Orbital Academy XII

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by MaddiroseX

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"AWA" *Get up, pull myself into consciousness, stop sleeping*


It was the worst possible way to wake up, the buzzing headache
and the forced knowledge that was crammed into the charged word,
but Alex grit her teeth and acted as if it hadn't bothered her.
Over the past few days she had learned to become incredibly good
actress when it came to ignoring the Terrans' forceful way of
speech. She yawned and blinked with a vague smile, as if looking
forward to a free day instead of sitting alone in a stone cell.
It had worked for the old guard, once he realized his charged
words didn't bother her he had stopped using them unnecessarily.
The guard on the other side of the bars was new, and his face
fell at her lack of reaction. His dark purple hair poked out
awkwardly from beneath his helmet to frame the crestfallen face,
and the overall effect made him look young.
"They said you didn't like PO,"  he said disappointedly, as the
word's definition rattled around in her head, *words infused with
might and power*. Very careful not to wince, Alex shrugged and
shook her head.
"It not bug me," she said. That had taken some getting used to as
well, speaking like a child using single-syllable words. Terrans'
language was almost identical to her own for single syllables,
but they used their charged words for anything more complex.
Since they didn't understand multi-syllabic english, and she
couldn't infuse her words, Alex compromised even when it made her
sound like an idiot.


"Hmm," the new guard muttered, watching her suspiciously. He
suddenly started speaking rapidly, firing off a string of charged
up, painful words, "SU, LI, DE, HO, " Alex hadn't taken multiple
words at the same time before, and her hands, still under the
blanket, gripped the sheets. *Manipulative and scheming, my words
unbelievable, he doesn't believe my words or actions, he thinks I
cheat and lie, there's no point in resisting it.* She made
herself smile, even as she struggled to catch her breath. The
sudden meaning faded, but the pounding in her head stayed behind,
as if the charged words had burrowed through her skull to get to
her brain.
"I like you," she grinned, even though it hurt, "what's your
name?"
"Pho," the new guard seemed unsure of how to take his new
charge's attention. Alex mentally filed the name away. She wasn't
yet sure of exactly how the hierarchy worked, but she knew that
those without a charged word for a name were fairly low on the
ranking.
"I like you Pho. You're a fucking asshole bastard and proud of
it."
"What means this, 'fuck king ass hole bast tard'?" Pho asked
quizzically, sounding out the multi-syllabic words as if they
were separate. Alex just shrugged and lay back on her cot, hands
behind her head.


***


Another day with nothing to do passed by slowly, and Alex settled
into her new daily routine. She first folded the homespun blanket
into a neat square which she placed on the cot, using it as a
cushion as she meditated. There hadn't been the time to continue
with her meditation at the Academy, and she found that
re-establishing her childhood habit had a much needed calming and
stabilizing effect on her. She kept up the meditation until the
guards brought her the morning meal. Today it was a wild rice
with chunks of spiced meats and vegetables, a small loaf of
bread, and a large jug of water.
"Why do you give us such luxurious food?" Alex asked as she
wolfed the meal down. Her captor's largess was odd, considering
how sparse her accommodation had otherwise been. Pho seemed
startled that she would talk to him, and shrugged.
"You eat what we have," he shrugged, "no point in two meals being
PO" *prepared, cooked, handcrafted* Alex had taken to the habit
of bracing herself whenever a Terran opened their mouth, and she
didn't flinch.


After she drank enough to quench her thirst, Alex carefully
removed the rough black shirt and pants she had been provided
with, using the remaining water in the jug to clean them. Out of
the corner of her eye she noted the guard, not even attempting to
hide his attention.
"You give all your guards such a show?" He leered. Alex gave him
a blank look and continued washing her clothing, careful to make
no move to cover herself, but also not trying to titillate.
Different guards reacted differently to her routine; some enjoyed
the view and some treated it with disinterest. Either way, her
display wouldn't hurt as long as she made it clear she wasn't
trying to seduce him, and having clean clothes helped her mental
stability as well. She wrung them out and put them back on,
enjoying the feeling of the damp cloth against her skin in the
humid air.


Settling cross-legged on the cot, Alex looked around her cell,
trying to view it with fresh eyes as she had for the past few
days. Three walls were made of tan stone, solid and windowless.
The bars that made up the fourth wall were a dark wood, but Alex
doubted she could break them. If she could splinter the bars the
Terrans would have more than one guard to stand by her cell, even
though she was a small asian girl. *Better to not try, give off
the air of a model prisoner. It's worked for me so far. So,* she
considered, forcing herself to breath deeply as she gazed around,
*The walls would take a weapon to break through. The bars are
better, but the guard needs to be taken care of...still no
solution. Same as yesterday. I'm not escaping from here.* She
sighed, and waited for the guard to arrive to summon her.


He arrived before the second meal was brought.
"She is to be brought to the Prince," the new guard pointed at
Alex with his chin. Pho narrowed his eyes at the guard.
"I wasn't told of this," he said suspiciously.
"The Prince won't want it talked about...er, talked of," Alex
said from her cot, "but new guard, he say the truth. The Prince
wants me to come to him."
Pho seemed begrudgingly satisfied, and he fiddled with the
intricate lock on the cell, stepping aside. Alex kept her head
high as she passed, and pretended not to notice Pho's eyes
travelling up and down her body, taking in the shape that the
damp clothes did nothing to hide. He was probably worthless, but
it didn't hurt to keep his attention in case she needed something
from him at a future date.


***


"Ah, it is good to see you ALE" *Alexandria, beautiful, adorable,
unique.* Alex disliked that the Terran's used a charged word to
refer to her. Although it was an honorific, she couldn't quite
get over the feeling that she was being mentally raped with her
own name. She forced a smile and bowed her head,
"And it is good to see you too, Prince," she replied quietly.
Although his name was Ashahosta, the Prince didn't seem to mind
her calling him by his title. Alex had learned a few days ago
that to attempt a charged name without charging it was akin to an
insult.
"Though it has been but a day, I find I have missed you. Is that
strange?" Ashahosta asked earnestly. This time Alex's smile was
genuine. She wasn't quite used to the Prince yet, but his boyish
naivette amused her. When she and her squaddies had first been
brought to their prison, heads in bags to prevent them from
identifying their surroundings, Alex had spent the time thinking
hard about what her best course of action should be. She knew
that rescue was out of the question; once the satflyer had
crashed she harbored no illusions that the orbital would allow a
rescue mission. Even if they did, Alex also doubted the Academy
had the firepower to mount a decent rescue attempt. Her thoughts
had focused mainly on the squadmates there with her in the
compound, and to that end she began thinking about what she could
do to improve their lot. Perhaps even save their lives.


"Come,  ALE," *Alexandria, special one, exotic exile* "I've just
had some fruits brought in, you must try one." The Prince
gestured across the wide luxurious room to indicate a bowl of
small purple fruits. He moved fluidly despite his size; not fat
but large and muscular and tall. Loose robes trimmed in furs made
him look even bigger than he was, and his long locks of thick
purple hair contributed to the effect of size, as if he had a
mane around his head. Yet, even for all his size, the Prince
struck Alex as small somehow. Young. Unsure of himself, with a
lack of confidence and a nervous disposition. She watched him in
silence as he brought her the fruit, trying to reconcile
Ashahosta's huge stature with the impression she had of him. It
seemed like so long ago now that she'd decided to seduce her
captor, not the mere handful of days in had actually been. She
had been expecting to do whatever depraved and degrading things
that were required to gain his attention, prepared for the risk
that he would simply take what she had to offer and more. It was
a risk she had taken willing for her teammates, and when she had
been taken to her captor Alex thought she was ready for anything
he might be.


She hadn't been ready for just how easy it would be to seduce him
nor, unfortunately, for just how little power the Prince actually
had. Alex had him in bed in the space of a single evening,
gasping and panting over acts that had been frankly tame for her.
It was only afterwards, when Alex had tried wheedling her way
into better accommodations than the bare cells, that the Prince
told her he wasn't in charge of decisions having to do with the
prisoners. While in most areas he had power and control, she had
cuddled up with the wrong man. Some nebulous power over his head,
"the Dukes", had final say over the prisoners. *I suppose I
should feel used,* Alex thought idly, biting into the purple
fruit. It was hard to muster up any anger when she had been
trying to use him in the first place. And it wasn't as if there
were no benefits to their relationship...he might not have been
able to free them or move them, but she knew that the relative
comfort, plentiful food, and the lack of guards harassing them
were things she could thank the Prince for. Alex snapped out of
her reverie to find him watching her closely, and she purposely
let a little of the sweet juice dribble down her chin. His eyes
followed its path down her neck with utter lack of guile, and she
smiled. It also helped that the Prince was so very, very easy to
wind up.


"Do you like its taste?" he asked eagerly.
"It's very sweet, very nice," Alex commented, but she tossed the
sticky fruit to one side where it hit the ground with a small
thud, "but I don't want the fruit, I want you, my prince." The
effect of her words on Ashahosta was immediate and obvious; his
eyes widened, and an incredulous grin crossed his face. Alex
tried not to laugh as she closed the distance between them,
pressing her lips hard against his and wrapping her arms around
his waist. It was an odd balance she walked at times like these.
She kept waiting for the horror of it all to hit her, for her to
be stricken with revulsion and dismay. It hadn't come so far, and
the Prince seemed perfectly content to let her take the control
she needed to keep her calm. Besides, when it came to pure
pleasure and skill, Alex had fucked worse. The Prince was very
eager and appreciative of the smallest things, which was a bit of
a fetish of hers. She kept on kissing as she gently pushed him
backwards, not breaking their contact as they moved towards his
bed.


At the last minute Alex twirled them, so that she landed on her
back on the rich fur-covered bedspread with the Prince on top of
her. He barely seemed to notice, continuing to kiss her all over
her face with a passion. *You would think he hadn't touched a
girl for years,* Alex idly thought, enjoying the attention and
the kisses as they glanced across her forehead and cheeks and
lips, *which is strange considering he did a lot more than touch
me yesterday...* It was flattering, really, and when he began
fumbling with her still-damp shirt she willingly lifted her arms
to let him pull it over her head. She looked down with interest
at his dark purple mane as his kisses moved down to her breasts.
All of the Terrans she had seen had hair of purple, blue, or
green in varying shades, and Alex had wondered over the past few
days if it was simply a custom to dye them. Now that she was this
close she decided it was either a very good dye job, or some
technology she wasn't aware of. She was distracted from her
thoughts when the Prince began tugging at the waist of her pants.
Alex detachedly took stock of her state of arousal. Sometimes the
Prince's hasty ministrations were enough to get her wet, and on
those occasions she was happy to take him, but on this occasion
he just wasn't doing it for her. Luckily it was quite easy to
distract him into another route.


Alex reached a hand down between them smoothly, brushing the
Prince's hands aside and slipping it beneath his furs. The man
froze as her palm slid across the skin of his stomach and then
down into his pants to grasp his firm rod. *So, so easy,* Alex
smiled at the Ashahosta, and felt him stiffen even more at even
that small action. He grunted as she slid the pants off of him,
pausing for a few moments to run hands across his firm ass
appreciatively. Gently stroking his shaft up and down, Alex
slowly shimmied down the bed until he was straddling her stomach.
With a suggestive smile she released him, and instead pressed her
breasts together. Although she wasn't well endowed in that area,
something she blamed firmly on her asian heritage, her boobs were
big enough for what she had in mind. The Prince looked down at
her, still lusty but obviously confused. For an awkward moment
Alex thought she would have to walk him through how to tit-fuck
her, but a sudden smile on the face above told her he had finally
gotten the message.


He pressed his member against her chest, a little tentatively at
first, but Alex wiggled up and down to rub against him, and the
action was apparently enough to motivate. At first it was
uncomfortable as his length rubbed dryly between her breasts, but
on each thrust she leaned forward and flicked a tongue across the
head, and soon her saliva made the motions smooth and slick. The
Prince growled with each motion of his hips, his member sliding
back and forth between her firm boobs, slick with spit and the
trails of precum he was leaving. Alex herself was getting hot
from the obvious pleasure he was getting from her body, leaving
her wet enough that she was she he could be inside of her without
discomfort. His fingers digging into her shoulders told her that
he was close to finishing, and she decided to let him cum first.
Deliberately she looked up at him, met his eyes and whispered,
"I want your cum on me, my prince."
*Too easy,* Alex smiled at the shocked look on the Prince's face
just before he came, shooting a trail of semen across her chin
and lips, down her neck and leaving a sticky mess between her
breasts. She wasn't particularly turned on by cum, but she licked
her lips knowing it would leave the Prince awestruck.


The Prince rose, his limp member flopping awkwardly. Alex leaned
back on her elbows, knowing that they weren't done. Ashahosta
made a complicated gesture towards his cock, and a flash of
purple light shone from his fingertips. Alex watched with
interest as his member grew stiff and straight again, pulsing
with the same faint light. The first time he had done it she had
been startled, but now she simply looked at the process with
curiosity. She didn't have long to look, since as soon as the
Prince grew hard again he moved towards her again predatorily.
Alex smiled slipped her pants off, spreading her naked legs for
him as the Prince barely slowed to climb onto the bed. Her legs
wrapped around him and he speared her without preamble or
foreplay. She gasped as her slit was penetrated by the hard
member that tingled and flared inside of her, too warm but still
strangely comfortable. The feeling of the cock enhanced by purple
light was unnatural, not unpleasant but too strange for her to
orgasm. Ashahosta thrust roughly, looking down at her with the
same lust that had lit his eyes before, barely hanging onto the
pleasure without finishing embarrassingly quickly. Alex closed
her eyes and leaned back, smiling at the ceiling. *It's not bad,
this seduction thing,* she thought. The sensation was different
from normal fucking even though the motions remained the same,
his humping moving the whole bed on each thrust. Numbing feelings
aside she enjoyed the pleasure as he took his fill of her body.


After a while the tingling sensations in her pussy grew a little
uncomfortable, and Alex decided it was time for the Prince to get
off a second time. She opened her eyes and started moving her
hips in small circles, stirring his member inside of her.
"My prince, you've already wasted so much of your cum on me," she
ran hands from her stomach up to squeeze and play with her
breasts. She knew he wouldn't understand words like 'already' or
'wasted', but she was sure her hands smearing his semen across
her breasts and nipples would send the right message, "I want the
rest in my cunt."
The Prince roared as he came inside of her, his fingernails
digging into the skin of her hips where he held her. The tingling
in her slit was making Alex's sex numb, so she couldn't feel his
second load shooting inside of her, but for his sake she
pretended she could, gasping and moaning and continuing to grind
her hips against his. *I may as well give him some material for
his fantasies...* The Prince kept on thrusting even as his arms
shook, and Alex found the sensation of him thrusting as he slowly
grew soft to be strangely endearing.


He pulled away with a gasp, and Alex flopped back with a sigh.
Ashahosta rose to pull a small towel from the table, offering it
to her for her to clean herself with. Alex considered him for a
moment, conflicting emotions warring in her. On the one hand, the
prince was certainly satisfied enough with her, she didn't need
to continue being mischievous...but on the other, she couldn't
resist. He was so innocent and single-minded, and teasing him was
so easy. If the stakes weren't so high she might've called it
fun. She took the towel from Ashahosta and tossed it away.
"I want to feel your cum in my snatch for the rest of the day,"
she said lightly, "I love the feel of it." The Prince looked at
her dumbfounded. Alex was delighted at the reaction, at the
thunderstruck look that melted into a grin of his own.
"Perhaps I can give you some more to feel then," he growled with
a smile.
Out of the corner of her eye Alex noticed his member twitch, and
she wondered if he could perform the same hardening purple light
twice in a row. He was approaching her again, and she braced
herself hopefully for another pounding. Maybe this time she could
ignore the tingling enough to actually finish...


A knock at the door interrupted what Alex was sure would be the
Prince's third go 'round.
"What?" he barked sharply.
"The Dukes are here, Prince ASH" *Ashahosta, second highest,
leader, lord* Alex winced at the unexpected charged word, glad
that her prince was facing the door and didn't see.
"They are?" Ashahosta's entire demeanor changed, his dominant
bearing shrinking back again. He grabbed at a fur on his bed and
used it to hastily wipe the smears of cum off of Alex's chest,
fumbling for her clothing at the same time. Halfway between
amused and befuddled, Alex helped, pulling her clothes on and
shivering at the damp of the cloth.
"They say you are to bring one EX," *exile, forsworn,
race-traitor* "to them at once," the man on the other side
sounded nervous himself. Ashahosta turned to meet Alex's gaze,
almost pleadingly.
"Will you be CO?" he asked. *Helpful, cooperative, willing and
obedient.* She considered the question. Of all of her squaddies,
she was sure she had laid the groundwork the best. Perhaps she
could use her reputation for being 'CO' to gain something from
the mysterious Dukes. At the very least, she had a better chance
than squadmates did.
"Of course I will," she responded with a smile, leaning forward
to kiss the Prince on the forehead. When he smiled, the
expression was so anxious and tense that Alex wondered if she had
made a huge mistake.


***


When the bag was removed from her head, it took Alex a few
moments to re-adjust to the lights. When she did, her stomach
dropped. She had hoped she would be taken to some small and
comfortable room, somewhere private where she could perhaps work
her seduction on someone with actual power. This was as far
removed from those hopes as possible. The room was small, but it
was also ornate and official. In front of her sat a large wooden
table, three austere older men sitting behind it and watching her
with serious expressions. They seemed representative of the three
colors she had seen throughout the Terran's world, one with faded
blue hair, one with mint green, and one with lavender, all
staring at her inscrutably. The table between them was empty,
except for a large silver bowl that shone with multicolored
light. To the right of the table stood what she assumed to be
three princes, Ashahosta among them. On the left a spindly, thin
man with a small stone tablet was watching her with a startling
intensity, as if he was ready to take notes if she so much as
scratched her nose.


"Please take one of the spheres and eat it," the thin man broke
the silence. Alex glanced at the bowl on the table. On closer
inspection, she could see that the source of the light came from
a collection of glowing spheres that filled the bowl. They were
small, and looked like glass with tiny fires trapped within,
fires of green and blue and purple. *If nothing else, they're
consistent with their color schemes,* Alex thought, reaching
forward and selecting one. She chose purple in honor of the man
she had come to think of as 'her' prince, and vaguely wondered if
she was passing or failing a test with her color choice. When no
one said anything at her selection, she popped the sphere in her
mouth and bit down. The sphere crunched and her mouth was full of
grainy powder; it clearly didn't just look like glass, it was
made of glass. Alex spat it out and gazed at the impassive three
across from her. Did they really think she would simply kill
herself as they all calmly watched?


"These spheres are hideously expensive in both time and
manpower," the thin man said calmly, "if you waste any more of
them like that, you will guarantee your execution." With the
threat of death, it took a moment for Alex to process the
significance of what he had just said.
"Did you just say multi-syllable words without charging them?"
She asked. The thin man made a sour face as he responded,
"I am one of the few who has bothered to learn to speak the
tongue without magic. It is quite distasteful, but on those rare
occasions when it is needed, it makes me invaluable. Now please,
the sphere. It will not kill you." *Magic? They think their
technology is magic? What kind of backward creatures are these
Terrans? Did they get their tech from someone else, so they don't
understand how it works?* Alex took another purple sphere, trying
to ignore the gritty crunching as she ground it in her teeth and
swallowed. Instantly she felt a fire burning in her stomach,
along with a vaguely unpleasant pressure. The older man in the
middle nodded as if satisfied, the action sending his tuft of
mint green hair wobbling. The thin spindly man spoke again.


"Exile. You have been brought before the Dukes of the three great
tribes to answer their interrogations. While your safety is not
guaranteed, if you cooperate the fate of you and your companions
will be better than if you do not. As you seem unable to speak
normally, I will be acting as translator between you and the
Dukes using low speech, speaking to you by tongue and to them by
mind."
Alex nodded her understanding. The pressure in her stomach was
uncomfortable. The translator paused for a moment, not taking his
eyes from her, and then spoke again.
"We are informed that your name is Alexandria. Have you ever
attempted to kill one of our number Alexandria?"
Alex opened her mouth to protest, and although she could feel her
lips shaping the word 'no', her voice rang in the small room,
"Yes, when they came for us in the tent I tried to shoot one of
you in the head." She covered her mouth with both hands, eyes
wide, as the pressure and heat instantly dissipated from her
stomach. The translator simply nodded his head and waited,
clearly conversing with the three men behind the table in his
mind.
"Please eat another sphere," he said finally. *This is unfair,*
Alex hesitantly took a blue sphere and slipped it into her mouth,
*I can't lie, can't even spin the truth...what kind of compound
is this?*


"How many of your Exiles' moons now orbit about our planet?" The
translator's voice seemed dry and lifeless, and Alex was reminded
of a ventriloquist's dummy. She focused on the exact wording of
the question. *I've never been exiled anywhere, so I don't
consider myself an exile,* she reasoned, *and since a moon is a
planetary body, technically the orbitals don't count as moons.*
"There are five of them, we refer to them as 'Orbitals'," Alex's
traitorous mouth seemed to move without her permission, and even
as she felt the pressure in her stomach lessen, a knot in it was
growing. *I'm giving away everything...anything they could
possibly ask...I'm helpless...* even as the panicked thought
crossed her mind she kept on talking, against her will, "their
names are Academy, Techrider, Minera, Pivot, and Basura."
The translator carefully made notations on his tablet with a thin
writing instrument, and Alex felt more nervous and helpless than
she had ever felt in her life. *I can only pray that they don't
ask the right questions.* At the translator's indication, she
took another sphere, but this time she held it under her tongue
and pretended to chew and swallow.
"What is the goal of your balls of death and lightening? For what
purpose do they attack?" Alex opened her mouth to answer, but the
translator cut her off sharply, "please swallow the sphere before
answering."


Defeated, Alex swallowed the ball. There was nothing left to do.
A thin sheen of sweat made her skin feel sticky in the too-hot
room, and she could feel the Prince's semen dripping out of her
to dampen her pants. She regretted her decision to make him happy
as she shifted uncomfortably, her mouth running on autopilot.
"The drones find a location where Terrans are situated, then
clears the village out. Pockets of crysium can always be found
just underneath the village, and the miners in Orbital Minera can
harvest the crysium from orbit, as long as there are no Terrans
in the way to interrupt the mining drones and beams. We've also
found that a successful attack against a village will delay the
next Drake attack by a few months." Even through the feelings of
helplessness, Alex could tell her words surprised them. Until
then, the old men sitting across from her hadn't changed their
expression, but their faces now registered surprise. Maybe that
could be capitalized upon.
"Why do you Terrans attack us with monsters?" Alex challenged.
The surprised looks turned to looks of shock and outrage.
"You and yours have attacked and hounded us for far longer than
we have sent Dracori to respond, Exile," the translator spat. He
hadn't paused to mentally consult with the three before
answering, "are we now at fault for defending ourselves against
your blind aggression?" He stopped speaking suddenly, as if he
had been silenced, and as he clearly worked to regain his
composure, Alex pondered his words. It hadn't ever occurred to
her to wonder who had started the war between the Orbitals and
the surface. It was simply something that always had been.


"Do you mean that if we stopped attacking...you would stop
sending invaders and Drakes to attack us?" She asked carefully.
To demonstrate her cooperative nature, she took a sphere and ate
it without being told as she waited for an answer.
"The Dukes know that you do not have the power to stop your
moons' attacks on our people," the translator answered after a
pause, "each of our villages have already attempted peace. It is
you exiles that lust for war, not us. Now," he waited until Alex
swallowed, smiling quite unpleasantly, "in what way might we
destroy the Exiled moons?"
Alex blinked, horror settling in her stomach. She was so shocked
by the question that she couldn't even think of the answer, the
sympathy that had been slowly building for the Terrans
disappearing. *So much for us being the war-lusting ones,* she
thought bitterly.
"I...I don't really know," she admitted, relieved that it was
the truth, "maybe if you could send up five or six Drakes at
once, or if you could get someone already on the inside to
infiltrate and destroy the orbitals' inner workings? Terrans can
certainly hurt our orbitals, but I haven't seen anything you
could do that would bring one down, let alone all of them."


The Dukes seemed very displeased with their answer, and Alex was
glad. She took another sphere and popped it into her mouth
somewhat smugly, which perhaps was a mistake. The duke with
lavender hair barked a question, his dusty voice breaking the
silence for the first time,
"Why do you shift in your seat so ONC?" *shiftily, suspiciously,
as if uncomfortable or hiding something*
*Shit,* Alex blushed as the pressure in her stomach seemed to
force the words through her throat,
"Because I let Prince Ashahosta cum inside me and it's dripping
out now."
Ironically, the dukes seemed far less shocked at this answer,
although the one with lavender hair glanced to his right at
Prince Ashahosta, who was also blushing and looking straight
ahead.
"Did you do this to convince him to free you?" The translator
asked as if only curious, but he indicated the bowl as well. Alex
took one and chewed slowly, her entire face flushed. This was
almost worse than before. She refused to meet anyone's eyes as
she answered.
"I knew I wasn't going to be freed, I just wanted to see my
squadmates and help them be better off however I could," she
answered quietly, "And at first it was just about getting
something from him, but after a few days I..." Alex struggled
hard to stop talking, but whether it was magic or chemicals in
the glass pills, it certainly kept her lips moving, "...I
actually kind of like him. He's kind and sweet. The kind of guy
I'd sleep with even in other circumstances."


The room was quiet for a very long time after that, a mental
conversation occurring that did not involve her. Alex processed
what she had just said as they carried on their silent talking.
It was just as unexpected to her as it must've been to the dukes,
but she knew the spheres forced her to speak the truth, even if
she hadn't wanted to admit the truth to herself. Glancing over at
Ashahosta, she mentally shrugged. Why not? There was nothing
wrong with enjoying the seduction of one's captor. At least, she
didn't think so...
"The Dukes have decided upon your fate," the translator broke the
silence, and Alex stiffened. She could feel her heart pounding in
her chest, and she had no clue what the quiet men across from her
would decree. The translator didn't say another word, but the
door to the room opened and guards entered, clearly silently
directed by the dukes. Gently but firmly they each took her by an
arm, and escorted her out of the room.


The problems of betraying the names of the orbitals or revealing
embarrassing details of her sex life seemed disgustingly trivial
as the guards walked her down the hallways. It was the first time
that Alex had seen her surroundings without a bag over her head,
and she tried to calm the fluttering in her stomach by taking it
all in. The halls were the same sandy stone that her cell had
been made of, but every few feet there were glassless windows
that looked out onto a village. Alex had assumed she was being
kept underground since her cell wasn't lit by sunlight, and she
tried to catch glances outside at each window she passed. The
village was a little smaller than her classes said an average
Terran village ran. She could see glimpses of forest on the
boundary, but the buildings themselves made a large ring that was
clear of plant growth. People milled busily back and forth across
the clearing in the middle, and Alex noted that every single one
had hair of purple, blue or green. *Are they letting me see all
of this because I'm going to die soon?* A small forlorn voice
asked in the back of her head. She wasn't entirely sure how to
answer.


The guards stopped next to a large double door made of a heavy
dark wood. On either side stood two more Terrans, and they
glanced at the three with half-hearted curiosity. Alex's heart
hammered in her chest as the guard on her right knocked on the
door. She contemplated making a break for it, but the Terrans had
proved they were a match for pistols and weaponry; they would
have no problem gunning her down before she reached the end of
the hall. The door swung open slowly, and a familiar voice
flooded Alex's chest with relief.
"God damn Alex, who'd you have to fuck to manage all of this?"
"Preston, you fucking douchebag asshole..." Alex was so
overwhelmed she couldn't even finish the insult, rushing forward
and wrapping him in a bearhug. The other squaddies gathered
around to join as she laughed and cried at the same time, and the
guards closed the door behind them, leaving the squadmates alone.


The room was huge and comfortable, as far from the jail cells as
could be. Each of the squadmates had a small bed covered with
furs, although from the multiple furs piled on one indicated that
Julia and Tess had decided to share. A separate room contained
facilities, including a bath made of a single piece of carved
wood. As soon as she could extract herself from her squadmates
she closed herself in the room and filled a steaming hot bath,
surprised to find running water in the primitive compound. As the
room filled with steam and she lay in the water, Alex finally let
herself relax, shaking with nerves and wondering what the future
would bring for her and the rest of the rookies.