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Following their leader’s example, the other two Aurelians follow Marcel down the hallway – sloshing through the ankle-deep water and apparently abandoning us to our fate.

I stare hatefully at the huge, broad shoulders of Marcel as he strides away.

He might be beautiful – like a statue of a Greek God, brought to life by twisted magic – but that beauty is deceptive. There’s nothing beautiful about any of those Aurelians – least of all Marcel.

None of those warriors care about the dozen women they’re abandoning into slavery. They didn’t confront the Toads for our sake – to protect us. The three of them just wanted to exert their dominance – to show the Toads who the biggest dogs on this ship are.

I watch their broad backs as the three of them wade away. They’re so tall, even the tops of their combat boots are high enough to prevent the water getting in. Out of all the souls on this Toad mothership, those three are the only ones with dry feet.

But why speak of souls?

The Aurelians left all twelve of us captives to be sold as slaves. That’s not the behavior of creatures with a soul. They’re unthinking, uncaring brutes - leaving us to be parceled off to Bullfrogs like cattle, or livestock.

I let my eyes sink shut, trying to take a deep breath of the fetid air.

My mind races, trying to remember everything Ling once taught me.

All I can recall is one chilling reality.

Once you get to that auction site, it’s over.

When Ling and I had rescued women from circumstances just like this, we’d done it when the women were still being detained in the holding cells – or en route to the auctions. It was too dangerous to attempt a rescue at the auction itself – or afterward.

Once a woman gets sold to an individual buyer, she’s lost. At least when Ling and I rescued women before an auction, the payoff was worth the risk. We could rescue ten or sometimes as many as twenty captive women all at once.

After the sale, though – the risks are much higher, and the payoff so much less.

Even if Ling and I were equipped to pursue the slaves after they’d been sold, managing to save them would be a suicide mission. Those who buy and sell women have plenty of money, and few moral scruples. Such slavers normally live in well-protected estates, guarded by men with guns, or armies of robotic Sentinels.

Such women are lost to us.

Even the girls we’d managed to rescue before the auction came away broken by the experience. I remember speaking to the women we’d saved, and the haunted look in their eyes was the same in each of them.

It’s a look that never leaves their eyes. Some of them had endured unthinkable things before we rescued them. A few committed suicide; proving that while we could rescue their physical bodies, we couldn’t rescue them from the memory of their experiences.

Others got trapped in drugs, or booze. Those who’d been cornered by the Toads seem to have lost their souls – leaving their hope and humanity in the same squalid aquariums in which the Toads defiled them.

I glance down – and immediately regret the decision.

At my feet, wriggling tadpoles are already converging on the corpse of the headless Toad – nibbling and gnawing at his freshly-hewn flesh.

I dry-retch at the sight of it – and for the first time, I’m grateful there’s nothing in my stomach to throw up.

The Toad leader picks up his weapon – the one Marcel tore out of his gangly fingers. The repulsive creature shakes it, then presses the switch to activate it. For a moment, there’s a sizzle, and a spark of smoke. Then, the carbo-steel tip crackled with electricity, and I jump as I see the weapon back to lethal functionality.

The image of Ling, skewered with a blade just like it, flashes through my mind.

As we all stand there, the Toad wheels around and brandishes the electro-rod in our direction. With the Aurelians gone, the glistening, gangly alien is refilled with sadistic confidence.

“See what happens when you’re late?” He speaks the Common tongue, and acts as if we’re responsible for the headless Toad floating in the ankle-deep water. The electro-rod crackles menacingly. “Now, walk fast!”

The Toad grabs the lead of the long chain and yanks it – sending us stumbling forward through the brackish water. The Toad moves fast – his gangly, disproportionate legs covering the ground far faster than we can.

We stumble behind him, forced to jog down the hallway until we reach a huge set of doors. They rear open, and noise slaps me as soon as we stagger through the doorway.

I look around. There’s nobody here except a few Toad guards – just enough to keep twelve terrified, chained young prisoners under control.

But I wasn’t wrong – Icanhear jeers and laughter, but it’s muted; as if far away.