flighty_dreams

TITLE: Spliced - Part 2, Chapter 3
AUTHOR:

flighty_dreams
WARNINGS: NC-17, most definitely. slavefic. scifi setting.
WORD COUNT: 3,749
SUMMARY: Part 2. Six years earlier. A crew. A ship.
NOTES: This is a flashback of sorts. Those looking for answers, may get some. And feedback is godly. Let me know of any typos/errors I missed. I didn't get as much of a chance to go over this chapter, which I just wrote over the weekend.

Chapter Three

Min watched Mikodra shrink away until the capital planet of the AP was just a dot in The Cutter’s wake.

Once he’d escaped, he hadn’t thought fitting in to the ‘real world’ would be that hard. After all, he already knew how to read, and he knew a lot of basic math—even if the higher, abstract stuff evaded his comprehension, he was certainly familiar with as much math as most naturals used. And he knew how to use computers, and how bank accounts worked. Making decisions wasn’t a problem for him either; he’d had to make plenty to plan out the escape. Certainly he had many advantages over most any other cloned former slave that found himself on his own in the world.

But what he didn’t count on was how the escape left him without a rudder. All his life he’d been ordered around, pushed from one thing to another like a hovercar whose AGS was permanently set to On. Even plotting how to run away had been yet another task—it was just one that he’d thrust upon himself. And yes, he’d always resented the commands, but that didn’t mean his sudden freedom hadn’t disoriented him. Even planning it himself, no amount of preparation could make him ready for this.

The skills to physically survive as a free man in society he had, the ones needed for mental or emotional survival were another matter. It was frees’ inborn sense of entitlement that he floundered to imitate convincingly. He’d been watching them all his life, ever the dismissed outsider, as they ran up to strangers, asked each other questions, had arguments, made demands of store clerks, and many other bold social actions. He wished he’d been raised and taught like them, shown that it was okay to be so daring. Oh how he wanted to be as unrestricted as they were, but since his earliest memory he’d been taught that it was forbidden.

He’d taken bold action when it was needed—escaping, for one—but these constant, minor everyday ones defeated him at first. The only way he could pull them off was by heeding Arri’s advice: picture yourself as a vid actor and think of all the frees you’ve seen and how they act. Just keep imitating them, look as if you belong, and one day you will.

Heart heavy, he’d done as she suggested, not getting any more notice than the occasional strange looks. The fact that no one expected an Andorian to be masquerading among them as a free man was a huge help. As uncomfortable as he felt on the inside at the beginning, thinking he couldn’t possibly be convincing, it gradually got easier. She’d been right, damn them all to hell’s embrace. The ever-present guilt would sharpen at the thought, clawing at him. But he’d keep his promises; to betray them was to betray her.

So he played his part, and wore a free man’s skin more easily as time went on, able to interact with less effort. On the inside however, the memories and guilt still plagued him. He suspected neither would ever go away, because he didn’t know what to do about them. His attempts to fix things had failed, and Ten had finally convinced him to give up, to start living his life.

Joining this crew helped immensely. Life on this ship gave him the rudder he’d needed, a purpose to his existence. And fortunately for him, by the time Min joined them his escape was months behind him and he’d already had time to adjust to behaving as a free man.

He’d learned a lot more once on The Cutter too of course. Kate often teased him about how faultlessly polite he was all the time. Any instinctive rudeness he’d started out with had always been ruthlessly punished whenever it showed itself during his training. As a result, even now that he was free to be rude or sarcastic he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it—as if he would still be punished for it. It was hard to overcome a lifetime of conditioning, but he was working on it. Kate was friendly and easy to talk to, and her prodding was getting him gradually accustomed to using sarcasm.

That habit of politeness—as well as many other harshly ingrained lessons like obedience and prostration—infuriated the independent part of him, the part that had never really adjusted to slavery. It was this same piece of himself that enabled him to gradually overcome those trained behaviors and assume this new life. Sadly, he suspected most other bedslave clones would’ve never been able to rise above their training and adapt to freedom. Obedience, and even more importantly, passivity, were just too beaten into newly activated clone slaves during their training.

So he knew he was lucky part of him had been able to resist, he just wished some things had gone differently. Revk, he wished his whole life had gone differently from the beginning. How nice it would’ve been to be born a natural, not a clone! But he was better off hoping a Vitian wouldn’t try to cheat him. Hah.

Glancing away from the window he’d been staring out of, he looked at the passageway behind him. Kate’s ship, his new home.

He still couldn’t believe he’d had sex with her. Early on he’d realized she was interested in him; when your purpose was being used for sex, you quickly caught such things. And being Andorian, it wasn’t shocking news to him. In fact he might’ve been more surprised if she hadn’t been interested at all, since she was a healthy, attractive woman who spent most of her time only with this crew. It wasn’t like she had a lot of opportunities to get it elsewhere.

Revk na’des, he knew how she felt too. He hadn’t had sex since before his escape, and for an Andorian, that was an eternity. He couldn’t remember ever going so long before without it. But despite the discomfort, the fear of anyone seeing or feeling the brand on his back kept his bed empty. It was this factor that stopped him more than any lingering memories of being used badly for sex as a slave. As an Andorian, he generally liked sex, as long as his owner hadn’t been repulsive or overly violent. Hundreds of years of genetic alteration and breeding had seen to that. His training had certainly prepared him to be used that way too, he thought darkly.

But the sex with Kate hadn’t been just about scratching an itch. She genuinely cared about him; he’d realized it one day when they were loading cargo onto the ship and a crate had almost fallen on top of him. Quick reflexes had saved him, enabling him to roll away in time, but he remembered the look of fear on her face when she’d thought he’d been hurt. Her expression then and the memory of her fussing over him had stayed with him. He’d allowed himself to believe, at least a little, that for her this was more than just lust. “Just lust” was what he was familiar with, and from what he knew of it, he didn’t trust it to withstand the ‘you’re a runaway slave?!’ revelation. But if she felt more than that, maybe he could risk giving in to their mutual desire, which he was really tempted to do.

It was prudent to test the waters first though. So one day after dinner he’d steered the conversation—and he was proud to be able to do that now—towards the topic of slavery. He found out that Tyrra was a fairly liberal planet. They weren’t going to abolish slavery planet-wide anytime soon like Festun had done, but there were some parts of Tyrra where slavery wasn’t practiced.

As far as the two Tyrrans on this crew, Acto didn’t personally like the idea of slave ownership. Regarding the subject he said in that clipped rural accent of his, “Man that buys a slave ta work for ‘im is usually either too lazy to do it himself, or gets off on bein’ able to order the slave around. Needin’ help’s fine, but if ya won’t or can’t just hire someone ta do the work, either the work’s illegal or the job or the owner is disgustin’.”

The ex-military man paused here, taking a drink before continuing, “And then there’s all the debtors that end up slaves, bein’ shipped off to wretched mining colonies and the like. It’s a terrible system, and so abused, cause there aren’t enough laws ‘bout fair treatment of slaves in the AP. Especially clones, those poor bastards are treated beneath the debtors. Most of them wouldn’t even know how ta live outside of slavery, cause those labs purposely don’t teach ‘em any better.”

Sighing, he ran a hand through his graying hair. “Sorry fer the rant, but the thought of it all gets me worked up.” Cera put a hand on his back and stroked him comfortingly.

Kate’s thoughts on it weren’t far different. Her eyes faraway she said, “I remember years ago a slave merchant approached my father, asking if he wanted to buy a slave to do the cleaning on his ship. There are plenty of captains that do that of course, but my father never did. The guy was being pretty pushy about it, as most salesmen are, and I’ll never forget what Dad told the man.

“He said, ‘I love having my own ship to travel through space in, to go where I please. That’s what a ship is to me: freedom. To have a slave working on her, most likely miserable and hating being trapped on her, is an affront to my whole concept of what a ship means. So no, I’m not interested, don’t bother asking me again.’

“Then he turned to me, cause I’d been standing nearby and heard the whole thing. ‘Remember that, Katie,’ he said, his voice as serious as it ever got. ‘Our ship may be many things to many people, but she must never be a prison.’” Gaze focusing back on the present, she added, “So The Cutter won’t ever have any, as promised. My family’s never owned any slaves,” Kate told them, pride in her voice.

“Well, they aren’t so popular in our part of Tyrra,” Acto pointed out.

“True,” Cera interjected. “They’re more common on Calnith, where I grew up,” she said, glancing over at her husband. “My family owned a couple slaves, and so did some of our neighbors. I think people are generally more accepting of slavery if they grew up with it around them. Some of my siblings own slaves, but I don’t think I could. Think it’s more from being a shiplifer than anything else. We prize our own freedom so highly, seems contradictory to turn around and own another person.”

Meanwhile, Lefty shrugged. “Doesn’t bother me so much. I guess it depends on if you consider clones people or not. Way I look at it, they were created to serve a purpose. If they aren’t doing that, then why are they here? A slave’s a slave, and that’s that. It’s been this way for a long time. It’s just the way things are. Easy enough to follow the AP laws on this one.”

The two Tyrrans grimaced at this, as did Cera. “Well, Lefty,” Kate said unhappily, “you’re obviously not alone on that one.”

The engineer chuckled. “I think around here I might be.” He turned towards the last member of their crew, who’d been quiet for a while now. “Alex, what about you?”

Burying his uneasiness deep inside, Min let the neutral expression on his face slip away and curved his lips into a smile as he said with perfect honesty, “Sorry Lefty, I’ll have to go with the rest of them on this one.”

The tech let out a sigh at being outnumbered, but let it go. Soon after that the discussion shifted to less controversial topics.

After that conversation, knowing now where Kate stood on slavery issues, it became harder and harder to resist his desire for her. From the beginning he’d been careful not to spend much time alone with her. Even after that dinner he still tried to avoid her—with as much subtlety as possible. He didn’t want to hurt her feelings by being too obvious. And if it was going to happen, he preferred she not discover the brand at all, so his secret would be safe. As he reached the point where he found himself debating whether to find a surgeon to remove the brand on his back, his baser instincts warring with his guilt and loyalty, it finally happened.

She’d said the honest answer instead of the polite lie, and leaned in to kiss him. As easy as that, after only a token protest, he’d found himself willing to risk this life and his freedom. If she turned on him, then she wasn’t the person he thought she was, as trite as that sounded. Those were the types of platitudes his dick had overruled his brain with. Of course if she’d reacted badly he would’ve improvised somehow. He hoped.

But if she had denied him it would’ve shattered something new and fragile inside him. The healing of the scars slavery and guilt had left upon him, a voice inside him whispered. It was the voice of his conscience, which always sounded suspiciously like Arri.

His life of slavery and his guilt haunted him, and the slave brand he kept was part of his penance. It stayed as a reminder of what he’d been, to show the past couldn’t just be erased. He certainly deserved to keep it and deal with whatever complications came his way because of it. Ten had argued for removing it, just as he’d done to his own, but he didn’t understand. To Minril, getting rid of it would be like saying he’d forgotten or moved on, and he couldn’t do either.

Min was disgusted with himself. All his promises to remember, and within months he’d already seriously debated having it removed just so he could have sex! He’d seen plenty of men ruled by their cock, and experienced extreme want himself, but never like this. Maybe it was because before he’d always been resigned to sex being out of his control for the most part, and that restriction didn’t apply anymore. Or perhaps it was the long drought that was making him crazy. Or maybe it was Kate herself, maybe there was something about her that drew him especially to her. It did feel similar yet different to the way he’d been drawn to Arri. But all these excuses didn’t make him feel any less guilty for wanting to remove the brand.

Well, they’d had sex now, and he hadn’t had to make a choice. She had accepted him as he was and even comforted him. He should be happy, and he was, he just wasn’t ecstatic. Maybe it was because things were still so uncertain, like a ship drifting with a dead engine.

They’d still been in bed when they heard the shuttle return with the rest of the crew, and he’d jumped up, grabbing for his clothes. “We’ll talk later,” he’d promised her hastily. Running away he was good at, and she barely had time to say more than his new name before he got away. They would have to talk soon, but he wasn’t prepared for the rest of the crew knowing about them yet. And dreading the questions she would ask him, he hoped to delay the inevitable conversation with Kate as long as possible.

As for the sex though… he’d be ready to repeat that anytime. Knowing that he had a choice, that he could stop if he wanted to and not be punished for it, had been exhilarating. It was amazing how free it made him feel—more than anything else he’d experienced these past months.

Just then he heard footsteps approaching, and Kate appeared down the hall. Noting that he was at the back of the ship above the engine room, he realized he had nowhere to run. It would’ve been too obvious a move anyway, so he stayed where he was.

She walked steadily towards him, a glint in her eyes that he recognized as anger. Revk, she was not happy with him. She glanced around them and made sure the hatch to the engine room below was sealed. Clearly she didn’t want any witnesses and he appreciated her discretion.

“So you’re hiding back here this time,” she said, in the same soft, scary tone a couple of his mistresses had used. Women really were naturally better at subtle terrorism, he thought, swallowing nervously.

“Hiding?” he asked, giving her his best innocent expression. When he was a slave, he would’ve shown a neutral face, but he was getting better at this social interaction stuff.

She crossed her arms in front of her chest, assuming a familiar stance he’d labeled in his head as ‘Angry Kate.’

Her voice steely she said, “You know damn well what I’m talking about.”

Feeling sheepish, he could only nod reluctantly.

Scowling at him she said, “You bolted from me faster than a smash smuggler.”

He flushed, realizing only now how terrible that must have looked. Shifting uncomfortably, the flare of guilt giving him the urge to drop to his knees and beg for forgiveness, he somehow resisted it. But he couldn’t help lowering his eyes and keeping them on the floor as he apologized. “I’m sorry, I panicked. I wasn’t ready to deal with them yet, before we could figure things out ourselves.”

Her right hand reached up to touch his chin. “Hey, look at me,” she said softly. He did, and saw her expression was no longer so angry. “I felt the same way, I didn’t know what to do.” Her lips twisted wryly then. “But you left so fast I wasn’t sure what your intentions were.”

Min frowned at her, confused. “I promised we’d talk later. There wasn’t any time then.”

Her hand dropped, and she turned away from him, looking out the window. “Yeah, I wasn’t really upset then. Just chagrined. Flame all, you bolted fast.” She paused thoughtfully, then added, “But you’ve been avoiding me these past few days. It made me think maybe you just wanted a one time thing, that you’d gotten what you wanted and were done. And the talk you promised was to say that that was it. We’re done.”

Min felt even worse now, and he hadn’t thought that was possible. “No,” he told her firmly, his hands gently grasping her arms to turn her back to face him. “It’s not that at all, believe me.”

“Then what is it?” she asked, her eyes darkened with unhappiness.

Taking a deep breath, he finally admitted, “I’ve been avoiding you because I’m afraid.”

“Afraid?” she repeated, her puzzlement obvious.

He frowned, uneasy about explaining, but he felt he owed it to her. “Afraid of your questions, of what answers you’d demand from me.”

“Hey,” she said, putting a hand on his arm, “I won’t lie, Alex. I am curious about what’s happened to you. But I won’t force you to answer. I’d never do that.”

A sigh of relief escaped him, and he felt some of the weight on his shoulders lift. “Thank you. I just-” he halted a moment, gathering himself together. “I don’t think I’m ready to talk about it yet. Please,” he added, meeting her eyes pleadingly.

She put her arms around his waist, drawing him close. “Shh. It’s fine. I hope you can talk about it one day, but I can wait.”

“Thank you, Kate,” he said earnestly, meaning the words more than he ever had before.

They had a quiet moment there by the back window, and then she slowly released him. He let her go, peering at her curiously.

“So,” she said, her tone light as she met his gaze, “ready for another go at this?”

The tension between them had dissipated, and something impish inside him came crawling to the surface. “Hmm,” he said, putting a hand up to his chin thoughtfully, “I think I need to think about it some more.”

She glared at him playfully, sensing his teasing mood. “I’ll give you something to really think about.”

He grinned widely, completely unthreatened. “Like what?”

“A kick to the crotch.”

Ouch. Those definitely weren’t fun. “Umm no thank you, captain. I’ll pass on that one.”

“Well, it’s either that or a relationship with me. Tough choice, I know,” she told him sardonically.

“I need another minute to think about that one,” he replied, unable to keep his face straight, his lips curving up. He stepped away from her, pacing a few steps back and forth down the hallway for a minute, his hand still stroking his chin and his eyes narrowed in thought. When he heard her sigh loudly behind him, he hid a smile.

Min stopped abruptly, turning on his heels to face her. “Wait, does this involve nakedness?”

Her arms were crossed in front of her again. “I believe it does.”

“And lots of sex?” he asked, keeping his expression blank.

“Yes, definitely,” she said, humor twinkling in her eyes.

“Okay, I’m in!” He grinned, meeting her exasperated gaze, and then stepped towards her.

They kissed, the hunger of the past few days rising to the surface. Revk, he was glad they’d talked, and she wasn’t pressing for answers. Reluctantly she pulled away, a hand reaching up to stroke his dyed hair.

In silent agreement, they began walking down the hallway, holding hands. Halfway down, he made a disgusted sigh and halted, tugging at her hand to stop her too.

She turned her head to look back at him. “What is it?”

“We have to tell the others now, don’t we?” he asked her, suddenly nervous. Another thought occurred to him that made him even more uneasy. “And are you going to tell any of them about-”

She put a finger against his lips, shushing him. “I say we don’t tell them anything. Nothing at all,” she added, making her point clear. Then her expression shifted into a mischievous smile, and she squeezed his hand. “Just let them figure it out for themselves.”

He grinned back at her, pleased. “I like that plan.”

Chapter 4