The Sword of Sophia
“So what’s this big favor you need? Is it very expensive? I don’t have a lot of money right now. Just started a new job this morning.”
“Oh? Where are you working?”
“NordTek. Used to be a defense factory, but now I guess you’d call it an offense factory, since they’re contracted to the Sirians.”
“NordTek, sure, I’ve heard my dad talk about it. What do you do there?”
He shook his head. “You wanted a favor,” he said. “Suddenly you’re afraid to tell me what it is.”
Valyn’s heart skipped a beat and she felt her face growing warm. She gazed into his eyes for several seconds and he gazed right back, waiting.
“It’s…very personal,” she said. “I wouldn’t ask anyone else.”
“You want me to kill someone for you?” he ventured.
Valyn’s eyes sprang wide as she looked at him. “Goddess, no!” she gasped. “What makes you—”
She stopped as she saw the laughter in his eyes.
“It’s the only thing I’m really good at,” he said. “Killing people.”
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The Sword of Sophia
by
John Bowers
AKW Books
Washington
An AKW Books eBook
Published by Kalar/Wade Media
Copyright © 2010 by John Bowers
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by AKW Books, an imprint of Kalar/Wade Media, LLC, Washington.
Created in the United States of America
First Printing: December 2010
Cover art: Howard Milligan, Joseph Bowers
Cover design & composition: Howard Milligan
Star background: Sololos
Sword: Colonel
Map by John Bowers
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters are a product of the imagination of the author and any resemblance to any real person, either living or dead, is purely coincidental.
To Ian, Joseph, and Erin
Acknowledgements
Verna and Al of AKW Books—thanks for taking a chance on me
Prolog
Sunday, 21 August 0196 (Post Colonial Calendar) – Orbit of Sirius 1
The slave ship docked at 2300 hours, exactly on schedule.
CSS Robert Byrd had left Vega 3 nineteen days earlier with a crew of six and a cargo of forty-eight. Byrd was a small but fast ship, able to turn a tidy profit even with small cargoes. She tied up at Commerce Dock 4 and made preparations to begin offloading.
Erika Sebring lay in her bunk and listened. She felt the bump as the space ship mated with the docking station, and being no stranger to space travel, knew what it meant. She listened for voices, commands, or announcements, but the slave cabins were soundproofed and she heard nothing. The other three women in her cabin were sleeping in their bunks, either too stressed or too exhausted to care what was going on around them.
Erika closed her eyes and tried to relax. Docking meant the end of the horror of the last three weeks, but it certainly presaged the beginning of some other horror. If she had learned anything in the fifty-eight weeks of her captivity, it was that horrors never ended, they just changed from day to day.
Two hours crawled by and Erika dozed off. She wasn’t sleepy, or even tired, but her soul was so scoured that sleep was its only escape. She woke suddenly when a hand gripped her shoulder and shook her. Her heart hammered briefly, then she saw who it was and her stomach twisted instead.
“Erika!” he whispered breathlessly. “We have to hurry!”
She frowned in the dimness of the cabin’s night light.
“Junior, go away! You fucked me two hours ago.”
“It was three hours, but we’ve docked at Sirius! We’ll be unloading in about an hour. This is the last chance we’ll ever get.”
His name was Junior Jones and he claimed to be fifteen, but she doubted that. Sirian Astral Law dictated that slave attendants had to be at least fifteen years of age, but Junior was the First Mate’s nephew, so she was pretty sure his age had been falsified as a matter of nepotism. He looked more like thirteen, even though he was a big, heavy kid.
Erika scowled and pushed him away.
“Forget it, kid. Three hours ago was the last time. I’m glad I’ll never see you again.”
“Come on, Erika!” Junior leaned over her and began sliding her skirt up to her hips. “You’re the best I’ve ever had!”
She pushed him away again. “And you’ve had me for the last time. Find another toy!”
He stared down at her, looking hurt.
“I thought you liked me!”
She almost laughed at the absurdity of that statement.
“Whatever gave you that idea? I’m thirty years old, Junior! Do you think I’d screw a pimply-faced eighth grader if I had a choice?”
“I told you, I’m fifteen!”
“Sure you are. Even so, I’m twice your age.”
“I was good to you, Erika.” He had slipped her extra food from time to time, had given her priority on shower days…none of which had endeared her to her cabin mates.
“Next time you want to be good to a woman,” she advised, “try skipping the rape.”
The cabin door burst open and the First Mate stood there. “Junior! Goddammit, I told yew to start packin’ up the personal effects, didn’t I? What the hell’re yew doin’ in here?”
Junior stared at his uncle in obvious distress. “I was goin’ to, Uncle Bill, but I wanted to say good-bye to Erika first.”
“Yew came in here to fuck her, yew mean! Time for that is over, boy! Git a move on!”
Junior hesitated, looking at Erika again.
“NOW, goddammit!”
Junior left, his uncle sealed the hatch, and Erika dropped back to her pillow, her pulse throbbing. The other women were awake now, some of them blinking sleepily.
“What’s going on?” one of them asked.
* * *
When it was time to debark, the women were herded out of their cabins into the central companionway, forty-eight in all. Erika hadn’t seen most of them since leaving Vega 3; all cabins were kept sealed during the voyage and opened one at a time for showers and sanitary needs. Most were in their forties, but about a dozen were younger; Erika was thirty. All were Vegan women and, by definition, beautiful.
Centuries earlier, the Vegan government had ordered genetic alteration to the entire population, producing the finest race of females the galaxy had ever seen. Vegan beauty was so legendary that many on other worlds thought it a myth. But it was real enough that the Sirian Confederacy, which legally held women in slavery, had invaded the Monarchy to secure a source of slaves guaranteed to boost the Sirian economy for decades to come.
The war was still in progress, but the outcome was no longer in doubt. Erika, a holonews reporter, had fallen into enemy hands mere days after the invasion, and spent most of the last year servicing
Confederate troops. Now, at last, she was on her way to market.
Erika felt grimy as she moved with the herd toward the airlock. Her last shower had been four days ago. Her hair was unbrushed, her makeup nonexistent. The others looked just as unkempt, but the crewmen hardly seemed to notice. As she passed into the airlock, the First Mate seized her by the chin and kissed her.
“Good luck to yew, girl. Gonna miss yew around here.”
Erika lowered her eyes and kept moving forward. She felt like screaming obscenities at the man, but her hypno-preparation before shipment had rendered her incapable of overt resistance.
Forty-eight women stepped out of the airlock onto Commerce Dock 4, huddled in a group, where two Sirian Elite Guards awaited them. The SE men wore intimidating ebony uniforms and peaked caps. Their shoulder patches bore a black shield with a single lightning bolt. Erika glanced at them, but avoided direct eye contact.
“Awright, ladies, listen up!” The speaker was a corporal, by the stripes on his sleeve; the other’s sleeve was bare. “We’re gonna keep this real simple. You’re gonna follow my partner here across the station and we’ll put you aboard a shuttle. I’ll be right behind, and anybody tries anything stupid…” He held up an electro-whip and swung it suggestively in an arc. “You won’t enjoy the consequences.”
He nodded at the private, who set off at a brisk stride. Erika and the women had to trot to keep up, and the corporal fell in behind, lashing the last woman in line across the bottom. She squealed and dashed forward, out of range. The trek took five or six minutes as the party wound through a variety of corridors and across a cargo bay. Whistles and catcalls from station employees punctuated the journey, along with a few suggestive comments. Erika concentrated on the man in front and ignored the rude remarks. Nothing the spacers suggested was any worse than she had already experienced.
The airlock to the shuttle was already open, and the women streamed inside. As she stepped out of the airlock into the shuttle, Erika saw a small lighted sign that declared the name of the vessel:
WS-09
New Birmingham
For the next hour, she felt almost normal. Sitting in a passenger seat aboard an orbital shuttle, she could almost believe she was human again.
The women sat silent and introspective as the shuttle undocked and began its descent. Reentry was miserable, as always, but then the ride smoothed out until the landing in New Birmingham. Dawn was just streaking the sky as the shuttle touched down at Lucius Clay Interstellar Spaceport.
The shuttle taxied to a cargo terminal and a few minutes later the women were moving again. This time the parade was more private, and as daylight gathered in the east, the women were marched to a hoverbus parked in a cargo bay. The stencil on the side of the bus said WALLACE SLAVES. Once again, her senses numb, Erika settled into a seat and waited.
Ten minutes later, the bus set down outside a massive, fortress-like building that looked more like a prison than an industrial complex. The bus unloaded and the women entered a wide, high-ceilinged room with parquet floors. Their ID tags were scanned as they passed through a turnstile, and a few minutes later they found themselves inside a large dormitory with at least a hundred beds.
“Awright, ladies, y’all done good. Now I know you’re all tired from your trip, so you got the rest of the day to rest up. You got showers and toilets and clean clothes in the closets. Take whatever you like, but only take one outfit each.”
The corporal waved a hand at a row of mirrors and cosmetic counters. “You got makeup and perfumes and sprays and whatever you need. Make yourselves pretty, and that’s an order. When we come for you, you better look like Vegan women, or we’ll make you wish you did.” He grinned evilly. “Any questions?”
“What about—”
Erika stopped. Was he serious about taking questions, or was that just an excuse for a beating?
“What was that?” He glowered at her. “You got a question? Speak up!”
She licked her lips. “What about breakfast?”
He nodded. “Breakfast in two hours. You won’t be here more’n a few days, but you will be well fed. And by the way, I know y’all have been treated pretty bad sometimes, but you won’t have none of that here as long as you cooperate. If you need somethin’, or even want somethin’, just ask. If you can’t have it, we’ll tell you. But you won’t git in trouble for askin’. Got that?”
He surveyed them once more, then nodded.
“Okay. Git ‘er done.”
Erika stood in the shower for thirty minutes. When she came out, she felt clean for the first time in a year. The dormitory had all the right facilities, and she was able to put herself back together piece by piece. After blow-drying her hair, she settled in front of a mirror with an array of brushes and cosmetics, and forty-five minutes later she did, indeed, look like a Vegan woman again. She found an outfit in the community closet that not only fit, but accented her silver eyes.
As she admired herself in a mirror, it struck her that she was doing herself no favors by looking so gorgeous—the better she looked, the higher price she would bring, but she would be sold like an animal just the same.
But what choice did she have? It felt good to be pretty again.
* * *
The women ate breakfast in a large dining hall. They weren’t alone—nearly a thousand other women, all of them Vegan, were also dining, and if Erika had thought she looked good, some of these women were stunning beyond belief. Clearly they had been styled by professionals, and it wasn’t hard to figure out why. Extreme beauty could be sold for premium rates.
There was very little conversation; most women had been hypnoed to the point that nothing mattered to them. Erika wondered what kind of hypno procedures she yet had to endure, and whether it would be permanent. As bad as this whole nightmare was, she didn’t want to become a zombie.
The SE men were escorting them back to the dorm when a civilian employee in a white lab coat approached and spoke to the corporal. The corporal examined a document the civilian showed him, then turned to the group.
“Awright, which one of you is Erika Sebring?”
Erika stepped forward, her brow wrinkled in a frown. What was this about?
“You Erika Sebring?”
“Yes.”
The civilian scanned her ID tag and nodded at the corporal.
“Okay, then, you go with this gentleman and do whatever he says. You got that?”
She nodded, glancing at the employee uncertainly. He took her by the arm and led her away.
The man was short and slender, pale and balding. He didn’t speak as he led her down a long series of corridors, and she wondered if he was going to rape her. But why had he asked for her by name?
For just a moment she entertained a terrible thought—was she being sent back to the slave ship? Had that First Mate somehow managed to get her assigned to his vessel? She shuddered at the thought of having to service Junior again.
But the civilian led her into a business office with an outside door and a public lobby. He pushed a buzzer and thrust her through a wing gate into the waiting area. He stopped in front of a middle-aged man who was sitting in a chair.
“Mr. Marlow?” he asked.
The middle-aged man stood up and nodded. He was at least six feet two, broad in the shoulders, and slightly paunchy. He was dressed in work clothes, and looked like a farmer.
“Yeah.”
The employee handed him a packet of papers and nudged Erika toward him.
“Here she is, sir. Thank you for choosing Wallace Slaves.”
The employee went back through the wing gate and disappeared. Erika stood astonished, a million questions racing through her head. She didn’t know which one to ask first, or if she even dared.
The farmer was staring at her as if she were a bomb. He was about forty-five, she guessed, and looked uncomfortable. He looked her up and down, then wiped his mouth with his hand.
“You’re Erika Sebring?” he asked.
“Yes, I am.”
“Well, I’m…” He stuck out his hand, as if to greet her, then dropped it. She stared at him with clear silver eyes, and he stretched his hand again. “I’m Tom Marlow,” he said.
She took his hand and he shook hers. His hand was big, beefy, and calloused.
“I, uh—You’ll have to excuse me,” he said. “I never met a slave woman before.”
The corners of her lips flickered, as close to a smile as she felt she dared. She wished she knew what the hell was going on.
“Do you, uh… You have any luggage? Or anything?”
Erika frowned. There had been a bag of personal effects when she left Vega, and she’d heard the First Mate order Junior to pack up personal effects on the ship, but she had no idea where they were now. She shook her head.
“I have nothing.”
Tom Marlow looked slightly shocked, as if she had just revealed a deep truth.
“Oh. Well, then, I guess we better go. My truck is outside.”
He stepped toward the door, and held it open. Erika walked through and felt the sunshine on her face. The morning sun was only halfway up the sky, but the air was already hot. She saw a second, weaker sun a few degrees to her left. She was assailed by smells of fuel exhaust and distant food sources.
Marlow led her to a pickup and opened the passenger door for her.
“Watch your step,” he said. “It’s a little high off the ground. I apologize for the clutter; I tried to clean it up, but it’s a work truck, so…”
Erika climbed up and settled onto the seat. Anti-collision harness automatically engulfed her as Marlow closed the door. A moment later he crawled into the pilot’s seat.
“I would’ve brought my hovercar,” he said, starting the turbine, “but my wife was usin’ it. This old heap ain’t much, but it’s reliable.”
Erika turned her silver gaze full on him.
“Can I ask a question?”
He froze, as if she had paralyzed him with her eyes.
“Yeah, sure. Anything.”
“Are you my new owner?”
“What?”
“I just got off the ship from Vega three hours ago. Did you purchase me already?”