Alexei Iskakov, Bounty Hunter
by bubbarita (ao3)
Chapter 1: Catching a Rat
Alexei Iskakov had had a long night. Sometimes you bring in the head of a bounty, and the client gets pissy about a missing tooth. The resulting ‘negotiation’ only got him 70% of the agreed price, and led to a long night of drinking and ranting at his favorite bartender. He kicked an adbot, blaring promos for “forbidden erotic services” out of his way, and climbed aboard the Tamerlan.
“Hey babe, I’m home.” he turned the lights on with a wave of his hand
“Welcome back master.” Tamerlan purred “There is an unexpected lifeform presence in your cargo hold.”
“Rats?” he sighed “I told you how to deal with rats.”
“No master, by my readings, it is a humanoid, or something of similar size and profile.”
“Fuuuuuck this is the last thing I needed today.” he pulled out his stun baton in one hand, and his gun in the other “Give me an overlay.”
A display popped up in his eyes, giving a tactical overlay of the ship, and sure enough, a crouching silhouette of a human behind several water barrels.
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Zarina could remember very little. She remembered her family, taking off from Pamuengpeuk, and boarding the Tianhe station, before being shot off into hibernation in a life among the stars, Proxima Centauri to be exact.
She didn’t know where she woke up, it had taken a while for her short term memory to start working again, but she knew she had been running for a while. The ships in the spaceport she was in were like nothing she had ever seen, but she knew that she needed to get out of where she was. When a cocky, long haired young man left his ship open, twirling his bag and letting the door close automatically behind him, she had slipped in.
Now, everything was dark, but by feel she found some packets of dried ramen, and tore into them greedily, until the light of the cargo bay door opening hit, and she scurried behind a stack of barrels.
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Fuck, it’s the cartel here about my debts.
Alexei’s bad day had gotten worse.
“Tamerlan, take off, if I don’t cancel orders myself, initiate protocol eighty in twelve minutes.”
The ship roared to life, leaving the station. Alexei had been through a few liftoffs like this, and maintained his balance, hoping that whoever had gotten in would be thrown off.
“Come on out. Let’s make this easier for both of us.” he said, cautiously advancing into his hold “I don’t want to die but neither do you.”
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Zarina, distracted by the presence entering the hold she had hidden in, was thrown off her feet. The man was saying things, in a language that sounded like Chinese, but she could only pick a few words out. He approached her position straight off, as if he knew exactly where she was. In desperation, she reached around, her hand landing on a bottle. She pulled it back to strike as he came around the corner.
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A bottle very narrowly missed Alexei’s head, as he sunk the cold prongs of his stun baton into his intruder’s neck.
“Alright, lets… fuck, it’s just a kid.”
The girl he had stunned was hardly over twenty, gasping for air in a very old school colonist’s uniform, like you would see on a bad drama.
“I’m pulling you out of the hold, and you’re gonna thank me later” He dragged the intruder’s limp body by her shoulders “As Captain of this ship, all your current possessions are forfeit to me and therefore you…” he reached for her wallet, finding nothing “You… Fuck I’m gonna have to wait till you wake up”
Alexei went to his cabinet, and pulled out a generous length of rope “But lets make sure you don’t cause any trouble while I drive”
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Zarina came to, looking at her own feet. A rope connected them, uncomfortably, to her neck, bending her forward. She tried to yell, only to realize her mouth was filled with a round ball of hard rubber. She screamed into it anyway, trying to move her arms, but finding them pinned behind her, able to do little more than shrug. Ahead of her, she saw a man in a pilot’s seat. He slowly turned around, gripping her chin in his hand, and giving a command she could not understand.
The hand on her chin quickly moved to her hair, pulling her up savagely and choking her on the ropes around her neck, repeating the same phrase from before. The man looked angry. A hard slap followed, and he turned around to continue piloting his ship. Zarina let her head drop, and began sobbing.
Where am I? Why is this happening?
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Alexei turned back to guiding his ship into the warp gate. The ship shuddered, then slipped into the fog of hyperspace. He had to get that fixed, and soon, but it was expensive. Fortunately, he might have just found his meal ticket. He wouldn’t be able to send it, but he began drafting a listing for the encrypted app he used to buy and sell guns, drugs, and the occasional unpaid bounty.
“Name… no idea. Registration… I’ll have to get one from Yuri. Age… I’ll put 21, looks accurate. Height, 155 cm, give or take, weight, about 55 kilos. Hair, black, Eyes…”
He paused, and spun his chair back around. The girl was crying. Frankly, he didn’t blame her. She had been stripped down to her panties, and he had tied her arms and chest in a strict box tie, followed by a shrimp tie between her feet and neck, and gagged her with a ballgag. Maybe he had been a bit mean with the slap, it looked like she honestly didn’t understand him.
Alexei loosened up the tether from her neck to ankles, letting her straighten her back out almost, but not quite, all the way. He pushed her thick, black hair out of her face. She had big, dark, brown eyes, currently wet with tears, and a pleasant, round face with olive skin. He reached around to the back of her head and unbuckled the strap of the gag.
“Take a few breaths, this is going back in soon.”
The girl quickly started babbling and sobbing what sounded like questions to Alexei, but he couldn’t understand a thing she was saying. He put two fingers on her mouth, and she got the hint fairly quick.
“What is your name?”
She didn’t understand, obviously. Alexei sighed, crouched in front of her, and pointed at himself.
“Iskasov.” he pointed at her and shrugged “You?”
To her credit, the girl was able to figure out what he meant fairly quickly.
“Zarina. Zarina Na-” he cut her off.
“Zarina? No. Fuck that.” he thought for a moment then pointed at her “Sofiya.” She didn’t seem to get it.
“Zar-” he slapped her again.
“Sofiya. That’s your name now.”
The girl opened her mouth again. Before she could get a syllable out, he pushed the hard rubber of the ball back between her teeth.
“Good girl Sofiya.” he patted her on the cheek after strapping the gag back behind her head. “You’re gonna make me a lot of money if I play my cards right.”
As she made noises of protest into the gag, Alexei finished making the ad, saving it so he could post it after leaving hyperspace. He mulled over people who might buy the girl. He could sell her to the Bratva, but they would hardly pay full price. Jaime and Malcolm, his frequent business partners, could use a maid, but she wasn’t quite the kind of eye candy the couple would like. Galena, his on-again-off-again girlfriend would appreciate a toy, but she rarely had much money on her. He yawned. Time to get some rest. But first, he needed to secure his captive a little more safely.
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Zarina (not Sofiya, what is this psycho thinking?) saw the man get up and walk behind her. She tried to strain her neck to see what he was doing, but it was already sore and stiff from being in such an uncomfortable position for so long. She was relieved, and not a little surprised, when she felt the ropes on her neck loosen and fall away, allowing her to finally stretch her back. That relief dissipated when she felt the cold, hard pressure of a steel collar around her neck, and heard the click of it locking. She tried to protest, but the damn gag turned it into little more than frustrated moans, and she hung her head in defeat, not resisting as he cuffed her hands and shackled her feet, but quietly crying. After she was cuffed, the man undid the ropes binding her, pulling her to her feet by a loop attached to the collar, saying something she couldn’t quite grasp but figured meant get up.
Summoning the last bit of defiance left in her tired body, Zarina went limp. The man uttered a string of what must have been expletives and prodded her with his foot. She stuck to her guns, doing her best to just be a ragdoll. After about a minute the man (Iskasov?) grabbed her by the hair, forcing her to her feet. The pain was too much to keep up the dead weight act, and she stood up. Alexei pulled her to the back of his ship, while she stumbled over the shackles, to where a cage sat on a sturdy table.
“Something something, Sofiya, something” He gestured at the open door to the cage. She didn’t want to give him the pleasure of acknowledging the name he had picked for her, and stood stock still. A slap on her ass and a rough tug on her hair though, were enough to get her to clumsily climb in to the cage, bending onto her knees and leaning forward to fit. She wished she could at least use her hands to hold herself up.
Iskakov pointed to a water bottle hanging on the side of the cage in front of her face, then to a bowl of tofu-like substance just below her head. Smiling, he tousled her hair, and slammed and locked the cage door. As he walked away, she moaned against the gag. She couldn’t eat or drink like this. Iskakov looked almost sheepish for a moment, and reached between the bars unbuckling the strap that help the ball in her mouth. He rubbed her head again, said something in his language, and walked off to another part of the ship. Zarina stretched her mouth. At least this was warmer than the cargo hold.
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Alexei plopped down on his cot, going over the ad once again. Sofiya had nice, sad, soft eyes. He thought for a moment about keeping her. He knew it was a bad idea. But still…
He poured himself two fingers of whiskey. They wouldn’t be out of hyperspace for 16 hours at best. He’d get over it. She was cute, but he’d known a lot of cute girls, and a few cute guys. He sighed, drained the cup, and rolled over, drifting into sleep.
Chapter 2: Taking the Dog for a Walk
Zarina couldn’t stay asleep. She had tried, but the cage was cramped and having her hands cuffed behind her was far from comfortable. She tried to count her blessings. It was chilly in here, but far warmer than the hold. She was cramped and uncomfortable in the cage, but it was far from the pain and stress of how she was bound earlier. Eating the cubes of tofu without the use of her hands and having to suck on the nozzle of the water bottle was humiliating, but at least it didn’t taste awful, and no one was watching. Except, well, the security camera.
Oh, god. That creep must be watching from his bunk.
She pushed the food bowl to the side with her head and rolled off her stomach onto her side, back to the security camera. This was a little more comfortable. She gave the cuffs a tug. The heroines in the Californian and Tamil dramas she watched as a kid always managed to get out of these sort of situations. She’d fantasized about being a captured spy or resistance fighter, bravely defying interrogation, but this was far less glamorous. Nearly nude, cold, and eating out of a dog bowl in a cage, with no idea of where she was or how she got there, she shivered, and curled up into a ball passing into a fitful, teary slumber.
“Wake up Master, we’re about to exit hyperspace.” Tamerlan’s computer stated, calmly as ever, but at several times its normal volume “Approaching Mazu gate”
“Ugh… fuck.” Alexei rolled over and sat up. He had overslept. Not bothering to dress, he grabbed his thermos of mate and stumbled out to his cockpit. Sofiya was asleep herself, or doing her best to pretend to be. He had a couple minutes, might as well wake her up so she didn’t get hurt on the return to normal space-time. He emptied her water bottle and poured some of the hot mate in, then reached into the cage to jostle her. Apparently she was fully passed out. He grabbed the cleaning hose and gave her a blast of the cold water.
The girl screamed, what Alexei assumed to be cursing in whatever language she was speaking.
“Wakey-wakey princess.” She glared, indignantly, at him. Alexei chuckled and gave her another quick spray. “Be good and I’ll turn the heat on. And hold on tight.”
He leapt over to his cockpit. Less than twenty seconds left till return to normal spacetime… He felt the shudder and bucking of the ship begin. As soon as they left hyperspace, he was able to reign it in.
“I told you to hold on.” he swiveled around, half expecting a bloody, crying mess. The defiant glower that awaited him took him aback a bit. “So you can listen.”
He pulled up the draft of the listing he had made for Sofiya on his comm. His finger hung over the submit button for a moment. She would bring in a lot of money, enough to fix the warp drive for sure. And he didn’t need an extra mouth to feed on the ship… but… Well, he couldn’t sell her without getting her cleaned up and giving her a medical checkup. He closed the app without submitting the listing.
The ship was approaching Mazu, a water covered world infamous for its pirates' bazaar. The floating market was a place you could buy and sell anything from human flesh to military grade weapons and illegal nanotech. Unlike other such dens of iniquity, the Da Xing Pirates ran a tight ship, it wasn’t a place you’d be robbed or assaulted. It also was one of the few places outside the more decadent parts of the core that you could lead a half naked girl around on a leash and not get weird looks. Alexei switched back to manual control, guiding Tamerlan down to the surface.
Zarina watched the completely blue planet come into view. Where the hell was she? While the man was distracted by flying his ship, she reluctantly sucked on the water bottle nozzle. The hot beverage inside was soothing. The ship landed, and Iskakov approached the cage, opening it. She recoiled as best she could from his hand, but the man just laughed and dragged her out by the collar, forcing her to her feet. She tried not to meet his gaze, bowing her head, but Iskakov brushed her hair back and lifted her chin with a firm hand on her neck. He stared at her for a moment, and she did her best to keep a brave face. He was handsome, in a roguish kind of way, with long black hair and a bit of face scruff. She couldn't help but be a little aroused by the situation. Judging by the smile cracking on his lips, he noticed, and she could feel her face flush with embarrassment.
The man pulled a thick leather blindfold out of his jacket pocket. Zarina shook her head, trying to avoid it, only to feel the sting of his palm on her cheek again. Powerless, she tearfully let him secure the blindfold, and was plunged into darkness.
One he blindfolded Sofiya, Alexei grabbed a bit-gag. It was his personal favorite, with a nice, thick bit and a full harness.
“C’mon, open up.” he pressed it to Sofiya’s mouth, but she stubbornly clamped it shut. “You just don’t want to make this easy, do you?”
He grabbed her left nipple, and gave it a sharp twist. She cried out in pain, and he pushed the bit between her teeth. “Lucky for you…” he started latching the straps behind her head, “I like a good challenge.”
He spun her around and reached down to unlock the cuffs, but held her hands behind her as he reached for the rope. Placing a loop of it behind her neck, he wound it around her shoulders and arms, tying it off at her wrists, then using the remaining rope to connect to the loop behind her, pulling her hands up her back. She groaned with the stress it put on her arms.
“It’s not supposed to be comfortable, but if you’re good while I take you to the doctor maybe I’ll loosen you up a bit for the walk home.” He clipped a sturdy leash to the collar, and opened the exit ramp. “Come on now, let’s not make me late.”
Zarina struggled to keep up with the man dragging her along. He took large steps, and the shackles on her feet made it very difficult to walk quickly. She smelled sea air, and felt the sun on her skin for the first time in… How long even? It felt good, despite everything else happening to her. It took another voice to snap her out of her short revelry. Iskakov was talking to another man. She heard the hubbub of many more voices.
Oh God… he’s dragging me nude through a city!
Her humiliation was only compounded when Iskakov gave her a firm slap on the ass, and turned her around. The other man gave what sounded like a word of approval, and Iskakov set off again. Zarina could feel the ground below her feet swaying gently. She just wanted this to end, but there was little she could do but follow the man, head hung in shame and drool from the gag dribbling down her chin, stumbling over the shackles as she was dragged along.
“Doctor Mota! Comes Estar?” Alexei called out as he entered the slave clinic “I’m gonna need a check-up on this one!”
“Your Latine is still shit Alexei, have you even tried to study?” The doctor looked the girl over, “I see you’ve been busy though. What’s the story on this one? Client didn’t pay up?”
“Nah, I found her hiding in my ship. Can’t understand a damn thing she says. I also need you to check her for any tracking chips or anything, and make sure she’s caught up on shots.” he transferred the doctor some credits “Be careful, she’s a fighter.”
“You aren’t going to stay to keep an eye on her?”
“Nah, I got some shopping to do, see if I can’t find a way to teach her a language I can actually speak. Might get her some clothes too.” Alexei turned to leave. “Plus, I trust you doc.”
Zarina felt the gag being unlatched and pulled from her mouth. Next came the blindfold. Iskakov was nowhere to be seen. Instead she saw a kindly looking older man with a greying moustache and balding hair. Judging by the equipment and the general sterile feeling of the room, she was in some sort of doctor’s office.
“Please! You need to help me! I’ve been-” the doctor put a finger to her lips and shook his head. It was clear by his expression, and the soothing-sounding words that came out of his mouth that he couldn’t understand what she was saying any more than her captor. She looked nervously at the needle in his hand, and winced when he pricked her arm, collecting a droplet of blood that he put on a slide then fed into a slot in his tablet. After a few seconds his eyes grew wide, and he reached for a whole slew of syringes.
“Oh… No, please…” The doctor put a hand gently on her shoulder to reassure her, but she still squirmed when he took one of the syringes out. The doctor sighed and wrapped the blindfold around her head, but not nearly as tightly as Iskakov had. She knew what was coming, but did her best to stay still. She grimaced each time the alcohol was applied and a needle sunk into her skin, but did her best to stay still. The doctor talked to her in a calm, reassuring tone as he performed the procedure.
He seems like a nice man. Why is he alright with me being brought in bound and gagged like this?
The doctor patted her on the head, and removed the blindfold. He walked over to a small fridge and pulled out a can of some beverage, inserting a straw and into it and placing it on a tray at a height she could easily reach. She was wary of the drink, but was quite thirsty. Plus, her situation couldn’t really get much worse, could it? She took a sip. Nice, cold green tea. She sighed in relief, and sipped it down greedily.
Alexei returned to the office about an hour later. The girl was sitting on one of the chairs in the waiting area, still bound but with her head free. She gave him a sullen look as he came through the door.
“So Doctor, did she behave?”
“She gave me no trouble. Maybe you should be nicer to your toys, and they wouldn’t cause you problems.” Alexei chuckled at this, but before he could respond Doctor Mota looked over his glasses at him. “But I have more important things to tell you.”
The doctor led him back into his office room, Alexei pulling Sofiya along. He picked up the tablet and showed it to him.
“Doc, I don’t know what any of this means. Does she have a bomb implanted in her, or is she just behind on vaccinations?”
“No, no implants of any sort, but yes you could say she’s behind on her shots. By around 2000 years.”
“You’re fucking with me right? Not even the richest weirdo in the core is that old.” Alexei laughed again, this time nervously. “How…”
“I’m being straight with you here Alexei. Her genome shows no signs of interference, and is consistent with pre-diaspora humanity. And look at this,” The doctor pointed to a set of indentations along the girls spine. “Those are from a primitive cryosleep capsule.”
“You can’t be saying what I think… That’s not possible…”
“Unlikely, but possible. And in this case, certain. This girl is from Earth.” the doctor lowered his voice a bit “You may have caught the most valuable stowaway in the galaxy.”
Chapter 3: Personal Branding
Alexei had a lot to think about. He was starting to grow a soft spot for the girl who had snuck aboard his ship. He could sell her, and potentially make a lot of money, but there was no guarantee that whoever the buyer was wouldn’t just kill him outright, whether to avoid having to pay for such a rare find, or to silence him, or both.
He dragged the recently re-blindfolded and gagged Sofiya to a bench, where he sat her down.
“Hold still. You were good for the doctor, so I’ll make this a bit easier for you”
He undid the rope connecting her wrists and the neck loop, and re-tied it so that her hands, still tightly bound, had a bit more vertical freedom, letting her relax a bit from the strenuous position she had been in. He ruffled her hair a bit, then grabbed it, just hard enough to let her know she still wasn’t off the hook, turning her relieved sigh into a scared chirp.
“I’m being nice, but you’re not going to like what happens next. First off...” he ran her thick, wavy hair through his fingers. “Most of this is gonna have to go. I’m tired of you hiding from me behind it.” he gave it a sharp tug, producing a squeal of protest “Plus, if I’m keeping you, and not selling you off to the highest bidder, I’ve got to give you some permanent reminders of who you belong to.”
He gave her face a playful slap at that, enough to emphasize the point but not enough to leave a mark or do more than sting for a half minute, and opened a beer he had bought on the way.
“You want some, kid?” he loosened her gag and pulled it out of her mouth, holding the bottle up to her lips. She wrinkled her nose at the smell, but grudgingly took a sip.
Zarina didn’t like beer, but she hated the bit gag more, so she took a few sips of the bitter beverage grudgingly. The taste brought her back to sneaking out to party with her friends, before her family decided to emigrate to the stars. That was two… no. Twenty years ago. Right? It was supposed to be a twenty year hibernation.
The man started to pull the bottle back, but she grabbed it with her teeth. She needed this. She needed something to numb the nightmare her life had suddenly become. Iskakov laughed as she tried to guzzle as much of the beer as she could, coughing and spitting as it foamed out the corner of her mouth.
Her captor patted her on the head, almost tenderly, then she heard him stand up, and he gave a tug on the leash. Not wanting to risk the bit being put back in her mouth, she followed obediently, trying to nurse the buzz she had going.
They entered what was, judging by the smell and noise, a much more crowded area. She couldn’t understand a thing being said, but she heard what must be at least a dozen different languages being spoken and argued in, and felt her bare skin brush against passersby as Iskakov led her through the crowd. She felt a slap and a grope on her ass, and cried out, then heard Iskakov yell angrily at the offender. Being paraded around nude was humiliating enough. Having her tormentor defend her was almost worse, in its own way. She felt very small and exposed, as the man hooked his finger through the loop in her collar and pulled her along more directly.
Soon, the smell of sweat and sea air gave way to the odor of burning incense, and she stopped feeling the sun on her skin.
Alexei pushed aside the beaded curtain leading into the salon.
“Henri, is Madame Bounxouei in?”
The gene tailored young man at the desk, in a stylish collar of his own, took his sweet time before answering.
“Yes, Lyosha.” The answer was cold. Alexei felt a pang of guilt.
“Look. I already apologized twice. I had a job, it was urgent…”
“Shut it. I’ll get the madame.” Henri looked over the blindfolded girl at Alexei’s side “Poor thing. You gonna leave her in a hotel cuffed to the bed also?”
He swiveled in his seat.
“Mistress! Alexei Iskakov is here!”
A plump, middle aged woman in fine silks emerged from the back of the salon.
“Lyosha! It’s been too long!” she soon caught sight of Sofiya and clicked her tongue disapprovingly “Were you dragging this poor thing through the street like this? Please tell me you’re selling her to someone other than Pavel”
Alexei took the lady’s hand from Sofiya’s cheek and kissed it.
“I promise I’m not, madame. I’m keeping this one… for now at least.”
“Loosen her up! How long have you kept her trussed up like that?” The older woman felt Sofiya’s hands for proper circulation. “And what would you like done with her?”
Zarina felt the ropes being slowly unwound from her arms and wrists. She moved her hand to pull off the blindfold, but the slap in the face she got when she tried quickly discouraged her from that notion. Finally being free of the ropes was a relief, and she did her best to stretch while Iskakov led her to a surprisingly comfortable seat.
Before she could settle in however, she felt a padded band wrap around her neck, just above the collar. Iskakov and the man she had heard talking pushed her arms onto the armrests, and those too were strapped down. It was considerably more pleasant than the ropes she had been in earlier, but an ominous feeling was growing in her chest, pushed on by the electric buzz she heard beside her head.
Iskakov said something, running his fingers through her hair, and stopping at certain points and talking to the other man, with an elegant sounding older woman interjecting occasionally.
After they had finished their discussion, she felt a comb roughly but skillfully untangle her hair, then the buzzing got closer. When she felt the cold blade of the clipper against her temple her fears were confirmed. She tried to hold back the tears as she felt the hair come off her head and fall to the floor below her.
After Henri put the finishing touches on the girl’s hair, Alexei ran his fingers through it, using it as a handle to turn her head and get a view from a few other angles.
“Perfect. Just long enough I can still grab it.” He said, giving her head a rub “Next part is the fun part. You’re gonna need this.”
He pushed the bit back into her mouth. This time she didn’t resist. He strapped it behind her head, but didn’t bother with the full harness. He signaled Henri, who had just finished brushing the bits of hair off her skin. Henri pulled out a long, hollow needle, and as Alexei held Sofiya’s head in place, quickly thrust it through her nose.
Zarina screamed into the gag as she felt her nose being pierced. As soon as the needle was out, she felt another, curved piece of metal being pushed through the hole in her septum, and a single drop of blood rolled down to her lips. No sooner had the piercer dabbed stinging disinfectant around her nose than she felt him pull down her lower lip and put another needle through it. Dabbing away the drool and tears, the man pushed another ring through that hole. But the time he moved on to her ears she was braced for the pain, and bit down on the gag, determined not to give her tormentors the satisfaction of crying out.
After several holes had been poked in her ears and filled, she heard another buzzing sound, much like the clippers. This time, instead she felt a stinging pain between the nape of her neck and shoulder blades. The sharp pain traveled around, as the man running the needle paused occasionally to wipe the blood away. After an agonizingly long time, she felt the same pain on her right thigh. She bit harder into the gag, and tried not to cry.
Finally, it was over. She heard Iskakov say something to the other man, and the straps holding her to the chair were undone, and the gag pulled out. Her captor pulled her to her feet by the collar, and took the blindfold off.
She was standing in front of a full length mirror, but it took her a second to recognize herself. Her thick, dark hair, which had until an hour ago reached down to her shoulders, was almost gone, reduced to a very short, androgynous style, no more than five centimeters long at its longest point. Each of her ears had three helix rings, and there was a taper in each of the lobes. A large, solid septum ring sat in her nose, reaching halfway down to her upper lip, while her lower lip held a thick labret ring.
She looked down to her bare thigh. On it, against her reddened skin, she saw what looked like the Chinese characters “慧心” written in large, vertical, seal style script. To the side of them she saw, in smaller type, also vertical, Cyrillic letters “СОФИЯ” she wordlessly mouthed out the sounds.
Sofiya.
Behind her, she heard Iskakov confirm it. He put one hand on her shoulder, the other possessively on her ass, and slowly turned her around. It was hard to bend and see, but she had a QR code tattooed behind her left shoulder, and a seal or emblem of some sort just below the nape of her neck.
Her captor turned her back around, ran his finger along the cyrillic letters and sounded them out.
“S-O-F-I-Ya” he pointed back at her. When she didn’t respond, he tugged the collar and made sure she was looking as he repeated himself.
She broke a little as her name… no, his name for her, spilled out her lips.
“So… Sofiya.”
Alexei pulled the girl close, gently, as she burst into tears, and rubbed her head reassuringly. She tried to push him away, but weakly, giving up after token resistance. Once she had calmed a little, he turned to the patroness of the establishment.
“ Madame Bounxuei, Henri did a wonderful job. I’m going to give him a nice tip if that’s alright with you.”
“Of course Lyosha, he’s been very good this past six months, a little extra spending money won’t hurt.”
“Look just treat her alright okay? Poor thing barely seems to know where she is.” Henri rolled his eyes, but held out a credit reader. “She deserves better than some asshole pirate.”
“I’ll be good to her Henri. Madame?” Alexei bowed “Always a pleasure, I plan to have her back for more when she’s better trained.”
He cuffed Sofiya’s hands, in front of her this time, and only tightly enough that she couldn’t slip them, and headed back for the ship, as she trailed despondently, but obediently behind him.
“ Doctor Mota will be right with you Mr. Hao.”
Hao Jinxing stepped into Doctor Mota’s office, and settled his large frame. The damn knee was giving him trouble again. He idly scanned the room. The doctor’s tablet was sitting on the counter. He picked it up. After boredly scanning a few lines, his eyes grew wide, and he crossed himself.
“Hao! Here about the knee?” the doctor entered “Did you do the exer- Mother of Mercy.”
Mota tried to grab the tablet from the big pirate, but Hao, despite his bad knee, was much faster and stronger than the old man. In a flash, a blade popped out of his forearm, and he thrust it repeatedly into the doctor’s torso, before rushing out the back entrance.
He made a quick call with a secure app on his phone.
“This is the Second Hawk on Mazu, tell the Heavenly King I found the Edenite.”
Chapter 4: Virtue
Virchyu gulped, and crossed herself as she waited for Shaykh Godzwil to let her in for her report. She fingered a small vial of one of the sacraments, one meant to give her confidence and honesty. No. She knew better than that. Shaykh Godzwil preferred to converse and give instruction on as earthly a level as possible.
Finally, the door opened. The Shaykh stood in the entry, and Virchyu could easily read that he was displeased. She swallowed again, then bowed on one knee, taking his hand in hers and kissing it reverently.
“Esteemed Shaykh… If The Lord wills, I am here to give my report.”
The Shaykh stared down at her for a few seconds, his face impassive, reading her expression and body language. Finally, he stepped aside.
“Come in child. Be blessed.” the customary greeting felt colder than she had ever heard it. “I eagerly await your explanation.”
Virchyu stood, and entered. The room was mostly spartan and bare, but she knew the walls could spring to life in a dance of color and motion at any moment. Godzwil kept his back to her.
“So… report on your mission.”
“I reached Poseidon before the deadline. After locating the drop site, I made a beeline to it. I found the capsule, Shaykh...”
“But? I don’t see an Edenite.”
“But it was empty when I arrived. I searched for the Edenite, but could not find any trace of her.”
“If you had arrived sooner, this would not have happened.” the Shaykh turned around “Tell me, Sicaria Virchyu, did you take a sacrament after landing on Poseidon?”
“I-I was nervous, Shaykh. I thought if I clea-”
The Shaykh cut her off with a snap.
“The sacrament of Maria and Joanna is for devotional use only. Your foolishness has cost us what might be our only chance to prove our worth to the Brotherhood of the Faithful.”
“Please forgive me Shaykh… I was weak.”
“God forgives all, child. However, our Order requires penance for shortcomings.” he held out a thin tab of film, and Virchyu opened her mouth obediently, trying to quell her sense of dread. Shaykh Godzwil placed it on her tongue. “Pain will bring perfection. To the post.”
As the sacrament dissolved in her mouth, Virchyu stripped off her robe, baring her back to the Shaykh. She reached her arms around the column in the center of the room, feeling for the cuffs dangling from above on the other side. She gulped as she clicked each around one of her wrists, the sacrament coursing through her and bringing every sensation, from the cold metal of the chains to the rough stone of the pillar against her chest, into sharp relief.
“Now, Sicaria” she heard the strands of the Shaykh’s scourge whistle through the air, then the sharp sting of its tips on her back, intensified exponentially by the effects of the drug. She gritted her teeth in order to not cry out. “Recite your vows.”
“I serve the one god”
The whip cracked against her skin.
“I honor all prophets”
The blows continued, each coinciding with one of the holy names.
“Adam” she started.
With each snap of the whip the pain became more intense. By the time she reached Augustine she was seeing double. When she got to Haile Selassie, she was barely conscious.
Finally, the whipping stopped. The shaykh gently took her chin in his hand.
“You have done well, Sicaria. Your sins and mistakes are washed away. Come, visit the Almighty”
The shackles on Virchyu’s wrists had been the only thing holding her upright. As Shaykh Godzwil unlocked them, she crumpled to the floor, barely cognizant of her surroundings.
“God will see your scars, and in his infinite mercy, heal them so you may fight another day.” the Shaykh had switched from his detached, punishing tone to that of a loving father, or at least what Virchyu imagined a loving father would be like. He helped her to her feet, careful not to touch any of the sore spots from the whipping he had just given. She bowed her head
“Please Shaykh, the unveiling sacrament, if I am worthy to meet God tonight.” She held out her tongue, still shivering with every shift of the air and miniscule movement of her superior’s hands. The shaykh pulled a thin film of sacrament from a pocket on his waist, and placed it on Virchyu’s waiting tongue.
As it dissolved, she robotically let him guide her to the baptismal tank. She readily accepted the feeding tube pushed down her throat, and the air system coming into her nose. She would see God, and he would lay out a path for her to correct her failures. As the Shaykh closed the helmet around her, leaving her blind and deaf to the material world, the vision was already starting. As her wrists and ankles were strapped into the tank, and the numbing fluid began to surround her body, the fiery figure of her personal angel came into view.
As the feeding tube was pulled out of her mouth, Virchyu came to. Physical reality, and linear time wormed their way back into her brain. Had she been out for days? Hours? Weeks? She knew of some devotees who stayed in communion for years. Godzwil was unlocking her restraints, and he looked uncharacteristically nervous.
“Sadly, I must cut your session short. The Inner Council wishes to speak with you. Get into something modest, I’ll be waiting.”
Virchyu hurried back to her room, throwing on a loose, but presentable robe and tying her hair back under a kerchief embroidered with names of the prophets. The inner council almost never called individual agents, and being summoned by them was a sign of either highest approval or public damnation.
She rushed out to the audience chamber, passing by the Shaykh’s room. He stopped her in the entryway, looking worried and harried.
“Sister, Sicaria. I cannot begin to tell you the gravity of the situation you are about to enter.” he sighed, and his usual imposing, fatherly figure turned to the slouch of a defeated man. “We have a chance, ever so slim, that with God’s blessing our order will recover Earth for the Faithful. Mecca, Jerusalem, Rome, Salt Lake, Kingston. The lands the prophets walked!” he breathed in hard, again.
“But if we fail in this, we’ve used our last chance, and the Brotherhood will destroy us as they destroy heretics and atheists. Please, for the sake of our order, your brothers and sisters, make a good showing of yourself!”
The Shaykh kissed Virchyu on the cheek, then pushed her into the audience chamber. Reacting as quickly as she could, she bowed reverently, not to the holographic images of the inner council, but to the empty chair in their midst.
“God’s handmaiden awaits your commands, esteemed ones.”
“Finally, I thought the drug addled fool would never drag you out!”
She knew the voice. Ammon Hatch, the youngest living Apostle of the Latter Day Saints, a hardliner who pushed total prohibition on Zion. Probably not a friend. As annoyed as she was to hear him speak, she was not surprised that he had taken the Mormon seat on the inner council.
“Apostle Hatch, I apologize on behalf of the entire Partaking Order for the delay, but-”
She was interrupted by an older, more mellow voice, it’s Arabic tinged with a thick, distinctive Anglic accent.
“Your order has done no wrong, save a simple mistake. Do not let the Bringhamite worm distress you, we are all alike in the eyes of Jah” Virchyu turned, following the voice to the hologram of the elderly, kindly face of Ras Davit.
“Th-thank you Ras.” she bowed again, beginning to sweat. In inaccurate but widespread knowledge, her order was said to have sprung from Rastafari practices. While this was untrue, it meant their elders, including the deceptively relaxed Ras Davit, kept an especially attentive eye on the actions of the partakers.
“Enough with the small talk.” One of the dreaded triumvirate finally spoke out, in a very archaic form of Latin. Virchyu could see pings from Godzwil desperately trying to get a translation to Arabic, but she waved them away. She hadn’t studied all these dead languages for nothing. Cardinal Gutierrez continued “We’ve received word from the blasphemer king that your quarry was found on Mazu, in the possession of some half assed pirate. If I don’t see the fucking earthling in a month, I’m siccing the whole inquisition on your ass.”
As she was about to try to reply, Imam ibn Musa cut in. “As much as I disagree with my compatriot’s use of language, I am forced to agree with its meaning. Bring us the earthling. This is your order’s last chance, the faithful have tolerated your Shirk long enough. Kill the pirate, bring the earthling. Go with God’s blessing.”
The last sentence came out more like a threat, then the holograms blinked out. Virchyu’s wrist communicator lit up with two profiles. Alexei Iskakov, a low level pirate and hired gun. The other was just labelled “Hawwa”, and displayed a young woman in an ancient spacer suit.
Godzwil had watched the entire meeting. When Virchyu came out, still rigid with fear, he handed her the key to the armory. Wordlessly, she took it from him, and marched down the hall to the appropriate door. As Virchyu entered, and the automatic door closed behind her, she realized the gravity of her situation. She would succeed in her mission, or everyone she knew and loved, brothers and sisters in God, would die in the wrath of Christendom and Dar al-Islam. She breathed in deeply, and took a heavy duty repeating rifle from the wall, allowing herself some profanity of thought.
This Iskakov fellow was fucked.
Chapter 5: Training Day
Zarina hated the app. She hated the loud reminders that woke her up, she hated the condescending robotic school teacher voice that called her “Sofiya”, she hated the cutesy mascot. But for the… she counted on her fingers. Week. For the week now her captor had locked her in one of his closets, it had been her only companion. She had tried to get the tablet to switch to some other app, but it was locked into this language learning software. The chain connecting her collar to a handle in the wall was just short enough to keep her seated upright, so sleep came rarely, and was often interrupted by choking when she slouched too far or fell off her seat. The boredom would always bring her back to the puzzles and games of the damn app, but at least she was picking up a bit from it.
Really, it wasn’t the app that was pissing her off. It was the belt. The closest thing to clothes she had been given in her captivity was a cold, polished steel chastity belt. If it had been just that, she could have lived with it, but the thing had a built in vibrating nub that pressed against her clit, humming just enough to keep her on edge, but not enough to actually offer any relief. What was worse, after finishing her first couple lessons, it had started interfacing with the app, intensifying briefly when she got things right, but delivering painful shocks when she made mistakes, or, occasionally, told the app AI to go fuck itself.
She glared down at the belt, then at the name tattooed on her thigh, then at her cuffed wrists. Her owner -she shuddered as the word entered her mind. No, her captor- had given her a bit more freedom of movement than the biting ropes from before, not that it mattered much, in the meter by half meter closet she was locked in.
Her stomach growled. She looked up at the ever present camera and its small red LED power indicator, then at the bottle of bland, thick white nutrient fluid that had been her only sustenance for the last week or so. The bastard absolutely knew what he was doing, and the nozzle she had to suck on to get fed was about as phallic as it could be without literally just being a rubber cock.
As she grudgingly wrapped her lips around the nozzle for her meal, she had to stop herself for a moment from wishing it was the real thing. Maybe it was the isolation getting to her, maybe it was stockholm syndrome setting in, maybe it was the damn belt keeping her on the edge of arousal, it was probably all three, but-
Her thoughts were cut off by the blinding light of the closet door swinging open. She pulled herself off the feeder as quickly as she could, which, to her horror, sent the last bit of the white slime dripping down her chin onto her chest.
“How’s your studying going? Ready for an exam?” Alexei tousled the hair she had left, before detaching her collar from the chain.
After a week of isolation and being kept on edge by the belt, the man’s touch and voice were electrifying. Zarina felt her face grow red and warm. For a split second, she was Sofiya. She shook her head violently, banishing thoughts of submission. She could understand… well, mostly understand... what he was saying now. She tried out a few of the new words.
“Clothes, can I have?” she swallowed her pride a bit, better to not antagonize him. “Please?”
Alexei laughed.
“Not bad for a starter, but that reminds me, We’ve got some rules to go over.”
It took Zarina a few moments to parse his words.
“R-rules? Which rules? I-”
He cut her off.
“That’s the first one. No ‘I, me, mine’. If you have to refer to yourself, it’s as ‘Sofiya’. ‘Zarina’ isn’t your name anymore. When you accept that, I might let you have the word ‘I’ back. Do you understand?”
“I- I mean- eh- Sof-”
He gave her a slap on the cheek, hard enough to let her know he meant business, but little more.
“That was your one chance.” he held up a thick, wooden bit-gag. “This is bigger, and a lot less soft than the one you were wearing last. Next slip up, it’s going in your mouth till I feel like giving you another try at speaking right. Understand?”
Alexei pushed her chin up with a curled finger, locking eyes with her. Zarina felt herself melt a little, and she could swear the vibrator had just picked up intensity.
“Y-yes, Sofiya understand.”
“Good girl. Second rule is a lot like the first. You’re not allowed to refer to me as ‘you’, or anything else, except ‘Master’. Do you understand?”
She looked away, frightened, but also embarrassed by how frustratingly aroused she was. Alexei’s hand moved to her throat, threateningly.
“Look at me. Do you understand?”
She turned her gaze back up to him, trembling.
“Yes…”
The grip on her neck tightened, just a little.
“Yes what?”
Zar- No, Sofiya, gulped, tears starting to form in the corners of her eyes, and she struggled to hold eye contact.
“Yes, Master.”
“There we go.” Alexei loosened his grip slowly before letting go altogether. “Do you know how to make tea?” He moved his hand to the loop on her collar, dragging her out of the closet, not roughly, but firmly enough that she knew it wasn’t a suggestion.
“Tea? Of course…” she almost slipped up, but caught herself “Sofiya know how to make tea. Is simple.”
“Good girl” Alexei reached up to pull a long, thin chain down from the ceiling, then attached it to her collar. “I have a kettle, a teapot, and some tea over at this kitchenette here, make some for both of us, and no funny business.”
He gestured over to a modest bar with some basic cooking implements. Sofiya (or maybe the little bit of Zarina still holding out) noticed that anywhere a knife would be was empty. She sighed, and hobbled over to it. This was the most freedom of movement she had been given since her ill-fated stowaway attempt, but still the shackles and cuffs made things unreasonably frustrating. The chain on her neck was long enough that she could reach the bar, but had less than a meter of slack beyond that. She filled the electric kettle with water, then set it to boil, and poured the coarse tea leaves into the pot. She looked back at her captor. He was idly scrolling through what looked like some sort of social media or news aggregator while rolling up a cigarette.
The kettle let out a whistle, and Zarina turned back to it, for the first time noticing that a tablet had been left on the edge of the bar. She tapped at it, and it lit up. She saw her own face, before the humiliating haircut, piercing and tattooing session, and what she guessed was a medical report. She slowly poured the boiling water into the kettle, looking back to make sure “master” wasn’t watching her, then scrolled through the document. A lot of it was in language far too advanced for what she had learned from her forced crash course, but she was able to gather a bit about “two thousand year old genes” and “possible link to Earth”. Where was she? How long had she been in hibernation?
Alexei swiveled in his chair, after a nice long drag of his spliff. He needed a good new job, and fast, but the boards and darknet apps had delivered little worth pursuing. “How’s the tea coming kiddo?”
The girl jumped apprehensively at his voice, quickly turning back to the teapot.
“M-more minutes, not many. Needs a little steeping.”
Fuck. Alexei’s eyes caught the tablet he had carelessly left by the kitchenette. Well, at least she probably can’t read the thing, right?
He decided to play it cool. Better let her think he had left it there on purpose.
“Finish your reading then, but I don’t want my tea over-steeped.”
“I will not over-steep…” Zar-... Sofiya gritted her teeth, trying to accept her role, for now “...Master.”
She desperately looked for the date on the document. There were a couple characters she couldn’t recognize ‘天祐’, ‘238’, and the word for “year”. No help at all. She did the math in her head, again. She had left earth in the winter of 2134. She should have come out of hibernation in 2154, assuming some margin of error or the colony ship Nuwa’s life support AI deciding to spare them the stress of the two year cool off period to Proxima Centauri… maybe there had been an issue and she had stayed frozen for around a hundred years?
She shook her head, and poured the tea, then picked up one of the cups as gracefully as she could with her cuffed hands, and shuffled ofer to her captor, offering it to him. He took it, and gave it a sip, then ruffled what was left of her hair with his other hand.
“Good girl!” He pointed to a mat on the floor by his chair. “Sit down, and drink yours, you’ve earned it!”
Sofiya took her own cup, and moved to the mat, doing her best to maintain what little dignity she had left. Iskakov took another sip, then stared down at her, waiting.
“What do you say?”
“What do-...” she breathed in sharply “...thank you, master.”
As the word escaped her lips, her eyes widened. The vibrations in the belt intensified, bringing her closer to the edge than she had been during her whole week locked in the storage closet. She tried to focus her attention on downing the tea.
“There we go!” The pirate finished his cup, then reached down to take hers, a little less than half full. He produced a bottle of brown liquor, and poured some into both cups. “You learn quick. Henri was right to be jealous.”
Sofiya smelled whiskey in the cup. It took her back to her last night with her friends, before she left with her family on the colony ship. Without thinking, she downed the cup. It all came racing back. The sun rising the next morning, gloriously lighting up the polluted sky over the floating city of Jakarta. Ilham, kissing her tenderly on the forehead before boarding the ship to go fight the Austrailians in Papua, knowing they would never see each other again. The shuttle ride up to orbit, and the panicked broadcasts from the surface to the stations. Washington, Beijing, Los Angeles, London, Guangzhou, and Moscow erupting in nuclear fire visible from space, just before she went under for hibernation. Zarina felt herself starting to break down as the alcohol hit her system. She needed something, anything. A distraction, an outlet. She slumped against the pirate’s leg, doing her best to block out the memories and enjoy his warmth.
Alexei ran his fingers through his prize’s short hair, then stroked her face. She looked up, making eye contact for a half second, then dropping her gaze back to the floor. Her face was red, he wasn’t sure if it was from the alcohol, embarrassment at her condition, or the increased tempo of the belt. Probably a combination of the three. After a long silence, she spoke up
“What… Is Master called? Iksakav?”
Alexei smiled a bit.
“Alexei. Alexei Yeruslanovich Iskakov.” He gave her a playfully light slap on the cheek, more of a pat, really “Maybe, once you’re off your probation, you can call me Master Aloysha.”
She caught what sounded like a hint of sentimentality in the man’s voice. If everything she had been through with him meant anything, he seemed to want to keep her around, and, well, he wasn’t bad to look at. Or feel. Even without the belt, something about her captivity tickled something inside her. Maybe she could coax some sort of info out of him. She leaned into his hand on her head.
“What do Master want with me?” Fuck. She quickly corrected herself. “...with Sofi-”
The hand stroking her hair shifted, grabbing it, firmly, but not roughly.
“That’s a hard question. I’ll do my best to answer, but rules are rules.” Alexei pulled back on her hair, his other hand grabbing the gag off the dashboard.
“...” For a few seconds Zarina clamped her mouth shut. The app hadn’t taught her anything appropriate, so she gave the man her best defiant glare and switched to her own language. “Keparat.”
The curse was all Alexei needed to get the wooden bit in her mouth. He tightened the main strap behind Sofiya’s head.
“Still got plenty of attitude in there, I like that.” He forced her head up. As he secured the strap below her chin, she didn’t break eye contact. “What I want is a little help around the ship, some company between jobs. Some eye candy.” He pulled the last set of straps up over her head, fastening the harness in place. The girl tried to mutter something through the gag, which came out incoherent, even if she was using the bit of Central he had had her learn.
He unlocked the cuffs on her hands, and pulled them behind her back. Sofiya gave a token of resistance, but he could tell she knew it was useless. He wrapped a belt around her wrists several times, then latched it. Grabbing her elbows, he pushed them together, producing a muffled yelp of discomfort, and cinched them together with another belt. The position forced her breasts forward and out. He gave one of them a squeeze.
“What I want from you.” Alexei pulled a marker from a cubby in the cockpit, and began writing two characters, one on each of the squirming, flustered girl’s breasts. “Is a good slave.”
He pulled Sofiya to her feet, and in front of one of the cockpit cameras, then had her image displayed on the main screen in front of her.
“See, don’t you look nice?”
Zarina did her best to hold up her defiant act, but it was quickly crumbling. She saw herself on the screen, helpless, the much bigger man holding her by the back of her neck possessively. “奴婢” was written on her bare chest in big letters. She didn’t know the exact meaning of the characters, but she was able to get the gist from context. He switched the camera to show her from behind, and zoomed in on the tattoo just below her collar. It was a very stylized symbol that evoked the image of a man on a horse, pulling back a bow. She recognized it from Iska- ...Master’s jacket and belt.
“That means you belong to me.” he spun her around to face him, moving his hand to her throat, just above the collar. “You understand?”
Sofiya felt her face flush, her legs going weak. She nodded, not as reluctantly as she would have liked. She realized the belt had ceased vibrating, but if anything, she was even more bothered by its presence and aroused than before. She tried to get the word “yes” out, but the gag turned it into a sloppy, drooling “Thidhe…”
“Good girl.” Alexei slowly let her settle to her knees back on the mat, then started securing her ankles and thighs with another set of belts. As he connected the ankle and wrist straps with a smaller strip of leather, he patted her on the head. “You’ll get the hang of it eventually.”
As Alexei walked off toward the kitchenette. Sofiya felt the belt kick in again. She bit into the gag, unable to grit her teeth but the hard wood had almost no give. Her shoulders and arms ached, but struggling just made it worse, so she did her best to relax what little she could.
In a few minutes, she smelled… real food? She craned her head to look, and saw Alexei pouring noodles from a small pot into a bowl. Her stomach growled, and the drool from the gag just got worse. He gave her a bit of a smile, and moved back to his seat letting her watch him eat the noodles.
“You hungry? There’s more.”
Sofiya hadn’t had real, non-paste, food since her humiliating experience on the watery planet where she got her ...makeover. She tried to maintain some sort of composure for a few minutes, then gave up, nodded, and whined into the gag, dripping with saliva.
He rubbed her head, patronizingly. She didn’t fight it but leaned in, nuzzling his hand and leg.
“How hungry?”
The vibrator in the belt turned up, and the pirate swiveled in his seat, till her head was just short of being between his legs.
Her jaw ached from the gag. The strain on her arms and shoulders were no better. She looked down at the writing on her chest, and the tattoo on her thigh. She felt the piercing in her lip with her tongue.
“Uary hunghuy, Mathua” she laid her head on her master’s inner thigh. His pants were solid, but tight, and she could tell how hard he was through the rough fabric. She looked up at him, submissively. There was no going back from this, but in this moment, she was dripping with anticipation and pent up sexual frustration. “Fleeth, Mathua.”
Alexei reached down, and unbuckled the gag. He let his fingers linger for a moment as he pulled out the bit, and Sofiya closed her lips around them until he slowly withdrew them. The vibration kicked up another notch. Sofiya craned her neck forward, softly biting at his leg and moving upward, but was stopped by a hand at her throat.
“You have to ask nicely first.”
“Please master… May I?” she nodded at his crotch
He gave her a small, sharp slap.
“None of that word. Ask again, and tell me what you want.”
“May Sofiya…” she gulped and blushed. She knew what he was doing with the belt, and the promise of real food, but she couldn’t help herself “May Sofiya suck your cock?”
“That’s better. Show me how much you want it.”
Sofiya cautiously scooted forward, trying not to lose her balance in the bindings. She rested her head in his lap for a moment then pulled on his belt with her teeth. After a few moments of struggling she managed to get it undone, and he slid it off the rest of the way. The button and zipper on his pants were easier and she tugged them down. The man’s cock was so hard it was having trouble staying in his boxer briefs. She pulled them down with her teeth as well. As the man’s cock sprung up, the belt hit a new high. She felt the leather and studs of the belt Alexei had been wearing a minute ago wrap around her neck. There was a cruel glint in his eye.
“Just a bit of insurance. I don’t want any biting.”
He tightened it, just enough that she felt the pressure, and placed his other hand on her head, grabbing her hair and guiding her mouth down onto the head of his cock. She gingerly took him. After the first few careful bobs, she felt the belt tighten a little more, and noticed that the levels on the belt started to ebb and flow with her movements.
The bastard is trying to train me.
Alexei’s hands on her head and the belt were firm, but gentle. His breathing was growing heavy. Sofiya redoubled her efforts, timing her motions for the best rhythm of the vibrations. As the belt tightened around her neck, she got closer and closer to the edge herself. Alexei started shaking, tightening his grip and moaning. Just as Sofiya thought she might pass out from the combined efforts of the leather belt around her neck and the steel one around her waist, a metallic taste burst into her mouth, and the pirate pulled her off him, gasping. He took a moment, catching his breath.
“P-please master…” Sofiya was right on the edge, a bit of cum dribbling out the side of her mouth, as she swallowed what she could of the rest “I- Sofiya not done...”
He tightened the belt again, and she gasped.
“What’s your name?” he was still shaky from climax
“S-so-sofiya”
“And what are you?”
She croaked out the words between gasps for air
“Sofiya… is your… slave.”
He relaxed the belt, and pulled it off her neck.
“Good girl. But you’ve still got a ways to go before I let you finish.”
The vibrations from the chastity belt cut out, leaving Sofiya just short of orgasm., and she collapsed to the floor, sweaty and shaking.
“Are you still hungry?” Alexei refastened his pants, then bent over the girl, unfastening her bonds.
“...yes Master, still hungry.”
The pirate ambled over to the kitchenette and poured another bowl of noodles. Sofiya groaned in frustration, but also relief as she stretched properly, fully unbound for the first time in a week. The straps had left clean indentations on her arms and legs, and in the reflection in the ship’s viewport, she could tell she was a mess. She jumped slightly as she felt Alexei’s hand on her shoulder, but this time it was draping her in a blanket.
She turned to look up at him, and he handed her a bowl of hot noodles and another cup of tea, something herbal this time.
“You’ve earned some relaxation before bed.”
He sat down next to her.
Sofiya didn’t know what to think. She had… enjoyed that, despite the intentional frustration at the end. She finished her soup, and leaned into him as she sipped her tea and he massaged the knots in her back. Slowly, she slid down, resting her head in his lap, as she drifted into an uneasy, but for the first time in recent memory, comfortable sleep.
Chapter 6: Out of the frying pan...
Alexei’s alarm went off, far too early. He almost shut the damn thing off and rolled over, but shook off the fog.
Right. Hyperspace. Coming out of it. Goddammit.
He stumbled to his cockpit, in nothing but the shorts he wore to bed. Supposedly Tamerlan could exit hyperspace by herself, but with the jump drive acting up as bad as it did, he didn’t want to take chances.
“Forty-five seconds to jump.” he ordered the computer.
“Yes Master.” The countdown began.
Alexei turned to check on Sofiya. After she had passed out in his arms last night, he had carried her back to her cage, locking her in it, but leaving her unshackled, and covered in the blanket he had given her. She was asleep, wrapped in the blanket, looking peaceful and relaxed for the first time since he had caught her on his ship.
He couldn’t let her go. If what Dr. Mota had said was correct, she was from a forgotten world. Before the empire, before hyperspace, from when mankind was trapped in a single system. A mythical homeland that Alexei, if you had asked him two weeks ago, didn’t believe in any more than he believed in the Buddha, Santa Claus, or the confusing all encompassing deity the weirdos from the Brotherhood worshiped. She’d have nowhere safe to go. Everyone she knew was dead. Had been dead for millenia.
Plus, he didn’t WANT to let her go. He liked having her. She was cute, bright, and was slowly learning to be obedient. He could protect her, and he was the only person he trusted to do that. In fact-
“TEN SECONDS TO JUMP”
The computer cut Alexei’s rationalizations short. He spun around in the chair, gripping the controls. The ship shook as it jumped out of hyperspace, nearly coming apart as he wrestled with the controls trying to keep it from spinning off into gods knew where. When his view screen filled with stars, Alexei sank back into his seat, breathing a sigh of relief.
I’ve really gotta get this thing fixed.
He glanced back at Sofiya. To his surprise, and with a bit of pride, he saw her toss a bit, but remain asleep, wrapping herself tighter in the blanket.
“How far to Poseidon station?” he asked Tamerlan’s computer.
“Five hours, twenty six minutes.”
“Wake me up for any alerts…” Alexei yawned and returned to his cabin. “Also, if the girl wakes up, but don't make a big deal of it.”
The ship shaking had stirred Zarina/Sofiya a bit, but she had easily drifted back to sleep. When she woke up to the lights coming on again, it was from the first comfortable rest she had in… well, if she was piecing things together right, literal centuries. The cage was still too small for her to stretch out fully, but now there was a thin padded mat covering the steel floor, and a warm blanket to wrap herself in.
It was with a sigh of frustration that she realized her hands were cuffed, again, but not tightly, and in front of her. She felt at her collar. Besides a long chain attached to it, and the cage itself, of course, the cuffs were the only things keeping her restrained.
Before long, the sound of her captor’s boots on the floor of the ship.
“Morning Sofi.” He crouched down, meeting her eyes as she scrambled to cover herself. “Want to stretch your legs a bit?”
She glared up at him wordlessly. She had given into the man once. She already knew she probably would again, if she couldn't find some way off the ship, but she had to at least give herself the dignity of not making it easy for him.
"Come on." Alexei bent over the cage, unlocking and opening the door, and reaching inside, not to Sofiya herself, but to unhook the collar chain from the wall. He wrapped the end of it around his hand, and gave a firm, but gentle tug. "Get up, it's time for breakfast, unless you want to go back to drinking that paste."
Sofiya reluctantly crawled out of the cage, slowly enough to make him have to pull her. Out from under the blanket, the air in the ship was cool enough to give her goosebumps. Once she was out of the cage, she sat, wrapping her arms around herself as best she could, averting her eyes from his gaze and staring at the smooth, cold floor.
With a bit of a start, she felt his thumb under her chin as he grasped the ring of the collar. Even before the buzzer in her belt kicked in a second later, she felt her face start to flush as he tilted up her head to meet his gaze.
"Come on, get up." He pulled on the collar, still gently, but with enough force to let her know that she didn’t have a choice in the matter, and drew her up to her full height. The belt stayed low, keeping her on edge, but Sof- Zarina, damn it, I can’t let him keep getting to me- iya could feel her heart pounding, as she stared helplessly into her captor’s hazel eyes. “You’re making breakfast.”
The girl was breathing heavily. They had made progress, but she was still clearly scared, angry, and a bit confused. Alexei rested a hand on her shoulder.
“We’ll start simple. Just rice and eggs.”
It took her a second, but she formed words.
“Yes ma- …master” she was still reluctant to use the word. “Is cold… I can have…”
He gave her a sharp smack on the cheek, not hard, but enough to get his point across.
“It’ll be warmer over by the stove. If breakfast is good, and you behave, I’ve got something to wear before we go out.”
She slumped a little, more out of resignation than deference.
“Sofiya will cook…” She turned toward the kitchenette, but the pirate caught her by the arm.
“Not so fast.” he produced a rubbery black ball on a pair of straps “You broke the rules. Now open up.”
Zarina glared up at him defiantly for a few seconds, jaw tight. I’m doing everything he wants… Why is he tormenting me like this? It’s not like I have anyone to scream to anyway… There was a tingling in the collar, and a small jolt, less intense than the punishments she had received during her week-long language crash course. She slowly opened her mouth, still glaring, and doing her best to hide her surprise at the shock. The belt went off again as the gag entered her mouth, and the man strapped it securely behind her head. She shivered, almost as angry as she was embarrassed by her own arousal.
“Mdhhnghn…” the curse didn’t make it past the ball.
“What was that?” He tilted her head up towards him again.
“...mmshmh”
“That’s right. Ingredients are on the counter.” he pulled her over to the kitchenette. A potato, an onion, some eggs, oil, and rice, along with some cooking implements, including a simple rice cooker, graced the tiny counter.
She turned to him, and held up her shackled wrists, making an imploring noise into the gag.
“Those stay on, they’re long enough to work with.” He took a length of the collar chain and clipped it to a ring under the counter, giving the girl about a meter or so she could move around in. “Now get to work. The sooner breakfast is ready, the sooner the gag comes out.”
He tousled her hair, then, turning to leave, gave her a quick smack on her ass, eliciting a startled, flustered squeak. Alexei smiled. She looked good like that, trying to hold onto her dignity while nude, gagged, and cooking, her flushed face betraying the embarrassment she was struggling to hide. He poured himself some coffee as the autopilot approached Poseidon station, nudging the controls occasionally to ensure a smooth docking, and periodically turning to check on and admire his catch.
Zarina had never been much of a cook. She knew the basics, and could handle a simple breakfast like this, but she had rarely cooked for herself back on earth, too busy with her studies and the preparations for joining the colony ship crew.
I guess ‘Sofiya’ is going to have to learn to cook.
She felt the knife in her hand. Maybe… She tested the chain. She wouldn’t be able to get anywhere near the cockpit. Briefly, she considered throwing it, then almost laughed at herself for the thought. Even if by some miracle she managed to wound the pirate enough, and slip her bonds, the ship seemed to be coming in for a landing at an asteroid station of some sort, and she had no idea how to fly the thing. She grumbled and focused on her work, pouring the cooked rice into the skillet with the vegetables, then cracking eggs over it and scrambling the whole thing together.
It’s not pretty, but I hope he’s satisfied…
She turned to get his attention, but then saw that they were coming in for the landing proper, and decided he was probably better off undisturbed.
“Put a lid on that and hold onto something!” Alexei turned his head to bark out the order, and Sofiya did as he said quickly, not wanting to be splattered in hot oil and food.
Tamerlan cruised smoothly into the cavernous asteroid docking bay. Poseidon was huge, and a full third of its space was taken up by its massive landing zones. Hundreds of ships coursed in and out in a chaotic but somehow effective snarl. It reminded Zarina of nothing as much as the speedboat traffic at rush hour back in Jakarta. The amount of traffic dwarfed anything she had seen in Pamengpeuk, or even the grandiose Tiangong habitat and Ceres Mining Hub.
Alexei wove Tamerlan smoothly between two hulking produce freighters. Poseidon was the closest thing he had to a home, aside from his ship, and he knew the landing patterns like the back of his hand. An anarcho-capitalist ‘paradise’, it was a stopping point for any illicit goods, from mundane products whose shippers wanted to get around tariffs, to cutting edge weapons, stolen precious metals, unreleased corporate tech, dangerous drugs, and human chattel. Unlike Mazu, under the constant watchful eye of Da Xing’s finest, Poseidon was a dangerous place, the only security provided by hired guns reporting to the wealthiest residents, and the interstellar criminal syndicates who used it as a neutral meeting place.
Finally, the ship touched down, and the engines slowly hummed to rest. Alexei got up from the cockpit. Sofiya had held on admirably, and managed not to spill anything.
“Good girl.”
He saw her fingers brush against the knife for a second, but she didn’t pick it up.
“Smells good!” He handed her a pair of plates, and she gingerly filled them with the fried rice and egg meal, then looked at him, expectantly and nervously. He unhooked the chain from the ring, then moved his hands to the strap behind her head. “Are you going to remember to speak properly, Sofiya?”
She gave a reluctant nod, looking up at him half submissively, but still with a stubborn edge behind her big brown eyes. He undid the strap, and popped the ball out, leaving a trail of saliva on her chin. She wiped her mouth with one hand, the cuff chain jangling a bit.
“Thank you… Master.” her eyes were downcast, darting to his pants “Does Sofiya has to…”
“Not this time. Let’s eat!” He took one of the plates, setting it on a small fold out table, and deposited the other at the foot of his chair, and poured her a cup of coffee.
The meal was simple, but savory. Sofiya ate without complaint, despite her awkward position under the table. Only when they had both finished did she speak up.
“Master said Sofiya could have…” she looked down, half expecting punishment “Something for wearing?”
His hand reached down, but rather than a slap, he simply tousled her hair.
“I did, didn’t I? Put the plates away, and I’ll be right back.”
He retreated to his cabin, and Sofiya did as she was told. A minute or so later, he returned with a small bundle.
“Give me your hands.”
She did so, and he uncuffed them, then unhooked the chain from the collar and pushed the bundle into her hands.
“Get dressed, let’s see how you look.”
The clothes she was given were barely enough to be called such, but they were more than she had since her capture. A slick, nearly translucent teal tube top covered her breasts and little more, and a pair of boyshorts only barely concealed the cursed belt. Both were made of a tight rubbery material akin to latex, leaving little to the imagination. In the mirror Iskakov provided, she could tell her body was still fully on display, as well as the tattoos that marked her as his property.
She sighed, but she didn’t know what else she expected. At least it was something.
“...Thank you, master.”
He patted her head again.
“I’m a man of my word. Put this on too, we’re going out, and it might be better for both of us if your face isn’t visible to everyone on the station.” he held out a facemask made out of the same material “If you stay quiet and respectful, I won’t put a gag under it.”
She nodded and did as she was told, and he attached a lead to the collar.
“No cuffs for now, but I’m keeping them on me in case you cause trouble. Let’s go.”
The corridors of Poseidon were a dizzying display of light, sound, and a pulsing mass of humanity. There was no sky, but sometimes the corridors were tens of meters high. Shops and hawkers loudly competed for attention, and bright neon signs in several scripts covered the walls. Most were in the Chinese-like “central” script she had started learning, but peppered among them, sometimes on the same sign, she saw what looked like Russian, Hindi, Arabic, and English.
More striking than the signs, or even the crowds, were the people themselves. All of them seemed human, but some were like no people Sofiya had ever seen. Some had horns or pointed ears, like characters in a fantasy drama, others were extremely tall and gaunt, with long willowy hands, still more, short, with webbed fingers, large fin-like ears and bulging eyes. A man doing what looked like quick on the spot electronics repair was missing his left arm, and instead had a cluster of long metal tentacles coming out of the stump of his shoulder, each tipped with a different precision tool.
She was pulled out of her revelry by a quick jerk on the lead. Iskakov pulled her in close to him.
“Keep up, there’s people a lot worse than me on this station.”
She nodded, not doubting his words. Many of the people she had seen had been armed, and very few seemed taken aback at a leashed, half clothed girl following a roguish looking man, except to leer.
They entered a smaller corridor, with the roof only a few meters high. It was nearly as crowded as the main thoroughfare, and every door seemed to lead to some sort of dive bar or seedy nightclub. Finally, her master - no, her captor- approached one, the burly, half cybernetic bouncer letting him in with a nod. Before she was pulled in, she caught sight of the sign, and sounded it out the cyrillic-esque letters as best she could.
“Verevka”
Inside was even louder than outside, with bass-heavy music pounding, and a motley assortment of shady characters inside, some who made the man leading her seem positively respectable. Iskakov stopped at the bar, and ordered three drinks.
He handed her one, and she pretended to sip it, smelling a strong whiff of vodka and mint. Just as she was wondering who the third drink was for, as if on cue, Alexei approached the largest woman Sofiya had ever seen.
“Galena! Hayushki!” The two exchanged a brief embrace Alexei handed the woman a drink, speaking in a language Sofiya didn’t recognize, but had heard her captor muttering in a few times. The woman was nearly two meters tall, with a truly amazonian build. Despite her size she had a very attractive figure, and a shock of short, white hair on her head. There was a subtle sadness and softness to her face, even as she joked with Iskakov.
“So, who’s this?”
Sofiya nearly jumped when the woman turned her attention to her.
“You heard her, what’s your name?” Alexei rubbed her head patronizingly. Sofiya took a quick sip from the drink for real to calm her nerves, then stammered out and answered.
“Name is Sof-Sofiya…” She looked up at Iskakov for approval. He nodded, but clearly wanted more. “...Sofiya… Sofiya is the slave of Iskakov…”
As the words came out, she felt despair, then… excitement? She shook her head, then took another pull of the drink. The big woman chuckled.
“Should I be jealous, Aloysha?” Her tone was clearly joking “C’mon, I got us a table.”
Galena led them to a table on the edge of the club, and Alexei sat down across from her. As Sofiya approached the seat, Iskakov stopped her.
“You don’t have table privileges yet, Sofi.” He pointed at a spot at his feet. The belt’s vibrator went off again as she crouched, red faced, under the table, and he hooked the lead to a ring built into the table that seemed to be built for the purpose.
“You’re such an asshole sometimes dude.” the amazon laughed
“As if you didn’t like it.”
“Hey fuck you man, I’ll arm wrestle you for her.”
Their banter went on, slowly shifting back to the language they shared. Sofiya looked around the club. Judging by a sizable portion of the clientele, this was some sort of low-key fetish bar. She saw lots of latex and leather mixed in among the scruffy flight suits and usual club wear. No wonder no one had given her a second look.
Time went on, and a few other people joined the table. She could hear a dice game being played. Zarina felt at the spot where the lead was attached to the collar. It was a simple clasp, not a lock, and she could easily undo it. She waited until an argument broke out between the big woman and one of the people she hadn’t been introduced to, and she unclipped it, and, as quietly as she could, slipped out from under the table.
As soon as she was out of eyesight, she ran for the entrance as quickly as she could, shoving her way through an inebriated group trying to negotiate with the bouncer. He looked startled as she left, but didn’t make a move to stop her.
Zarina raced down the street and looked around. The place was a maze of corridors, big and small, and now that she was alone, it was straight up overwhelming. She heard people babbling in a myriad of languages, jostling each other and her. She had no idea where anything was, and any directional signs were easily overwhelmed by garish, fluorescent advertisements. She had to find a police officer, or an embassy or something.
She went down one corridor, and out another. If she had any sense of direction gained from her trip from the ship, it was gone now. As she moved the crowds thinned out, and she found herself in a nearly deserted intersection. A man slept under a crude blanket in a corner, and a bored looking girl with red hair tied back in a long braid, in a boxy kiosk that simply read “Smoke” in stylized font scrolled through a phone, absentmindedly puffing on a vape pen occasionally.
Zarina approached her cautiously, and she looked up.
“Whaddya want? I got tobacco, betel, khat, cannabis, coca…”
“Need help! Where, how find police? Or ship. Ship to Earth. Or ship to Proxima.”
“You okay?” The girl looked a little concerned. “Slow down… If you’re in trouble I don’t know how much I can help…”
“Sorry…”
“Chill, it’s fine. Talk to me slowly. What’s your name?”
“Sofiya… Tidak, sialan!” She resisted the urge to punch herself. “Name is Zarina.”
“Okay… Zarina. Where did you come here from? You’re clearly not local.”
“Nusantara…”
There was no recognition in the girl’s eyes.
“Umm… Earth. Sof- I am come from earth!”
The girl sighed, and a look of disbelieving annoyance crossed her face.
“Are you high? Bad trip? I have cleansers…”
Zarina heard footsteps behind her, and saw the girl’s eyes go wide with terror. She swiveled around.
A pair of armed men, both wearing demonic looking steel facemasks, approached. One of them cocked his head. His mask garbled his voice, but the words still came through.
“You’re late on your dues. I hope you got something for me, Siobhan-chan.”
His tone was mocking, and based on the hand sitting on a chunky pistol at his side, intended as a threat.
“K-kiryu… The boss… The boss hasn’t given me anything. He’s paying the bratva now…”
“Unfortunate.”
He stepped toward the box, pushing Zarina aside. She tried to scramble away, but the bigger man behind him grabbed her roughly.
“Lemme see the account.”
Trembling, the box girl, Siobhan, handed him a tablet. One of his fingers opened, and he plugged the adapter that poked out of it into one of the ports.
“Five hundred credits…” he gave a cruel laugh “Looks like I’ll be taking something else…”
“No, please… Don’t be stupid…” Siobhan seemed to be trying to put on a brave face. “If the bratva finds out you’re back in their territory, you’re in for a world of…”
The man slammed his fist into the counter, shattering it.
“Do I look like I’m scared of a bunch of sunflower munching drunks?” he reached inside, and pulled Siobhan, now reduced to tears and pleading, out of the box.
“Oi, Kiryu-sama…” the big one had his hands all over Zarina “Looks like this one belongs to someone. Got a belt too… Someone is saving her for something.”
Zarina was too terrified to speak.
“Look… I’ll do whatever you want… Just, let me go…” Siobhan struggled in Kiryu’s grasp. “I’m so close to paying the boss off… I’ll show you both a great-”
She gasped as the masked man punched her in the gut.
“You sure will. The ship was running out of bitches, and your friend here looks valuable.” A thick polymer cord shot out of Kiryu’s palm, tightly binding the cigarette girl’s hands behind her “If your boss wants to keep his staff, he shouldn’t forget to pay his dues.”
Zarina screamed for help, waking the sleeping man, who, seeing the situation, took off at a sprint, leaving his meager pack behind.
“Takeda… Deal with the asshole before he wakes the slavs.”
“Hai, sempai.” Clutching Zarina with one meaty arm, he pulled his pistol with the other. There was a humming sound, and the fleeing vagrant's head exploded like an egg in a microwave.
By this time Kiryu had tightly secured the box girl, who lay sobbing on the ground in a rough hogtie, with a wad of foam secured in her mouth cruelly by several polymer wires. Zarina tried to call for help again, but Kiryu backhanded her.
“You should shut the fuck up if you know what’s good for you. Hold her still Takeda.”
The big man did as he was told, and his smaller superior quickly restrained Zarina in the same way. The thin, but tough wires cut into her skin.
“You’re a loud one, aren’t you.” mockingly, he pinched her cheek “The captain loves a screamer, but for now…”
He forced a small pellet into her mouth, which quickly expanded into a mass of mouth-filling foam. After wrapping her head in the wires several times, he followed it up with multiple layers of thick tape.
“Can’t have you causing trouble. I hope your master’s rich, and doesn’t mind his toys a little used, otherwise…” The demonic faceplate’s sneer matched the venom in his tone. “We’re going to have a lot of fun with you, for a very long time.”
The bigger man, Takeda, hoisted her onto his shoulder. Zarina… no, Sofiya… tried to scream again, for any sort of help, even for Iskakov and his scary friend, but foam muffled her cries to little more than a whimper.