Riley spent the next several days in a deep funk. She remained in Zed’s cabin and would not leave.

After cleaning, when there was nothing else to do, she would lie on the deck at the foot of his bed, stroking herself, making sure she was wet and available whenever needed. She tried frequently to climax herself, but she never could, her clit would just go cold before she got to that point. There were times she was suddenly lucid, wondering why she had her fingers on, or in, her, wondering what she had become. What she had been reduced to.

She was still expected to serve, and she did so on autopilot, taking positions as commanded, performing tasks to the exact word spoken, and climaxing when she was told to. When told to, that was the only time she could manage a climax. Her mind otherwise was simply blank, she literally became a cock-sleeve for Zed.

It was so much easier. To just let go of everything. To be the warm body that Zed gratified himself in. To move through his cabin cleaning and stowing things away. He commented on it to her and told her she was becoming a perfect slave. Where she’d once rebelled, she accepted the compliments with no emotion. She convinced herself she was nothing more than the collection of holes everyone kept telling her she was.

Even her climaxes had lost their flavor. They were the one peak in her life that made her feel something. But it was an empty feeling to how it had been before. It felt good, but the passion was drained out.

While laundering Zed's clothes, she heard a double ping. She went to the bed and sat in front of it on the deck, just like a good pet should. There was a lurch, and she knew they were once again in normal space. That factoid meant little to her, except that afterward, Zed was likely to return and use her. She felt indifferent about it. It was simply what was expected of her.

The hatch slid open and Zed half stepped into the cabin. “Come on, I need you.”

He wanted her to leave his cabin? A pang of fear coursed through her. She hadn’t left the room in days. It was safe from the others here. Going out into the ship meant others could hurt her. Say things that stabbed deeper than any knife.

She knelt afraid to follow him even as the sharp little stabs began gnawing at her.

“Now!” Zed growled.

Riley shot up to her feet and reluctantly followed him out into the passageway. He strode to the bridge and she followed. He stopped suddenly and told her, “I need your advice on how to approach something.”

She stopped and gave him a weak, “Yes, Sir.”

Zed looked down at her, then took her head tenderly in one huge palm. The slap from his other hand was hard, painful, and completely unexpected. Wide-eyed, Riley stared up at him.

“Whatever the fuck this is,” he hissed at her, “I need you to snap the fuck out of it.”

She stared, afraid to answer.

Zed continued, “We need the clever little spunky bitch of a stuck-up Fed captain to get us through what might become a very tricky situation. If you don’t help out, it may get us all killed. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Sir.” She replied, but her thoughts were firing off at lightning speed. She hadn’t felt a primordial fear like this in the last few days. Zed was angry at her, not for refusing to comply, but because she was too compliant. There was a lurking danger he needed help with. While he protected her physically, she now understood that he needed her protection in matters of ship operations. He needed her. She struggled with the concept. It meant she was much more than just a sleeve, or a collection of holes, or an object to be passed around and discarded. She had value. Zed thought she had value.

“You are not the type of girl to break with a simple fucking.” Zed explained, “But so help me, by every star in the void, I will have the whole crew run a train on you to break you back in the other direction.”

His words terrified her, but he was right. She had been used, but it could have been so much worse. That didn’t make it entirely better, but she’d never given up before in the past. She graduated in the top percentage of her Academy class. She’d worked her ass for that every day for four straight years. Whenever a class threatened to overwhelm her, she’d find a way to power through it.

Still wide-eyed she nodded up at him.

“We’re headed to a system inside Federated Space to meet some auction house inspectors.” He watched her reaction and softened his voice, “It doesn't necessarily mean we plan to sell the whole crew.”

Elation. Her chest felt ready to burst. The words from Zed’s own mouth indicated he was reluctant to part with her. She did have value to him. She threw herself against him trying to wrap her arms around his massive chest.

“Thank you, Sir.” She felt the stabbing pain of tears deep in her throat.

“Fucking void.” He whispered as a meaty arm wrapped around her. “Its about damn time. Believe it or not, I missed that pain in the ass bitch we picked up on Asswipe 5.”

“Aziwhepp V,” she corrected.

“Whatever. This is big and you got training I don’t, so consider the situation that gets laid out and offer what advice you can.”

Riley nodded. The ghost of the funk still lingered, but like mist on a hot day it was shrinking away rapidly. She took a few deep breaths and walked to the bridge hatch that Zed held open for her.

The dark-haired human pilots Serrho and Vgg-r were gathering around the navigation console. They looked up from the star map they were studying when Riley entered.

Zed strode up to the console with Riley in tow. Vgg-r and Zed were on opposite sides, giving Riley a wicked sense of deja vu. He pointed to the map and explained, “We are meeting auction house inspectors at the Colinar system in about eight standard days.”

Riley nodded and looked around the console. Vgg-r eyed her with what looked like fond recollection. Serhho seemed suspicious, with his arms crossed in front of him. She replied, “Okay. Weird, it's on the border of Federation space. On the Federated side.”

“Exactly,” Serhho replied.

“Well, it's not a populated system. Nothing there but lifeless rocks. Nothing worth mining either,” Riley explained as she worked the controls of the starmap. “No asteroid belts, worthless planetoids… It does have a couple of Jovians, so in a pinch, we could skim hydrogen for fuel. Is there a reason the Coalition would want to do an inspection there?”

“Because it’s a fucking trap.” Serhho spat.

Zed shrugged, “The cash is in escrow, at least according to the auction house. Whatever happens there they get their cut.”

Riley zoomed into the system taking a close look at the configuration of the planets. “Junk, junk, junk, ice rings, more junk. There’s very little that would give anyone an advantage in the system. What happens if it is a trap and the inspectors steal the uhmm… merchandise?” she asked, realizing she was asking about herself in a roundabout way.

Zed replied, “If we don’t use my access code for the bank transfer within twenty days, the inspectors can claim their money back. Minus the escrow fees.”

Riley considered this, “So… if the cargo vanishes, and the Unnamed is dust, they get something like ninety percent back?”

“More like sixty percent. Cuts are a little more gouge-y in the Coalition.”

“Stars!” Riley whistled, “To the void with raiding, you should have gone into loan sharking, Sir.”

“Right?”

“So, we have a system with no advantage to anyone arriving early. If anything happens, the money can be recovered, somewhat. Sounds like a trap to me.” Riley said, relieved that talking Zed out of the inspection was so easy. She really didn’t want to risk having ten million credits dangled in his face.

Zed smirked, “Take a look at that ice ring.”

Crap, was there some rogueish pirate trick he knew? She worked the controls of the map zooming in to one of the three massive planetary bodies. “Entropy be damned. There’s ferrous metals in there. Large planetary collision with that gas giant.”

“Yup.” Zed smiled at her, smug that he’d spotted something she’d missed. Or did he think she purposefully didn’t report on it to avoid the inspection?

“Okay, so correction.” Riley continued inspecting the map readouts, “The first one there does have an advantage. You could hide the ship in that ring. Most commercial scanners won’t pick anything up.”

“Commercial scanners?” Zed asked, “What about military grade?”

“Yeah, federation scanners will see through that. But nothing the Coalition has will have a chance in singularity of detecting anything. Commercial grade scanners will just see a lot of metal no matter who parks in there.”

“What if the inspectors have a Federated scanner?” Serhho asked.

“Highly unlikely.” Riley reported matter of factly, “Sales of that tech has been restricted from the Coalition for decades.”

The three others exchanged glances. Riley looked hard at each then asked, “It is highly unlikely, right?”

Zed answered carefully, “Depends. Things, Federation things, have been known to fall out of cargo hatches.”

Riley felt a wave of anger shoot through her. Fell out of hatches? These scanners weren’t fashion wear or household appliances. Them falling out of hatches would require coordination from Federated officers. The implication that people in the Federation would sell high-tech equipment to barbarians was mortifying. Was nothing sacred?

She considered the possibilities for misinformation. In the end, she decided she didn’t have the energy to care one way or another. She would report the truth and let the cards fall where they may. “A Federated scanner will be able to see a ship in there if the captain is sloppy. There are heavy metals, ferrous metals, and it looks like there may even be light energy discharges. All of that will make a good reading more difficult. A smart captain could shut down enough systems to throw off a good reading.”

“Shooting stars!” Zed bellowed, “We are on.”

Serhho muttered, “Fuck…” Vgg-r frowned but said nothing.

“How quickly can we get there?” Zed asked.

Vgg-r replied, “We told them eight, but we could do it six.”

“All right, all right, let's make sure every moment is spent in warp. The earlier we get there and hide the better.

“Aye, captain,” Vgg-r replied.

Zed turned back to the map while throwing a command over his shoulder, “Captain, head down to the utility. Your sister slaves have been asking about you.”

“Yes, Sir.” She snuck a hug in before departing to the crew deck.

At the hatch to the utility room, she stopped and took a few deep breaths. She was convinced they all thought she’d gotten them captured. When she stepped into the cabin, she’d find out for sure. The thought of her crew staring daggers at her or saying anything close to what Maxwell had whispered made her breath hitch.

Riley waved a hand over the controls, and the hatch slipped open. She had to force her shaky legs to carry her inside, where her crew was busy working.

“Captain!” Terellia squealed and raced over, throwing her arms around Riley. The relief Riley felt was palpable. That even one of her crew missed her so much to pounce on her nearly brought her to tears. Riley ignored the warm tingles shooting through her body as her breasts were smothered by Terellia’s. For the first time in days, she thought of escaping.

Kimura and Geller joined in as well, although with less enthusiasm. K’rra came near, not quite daring to join in a hug but looking on regally. Maxwell approached but didn’t join in the hug or look into the captain’s eyes. Riley couldn’t help but notice he was stiffening as he watched the four women’s naked embrace. Unsure how to properly handle the awkward situation, Riley chose to do the most humane thing and waved him over. He threw his arms around Geller and Kimura.

“Captain,” Maxwell began, “What I said… they made…”

Riley interrupted him, “You did nothing wrong. They are fucking with our minds. We can only get through one day at a time.”

Maxwell’s relief was obvious. He pressed his face into Geller's soft shoulder, unable to look at Riley any longer.

“Are you okay captain?” Terellia asked, genuine concern dripping from her voice.

“I’m fine.” Riley choked out, “was just a little… under the weather.” The embrace broke up, yet they all remained close to Riley.

Geller said, “It's good to have you back, captain.” There was a chorus of agreement.

“Thank you. All of you. Deeply. I mean it.” Riley slipped back into her role as commander, “not to hastily push this moment aside, but we have work to do. How has the cleaning detail been going?”

K’rra answered, “As best we could without your drive, captain. We’ve been granted access to the entire ship with the exception of key rooms. Chiefly, the bridge, the food prep and storage portions of the galley, weapons, and the ship’s computer. We’ve begun maintaining what we can and report deficiencies to Vgg-r.”

“What info have we collected on the ship and systems?”

K’rra looked at her quizzically, “None, ma'am. We were making repairs and cleaning.”

She led K’rra out into the hallway, “How do we affect an escape if we are not gathering info?”

“I apologize, captain. I thought I would reinforce our cover story by diving deep into it.”

“The entire point of this detail was to discover escape, not improve the efficiency of their ship.”

K’rra thought for a moment, “It seems I’ve missed the subtleties of your ruse. Human language and thought processes can be difficult to completely fathom.”

“It’s not your fault,” Riley explained, “I was under a lot of duress and probably not explaining completely.” She realized that K’rra had never served on a military vessel, as a scientist K’rra would not think she had to withhold info or be subtle.

“Can we correct this oversight?” K’rra asked.

“We’ve only got a few days. Eight at most, six otherwise.”

“What happens in eight days?”

“We get sold.”

First Part:

Degenerate Star Part 1