Damn it was good.
* * * *
Chapter 3
I limped to the steam shower room and slumped against the wall, letting the glorious heat rinse it all away. The hot steam of the Captain’s shower cleansed my body of the evidence of our game of pretend. I stood in the steam for as long as it took for the pink water to turn clear.
I really couldn’t complain that the Captain hurt me. I liked every degrading minute of it. Yet I couldn’t get rid of the sick feeling in my gut that I’d betrayed my love for Jason by enjoying the Captain’s sex games. Day by day, I was gradually losing myself to this insane schedule of sexual abandon.
From the shower I stepped into the air jets and let the hot air warm and dry my body. This was one of the perks of serving the Captain, the use of his bathing facilities. Exhausted and sore, I limped back into the main room to find the Captain dozing on his couch, the only bed in the cabin.
After several weeks of the same routine, I’d grown accustomed to sleeping atop his warm, furry body. I slipped on top of him and curled around him for a nap. How strange it was that I found comfort and pleasure in the arms of the Warrior who had decapitated Carver Liddell, gutted my pseudo-father D’Anton, and stolen me away to the other side of the galaxy for breeding experiments.
How strange that it no longer bothered me.
* * * *
Blaring alarms woke me as the Captain shoved me aside in his urgency to get to his feet. I tumbled across the floor of his cabin and came up with my fists balled tight, ready for the worst. The racket of the alarms had me going. I wanted to punch something or someone to shut that awful noise off. How can anyone think with that screeching sound in their head?
A shudder in the floor accompanied the vibrating booms of distant explosions. The Captain slapped his belt around his waist, snatched his battle gauntlet from the cabinet and headed for the door of his cabin. I realized something was seriously wrong and scooped my clothing off the floor. I dressed as fast as I could while the Captain growled orders at several Warriors in the corridor outside his door.
As I stepped up to the door to better listen in on the conversation, one of the lower ranked Warriors snagged me by the arm and dragged me down the hall back to the cells. His claws drew blood from my arm, but pain was my friend. I limped along trying to keep a smile off my face. The siren finally quit, and the hallway lighting had changed to a subtle green color, casting a strange pallor over the steel walls and floors.
As we came to the door of my and Jason’s cell, my lover stood with his white-knuckle fists clenched on the bars. His eyes told me he’d been waiting for me to return, not so patiently. “What’s happening? Where were you?”
Another blast hit hard and bounced me and the Cat into the air. We landed on the floor in a tangle and I caught a slash of his claws across my back as he fought past me to his feet. He looked back and forth down the corridors. For the first time I saw fear in the eyes of the Gran. These Cats were the masters of my world, ruthless warriors, but they were not immune to fear.
He clicked his wrist bracelet, unlocked the cell door and yanked me off the floor to bodily throw me inside. I landed atop a pile of worker drones squatted down, huddled in fear.
He’d put me in the wrong cell.
Jason yelled from the adjoining cell. “Angel! What’s happening! Are you alright? Are you hurt?”
I couldn’t think to answer him just yet. I extracted myself from the drones and hit the bars on the door of my cell yelling at the Warrior. “There, over there.” I pointed to Jason’s cell. “Not here. Wrong. Please, over there.” I pointed again to Jason’s cell.
The Cat looked back and forth between me and the hallway, and I could see it in his face – he didn’t give a shit about me. He was freaking out. As his ears flattened and he hissed in frustration and fear, I realized the truth of what was happening.
Our ship was under attack.
A loud explosion rocked the floor sideways and I held onto the bars as the world tilted ninety plus degrees. The jolt flung the Warrior backwards into the wall behind him. He bounced off the wall, yipped in pain, and fell straight towards me. His face slammed into the steel bars of my cell with a wet crunch. His yowls faded as he flopped against the bars unconscious.
I hung suspended in the air from the bars, waiting for the floor to right itself, but it never did. The walls of the ship had become the floors and ceilings.
Hands pulled at my ankles. I looked back to find three drones climbing the side bars of the cell like a ladder, coming up towards me. The one nearest me reached up my skirt and shoved his hand between my legs hard, digging into me painfully. He pulled his hand out and sniffed his fingers.
“Fucker!” I kicked him in the face and he tumbled down to the bottom of the cell.
I’d almost lost my grip on the bars, so I readjusted and held on tighter. The Warrior’s bloody face was inches from me. I traced his unconscious body down to his hand pressed against the bars. The hand that had the bracelet that controlled the door locks. I swung from bar to bar to his limp arm. As I reached for the button to freedom another hand grabbed my ankle.
A hard yank and my tenuous one-handed grip on the bar slipped loose. I fell into the waiting arms of ten worker drones. Their hands were everywhere, all at once. On my face, my ass, between my legs, pulling my hair, squeezing my breasts. An idiot sexual frenzy.
They grunted and smiled like it was meal time and I was the meal. Fighting to get to my feet against the flailing limbs, several of them had their pants down, fondling themselves. They grabbed at my arms, trying to hold me still. Hands tore away the backside of my skirt. Strong hands grasped my hips in a rough grip and a warm, hard cock pushed up against my ass. The burning push spread me open, searing deeper and deeper.
The intense terror of being gang-raped by ten men flooded me with adrenaline and phenomenal strength. I screamed in fury as hard, thick cock tore into my rectum. I thrashed out in every direction in a spinning whirlwind of fists and elbows. The ones with their pants down and dicks out got it first.
I broke noses, kicked balls, smashed kneecaps, kicked, punched, pummeled and tore at anyone in reach. I broke arms, shattered collar bones and stomped on any fool who had his genitals bared for me. The screams of their agony drove me harder and faster. Ribs split before my fists. Cheek bones shattered. I slammed faces against the bars. Skulls crushed from my blows. Leg bones broke beneath the power of my snapping kicks.
Soon I found myself standing in the open, men crying and groaning all around me. Several men cradled their broken bodies up against the walls, trying to get out of my reach. Someone was screaming my name.
Jason’s voice called me back from the brink of berserker rage. “Angel, please stop! You’re killing them! They don’t know any better. Please, stop!”
Covered in the blood of my would-be rapists I looked at my lover and saw the thing I feared most. His revulsion and fear … of me. Breathing hard, trying to work past the adrenaline rush that had my whole body vibrating, I looked at my lover on the other side of the steel bars and knew that nothing would ever be the same between us.
With my shaking, bloody hands I went to him. The men scattered away from the bars to get out of my way as I reached through to my lover. “They were … they.”
“I know, Angel. I know what they were doing. But you …”
“I’m sorry.” Tears streamed down my face and I smeared blood everywhere trying to wipe my tears from my eyes. I could only imagine what I must look like. A maniac. A psychotic killer. “I … I panicked. I’m sorry, Jason.”
“What are you, Angel? What did Nugene do to you?” His eyes pierced my soul and laid all my lies bare. He knew the truth. Maybe he had always known.
* * * *
Chapter 4
Explosions rocked the ship again and I looked up as debris and flames sailed across the corridor past the bars of my cell. Then it happened, all my weight disappeared – zero G. The artificial grav generators had been
knocked out.
I was free once again. My feet floated off the wall of the cell that had become the floor. The drones clung to the bars, terror in their eyes. Zero G bothered most people, but I was made for it. Zero G was my home.
I looked to the lover who held my heart and future, blew him a kiss, and then stretched my toes to push off the floor. I glided up to the bars above, flying to freedom. I slipped my arm through the bars and clicked the door button on the Warrior’s control bracelet. The door answered with its opening click.
In the zero G I easily flipped open the cell door and sent the Warrior floating into the corridor.
For the first time since the murder of my father and lover on Nugene Station I was free. No jailor, no restraining grip on my arm, no expectations. True freedom. If not for the fact I was facing the loss of my lover, I would dance through the corridors, just like dancing in the zero G hub at Nugene.
I guided the unconscious Warrior over to my lover’s cell. The bracelet only worked in proximity to a given door lock. I clicked the button and opened Jason’s door. He floated at the bottom of his cell, clenching the bars in a death grip. Like most, he feared weightlessness. I pushed off and glided down to him. My blood-stained hands were still, the shake of adrenaline had burned out of me.
I took him by the hand. “Come with me. I will help you.”
Jason let go of the bars and held onto me. “You know what you’re doing?”
I didn’t, not really, but that’s not what he needed to hear. I nodded and pushed off the wall to carry my lover to freedom. I prayed this one act would help overcome that look of revulsion on his face when he stared at me just minutes before.
We floated through the open door of the cell and into the corridor. I redirected to the unconscious Warrior and grabbed his arm. Cats wore their control bracelets on one arm and battle gauntlets on the other. I was able to undo the clasp on the gauntlet and slip it over my right hand, but I couldn’t figure out how to remove the control bracelet.
“Do you know how to use that thing?” Jason eyed the oversized metallic gauntlet on my hand.
I didn’t know the precise mechanism for activating the energy blade, but every time the Warriors used it, they made a solid fist. I felt the inside of the grip and found two buttons. My hand barely fit around the grip to reach those buttons when I squeezed the gauntlet into a fist.
The hum and crackle of energy ignited a white hot arc, a semicircular blade that wrapped the knuckles of the gauntlet. I’d seen the Gran slice-punch through just about anything with these blades, including steel, and my former lover, Carver Liddell. They had taken his head off.
I released the buttons and the energy dissipated. I grinned at Jason. “Yes, I know how to use it.” The only question would be when to use it. I looked at the arm of the Warrior with the control bracelet I needed. If I cut his arm off to get his bracelet, I would be crossing a dangerous line.
I knew how the Gran dealt with their enemies. DC Marines were no match for them in combat. But I was different. I was capable of extreme violence. I knew I could tap into that again, if I needed to, for Jason. Yet there was no guarantee we could escape amidst the chaos. We could not afford to make enemies of the Gran. Not yet.
I released the Warrior and let him float down the hallway. I kissed Jason on the lips and gestured towards the ventilation grating, where we could hide and travel unseen. “Come. Let’s find out what’s happened.”
Jason grinned and pointed up the corridor. “This is our way out, Angel. I know who’s behind this attack.”
Suddenly, his secrets became very important. “What do you know that you’re not telling me?”
The electric whine of gauntlet blades echoed down the corridor followed by an explosive blast. Growls, shrieks and clicks entwined with the noise of battle. Jason looked back and forth between me and the corridor. “They’re on board now. There’s no time for explanations.” Jason gestured towards the source of the noise. “Take us to the battle, Angel. This is our ticket home.”
“No. We need to stay away from the conflict and wait.” My eyes trailed up to the ventilation grate, where I knew we could be safe and hide, assess the situation before we made a move. “When the fighting is over, then we’ll figure a way off the ship.”
He grabbed my arms and pulled me in close. “They came for me. I must go to them. They’re looking for me.” He would not be swayed.
Though my gut told me this was a huge mistake, my heart yearned for freedom with Jason. I needed to believe Jason would take me with him, that we could be together in a better place, a better life. I nodded once, agreeing to his insane plan.
I kicked off from the bars to glide through the corridors towards the battle with Jason firmly in hand. I led with my gauntlet forward, adrenaline singing through my veins. I’d started to shake again. Jason gripped my left hand tightly. He slid along beside me silently, reassuring me with his strength and confidence.
Blasts shook the walls and more buzzing-cutting energy sounds echoed towards us, along with the screams of men and yowls of Cats in battle. Humans used plasma guns, the Gran used their wicked gauntlets and claws, but occasionally I had seen the Gran carrying meter long staffs, which doubled as some kind of rifle.
Smoke drifted on the air and a wet mist hit my face. I wiped it away and found red blood on my hand. I felt him coming before he emerged from around the corner, a Warrior in full battle dress, gauntlet blazing brightly. His chest was slashed open, plasma scorched. Bleeding droplets floated in the air around him like little red moons in orbit.
He saw me first and shifted position. From the snarling curses coming out his mouth, I realized the Warrior didn’t recognize me as the Captain’s concubine. Or perhaps he was too wounded to think straight. He shoved off the wall and came at me growling a battle cry. I pushed off Jason and dived straight for the Warrior.
Fear and rage heightened my senses. Time slowed to a crawl as this killer swung his blade at my face. I lit up my gauntlet and slashed across his wrist, severing his weapon hand from his body. Cat blood flying everywhere I screamed my fury at the Warrior as I hacked my way up his arm, and shoulder. He yowled in a high pitch I’d never heard from the mouth of a Cat, shrieks of agony.
I took off his legs at the knees, and then his other arm at the elbow and sliced through the cloud of blood to get to his chest and face. By the time I finished with him, he was separated into pieces floating in all directions of the hallway. I flowed through with my momentum and caught myself on the opposite wall. I looked back to find Jason clinging to an outcropping on the far wall. His face was pale and blank.
Shock. He was in shock.
“Jason!” I launched for him and deactivated my gauntlet. I slammed him against the wall, hoping to knock sense into him. He grabbed me hard, his eyes so intense that I couldn’t look away from his soul-scorching stare.
“Did you have to … you cut him apart, Angel! What’s wrong with you?”
I kissed him on the lips. The blood on my own lips left a red smear behind on Jason’s mouth. “I can’t let them hurt you. I don’t know what I’d do without you, Jason.” More noise echoed from the corridor, something coming our way fast. “I told you we should hide. This is too dangerous.”
* * * *
Chapter 5
Three Warriors flew around the corner, twisting in the air to land feet first against the wall. They thumped off the wall and redirected straight for us. I didn’t recognize any of them. The only Cats I knew by face were the Warriors who had escorted me to the Captain’s cabin and back to my cell. Tall, lanky, covered in striped fur with white teeth gritted in growling menace, the Cats all looked the same to me.
Like the Warrior before them, these Warriors did not distinguish Jason and me from the enemies they were fighting. Three gauntlets lit up and aligned with us.
I kissed Jason hard and shoved him down the hallway as far away from the battle as I could push him.
“Angel, no! Let me help you!” He flew aw
ay from me, a look of panic in his eyes. To his credit he tried to flail around and grab onto the walls.
I turned to my would-be killers and lit my gauntlet. I’d kill every last one of these murdering Cats before I let them anywhere near my lover. I launched for them screaming in fury. I vibrated with a hatred so powerful it consumed me. They had killed everyone I loved, made me their whore and ravaged my body with their sick desires.
The faces of Carver Liddell and my father D’Anton flashed before my eyes and I let the rage of my loss overtake me. By the time I hit the Warriors I was a spinning ball of cussing fury and humming white energy blade. I hacked through two of them when four more Warriors slammed into the wall and redirected for me. I used their carcasses as spring boards to gain momentum, flying fast for the snaggletooth sons of bitches that had ruined my life and threatened to do it yet again.
Two of them escaped as I twisted and slashed through their ranks. I was moving so fast I slammed against the wall and felt my left shoulder pop out. No time for fixing it. I flipped around and launched at the back of one Cat as two more entered the corridor and hit the wall behind me, coming at my backside.
I might not make it out alive, but I was taking every last one of these fuckers with me. Then I heard Jason’s yell. His foot connected with a Warrior in the face, and he wrestled with its gauntlet arm. He had it by the wrist, the white-hot blade just inches from his own chest. As Jason’s back hit the wall, the Warrior fell into him.
I screamed his name, fear wrenching my guts into shreds. I cried when he shoved the Cat off him, the Warrior’s own gauntlet embedded in its throat. Sheer joy and relief flooded my soul as I hacked through the torso of the Warrior who’d blocked my view of Jason.
Jason was alive. We would be together.