The convoy drove through the rest of the day and into the night. Countless miles disappeared beneath the wheels of the big-rig slave hauler. Rebecca traveled the whole way hanging from the prow at the front, alongside Katie like lewd hunting trophies. Every bump and hole they went over, and there was nothing but those on the post-apocalyptic roads, sent the thick rubber phallus’ slamming into her over and over again. Even when the road was relatively smooth, the metal poles they were strapped too sent the powerful vibrations of the engine running straight up into their bodies through the plugs.

As uncomfortable as it was, she couldn’t ignore the relentless sensation of being penetrated again and again. During the journey, Rebecca found herself pushed to the edge of orgasm again and again, sometimes denied it for a time by a relatively smooth patch of road and other times sent crashing over the edge by a few more good bumps. It was maddening. From the load moans mixed in with her yelps of fright, Katie was finding it just as maddening.

During the day, Rebecca had noticed, when she was able to drag her attention away from the sensations going on between her legs, the convoy was heading towards a mountain range, at first just a border along the edge of the horizon. By nightfall, they had reached the foothills of those mountains and were driving up a narrow valley. The change in the road conditions, and its effects on the plugs thrusting into her kept most of Rebecca’s attention, so it came as a shock to her when she suddenly looked up and saw the truck was about to run headlong into a cliff…

“Mmmppphhh!!!” Rebecca and Katie both screamed in fright, then, just seconds before they hit, the painted canvas covering was pulled aside, revealing the entrance to a tunnel. As they entered, the big rig’s lights, which had stayed off even through once night fell, now switched on. The two captives could see they were driving into what had once been a fairly large and sprawling mining complex. They tunnel they were in was easily big enough to accommodate the big rig, with several feet of space free on either side and above.

“That would explain why the Cybersaurs never found this group.” Rebecca thought. It was far enough away from population centers to have not attracted much attention before. The mountain overhead would hinder even their scanning systems and so long as the slavers were careful to keep all the entrances well concealed, there would be nothing to give away its location...except for a helpless, newly captured slave girl with a tracking chip in her butt.

The convoy proceeded, deeper and deeper into the mines. At some point, the lighter raiding vehicles pulled away, while the big rigs continued. Rebecca caught a glimpse of side galleries and tunnels where raiders were busy at work, stripping the wrecks of some vehicles and outfitting others for their next raid. In another, cheery raiders were busy celebrating their successes, tended by a large number of naked slave girls. At another point, she saw chain gangs of dirty slaves, toiling under the lash of the raiders, hacking at the tunnel walls with crude hand tools, slowly expanding their captor’s base of operations.

Eventually, the slave haulers pulled into one of these expanded caves. It was obvious this was an area meant for storing their new catches, till they were to be sold or put to use by their captors. The small dark space was filled with cages, of every variety and size, from pens fashioned from scavenged chain-link fences, to crude contraptions rigged up from wood and scrap metal and what appeared to be sets of bars ripped from old jails, lockers taken from abandoned schools, even small dog kennels just barely large enough to accommodate a single captive girl, curled up in a ball.  

Many of the cages were occupied already, holding anywhere from a one to a dozen glum looking captives. The raiders had been hard at work. The ill-fated tribe Rebecca had met was only the latest survivor group to fall prey to their insatiable hunger for slaves. Most of the captives were bound and gagged in some way. A few were still clothed, a few stripped completely naked, while most made do with whatever rags they’d managed to keep thus far. Near as she could tell, all of them were female. Rebecca wondered if there was another cave somewhere holding a similar collection of male captives or if the raiders preferred enslaving women exclusively.

One other, peculiar feature of the room, that caught Rebecca’s attention, was a large hole in the floor, a short distance from the cages. It was roundish, about six feet across and covered by a metal grating. She might have thought it accidental, the result of the floor collapsing down into a lower tunnel or chamber as a result of their crude mining, except that the slavers had built beside it a crude tower of scrap wood and beside it a large, spoke wheel, wrapped in thick metal cable, which ran up to the tower and then down, through the divide in the center of the grating, into whatever lay below.

As soon as the slave haulers had stopped, the ramps at the back were lowered and raiders stormed up into the trailer cages, herding their frightened human cargo down and out, where more slavers were waiting. The frightened women were split up and locked in the cages, according to whatever arbitrary plan their captors had. Mothers clung to daughters, sisters with each other, but the slavers were ruthless in dragging them apart and caging them up with the rest the slaves.

Suspended from the front of the trucks, Rebecca and the other slaves had to wait, squirming anxiously, for their turn to be let down and caged up. Finally, the slavers deigned to end their punishment, climbing up on the truck’s engine block to unstrap the captives from the poles. Rebecca moaned as she was finally slid up off the rubber prongs. It felt strange, not having anything inside her after hours of being repeatedly penetrated. Nearby, Katie squealed, face red, as she was pulled up off her own set of slick phallus’.

Walking slightly bowlegged, they were dragged over to join the rest of the captives in the cages. “Hope you’ve learned your lesson, slaves!” One of the raiders taunted. “If not, we can always put you right back up and take the rig for another spin ‘round the valley.” He laughed as the women moaned into their gags, miserably.

Katie wound up in a pen with the rest of the younger girls of their tribe. Rebecca wound up in one of the smaller kennel cages, by herself. From spending half the day stretched out to being confined, curled up in a ball was an agony in itself, but the position of her cage gave her a good view of things going on.

For the next few hours, things proceeded slowly. A few more raiders trickled in, bringing with them more captives in small groups of two or three, or even individual captives. Rebecca guessed while the main force of slavers had been sent to overrun the tribals’ village, these raiders had been out patrolling the wasteland, looking for the odd scavenger or wandering nomad they could easily snatch and bring back. Like all the rest, they were caged or penned up, waiting for whatever their captors had in mind.

Rebecca spent most of this time dozing. It wasn’t easy, curled up, hands still bound, her ass and pussy still sore from their punishment, but exhausted as she was from it all, she managed to get some sleep, none the less.

Idly, she wondered when or if the Cybersaurs would arrive. She hadn’t been quick enough to activate it before they’d descended into the tunnels and she could only hope the signal was strong enough that some of it would make it through the thick ceiling of rock and dirt above her and be picked up by one of their hunter craft.  

Towards the late afternoon, things began to pick up. The raiders started to bustle with more purpose, though for the moment they left the slaves penned up where they were. Rebecca heard the sound of activity elsewhere in the mines, building bit by bit. Slowly, but growing steadily, a murmuring began to rise from beneath the metal grate. Something big was going on down below.

With no real announcement, or at least they didn’t bother telling the slaves anything, the raiders began. One of the cages nearby was opened and the half dozen or so girls inside were ordered out. Sobbing fearfully, a couple obeyed. The others huddled in the corners of the cage until the raiders reached in and dragged them, sobbing and struggling, out as well. All of them were led over to the grate.

At the same time, another group of raiders had marched in a line of naked slaves as well. Their lack of bonds other than the collars they wore and the sullen, beaten look on their faces said they weren’t fresh captures just brought in from the wastes but had been broken to their bondage by the slavers and put to work. At a command, they took up positions around the wheel and at the tower. It almost seemed unnecessary for one of the raiders to go around, snapping shackles onto their wrists, chaining them in place. None of these girls were likely to resist.

The first group of raiders selected one of the new slaves from their group. The unlucky girl was pulled from the rest. The tattered, dirty dress she’d managed to keep through her capture thus far was roughly torn from her body, leaving her completely naked. A pair of raiders raider came forward, one whose gear and haughty demeanor, above even the rest of the slavers, was clearly a leader of some sort, the other an assistant with a bowl and brush. While two of the slavers held the squirming girl stretched out, the leader quickly inspected her. He spoke something to his assistant and the other slaver began painting a series of numbers and symbols across her belly. Turning her around, he repeated them on her back.

Meanwhile, the slaves at the wheel were ordered into motion. With the crack of a whip, they started to ponderously turn the large wheel, the clanking of the ratchet ringing in the stone cave. The cable was slowly wound up through the tower and onto the drum. Two slavers came forward with hooked bars and lifted up the two sections of the grating, opening the hole beneath.

A moment later, the end of the cable appeared. Suspended from it was a large metal frame. There was a large vertical metal bar, maybe seven feet long. Welded to the top was a ring, to which the cable was attached with a construction hook. Welded to the bottom was a horizontal bar, three or four feet wide. A second bar was fitted just below the top, in such a way it could be adjusted up or down. At either end of these bars were metal cuffs.

As soon as the frame had cleared the hole, the slaves at the tower were put to work. Straining under the lash, they rotated part of the structure, so the arm at the top swung to the side, away from the opening. A raider pulled a lever and the frame lowered again, coming to rest on the stone floor. The slave, stripped and marked, was dragged forward. Her hands and feet were untied and she was forced up against the frame. Her arms and legs were spread wide and locked in place. The top bar was then adjusted, so she was stretched out completely, her young naked body on full display.

As she squirmed and struggled against the unyielding steel, the order was given. The slaves manning the wheels groaned and turned it again, lifting the frame and its frightened occupant up into the air, so the others could turn the crane again, lining her up with the hole below. The lever was pulled, slowly ratcheting the cable back out and letting the heavy frame descend. The girl gave a long whimper of fright, then she vanished from sight.

At that same time, the sounds from below increased, a droning hum that echoed up and filled the dungeon cavern. It was echoed as well by the frightened sobs and moans of the captives as they waited, wondering anxiously what was happening below to the first girl. Then, from below, the noise reached its peak. The slavers at the tower gave the order, cracking their whips and forcing their charges to once more laboriously winch up the heavy frame. After a minute, it reappeared, but empty. The girl that had been locked to it not long ago was nowhere to be seen.

By this time, another of the girls had been selected from the rest, stripped, inspected and painted with similar, though not identical markings. She struggled and fought, but was soon strapped to the frame as well, lifted and lowered down. Again, the noise increased, rising to its peak, after which the frame was once more wheeled up, empty again, ready for the next poor slave to take her place upon it. Steadily, one at a time, all of the girls were lowered down. By the time the empty frame was wheeled up the sixth time, another of the cages had been opened, it’s terrified occupants herded out and the first sobbing girl was already stripped and marked, ready to be dragged over and locked to it.

Watching all this proceed, it was easy for Rebecca to get caught up in the terror of the other captives around her. The whole thing seemed like something out of a horror movie, with sacrificial victims, painted with eldritch runes lowered into the pit to their doom. With the distorting effect of the rock walls echoing it back and forth, it didn’t take much to turn the sounds from below into the terrifying sounds of some monster or beasts, waiting to devour each unfortunate maiden as she was lowered to its waiting maw.

Despite that, by the time the third cage was being emptied of its naked, bound contents, Rebecca thought she understood what was happening. The slavers were being lowered to another chamber, where a crowd waited, to bid on the slaves, one by one. The markings must have been some sort of slavers code, marking lots, setting a price, perhaps signifying certain skills or uses a given slight could be meant for. Once sold, the girls were unlocked and handed over to their new owners while the empty frame was wheeled up ready for the next lot for sale. She had to admit, it was a fairly efficient, if theatrical, way for the slavers to run things.  

Even so, the sheer number of slaves waiting in the cages and pens to be sold meant the auction dragged on, hour after hour. Eventually, though, Rebecca’s turn came. A pair of slavers stomped over to her cage, unlocked it and pulled her out. She groaned as she was hauled to her feet and marched over to the crane, where a frightened Katie, painted already, was being lowered down to the cheering of the crowd. This close, Rebecca thought she could make out, indistinctly, the words of an auctioneer, announcing the next lot for sale.

“Let’s have a look at this one...” The inspector said, stepping over to Rebecca. “Still has her teeth...” he remarked, grabbing the young woman’s head roughly by her chin and raising it up so he could see how she bit down on the bit between her teeth. “Nice pair of udders...” He casually cupped and slapped her breasts as he commented. “Good muscles...” he slapped at her fit, toned arms, belly and thighs, looking for any signs of weakness or injury. “Let’s see her sex...” The two burly raiders holding Rebecca reached down with a hand each and began to part her legs. Rebecca squirmed, but held in their grasp, she could do nothing as their leader reached down and gave her ass and pussy a quick, but thorough inspection. “Good condition, no signs of disease...” Rebecca squealed, thrashing about as he slipped his fingers inside of her sore pussy, feeling it up. “Make a note she’s lively...looks like they had her on the punishment seat during the trip back. She’ll need strict handling until broken.”

After turning Rebecca around so he could check her back and buttocks with more cruel, indifferent handling, the slaver gave his assessment. “Healthy female slave, strong with well developed sexual characteristics, recommended for labor and breeding uses. Will require strict bondage initially.” His assistant nodded, stepping forward with the brush. Rebecca couldn’t help but giggle, squirming as the slaver marks were quickly daubed onto her smooth, pale belly. She was spun around and the same advertisement was painted onto her back as well.

By that time, a loud cheer announced Katie had been sold off and the rattling of chains, accompanied by the crack of the lash and groaning of the slaves as they winched the heavy frame up yet again, told Rebecca it was her turn. As soon as the frame had touched down, her hands and feet were untied. The slavers kept a tight grip on her, not giving her the slightest chance of resistance as she was carried over and pressed against the metal frame. Her hands were raised up and the cuffs snapped shut. Down below, her legs were spread and locked in place as well. Rebecca groaned into her gag as the upper bar was adjusted, stretching her arms and legs out, her back arched, bare chest thrust out.

“Move you lazy slaves!” The overseer at the wheel jeered, cracking his whip. “Come on, you’ve only got...oh about a hundred more slaves to get through.” The girls at the wheel groaned, as they strained at the task. Rebecca rose a foot or two off the floor of the cave and a second group of slaves spun the arm around. She moaned into her gag, the frame swaying back and forth on the end of its cable. Eventually, it steadied, spinning in a slow, lazy circle over the hole. Looking down, Rebecca could see the floor of the chamber below, fifty, sixty feet down. She gulped, fighting off vertigo, hoping the scavenged cable and crudely built tower would hold...at least long enough for her to get through this ordeal.

Nearby, a slaver pulled the lever and with the clanking of the ratchet, the frame started to descend, carrying Rebecca with it. For a few moments, she passed through the thick layer of rock separating the two chambers, then she was through, descending into the lower one. It was a large round space vaulted in the center, with the highest point just where the hole had been dug. The chamber itself was maybe seventy, eighty feet in diameter.

Directly below Rebecca, a smaller pit had had been sunk into the ground. A wall of sheet metal and scavenged lumber enclosed the lip of the pit, a space fifteen or twenty feet across. The spikes around the perimeter said it was designed to keep whatever unfortunate people, or creatures, who found themselves in it, from getting out. The sandy bottom was stained here and there with what looked like bloodstains. Rebecca guessed in between slave auctions, this space pulled double duty as a spot for gladiatorial fights or cruel death sports. Some of the spots looked disturbingly fresh. They may have been holding some today, to warm up the crowd of bidders for the main event.

Around the pit, bleachers and stands had been set up, some literally scavenged from old sporting arenas. They were packed with men, and more then a few women. Most wore the spikes and armor of wasteland raiders, though some looked more like prosperous scavengers, looking to cash in their salvage and get a slave girl or two to keep them happy. A handful even wore old world suits and dresses, affecting the look of wealthy and powerful.

Mixed in with the bidders were countless slaves, mostly female with a few males here and there. They were a wide array of restraints, from rusty manacles and cuffs, to ropes and even full leather harnesses. Some appeared to belong to the slavers, serving their guests food and drinks while they watched and bid. Others were already the property of the bidders, living trophies of their wealth and power.  

“Now, esteemed Masters and Mistresses, our next item up for sale, this lovely specimen!” Down in the center of the pit, an auctioneer called through a salvaged megaphone. His words echoed in the cavern, above the hubbub of the crowd. “Taken earlier today out in the wastelands with a band of tribals, as you can see, she is quite healthy and will sure to make a pleasurable concubine, bed-warmer or breeder. She will also serve nicely should you put her to hard labor, but be warned, she’s a wildling and will need strict handling and restraints until broken in.” Rebecca helplessly demonstrated this, grunting angrily into her gag and struggling against her restraints as the frame descended.

She stopped, still ten or fifteen feet above the bottom of the bit and just level with the highest seats in the bleachers. Hundreds of eyes looked at her from every angle, studying and judging whether she was a piece of merchandise worth investing in. Rebecca’s cheeks flushed with shame and anger. Her struggles caused the frame to sway and turn, letting her be seen from every angle.

“Who will start the bidding?” The auctioneer called. The bids came fast and quick. Rebecca didn’t know whether she should feel dismayed there were that many eager to claim her for their own, or oddly proud that they valued her so highly.

The bids were hard to follow. Such was the state of the post-apocalyptic economy that none of the bids were in anything as convenient as hard currency. Though she posed as a scavenger often enough, Rebecca hadn’t spent enough time in the roving trade camps to pick up the knack for gauging in an instant whether bidding two automatic rifles plus ammunition was worth more or less then two-months supply of MREs looted from an abandoned bunker, or a collection of spare parts scavenged from half a dozen wrecked cars.

One thing it didn’t take long to figure out though, was when the bidding slowed and the auctioneer said “Any further bids? Going once...Going Twice...SOLD! To Brute of Clan Ripper for one working radio, two .45 pistols, plus ammo and 7 gallons of gasoline!” Up in the stands, a burly, scarred figure dressed in in an outfit that seemed to consist mainly of a loin cloth and shoulder pads cut from off-road tired, covered in spike, pumped his hands in the air, his cheer muffled slightly by the metal mask he wore.

With the winning bed, the frame holding Rebecca was lowered the rest of the way into the pit. Waiting with the auctioneer were a couple more slavers. They unlocked the cuffs from her wrists, lowering her down onto the sandy floor. As soon as she was off, the poor slaves manning the wheels must have been put back to work because it swiftly started to rise, to collect the next girl for sale.

Meanwhile, the newly sold Rebecca was prepared to be delivered to her owner. Her arms were quickly twisted behind her back and lashed with a short length of cord. A longer one, tied into a slip noose at the end, was draped over her head and fitted snugly as a leash. One of the slavers took it and started to one side of the pit, where a small tunnel gave access in and out. Rebecca’s choices were to follow or choke. She hurried after him.

Just inside the tunnel was another slave girl, a short, slender thing, with mousy brown hair and a pair of large round spectacles only slightly cracked on one side. She was hunched over a desk, likely looted from a school, chained to it by her collar, marking something down on a square of cardboard. When she finished, she handed it up to one of the slavers who turned to Rebecca. A string had been run through holes in the top, on either end. This was slipped over her head as well. Below, Rebecca guessed, were the details of her sale, marking who had bought her and for what goods. The other slave grunted apologetically to Rebecca as the other captive was dragged past, before getting the next sign ready. Another girl was already descending down into the cavern, to the delight of the crowd.

Rebecca found herself being led through a dark, winding maze of tunnels, some original to the mine, some crudely dug by the slavers, or more accurately their miserable chattel. Here and there, lights were set up to provide some guidance, but more often then not, the captive found herself reliant on the tugging on the rope at her neck, following the slaver who presumably knew the tunnels well enough to navigate them in the semi darkness.

Rebecca did catch glimpses, here and there of other chambers. Some of these seemed to be for the pit as a gladiatorial arena. She saw racks of weapons and armor, bizarre and wild designs meant as much for the spectacle as to be practical fighting implements. In another cave, cages were set up, holding wild animals that had been collected, to be set upon each other or on the hapless gladiators.

Other areas were devoted to the sale of slaves, though. Her immediate destination proved to be one of these. It was a dungeon, much like the one up above, filled with a wide range of makeshift and scavenged cages and pens, but on a smaller scale, intended to hold the newly sold slaves until their owners came to pay for and collect their property. About a dozen glum slaves waited in the cages.

One of these was Katie, alongside a strange, dark skinned girl who must have been taken from another group. Both had signs around their necks marking them as sold. To Rebecca’s surprise, she found herself joining them in their cell. They had all been sold to the same person. It seemed he was buying plenty of girls tonight. In short order, they were joined by four more girls, all young and nubile.

Not long after, their new owner arrived to collect them, followed by two more raiders dressed similar. “You Brute’s bitches now!” He jeered through the bars as their cage was unlocked. “You’re job now is keeping Brute and Brute’s Boys happy!” He nodded over his shoulder at the other raiders who leered at the slave girls. Around Rebecca, the other captives whimpered quietly in fear. Those whimpers turned to squeals as the door was opened and they were dragged out. Each raider taking two girls and tossing them over his shoulder. Rachel grunted indignantly as they hand holding her in place slipped down to her ass, fondling it as she was carried away. The squeals and sobs from the other girls told they were likewise being explored by their new masters.

Not far from the holding area was another large cavern. This one was being used as a parking space, for the different visitors to the slave market. Rebecca and the others were carried to a large 4x4 pickup truck. The bed of the truck was converted into a makeshift cage for the occasion. “Get comfy!” Brute teased as he tossed Rebecca and Katie inside. The other girls followed soon after. Laughing, the raiders piled into the cab. The engine roared and it pulled out of place, following another long, winding tunnel back up to the surface.

“At least this time, I don’t have a pair of prods poking inside me...” Rebecca thought miserably. She and the other girls were attempting to untangle themselves from the pile in which they’d been dumped and sit comfortably in the back of the truck, made difficult by the rough ground they were driving over and the raiders apparent disregard for anything approaching safe driving. Whooping and jeering, they ramped off a collapsed building, hanging in mid air for a few seconds before slamming back down to earth. In the back, the slaves were once more thrown into one another.

“Please don’t let these idiots crash and kill us all...” Rebecca silently prayed. “At least not before...” Just as the truck took another, smaller jump, there was a sudden roaring noise from overhead, a sound that made everyone in the truck, with the exception of Rebecca, scream in terror. Spot lights snapped on, catching the speeding truck in their bright glare. Engine’s roaring, the Cybersaur hunter craft swooped in...

***  

Rebecca dozed, uneasily, in the back of the Cybersaur craft as it flew steadily onward. By now, she guessed, it must be getting close to dawn, if it wasn’t already morning. Not that it was possibly to tell, locked in the dark cargo hold of the advanced aircraft.

From the moment when the craft had first swooped down, the capture of Rebecca and the other girls had been swift and inevitable. As soon as they saw what was above them, Brute and his men had ditched the truck, jumping out without even bothering to slow down. They’d known their only chance of escape had been to hope, not without reason, the Cybersaurs would be more interested in a truckload of young, nubile females then a trio of wasteland raiders. A few stray plasma bolts had chased them off, though from her position, Rebecca hadn’t been able to tell if any of them hit.

As for her and the other girls, the truck  had come to a shuddering halt only seconds later as the Cybersaur craft caught it in a magnetic beam. Caged in the back, still tightly bound and gagged, the young women couldn’t even try and escape. They could only struggle and scream in terror as the craft landed and a trio of the burly reptilians strode over to leer at them hungrily through the bars of the cage.  

Without bothering to undo the crude lock, one of the cybersaurs ripped the door from the rest of the cage. Reaching in with one clawed hand, he seized a small, dark-skinned girl by the opening. She squirmed, screaming into her gag as she was dragged out. The other girls frantically pressed up against the back of the cages, as far from the entrance as they could get, little good it did them. Soon enough, all had been dragged out.

Rebecca had been the third one pulled out. The Cybersaurs treated her no differently then any of the other captives. Maybe they’d been told of the plan by Redclaw, or maybe they didn’t see anything but another nubile female captive for them to take. Once out of the cage, a sharp claw quickly shredded the ropes binding and gagging Rebecca. She didn’t have long to enjoy that brief bit of freedom. A metal collar was snapped around her throat. Her hands were cuffed in front of her. A metal cable joined them to the collar, leaving her only a slightly range of motion.

To keep her cover as another freshly captured girl, Rebecca screamed, adding her wails to those of the girls still in the cage. At least, she did until one the cybersaur wrapped the metal band of a gag across her lower face. The thick rubber plug inside the band forced its way between her lips and once in her mouth began to inflate, growing until it had filled every bit of space in her mouth. Rebecca groaned, having forgotten how she hated that part of Cybersaur bondage in particular. Little of it escaped the crushingly efficient gag.

While the Cybersaur who had shackled and gagged Rebecca turned his attention to the next closest girl, another grabbed Rebecca and dragged her over to the waiting ship. Though she knew quite well it was futile, Rebecca struggled against his grip the entire way. Inside, the two other girls had already been secured in the cargo hold. Rebecca joined them. Her captor pressed her up against the metal wall, squeezed up against one of the others. A second later, her collar was magnetically fixed there, leaving her to struggle, hopelessly, as he left, only to return a second later with the next girl who was secured on the other side, squeezing Rebecca between two other captives.

When all six of them had been unloaded from the truck and secured in the hold, they felt the craft shake around them as it lifted off. Rebecca thought they might head straight for the slave camps to deliver them, but she was proved wrong. She and the other girls squealed in fright, their stomachs turning flips inside them as the craft plunged suddenly out of the sky.

When they didn’t suddenly slam into the ground, it was apparent the dive was intentional, and the reason became apparent when the craft landed. On the deck above them, Rachel heard the heavy treading to cyberlegs as their captors disembarked. For a brief moment, she heard the muffled crackle of automatic weaponry, punctuated by the less frequent, but far deadlier, crack of the cybersaur’s weapons and they knew another group of humans leaving the slave market had been detected and was now being eliminated.

Mere minutes later, the loading ramp for the cargo hold dropped again and another group of stunned and terrified captives were being herded up and inside. Some Rebecca thought she recognized from the cages in the slavers’ dungeon. One or two, she thought she might have seen in the crowd bidding on her and the other captives. There was no difference between them now. All were naked, shackled captives of the Cybersaurs.

Rebecca wondered if this was the only hunter craft combing the area for wastelanders. If not, the slaver’s activities were going to be severely curtailed in the near future. “Serves them right...” She thought.

They stopped once more and took on a third group of captives, then with the hold packed full of scared, sobbing captives, it took off again, heading for one of the Cybersaur slave camps. Rebecca gave a brief shudder, one that wasn’t part of keeping up the helpless captive act. She had hoped she had escaped the camps for good, when she’d made her deal. Now she had arrived back and memories of her first, unpleasant visit came flooding back and she didn’t need to act as much to play the terrified captive.

“Just need to finish my mission quickly...” She thought, “Then I can get out of here for good this time.”

After they had been flying for a few, uneventful hours, the craft began to descend once more, this time in a slow, graceful descent instead of the sudden predatory dives, swooping onto other, unsuspecting victims. It wasn’t until the cargo bay hatch lowered with a loud clank Rebecca realized they had come in for a landing.

Things moved quickly then, in contrast to the preceding hours of monotony. A pair of Cybersaurs stomped up into the cargo bay and began unsticking captives from the walls. The frightened girls were sent stumbling down the ramp with rough shoves.

Outside, it was just as Rebecca remembered from all those years ago and in her nightmares. Directly ahead of the girls as they trudged off the hunter craft that had captured them was the main dungeon. It was a massive structure, a dozen stories tall, made of a burnished silvery metal. A few narrow slits were all the broke it’s stark, sheer outside above, while below a huge set of doors gave entrance. In their fright, it didn’t take much imagination for the girls to see it as the maw of some enormous Cybersaur, waiting to swallow them up. A few, losing their nerve, tried to run, but more then a dozen Cybersaurs loitered around the landing pad and the terrified girls were soon back in line, shuffling closer and closer to the gates.

As soon as the last of the girls were in, the doors automatically slammed shut, thudding into place with grim finality. All of them had to be thinking that, as far as most people knew, no girl had ever managed to escape the place they now found themselves. Rebecca knew better, she’d managed it and it seemed another group had as well. But of course, she wasn’t in a position to share that fact with her fellow captives.

As their eyes adjusted to the awful gloom, they could make out something of the nightmare they’d been brought to. In the center of the dungeon tower, cell blocks ringed the open central shaft. Each level had a score of cells and every other cell, it seemed, had half a dozen or so female captives peering out through the bars. There must have been thousands of slaves held here, and Rebecca knew there were still more, in other parts of the slave complex, toiling to serve the cruel whims of their captors. The relentless hunters had scoured the globe, collecting young women and girls from every part of the globe, seizing them and bringing them here. It boggled the mind…

Then Rebecca found herself startled again. As the group was led past the cages, many of the girls in the cells peered out through the bars, observing the newcomers with looks of pity and sadness. All except one. It was a tall girl, pale skinned, with a strikingly pretty face and piercing green eyes that were directed at Rebecca. It took Rebecca a moment to recall where she’d seen that face before. There’d been so many others in the last few years, survivors, wasteland scavengers, tribals, dozens of girls she’d tricked and betrayed and captured to sell to the Cybersaurs to preserve her own freedom. It wasn’t surprising she’d forgotten one face in particular. But it seemed that face had not forgotten her.

“This isn’t good...” Rebecca thought with a grimace...