Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

The bumping was relentless. An uncomfortable heat and foul smell that stuck to your sinuses like malodorous fly paper didn't really do much to help the situation. It was also miserably dusty, adding insult to injury. And worst of all, Ziana didn't know where the hell she was.

She'd been sprawled out in the slow-moving container for weeks now, having survived abduction from her home planet and a subsequent crash onto this new one, only to wind up a prisoner in this traveling menagerie of unfortunate lost souls just like her. By her side sat a young woman named Maria, the only other human in their motley group; a fellow abductee on the Raxxian ship, though they hadn't been held in the same compartment during that particular imprisonment.

But here, on this world, wherever the hell it might be, they were stuck together, though it didn't appear that their planet of origin or gender had anything to do with it. People had been seemingly shoved into this transport, regardless of all that. Convenience and confinement were the things that mattered, and this uncomfortable box served the purpose.

They were given food and water, delivered through a series of slots and sequestered from the outside, and never once did they see their captors. It wasn't exactly a pleasant situation, but after being held for weeks and weeks aboard the Raxxian abduction ship, how much worse could it be?

Apparently, it could be a fair bit worse. At least in terms of basic comfort.

It was only when Ziana's senses finally began to return after several days aboard the bumping transport that she learned that had it not been for Maria's repeated and loud insistence that whoever was driving this thing give her at least the most basic of medical aid, Ziana might very well have never roused from her trauma-induced slumber. Only Maria's annoying shouting had spurred their captors to action, though only to shut her up if nothing else.

Ziana's concussion had apparently been a pretty bad one. She didn't remember vomiting, but she most certainly had. Even if the others hadn't told her, the last trace smells of stomach acid lingering in her hair and clothes despite being cleaned up by Maria while she was unconscious made that bit abundantly clear. She could have died. Easily at that. She'd just been lucky to have been imprisoned with considerate cellmates. One considerate cellmate, to be specific.

It had been Maria who had rolled her on her side, keeping her airway clear, just as she'd learned in a CPR class she'd taken as a teen. "Some things stick with you, I guess," she said with a morbid little chuckle after Ziana was up to talking. Apparently, one of the early topics her teacher had harped on was the joy of keeping a slumbering, vomiting patient alive in the most unpleasant of environments. This situation seemed to fit the bill perfectly.

"I'm very, very grateful you paid attention to that lesson," Ziana said, as the two women shared rations in the hot compartment. "I can never repay you."

"Don't say that."

"But I'm grateful. I owe you everything."

Despite the miserable situation, Maria managed a laugh. "No, not that. Don't say you can't repay me. I mean, who knows? You might wind up winning the alien lottery, in which case I'll gladly take an all-inclusive spa trip. If they have spas, that is. Do you think that's a thing here?"

Ziana shrugged. "Beats me. All we've seen is the inside of this container. Who knows what this place is like?"

"Do you two have to always prattle on like that?" a dour man with orange skin that looked as if it was made of tiny scales of overlapping rock said.

"Sorry, but we're stuck in here with nothing to do. You're welcome to join the conversation."

"Oh, by the gods, just sit quietly a while," he grumbled.

A slender violet-skinned woman in a dirty silver jumpsuit shook her head. "Ignore him. Kolaxians are reclusive types and don't like being in crowds. I'm sure being stuck in here with more than a dozen other people is absolute torture for him."

The man's annoyed grunt and lack of a verbal reply seemed to confirm her statement.

The metal box shook violently a moment, then settled back into its steady rumbling. It was a very basic transport unit, the humans had been told. Apparently, it moved by a hovering sort of flight rather than wheels, but it didn't actually fly so much as it just remained elevated above the terrain. Barely.

"My God, can't they get some shock absorbers on this thing?" Ziana grumbled. "I mean, these people are super advanced space-going types, right? Shouldn't that be easy?"

A heavily bandaged, blue-skinned man who was missing one of his four arms shook his head with a laugh. " This is not that sort of group," he said. "Sure, there are plenty of people with the resources for all sorts of impressive transit systems. But the commoners? The regular people just getting by? Most of us travel by whatever means we can afford. And quite a few even make journeys on foot."

"So, this is what? Luxury?" she snarked back.

"Not by a long shot. But at least we're not forced to walk."

Ziana couldn't argue with that, no matter how uncomfortable the ride might be. They'd been stuck in this thing as it was slowly filled with new additions, but they'd been riding the whole time. If they'd been walking instead? For weeks? It would have been utter misery.

As for their ever-expanding numbers, most of them arrived via a two-door system that functioned somewhat like an airlock, though this thing was anything but air-tight. It was a simple security feature, allowing them to dump people in without needing to deploy a bunch of guards to ensure no one escaped. Though from the several voices Ziana had heard, there were definitely guards working out there and ready to jump in if needed.

The newcomers mostly arrived tired, beat, and bruised to varying degrees. Those who had been caught fleeing someone or someplace for one reason or another, though only a few were upfront about the circumstances of their flight. The humans learned quickly to treat the situation like what they'd learned about prison in Earth TV shows and movies. It was just something you didn't ask.

What they did learn over the course of the endless weeks of captivity was that they would eventually be sold off into some sort of slavery situation, most likely. That was why the vehicle was taking its time, rounding up as many as it could. The more they had when they arrived at their destination, the more profitable the excursion would prove to be.

"You two? I'm not sure what they're gonna do with you," said a particularly gruff fellow with large yellow eyes and splotchy green skin that looked like gritty sandpaper.

He was squat and seemed to be more flab than muscle, but as he was an alien, there was no way to really tell if he was strong underneath that alien exterior. He'd been late to join their group, but he'd also been far more willing to chat than the others. And his openness had been a bit of a revelation.

"Why's that?" Ziana asked. "Are we special because we're humans?"

He laughed at that, his body jiggling from his mirth. "Oh, no one cares about that, I can assure you. But you two are lacking the runes."

"What runes? You mean the tattoos all of you have? We already heard about those. Some sort of cultural thing. That's why everyone has them."

"Oh, they're far more than that. The Dotharian Conglomerate requires by law that anyone within its realms has them. And you two most certainly do not."

"But we're not from here," Maria objected. "We were abducted against our will."

"That would be the definition of abduction," he noted with an amused chuckle. "But it doesn't matter why you don't have the runes. It only matters that they are lacking. And let me tell you, you do not want the Dotharians to find you without runes. It's one of the things they take very seriously."

Ziana shook her head. "So, what are we supposed to do? It's not only not our fault we don't have them, but we've also been locked in here for I don't even know how many weeks, so there's no way we could have dealt with that even if we'd known it was an issue."

"Don't worry about that. One of two things will happen when we finally reach wherever it is they're planning on offloading us, and that will be that."

"Why does the way you said that worry me?"

A little grin creased his lips. "Because you're a perceptive one," he replied. "Look, it's going to happen one way or another. There's no way anyone will not notice you lack the runes, and that will affect your value. So, you'll either be given the runes by whichever Skrizzit they have on-hand, or you'll be deemed not worth the expenditure."

"And if that happens?"

"You'll be handed over to the Dotharians for violation of the law. Probably executed, though maybe, just maybe, they'll be lenient and only sentenced to life in a penal colony since you were taken by Raxxians. No one likes Raxxians, even the Dotharians."

"But they allow them to operate under their noses."

"Because the Raxxians are a powerful and violent race. They don't tempt outright confrontation, only snatching up people from the fringes for the most part. That and war prisoners. But they manage to not cross the line with the Dotharians, and the Dotharians, in turn, do not seek to pursue any conflict with them unless there is absolutely no option. They have been known to take down a few ships here and there if there is a particularly egregious violation, but they always do it in as diplomatic a way as possible."

"How do you destroy an entire ship diplomatically?" Maria interjected.

"By giving them an out. Letting them say it was a rogue captain who was operating on their own and without permission. Sure, it's a messy system, but it's better to allow a few minor transgressions to be dealt with like that than to devolve into a full-fledged interstellar war, wouldn't you agree?"

They both had to admit that actually made sense. It still sucked, this whole ridiculous situation, but at least some of the alien logic wasn't so, for lack of a better word, alien .

Ziana shook her head. "So, we just wait and see what they do to us? Is that about it?"

"I'm afraid so. But hey, at least whatever happens to you two, it'll be quick."

Neither woman was terribly appreciative of his good humor, but then, in the long time they'd been confined as prisoners in this transport container, they'd come to expect the worst while not even hoping for the best. After their experience with the Raxxians, it had become second nature realizing that having hope was not a wise move.

At the end of the day, life was pretty shit, and neither woman could believe how they had gotten into this mess in the first place.