“Open the cage,” she says. “Take hold of me and show me what a very naughty girl I am.”
My hand stills. I know bait when I sense it. She wants the cage opened. She has a plan of some kind in mind. I have no idea what she thinks she is going to do, but my instincts give me some pause.
“What did you do to the guard?”
“What do you think I did to the guard?” She is smirking quite broadly now.
“Nothing. I think you’re a sharp-tongued wench raised to believe she is something special. You will learn with me, Astaria. You are nothing more than what I allow you to be. You will grovel at my feet, you will beg for my mercy, and you will…”
She yawns in a very obvious way. I feel my temper spark, just as she intends it to. The little wench clearly wants out of the cell no matter how much it costs her in physical pain.
“You will not leave that cage until I decide you will leave,” I tell her. “And you will not leave until you are pleasant.”
“That could be a long time.”
“Yes,” I agree with her. “It could.”
I spin on my heel and leave. Speaking with this little human merely gives her what she wants. Opening her cage would make her think that she can manipulate me with words. I feel, as I leave, that I have not come out of this altercation on top. I am the honored xenovork warlord captain of the Dawnhammer, and she is a human wench sitting in a simple cell.
Why does it feel as though she is lodged beneath my skin?
Chapter Two
Astaria
Blackmane has stamped off in a high temper. My previous dreams of interacting with him in a congenial way are fading by the moment. He seems to find me very annoying, which I shouldn’t be surprised by, because almost everybody I have ever known has found me very annoying at best, and completely intolerable at worst.
I am back where I started, unfortunately. At least the annoying banging has stopped now. The entire place no longer reverberates with brutal alien sound. I would get some rest, but the only thing resembling a bed is a plastic sort of bench that I don’t think I could sleep on no matter how tired I got.
At first, being captured was very exciting. Meeting Blackmane was a highlight. Now I am no longer entertained. I am absolutely bored, actually. These bars may be strong enough to keep the dull-witted in, but they have ceased to be an amusement.
Also, and perhaps most importantly: I am hungry.
I go back to the bars and look out.
Of course, I have not been left alone. I am never left alone. Men do not leave women like me alone, even when they are afraid of me, they post themselves around me with ever bigger weapons and they tell themselves they are intimidating me, even as they clutch their silly, oversized guns to their chests. The guns don’t need to be nearly as large as they are, or to have so many ridges and edges. You can make a gun small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, one that fires enough energy to destroy almost any living thing. But they still strap weaponry to their bodies and weigh themselves down, make themselves awkward and clunky and just that fraction too slow, giving up that split second that matters so much in the end, in favor of making a show of how fierce they are.
This is all to say that the first guard has been replaced with a second guard. He is easily within earshot, and within arm’s reach too, really. He has his back to me.
“Bring me food, please.”
“Shut up,” the guard says without turning around. He’s rude. That is unacceptable. I am a princess, and even a captured princess is entitled to respect, not to mention nourishment.
I give him one more chance to comply. That is only fair, after all.
“I’m really rather hungry.”
He ignores me, which is even worse.
Blip!
He dies without ever knowing it. That is a pity. I prefer it when they know they have fucked up. I want them to feel the insufficiency of their lives, all their bulk, all their brawn coming to nothing. He missed out on that.
At least he fell conveniently close to the bars, unlike the first one who lurched forward unpleasantly and took everything useful out of my grasp. I am able to reach out and take the electronic key tag, pressing the green button and freeing myself from this laughable enclosure. I have to wonder at Blackmane’s reasoning. He saw how I was contained by my own father, with so many security measures it was regarded as impossible for so much as a space flea to get to me, and he thought a cell would keep me in any longer than it took for my stomach to start growling? Ridiculous.