A Galaxy Unknown (18 page)

Easily six-foot-nine, the blasé attitude of the newly arrived man seemed to irk BU even more. Despite BU's menacing posture, the medical attendant remained insouciant. "Don't blame me, I got held up at medical stores. I needed a restraint chair and the clerk wasn't around. He finally showed up with some lame excuse about having to deliver something."

"Restraint chair? For her? She's so small that you could just throw her over your shoulder."

"The last time I did that I threw my back out and was laid up for a week. Now I use a restraint chair for
all
prisoner transports. Release her."

As BU aimed a controller at Jenetta, her arms and legs were instantly released. She ached all over from having been suspended from the bar and immediately rubbed the sore muscles in her shoulders.

"Into the chair, bitch," BU said impatiently.

Reaching up, Jenetta tugged at the gag, to the amused delight of a smirking BU. When the band remained inflexibly solid, she reluctantly climbed into the waiting chair. As she settled in, she felt the EM field engage. Her arms were pulled tightly to the chair's arms, and her ankles were anchored to the chair's footrest. The attendant touched something to her neck and she felt herself sinking into a pool of warm liquid as darkness smothered her.

* * *

Jenetta awoke back in her cell, feeling as if she'd been beaten up and left for dead in an alleyway after an all night drinking binge. She ached everywhere, and her stomach was trying to do things no respectable stomach had a legal or moral right to be doing. She rolled off the cot and crawled to the toilet, but nothing came up as her stomach tried to heave imaginary contents into the bowl. After hanging limply onto the stainless steel receptacle for a good ten minutes, she crawled back to her cot and climbed up, a string of spittle still dangling from her mouth. She was thankfully asleep again in minutes.

When she awoke again, hours later, she sat up and looked around. Her stomach felt a little better but her chest was throbbing with pain. Peering down, she discovered that she'd been tattooed. In seven-centimeter high letters just above her breasts, was imprinted the word ‘SLAVE.' Beneath that, in four-centimeter letters was written ‘PS89726.'

"Those miserable bastards," she muttered aloud with fire in her eyes. In those first moments, Jenetta was angrier than she had ever been at any time in her young life; angry enough even to kill, and she swore an oath to herself that whoever was responsible for the tattoo would regret his or her actions to their dying day, which couldn't come soon enough.

* * *

Removed from her cell again the next morning by BU, Jenetta was once again suspended in the anteroom. As she balanced herself on the balls of her feet in an effort to relieve the painful distention of her arms, she glanced up at the wall chronometer. If not for the gag that filled her mouth, she wouldn't have been able to suppress an emotional outburst. According to the date display, a full eight days had passed since her last session here. She could only recall one. She couldn't account for the discrepancy and wondered if the guards were playing with her head.

On this occasion, she was only made to dangle like a sprig of mistletoe for a short time before an attendant arrived with a restraint chair to pick her up. There was no mistaking the fact that the medical attendant wasn't the same as for her last trip. Although also wearing hospital ‘whites', he couldn't be much more diametrical in appearance. No taller than Jenetta, he had just a few precious tussocks of carefully combed-over white hair left on his aged, liver-spotted head. When Jenetta was freed from the bar, he just motioned feebly to the chair, and then secured her when she sat down.

Not being sedated for this excursion through the corridors presented Jenetta with an opportunity to see a little of the station as she was taken to the medical department; and what she saw impressed her. The sophisticated design of the multi-tiered structure corresponded favorably to the amazing feat of coring and lining the asteroid. The trip took her through an impressive medical facility and past numerous research labs.

Moved from the restraint chair to a special recliner in a small lab, straps were used to secure her to the arms of the chair before an adhesive strip with attached wires was applied to her head. The soothing strains of classical music was the last thing she remembered until she awoke in the ‘oh-gee' chair as she was being taken back to the cellblock. At least the chronometer in the anteroom indicated that it was still the same day.

She expected to be returned directly to her cell, so she was surprised when the guard in the anteroom put her on the holding bar. She was forced to stand there in her underwear as dinner was served to the prisoners in each of the eight cellblocks. She observed that there seemed to be four guards working to feed the prisoners, in addition to the one in the anteroom, so surely they could have taken her to her cell if they wished.

A guard who finished his feeding duties early, returned to the anteroom to relax. Definitely the smallest of the jailers Jenetta had seen in the center, he stood no more than two-inches taller than herself, and weighed perhaps only one-hundred-thirty pounds. At roughly twenty-five-years-old, he also appeared to be the youngest of the jailers. As he sat down at the desk next to other guard, the sandy haired turnkey nodded towards Jenetta and said, "What's she doing out here?"

The anteroom guard, who had put her on the bar, said, "Bellis is still feeding the prisoners in her cellblock. You know the rules, no prisoners can be transferred during mealtime."

"I'm sick of all the ridiculous rules around here. With the electronic collars on them, these prisoners are as docile as sheep. And when their EM bands are secured, they're even more helpless than baby lambs. There's no good reason why we can't have more than one cell door in a block, open at the same time."

"If you wanna avoid the shit details you follow the rules, all of them, and you keep your big mouth shut."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," the small guard said as he gazed salaciously at Jenetta. "I thought that you might have some ideas about doing a little diddling. She wouldn't be bad looking if you cleaned her up a bit. I like them young and sweet. How about it, honey," he said, raising his voice slightly, "are you sweet?"

If Jenetta hadn't been gagged, she would have given him explicit instructions on where he could put the stun baton that he was abstractedly fondling as if it was an erect extension of his body. It might have even been worth the electric shock she would certainly receive.

"Put your tool away, Romeo. If you mess with a female prisoner, they'll throw you out an airlock without a spacesuit."

"Yeah," he said, grinning at Jenetta with lust filled eyes, "but only if we get caught."

The first guard scoffed, "Any guard here would turn you in for the reward in a heartbeat. A week's stay, all expenses paid, at the pleasure hotel on Timerius Prime ain't easy to ignore. The company is serious about guards not messing with their new slaves."

Romeo suddenly growled angrily and turned away from Jenetta. "I have to work off this frustration. I'm going up to the mess hall for a pie."

Glancing up at the chronometer, the first guard said, "The cell block is already locked down for the night. Opening the door before 0500 will set off alarms all the way up to the commandant's quarters.
Five patrol groups and a supervisor will be down here before you get halfway to the lifts. You're really anxious to take a vacuum stroll without a suit, aren't you?"

"I won't set off any alarms. I'm not going out the main door."

"Then just how the hell do you intend to get the pie?" the first guard asked, chuckling.

"I'll use the food elevator."

"You're nuts! You can't survive the sterilization sweep unless you're enclosed in a food container, and you're about five-foot too tall for that."

"I've done it before."

"Liar!" the first guard practically spit out.

"I'll prove it to you, right now," Romeo said confidently. "Key in ‘ORSTR156.'"

"Oh, I've heard about that— but it doesn't work. The guy that you replaced tried it and got fried. It was okay going up, but when he tried to come back down, the sweep got him. All we found was his clothes, a small pile of dust, and an empty dessert pan."

"Yeah, I heard about that also, so I looked into it. I know a guy in the computer center. My buddy says that the defaults are automatically reset at the top of every hour. The guy who got dusted made it to the kitchen, but wasted too much time up there. It was ten seconds after the new hour when he tried to come back down, and the sterilization sweep process had defaulted back in. I still have twenty minutes before the hour, so punch in the code."

"It's
your
neck," the first guard said as he punched the code into the terminal.

"Detention center food elevator sterilization sweep process disabled," the computer announced in an androgynous mechanical voice.

Jumping to his feet, the guard that Jenetta now associated with the name Romeo said, "I'm off."

"Bring me back an apple pie."

"Get your own, Rosewood."

With a malicious grin on his face, Rosewood, the guard at the computer console, gave Romeo a sideways glance and said, "How about if I reengage the sterilization sweep procedure while you're on the way up?"

Romeo hesitated for a second, knowing that he was outmaneuvered. Smiling balefully, he said, "Okay,
two
apple pies coming up, or rather down."

Romeo used his jailer key to initiate the operation of the food elevator. As the door opened, Jenetta observed that the car was about a meter wide and two-meters deep, but only a meter and a half high. Even Romeo, with his short stature, had to squat as he entered. He pressed the single button on the wall outside the elevator and yanked his arm in as the door slammed close. Jenetta saw the ‘in service' lamp illuminate and remain lit for about 60 seconds.

At four minutes before the hour, the ‘in service' light lit up again. When the door opened a minute later. Romeo stepped out carrying two pies. Jenetta's stomach began rumbling loudly as the sugary sweet aroma of freshly baked apple pie assailed her nostrils.

Romeo glanced over at her and said, "Yeah, I know that you'd like some, but you know what? You ain't gonna get any, bitch." He laughed cruelly as he cut his pie into pieces and started stuffing his face.

Rosewood, still sitting at the desk, said, "You cut that awfully close, kid. You only had three minutes left."

"I ran into a guy that I know as I was taking the pies off the bakery cart, and we shot the bull for a while. I still had time to get back."

As the two guards greedily attacked their pies, Bellis emerged from the cellblock where Jenetta was housed. "Hey, pie. Save a piece for me."

"Get your own," Romeo said.

"We're in nighttime lockdown, or I would."

"Too bad. That's your problem. Besides you still have a prisoner to put away."

Bellis looked over at Jenetta, scowled, and pulled his controller from a side pocket to release her hands. She dropped them to her belt, was re-secured, and then her ankles were released. Bellis grabbed her arm roughly and pulled her into cellblock C, repeatedly muttering, "Miserable goddamn bastards," under his breath as they walked. Opening the cell door, he shoved her in, secured her legs, and removed the gag. She expected some lecherous remark, but he was still so upset with the other guards that he stepped out of the cell, locked the door, and released her without uttering a word to her.

Jenetta worked her mouth and rubbed her arms before reaching down to pick up the food tray that had been left in her cell. As expected, there wasn't any apple pie, just a large portion of the usual overcooked vegetables and a small dish of plain white rice. "The pie is probably as poorly prepared as the vegetables, anyway," she grumbled as she started to eat.

* * *

During each of the next two days Jenetta was taken to the medical lab, but on the day following she received a visitor in her cell. Verifying that she was secured before unlocking the door, Rosewood pushed the door open wide and respectfully stepped back out of the way. A man bearing an uncanny resemblance to Captain Lentz entered the cell. As he pushed the unlocked door closed behind him, Jenetta just stood there staring with her mouth partly open as she examined his face.

"Hello, Angel, how are they treating you?"

Although the face was slightly different, there was no mistaking that voice.

"Captain Lentz?" Jenetta asked hesitantly.

"Yes and no," the man replied with a grin.

Chapter Fifteen

~ August 4
^th
, 2267 ~

"My real name is Mikel Arneu," he said. "I looked enough like Lentz that some minor cosmetic surgery allowed me to take his place. After we disposed of his body, I reported to the Vordoth as its new captain. My involvement became necessary when the previous captain refused to make the trip without GSC convoy protection. The double we'd prepared to take his place looked nothing like Lentz. We needed the Corplastizine that the Vordoth was carrying, for the creation of our newest space-port, not to mention wanting the rest of its six kilometers of valuable cargo. My face was returned to my original appearance after the mission was over."

"What? You're with the Raiders?"

"Better than that, Angel— I'm the commandant of this base. We call it Raider-One because it was the first of our hidden bases, and one of our most ambitious undertakings up until that time. It took several years to hollow out this asteroid, fully line the interior, and construct the habitat. It's cost was staggering, but over the past eight years it's paid for itself many times over." He chuckled as he said, "Do you know that we operated from here for almost
two
years before people realized that Raiders were behind all the mysterious ship disappearances in this sector? After that, we didn't even bother jamming the IDS bands when taking ships. We had grown so strong that I decided they could scream all they want. It wouldn't make any difference."

"If you're with the Raiders, why didn't you just stay with the Vordoth and surrender it?"

"Simple. There's always some blasted fool who wants to make a fight of it, especially in situations where prisoners are never released. Some people figure they don't have anything left to lose by fighting to the death. I couldn't risk being hurt, or possibly killed, so after stunning the two crewmen who were with me, I just separated part of the cargo section and gently drifted away with the Dithulene-35 as the fighters approached, to await pickup by one of our tugs. I had already done everything that I could to make the takeover as easy as possible. I made sure that my first officer was a young, inexperienced, and extremely insecure lieutenant, and that none of the gunners that I appointed could expect to hit a small moon, much less a moving fighter. It should have been a simple takeover; so simple that I ordered just one squadron be used, and that they not carry missiles. I didn't want to risk their destroying the cargo. But— there was a fly in the ointment. I suspect that fly was you. The uniform you were wearing when they brought you in here had captain's bars on it. Tell me, at what point did you seize command?"

"I didn't. Gloria
requested
that I take command. She didn't feel qualified because of the Raider threat."

A grin appeared on Arneu's face and slowly spread until it widened to a smile. And then he laughed out loud, slapping his hand to his thigh. "Damn! I didn't think she had the brains to do that. I'd have bet a month's pay that her own insecurities would
never
have allowed her to promote you, a mere ensign, to captain." Arneu sighed at his lack of prospicience in the matter before continuing. "I suppose that you were responsible for shooting down my fighters?"

"I got lucky."

"With all six?"

Jenetta just shrugged her shoulders.

"What about our destroyer, Satan's Own, that was tailing the Vordoth and providing position updates?"

"I got lucky."

A serious expression replaced the grin that Arneu was wearing. "I don't think so. There's more than luck involved when an old freighter beats a modern warship. I think that I seriously underestimated you. I assume that you were also responsible for destroying Mara's Marauder."

"Mara's what?"

Arneu grinned. "Don't get shy
now
, Angel. I know it was you. One of our fighters radioed that they were under attack by a heavily armed Terran freighter with a configuration identical to that of the Vordoth. We know that the ship was still somewhere in that area at the time. I also know that no freighter captain would ever rush to the aid of a convoy under attack by my forces. Only a softheaded Spacc officer with delusions of grandeur would even seriously consider it. You were the only Spacc officer in command of a ship in that area. Ipso facto, it was you." Arneu took a deep breath and then released it slowly, as if he was trying to remain calm. "One minute, we had the situation under complete control and were about to finish off the Nordakians, and the next, one of our best battle cruisers is destroyed, and a top notch fighter group is wiped out. That damn fool of a cruiser captain was
so
confident that the Nordakian convoy presented no challenge, that he sent his two escort destroyers off to search for
you
when Satan's Own failed to report in. I'm sure that you were responsible for the attack that resulted in the destruction of my cruiser, but I know you didn't shoot down dozens of fighters by yourself."

"I didn't," Jenetta said nonchalantly. "And I wasn't being shy; I just didn't know the name of the cruiser. As for shooting down your fighters, I merely saw to it that the right people got the intensive training they needed to become proficient gunners."

"Ahh! I suspected as much. And where's the Vordoth now?"

"On its way to Higgins, I imagine. That's the order that I issued to Gloria before I left."

"Is that so? And just how did you expect to reach a base from here in that small tug?"

"We stocked enough food aboard the tug for a month, and I'd planned to contact Space Command as soon as I got far enough away from this base. They'd come double quick, in force, when I reported that I'd discovered the location of a hidden Raider base filled with warships."

Arneu shook his head. "You've given us more trouble than all the fools at Mars when we used a work barge to infiltrate the shipyard and steal the two recently completed battleships. The pictures that you took of them were outstanding, by the way. I'm thinking of having one enlarged so it can be mounted in my office. What do you think?"

"A picture may be the only way you can look at them soon. Space Command will track you down and take them back. The Galactic Alliance will destroy you and your organization."

"Spare me the jingoisms, Angel. The Spacc high command structure couldn't spot its own arse if they were naked in a hall of mirrors, so they'll never find this base in a million years. We're too well hidden, and they're not imaginative enough to look for a hollowed asteroid. Our next big mission will show them just how powerful we've become when we employ the firepower that they've enjoyed for so long."

"Don't underestimate Space Command;
I
was able to find you."

"Yes, you did, didn't you? How did you, by the way?"

"I just asked myself where I'd cower between attacks on innocent and almost defenseless civilians if I was the lowest scum in the galaxy, and— here you are."

Arneu chuckled and grinned malevolently. "I suspect that you just hid near the last battle site and followed our recovery operation ships back here when we cleaned up. We'll be more careful about that in the future. I could get the truth out of you in the psych lab, but that might damage you and you're much too valuable to allow that to happen."

"What do you mean?"

"Surely you've noticed your chest?"

"I have," Jenetta said, not even trying to conceal the anger boiling up inside her, "and I'm no slave. Slavery isn't even legal in this part of the galaxy. As soon as I'm out of here, I'm having this damn tattoo removed."

"It's not a tattoo, Angel. The pigmentation of the skin has been permanently altered, so— it's like a birthmark. The only way to eliminate it is to have all the skin permanently removed, which of course isn't much of a solution."

"Then I'll have replacement skin grafted over it."

Arneu shook his head and grinned. "That'd only be a very temporary solution. You see, you've been given two great gifts, Angel. Our research lab here has been making all kinds of wonderful breakthroughs in age prolongation and DNA manipulation."

"Human DNA manipulation research has been outlawed for hundreds of years."

Arneu laughed loudly. "You're priceless, Angel. Do you really think that we care anything about Earth illegalities out here? Just because the people there got upset over human cloning efforts back in the early 21st century, and pressed their lawmakers to pass one ridiculous feel-good law after another, doesn't mean that the research ever stopped. It just went underground; first to countries that would look the other way after payoffs to corrupt leaders who provided prisoners for research, then into space when private companies started moving among the stars. Mainly through my efforts, we have one of the best research labs in the galaxy right here on Raider-One. You see, I want to live forever."

Jenetta's face reflected the shock she was feeling. "You're insane!"

Arneu laughed again. "Am I? To want to live more than the hundred and thirty odd years that medical science provides these days for most people? If that's insanity, then go ahead and call me crazy."

"Not crazy to want it, just crazy to expect it."

"Really? Just because it hasn't been available until now?"

"You know as well as I what would happen if everyone could live forever. The population would explode and the planets couldn't support them. Look what happened on Earth in the 20
^th
century when major diseases were all but eradicated. The population grew faster than the ability to feed them, and millions starved annually in third world nations where charitable organizations moved in and vaccinated the population without first educating them about birth control. Once most of their children weren't dying before age five, the populations doubled every ten years. The wars and genocide on the African continent were the only things that kept it from going the way of India and the Middle East. Then, when nano-particulate medicine was approved for general use, and the average age of humans began to increase dramatically, moving into space became not just a dream but a necessity, so that we could disperse a burgeoning population."

"I'm not suggesting that everyone be given immortality, just those that can afford to pay for it, or those that are worth preserving, such as yourself."

"I'm flattered that you think I'm worth
preserving
."

"Don't be. I only plan to preserve your body, not your mind. You've cost us a lot of money, Angel. The loss of two fully equipped warships and their personnel has put a huge hole in my annual budget. And that doesn't include the profit I expected from the thirty-six kilometers of cargo the Vordoth and the Nordakians were carrying. We have to recoup that somehow. So, your body is now the property of Resorts Intergalactic, and your slave number is officially registered with the twenty-three occupied star systems in that part of the galaxy where they respect the property rights of legitimate slave owners. You're going to make a lot of money for us over the next several hundred years."

"Several hundred years?"

"Oh, I guess I didn't finish telling you that part. You've been the recipient of our latest Age Prolongation and Recombinant Deoxyribonucleic Acid procedures."

"Recombinant DNA? What are you talking about?"

"Our brilliant doctors here at the base have developed a procedure that can totally rewrite a person's DNA."

"That's impossible," Jenetta scoffed. "A person's unique DNA makeup is imprinted in every cell of their body."

"True. But every cell in the human body eventually dies and is replaced. In fact, our bodies are constantly at work making new cells to replace the dead ones. Normally, new cell creation occurs through cellular mitosis so new cells have the same DNA as the old cells, but with our process, cells adopt the new encoding, and eventually your entire body is changed. It will take years, perhaps as many as ten, for the process to be complete. I don't pretend to understand it all. In fact, I begin to get a headache whenever the scientists become excited and get carried away with their detailed explanations of cells, glands, secretions, hormones, and all the rest. But I know it works. It takes a week of very painful injections to start the process rolling. The metabolous action of the body, and the uncontrollable muscle spasms, are enough to drive the patient mad, so you were kept unconscious for the whole time. That's why you have no memory of it."

"You bastard! You've used me in one of your illegal experiments?"

"Oh, no, Angel, you got the real deal; the proven formulas. You're actually the second recipient of the tested and proven cocktails my scientists have whipped up; I was the first. Of course, hundreds of
test
subjects have gone before us, most of whom died or were so horribly disfigured that they had to be euthanized. And once we got the processes locked down, I required all my researchers here to take it as well. Sort of like a reward— and a security measure at the same time."

"You took it?"

"Of course. Naturally, I was mainly interested in the Age Prolongation process. I told you that I want to live forever."

"We're going to live forever?" Jenetta said sarcastically. "Right."

"No, not forever, Angel; at least not yet. Nano-technology research has brought Terran physiology forward to a point where we can expect a life double that of twentieth century man, and estimates are that the technology will continue to carry mankind forward until we can one day expect a lifetime of perhaps two-hundred years. But that's not nearly long enough to suit me, and the only kind or research that will offer the human body longer life is, as you've said, illegal. So if we don't do it here, who will?

"We really don't know how many additional years the present prolongation process will provide. You see, they can create computer models and run simulations all day, but the only real way to know for sure is to monitor the process in real time. Of course, that means that I'd have died of old age before they know for sure that it will extend life as predicted. We do know that the procedure changes the body so that it essentially stops visible aging. My researchers are still looking for a way to reverse the signs of middle age and restore youth, but so far, that's eluded them. However, the scientist in charge promises me that I'll live to at least 350 years, and the computer models predict that I'll have ten times that or more? I'm willing to settle for a life-span triple that of most people, if that's all I get, but who knows, even without improvement the formula might give us thousands of years of extended life."