When she woke, K'rra felt the heat pouring off Kaster's body. She checked his forehead and could feel it burning with fever. Scrambling out from under the blanket, she shook Kaster.

"Sir, wake up."

He looked through a slit at her blearily, then forced his eyes open. He watched her, unfocused, not entirely understanding where he was.

K'rra got to her feet and pulled at Kaster's arm. "Sir, please, we have to get you to the autodoc."

Slowly, he got to his feet and allowed her to guide him to the makeshift clinic. K'rra helped guide him to the gurney with the autodoc. She moved to the controls, and he reached out, grabbing her arm.

"Don't let the machine put me under." He croaked.

She looked at the sweat beading on his forehead and nodded. He relaxed, letting go of her, and she worked on the control screen. The scanners found a mild infection and paused before launching into its work. K'rra had set the machine to give her full diagnostics before proceeding. The doc suggested antibiotics and sedatives.

Frowning, she considered Kaster's request. It might be a mild infection, but fever seemed to muddle his mental faculties. As a slave, she was bound to honor his wishes, and she genuinely wanted to do so. What he wanted, however, would hinder his recovery, and she wasn't willing to allow that, even if he wished it.

There was another path. She could honor the letter of his demand to follow the command he'd given her and put him to sleep through other means. His specific instruction was not to let the machine anesthetize him, but he'd said nothing about her doing so by other means.

She instructed the autodoc to sheer away his remaining clothing, watching as a laser cutter and manipulator arms peeled away the last of his clothing. He lay naked on the table, sweating and wounded. He turned his head to look at her confused, an inquiring look in his dull eyes.

K'rra smiled. She stepped up to him, blue fingers stroking his temple, "Sleep, Master. I will take good care of you."

He tried to say something as her fingertips traced patterns down his neck and across his chest. She carefully avoided the bruises and burns, lightly tracing her nails across skin. His gasp told her all she needed to know, and she watched with pride as his cock twitched, thickening under her care. Nurse fantasies were common among men, K'rra hoped to use that to her advantage, although seeing his ruined body filled her with a sadness that couldn't possibly be overcome with arousal. Still, this was for him, not her.

The autodoc whirred, spraying antiseptics and soothing lotions across his skin. K'rra had even allowed topical anesthetics, knowing that as her fingers slid along his body, the pain was dulling away elsewhere.

She dragged her fingertips across his navel, moving ever southward, then detouring down a thigh to his knee. Kaster jerked and tried to lift his head. "Relax, Sir. Let me take care of you."

He hissed as her nails trailed up the inside of the other thigh. She teased him like this for a bit. Threatening to touch him but constantly veering off course at the last moment. Each pass getting ever closer to his throbbing cock. He was almost fully erect now and moaning in need.

Kaster reached down with his hand, trying to touch himself. K'rra intercepted the hand and guided it instead to her bare chest. She admired his pink skin nestled between the light blue of her breasts. She turned her torso just so, allowing his palm to cup her while at the same time moving her hand between his thighs to cup him as well.

His groan delighted her. She felt a swell in her chest, knowing she'd made him make that noise. She bent and descended to him, sucking him into her mouth with ease. He was fully hard now, thanks to her ministrations. She tested his firmness with her tongue while sealing him with her lips. She'd pleased her Master, even in the hour of his deepest and darkest hurts.

Pushing down, she pressed him all the way to the back of her throat. The augmented muscles, the additions that made her oral skills simply inhuman, gripped the head of his cock, and she massaged it vigorously. His moans became a symphony. It was music created just for K'rra, and she worked him, eliciting note after note.

Her pride darkened, she had another mission. Squeezing her throat together as she'd been trained after the surgeries, two glands engaged and coated his cock in their secretions. She continued working his cock spreading the fluids across his prick, working it deep into the skin. The sedatives were designed to work with post-ejaculate bliss and would cause a deep suggestive slumber.

In Hol Vydon's employ, she'd been pressed to perform this function on guests, relaxing them and implanting suggestions as they drifted to sleep. At this moment, she only wanted Kaster to sleep. She warned herself that she needed to be very careful when speaking to him afterward. Careful not to give her new owner unintentional instructions that he'd be hard-pressed to resist.

Hol Vydon had been clear when he explained she would be gifted to the bounty hunter. She was not to plant any suggestions, only to observe and report back on their return. No matter what happened, one way or another, she would be returned to the Hol's house. K'rra hoped it would not be at Kaster's death. He'd been uniquely kind to her in the short time she'd been with him.

Kaster's body seized up. K'rra worked her extra throat muscles and tongue, drawing the hunter's essence out of him. She squeezed every drop out of him like a ripe fruit. He thrashed and cried out, and K'rra rode him with her mouth, not letting him go.

As he drifted into a slumber, K'rra reflected that so long as her mouth was full, there was no risk of accidental suggestions. She continued working him until she heard a light snore, and he was utterly soft in her mouth.

She let him slip from her and wiped her mouth. Touching his face, she begged, "Please get better, Master." She supposed it would only benefit him if it was an accidental suggestion.

Naked, she padded back to the cockpit. Whatever system they were in, the pirates had towed them here for a purpose. It was time to start retaking control of their lives.

K'rra worked at the Nav and Comms. She set the ship computer to passively receive any navbuoy data if they were in a settled system. It only took a few moments for the data to flow in. She thanked the stars as the system data flooded across the screen. At least they were not in an uncharted or unused system.

They were in a surveyed system with no habitable planets. It was odd that a bouy would be here at all, but then she spotted the refueling station. Built twenty years ago, it was abandoned by its corporate builders as unprofitable. Squatters had moved in and claimed it, which was allowed by Federated law. Who those squatters were was the real question. That their captor pirates had come here half answered the question for her.

Checking the nav computer, K'rra plotted out the pirate ship's course. As expected, it intercepted the path of the station. If the pirates Kaster had beaten bloody operated the station, there'd be no welcome matt. She considered jumping away, but if the pirates had come here to help Kaster, someone on the station could do more than the autodoc.

She set a course and guided the ship to the station. It orbited a gas giant hanging in the sky over it.

When they were within comms range, K'rra donned a headset and called to the station. "Fueling station, this is CSS Outlander, requesting permission to dock."

There were long moments of silence, then a response, "Hey there, Outlander, we don't offer fueling services anymore, but if you got trade, you are welcome to dock."

The casual tone unsettled K'rra. She was used to strict naval protocol. Whoever operated the station didn't seem to care about that. "Station, Outlander, we don't have anything to trade, but we need a doctor, and we were told this was the best place to start."

"There's a hospital on Whylin, two jumps away, maybe twelve hours if you push hard. We got a doc, but unless it's a dire injury, or you are looking to avoid Federal paperwork, you may be better off jumping out of system."

"Station, Outlander, That's exactly what we are looking for. Permission to dock?"

"Yeah… Sorry, Outlander, you're breaking up. I didn't hear that last bit… Tell you what, come aboard and you can work out the details yourself. Bay nine."

"Station, Outlander, copy that, proceeding to bay nine."

As the Outlander drew close, K'rra could see that the fueling station was a jumble of boxes and scaffoldings lashed together in no apparent order. Neither she nor the Outlander's scanners detected any weapons. She worried all the way in that shooting would start at any moment.

Docking turned out to be uneventful. With a shudder, the Outlander locked onto the magnetic catches of a rigid permanent umbilical. From the cockpit K'rra saw two technicians inside the umbilical. They sported giant smiles and waved. K'rra waved back then realized she was naked. Nudity for slaves was common in Coalition space, but slavery was illegal here in the Federation. Nudity was also frowned upon.

She stood with a wiggle, gave the techs another wave and languidly exited the cockpit. She retrieved her tech jumpsuit from her room and slipped into it. Immediately, she was annoyed that it tugged in all the worse places. Nudity was much more comfortable.

Kaster was still slumbering, not as deeply as a full anesthesia would have offered, but she decided to leave him in the autodoc for now. She went to the airlock and cycled through. The techs were waiting for her, two humans with faces threatening to split in half from their smiles. They should have given her a sales pitch for maintenance services but were too busy blushing to meet her eyes.

"Miss!" One of the techs stammered as she walked past. "Sorry to bother you, but um… how do you plan to pay for berthing?"

"Oh. Right. Hard credits?"

"That would be preferred." The tech was still having difficulty looking her in the face.

"How much per day?"

"A thousand a day, discounted to five kay for a week at a time."

"I'll pay for a week."

Returning to the ship, K'rra made sure the airlock door was sealed before moving to the storage area and opening the trunk Hol Vydon had given Kaster for Indi-Ra. She was surprised to see it nearly full of rows of wrapped credit coins. She took a hefty roll stamped with the value of five thousand on its side. Judging by the number of rolls in the box, there was somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred thousand credits remaining.

The money was exchanged, and K'rra was free to enter the station.

The Umbilical opened into a wide foyer with a jumble of small booths. Pallettes of cargo constricted the area, with only twisting paths snaking through them. K'rra was confident most of it was stolen. This was a dumping and trading ground for pirates. It made sense, an abandoned station in a system of little worth. If goods were traded, then services would also be on the menu. She felt the embers of hope flickering to life in the pit of her stomach.

She wove through the foyer, looking for any booth that might offer services. Finally, she broke down and asked. After a hundred credit bribe, she was directed to a set of elevators that acted as a central hub. Above the call button was a list of services offered on each of the floors. She was tempted to discover what the "Real Water Spa" offered but instead stayed on mission. The second level offered "Services for Trade" the closest thing she could find.

The second level had a foyer as well, although much more narrow. Booths lined the wall offering various services, lock bypassing, massages, counterfeiting, mini-brothels. Only once she had traversed to the far end did she discover a booth offering medical services.

A tired-looking Human woman sat in front of a display at the far end of a half circle of chairs. A few scattered beings were waiting, but most of the chairs were empty. K'rra noticed that nearly all the sentients waiting were a male and female pair, the females often looking a bit anxious. Even in Federated space, there was no way to avoid the tentacles of slavery. She didn't judge the women. After her voluntary admission into slavery, she knew there were as many reasons a woman might choose as stars in the sky. She simply hoped they had all been voluntary as hers was. She doubted it, though.

"Nature of your request?" The Human woman asked as K'rra approached.

"Serious physical injury, severed arm at the bicep," K'rra explained.

The woman made some gestures at her screen, "We aren't able to regrow here. Best we can do is bionics."

K'rra wanted to cry. Even a bionic arm was better than nothing. Once they'd fixed Kaster as best as possible here, she could try to convince him to forget his hunting and find another type of work. And if he refused… there was always her throat. She pushed the thought away.

"What is the cost? How long will it take?" K'rra asked eagerly.

The woman eyed her, "You seem to have all your limbs… is this meant to be a gift for someone?"

"Yes," she said, "My master needs…"

"Tsk!" The Human interrupted, "This is Federated space. There are no masters here. Mind your tongue, girl."

"Yes, ma'am," K'rra said reflexively. For a moment, she worried about punishment and then wondered who might administer such a thing if there were no admitted masters.

The woman gave her a hard stare until K'rra averted her eyes. "So this is an injury your Partner endured?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Species?"

"I'm Gythian."

The woman cocked an eyebrow. The annoyance on her face was palatable. It made K'rra squirm.

"Sorry, my… partner… is Human."

A baritone voice said, "Miss Andrews, go ahead and send this one back."

K'rra looked up to see a dark-haired Human in a medical tunic standing in the doorframe leading back deeper into the station. Scars crisscrossed his arms, with an ugly one along his left cheek. His eyes were piercing. The moment K'rra looked into them, she noticed a fury, much like when she'd first seen Kaster. She didn't want to go deeper into the station with this man. She'd be helpless to every command.

"Yes, Doctor," The woman said, "Well? You heard him. Go back to his office."

K'rra found her feet shuffling before she even had a chance to think about it, following orders without thought as she'd been trained to do.

The doctor watched her, cataloged her. There was no smile or warmth in him at all. K'rra passed by with her eyes averted. As she entered the office proper, she felt her implants come to life. She let out a gasp and turned to flee. The doctor grabbed her upper arm and guided her back into his office.

Her strength left her. The doctor pulled her into an exam room, letting go of her once she was in the center. He strode to the other side and sat on a stool. Unsure what to do, K'rra stood there staring at the floor. Deep down, she knew she should run, but the implants buzzed inside her wickedly. They felt delicious right now, the piercings happily shooting pleasure through all her naughty bits, but she knew any disobeyal would result in galaxy-shattering pain.

The doctor stared at her with his cold eyes. She could feel herself getting weak in the knees, could feel the fires dancing in her belly.

"Take your clothes off." The doctor demanded.

K'rra stammered but found the words and dared to glance up at him, "I'm not here for myself, sir. I've come to negotiate prices for another."

"I didn't ask you why you came. I said take off your clothes."

Her hands went immediately to the fastens, and K'rra stepped out of her jumpsuit. She stood naked, as she had many, many times in front of others, but felt awkward this time. Everyone insisted slavery was illegal here, but here she was naked while a man inspected her. Should she remain as such or revert to her training? Her mind was jumbled.

"Kneel,” the doctor barked, and K'rra went to her knees.

First:

Rogue Fury – Part 1