Feeling the craft jerk repeatedly, I worry that I won’t break atmosphere in the small rinky-dink vessel. Valon Six has one land mass, and it’s a gigantic den of iniquity where every being is looking for justification to enslave another being. In order to survive another day, I must escape before they realize I’m gone and activate my collar. As unsafe as this lift off is, it’s my only chance. If I don’t take it, I’ll be subjecting myself to become a brooder for whatever species has enough coin to pay my asking price.
Taking a deep breath, I hit the button for lift off. The tiny bucket of bolts begins accelerating upwards and I count the seconds until I break orbit. Once the shaking dissipates, I realize the worst of it is over. Gratefully setting course for the nearest refueling station, I let autopilot take over.
In the meantime, I need to find tools to get this slave collar off my neck. I have no idea what it will take to get this piece of shit off my neck because all of my masters have been very secretive. It is standard operating procedure to blindfold or render slaves unconscious when switching out a collar. Therefore, I’m just imagining what might get the job done. My first choice would be something to disengage the lock, but I’d resort to cutting it off if I could find something that cuts through metal. It’s unfortunate that the guard I killed didn’t have his fingerprints keyed to my collar. The longer I wear the collar, the easier it is to be tracked and captured. Once I jettison this piece of shit, they won’t be able to track me with it. Undoubtedly, this ship has some useful supplies.
As I scramble around looking for tools, I come across a waist pouch. Snapping the empty pouch around my waist, I continue to rummage, gathering up a vacuum pack of clothing, a half-eaten food bar, a tiny dermal healing unit and some bottle caps. Yep, they have those on some worlds. They look totally different depending on which world they come from. These are square and made of pliable metal, bearing the colorful logo of a famous Akal company. I’ve had Akal exactly one time. It comes in a clear container and looks like colorful seeds. You drink it straight from the container and it turns to liquid in your mouth. Each color has a different but delicious flavor. They come in fruit, vegetable and even grain flavors. The memory makes my stomach growl again. I gather them up as the metal can be sharpened to a point to make a makeshift weapon.
In one final pass of the ship’s adjoining rooms, I find a tiny laser torch. Regardless of how tall the alien I took the key fob from was, the beings who last owned this ship must have been diminutive. Everything I’ve found so far has been designed for small hands.
I head back out to the control room to check on the autopilot, shocked that everything is just fine. I grab the laser torch and am about to burn this irritating collar off when I think better of it. Taking a minute to dig through the ship’s archives, I look specifically for information related to slave collars. The collars similar to mine are designed to constrict when tampered with. Gods of chaos, I’m glad I didn’t try to get it off. I hate the feel of it around my neck. The thrill of finally being free is marred by the fact that I’m still wearing such an overt sign of slavery.
Skimming through the archives, I find a manifest of what’s sitting in the cargo hold. Though there is an assortment of foodstuffs, unfortunately none of it is Akal, nor any other food I recognize except pressed food bars. The obliquus bars are made of whatever happens to be plentiful on the world who processed them. Mostly, they’re made of grains, but some are made of insects and stuff humans don’t care to eat. Thank goodness there is hydration fluid. I smile because they’re available in exotic flavors that I’m not normally permitted to have.
As I continue reading the manifest, I perk up when I discover that the ship is carrying clothing destined for use on one of the pleasure planets. With any luck I might be able to find something that will fit my smaller frame. The last items on the list include a crate of cloning supplies and a cube of chromite, one of the most valuable metals in the verse.
Making my way down a tiny ladder to the holding bay, I rummage around looking at all the crates. They have pictures depicting the contents as well as a short listing of what’s inside in the six languages most prevalent in this sector of space. Since I can’t read any of them, I go by the pictures. After eating three food bars the size of my index finger and drinking tiny bags of tasty hydration fluid, I feel my strength returning. Cramming my waist pouch full of food bars and pouches of hydration fluid, I climb back out of the hold.
Since the cleansing unit is only big enough for about a fourth of my body, I make due with a bird bath. The creepy neon green cleaning fluid that comes out doesn’t smell bad, so I dip a cloth into it over and over again, scrubbing every square inch of my skin. Dipping my long hair into a basin of it, I get as clean as I can. It feels amazing to be grime-free at long last.
Eagerly tearing open the vacuum sealed pack of clothing, I’m disappointed to find that it’s one of the long slinky gowns worn by harlots to attract customers. Since nothing else aboard this ship comes close to fitting me, I pull out the
