The Commander's Slave

THE COMMANDER’S
SLAVE

By

K
.S.
Augustin

(C
) Copyright by K.S.
Augustin, October 2006

(C)
Cover art by Jenny
Dixon, April 2007

ISBN 1-58608-213-2

Smashwords Edition

New Concepts Publishing

Lake Park, GA 31636

www.newconceptspublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. All
characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and
not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or
events is merely coincidence.

Chapter
One

The noise assailed her ears and made her shrink back
against the back of the male pushing her through the bazaar.
Everything was so strange, so alien. What was she doing in this
place?
Who was she?
With a muttered oath, her captor
stabbed her in the back with the handle of his rifle, and she
stumbled.

At least she was under no
misapprehension that the weapon was there to harm her. Even amongst
the chaos of the marketplace, she could detect the predatory
glitter of other traders, could feel their gazes move up and down
her body, assessing, calculating. No, she was sure that her guard,
and his weapon, was there primarily to protect his
investment--her.

But it was difficult to concentrate.
As for the past four days, her head continued throbbing, sending
waves of blunt pain hammering through her brain. It was all she
could do to place one foot before another.

Left, right. Left, right. A jerk on
the chain around her neck brought her to an abrupt stop and she
once more started to take notice of her surroundings.

Helson V. She had heard her captors
talking about the planet during their nighttime meals. Hell’s
Market, they joked. A place where you could buy whatever your heart
desired. At which point, they would normally cast looks in her
direction and laugh raucously.

She didn’t know anything about the
planet. Wasn’t even sure where it was. But she did know the guards
were right on one count--it was indeed hell. She was sick from
eating what her captors considered food, but they forced it down
her throat, knowing that a weak subject would bring a
correspondingly weaker price. They had also thought hygiene a
luxury, though. Except for sparse toilet breaks, when she was
constantly watched by one of the snickering guards, she was given
no chance to bathe or clean herself. They had stripped off the
tatters of clothes she wore, shrouded her in some stinking sheets
that were slippery and cold to the touch, and led her off on the
march to the Market on Helson V.

Once, she had tried to reason with
them, but they were obstinate bordering on incomprehension. They
were poor natives of the planet who had stumbled across the crashed
shuttle and discovered their prize. They were so poor they couldn’t
even afford transport to the famed Market but had to slog it out on
foot, their captive a glittering prize that they kept as hidden as
possible. In her quiet, dark moments, she couldn’t really blame
them.

Coming back to the present, she looked
ahead of her, at the eight steps leading up to what she presumed to
be a stage. She could see figures standing immobile while several
handlers walked around them. The noise was more focused here, money
bids being shouted into the air, ribald comments, and there were no
more doubts--she was going to be sold. Eventually, a bell sounded
and the figures were led off, presumably to a holding pen while the
ownership documents were prepared.

There was a commotion behind her.
“Just her! Just her!” Then sounds of something solid hitting flesh.
One of her captors walked in front of her, yanking at her chain and
she followed him up the steps.

The reality was even worse than her
imaginings. There were hundreds of people in front of
her--humanoid, insectoid, drones--and she started to feel afraid.
Gods, but she even longed for the relative peace of her captivity
against this ... this open ogling.

The auction-master, a thin strappy man
stroking a whip, took his time as he circled her, a feral smile
curving his lips.

“
A golden nymph,” he finally announced to the crowd,
breaking their tension. The language of the galaxy was Cirlian
Formal, maybe even Cirlian Lower on the less-advanced planets. She
mentally described his accent as Cirlian Gutter. It gave her some
small satisfaction, and she straightened her spine. She was not
going to let this
drain-sahmpren
intimidate her.

“
A prize indeed,” he
continued. “A fine addition to one’s spawn-nest. Or even as the
star attraction in a discerning entertainment
establishment.”

There was much jeering at
this.

“
I start the bidding at a
mere ten quatroons.”

She kept her gaze forward and steady,
not looking down into the mass of life forms bidding for her body.
Because that’s all they would be getting--her body. No matter what
they did to her, she would try to retain her dignity … even if she
couldn’t quite remember her mind.

The bidding climbed steadily. Ten,
fifteen, twenty, twenty-three.

The auction-master looked toward the
group of natives who had brought her in, but they swore and shook
their heads.

Gamely, the auction-master turned
again to the crowd.

“
Only twenty-three
quatroons?” he taunted. “For this lovely? Look at those features,
unblemished by illness or disease. All limbs strong and capable of
servicing many forms.” He lifted one arm, brushing the makeshift
sleeve back with his whip.

“
Golden skin,” he declared,
then rubbed at her arm until she flinched. “And natural too. Surely
that’s worth a few extra quatroons? She will be the envy of every
party you give.”

“
Twenty-seven.”

The bid had time to hang in the air,
uncontested. With disgust, one of her native captors strode on
stage and, with one brutal movement, ripped her garment
downwards.

She stood, naked, exposed to the
crowd, hearing the ‘aaah’ of excitement move through them. She
wanted to cover herself, but her wrists were manacled against her
thighs, and she only had a few inches of movement, not even enough
to cover her groin.

The gaze of the crowd moved up her
body, caressing her long, shapely legs and the promise of pleasure
covered by a triangle of copper curls. Grazing the slight mound of
her abdomen and stroking the shadowed skin between a pair of
uptilted, firm breasts, tipped by circles of dusky
brown.

The auction-master had a hurried
conversation with the native before turning again to the
crowd.

“
I have it on impeccable
authority that this female is untouched,” he finally announced. “A
virgin. And, I am forced to admit, a rarity to this humble market.
Surely that is worth a premium?”

“
Fifty quatroons,” another
voice finally declared into the relative silence.

She looked then for the source of the
voice and found a pair of hard obsidian eyes, filled with boredom
and contempt. Even from this distance, there was something about
him that sent a shock through her. It tightened her groin and
hardened her nipples to erect pebbles.

“
Ah, that’s more like it,”
the auction-master crooned, although whether he was referring to
the bid or her physical response was debatable. “Fifty quatroons.
Do I hear a competing bid?”

Other heads had turned at the sound of
the bidder’s dark voice and mutterings began spiraling through the
crowd.

Tangus, she heard from her position at
the top of the dais. Mercenary. Ruthless. Will kill for what he
wants. Dead trader who tried to double-cross. Not worth the
risk.

And it appeared the swirls of
conversation won, because there were no competing bids.

“
Fifty it is,” the
auction-master declared, while the natives hugged themselves with
joy and the bell tone sounded. One of the auction-master’s
assistants appeared at his gesture and walked her off the stage and
down the other set of steps into an open pen, walled off by strands
of sizzling energy.

Still naked, she stood there and
watched as a phalanx of hard-faced men approached. They didn’t need
armor for her to know that these were space-combat veterans. The
lack of expression on their faces said it all.

On cue, they parted, and she saw the
man who had bought her and the body that belonged to that pair of
dark, cold eyes. And, despite her discomfort, she could see it was
a magnificent body. The anonymous gray jacket could not hide the
breadth of his shoulders, and the snug, color-matched pants clung
to the contours of thighs as hard as his expression. As he took the
data pad from the dealer, she noticed large hands and strong,
capable fingers, thought of them running over her body, and the
breath caught in her throat.

He scanned the pad briefly, thinning
his lips in disapproval.

“
What’s your name?” he
barked.

“
My--?”

Name.

If she knew that, she would know the
answers to at least part of the puzzle.

“
Name,” he
repeated.

She shook her head. “I ... I don’t
….”

But he cut her short. “Have you sold
me an imbecile, Rakk?”

The administrator smiled. “Her, ah,
handlers told me she is capable of intelligent
conversation.”

The man she presumed was Tangus
grunted. “Too late to do anything about it now, I suppose,” he
grumbled. “Just as well I didn’t buy her for her
intellect.”

He put his mark on the pad,
authorizing the fund transfer, and threw it back on the table.
Since the moment he bought her, he hadn’t given her more than a
passing glance.

“
Daurent,” he said, and a younger male behind him stiffened
and stepped forward. “Take her back to the
Strike
. Put her
in the chamber next to my quarters. You know what to do. I have a
bit more to do down here, but I’ll be back in two
hours.”

Daurent nodded and took her by the
elbow.

“
And Daurent?” The company
halted. “She stinks. Make sure she’s clean before I see her
next.”

* * * *

At least she was off the planet. That was the good news.
Though whether she was now in the possession of rational beings or
some race of combat brothel-keepers (
was there even such a profession?
) was still beyond her reckoning.

Daurent and his company of five others
led her, still naked, back through the crowds and across to the
launch bays.

They’re treating me like an
animal.

I’m not used to being
treated like this.

The thought entered her mind suddenly, a flash of a murky
past, gone as quickly as it had come. How
was
she used to
being treated? But no other insight emerged.

She was led to one of two shuttles
that had obviously seen better days, its outside scarred and
pitted, the inside bare with metal sheeting for floors and walls
and thinly-upholstered chairs. No, even the most basic of
brothel-keepers could afford better transport than this.