Flight of the Corsac Fox by Blaze Ward

Author:Blaze Ward
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781644703465
Publisher: Knotted Road Press

THIRTY-FOUR

Yet another ship Uly found himself on. If the Ononguli ship had given the impression of high ceilings and narrow doors, the Auga vessel was almost the opposite, as he was marched at the head of his little convoy through corridors that gave him more of an impression of tunnels.

Low and wide, as befit the Auga themselves. Yanouk and especially Hiko had to hunch to walk, though Suka Kuri was fine as long as she didn’t bounce too much when walking.

The lighting in here was dimmer than he was used to. More yellow as well, instead of the pure white of Human vessels. Not as golden as Ononguli. Not bad enough that he couldn’t read, but his mind kept wanting to reach for the dimmer switch to dial it up ten percent so he was more comfortable.

They walked.

Empty corridors with few hatches and no crew other than the few Auga leading and the few more trailing. Cattle herd, if that wasn’t too rude of a description for his crew, with cowboys moving them along.

Eventually, they entered a wider space. It looked remarkably like the converted bay where he’d first met the Mazhin, right down to the metal bars with gaps closing off individual cells.

This cell block, however, was three decks tall from what he could see. Both sides of the vast room and the bottom of a U, with this top end open with long trestle tables. Presumably, the prisoners would be fed down here and allowed to exercise. Or whatever they might do.

Looking up, Uly guessed the space to be a little under half full. Whatever that meant. If this ship was on anti-piracy patrol, the problem was greater than he’d anticipated.

That, or this ship just kept you locked up until they finished a patrol sweep and turned you over to the warden somewhere. Yes, that felt more likely.

He wondered how long some of these folks had been in here. And if that counted as part of their eventual sentence when they did come before a judge.

The guard at the front of the convoy stopped them in the middle of the room and turned to look at Uly. Above, the room had fallen eerily silent, when he had been expecting catcalls or verbal abuse.

But then, many of those folks had either never seen Humans before, or had come off Iron Wasp, and weren’t really in a position to be bullies right now.

“Human,” the guard snapped. “Should you be separated by species or gender?”

Uly had to translate the words to understand.

“No,” he replied after a blip. “Clustered would be nice, but this crew can be mixed however is most efficient for your needs.”

Never be an asshole to the guy with a gun pointed at you. Thorley Eldridge had unfortunately never grown up enough to understand that, but Uly remembered his own teenage years. Chemical and hormonal imbalances that made him definably crazy for at least half a decade.

Assuming he was sane now.

Eldridge would have hopefully grown out of it eventually. Or learned to keep his mouth shut better.

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