Page 9 of No Strings Attached (Mated Fates #1)

Vi had been careful not to hit her head when she dropped to the cage floor and started thrashing, but she had also been committed to making it realistic. The idea of tricking the otterman had come to her fully fledged, as if from someone else’s brain, and she hadn’t questioned it.

As she lay still, scanning her body for injuries and feeling the cold stone leach her body of Mister Beastly’s heat, she listened. And she understood . Understood the giant snake, the black lab, the eunuch, and Conan. The translator worked.

Now, it’s a party , she thought and waited for the cage door to open. If Conan was who walked through the door, she decided she would grab and hold on to The Destroyer, hanging her whole body weight from it. Not such a small female species when I’m suspended from your cock, am I?

But she was sure it would be the otterman, and her hunch was confirmed when she heard him whisper, “Nice try.” That was followed by a chngthk sound of the cage’s locking mechanism being released. Vi reexamined her mental image of the otterman’s body and weapon placement and got ready.

She could sense him coming forward and looming over her, then kneeling on the ground and leaning forward to observe her face. Vi recognized her moment, opened her eyes, and surged forward to flip him on his back, operating on pure instinct. She grabbed the shock stick and stood up in a fluid motion. The otterman sat up and just looked at her with astonishment.

“Stand up,” Vi said, gesturing upwards with the shock stick. When he did, she said, “Mister Beastly?” She gestured from Mister Beastly to the otterman with the stick. He seemed to get it, because immediately he had the otterman by the throat, giant paw wholly encompassing the startled creature’s neck. The otterman’s amber eyes were wide with shock. She heard what sounded like genuine amusement in the sound of Conan’s laughter from behind her, but she didn’t look back. She held the gaze of the deathly still otterman.

“Where are we?”

“The…chh…cage room,” he forced out through the pressure Mister Beastly was placing on his throat.

She raised an eyebrow at Mister Beastly and saw him relax the pressure by a small degree. It seemed to make a difference, because the otterman repeated, “the cage room,” with more ease and obvious relief.

“Yeah, thanks for the news flash. I mean, where are we ? What planet? I don’t think there would be rock walls and floors on a spaceship, but I guess my circumstances could force me to expand my outlook of what is possible. Where THE FUCK are we?”

“Asteroid. Qlu’s asteroid.”

“Who the fuck is Qlu?”

“He’s the master here. I think you might have seen him in the cargo bay, when you killed that Ulu.”

“Ulu? You mean the Grey?”

“They’re grey, yes. They speak in your mind.”

“Yeah, those assholes. Hmm…Ulus. So, Qlu…was he the yellow one that looked like the Time for Timer guy? I was trying to break those spindly legs of his with that last Grey, to shut him up.”

“Uhhh? I don’t know if he’s yellow, I’ve never seen him. Time…for…Timer?”

“Never mind. Who are you?”

“Bobby. I’m Trallian.”

“OK, Bobby the Trallian, why do you work for Qlu?”

“I was sold to him. All the Trallians who work for him were.”

“So, you were abducted from your home, too? To serve as prison guards?”

“No, I wasn’t abducted. All extra Trallians are sold. By their families.”

Conan boomed, “Sold cheap!”

Vi threw him a look that said, shut the fuck up , and turned back to Bobby.

She repeated the word, “extra,” like she could taste it and looked disgusted. “Your families sell you. Seriously, sell you into slavery?”

The giant snake spoke up behind her, “The galaxxxy isss teeeming with them. Like vermiiinnn.”

Vi didn’t turn around. “Are you loyal to Qlu?”

“Loyal?” He seemed to think about it. “Uh, I don’t really know how to answer that. Qlu is my first master, and I’ve only been here two days. But I feel pretty committed to continued existence, so I guess that has translated into behaviors that look about the same as loyalty.”

“Bobby, I’m not really looking to have an existential debate here. Will you help us or are you going to have to be dealt with? Why don’t you think about it while I inspect the peanut gallery?”

With that, Vi turned and walked out of the cage. She stopped right outside the door and turned back around, pointing at him with the shock stick. “On second thought, give me your clothes first.”

Vi was basking in the body warmth retained by Bobby’s coverall. She had half-interestedly observed the details of his naked body as he carefully undressed under Mister Beastly’s hold. He was covered in short, shiny, dark brown fur over his whole body, including his testicles and penile sheath. He stood on his wide-splayed, webbed toes and had an ankle mechanism like a cat’s or dog’s. He stood about six feet tall and had a muscular build on the slim side, like hers. She found her eyes going back to his warm amber ones.

She had laughed ruefully when he handed her the coverall and she realized that there was a huge hole in the back for his thick tail, a hole that now left her posterior charms quite visible and well ventilated. Well, it was the least of her worries.

Now she stood in front of the snake’s cage, holding his gaze.

“I’m Vi.”

“Yesss.”

“And you are?”

“Not innnteresssted in conversssing with feeemalesss.”

Vi just looked at him, shook her head, and moved on to Conan’s cage. He spoke first, smiling, “Vi the Fierce and Triumphant! I have enjoyed watching your games and their outcomes enormously. To befriend and utilize a Garoxian so quickly!” Then he said quietly, meditatively, “Such a short name for such a fearsome warrioress.” Then, coming back to the present and booming, “I am Acken, legendary warrior of Estrania!”

“Hi Acken. Vi is actually short for ‘Violet’.”

“Violent? Now that’s a fitting name for you, indeed, little she-beast.”

She didn’t react to the “little she-beast” moniker. “Vuh-eye-o-let. Like the color? You know, purple?”

“Oh.”

“I’m glad that you’re not too much of a dumb ass to talk to me,” she said, eyeing the snake’s cage, “seeing as I have the shock stick and control of our only means of escape. What’s your story?”

The snake interrupted, “Youuu dooo not controlll any meansss of essscape from thisss asssteroid, jussst releassse from thessse caaagesss.”

She shrugged, “One is the first step to the other.”

“She speaks truth, Ophidian. So, uh, my…story? Do you wish to hear of my rearing, triumph over the manhood trials, and ascension to warriorhood?”

“Um, no. Maybe some other time. Let’s just start with this: are you going to work with us to escape or fuck us over? If I let you out, will you kill, or rape, or… eat …any of us, or leave us behind? Or will you be trustworthy?”

“It is not likely that I would confess to planning any of those things, little she-beast, even if they were my intent, as it would cause you to leave me in this cage. Is that how you plan to approach this—by simply asking each of us and taking our word?” He eyed her with incredulity.

“Well…at least it’s a fucking start. I can’t do this on my own. I can’t fight off a horde of Trallians or fly a fucking spaceship. And it’s not like I’m not learning anything, you know. Like the fact that snake guy is probably staying in his cage.” She placed her hands on her hips and glared at the Ophidian, then back at Acken.

“Hmmm…I think…yes, I think you could fight off a horde of Trallians. You are quite crafty and ferocious. And it is true that Ophidians are best kept caged.” He thought a moment, then said, “I regret brandishing my cock at you earlier; that was not worthy of me. Very well, I give you my word. I, Acken, legendary warrior of Estrania, do pledge to serve as a trustworthy member of your crew.” With that he knelt, fucking knelt , at the front of his cage, head bowed.

Vi was dumbfounded and discovered the only thing she could say was, “Um…great…thanks.”

Acken stood and nodded down at her. Vi tried very hard not to make eye contact with The Destroyer and was happy when they were interrupted with “Vi! Vi! Vi! Vi!” from the next cage.

“Hello?” She said, stepping in front of the dog. “Are you a talking dog?”

“I’m a talking trawg! My name is Friend! I love you.”

Vi found herself repeating, “Um…great…thanks,” as the trawg nodded and wagged its tail with gusto, and the eunuch next to him interrupted.

“Madam? I beg your pardon, but I believe you are making a terrible mistake.”

“Is that so?” She turned her head toward him and looked into his piercing blue eyes.

“Indeed. Any escape plan that you make will almost certainly fail, and then you will be subjected to even greater misery than you have been so far between now and the auction.”

“Auction?”

“Yes.”

Vi turned her head back to her own cage and raised her voice, “Bobby, is that true? Are we all going to be auctioned off?” She couldn’t see him through Mister Beastly, but she half-heartedly hoped that Mister Beastly wasn’t hurting him too badly.

“Yes,” he said with his voice equally raised. He didn’t sound particularly strangled. That was good.

“When?”

“A little less than a month from now.”

“Why the delay?”

“Um, I really don’t know. Maybe travel time for the buyers?”

She turned back to the eunuch, “What’s your name?”

“Caussus, madam.”

“Caussus, are you with us or against us?”

“I am not able to make those choices independently, madam. I belong to my owner. Currently, my owner is Qlu. In about a month, it will be someone else. I am programmed and conditioned for absolute obedience.”

“Do you wish to be free?”

“I am not capable of generating those feelings, madam.”

“OK, work with me here. Let’s see, you are currently property of and captive of Qlu, isn’t that right?” Caussus nodded. “If I freed you, then threatened you with this shock stick, you would be my captive, right?” Another nod. “And also my property, correct?”

“Yeeessss…madam? Perhaps. Hmm, ownership is a tricky category of galactic law.”

“Don’t worry about the law, just check your instincts and answer me honestly. If I freed you and told you that you were my property, would you follow my orders?”

“Yes, I believe so, madam.”

“Would you work against me to get back to Qlu?”

“No, madam, I don’t think I would.” He thought about it, then allowed a small smile to appear, which transformed him from merely beautiful to stunningly gorgeous, “Especially if you directly ordered me not to.”

Vi nodded. They could work this out. “So, at that point, once I freed you and ordered you to comply with my directions, and to not betray us, you would be a trustworthy member of the crew?”

Caussus said again, “Yes, madam, I believe so.”

Vi shrugged, “Works for me.” She turned her head back to the right and regarded Friend. “What about you, buddy? Are you with us?”

“Yes!” He said, instantly. “I’ll go anywhere with you, Vi, especially if you sing! I love you.”

Vi nodded, thought about it, and said, “You’re a very good boy, Friend.”

The whole trawg commenced to wagging, nose to tail.

“Madam,” Caussus said, hesitantly, and Vi turned back toward him, “On the subject of singing, I think you should know that during the period of time when you and the giant, Kompi, were harmonizing,” and here he twice made the fist striking palm gesture she always made during the chorus of “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” and she laughed, “it was the only time I’ve seen the occupant of this last cage move or react to anything.”

Vi looked into the darkened back half of the cage and saw a faint, greenish light. “What is it?”

“It’s a Mineralite from the planet Dim. This one appears to be emerald.”

“Mineralite? A rock guy?”

“Gem, madam. Emerald. I understand their energy comes from sound vibrations, although I think it may be a little more complex than that. You see, he didn’t move when only you or only the giant were singing, just when you sang together.”

“Like, harmonic resonance?”

“Madam.”

Vi guessed it was Caussus’s uber-diplomatic way of saying, how the hell should I know? Yeah, she wasn’t a physicist, either. She’d probably heard the phrase on Star Trek .

“Hmm. We might as well find out. Caussus, please go to the back of the cage, as close as you can, and watch the Mineralite.” She walked over to the giant’s cage thinking about the songs on the A-side of Abbey Road .

The giant grinned at her.

“Hi Kompi.”

“ffffVVVViiii.” He replied, breathlessly.

“Do you like to sing, Kompi?”

He just looked at her with a vacant smile.

“Right, I guess you’re some kind of musical savant, huh? Probably not a conversationalist.”

The same vacant smile.

“Ummm, yeah. So, straight to the singing, then.” She lifted out her hand to the giant and he stood up to take it. She used her free hand to make a back and forth pointing gesture at each of them that she hoped translated into let’s do this together . Then she started loudly singing “Because,” and Kompi matched her volume.

They sang the whole song together holding hands and, by the end, the utterly silent room was cast in a dim green glow. She turned and could now see the Mineralite in the light it was generating, but it appeared to still be huddled in the back of the cage. So, she segued into “You Never Give Me Your Money,” and Kompi followed.

At the end, she turned and saw the Mineralite had stood and come to the front of the cage. She said, “Thank you, Kompi,” released his hand, and walked over. She pretended not to notice the tears flowing freely from Kompi’s eyes, because she couldn’t afford any emotionality right now. She had killed it in the stasis pod and was keeping it buried in its coffin for the foreseeable future.

Approaching the Mineralite, she said, “Hello, my name is Vi.”

The green gem monster seemed to regard her, but she couldn’t be sure, as it didn’t have discernable facial features. It was bipedal with two arms and a head, but that’s as much as she could say about it. She couldn’t tell if its gem covering was plates or scales while it was motionless because whichever it was looked so seamless that the being appeared like a solid emerald statue. If she didn’t know it had to have joints and mobility to have gotten to the front of the cage, she wouldn’t believe it.

“Can you talk or communicate in any way?”

The Mineralite pulsed, its interior lighting brighter for a moment.

“You communicate with light pulses?” This was as alien as alien could get—a being who ate harmonic sound and talked using light.

Another pulse.

“Do that light thing twice in a row if you understand what I’m saying.”

Two pulses.

“OK, one light pulse for ‘yes’ and two for ‘no.’ Do you want to escape this place with us?”

A pulse.

“Can you fight?”

A pulse.

“Will you fight by our sides to get off this asteroid?”

A pulse.

Vi thought for a moment, then asked, “Were you able to move before we started singing?”

Two pulses.

“So, we need to sing in order to keep you alive?”

A pulse.

“Are you at full strength now?”

Two pulses.

“OK, so we need to sing more to get you up to snuff. Since I can’t understand your communication to learn your name, I’m going to give you one so that I can refer to you. Is that OK?”

A pulse.

She thought about it, then said, “’Emerald’ seems too obvious. How about ‘Malachite.’”

A pulse.

She lifted her voice so that everyone could hear, “Hey guys, we’re going to call this…um, gentleman, ‘Malachite.’ Got it?” She got a susurration of assents and suddenly hoped the Mineralite wasn’t female.

She looked at it again, then asked, “Do you get any energy from only one of us singing?”

A pulse and a pause, followed by two pulses.

“You get some, but not enough?”

A pulse.

“OK, then until we get out of here, I want you to hit the bars of the cage twice when you need us to sing for you. Can you do that?”

The Mineralite swung its arm forward and hit the cage twice. The sound reverberated throughout the room.

“Excellent. Do that before you get too weak for action. We need you ready at a moment’s notice. We’ll sing something for you again as soon as I get through the other cages.”

A pulse.

Violet turned and walked toward the last cage on the opposite wall, holding the giant snail that was currently suckered to the bars topping the cage.

Then she turned back to the Mineralite, a realization occurring to her. “What’s happening to his food if he doesn’t eat?”

Friend spoke up, “Caussus pulls it into his cage and gives it me! I love him.”

She eyed Caussus who was looking a little diffident, then walked back over to the snail’s cage and spoke to the room in general. “Anyone know anything about this snail?”

“Madam, I do not believe it is sentient,” Caussus said.

Acken bellowed, “They’re delicious!” Then laughed heartily.

She narrowed her eyes and responded without turning, “Remember, oh legendary warrior, your promise not to eat any of us? This snail’s one of us.”

“Surely you do not believe it will fight alongside us?” Acken asked, disbelievingly.

“That’s not the point,” Vi said, still without turning. “It’s an unfortunate captive just like the rest of us. Leave no snail behind!”

Walking on she asked, “What the story with this guy? He looks like Frankenstein’s monster humped the Terminator. Bobby? What’s going on with the thing in the cage between the snail and Kompi?”

Bobby raised his voice just a little to be heard around Mister Beastly, “Um, I don’t know very much. Alved said he’s made up of reanimated corpses held together by cyborg parts.”

What…the…fuck?

“Uhhh… right . Are you serious? Who would do that and why?”

“I really don’t have any idea. Alved said he was for sale to learn, or reengineer, the reanimation process.”

“But he looks quite dead.”

“He’s switched off.”

Vi muttered, “This is the craziest conversation I’ve ever had, bordering on dead parrot territory,” then added, louder, “How do we turn him back on?”

“Alved said that his limbs are completely disabled and will stay that way until he’s purchased. But he has a wake word that brings his brain functions out of whatever sleep mode he’s in now.” Bobby added after a moment’s consideration, “But I don’t know what that word is.”

“What’s the machine behind him and these tubes?”

“Um…input…and…um…output.”

Vi shivered in disgust, “Ok, we’re going to put a pin in this one. Let’s just all say a little prayer that the tubes in him don’t just form a loop within the machine.” Horrified groans followed from several cages.

Moving forward to Kompi’s cage once again, she encountered the same vacant smile and found she couldn’t think of anything to say or even pantomime. Eventually she said, “Kompi, I want you to sing anytime you feel like it. Any songs you’ve learned from me or any you already know.” She turned and pointed back at the Mineralite, “You see that green guy? Your songs are keeping him alive. He’ll die if we stop singing. Later, I’ll teach you some more songs that we can both sing together, OK?”

Kompi didn’t nod or acknowledge her words in any discernable way, but he immediately started singing a startlingly beautiful song, in a high and clear voice, for which her translator provided no translation. She nodded and walked past Mister Beastly’s cage into her own, to see Bobby in exactly the same circumstances as she had left him, with Mister Beastly’s enormous paw around his throat.

“Now, Mister Beastly. Who can fill me in on this guy?” Vi asked, over Kompi’s singing.

Bobby looked at her and said, “He’s a Garoxian.”

“Do you expect that to mean something to me?”

Acken bellowed, “They’re the most vicious beasts in the habited worlds!”

Vi looked thoughtfully at Mister Beastly, then turned to Acken and asked, “You mean this vicious beast that kept me warm and hasn’t harmed Bobby?”

Bobby said, “We’ve all seen what they can do. A while back, The Zig tried to invade their ice planet. They’re the most terrifying warriors in the galaxy, and the Garoxians took out a whole battalion in less than an hour.”

“Seen? How did you see this?”

“Ogobian Broadcasting.”

“TV?! You watched it on fucking TV?”

Bobby shrugged.

“What’s known about their species?”

“Nothing. Their language hasn’t been translated. The only thing for sure is that anyone who steps foot on their planet dies. Quickly. And gets dismembered. We’ve all seen it.”

Getting nowhere with this, she was about to ask Bobby if he had made up his mind about helping them when she heard the sound of the cage room’s door opening and the abrupt halt to Kompi’s singing. Vi whirled around to face anything coming through, shock stick in hand, but all she saw was a blur before her cage door slammed shut with her and Bobby both inside.