Starship Desolation (12 page)

“
T
he rain brings
the mating season for those arthropods. As if this planet needed any more of them. The rain and cloud cover keep the planet relatively cool during the day. So they are out all day long, looking to feed and reproduce. You certainly don’t want to be in the flatlands during that frenzy.”

Walker wasn’t too thrilled with the idea of thousands of those creatures running around. The small handful he’d already dealt with were more than enough.

They waited for the storm to die down, then searched the canyon for Malick. They found him on the ground, unconscious, several hundred yards down the canyon. His helmet was dented and scratched. The wind must have catapulted him. His head must have slammed against a rock, knocking him out.

Walker knelt down and carefully removed Malick’s helmet, making sure to support his neck in case Malick had a spinal injury. He was still alive, and the armor had saved him from the harsh sandblasting.

The sun was rising, and they needed to get him to shelter soon.

“Give me a hand with him,” Walker said.

Gavin knelt down. Walker took one side, Gavin took the other. He groaned as he lifted Malik from the ground. “He’s a heavy son-of-a-bitch, ain’t he?”

Walker and Gavin carried Malick back to the dwelling and set him on a bunk.

“I can’t believe I’m giving aid and comfort to the enemy,” Gavin said.

Malik was out for almost an hour. He woke, groggy, and had no recollection of what had happened.

Gavin scowled at the Saarkturian. “You’re lucky those saber-toothed bastards didn’t find you before we did.”

“Malik, this is Gavin. Our
gracious
host,” Walker said, eying Gavin. The last thing Walker needed was for Gavin to start another Verge War. “He’s agreed to help us, in exchange for a lift off of this dump.”

Malik gave a nod of agreement.

“We should head out in the morning for my ship,” Walker said.

“Why not this afternoon?” Malik asked.

“Let’s give it a day to see how you feel. I don’t need you passing out on me out there.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’ve probably got a mild concussion. I think we need to keep a watch on you for a bit. Do you have a headache? Nausea, dizziness, confusion?”

Malik held up his dented helmet. “Of course I have a headache. What do you think?” He glared at Walker. “I’m fine.”

Walker shrugged. “If you say so.”

“I’m fine,” he snarled, which only made his head hurt worse. He tried to stand, but felt woozy. He crashed back down to the bunk.

“Like I said, we’ll head out in the morning.”

Malik couldn’t argue any longer.

“You’re not going to like this,” Gavin said. “But there’s only one way to survive the flatlands.”

Walker lifted a curious eyebrow.

L
ittle Nicky’s
eyes burned into Slade. “300,000 credits. That’s what I’ll pay. Just so I can make her life a living hell.”

Logan’s eyes went wide. That was twice what he had hoped for. “Sure,” he stammered. But even as greedy as Logan was, the concern on his face was evident.

“Then it’s a deal,” Nicky said.

The two shook on it.

Logan handed him the keys to the handcuffs.

“Why don’t you stick around. Drinks and entertainment are on the house tonight. Pick any girl you’d like.”

“Thanks,” he said, thinly. Logan stood there for a moment, staring at Slade.

“The transaction is over. Go. Have some fun.” Nicky shooed him along.

Logan strolled away, past the bouncer and the velvet rope of the VIP lounge. But he kept glancing back at Slade. He looked like he almost felt sorry for her.

Nicky glared at Slade. Then he called out to the bouncer at the velvet rope. “Marco, take her upstairs and get her fitted with an obedience implant. Then put her on display. Let’s see what she’s really worth.”

Marco grabbed Slade by the arm and dragged her upstairs. Slade jerked and pulled and kicked at him, but his grip was too tight, and his frame too big. He pulled her along like she were a stuffed doll.

Slade didn’t want an obedience implant. Once that was installed, the game would be over. It wasn’t mind control, exactly. But it was close. They were small, disc-shaped objects affixed to the back of the neck. Nano tentacles penetrated the spinal fluid and entered the brain, influencing a number of key areas in the prefrontal cortex and limbic system.

While not as advanced as the Saarkturian mind control, the devices could reduce inhibition, modulate serotonin levels, increase impulsive behavior, increase sex drive, and stimulate pleasure areas of the brain.

You couldn’t program someone to be a stone cold killer with an obedience implant. But you could make them docile and compliant, and be happy about it. You could also simulate the sensation of pain. Pure and total threshold pain. 20 on a scale of 10. The worst pain you ever felt in your life. And it could all be accomplished with the press of a button. That was enough to keep most people in line.

Marco brought her to
The Doctor
. He was an older gentleman with gray hair and a gray mustache, wearing a white lab coat. But the lab coat was probably just to make him feel better about himself. Who knew if he was a real doctor or not? It didn’t really matter. He was the guy responsible for the implants. He also made sure the girls were healthy enough to work, and took care of them when they weren’t.

Almost every disease had a cure, and thereby had been mostly eradicated. But running an intergalactic brothel meant that somebody was going to catch something at some point. And the good
Doctor
was there to cure them.

Marco barged into the Doc’s
office
. It was a makeshift facility with an exam table, diagnostic devices, medical instruments, and cabinets full of medications. Doc was at his desk with his sleeve rolled up. He had just injected something into his arm, and his head fell limp.

This is just great. The Doc is a junky
, Slade thought.

“Doc, snap out of it. She needs an implant,” Marco said.

It took a moment for Doc’s eyes to focus. A moment later, he nodded and pushed up from the desk. He listed over to the cabinets and grabbed an obedience disc.

Doc ambled over to Slade. His words were thick and slurry. “Don’t move during the process, or you could become paralyzed.”

Marco put a gun to Slade’s head. “Or you could become dead.”

No way was she going to let this happen.

Doc was trying to line up the disc and implant it on the back of her neck. But he was having a hard time. His hand was drifting from side to side.

Slade mashed a stiletto into Marco’s foot. She spun around and leaned out of the way as Marco squeezed the trigger.

BAM!

A .45 caliber round drilled past her forehead. She could feel the breeze as the bullet pierced the air. She did a roundhouse and kicked the gun from Marco’s hand. The gun clattered across the floor.

Like lightning, Slade kicked Marco in the groin. But it didn’t faze him. He grabbed onto her ankle and yanked her from her feet. Slade’s head smacked the hard floor.

Marco rolled her onto her stomach and pounced on her back. He grabbed her hair and mashed her face into the floor. He put his other hand between her shoulder blades and held her to the ground.

“Trust me, you really don’t want to move during this process,” he said.

This was more action than the Doc had seen in quite some time. He looked on, nervously.

“Go ahead, Doc,” Marco said.

Doc knelt to the floor, placing the disc against Slade’s neck. Then he activated it. Eight spider-like arms burrowed into her skin and affixed the disc to her neck. Her body stiffened as the nano-tentacles plunged into her spinal fluid and spread to her brain.

Within moments, she relaxed. She was calm and sedate. She was something she never thought she’d be—compliant.

Marco grabbed his gun from the floor and holstered it. Doc gave him a controller, specifically coded for Slade’s implant. He pulled Slade from the ground and marched her to another room down the hall. He pushed her inside. It was a typical pleasure room. There was a bed, seductive lighting, music.

Marco removed her handcuffs.

There was a part of her that wanted to escape. But she just couldn’t make her body do anything about it. Part of her was terrified. Part of her just didn’t care.

She looked over the room, then faced Marco as he stood by the door.

“Let me tell you how things work around here.” Marco held the controller in his hand. “You can feel pleasure…” He pressed a button. A flood of endorphins rushed through Slade’s body. It was pleasure like she had never felt before. Every nerve ending in her body bristled with euphoria.

“Or you can feel pain.” Marco pressed another button. Stabbing, pulsing pain covered her body. Deep, chilling pain. Like every bone in her body had been broken. Like her skin had been seared and her flesh was blistering. Like someone had stabbed an ice pick through her temples. She crumpled to the ground, and tears streamed from her eyes.

Marco lifted his finger from the pain inducer.

Slade felt instant relief. She exhaled, and her body relaxed.

“Do what you’re told, and you get rewarded with pleasure. Cause trouble, and your life will be hell. Do we understand each other?”

Slade nodded.

“You know, most girls grow to like it here. They get addicted to the pleasure. I’m told nothing can compare—that no pleasurable experience is as complete as one derived from pure brain stimulation.”

Marco hit the pain button again. Slade seized up in pain. She twitched and convulsed on the ground for a minute. Then Marco released her.

“That’s for kicking me in the balls.”

She gasped for air and wiped the tears from her eyes.

Marco yanked her up from the floor. “Now you’re going to go down there and do exactly as you’re told. And if you try to leave, I can inflict pain and track you down. You’ll probably be dead by the time I get to you, so I advise against trying to escape.”

Marco escorted her down to the main stage. He whispered something to the DJ.

After the current song ended, the DJ introduced Slade to the eager crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage our newest addition to the
Teasers’ House of Pleasure
, the one and only, Ms. Electra!”

And just like that, she had been dubbed with a new identity.

Logan sat with his crew at a table by the stage. They were drinking their fill on Nicky’s dime. But Logan looked like an old stick in the mud. He wasn’t having a good time. He watched Slade as Marco shoved her onto the stage.

“What’s the matter, boss?” Gorth asked. “You look like someone kicked your dog.”

“Nothing.”

“Come on. 300K, that’s the most we’ve ever scored. Plus the 50K on the other goods we delivered to McMurphy. Not a bad haul. And you can settle your debt.”

Logan forced a smile.

“Shit boss. Don’t tell me this one got under your skin?”

Logan’s face tightened. “No. Of course not.”

“Then live a little,” Gorth slurred. “We earned it.” He slugged another shot down. He was going to drink his fill of free whiskey.

“This is Ms. Electra’s first night at
Teasers
. Please give her a warm welcome,” the DJ said.

The crowd erupted with applause.

Slade hesitantly walked to the end of the stage. A spotlight bathed her body in warm light.

“Spin around, honey,” the DJ said. “Show them what you’ve got.”

Slade did as he commanded.

“This is a woman who knows how to fulfill your every desire,” the DJ said. “If you want some private time with Ms. Electra, grab her when she comes off stage. Better hurry. The line is going to be long for this one.”

W
alker and Gavin
stood over the carcass of an arthropod they had rooted out of its burrow and killed. Gavin cut into the creature’s flesh and scooped out its gooey green blood into a clay bucket.

Walker’s face twisted up. “That smells like ass.” The stench hit him like a hot wall of filth.

“Give me a hand with this, would you?” Gavin said. “Fill up that other bucket.”

Walker cringed, but knelt down and started scooping the slop into the bucket. “Want to tell me what this is for?”

“Those arthropods have a highly attuned sense of smell. While they have good visual acuity, their pattern recognition sucks. This blood will mask your scent. They’ll see you as one of their own.”

“Have you tested this theory out before?”

“Yes,” Gavin said. “You just better hope one of them doesn’t want to mate with you.”

“That sounds pleasurable.” Walker grimaced, his voice thick with sarcasm.

They hauled the slop back to Gavin’s dwelling. Malik’s face crinkled and Bailey whimpered.

“Put a lid on that,” Malik said. “And I thought human’s smelled bad.”

Gavin covered the buckets. It helped attenuate the stench a little, but not nearly enough. It permeated everything in the small dwelling. Gavin was never going to be able to get the smell out. But if things went well, he wouldn’t be living on this planet for much longer.

After a while, they got somewhat numb to the horrid smell. But every now and then, you’d catch a good whiff of it and want to hurl. It was the kind of smell that you could almost taste in the back of your throat, triggering your gag reflex.

Walker tried to get a good night’s sleep, but he kept having nightmare’s about bugs. When he woke in the morning, he was certain he was back on Delta Crucis 6, for a moment
,
fighting the bugs—and losing. The campaign on DC6 was one of his first deployments. After all these years, it still haunted him. He shook the dream off, and hoped it wasn’t some sort of bad omen.

Gavin had stockpiled enough jerky to last for months. Dehydrated on racks in the sweltering sun, the saber-tooth jerky made as tasty a breakfast as one could get on this planet. But with the stench of the bug goo wafting through the air, it was hard to enjoy the meal.

They geared up for the journey, then doused themselves in the bug juice. Bailey was no fan of the putrid smelling slop. Walker coated Bailey’s skin with it, and the dog would try his damnedest to shake it off.

“I know it smells bad, but it’s going to help,” Walker said. He gave Gavin the evil eye. “It better help.”

The team set out for the flatlands. The goop dried and stuck to them like a nasty paste. By dawn, they had reached the end of the canyon.

Walker looked out over the flatlands. “We’ll only be able to make it half way by midday. We’ll have to root one of those things out of their burrows and take shelter. We’ll march single file to minimize our footprint.”

Walker started off jogging into the flats. He was keeping a good pace. Malik had no problem keeping up. He was physically superior. Bailey was a natural runner. But Gavin wasn’t used to this kind of physical exertion. He was lagging behind. His chest heaved and expanded as he gasped for breath. Sweat dripped from his brow. He had to stop several times, hunching over on his knees, sucking wind.

Walker slowed up and waited for him, but he knew the delay was going to cause problems. They had been lucky, so far. They hadn’t seemed to stir up any arthropods.

They all took a break and caught their breath for a moment. They weren’t even a quarter of the way to the ship, and the heat was becoming unbearable.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve been on a march like this,” Gavin said between gasps. I’m slowing you down.”

“We’ll be just fine,” Walker replied. “We’ve got maybe another hour before the heat will be too much. We can look for shelter now, or we can push on.”

“We need to cover more ground,” Gavin said. “If we don’t, we’ll all freeze out here, come nightfall.”

“Let’s keep moving,” Walker said.

They followed him as he sprinted north. It wasn’t long before Gavin’s side was aching and he was gasping for breath again. He was limping along like a wounded animal. Eventually, he had to take a knee and catch his breath.

Walker slowed and backtracked toward Gavin. “We’ll rest here a moment.”

They still weren’t halfway yet.

Walker took a swig of water.

Malik was visibly frustrated. “I’ll carry him.”

“You will do no such thing,” Gavin said, defiantly.

“I’m twice as strong as you humans. I will not continue to waste valuable time placating your ego.”

Gavin gritted his teeth. “You’ll be old too, one day.”

“But not today,” Malik said. “If we continue to let him drag us down, we will all die.”

This infuriated Gavin. He looked like he was about to pounce on Malik and start a brawl.

“He’s right,” Walker said.

Gavin scowled at Walker. “If you think I’m gonna let him give me a piggy back ride, you’ve got another thing coming.”

“It wasn’t a suggestion, Lieutenant,” Walker said.

“I should outrank you by now,” Gavin grumbled.

“But you don’t.” Walker grinned.

Gavin muttered something under his breath and climbed on Malik’s back. “This is ridiculous.”

Bailey started barking.

“What is it, boy?” Walker asked.

Several arthropods emerged from the sand and surrounded them.