Overhead the last shuttle left orbit, and Maya wasn't on it. She had been prepared for this possibility, but that hasn't kept her from hoping it would have ended up differently. It was all over now.
Other blasts came overhead, and a few loose clumps of snow dislodged from the ceiling of the now empty war room. The Battle of... whatever this frozen hellhole was called, was barely an hour finished now, but all the transports were away. There was no point in fighting anymore. At least, that's what Kel had said. He was the only other person stuck in the room with her now, and he'd been the one that had convinced her not to go down blasting.
"If they capture us, there's still a chance we can escape later," Kel had said. "I'd rather die usefully. Wouldn't you?"
He hadn't won everyone over. A few of the others had grabbed their rifles and had run out to take down as many of the High Order's troopers as they could. But Maya thought of her sister. She thought of her friends, thought of her skills and her training, thought of her experience and its applications for future missions. It sucked, but Kel was right. She owed it to her fellow freedom fighters to stay alive.
"So should we wait for them here or..." She turned and said to him, and he just grunted in response.
Early in her assignment to this cell, someone else in her squad had warned her that Kel wouldn't talk a lot about his past experience. She wished they'd have warned her that he wouldn't talk about a whole lot else either. When he'd snatched the blaster out of her hand and called her a fool, she was pretty sure it was the first words he'd ever said to her. Even when he appeared in her dreams, pinning her down to her bunk and covering her mouth so her squad mates wouldn't hear their grunting, he was silent the whole time.
Like every other room on the planet, it was cold, but not quite as freezing as the surface. Maya was layered in enough clothes to almost hide her womanhood but it also left her sweating through the innermost fabric. She'd kept her bright red hair back into a bun during the battle, but now a few strands had slipped across her forehead. Below the eyes, a band of light blue tattoos crossed her cheeks, the tribal markings of her home. God, it seemed so far away right now. So warm.
When the Higher Order had come to Maya's start system, is was with an open hand and the promise of guidance. They were almost identical to people in many ways, there was even some speculation about a common ancestor.
"Humanity is new to the cosmos," they'd told the human leaders, including her parents, "let us show you the way."
But in truth, they were nothing but hedonistic monsters whose greatest thrills came from using humans as sport or for sexual pleasure. Maya and her sister, like many other young people from the human worlds, had rejected their parents abject submission. Now, she knew time had come to pay for that act in full.
She sat back against the edge of the circular hologram-projecting table at the center of the room. As her hand grazed against it, she wasn't sure if it projected the memories onto her or if it was just nostalgia. She was trained as a Warhound, the experiences of inanimate objects flowed into her mind at times. Now, the board told her of the old commander coordinating the battle. It reached back into strategy sessions. The stolen memories whispered secrets, spoke even of a romantic rendezvous that had taken place here one night. Despite the grim situation, she managed a flash of a grin. Her gift had always been more attuned to those sort of memories.
No one. Of all the experiences today, she hadn't expected to be bored. She looked over to Kel, who leaned against the wall rolling a joint.
"Maybe we should call someon-" she started, and cut off abruptly when the door slid open. A pair of darkly clad soldiers poured in, rifle alternating between Maya and Kel, the other circling around the room looking for other traitors.
"There's no one else here," Maya said, but the trooper kept looking. She mumbled under her breath, "don't mean to tell you how to do your job."
The trooper with the rifle seized her by the strawberry curls, flipped her over, and shoved her chest and cheek against the holographic projection table. In the same motion, he raised the rifle up with one hand to the stirring Kel.
"The Pleasure and The Pain will be here soon," the trooper held her firmly down against the table, his body pressed firmly against hers and leaving her with no question of his desires. "Then we'll have ourselves a good show."
Two more troopers came in, then another two, but none of the six said anything to the two rebels. The most interaction was when one of them grabbed Maya's arms and pulled them together behind her back. She grunted as they roughly bound the wrists and elbows in metallic cord but it was Kel who vocally objected.
"Hey, go easy on her," Kel started to say as he, too, was grabbed by a trooper and similarly fastened. As protective as he'd suddenly gotten to her, his eyes seethed with rage when the arrest caused him to drop the joint and the red crystalline powder spilled across the floor.
"That cost me 200 dollars you fascist, uncultured thug," Kel growled. The trooper sat him up on the table with Maya.
Maya suddenly inhaled sharply. She could feel... them before they even entered the room. All six soldiers spaced around the room at attention as the door slid open again.
Maya heard the distinctive clip of the heels against the the metal floor plates before she noticed anything else about the woman. Her eyes quickly shot to the black heeled boots making the distinctive noise. The boots ran tightly up to the woman's knees, where they covered the lower part of the long white pants that hugged her legs all the way up to her thighs. There was a black belt, but the uniform seemed to be all one piece. As it rose over her chest, the thin fabric left little to the imagination. The frigid air forced two points to jut out from the supple mounds. It wasn't until Maya's eyes rose over the high collar that she even realized the woman wasn't human. There she looked into the gaunt face of a light blue-skinned woman, her bright golden eyes were framed by prominent cheekbones below and a much darker blue bangs above. There was a wholly sweet and innocent look to her face, perhaps one nurtured by the bangs and flowing deep onyx waves of hair around her shoulders that overcompensated for the fiendish eyes and sunken cheeks.
"These are the rebels you captured, Commander?" The blue skinned woman asked softly, not taking her eyes away from Maya. "And there were others?"
"Yes Ma'am," he answered sharply. "They're already being transferred up to The Supremacy, but we thought you might want to... examine these first."
The alien woman stepped with a dancer's grace and deliberate purpose as she crossed over to the prisoners. She took a cursory look at Kel, but mostly fixed her gaze on Maya.
"Fine specimens, Commander," she purred as she brought her face down to Maya's, raising a hand to softly stroke along the other woman's jawline. In a place of infinite cold, the blue woman's hand was a welcome spark of warmth. Maya didn't resist.
"I want this one," she called back to another figure stepping into the room. He was blue skinned with red eyes, like the woman, but massive. He towered over the soldiers and bore those same red eyes and sunken cheeks with an unrepentant brutality. The effect of the cheeks was at least slightly mitigated by a thick white beard, which looked odd to Maya given that the top of the man's head was completely clean shaven and he looked no older than mid-30's. Like Maya, he wore a crisp white uniform, this one with a long purple and gold cloak draped over a shoulder.
This must be The Pain, Maya said to herself. She couldn't actually get a telepathic read off of people, just objects. She had the potential for more, but more training would have meant more time in Higher Order schools, but it didn't take telepathy for her to sense that this was a man who'd contributed to fair number of deaths.
"I'll take the other then, my love," he said, crossing with the same forceful grace over the debris and finding himself beside the other rebel. He looked up and down Kel, who responded in kind with greater disgust.
"What the hell are you people talking ab-" Kel started to protest, but with a nod of the towering man's head the soldiers came over and seized Kel by the arms. He kicked and thrashed as they dragged him over to one of the pillars. He tried to wrest himself free as they unbound him but the soldiers were quickly able to refasten him with his arms over his head. They pinned Kel up against a column, his cuffs quickly attached to a ring around the pillar that kept them held high.
The alien man signaled to the door and one of his personal guard walked in, a similar armor type to the other troopers but with a royal violet plating. He nodded at the trooper and she removed her helmet, revealing silky black hair with a red highlight across several front bangs. The hair cut off sharply at the neckline, a little longer in the front than the back, framing a perfect if generic face and bright green eyes. Maya guessed the woman was in her twenties but showed very little sign of natural aging. She was certainly human though. She reached into her belt and withdrew a black roll, slapping a stretch of thin filament over Kel's lips and silencing his protests.
The alien man stood back with his arms folded.
"Now strip him," he commanded and the trooper obeyed without hesitation. She ripped his shirt open until it hung in limp tatters off his impressive physique. Hair covered most of the taunt skin that wasn't marked by the scars peppering his chest, like a forest growing back after a meteor strike. Kel growled in fury, his eyes darting between the blue man and the trooper, then finally over to Maya.
"Please, don't hurt him!" Maya looked back at the woman who was still examining her body with satisfaction, like a shopper viewing a store item they've already made up their mind to purchase. Maya tugged one last time, but the bonds securing her wrists and elbows held fast. Words would have to do, and Maya struggled for the right ones. She pleaded in desperation with the huge alien man. "Please, Mister Pain, I'll tell you anything you want, please just don't hurt him!"
The woman tossed her head back and let out a high, intoxicating laugh before her gaze fell back down to Maya and the laugh slowly died out. She regained her sweet posture. She reached out a hand and ran cupped it along Maya's cheek in a caress softer than she'd ever felt from any lover. The woman brought her face down to the captive, Maya locking with the woman's eyes. They radiated light like binary red dwarfs and she could feel the heat of them across her cheeks.
