.
It was First Day. The weeks on Barataria were only six days long and were referred to by their order in the week. Logically, the first day of the week was First Day. The next was Second Day and so forth. First Day was important because that was the only day of the week the Ruin View restaurant was closed and was Sally’s day off.
Sally taught One-Eyed Pete early on that her not having a day off resulted in a drop in the quality of food served in the restaurant. Complaints from customers made the point to Pete that Sally deserved a day off. Sally made sure that all the staff shared in this day of rest. Pete made the mistake of holding Russell back one First Day to help him with inventory. The next day saw so many complaints on the quality of food that he never made that mistake again.
Before Russell literally fell out of the sky, Sally had spent her days off in her quarters reading or working on odd bits of needlepoint. She had been mightily bored. Now that Russell was in her life, First Day took on a whole new meaning.
Plain old Sally had never thought that romance would ever intrude into her life, but Russell dispelled that silly notion. When Sally was with him, she didn’t mind she was a captive. She didn’t mind that another had bought her life and she was merely property in many people’s eyes.
She was doing what she loved-cooking. She was the head chef in the best restaurant on the planet. The most important people on the planet respected her, so much so that she was almost offered her freedom. All of that paled in comparison to the love she felt from Russell.
Theirs was not a great passion. Sex was not a great part of their love. Russell realized early on that Sally only engaged in sex to make him feel better, not because it gave her any pleasure. Russell soon figured this out and though he was gentle and patient, she never felt the pleasure he did.
Russell couldn’t bring passion into her life, so he worked hard to keep romance in their relationship. He wanted to marry her, but marriage between captives was forbidden. He made sure she had flowers in her quarters at all times. He always treated her like a lady. When he was with her, she was the only woman in existence.
Their main activities were walks in the parks and quiet times reading together. Theirs was a quiet, but intense love.
Steven Maynard had concluded his visit with the Debran women. He was conferring with the House staff and enjoying the view of the two younger Debran women lounging by the pool below the housekeeper’s office window. He advised the housekeeper that in the future the Debrans would eat meals from the house pantry and there would be no more take out.
His communicator went off and a text message appeared, informing him that one of the perimeter warning sensors activated. His Defense HQ requested permission to send Torpedo Squadron Six to investigate. Steven mentally reviewed which one was Torpedo Squadron Six. He remembered that Six was the squadron with six Scylla and six Charybdis. Yes, that was the one he would choose. He authorized the action.