Cosmic Captain: Chapter 6

The water and blue slop came twice a day. I’d never been particularly muscled or large, but my diet of the gritty, bland stuff that tasted like flavored chemicals was making me leaner than I’d ever been. My hair was starting to grow past my shoulders, but every time my beard began to grow one of the aliens would come into my cell and shave it.

I’d screamed and fought at first when they put their hands on me, and eventually one had pulled out transparent tablet, muttering about how I was feral, and tapped a few buttons. Pain had lanced through my brain, my whole body freezing with paralysis while the spot behind my ear—where that chip was implanted—throbbed miserably.

After the second time when I tried to fight back again, they started paralyzing me before they even approached the cell. Often, they’d take the opportunity to wash me at the same time, as well as cut my nails and brush my hair, which got messy pretty quickly now that it was getting longer. They’d bitch about the hair on my face and how fast it grew back and they’d bitch about how long it was taking to get to Krida Q-5 Station. After a while of listening quietly to conversations, I gathered that Krida Q-5 was a space station.

What I didn’t know was why they were taking me there.

I had lots of ideas, of course, and lots of time to think about them. The most obvious was that I’d be sold. Maybe to a zoo, maybe to an owner. The thought was chilling, and I’d come no closer to finding a way out. The only thing I had in my cell with me was a welded-in toilet that I had to use out in the open, and I’d given up being embarrassed about asking for toilet paper. It was similar to Earth toilet paper, just more…organic I supposed.

With no clothes, no objects, not even any nails to claw my way out with, there was absolutely nothing I could do. No one even guarded me on a regular basis, because they knew it was impossible to escape. And where would I go? Did spaceships have escape pods in real life? Was this one big enough to house smaller transport carriers? I didn’t know what was human sci-fi imagination and what could be real. Without more information, getting out of here was impossible even if I could elude my physical prison.

So I waited, ever aware that each day of travel brought me farther from Earth, farther from home. Then one day three aliens came in and didn’t paralyze me first. My mind screamed that I’d become complacent when they opened my cell door and I didn’t even move. Why would I? They’d just paralyze me again and do what they wanted anyway if I tried to escape.

Maybe I was just that weak willed. But what else could I do? I wasn’t strong enough or smart enough to do much of anything other than let them haul me to my feet and guide me out of my prison for the first time in what must have been months.

I tried to look around even as my skin crawled at the tight grip two aliens had on my arms, but all I saw were more hallways, more labs, more nothing. There was no way I’d remember enough to find a way out and no way I’d ever get as far as needing to know. Not for the first time, I wished I was stronger, like Derrick. Not for the first time, I wished I was with him.

The alien in front of me was typing away on one of those clear tablet things, and I itched to get my hands on it. I was good with technology. Sure, all of this alien stuff was, well, alien to me—not to put too fine a point on it. But I was certain I could learn to use it if given the opportunity.

That opportunity would likely never arise. Still completely naked, the shame of it settled in for the first time in weeks as I was paraded to an upper deck, where all the aliens were wandering around, busy with work and fully clothed. Only a few cast me a glance and even less leered. I hated that this meant my condition was normal to them.

Was this some sort of expedition to collect human pets from Earth and sell them? I didn’t really want to know, but I thought maybe I was about to find out regardless. My three captors—the two holding me and the one with tablet leading—guided me into a small room that was infinitely colder than the rest of the ship, and my skin prickled with goosebumps.

“Airlock active.”

The loud robotic voice assaulted my eardrums from all angles, and I startled. One of the aliens chuckled at me as a heavy door slid shut from the ceiling behind us, enclosing us entirely inside four walls. I shivered as we were blasted with cold air and the chill from the room morphed into something bone deep.

“Krida Q-5 Station access open.” It was no less scary the second time than the first, and when the door in front of us began to slide open from the floor, fear flooded my system. Was I about to be paraded nude around an entire space station? Like no more than a dog?

It shouldn’t have been a relief when the door opened to a simple hallway—a private docking station, perhaps. Instead I should have been outraged that I was being held captive, stolen from my home planet by aliens who wanted to make a buck. This was ridiculous, and if only I were smarter or braver, maybe I’d be out of this mess. Out and somehow back home on Earth.

I was none of those things, though, and I let defeat cloud my vision with tears as I was led down the long hallway and steered towards one of the doors on the left. When I was shoved inside, I wasn’t entirely sure what I was looking at.

The room was largely empty save for a few chairs that faced a sunken area, almost like a reverse stage except the floor of it was lined with equipment instead of flat. It made no sense because the equipment would prevent anyone from standing down there. Until the machines revved to life and images started flicker in the sunken area.

Then it started to click together.

Four figures came to life above the machines—holograms, I was intelligent enough to guess—featuring the soft, washed out colors of something that wasn’t real. I didn’t know if the machines were old or if hologram technology just hadn’t come that far in space either, but the four new aliens glitched in and out every few seconds.

Two of them looked like the aliens that abducted me, while the other two each looked entirely different. In my small world only one type of alien existed, only one race was out here tormenting humans with their advanced technology. But the idea that there were more races, more species, made my blood run cold.

We weren’t alone in the universe, that much I’d known. But if there were other races that interacted with each other, that meant there were entire societies that Earth wasn’t privy to. The question was, why?

And that wasn’t really the question at all, was it? I didn’t care why, I just wanted to go home. It was clear even to me that this was some sort of auction and one of these four holograms belonged to my future owner. The question of the day was who?

“Surprised you showed, Torvan. Didn’t think you dealt in humans.” The four-eyed alien on the end peered over at the hologram on the other end. The one she addressed—Torvan—was one of the aliens that looked different to me. Though the hologram kept glitching, I could make out that he was wearing long robes and had only two eyes. A cloak hooded most of his face from view, so I couldn’t see much more than that.

“Bah.” Torvan gestured with a hand that only had two, long fingers and a thumb. “None of your business what I deal in. Can we get started?” His partially transparent form turned back to my captors, and they promptly did as he asked.

What must have been over and hour passed in a garble of pricing and haggling and fighting while I was helpless to do anything but stand there while they bickered over who got to buy me. A growing sense of wrong built in my gut as panic turned my breaths short. I couldn’t be owned, I had to go back to Earth. I had to make it home, but I had no way to do it.

I didn’t want this, I didn’t want any of it, but it was out of my control. Not a single idea conjured in my mind to change my circumstances. I could try to run, and they’d just paralyze me. Maybe even punish me. I could try and steal a tablet, but I wouldn’t know how to use it. I could try and sneak away, but the implant in my head probably meant they could track me.

I was helpless.

“Just give the drekking thing to Torvan, it’s not worth the credits.” One of the buyers barked, drawing me back in from my dissociative haze. My eyes jerked to the creature with the two fingers and thumb and mostly cloaked face.

“Sold, then.” My captor with the tablet spoke mildly, like it really didn’t make any difference to him who bought me. And it probably didn’t. In this horrible world I was just a piece of cargo, and the thought made me want to curl up into a ball and cry.

“Good.” Torvan spoke in his grating, harsh voice. “I will send my own transport for it.”

With that, the holograms flickered a final time and disappeared, leaving me with a sense of emptiness while guilt clawed at my heart. Guilt that I hadn’t done anything, hadn’t tried harder to escape, permeated my mind. It wasn’t like being resigned to my fate; I felt more as if I was detached from reality and none of this was happening to me.

Grayson Miller hadn’t been abducted my aliens and brought into an unknown alien society to be auctioned off as an…as an it. That was someone else far away, and I was at home in bed having a horrible dream. The hands that squeezed my arms and dragged me back to the ship also dragged me back to reality. There was no waking up. There was no mistake. I was here, and thoughts of Earth were distant and unattainable.

I didn’t fight back when they bathed me and brushed my hair for a final time. Or when they put a machine on my face that created a burning sensation under my skin. I didn’t know what the machine was, but I guessed that it would stop facial hair growth given how much they’d bitched about it. I’d never kept a beard anyway, but was strangely humiliating and emasculating to not even have the choice.

They did the same treatment in other places that hurt a lot more.

The moment my haze finally cleared was when when they brought me into some sort of lab and positioned me right in front of a sleek, black pod. By my guess, some sort of stasis device. That was when I kicked and screamed and bit and clawed. It was so sudden that I nearly thought I’d had a chance to get free.

But then I’d lost all control of my own bodily function, completely paralyzed and helpless to do anything as they placed me in the pod. All I could think as the world started to go dark what that I hoped Derrick had it better than this.

I hoped he was safe at home on Earth, forgetting about me entirely.