Thirty credits. As meager as that is, it’s still five times as much as I’d make as an illegal if I was working as a dishwasher, or a nanny, or a waitress at one of those dive bars that don’t check IDs or scan biometrics.
But that extra hundred would have solved a lot of problems. That extra hundred I worked my ass off for, no less. That extra hundred should be mine – but, instead, it’s in the greasy hands of that Toad; who demands submission and obedience from women in order for them to merely keep what’s rightfully theirs.
I stagger away from Obbit, clutching my earnings.
Twenty of these thirty credits will go towards my escape plan – just like twenty credits do from each days’ earnings. It keeps me broke and hungry, but I need to save that money. The clock is ticking, and I know it’s only a matter of when, not if, the Aurelians will eventually catch up to me.
Their Law Enforcement is the most brutal and effective in the known galaxies – and I have a lot further to travel before I’m finally safe from them.
As I stagger away, I rub my arm instinctively. If any of those huge, seven-feet-tall Aurelians bastards do track be down and try to recapture me, they’ll be in for a surprise. They have no idea what I’ve had implanted beneath my skin.
I head into the change room. There are a few girls in there already, all in various stages of undress. They’re sitting, standing - chatting… I give the girls polite nods and smiles as I pass. I don’t want to come off as rude, but I don’t really relate to any of them – and I’m not here to make friends. I just try to keep my head down instead. There’s a brutal, social pecking order around here – and I have no interest in getting involved in it.
Besides, there’s no point investing in the time and effort to make friends when you need to be able to leave everything and anything behind at a moment’s notice.
I’ve never really had friends, but I can’t say I miss it. The only real friend I ever had was my sister – and she just proved that having friends opens your heart to misery, loneliness and grief.
Gods! If you’re listening - please let her be alive out there, somewhere! Please, let my sister be okay. I miss her so much.
A shadow falls across my path. It’s Brienne – a dark-haired temptress who takes guys of any species back to the pleasure room for the right price; although she charges considerably more for Toads. She stalks up to me, her wavy hair bouncing past her shoulders as she sashays in those five-inch heels she seems to have been born wearing.
“Well,” Brienne pauses, putting her hands on her curvaceous hips. “How’d you do tonight?”
I shrug.
“Fine.”
I’m not going to tell her exactly how many credits I picked up. Brienne takes pride that she’s the biggest earner for the club – and I’ve got no interest in competing with her.
My only interest is survival.
It’s always been about survival for me. I was only eighteen-years-old when I first learned that you have to be prepared to do anything and everything to survive.
Back then, I was working on a mining ship, near the periphery – doing menial jobs with my sister for board and food. The ship itself could barely afford to keep itself running, and so when the maintenance robots had finally broken down, the owners had decided to hire a couple of orphans for the four-week journey instead.
Those orphans were me and my sister. We never had parents – but we’d always looked out for each other.
That was until we were hit by space-pirates mid-journey; and my little sister was taken for ransom.
My little sister. Lilac… Lilac…
I’d had to do what I’d had to do. I would have killed any man or woman in the universe to save my sister – but Aurelians don’t like law-breakers.
That’s why I’d ended up on the Aurelian Capture List. They wanted me to serve twenty years for what I’d had to do to try and save my sister. To those gargantuan, God-like aliens – who live for thousands of years – a twenty-year sentence is nothing.
To me, though, it would be my entire youth. I’d leave jail middle-aged, with nothing.
But the sickest part?
After everything I’d done to get that ransom money – to save my sister – the space-pirates had never even showed up to the rendezvous. They’d not turned up to collect their ill-gotten gains, in return for my sister. I’d never seen her since.
I pray to the Gods – the same ones I barely believe in – that Lilac is somehow safe out there. I wish I had the resources to go and find her, but it’s all I can do to eke out a threadbare existence on this rock of a planet, Bara-KitosE – let alone leave.
For now.
I plunk myself down on a rotating chair and kick off my heels. My feet ache – but they’re far from the only thing causing me discomfort right now.
For example, Brienne apparently isn’t satisfied with the answer I’d given her – and she crosses her arms, staring down at me pointedly.
“I heard your little conversation with Obbit through the door,” Brienne warns me coolly. “Those businessmen are mine. Don’t you try to approach them.”
Businessmen? Ugh, I remember now.
From the Rogue Aurelians to any of the other customers out there tonight, there were plenty of leering men who probably described themselves as “businessmen.” Brienne was probably referring to the man in the business suit who’d shoved that cash between
