Space colonist Neve leaves her farm for the port city to buy some livestock and a couple farm dogs. Her trip doesn't go as planned.
She sat on the edge of the audience, near a trellis with greenery. The musician on stage was good, though she wondered what had a happened in his life to drop him on a distant colony world.
There was a thud on the other side of the trellis and a muffled groan. Fast whispers, and rustling.
“Drover, go see what happened behind the trellis.” The minibot obediently rolled away. No one else in the theater had noticed the sounds, but none were sitting close to the trellis.
Drover reported to her holo wristband. “Animal girls. One is hurt. They jump from high up.”
Animal girls? Did Drover mean Human Mods? Illegal under the Alliance, animal modified humans were a lucrative sex slavery business in unregulated space. Which this planetary system resided in, though they were considering joining the Alliance.
Neve heard more whispers, it sounded like an argument, followed by a sob. She quietly slipped around the trellis to a utility walkway.
Two big-eyed women stared at her. Both had a ruff of plush fur on their head, pointed triangular ears, huge round black eyes, small noses, and mouths. They had golden brown short hair covering their bare arms and legs and edges of their faces. The silky negligees they wore showed women’s breasts and waists, women’s legs, covered again in the golden fur. Long plushy tails. Plushies were the hottest commodity in the flesh trade.
One girl had an injured foot, the ankle at an odd angle. “Broken foot?”
The girl nodded.
A man shouted in the distance, down the utility walkway.
“Oh no,” one squeaked. “They are coming. Come, sister, let us try to hide.”
“Are you trying to get away from slavers?” I whispered.
“Yes, miss. Please go back to the garden theater. They will hurt you too.”
“You are quite beautiful, they would steal you away, too.”
Neve made a quick decision. She touched the injured one. “Climb up on my back. I am much stronger than I look. We will run to the street and catch a taxi.”
The small plushie climbed onto her back, and Neve gripped her legs in front of her. “Drover, follow behind and shoot shock tabs if we are pursued.
“Yip yip,” he gave his audio affirmative.
They ran down the narrow alley. Neve heard the heavy pounding steps of large men close behind them. Drover zinged out shock tabs. They wouldn’t kill a healthy person, though they could cause heart rhythm issues.
There was a garbled cry and a heavy body hit the ground.
“Julian is down. Oh! So is Chirut!” Neve’s rider spoke.“Your baby bot is a good shot.”
“Weasel rats. Pests on the farm,” I gasped. Running at top speed with a girl on my back was a challenge.
They came to the end of the walkway and had to climb over a locked gate. The uninjured plushie handed Drover over and then quickly climbed over herself.
Then they were back on the main street. Neve shoved the girls behind an air quality unit in the shadows and hailed a taxi. A flitter veered out of the traffic and lowered to the walkway. It was older and not at all posh but had a picture ID of the driver on the door, which reputable driver’s used. She hustled the plushies and Drover into the cab.
“Where to?”
Shit! She couldn’t go directly to her hotel, they could be followed. “Calypso Square.”
Calypso was another busy night scene, a bit closer to the space docks and a bit wilder.
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment