Page 10 of Seven Oars (Rix Universe #3)

In the two days that followed, marked very approximately by the periods of wakefulness alternated with fitful sleep, the women were left blessedly alone.

Phex wasn’t so lucky.

Twice, he was taken to the Habitat and kept there for hours on end. Upon his return to the Cargo Hold, he spoke little and spent most of his time in stasis. He showed clear signs of new beatings, but hadn’t been knocked unconscious or required carrying.

Rosamma didn’t share any more energy with him, saving it for when he would truly need it. She was convinced by now that their predicament had only just begun.

During Phex’s absences, the women’s resolve to plan an escape surged like a wave at high tide, only to ebb a short while later. They saw how powerless they were compared to the alien males that imprisoned them.

Their earlier talk about killing the pirates seemed childishly naive.

They didn’t know what to do.

What they did know was that this reprieve from the pirates’ attention was a fluke, and anticipation of a shift hung thick in the air.

Despite the stress, the women organized their lives as best they could around mealtimes and the shower. That water filter was a godsend.

Rosamma was the last one yet to avail herself of a bath. She kept putting it off, and putting it off.

For starters, it was so cold here. She shivered day and night under her ripped thermal blanket. The thought of getting under the cold spray made her body rebel.

Then there was the thought of undressing. Taking off her meager layers filled her with an irrational fear of losing protection. She was already vulnerable. She didn’t want to be naked and vulnerable.

Rosamma discreetly sniffed her underarm.

She smelled.

Which, all things considered, was rather par for the course in this place. Everyone here smelled, stank, and reeked, including that unholy robot with its rotting wig and the vinegar-smelling lubricant it constantly leaked.

No one cleaned anything, either. The grimy station had stunk when they got here, and it went on stinking. Rosamma’s underarms weren’t even a blip in the revolting atmosphere.

She wouldn’t have bothered, except there was her period.

She glanced at Eze, who was again fiddling with the controls of the filtration system that malfunctioned more than it worked. Next to Eze, the narrow door to the bathroom stall hung open, revealing a dark, gaping hole.

Rosamma shuddered.

“Is it working?”

she asked Eze.

The tank holding water bulged above them.

“I think so. You’ll have to wait for it to cycle through. Alyesha used up all the clean water. You’d think she was at a spa retreat, splashing away.”

“That’s okay, I’ll wait.”

Rosamma’s lips curved in irony. It wasn’t like she had anywhere else to be. She wished she did. Literally, anywhere else in the Universe.

“Will you show me how to get the filters working?”

By the time Eze finished showing her, the filtration had completed a cycle.

Resolutely grabbing the rag the women shared for a towel, Rosamma breached the door-hole and stepped into the stall.

Naturally, no lights worked inside, leaving her no choice but to keep the door ajar. It smelled of sulfur and mildew—unpleasant, but not awful.

It seemed colder inside the metal stall, and the sounds appeared amplified. The persistent scraping of the great mechanism, the oar, against something was louder, clearer, underscored by clicking and whirring that came at regular intervals.

A peculiar feeling overcame Rosamma. Without the lights, she felt thrown into a dark hole. Despite the station’s reliable gravity, she was weightless, hurtling, not toward a new life like she had been after leaving Meeus, but toward a swift end.

Her sense of self disappeared, and she became unmoored. The past fell away. There was no future. She was a nobody, an unknown being in an endless tunnel, screaming silently into the dark void, falling, falling…

The sensation was so real that Rosamma stumbled, catching herself on the stall’s rusty wall.

Unsettled, she turned the water on and, taking a deep breath, pointed the old, hardened hose with peeling wrapping at her body. She rubbed her skin in the dark, wanting to rinse off oily dirt and sweat, and the smears of Phex and Anske’s dried blood.

She wondered if Phex would consider washing. It would be a moment of vulnerability, she knew. But she imagined he would welcome being clean.

Poor Phex.

The pirates didn’t allow him to heal properly before beating him again. They kept him weakened and disoriented, toying with him in their cruel way, testing his endurance.

They would kill him in the end.

Tears leaked from Rosamma’s eyes. What to do? How to help?

Even at his strongest, it would’ve been one Phex against nine of them. Such insurmountable odds.

Five weeks. That time had seemed terrifyingly long when they’d first started from Meeus.

She kept washing, bending over to rinse her hair, crying silently.

A loud crash startled her, followed by a woman’s scream. Men laughed nearby.

No, not men. Alien pirates.

Rosamma dropped the hose and grabbed the damp towel.

The stall door was yanked open, and Massar stood in the entrance.

Holding still, Rosamma pressed the towel against her front. Her long hair dripped water.

Massar smiled, revealing uneven, serrated teeth. His black, soulless eyes were like empty holes.

Suddenly, surviving any number of weeks seemed unimportant. She shouldn’t be afraid to die. She should be afraid not to.

“Funny creature,”

Massar said.

“Were you hiding?”

He stepped closer and grabbed her by the chin.

“Answer me.”

His grip was so forceful that her jaw nearly cracked.

She whimpered and dropped the towel, reaching for the hand squeezing her face.

He yanked her head to the side, inspecting her naked body from the neck down, mindless of the strain he was putting on her neck.

“Skinny little thing,”

he murmured. “Young.”

Fisting her hair, he dragged her, almost senseless, to the Habitat, where he threw her down.

She fell, her knees scraping raw against the mesh floor.

There were sounds all around her—voices, male laughter. And weeping.

Whatever was happening, it wasn’t good.

Someone crawled closer and placed a hand on top of hers.

“Gro?”

Their hands linked, gripping each other tightly.

“What’s going on?”

She was soaking wet, and the air was winter-cold.

“A new game just dropped,”

Gro whispered.

“It’s called Sexual Predator Sweepstakes. Enter one to win one. And we’ve just all been entered.”

“Shut up and move away!”

Nud shouted at them.

To get his point across, he kicked them apart.

Rosamma caught a boot to the ribs. The blow was so sharp she couldn’t stifle a gasp.

Her eyes found Phex, restrained against the anchors that once upon a time supported scientific equipment. His face bore fresh bruises and was badly swollen. He was conscious and looked undefeated.

The sight gave her strength. It was a relief to simply see him again. Alive.

The women were also here. All of them. All naked.

She plucked random images from the room like still frames: Anske, clutching her Holy Guide to her wide bosom; Alyesha’s closed-off expression and crossed arms; Fawn and Sassa cowering on the floor…

The pirates crowded in as well. The air was ripe with feverish anticipation. Whether it was bloodlust or just plain lust, Rosamma couldn’t determine.

Xorris and Nud nudged each other in tune with the “music”

that threatened to destroy eardrums. Thilza smoked, and the cloying fumes from his smoldering pipe swirled like patchy fog, adding a surreal aspect to the scene.

Striker Fincros lounged in his horror of a swivel chair, one boot propped negligently against the wall. He lightly pushed at it, making the chair move with piercing squeaks, right and left, right and left… The valleys of scars on the right side of his face caught light with each move, flashing and disappearing again.

His face betrayed nothing—no anticipation, no lust. Not even interest.

Nud, Xorris, and Galan began dragging the women into the center of the room.

Galan yanked the book from Anske’s hands.

“What’s this?”

“A Holy Guide book.”

“Yeah? Where’s it guiding you?”

He roughly flipped the stiff, glossy pages, pausing to inspect the colorful shapes that emphasized different commandments.

“It’s guiding all of us,”

Anske whispered in a broken voice.

“Where to?”

With one hand, Galan gripped her neck, dislodging her bra bandage, and squeezed.

“Tell us where you’re trying to take us! What’s your navigation plan?”

Anske’s eyes bulged. Her face flushed as she gasped, struggling to speak.

“Your mind… to open your mind… to be a better man.”

Galan let her go.

“Like I need that kind of guidance. I’m a good man already.”

He smoothed the filthy shirt stretched across his chest.

“I can show you,”

Anske wheezed from the floor at his feet. Fresh blood trickled down her shoulder.

“We can go… together. To see the light.”

Galan stood over her, the Holy Guide in hand, his brain grinding through the concept of “seeing the light.”

The pause stretched.

Nud elbowed Galan aside.

“Move, dipshit. Stop wasting time on fuckery. We could be touching pussy instead.”

“Party time!”

Xorris yelled, laughing like a demented hyena.

Thilza took a drag.

“Let’s start with this one.”

Massar pointed at Rosamma.

Then his cool, punishing hands were on her, groping her thigh, her stomach, kneading the flesh, pinching the skin.

Without warning, he toppled Rosamma, pushing her onto her side. Her legs parted in the process, revealing… everything.

She closed her eyes, tears of fear and mortification tracing warm tracks down her cold cheeks.

There was a sound of male disgust.

“What’s this? Blood? Coming from that place?”

“I thought a little bit of blood was your thing,”

Striker Fincros said to Massar from his chair. His dry, low voice was bone-marrow chilling. Every inch of Rosamma’s skin contracted at the sound of him.

She pulled her legs together and curled in on herself.

Massar’s answering chuckle was demonic.

“The blood I let.”

“Tutti. Do a scan,”

the Striker ordered.

Man-made saggy breasts emerged from the smoke-fog as Tutti whirred up close. The robot’s eyes rolled up and down, one faster than the other, scanning Rosamma.

Extracting a flexible third limb from a back compartment, Tutti aimed a long, thick needle at her neck. A piercing white light flashed as the arm arched, puncturing her skin.

“Species undetermined,”

it announced in its fluid female voice.

“Female physiology consistent with warm-blooded, high-reasoning species. Capable of gestating. The likelihood of pregnancy is unknown due to the taxonomic ambiguity. Biomarkers are weak.”

Tutti tucked the appendage away and withdrew.

The weight of multiple pairs of Rix eyes was heavy on Rosamma. She breathed the cold, pungent air through her nose. In and out. In. And out.

“Biomarkers are weak,”

Ucai repeated.

“Is she sick? Tutti!”

“Undetermined.”

The purple belly-button light was blinking lazily from across the room.

Xorris stumbled closer to Rosamma. He smelled the worst of them, a rank sour stench of an unwashed body that was peculiar, alien, and male.

“Does she have an infection?”

“Oh, fuck, no.”

Ucai visibly shuddered.

“Had enough of the flesh rot with Aolis. He also had weak biomarkers.”

“You’re right, he did! And those pus-oozing sores.”

“Not even the healing powder helped. He looked like a giant toe with a fungus infection.”

“He was a great pilot,”

Keerym remarked.

“Pity he smoked the healing powder more than he rubbed it on his sores.”

They all roared with laughter, their attention drifting away from Rosamma.

She scooted toward a wall and hugged herself, her metal bracelets like icicles against her clammy skin.

The pirates pawed the other women, yanking limbs and inspecting them. They laughed as they groped and squeezed body parts. The women’s cries and pleas not to hurt them seemed only to fuel the aliens’ excitement.

The music became louder and more disjointed.

Lust filled the air. It was thick now, easily discernible, the dark male energy that clamored for a violent relief. The pirates created it and fed off of it at the same time in a vicious circle that spun faster and tighter.

It twisted Rosamma’s insides into a painful knot.

In a hysterical flash, she recalled how they had only recently feared Phex and his crew, thinking of them as their evil torturers…

Her eyes cut again to Phex, an unwilling, passive participant in this debasement.

His chin was up, the tilt of his head as regal as ever.

Another passive participant was Striker Fincros. It suddenly struck Rosamma how similar their unreadable expressions were. Mirror images of one another: one glowing with pure, clean pride, the other shrouded in cold, malevolent intent.

Fincros remained seated, swiveling slightly, unperturbed by the debauchery. His six-fingered hand casually caressed the edge of the tattooed seat…

The pirates pushed the women together.

“Which one?”

“Who’s first?”

There was a pause where they ceased their groping and scrutinized the writhing tangle of female bodies at their feet.

The pirates weren’t being bashful about starting an orgy per se; it was the women’s foreign bodies that gave them pause. Rosamma’s period blood and the reminder of their comrade with his flesh-eating disease created that uncertainty.

Please, Rosamma pleaded with the Universe, let it be enough to stop this madness.

The shock of the abuse erupting now, after the women had lulled themselves into a false sense of semi-security, jarred her system in the worst way. Her heart fluttered like a frightened bird, smashing against her rib cage, threatening to jump out of her chest. She closed her eyes, trying to shut out the room, desperate for a moment’s relief.

“Let the defender go first,”

the Striker suddenly said.

Her eyes snapped open and latched onto Phex.

No. No. He wouldn’t. They’d have to kill him first. They would kill him…

“Great idea! I was just thinking of it myself,”

Esseh claimed.

Nud and Xorris rushed Phex. He fought back, but others joined in.

Ucai plucked Sassa from the group and shoved her down.

She was crying, her face red and swollen. Angry red marks decorated her fine skin wherever the pirates had touched her.

Ucai traced a sharp nail down her chest.

“Stop mewling or I’ll carve out your nipple.”

Sassa gasped and fell silent. Her shoulders shook with soundless sobs. She looked tiny beside the pirates’ hulking forms. So small.

Unlike some of the other women, Rosamma had never thought Rix aliens were hideous—until now. Hideous. Alien pigs.

They shoved Phex on top of Sassa.

He caught himself on his arms.

Esseh put his knee on Phex’s back, pinning him.

“Get ready.”

His suggestive grin was lopsided from his stiff left cheek.

“Start us off with a bang.”

The crowd erupted with laughter.

Rosamma didn’t want to look, but she refused to close her eyes again. Her heart bled for Sassa and broke for Phex.

Behind the pirates, she caught sight of Anske’s face, pale and drawn. With her tangled hair and wide eyes, she was a portrait of disbelief and suffocating fear, one Rosamma knew she mirrored.

Phex bucked and fought to rise, despite Esseh’s knee digging into his spine.

Sassa had ceased all movement and lay with her eyes closed. Only a slight rise and fall of her chest indicated she was still alive.

“Are they fucking yet? I can’t see.”

“No. And his dick isn’t out.”

Go, Phex, Rosamma cheered in her mind.

He wouldn’t rape Sassa. He wouldn’t rape anyone. He was one of the most principled men she’d ever met. And he didn’t even like humans, so there was little danger Sassa would send his sex drive into an uncontrollable spin.

She clenched her hands, as if holding the line with him.

Someone was looking at her. The attention was heavy, intrusive. She glanced about the Habitat, but didn’t notice anyone specific.

“How much longer?”

“Stop whining, Nud!”

“You shut the fuck up or I’ll break your teeth!”

Esseh motioned lazily.

“Thilza, what happened to that vial of Father Zha-Ikkel’s charm spice?”

Thilza, still slumped against the wall, took a long drag from his smoldering pipe.

“The one we rubbed on Tutti to get a hard-on?”

At the moment, Tutti was parked in the corner, its wig askew, its purple light off.

“We used it all up,”

Massar said in a wistful tone. He came over and carefully straightened Tutti’s wig.

It didn’t help to make the mechanoid look any more like a real female. Of any species.

Abruptly, Xorris left the Habitat.

A lull fell in the room. The chair gave a loud squeak as Striker Fincros turned slightly. His obsidian eyes remained flat. His silence and poised indifference were somehow more sinister than the graphic violence of his minions.

Xorris reentered the Habitat with a triumphant bellow and a large bottle in hand. Smashing the top clean off, he grabbed Phex’s chin and upended the bottle over his face, sending down broken glass and drops of red liquid.

Phex went berserk.

“Hold him, you useless fucks!”

The pirates piled on, laughing, cursing, and hooting. It was just another game to them, one big grotesque spectacle designed to help them while away their useless and boring existence.

In their tangle, they shifted closer to Rosamma. She smelled their body odor and the sweet fragrance of the bottle’s contents. Charm spice.

Phex bucked hard, almost dislodging four aliens hanging on to him, and Rosamma’s heart nearly stopped.

His crotch was no longer flat.

Propped over Sassa, his arms bulging with dark veins, he shook his head as if to clear it, just as his lower body made a seeking motion toward the woman under him.

The pirates hollered.

Ugly. Ugly.

Rosamma could see tears on Sassa’s finely grained skin. So close…

She unclasped her hands and moved one toward Phex. Just an inch.

The pirates were paying her no attention.

She moved her hand closer, carefully, so that her bracelets didn’t jingle.

Her throat went dry. Her heart was beating way too fast. She held herself perfectly still except for her hand that crept forward.

When her fingers found the rock-hard flex of Phex’s veiny wrist, she let her energy slip into him.

He jerked and stilled. His breath sawed in and out of his slitted nostrils. He was weakened by the beatings and disoriented by the drug, but as she slowly fed him her energy, Rosamma could feel his control returning.

She ramped up the flow.

She didn’t have much energy, but all of it was his.

Oh, Ren, please forgive me.

All hope died inside her. She was never leaving this space station alive. It had never been an option. She was sorry it came to this end. She was so sorry…

She felt watched again and wanted to dismiss the sensation, but a movement in the distance caught her attention: a pair of boots hitting the mesh floor.

No.

She focused on maintaining contact with Phex and keeping the energy flow steady. He needed her. Sassa needed her.

Faster, faster…

The boots started walking toward her. Their progress was unhurried, and the steps light. Yet each one landed like a death toll.

She mashed her fingers into Phex’s flesh, trying to push the energy harder out of herself. She wanted it to become a torrent, a downpour.

The boots stopped beside her, slate gray and scuffed. Those tough, sturdy boots, large like the alien pirate who wore them, became Rosamma’s sole focus.

Yes, she was being watched.

The weight of his attention went all the way to her bones, a heavy burden. Without breaking contact with Phex’s wrist, she slowly raised her eyes from Fincros’ boots to his scarred face.

He said nothing, and neither did she.

She hoped he could read in her expression how much she hated him. She wished him dead. She wanted him to know it before he killed her.

Out of the corner of her eye, Rosamma caught the blur of his raised fist and fell into the night.