“Echo Four-Two-Nine…clear for departure.” EIC-431 spoke in a calm, monotone into her headset. “Charlie 5-3-0, move to holding grid Alpha 2-9-3.” Her light blue eyes flickered over the glowing runes on the screen while her fingers deftly danced across the holographic control board below. Pausing between commands, the young woman reached up with one hand to brush a strand of light blonde hair out of her soft, round face.

Around EIC-431, also designated Erica, the other girls of Dock Control were busy at their own consoles, their communications with the spaceships, tugs and drones arriving and departing Heracles Station combining into a constant humming of business. The other controllers were blonde females, identical to EID-431 in appearance; unsurprising since they were Shiks, artificial humans created by the Kasparov megacorporation, part of a lot created specifically for the efficient running of the deep space mining station. All of them wore the tight, light grey jumpsuit that was the station’s uniform.

At 20:00 hours, station time, the chronometer in Dock Control beeped, cheerily announcing to the Shik’s that their shift was over for the day. With a sigh of relief, the women rose from their consoles, the hum-drum chatter of docking instructions giving way to an excited babble as they discussed plans for the coming downtime.

“Back to the barracks, I guess.” Erica said, with a shrug, falling into step with her friend, EIC-281, also known as Emily. They passed through the hatch out of the Dock Control Center, passing an identical group of Shik’s coming in to take over from them.

“I hear they’re playing a marathon of the “Bog the Barbarian” holovids in the recreation room.” Emily suggested.

Before Erica could reply, a third Shik came hurrying up the hallway towards them. She was a match in looks to the other two, but over her jumpsuit, she had on a partially unzipped vacuum suit, having come off her shift in station maintenance. “Hey girls! Great news!” EIC-352, or Elizabeth said in an excited tone.

“What is-“ Before Erica could finish asking, a datapad was shoved in her face by the other girl.

“Read it!” Liz said, practically dancing in excitement.

“What is it?” Emily finished asking, as Erica’s eyes quickly scanned the document on the screen. It the top was the impressive crest of Heracles Station management, followed by an impressive mass of cramped, winding legal jargon, but it didn’t take long for the young woman to realize what it was, when she noted it had been routed through the Station Habitation Department.

“It’s from Housing.” She told Emily. “They’ve-“

“They’ve approved our request!” Liz interrupted, too excited to wait any longer. “We’ve been assigned a private apartment!”

About two standard deci-cycles ago, though wading through the impenetrable bureaucracy had made it seem more like ten, the three had managed to save enough of their corporate pay for a down payment to put in a request for an apartment on the station in the civilian sector, outside of the Kasparov Corporate Ring. Demand for private housing in the mining colony was high, even many of the natural born workers lived in communal bunkhouses, but eventually, through the coming and going of the station’s population, an apartment had emptied out at roughly the same time their request had come up.

“When can we move in?” Emily asked, a wide grin crossing her face. Living outside the corporate zone would mean they would have much greater access to the amenities on other parts of the station, the biodomes, the commerce ring and, of course, the dockside-ring entertainment districts!

“We’ll have to register the transfer with the company, let them know we’ll be moving out of the barracks…” Erica said, scanning over the message again. “But I think we can move in in two…maybe three standard cycles.”  

Chattering excitedly, the three made their way back to the barracks they shared with about two dozen other Shiks and excitedly told them the news.

“You’re so lucky!” One of them said. “When you move in, you have to throw a housewarming party for all of us!”

“Once we get settled in.” Erica promised.

The next few cycles seemed to drag on and on for the three Shiks, but finally, after an endless work shift, they hurried back to the barracks and packed their belonging. Living in the communal barracks didn’t encourage one to accumulate too much and the three ended up with one or two full duffel bags each. Shouldering them, the three said their goodbyes to the other girls in the barracks and headed out.

At the gates of the compound, the trio had to show their ID cards to the guard on duty, a little redundant since she was from the same series as them and had identical features. A second guard, also an EIC Shik, ran their bags through a multi-scanner, to make sure they weren’t trying to smuggle equipment or secret files out of the compound.

“I’m glad we won’t have to do this every time we want to run out and do a little shopping…” Emily said to the other three as she grabbed her bags as they came out of the scanner.

Turning, the trio started walking to the nearest tram stop. Even though they’d left the company’s section of the station, the other parts of this ring were still dominated by ancillary businesses supporting company operations in one way or another, as well as amenities for the workers. Most of the people they saw walking the corridors and coming in and out of hatches were Shiks, like themselves or from other clone series, wearing company greys.

As they reached the tram stop, however, the crowds began to become more and more diverse. As always, the three were somewhat overwhelmed by the riot of different faces, hair colors and body types, instead of the uniform features of their fellow Shiks. The station’s civilian population also wore a wide variety of outfits, the vac-suits and coveralls of the miners and spacers, the business and casual clothes of the shopkeepers and sellers providing them services. The three felt a little out of place in their plain grey jumpsuits.

“When we get a chance, we’ll have to some new outfits for when we’re off duty.” Erica told the other two as they boarded the tram to the Hab-Ring. They nodded.

Rising on magnetic rails, the tram sped through the tube system, quickly leaving Kasparov’s Corporate ring. Through the Tram’s windows, the passengers could see all of Heracles Station. In the center was the main body of the station, a massive cylinder many hundreds of meters wide and twice that long. In it were the vast machines that powered the station, generated the artificial gravity and maintained the warm, breathable atmosphere.

Circling the main body were the three large rings, each as large as a small city in their own right. The ‘topmost’ ring, pointed away from the gas giant the station orbited, was the docking ring, where the mining ships deposited the raw materials mined from the planet below, along with the other smaller celestial bodies scattered across the system, and where the larger merchant ships docked to pick up the refined ores, gasses and chemicals for transport to distant star systems. The ring also contained the many amenities and ‘entertainment’ suites for the miners and spacers where they could throw away their meagre pay after a hard shift or a long cruise.

Below in the center was the ‘Kasparov ring’, which they had just left. Though the company had built and maintained the entire station, here was their main operations, with refineries and smelters for processing the miner’s daily haul. It was one of the few parts of the station civilians were entirely excluded from, with only those with security clearance from the corporation allowed in, most of them Shiks born into the company they worked for.

Finally, the Tram entered into the Hab-Ring, where most of the station’s population lived and worked. Much of the ring was given over to the housing blocks for the station’s full time population, at least those that didn’t live in the company barracks. Between them were thousands of shops and eateries rented out to private entrepreneurs hoping to make some money providing goods and services to the station. The three Shik’s watched with excitement as the Tram passed through the districts, eyeing the bright, shining signs advertising this shop or that restaurant. Between stops, they kept an eye on the viewscreen showing a map of the system, counting the remaining stops until they reached the one closest to their new apartment.  

The tram dropped them off in the center of one of the market districts. The crowds here were even thicker, pressed close by the makeshift stalls enterprising station dwellers had set up, hawking small trinkets and foodstuffs, filling the air with sweet smells and the babble of commerce in all of the station’s official languages plus a dozen more dialects and conlangs. Against station regulations, true, but the members of station security present seemed to be turning a blind eye. Behind the stalls, the official shops announced their presence with gaudy electric, or even holographic displays designed to catch the attention of everyone who passed by.

They certainly caught the attention of the three Shiks. “Look over at that one!” Liz said, excitedly pointing to one sign for a homeware store. “Let’s go in!”

“Later!” Erica told her. “Let’s at least find our new apartment first, and drop this stuff off before we pick up anything new.” Silently, though, she was also marking storefronts for a future visit.

A quarter of a turn around the station ring, the trio reached the address the memo from Station Habitation had given them. Set between a café and a storefront selling entertainment holos was a plain metal hatchway, almost invisible surrounded by the loud advertisement of the surrounding shops. A white sign over the hatch announced it as “Blue Horizon Efficiency Habs.” When Erica rang the bell, the hatch was opened by a short, dark haired man in a worn blue jacket.

“Yes?” He asked, stroking his scraggily black beard as he looked up at the three Shiks.

“We’re here about the apartment that’s available.” Erica said, showing him the form.

“Oh yes! They told me it had been assigned. Right this way.” The man replied, stepping back to let the three into the cramped entry hall. “I’m Mr. Mortar, the caretaker. I look after the place. If you have any problems, call me. I’ll get to it faster than station maintenance, I can promise you.” He turned and shuffled quickly to a small hatch halfway down the right hand wall of the entry way, emerging a second later, a pair of plastic keycards in his hands.

“Here’s the keys to your apartment.” He said, handing them to Erica. “It’s on level four, second hatch on the left.” He led them to the end of the entryway, where a pair of lifts were. One opened when he pushed the button and he waved the three in. Between them and their bags, there was little room left over. With a lurch, the lift rose, eventually opening on the correct floor. A short hallway opened ahead of them, with hatches to three apartments on either side. As the Shik’s walked down the passage, they passed another apartment which had its hatch cracked open. From inside came a smell of cooking food, thick with strange spices, a couple talking loudly in a foreign tongue over the babble of several children, laughing and crying.

“Well, here it is.” Erica said, stopping in front of the hatch marked “34”. Taking a breath, she slid the keycard into the reader. It beeped, a light flashing green and the hatch slid open. Eyes wide with excitement, they shuffled in. Past the small entryway was the main room of the apartment. It was a space approximately five meters across by ten meters deep. At the far end, a small kitchen-area was separated from the main room by a low counter and beyond that was a hatchway to the apartment’s small refresher suite.

“So much space, for just the three of us!” Emily said, grinning. Dropping their bags by the entrance, they went in an started exploring their new home.

“Look, in the walls, there are panels for stowing away the furniture when it’s not being used!” Erica said, finding the control switch. “We can deploy the bed at night, then during the day switch out a couch for relaxing!”

“The refresher has a private shower stall!” Liz called from the back of the apartment.

“And this kitchen! We can cook anything we want for our meals from now on!” Emily said. “Though there’s no plates or utensils…” She added, checking the drawers. “Or food. We’ll need to get some soon.”

“I saw a place that was selling some while walking here.” Erica told her, remembering the address. “We can run out and get some tonight.”

“And something to decorate this place too.” Liz said, gesturing to the plain, grey walls. “We’re not in the barracks any more, we can decorate it however we want. Maybe hang some art, or even get a plant.” Her eyes went wide. “Or even get a pet! Oh can we?”

“Sure…” Erica promised, and the other Shik danced with joy. “…after we clear all the paperwork with Station Habitation.” She rolled her eyes. She didn’t bother mentioning that getting a permit to have a pet on the station would be just as hard as getting their apartment in the first place had been.

Still, that was a headache for the future. The three excitedly debated what sort of pet they would like to get as they left the apartment and took the lift down to the main concourse level and hurried out to do some shopping.

Down in his office, Mr. Mortar picked up the small, illicit communicator from the hiding place. “Hey. It’s me.” He spoke into the small microphone. “Just had some new tenants move in, you might be very interested in…”

***

“Come on! We’re supposed to be there in two time units.” Erica said, her voice, though raised only slightly, easily reaching every part of the small apartment. She was in the main area, seated on one of the fold-out couches. She kept her back turned to the open kitchen area, where Emily was getting changed.

Even that minor accommodation to privacy had surprised Erica the first time the Shik found herself adopting it without thinking. Back in the barracks, the clones had given thought to disrobing and going around naked around each other. After all, it wasn’t like they couldn’t see the exact same thing with just a mirror, right? She shook her head. Living on their own, even for a couple weeks, had changed the three more then they thought it would.

“Alright. I’m ready.” Emily said, at last. “How do I look?” She asked as Erica turned. She was wearing a light grey turtle-neck dress of synthetic wool, over dark blue leggings, one of the outfits the Shik’s had purchased for off-duty wear, since moving out here. Erica had liked it to, so she wore another dress like it, though hers was a dark green over black.

Emily came over and sat beside Erica as they waited for Liz to finish changing in the refresher. The two glanced around the room. After three weeks, the Shiks had started to leave their personal stamp on the place. The small kitchenette was stocked, mainly with simple, premade meals they could make easily after a long shift at the Company Ring with the limited skills they had after a lifetime of barracks rations. A small ceramic bowl sat on the low counter, filled with fresh fruit they’d bought when a passing freighter had offloaded enough to bring the price in the station’s private markets down somewhat. A green potted fern was placed near the refresher and a few cheap prints hanging on the walls added some color to the otherwise drab room. Erica idly wondered how difficult it would be to get permission to have them repainted…

“About time.” Emily chided gently as the refresher hatch opened and Liz rushed out. “If we don’t hurry, we’ll never make it.”

“Sorry!” Liz apologized. For their evening out she’d gone with a style she’d seen in one of the shops that had come from a place called Airuzu, long ago on Old Aiers. The printed synthcotton fabric was certainly colorful and pretty, but the elaborate folds evidently made putting it on difficult for the uninitiated.    

Together, the three left the apartment, taking the lift down to the main concourse level. They didn’t notice Mr. Mortar poke his head out of his office to watch them as they left.

The restaurant was within walking distance of the apartment complex, though just barely, and as they were running late, the three parted with a couple of credits to hire a man with a hovercar license to take them there. They’d been to the place twice before and it was quickly becoming their favorite spot for a night out. Erica suspected the proprietor, a man named Slim Williams, had to have some sort of “arrangement” with the dock-ring authorities, because he always had real meat and seafood, nothing synthetic, and far cheaper than any station-bound eatery ought to have. Not that she minded, it was delicious, cooked up with his secret blends of spices.

“Hey! Erica! Emily! Elizabeth!” The three were called to the moment they stepped through the open entryway. Turning, they spotted a group of familiar faces seated around a large table.

“Hey! Ellen, Emery, Edith, Elaine!” The trio called in response. Crossing the dining room, they joined the other Shik’s at the table. The friends shared an enjoyable meal, deep in discussion about the latest gossip around the station, the goings on in G-Sector the other day, the new batch of Shiks who were supposed to be arriving on station any cycle now… Of course, more then anything else, they talked about the trio’s living outside the Kasparov ring.

“Commute’s a pain getting to our stations each morning,” Erica told the other Shiks, “But you can’t imagine how nice it is, having your own living space…”

“Tell us about it…” Ellen replied. “The Company is getting even more paranoid about corporate spies and saboteurs. We did some shopping before coming,” she nodded to the bags piled below the table. “I don’t want to think about trying to get all this through the checkpoints. Speaking of which…” She added, turning to her companions. “We’ll have to get going if we’re to catch the last Tram back to the Ring before curfew.” The other shiks grumbled, but agreed. After settling the bill, the two groups parted, the four promising to come and visit again as soon as they could get some time off from their shifts. With more free time before they needed to go to bed, Erica, Emily and Liz walked back to their apartment, pausing at shop windows here and there to see what new things the last supply ships had brought in.

Eventually though, they came back to their apartment. “Lights.” Erica said as she stepped through the open hatch into the dark room. To her surprise, the lights did not come on. “Lights!” She repeated, growing a bit more frustrated when nothing happened. “Must be a malfunction…” She thought, starting to turn. Then, a small, red light appeared in the dark space. It blinked, coming towards her. Before Erica could say anything, she heard a sharp hiss of compressed air. An instant later, the Shik felt a tiny pinprick pierce her chest, just above her right breast. It took the young woman a moment to realize she’d been stuck by a tiny dart. By that time, the knock-out drugs in the dart had started their work. As she slowly crumpled to the floor, she heard two more hisses in rapid succession and Emily and Liz also grunted sharply as they were hit as well. Then, she slipped into unconsciousness…

***  

“Ugh…” Erica groaned. Her thoughts swam in and out of focus as she struggled through the drugged haze she was in. Nothing seemed real, just a long, formless dreamlike state. First, she was sinking into a long, dark pit, that seemed to stretch on forever. Then, invisible hands caught her and lifted her up into the air. For a long time, she was carried through the inky black night before let go again. She twisted and tumbled, feeling the odd sensations of being jerked this way, then that, become completely disoriented. And then, nothing for a long time.

After a while, she began to piece together where she was. After the long drugged stupor, Erica was surprised for find herself lying on the bed, still in their apartment. She could feel someone else, Emily or Liz she couldn’t tell, lying beside her and, from the pressure on the mattress, the other was on the far side of the bed. She was relieved to feel, to hear them breathing close by. That was where the goods parts ended, though.

Erica was rolled onto her belly. Her arms had been drawn behind her back. Her wrists were tied together, palm to palm, some sort of tight, hard plastic cable, that dug into her soft skin. Further down, her feet had been crossed and tied with the same material. They’d been bent back and strands of cable run from the bindings on her wrists and ankles, bending the Shik back into a semi-strict hogtie.

“Mmmppphhh!” Erica tried to speak, but found her words muffled. It took her a moment, through the remaining haze of the drugs, to realize her mouth had been stuffed with a sodden wad of cloth. Another length of torn cloth was tied over her mouth in a tied band, keeping her from spitting the gag out. From the sounds nearby, her two companions had been bound and gagged the same way.

After all that, the fact that the three of them had been stripped completely naked seemed almost overkill. It took Erica a moment to realize the strap of her gag had been torn from her clothes, the wadded mass inside her mouth taken from the same. “Damn…I really liked that dress.” She thought with a whimper of dismay. Her mind whirled, as she struggled to comprehend how the three had wound up in this position, and who had done this to them…

The sound of footsteps nearby told Erica she could answer the second question, at least. Twisting her head, she turned towards the sound of the approaching figure. As the intruder came into view, Erica’s face turned pale. The figure was clad from head to toe in body armor, grey-white armor plates over a black bodysuit, completely obscuring the other female’s identity.

But Erica didn’t need to see her captor’s face to realize who she was, and why she and the other Shik’s had been drugged and tied up. The infamous checkerboard pattern on the armor’s helmet and shoulder pads identified the wearer as a member of the pirate group Sons of Achastia! Erica whimpered quietly. The corsair group was known across the frontier region for their raids on ships and settlements and for the infamous slave market they ran for selling the captured artificial humanoids that fell into their cruel hands.

As Erica squirmed on the bed, trying to vain to find some way to loose her bonds, the hatch opened and a second corsair came into the room. In a low, electronic voice, the two pirates spoke.

"Hey. Look out for their uniforms." The first woman ordered.

"Why?"

"Sometimes customers prefer them to be in their uniforms. So look out! Some aFra garter and stockings, kasparov shik grey suit, Delmen blues... anything!”  

"Yes ma'am!" As the pirates began to tear through the apartment, searching, Erica continued her helpless struggling. Emily and Liz joined her, the three exchanging looks of hopelessness. Though they had worked for Kasparov, the three were continued free citizens, not property. But to the Sons of Achastia, Shiks were as much property as any other factory produced merchandise, to be bought and sold by anyone with the credits to pay.

After a moment, the pirates found a couple of the trio’s work jumpsuits. “Alright. Let’s get these three ready to move out…” The pirate left the room and reappeared, pulling a cart. On it was a large, collapsible storage container, identical to the many thousands in use around the station for moving and storing goods. She began to assemble it. No one would give the package a second glance, would never guess it had three helpless, frightened captives inside, being taken away to be sold off world.

When the container was assembled, the pirates walked over to the bed. Erica screamed into her gag as she was picked up by the two. She squirmed, struggling in their grip as she was lifted it. It didn’t do any good, but she was determined not to be taken into slavery without putting up some sort of struggle.

“Feisty one…” one of the pirates remarked.

“Can’t have them causing a ruckus while we wheel them out. Give her a double dose of the tranqs.” Her superior ordered. The other pirate obeyed, grabbing something from her belt. A moment later, Erica heard the hiss of the dart gun again and felt its prick against her backside. “Drug the other two before they’re loaded as well…” As Erica was lowered into the padded confines of the container, she slipped once more into unconsciousness…  

***

When Erica next came to, she was lying on her side on a cold metal deck. The plastic cable ties on her hands and feet had been replaced with a pair of steel binders around her wrists and a second pair of fetters around her feet. The makeshift cloth gag had been replaced with leather strap holding a panel across the lower half of her face. On the inside, a plug made of hard rubber projected between her lips, filling her mouth and muffling her quiet groans with the same brutal efficiency her earlier muzzle had. The final part of her bondage was a steel ring, encircling her throat, not tight enough to choke the young woman, but close enough she couldn’t ignore its constant presence. On one side of the collar, two metal prongs poked into the side of her neck. She shivered at the implicit warning they gave.

Still disoriented from the second dose of the knockout drugs, it took Erica a second to realize the floor beneath her was vibrating, humming quietly with the telltale throb of a powerful engine operating somewhere close by. For a moment, she wondered where on they station they might have been taken, before the awful truth dawned on her.

“We’re not on the station anymore.” She realized with a whimper of terror. She was lying on the deck of a space craft, one out in open space and underway. With a groan, the Shik struggled to sit up. Sure enough, as she opened her eyes and looked around, she found herself in what was, unmistakably, the main bay of a small cargo shuttle, thousands of which docked at Heracles Station on any given cycle, but this was had been modified by the pirates for its more sinister purpose.

Along either side of the bay, the pirates had welded metal bars, running vertically from the deck to the top of the cargo bay, forming two large cages. Barred cage doors, obviously locked, allowed access to the cages. Erica lay on the floor of the starboard cage. Beside her, Emily and Liz lay, still unconscious. Like Erica, their earlier restraints had been swapped for the more secure metal binders and shock collars. After a few moments, they started to come to, whimpering in fright as they took stock of their situation and came to the same awful realization Erica had. The three Shik’s exchanged worried glances as they wondered what was going to happen to them.

Opposite the three and their cage, the port-side cage held a single female, occupant. Like the Shik’s, she was nude, apart from the binders on her hands and feet, and the collar around her throat. She was of average height and of light build, and had dark brown skin and shoulder length black hair. Erica didn’t recognize what clone series she came from. She briefly wondered if the other woman was a Shik, though if she wasn’t, why had the pirates taken her?

Like the three Shik’s, the other woman had been drugged before being taken onboard and was still unconscious. Evidently their kidnappers had used a stronger dose on her, or her series did not have the same resistance to toxins and drugs they did. Half a cycle after the three had woken, she came to with a groan. As she rolled over, struggling to sit up, not easy with the shackles and the after effects of the drugs, Erica saw she had the same thick panel gag they wore. Above, her eyes were wide with fear at finding herself caged onboard a pirate shuttle. It took her a moment before she noticed the other three in the cage across from her.

The three tried their best to call out to their fellow captive, but the heavy gags frustrated every attempt at communication. For the next few minutes, the four women grunted and groaned, unintelligibly, at each other across the otherwise empty cargo bay, feeling rather foolish. They only thing the accomplished was to let their captors know they had woken.

The pirates must have had some sort of monitoring system set up in the bay to keep an eye on their living cargo. Not long after the four had started their gag-muffled conversation, a hatch at the front of the bay opened up and one of the pirates stepped through. She was still dressed in her combat armor, though she’d removed her helmet, revealing dark hair, pulled back and a sharp face showing an annoyed scowl. In her hand was the dart pistol she’d used to knock the three of them out.

Erica trembled, not wanting to be darted into unconsciousness for a third time in one day, though she realized she had no idea how long it had been since the three had come home to their apartment and the waiting pirates. Fortunately, after a quick survey of the cages, the pirate evidently decided the captives posed no risk of escaping. After a gesture to the four women that they were being watched and should keep still and not cause trouble, she turned and stepped back through the hatch to the bridge of the shuttle.

With a sigh, Erica crawled back and slumped against the bulkhead that formed the back of their cage. She wanted, more then anything, to shut her eyes and try to pretend she was back on the station, that everything was still fine. Intellectually, she knew, she should be trying to figure out a way to escape, to get out of these binders, free her sisters and somehow find a way to turn to the tables on the pirates and take the shuttle back to Heracles station. But the truth was, Erica had no idea how to do that. She wasn’t a soldier- or infiltrator-class Shik, she and the others were just civilian-class. She knew, there was nothing they could do, but wait and see what happened to them next and hope it would not be as bad as they feared…

Instead, Erica wondered what was happening back at Heracles station. Had their disappearance been noted yet? Surely, by now, someone would have noticed they missed their next shift. Would they realize the significance of that, or would they simply assume the three had come down with something? Would they miss two, three or more shifts before the higher up’s in the company investigated? Three, experienced Shik’s were a valuable commodity to the company to warrant an attempt at recovery, but the longer it took before their abduction was discovered, the less chance they had of being rescued. Every hour brought the shuttle further and further away from the station and increased the area of space that would have to be searched.

After several hours since they had awoken onboard the shuttle, the Shik’s felt their prison lurch, suddenly. The licks flickered and they felt weightless a brief moment. The shuttle had come out of FTL, the inertial dampeners drawing power away from other subsystems to keep the sudden deceleration to sublight speeds from turning all the occupants into a messy red smear on the forward bulkheads.

Not long after, the shuttle lurched again as it was caught in the gravity beam of a larger ship or station. It was slowly maneuvered into a docking cradle. At the back of the cargo bay, they could hear the clank of the airlock hatch of an umbilical being fitted into place.

At the same time, the hatch at the front of the bay opened and the two pirates stepped through. Erica saw both had their helmets on again and had their rifles slung casually over one shoulder. They split up, each going to one of the cage doors. An electronic key token was held up to the lock, with a click, the bolt slid back and the door popped open. The pirate stepped through, motioning for the three Shik’s to get up. Glumly, the women struggled to rise, eyeing their captor warily. The blank faceplate, half white, half painted with the checkerboard sigil of the Sons of Achastia, showed nothing of what their kidnapper was thinking as she stood over them.

When Erica had managed to get to her feet, not easy with her hands and feet tightly shackled, the pirate stepped forward, raising a remote. The Shik tensed as she pressed a button, but the collar didn’t shock her. Instead, there was a soft ‘click’ and the lock of her gag detached. Emily and Liz’s gags did the same thing.

“No talking.” The pirate ordered, sharply. As much as Erica wanted to talk to her sisters, to share her fears and try and comfort theirs, fear of the shock collar kept her silent, save a groan of relief as the thick rubber plug in her mouth was removed, allowing her to relax her jaw for the first time in hours. Meanwhile, the shackles on their hands and feet were removed with another press of a button.

“Put these on.” The pirate said, grabbing something from a bin nearby. It proved to be the three Shik’s work bodysuits, taken from their apartment when the three had been abducted. Erica took the three, finding her own, and handing Liz and Emily’s theirs. It hardly mattered, as the suits were as identical as the three clones, but Erica never felt right wearing someone else’s suit.

When they had dressed, the pirate picked up the shackles and ordered the three to turn, putting their hands behind their backs. After locking the cuffs on, the pirate grabbed Erica and turned her around. As she did, she reached up and pushed a small button on the front of her collar. A small, metal ring popped out of a slot in the front of the metal ring. The pirate took the ring and pulled. It drew with it a long, thin, flexible metal cable behind it. When she had enough length, the pirate pressed the button again, locking the cable in place.

Doing the same thing to the other two captives, the pirate turned. “Come.” She ordered, her voice modulated by her helmet’s electronic synthesizer. She stepped brusquely out of the cage, tugging sharply on the cable leads. Exchanging worried glances, the three silently agreed they’d best obey their captors for now. Glumly, they shuffled after her.

Across the cargo bay, the other pirate had opened the other cage. She was currently dragging the other woman out of the cage by her collar’s cable lead. Erica saw she was still naked and still gagged. The captive woman was struggling against her captor’s pull, grunting angrily through her gag. Despite that, the pirate seemed, if anything, amused by her captive’s defiance, playfully yanking on the cable lead, instead of simply activating the shock collar.  

The woman’s resistance confused Erica, though the Shik couldn’t quite say why. Neither she, nor her sisters were entirely aware of the careful engineering that had gone into their base genetic code, or the subtle conditioning during their formative years, which had resulted in obedient workers for the company. As much as she might want to, Erica couldn’t quite bring herself to fight against the pirate’s order to follow her, as much as she could ignore an instruction given by the Corporation that cloned her.

Before they could see what happened to her next, the three Shik’s were led across the cargo bay towards the airlock. It slid open, revealing a metal corridor connecting the shuttle to the larger ship, or station, they had docked at.

At the far side of the umbilical, waiting on the other side of the airlock, were three more pirates. Two were in the standard checkerboard-marked armor, while the third was in a severely cut, stylish black business dress. From the way she held herself, and how the armored pirates seemed to defer to her, Erica guessed the woman was an officer or some high ranking member of the pirate’s organization She nodded, eyeing the three captives as they shuffled through the hatch. “And the…’other target’?” She asked.

The pirate holding Erica’s leash nodded her head back towards the shuttle. “Still coming. She doesn’t seem too eager to get to market, for whatever reason…” Even through the helmet’s vocalizer, the pirate’s sarcastic tone was evident.

“Alright. Well, take these three to module twelve. We’ve got an auction going on now, if you hurry, we can slip these three in.” The woman said, stepping aside. With a tug on their leads, the three Shik’s were led onto the station.

The captives were led through what had to be a couple miles of corridors, which twisted and turned, passing through a dozen or more bulkheads and airlocks that suggested this station was less a unified whole, like Heracles or any other major Corp station, but had grown organically as the operations here expanded, smaller stations and derelict ships joined together in an unwieldy mass of corridors and bays. They passed plenty of hatches, some closed, or even sealed shut, with notices like “Warning: Unstable, Do Not Enter” or “No Atmosphere-Do Not Open.”

Others were open, letting Erica and the other Shik’s peer through in the brief moments before they were dragged onward. Many were the usual storerooms, machine shops and Spartan barracks they were familiar with, but others betrayed the station’s sinister purpose. Through one hatch, Erica caught a glimpse of a large cargo bay, filled with small cages, stacked two or three high and a dozen rows deep. Most were empty, but the young woman caught a glimpse of a few, unfortunate occupants, curled up in one cage or another, before a tug on her collar forced the captive to keep walking.

“Here we are, girls.” The pirate leading them said, her chipper voice in stark contrast to the dread the three were feeling. They had come to a large hatchway, flanked by two more armored pirates and another officer in a black suit. Through the open hatch, Erica caught a glimpse of a stage, with a trio of Shik’s in Kasparov-grey bodysuits standing in front of a crowd, heads bowed low in sadness as they were bid on. Beyond, more buyers thronged, heading for other auctions and markets, filling the air with their excited chatter. It almost reminded Erica of the market-rings back on Heracles, the eager calls of the sellers, the murmuring of the crowd in its many languages. It boggled the young woman’s mind that the main merchandise for sale were abducted Shiks, including her and her sisters.

Meanwhile, the pirate who had brought them quickly discussed things over with the three at the hatch, explaining the captives were for the auction. The leader nodded. “When this lot is finished, you can send them on in.” They waited at the hatch for a quarter of a cycle. Then, there was a loud cry from the auctioneer and a cheer from the crowd. Erica guessed the Shik’s up for sale had been sold. She trembled in fear as she was pushed towards the hatch by one of the pirates. In a few seconds, she was going to be led onto the stage and sold. Stumbling up the stairs, the three walked out onto the auction block…