Terra Stone: Mistaken Identity Chapter 4

 

Terra Stone

Mistaken Identity

Chapter 4

 

Office of Lord Quinan

Quintan Slave House, Sutter’s World

 

          Mester had worked for Lord Quintan long enough to know when to just stand back and keep his mouth shut. The large man was usually very calm and cool. However, when something caused him to lose his temper, it was best to stay out of the line of fire until the wave of rage subsided or passed. Cyrus and Tabor having abducted and used a Union officer to fulfill their slave shipment was the sort of thing to send the Lord Slaver through the overhead. To be sure this was not the first time that someone from the Union forces had been delivered as a slave to this house and market. But the subtle difference being that those individuals had been captured and enslaved in the process of hostile raids or piracy. Those slaves may have changed owners several times before reaching this market. But this was a beast of a different color. They had not been directly involved in the enslavement of Union personnel. But now thanks to those too fools, this could blow up in their faces. The Union had never approved of the practice of slavery but had turned a blind eye to it as it was a way of life on many of the worlds that formed the Union. And to ensure that eye stayed blind it was the policy that Union personnel were hands off.

          ‘Alright,” finally calming down Quintan moved to the chair behind his massive desk. To the right and left of his chair were chains that ran from steel plates bolted to the floor to steel slave collar that awaited a neck to be locked about. At any given time, a naked female would be secured in those collars, if she wasn’t already a slave she likely soon would be. “What is the damage control on this? What has the Union’s Diplomatic Delegation demanded concerning their missing officer that is in My slave pens awaiting sale?”

          “Surprisingly, my Lord. Nothing. They have made no formal requests or demands for this missing officer. However, we have spotted several of their people attempting to be covert. They have the auction house, the docks, and here all under surveillance”

          “Watching to see if we move her.” It was a statement rather than a question as Quintan spoke aloud. “Could this slave be more valuable than they want us to know?”

          “That seems very probably, my Lord.” Mester consulted his data pad. “The name she gave when she was processed into the pens was Natasha Carter, Ensign assigned to the public information office for the Diplomatic mission to Romata III. But if that were the case, why not just send someone here demanding we turn her over them or offering to buy her back.?”

          “Exactly, I think that there is more to this slave than we know.” Taking the data pad from his assistant and looking at the image and information for slave 9876309. “Her body and looks alone makes her worth more then the slut who’s place she took. But something tells me that she is worth much, much more. The question is why and who will be willing to meet the price I set for the opening bids to own her.”

          “So, we are keeping her for sale?” Mester questioned. “What about the licenses and papers that don’t match?”

          “Adjust the slave papers for slave number 9876309 to the slave who is currently in our control. I want her moved to one of the special cells by herself. If any inquire why she is there, its because we have a special order to be filled. I want  only the most senior and trusted handlers and slave trainers are allowed to be around her. And find me those two idiots that caused this mess.”

          “Yes, m’Lord. Tabor is likely long gone. But I think I might know where Cyrus can be found.” Mester smiled. “His ex is a slave at one of the brothels near the docking hangers.”

          “His ex is a slave there?” Quintan’s eye lifted question with interest.

 

          “Yes, m’Lord. He found out that she had been with someone else and planning to empty their accounts and leave with the other man. The other man vanished, and Cyrus sold her as a slave to the brothel. He loves to go down there and make her pleasure him in ways she wouldn’t before.” Mester laughed.

          Quintan could only laugh shaking his head at that. Then leaning back as Mester departed the office. He could not help but wonder who this slave was down in his pens.

 

Slave pens of the House of Quintan

 

          Terra sat with her back against the back of the pen that held her and a dozen other slaves. She didn’t want to admit it, but she was scared. In the past she had been captured several times and taken prisoner, even flirted with being sold as a slave during a couple of these times. But this was different, this was not undercover, this was not knowing that help was coming to save her. This was a very real slave collar locked about her throat as she was locked in a holding pen with other slaves. And this time she was a slave just like the others in the pen. To everyone here she was just slave 9876309. It didn’t matter that another woman who resembled her was the real slave 9876309, because she had placed in that girls assigned collar and spot on the transfer chain and was here.

          There had been a second when she had heard Mac’s voice before she was taken from the brig that she thought she was rescued. But the gag and hood had been very effective in concealing her identity from him. All he saw was a hooded naked slave being taken to market. Her ego and pride were a little bruised from that. After all, he had seen her naked several times when they were working together in the past. Come to think of it she had been disguised as a slave or about to become one and Mac was her backup to bail her out. A smile formed on her lips as she recalled a couple times that he had seen her off duty like that as well.

          No doubt about it the hood and gag definitely had hidden her identity from him. She wondered if she had not still been feeling the effect of the stun stick if she might have found away to get him to know it was her. Shakung her head in resignation there was no chance of that. If she had tried something like that then Tabor and Cyrus would have used pain sticks on her which would have brought her into compliance and submission. It would have only served to anger her captors and cause her a great deal of pain. Given that they had been in a brig collecting convicted slaves for sale, Mac would have likely only seen it as the last act of defiance of a slave going to her fate.

          Looking up Terra noticed one of the other slaves in the pen staring at her. She was a stocky and brutish woman that had been a freighter captain. Her heavy-handed tactics concerning the crew had her crew on the verge of munity. Only the mandatory penalties for the munity had stopped them. On the other hand, spike her drink, then leaving her to be found passed out naked in a space port dive bar. That was another story, she should not have drunk so much and knows that most pub and bar owners in ports are slavers or supply slavers with warm bodies. So, she woke up in slave chains and her ship and crew broke orbit without her.

          Like Terra herself, she was a new slave and placed in the same pen for marking and basic training in the art of a slave girl. That caused her to wince and reach down to touch the healing brand that had marked her a slave stock. Healing agents had been administered to the brand within a minute of the branding iron kissing her thigh. That was the part of having to look like a slave while undercover she had always dreaded and despised the most. That with all the technological marvels at their disposal, slavers still insisted on the medieval practice of using a hot iron to brand livestock for its psychological effect on the slave.

          Terra had been last on the chain in the branding room and for a moment she thought that she was not going to be marked. The two men stepped into the room. One of the men was thin but solidly built, he carried a data pad with him and was constantly checking it. The other was a stocky man, but fat but big built, from the way the house slaves and staff reacted to his presence, he was Quintan the owner of the house or someone very important. He had looked her over closely where she knelt with the others on a common neck tether. It was her turn, and the handler turned to look at the man who simply nodding and said brand the slave before leaving.

          That was two days ago, someone from the diplomatic contingent should have come for her by now. Or they had and told that they had no woman fitting that description in their facility only licensed slaves. Which would have been a polite way of saying yes, we have her, if you want her then be the highest bidder at her sale. When they had gotten back to the pen, the former captain started throwing her weight around and making the other slaves kneel to her one at a time. She had not expected any more fight from Terra than she had gotten from the others that bowed to her. Terra had not bowed down, she had in fact had grabbed the bigger slave and thrown her about the pen showing her that she was not as bad as she had thought she was. That ended abruptly when several handlers arrived and stuck both slaves with pain sticks until they were curled up on the floor pleading and begging for the pain to stop. Terra had no illusions that she was braver, stronger, or prouder than the other slaves with her. She would plead and beg to stop and for forgiveness.

          It looked like trouble was about to start once more when the grill door to the pen was opened. At first, she thought it was the detail of slaves coming to fill the common troughs with their food and water for the night. At least she thought it was night, it was so easy to lose track of time in the pen and training areas because there was no porthole or windows to the outside where they were. Only it was not the slaves with the food that entered the pen but the thin man with the data pad and four guards.

          “Slave 9876309,” He said and pointed at a place before him at his feet.

          “Yes, Master!” Terra responded as she leaped up from where she was and rushed to kneel down before in the submissive and docile posture that she had been instructed to do, knees widely parted, forehead to the floor and wrists crossed behind her back. She knew that at this point she had no other choice then to comply and obey as the only way she was leaving this place was via the sale block. Something was placed next her collar and it beeped.

          “Yes this is the one,” said the man even though he already had seen and observed her enough to know who she was. “Secure her for transfer.”

          At that point Terra lifted her head from the floor just as a hand gripped her hair and pulled her upright. She opened her mouth to speak only too have the muzzle tube inserted and activated muting her, her hands were pulled behind her and locked in cuffs and a leash snapped on her collar. The last thing she saw was the surprise and wonder on the other slave’s faces, well except for the smug look of the bully bitch she had given a lesson to. With a tug on the leash, she struggled to her feet, stumbling as she blindly went where the led her.

 

Special isolations cells in the Quintan slave house

 

          Terra had no clue where she had been before they came for her. But for some reason they wished her to be completely disoriented. As she was pulled on the leash in a slave hood around the corridors and walkways of the house for what seemed like hours with the way they kept changing directions on her. When she was led through the last doorway, she could feel the narrowness of the corridors replaced by a large open area.  Only after the distinctive sound of a large door being closed was heard was she pressed to her knees on what had felt to her bare feet to be smooth cool marble or something like it.

          Her handlers were a little too free with their hands as they roamed over her body while the cuffs and leash were removed. But as was their intention they were enforcing on her that she was a slave an at their mercy. She felt a hand at her neck and collar, then the clicking of a lock and weight of a chain as its cold links fell between her breasts and down between her parted thighs as well. It was only then that the hood was removed. Blinded by the sudden light Terra had to blink her eyes rapidly several times before she could see.

          Where she was could hold 30 slaves. It was a huge and spacious open area, with thick rugs, pillows, and cushions scatted about. It reminded her of some of the images she had once seen as what had been described as a harem. There was a large tub or pool in the center of the room near where she knelt. But it also had plenty to remind her that it was intended for slaves, as the walls had iron rings mounted on them to secure slaves, as well as there were several small cages that she would have to fold herself to fit in. Then she saw the steel frame that looked much like a bed but nothing but straps to lay on and shackles for wrists at the head and for ankles at the foot. Terra had heard of pleasure racks before but this was the first one she had seen one. And had the feeling at some point she would be wearing these shackles.

          “Your Master is busy at the moment, or he would have been here to give you a proper tour of your home for the time being, slave girl.” The man had said. “I am called Mester, head assistant to Lord Quintan. But you of course will only address Me and the others as Master.” He told her with a sadistic smile as the gag was removed, a bowl was filled with water and another with the foul tasing paste they were given to eat. Once this was done, Mester and the others filed out of the cell, leaving her chained and locked with to contemplate her fate.