Chapter 1

She braced a foot up against a coolant pipe and tried not to think about the infinite darkness that lay a foot away from the sole of her light ship shoe. Vibrations from the drive cone travelled into her body, through the contact between the internal plating and her back and buttocks.

The lights went out. They had fired.

This was the worst part. The not knowing if death was but a mere moment away. She clenched her fists and didn’t bother holding back the sob. The lights flickered back on, the distant hum of pumps and machinery kicking back into life as their power was restored. They had been stalking the transport for days, stealthed and slowly manoeuvring into position behind it’s drive cone where it was blind.

There had followed hours of tedium as they quietly drew close enough for the laser to work. Missiles and solid ballistic munitions couldn’t be used for fear of causing catastrophic decompression and destroying the target. The only viable option was to sneak up behind and fire the laser straight up the drive cone. As solid matter would have been disintegrated by the reactor exhaust, they used a laser. The lasers beam wouldn’t be affected by the drive plume and on contact with the shielding of the exhausts internals and core, the myriad electronics held within would burn out causing the reactor to shut down. By the time the target rebooted, they would be upon them, anchored and ready for breaching. Just another ship joining the long list of ships plundered.

It was how her parents ship had been taken. Stripped of everything of value and then left to drift aimlessly in the void, along with the corpses of her parents and older brother, now forever alone in the darkness.

Just another small ship lost to the dangers of interstellar travel. The risks so varied that she doubted that their loss had made any more impact than a mark on a tally sheet somewhere. Given the vastness of known space and the traffic within, no one would have even bothered to come looking to see what had happened to the small family run freighter. Had they been famous or carrying precious cargo, eyebrows might have been raised and someone with too much money and time to burn, might have come looking. They hadn’t been, so she doubted anyone had cared enough to bother finding out why they never made their docking slot.

There was a series of faint ‘thuds’ as the anchors were fired. The two craft would be drawing together now, a spider pulling in its prey. Another family, or small enterprise, destroyed.

Just another revolution of the cog of life. The destructive machine that was humanity.

The crawl space shook as the two ships collided, the external hatch of their prey forcibly blown open. There was a faint tingle in her ears as her eardrums reacted to the slight change in atmosphere pressure as the umbilical latched on like a remora eel and the air lock cycled.

She wiped the moisture from her eyes, rubbed the sleeve of her frayed and tattered ship suit across her nose, and crawled out of her safe space. Not that it was hers, or even remotely safe. But it was a nice fantasy and apart from the clothes she currently wore, it was all she had, was all she was allowed to have.

The ship wide speaker system crackled into life “Ship secure, get to it cunts.” Other girls joined her as she drew closer to the lock and its umbilical.

Malnourished hands and arms pulled her through the corridors. The other girls just a quiet and sullen as she was. No words were spoken as they headed towards the cargo hold. If it was empty or contained small crates, they could move it through the corridor. If it was bulky, or too big for the corridors, then they would have to move the cargo via space. The corridors echoed to the distant sounds of screaming.

There was always screaming.

That had been her once. And many, many times after. Though she no longer screamed now. Didn’t do anything. Just let it happen. Fighting just prolonged the inevitable, made them come back for more.

The girls moved on, gliding through the corridors, none of them paid the screaming any heed, they had all been there. Skeletal wraiths of despair. If she was lucky, there might be food packs, and she could squirrel one or two away, maybe even sneak a chance to eat a couple when she was in the hold. Her stomach rumbled at the thought. So wrapped up in her food consuming fantasy was she, that she didn’t see the blow that ripped her fourteen year old fingers from the grab handles and sent her cashing into the bulkhead wall.

“What the fuck are you doing in here cunt? Get outside and connect the pipes.”

And just like that, all thought and chances of food were gone.

The other girls moved over what was in the hold and the personal possessions of the freighters crew as she methodically suited herself. There was no room for error in space. No second chances. The air lock cycled and the suit billowed out slightly as the air inside sought to escape into the vacuum. Walking into position, she bent her knees, connecting one end of her suits tag line onto the hull and launched herself into space. Years of experience ensured that her leap was true and she anchored the other end of the tag line to the freighters hull.

Clipping the hoop of her belt onto the tagline, another bend of her knees sent her back across.

Opening a hatch she pulled out the fuel hose and dragged it along the line to the connection on the freighters hull. She opened the manual valve and activated the suits short range radio. “Fuel connected.” There was no reply, no acknowledgement. Not that she had been expecting one, but if she hadn’t radioed it in, she would have paid for it. Another bend of the knees and another weightless soar through space. Heading back to the airlock, she cycled through, swapping out her almost empty air-cylinder for a fresh one, checking the pressure was correct for a full tank. Back at the tag line, she opened another hatch and set to pulling out the water pipe and hauling it across the gap. Connection secure, she opened its manual value. “Water connected.” She radioed into the darkness. This time, she merited a reply.

“Transferring.” Crying could be heard in the background of the reply, begging to be left alone. She sighed with relief, she could head back.

Stripping out of the survival suit, she hung it back up, securing it and plugging the second tank into one of the charging ports before she made her way over to the freighter. Depending on the levels, it could take hours for the pirate craft’s tanks to fully replenish. The hold was almost empty when she arrived. Not a good sign. The freighter must have been almost empty of cargo. Low yield meant anger from their captors, and that could go in any direction. All of them bad.

She could see the fear in the other girls eyes. One of their captors appeared, ship suit mostly still unbuckled from his ‘fun’. He threw two meal packets at her. “Cabins.” He barked at them. With trembling fingers, she quickly opened both packets and consumed the contents before one of the other girls took them off her.

Methodically, they stripped the cabins of everything that could be stripped, loading the haul into cargo nets. One of the few advantages of zero-g meant that large heavy loads could be moved easily along the corridors. Their captors would sort through it later, spacing anything of no or little value. The same was done to the freighters fittings. Easily removed fittings were removed for spare parts. Circuit boards from the engine management carefully removed, though the girls left everything to do with the control of the fusion bottle well alone.

They weren’t allowed anywhere near the bridge, lest one of them tried to send out a call for help. Though they all knew that such an attempt would result in the immediate spacing of all of them, regardless as to whether or not they were even complicit in the attempt.

Anya, a girl who had been taken a month after her, approached. “We’re to disconnect.”

It always seemed to be her. When it came to connect and disconnect, she was always chosen, but then it was mostly her fault, as she had been trying to make herself more useful, rather than just a sex toy like the other girls. She vastly preferred skinning knuckles replacing a pipe in a tight awkward space than being raped. Especially since the men only seemed to get off when the girl they were thrusting into, was crying. In the smaller personal air lock, they checked each other over and connected air tanks. With the pair of them on the task, she wouldn’t need to come back to replace her air tank.

Anya started to close the valves on the pirate vessel as she pulled her way along the wire. Closing the valves on the plundered freighter, she disconnected the hoses and tag line, pulling herself along even as Anya pulled the line from the other end. When her boots were clamped back on the hull, Anya started feeding the water pipe back in as she fed in the fuel.

The ship vibrated beneath them as the drive engaged. The walk back to the airlock was one of careful panic. They both knew their captors wouldn’t think twice about jumping before they were even inside, so it was with great relief when the air lock door shut behind them. With a bit of luck, the crew would have satiated any lust on the other girls whilst they were outside. Her hopes were dashed when the inner door opened and they were greeted by one of the crew.

“Cargo hold. Now, Don’t waste time changing.”

The two girls exchanged a worried look as they removed their air tanks and put them onto charge. Helmets in hands, they followed the crew member to the main cargo hold and she felt her stomach sink.

All the male crew, bar the one sat in the pilot’s seat in the bridge, were there, along with all the girls and three new faces. Two girls and a boy, all three naked. That was unusual, they never took male captives. All three new additions were bruised, cut, beaten. The two girls had blood between their thighs and were quietly sobbing. She had been in their place, once. The boy, judging by his hunched stance and refusal to look up, hadn’t been spared the sexual abuse experienced by the two girls.

“Glad you two cunt’s could make it. Get in.” The raider nodded his head towards the open freight airlock chamber.

She felt urine run down her leg inside her suit, but she still numbly stepped forward, Anya following her. She took a suit tank off the wall and was hopeful when no-one told her not to. Maybe she had read the situation wrong. Body working mostly on autopilot she connected the tank. Anya, who had followed her lead, doing so as well.

“We have a tradition on this ship.” He continued “When we take on new crew members, we say goodbye to the least pleasing...”

Her heart dropped to the deck as Anya let out a terrified sob next to her. The ship shuddered as they dropped out of the warp jump.

“Oh! Wait a minute! There is only the pair of you. Silly me.” He turned to the three new bodies, two of which stared back at him in uncomprehending fear “One. Two.” He slowly counted in exaggerated slowness, pointing at the new boy, then one of the new girls. “Three ... Oh, three! We are one short.” He turned to the assembled girls, who desperately tried not to meet his gaze or draw his attention. “Hmm...” He lifted a hand “Eeny meenie miny mo, who is shit at sucking dick...” He smiled widely at the girls, enjoying their terror immensely. “Natalie!”

“NO!!!” Natalie screamed “Not me!”

“Yes, you.” He replied happily as Natalie desperately shook her head. “Out you come, chop, chop!”

Natalie screamed as one of the crew members dragged her forward “Please no! I’ll suck your cock! I’ll suck it right now! You can have me, any hole, any position, right now! PLEASE NOT ME!!!”

“Ahh, little Natalie, such passion! Such life! But we’ve all had you, in every hole, many times, and if only you had shown such willingness then, as you show now, then you wouldn’t be in this little predicament. But, alas, for you, we all voted and you were found to be ... lacking.”

“Please! Give me another chance! I’ll be better!”

“Why don’t we ask the other girls, shall we?” He turned from Natalie to the remaining girls “Anyone wish to take Nat’s place?” The other girls stayed silent. “Oh dear Nat, doesn’t look like anyone wants to trade places with you. In you go, there’s a good cunt. Actually,” He laughed. “You’re not that good, hence why you were chosen”

“No! I beg you! Please!”

“Do you really wish to please me Nat?”

“Yes, Yes, yes...” Natalie begged, a glimmer of hope in her eyes.

“Then you can do so, BY GETTING IN THAT FUCKING AIR LOCK!”

Natalie was partly pushed, mostly thrown, into the airlock, collapsing in a heap on the floor.

“Don’t bother with your mag boots girls.” He said to the two space suited girls. “You’re not staying. Seriously. You are not staying.” The door slid shut just as Natalie reached it, banging her fists futilely against the metal and reinforced plexiglass.

Watching Natalie bloody her fists against the door, she put on her helmet, part of her conscious mind wondering if it was her sub-conscious desire to live, even if it was just for a bit longer. Or to cut out Nat’s screams, which were deafening. A hand found hers and she turned to look at Anya, who had also donned her helmet. The two girls squeezed their hands tight together as he smiled and waved goodbye at the window.

There was a brief tug at the back of their suits and then they were sucked out of the ship, the screaming instantly stopping. She couldn’t believe they had done this to her. But then, she could. She had watched this murder countless times from the other side, always believing that it wouldn’t happen to her. After all, you didn’t have to be fast to outrun a monster, you just had to ensure that you weren’t the last. Somehow, she had become the last.

She watched the ship depart, her home of the last few years quietly disappearing out of sight. Natalie drifted along side, eyes and mouth open. Skin white, dead, all the moisture of her body frozen, including her eyes. They had ejected them on the peak of a hard turn, basically sling-shotting them out of the airlock.

She looked around as a large shadow swept past. An asteroid field. A dense one. A statement of fact, that they wouldn’t be coming back for them. That they wouldn’t risk the ship, or their lives, for the two girls. The rocks continued to glide past. It was hard to comprehend that it was her that was moving, not the asteroids.

Natalie was slowly separating from them as her mind refused to dwell on her situation, trying to work out which would kill her first. The cold, the inevitable lack of oxygen, or a collision with an asteroid. Anya and herself must be travelling at five thousand or so miles an hour. At that speed, colliding with any of the rocks gliding past was just going to result in her becoming a thin carbon smear.

Arms enfolded her and she hugged Anya back. Their face plates touched and they stared into each others eyes. Neither was crying. They had passed sheer terror and now there was only fatalistic resignation. The hug, obstructed as it is by the suits, was comforting, a strange solace to the fact that in the vast emptiness of space, they would be together till the end.

Anya squeezed her tightly. She hadn’t been attached to many of the girls. Anya had been one of the few, and even then, they had only sought intimate companionship twice of their own desire. All the girls had slept with each other many times under the direction of their male captors. They had liked to watch the girls pleasure –or punish- each other under their direction, before they moved in to finish off with their hard cocks or hard punches, depending on how their mood, or their dark desire took them.

They shot past a rock scarily close. So close that they could have almost reached out and touched it, then it was gone. She winced. That had almost been it for them. Yet, she couldn’t work out if that had been a good, or a bad thing. She looked around. Of Nat’s corpse there was no sign. She had either drifted beyond sight or had collided with one of the asteroid belt’s many solid denizens.

This was bad. This not knowing. Did she want to see death coming, or would she rather close her eyes and meet oblivion in darkness. She closed her eyes. Then opened them a few seconds later. The darkness was, somehow, worse. She was starting to get cold now, and there couldn’t be that much oxygen left in the tank. She refused to look at the gauge. Looking wouldn’t’ help, nor make any difference to the inevitable. She looked back at Anya.

How come she had never really noticed how beautiful Anya was. She supposed they all were, as the less than beautiful were either murdered during sex within a day or two of being captured, or simply spaced when the adrenaline of the boarding action had worn off and they saw the quality of the goods with calmer minds.

Anya smiled, a fatalistic, forlorn smile as her lips moved in silence ’I’m sorry... ‘

Her mind was still matching Anya’s lip movements to words, as one of Anya’s hands left the embrace. Her mouth opened to say words she still hadn’t formulated in return, when the inside of Anya’s helmet misted white and her grasp slackened.

And that was it, she was alone.

Her hand moved up to her own helmet release, but she couldn’t do it. She tried, she really did. But she just couldn’t do it. She cried as she turned Anya around and removed her
air tank. Anya’s released helmet slowly parted from the suit and drifted off as the air tank was removed. She wondered why she even bothered. It just meant that collision and hypothermia had moved to the top of things most likely to kill her. Anya slowly drifted away. Even in death, she was still beautiful.

“Your body is forever yours now Anya, and yours only. You will never have to suffer the unwanted attention of men ever again.” She sighed, a strange peace coming over her. Looking away from Anya’s corpse, she saw an asteroid approaching. There was no way she was going to avoid it. “So this is it then? Well, fuck.” A terrified laugh escaped her lips.

And yet, what was that on the surface ... It looked like a...

Ship.

As she drifted closer, there was no mistaking the outline. The craft had such a deep layer of dust that it almost blended into the surrounding rock. The speed she was currently traveling at would result in death unless she could slow herself down. Wrapping herself around Anya’s air tank, she pointed the tank connector in the direction of her travel and let out a small amount of the remaining air. The air turned to ice crystals, which glittered as she shot past them. The air in her suit was warm and her breathing was becoming laboured. A sure sign that she was about to run out of oxygen. Just a bit further, come on, just a bit more ... She turned the nozzle to the side, letting out another brief spurt from the valve to change her direction and to slow her down further.

As she drew closer, the ship grew larger, it’s size becoming more apparent, as was its condition. Going by the thick coating of dust, the ship must have lain there for centuries, at least, and there was no indication as to how flight worthy it was. One thing at a time.

Her speed was still too fast, but the pressure in Anya’s tank was almost depleted. Her lungs heaved and fought for air as she crashed into the side of the hull. She rolled as best as she could, clinging on to the air tank as tightly as she could manage, as she tumbled across a layer of dust so thick, that her passage disturbed it into a large cloud that surrounded her.

There was no time to waste, to lie there and cry over all the bits of her that hurt. Trying and failing to regulate her breathing and quell the panic inside her, she dragged herself upright and sought her bearings. As she had hurtled closer, she was certain that she had seen something in the dust that looked like the outline of a hatch. Her vision was blurring when she found the spot, wiping her hand across the outline, looking for something that resembled an access port to the door controls.

Nothing.

She let out a wail that she could not afford and bashed the bottom of Anya’s air tank against the hatch in frustration. The blurring in her vision became darkness and she stopped banging. There was no point, this was it, the moment when death claimed her.

Movement under her knees and she was falling. She didn’t fall far, crashing gently against another, dirt free, surface. The little light she had, disappeared and she more felt, than saw, the hatch close. Numb fingers scrabbled at her helmet catch, desperate to release the seal. Weak, she discarded the helmet and tried to take a breath.

Her lungs heaved, not finding any oxygen. She clamped her lips around the nozzle of Anya’s tank, she let a little out. For a second, the heaving of her lungs eased and then the pressure within the tank matched that of the pressure without and no amount of turning the valve changed that. She let the empty tank go and let out one last sob as her lungs started heave again and the darkness spread from her vision to her mind.

: I thought you said that you had replaced the coupling on T64, Varna?” :

: I did mum! :

: Then why, young lady, is the computer saying otherwise? :

“Because it’s a piece of shit?” Varna muttered before she pressed the ‘talk’ button on her wrist comp. : I’ll go check it again mom. :

: Please do. :

Grumbling, Varna picked up a basic tool kit and headed towards the offending coupling, passing her brother, Muzz, in his bunk space playing one of his games on his computer “Anyone would think there was just me on this heap.”

Muzz looked round. “Did you just say something sis?”

Varna shook her head. “Nope.”

He frowned at her and she carried on to the access plate. A quick unscrew and the plate was off. Shoving the bag of tools in front of her, she crawled in and along the tight passageway. Varna turned on the lamp attached to the shoulder of her ship suit and adjusted the direction of the beam to light her way. Not that she really needed to. She had grown up on this ship and there wasn’t a place aboard that she hadn’t crawled, stooped or run along. Her parents were very keen for her to learn everything about the haulier that they lived in.

“Nothing to do with the credits that they saved by not getting a shipyard to do the repairs...” Varna glared at an innocent transducer as she crawled past. There was the offending bugger. She activated coms to her mother in the bridge.

: Pulling now. : Varna pulled the coupling, examined it, couldn’t find anything wrong with it, and plugged it back in.

: That’s it love, it’s working now. :

Varna gave the coupling the evil eye. “You fucker!” She packed the tools back in the bag and started the laborious task of crawling backwards to the hatch. Her mother was obviously in one of her ’make work’ moods and probably wouldn’t let her rest. She might as well find something more amenable to do before her mother chose for her. She trampled sullenly towards the bridge.

The family owned and run hauler, was on a deliberate longitudal axis spin to generate some gravity. The lump of ice they were currently anchored too, also spinning. Slumping into the

fourth chair on the bridge, she pulled up the ship diagnostics, checking on the legs clamped to the ice. The legs had been a recent addition to the hauler. The plan of their parents, had been to supplement the cargo space within with carrying ability without. This way they could take any lumps of ice they came across, to the stations they visited so they could be rendered down to vital water and air stores for those stations.

It had been a good plan, for a few months, right up to the moment the Cryer Corporation revealed its new enterprise. A fleet of behemoth ships, the size of most stations. These new ice mining and processing ships were just a series of large rotating spiked ‘munchers’ at the front, processing in the middle and a series of large ports along the side at the rear where tankers could dock. Small tugs would latch onto large chunks of ice, guide them to the front of the processor and then ‘nudge’ them towards the slowly rotating toothed rollers. Inertia would do the rest.

The specially angled roller teeth would break the ice down into smaller chunks and feed it internally past the reactor core, which melted the ice into liquid and then steam, which drove the turbines generating the machinery. The steam then was condensed, filtered and purified before being pumped to the awaiting tankers via pipes the same diameter as the ‘Good Will’- the freighter owned by Varna’s parents. The heavy metals and other impurities contained within the ice, was fed to other specialised ore ships and were either transported to space factories that required them, or deposited in decaying orbits of the closest sun.

The sheer quantity of ice these ships could render down to component parts and the speed at which they did it, virtually put the ice hauling business out of action overnight. There was still the odd station here and there that required the occasional ice ‘top up’, but the cost of rendering the ice down to water and oxygen, along with the space required in a station - where space was always at a premium- made the whole process very expensive compared to just paying for a delivery of two large bulk tankers carrying water and compressed oxygen.

Unless, of course, you were a station of dubious legality or one that dabbled in more ‘illicit’ trade and couldn’t use the services provided by the larger corporations and the legal over-watch that came with their services.

Stations like the one they were currently heading towards.

Her mother was keeping one eye on the scanners and another on the ships read-outs. The legs looked good to Varna, the pressure readouts informing her that they still had a good hold of the ice. She flicked the view screen from mechanical to Astrogation. Varna liked to look at the star maps, to dream of the planets within the various solar systems. Imagining herself on tropical island paradise somewhere, standing under a waterfall, some well-toned male coming over to wash her back, run his hands through her hair, his hands sliding...

“Varna...”

She sighed inwardly. “Yes mum...”

“Can you go to B12. I have a report of a leaking coolant pipe. I did ask your brother to check on it earlier. But It appears that it has slipped his mind.”

Yet again, Varna sighed internally. She had never been on a planet, let alone a tropical paradise with a waterfall, but she had been dreaming of them a lot lately. Especially the bit where a well-toned male came over to help her. She really liked those bits.

Not for the first time, she wondered how her brother got away with so much. She collected her bag of tools again and headed to B12 and the offending pipe. Sure enough, the coolant pipe was leaking at a join. She removed two spanners and with a grunt of effort, tightened the join. She wiped the join down with a cloth and cleaned up the puddle underneath. Once that was done, she re-checked the join. It was still dry. The spanners had left scrapes on the join that hadn’t been there before. It was obvious to her, that her brother had made no attempt to tighten the pipes. Or even if he had been to look. Which she doubted that he had.

Varna sat with her back up against the coolant pipes, there was a waterfall that was beckoning her back, warm streams running between and over her newly burgeoning breasts...

: Varna, love? :

For fucks sake mum! : Yes mom...? :

: Once you sort that, could you head to... :

Their father brought the hauler into their designated dock. They had dropped the ice cluster into a waiting bay, where a tug would feed it into the stations processor when it was needed. Dad was still grumbling about the price for the ice as the clamps anchored onto the freighters hull. It was a lot less than they had been expecting, but enough, just, for them not to have made a loss.

Judging by the amount of ice in the storage bays, those that arrived now with ice wouldn’t be so lucky, though it all depended on when the next water and air tankers arrived.

“Can we go aboard?” Varna asked of their parents, who looked at each other. “We’ll stick to the main thoroughfares and shops.” She continued hopefully. She could see the decision being passed back and forth between her parents.

Their mother eventually shook her head. “Not this time love. When your father or I have time, we will take you out.”

Which was basically adult speak for ‘never’. She had to try, even though she already knew the reply. “But mummm...”

“We said ‘No’ Varna.”

Fucks sake! Varna left the bridge in a sulk, her brother following behind.

“You had to push it, didn’t you V?” He grumbled.

Still in front of him, she didn’t turn her head and stuck her tongue out, knowing full well that he couldn’t see. The only bit of rebellion that seemed open to her, so she took it, feeling slightly better for it.