Hostage Corp · Part 2 (2/3)
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“Yes, it does feel rude,” the nurse said, continue to caress and tease Marci. “And there is nothing you can do about it.” Marci pulled against her cuffs, making little metallic clinks as the attachments shifted. She could only move them a few centimeters, no matter how hard she pulled, and she became acutely aware of her helplessness. She felt herself grow wet.
“You’re in pretty good shape, overall, Slave Marci,” the doctor told her, still looking at the display. You’re a little too skinny and flabby – anti-obesity shots can’t do everything, and you need to get more exercise. Well, that won’t be a problem.” He keyed in a command. “And it looks like you have some very good arousal reflexes,” he added.
Marci didn’t need to be told that. This, this bisnik nurse was touching her every where except her pussy, keeping her just on the edge of boiling over. Struggling against her restraints just made things more frustrating, but she couldn’t keep herself from doing so. That gag in her mouth restrained her as well, keeping it all bottled in, preventing her from making any noise louder than a mew when what she wanted to do was scream and roar.
“That’s enough now, Nurse,” the doctor said. He moved to displace her, and then his expert hand began to finger her pussy, providing blessed relief.
“Once you are sold, you will be frequently brought to orgasm,” he told Marci. “It amuses bisnik masters to do this to their slave women.”
“It amuses human masters as well,” the alien female added in a reminiscent tone. Marci only half heard her, for just then her second orgasm in fifteen minutes rumbled through her.
Afterwards, they took her to the antechamber of a locker room, carrying her there on the detached top of the padded bench. Her gag was removed, and Marci felt her cuffs fall away, released by remote control. “When you can stand,” the nurse told her, “you are to shower before boarding the transport.”#
The shower had space for half a dozen, but held only one other occupant. The other woman stood only a bit taller than Marci, but her skin was much darker: Beautiful ebony skin, matched with large dark eyes and masses of curly black hair.
“Hello,” Marci said. “I’m, um, I’m Slave Marci.”
“I’m Slave Elizabeth,” the other woman answered. “Slave Elizabeth Baker, if you want my full name.”
“In that case I’m Slave Marci Gotz.”
“It feels funny, doesn’t it?” the darker woman said. They entered the blow-dryer, and the noise put their conversation on pause. On the other side, Elizabeth picked it up again as if it hadn’t been interrupted. “Like one of those historical romances with emirs and plantation owners and Italian Counts exiled to their North African villas. But I guess that’s what we signed up for.”
“Except that our lords-and-masters will have blue fur.” Marci pointed out, as they entered yet another waiting point. A pair of those blue-furred lords-and-masters, dressed in the uniform of their navy and wearing truce-armbands, waited there to put leashes on the arriving women. Each leash gave about a meter of slack, with the far end permanently fastened to fixtures set in the walls.
“You are to wait here until your name is called, Slave Women,” they repeated over and over as more nude and collared slaves came out to be fastened in place.
Marci examined, by touch, her leash where it fastened to her collar. One of the ubiquitous thumb-locks held it in place. It would open at the touch of an authorized person, or by remote control, but it would not open for her. Her arms and legs were free, but she was leashed. Captive. She could only stand there, in her meter of space, and listen as an overhead speaker called out the other slave women’s names. She saw the leashes drop away, one by one, and the women walk to the exit, some slowly, some quickly.
Then it was her turn. “Slave Marci Goetz,” the speaker called. Her leash dropped away from her collar. She hurried to the exit, and then made herself slow down.
She came to an open hatch, leading to a tubeway connecting Memphis Orbital to the bisnik transport. As she stepped through the hatch, she saw a human marine at the other end, a soon-to-be-ex-POW in an undress uniform. They walked toward each other, stopping at the halfway point. The marine drew himself to attention and saluted. Marci, nude, returned the Hostage Corp gesture made famous in vids, her hand over her heart. The marine then gave her a nod, unspoken gratitude gleaming in his eyes, and the two of them continued on in their opposite directions.
This was the official purpose of the Hostage Corp. The marine ex-POW could now return to duty, with Marci taking his place as a bisnik captive. With this exchange, the human forces had one less incentive to commit a dangerously lethal raid against bisnik homeworld of Ustan, and one more reason to avoid doing so. Similarly, each exchange of a bisnik space-soldier for a blue-furred female, back on Earth, would give the bisnik forces an incentive and reason to hold back as well. And so the navies of the two sides could go back to zapping each other’s ships until the negotiators finally managed to agree on a peace settlement.
Marci reached the hatch at the end of the companionway and muttered to herself “I was warned; whatever happens to me now is my own fucking fault.” The tubeway was still, technically, human space. On the other side of the hatch she'd be on the bisnik transport, officially in bisnik territory and truly and fully in their power. She stepped through the hatch and into the blue-furred aliens’ hands.
Literally into their hands. Two bisnik men waited for her, dressed in dark red pantaloons and a mesh top of some iridescent material – the alien equivalent of business suits. Like the pair with the leashes, they also wore the white gloves of slave-handlers, but unlike that pair these two did not avoid touching Marci. With practiced efficiency they turned her about, lifted her arms, and locked her wrists into a pair of shackles hanging from overhead. They then knelt and, pulling her legs a bit further apart, locked her ankles into another set of shackles set in the deck. Finally, as Marci stood bound and helpless in a standing spread-eagle, the two quickly wrapped a couple of wisps of cloth around her – the bisnik equivalent of a bikini.
“You do not yet know how to dress yourself, Slave Marci,” one of them explained in a familiar voice. Marci blinked as she suddenly recognized Master Onocol. “When we release you, you will run to the gym,” he said, nodding to where lights disappeared down a passageway. “There you will find other slave women waiting. Do you remember what I told you about speaking to them?”
“Yes, Master Onocol. I can speak to them, but I am to address them formally. As ‘Slave’ followed by their name, but not by their name alone or as ‘Slave’ alone.”
“Good! It is good that you remember.” He touched a control, releasing her from the shackles. “Now run, Slave Marci!”
“Yes Master Onocol!” Marci cried as she hurried to follow the now-familiar trail of blinking lights. #
The gym turned out to be a high-ceilinged chamber, roughly half the size of a basketball court, with a floor coated with some cushiony substance and marked off in two-meter squares. Scattered across the floor were clusters of new slaves: Barefoot human women, collared, and clad in alien bikinis. They stood talking with each other, speaking about their hopes, fears, and experiences, and about their lives before joining the Hostage Corp.
After a half-hour of this gossip, Marci noticed Master Onocol entering. He climbed to a raised platform in the front of the gym. “Slave Women!” he called, his amplified voice booming. “Take your positions! You have twenty-five nis to enter your squares. That is 30 seconds, human time. If any of you are not in your squares by that time, you will all be disciplined!” He flourished his goad, the furry-tipped stick made popular in vids and stories, and pointed up at an overhead timer that showed human and bisnik digits side-by-side. “Go!”
Thirty or so women scurried about. Marci hunted for, and found, the square marked ‘Slave Marci Gotz.’ The others found their own squares, the last making it into position with just two seconds to spare. The dual timers reached zero and dinged. “Good!” the bisnik said. “Very good. Now: I have met all of you before, and you know me as ‘Master’ or ‘Onocol’ or ‘Master Onocol.’ You shall continue to refer to me as such.”
He gestured at them with his goad, taking them all in. “I am here to train you, during the 29 days it will take to journey from Earth to Ustan. They will not be hard days – except for the Language Troll – but they will be long ones. Out here in the deep void, you will have nothing better to do but study and exercise. In the course of that study, you will all make mistakes and you will all, at one time or another, be disciplined for those mistakes. But you should not fear making mistakes; you should not fear being disciplined. The purpose of the discipline is not to punish, not to hurt or humiliate. The purpose of the discipline is to be memorable, so that your next mistakes will be new ones, and not old ones repeated.”
He flourished his goad again, and Marci though she saw an eye-crinkling smile on his face. “No, what you should fear is the exercise. For you all need to build up your endurance, and for that there will be a great deal of exercise. Beginning now.”
He stepped back, and a hologram appeared. A chorus of groans greeted it as the women recognized the sprightly virtual figure. It was Daisy Cheng, the (in)famous aerobics instructor. “Lets exercise!” she called out in the disgustingly cheerful voice that millions of human women loved to loathe. “One! Two! Three! Four!” #
Evening finally came around, according to the ships arbitrary clock, and Marci was too tired to be surprised when she found herself back in the same transport module that had brought her from Earth. Like Marci herself, it had been transferred from human custody to the bisnik transport. Its now-familiar closeness comforted her (which was the reason behind the policy of transferring the modules along with the slave-trainees) and she slept well.
The next morning, Marci woke early and crawled out of her module for her first encounter with the Language Troll.
Language lessons are necessarily the worst part of slave training. Because there was no ‘nice’ way to give those lessons, the nastiness is deliberately emphasized and given a cartoonish air. Thus the Language Troll, and the cage in which he keeps his victims.
Marci sat nude in the Troll’s spiky-barred steel cage for her first lesson in Ustani. Her attention was honed to an unnaturally sharp edge from extra oxygen pumped into the air. Heavy earphones covered her ears, providing subliminal instruction and blocking out the sounds from the other cages nearby. Her legs and arms were tied widely apart, leaving her feeling exposed and horribly vulnerable, and a yellow gag of that odd and effective shape had been stuffed into her mouth.
It wasn’t a simple disposable gag this time, however. Known informally as the ‘lesson lemon,’ the Language Troll’s gag was rigged to punish and reward. It would sometimes reward her with a sweet taste if she performed well, it would chide her with a sour taste when she made mistakes – and it would scold her with bitterness if she didn’t attend to her lessons.
Marci’s attention snapped to the hologram that appeared before her: A bisniki monster, with a cruel face and leering eyes. “I am Language Troll,” it said, “and you, Slave Marci, are my next victim.” It spoke in Ustani, but Marci could understand. She knew that a faint English translation was being fed through her earphones, along with the Ustani words, but in her hyped-up state she couldn’t consciously perceive the English.
“I will make you suffer as I teach you, Slave Marci, and I will make you suffer more if you do not work hard at your lessons. Heh heh heh.” The Troll laughed, showing its fangs and displaying its claws. “First lesson: Repeat what I say. Do your best to speak, despite your gag. Red ball!”
A red sphere suddenly appeared and flew at Marci. “Aaamh!” she tried to shout, the wordless sound muffled to a mew by the gag. The ball disappeared before it touched her – or before it would have touched her, for like the Language Troll the ball was a hologram.
A sour taste filled Marci’s mouth; the lesson-lemon’s response to her failure. A whip appeared in the Trolls hand, and cracked with a thunderclap. “Repeat what I say, Slave Marci!” the Troll commanded. “Red ball!”
Another red sphere flew toward Marci, and she managed to squeal in to her gag “Mmmpht mmf!” The ball vanished.
“Green ball!”
“Mmmph mmf!” The green sphere vanished and Marci tasted sweetness in her mouth.
“Blue ball!”
“Mmphth mmf!”
“Pillow!”
“Mmfphtf!”
“Chair!”
“Mmth!”
The lesson went on and on. Sometimes Marci would taste sweetness delivered through her gag, when she did well. Occasionally with would flood her mouth with sour, as she made a mistake and the Troll made her repeat. Once she tasted bitterness when, unable to satisfy the Troll with her attempt at the word for ‘hairbrush,’ she screamed in frustration at the fifth retry. The session left her terrified and exhilarated, cringing and angry, and sweating and shaking by the end. When Master Onocol finally let her out of the cage, he wrapped her in a towel-blanket, and she sank to the deck, hugging it close around herself.
“Language Troll is cruel, I know,” Master Onocol told her. “Unfortunately, it is the best method, if you are in a hurry.”
“Yes, Master Onocol,” Marci agreed faintly. “I know.” She pulled herself together and looked up at him. “I know,” she repeated. “‘I was warned; whatever happens to me now is my own fucking fault.’“
The bisnik grinned. “You will hate me for telling you this now, Slave Marci, but you should say that in Ustani.” He switched languages: «I was warned; whatever happens to me now is my own fucking fault.»
«I was warned;» Marci said slowly, stumbling a bit over the pronunciation. «Whatever happens to me now is my own fucking fault.» “Good, Slave Marci. But now I must see to the others.” Master Onocol left her.
A short time later, Marci managed to stand up, and to join the herd of naked slave women as they left the language-training chamber. “What next?” one of them asked her. “More exercise?”
“Probably,” Marci answered. And so it proved.
They came out onto a running track, with Master Onocol chivying out the last few women in his class. “Slave women,” he told them all. “If you wish to run and scream in relief, now is your chance. Run! Scream!” He waved his arms at them, and they all began running and screaming, racing around the track. When the collared and nude women flagged, he would exhort them to keep going. When one of them stopped, gasping for breath, he would take her into the center of the oval and bind her hand and foot. One by one the running women fell to him so, until the center oval was filled with dozens of nude, sweating, squirming females. “You all need baths,” he laughed, and releasing their ankles, sent them to the showers with their hands still bound behind them.
So the days went, as the star freighter made its way to Ustan. Lessons with the Language Troll in the morning, followed by exercise. Sometimes it would be ‘free’ exercise, aerobics led by the hologramic Daisy Cheng, or a screaming run around and around the track. But, as time passed, ‘slave’ exercise became more and more common. In slave exercise the women were bound with cords in various positions – hog-ties, ball-ties, frog-ties, or other, more creative positions – and then required to struggle in futile efforts to escape. If a woman slacked off, a jet of cold air directed against her bare skin would encourage her to start squirming again.
Then, after a quick shower, the slave women would receive a training session in clothing, dance, or the pleasing of bisnik men, more exercise, a food break, another training session, yet more exercise, and a final short session before returning to the transport modules that served as their kennels for the trip. During this time, Marci and the others were always barefoot, usually nude (and scantily clad when allowed clothes at all), and frequently trapped in restraints of various sorts. Except for the language lessons (which everyone hated), Marci generally enjoyed her situation, although she did look forward to the end of her training.
When the freighter arrived at Ustan, she and the others would be put on the auction block and sold. At that point, Marci thought, she would be a real slave woman, owned by a blue-furred bisnik man would tie and chain her in inescapable bondage, paw over her nude body, and pamper her mercilessly.#
There were, of course, days when Marci grew frustrated with her lessons, and times when she experienced the discipline that Master Onocol had promised. One day, she was paired off with Slave Elizabeth, practicing the art of dressing and undressing with the bisnik version of a silken harem outfit. It wasn’t by any means a practical outfit, having been concocted by a designer who had been stronger on imagination than on either historical knowledge or common sense. Its one great virtue was that it looked good on female bodies of either the human or bisnik sort.
At least it looks good when tied properly. Marci thought as she made an exasperated noise.
“What is it?” Elizabeth asked. She spoke in Ustani now, as did all the slave women. After their first few sessions with the Language Troll, their collars had been programmed to speak a correction if any of them slipped and used an English word, or if they made mistakes in Ustani grammar.
“The knot jammed. I keep forgetting to loop the drawstring proper.”
“properly,” Marci’s collar corrected in its mechanical tones.
“Again?” Elizabeth raised an eyebrow, her own yellow silks looking elegant against her dark skin. And properly and neatly tied, Marci noted with annoyance.
“Yes, again!”
“Idiot,” the dark woman said. Marci stuck out her tongue in return.
“Kneel Slave Elizabeth! Kneel Slave Marci!” Master Onocol’s voice came from the overhead speaker. Both women knelt, glanced at each other guiltily, and looked down at the deck. That tone of voice could mean only one thing: They had made a mistake, and he was coming to discipline them.
A minute later, the bisnik appeared in the doorway. He dropped a pair of chains on the deck in front of the women. “Hobble yourselves,” he commanded. Marci took one of the chains and fastened the larger ring around her left ankle. Then she took the smaller ring, on the other end, and fastened it around her right wrist. Elizabeth took the other chain and did likewise. The rings clicked as they snapped shut, secured with thumb-locks that slaves could not open. Marci saw Onocol relax when she and Elizabeth finished binding themselves. He’d been in a hurry to start their disciplining as soon as possible, she realized, and their hobbling was the beginning of it.
“Rudeness is forbidden to you,” he reminded them, his voice gentle now. “No matter what the provocation.”
“Yes, Master Onocol,” the two slaves chorused.
“You will now be blindfolded for a time, to help you remember that.” He stepped around behind Elizabeth and applied a blindfold – and not a simple one either. It was a harness-thing with straps that went over the head and under the chin, locking in place. He then fastened an identical blindfold on Marci, rendering her sightless. She could hear him step back, could hear the click as the hobble-locks opened and the hobbles dropped away, but she couldn’t see a thing.
Small metallic sounds as Master Onocol picked up the hobbles. “You will now continue your practice session,” he told them.
“Yes, Master,” Elizabeth said.
“Master Onocol?” Marci asked. “If we make mistakes in this practice session, from being blindfolded, will we be disciplined for them?”
In her darkness, Marci could imagine Master Onocol’s smile. Certainly his voice had amusement in it: “Only if it will help you better learn your lessons, Slave Marci.”
Marci and Elizabeth stumbled through the rest of the session; dressing and undressing blindly. This was not Marci’s favorite lesson in any case, and having to do it while blindfolded made it almost as bad as the morning session with the Language Troll.
Almost.
The tone sounded at last, marking the end of the lesson, and Marci waited for her blindfold to unlock. It wasn’t to be, though. “Slave Susan,” Master Onocol’s voice called. “You will please lead Slave Marci and Slave Elizabeth to the VR chambers for the next lesson. I have decided that their blindfold-discipline will continue until the exercise period.
Elizabeth groaned.
“That’s not so bad,” Marci observed. She heard Elizabeth make a noise, biting back and reconsidering what she was going to say.
“Bondage conditioning is my second-least favorite lesson, after the Language Troll,” Elizabeth said at last, struggling to make her voice as neutral as Marci’s. “It’s an acquired taste, and I’m having a harder time acquiring it than I expected.”
Slave Susan arrived, and took them each by the hand, one on either side of her. “Ready for the next torture session?” she asked cheerfully. Marci couldn’t see her, of course, but she remembered her as being one of the few women on board who was even shorter than Marci herself. Physically, Susan was very Asian, despite her name, and had long black hair like pure silk.
A walk with a few twists and turns brought them to the VR chambers. “I have to go to my own rack now,” Susan said as she left them. “Good luck!”
