Sholpan

  Sholpan

  By Joe Vasicek

  Copyright © 2011 Joseph Vasicek.

  All rights reserved.

  Cover art by Līva Šmaukstele.

  Editing by Josh Leavitt.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual persons, organizations, or events is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Page

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Author’s Note | Acknowledgments

  SHE'D RATHER DIE THAN BE A SLAVE TO THE CONQUERORS OF HER HOME WORLD.

  Stella McCoy never thought she'd fall prisoner to the barbarian Hameji. The oldest daughter of a working class family, all she wanted was to finish her apprenticeship and start a career an astrogator. But when the Hameji conquer her home world with their starfaring battle fleets, she is forced against her will to become a concubine to one of their highest ranking warlords.

  Stella would rather die than spend the rest of her life as a concubine. Fortunately, as she looks for a chance to escape, she starts to make friends in high places. But in the dangerous world of harem politics, with new friends come new enemies—ones that have the power to destroy her.

  Chapter 1

  When Stella woke up, she was stiff, sore, and completely naked.

  Her eyes flew open and she immediately wrapped her arms around her body, curling up on the cold steel floor. Though she felt the cold air stirring against her bare skin, the room was silent—stuffy, but silent. Moving slowly, she eased herself up to a sitting position and pulled her knees up to her chest, covering herself as best as she could.

  The room was dark, the only illumination coming from a caged bulb in the center of the ceiling. As her eyes adjusted to the dim greenish-yellow light, she started to make out her surroundings. The room looked vaguely like a cargo hold—smooth metal walls and floors, berths for crates and containers, long scrape marks that could only have been made by heavy machinery. At least that explained why the room was so cold. She hugged her knees a little tighter and shivered. A faint buzzing sounded in her ear, but she wasn’t sure whether it came from somewhere in the room or just from the dizziness in her head. She made out a number of strange shapes scattered across the floor. They were too lumpy to be crates, but—

  One of them moved. She realized at once that they were people, unconscious and as naked as she was.

  She yelped in surprise and scooted away. As she did, her hand struck something soft and fleshy. She turned and caught sight of a fat, hairy man, completely unconscious, lying on his back. The sight made her cheeks burn with embarrassment, and she scrambled quickly away from him, only to bump into a younger man—definitely a man. He groaned and rolled over as she carefully edged away.

  She shuddered and closed her eyes. I hope Ben doesn’t see me like this. The thought no sooner entered her mind than her eyes flew open again.

  Ben! Where is he?

  “Ben?” she whispered. In the silence, her voice sounded as loud as the roar of an engine. To her right, a wrinkled, elderly woman moaned as she sat with her back propped up against a crate. Unsightly bruises covered her arms, and her wrinkled breasts sagged almost to her waist.

  “Ben?” Stella said aloud, unfocusing her eyes to avoid seeing anything else she didn’t want to see. “Ben, are you there?” Answer me!

  No one did.

  He’s not here. She took in a deep breath and tried to calm herself. The metal floor was so cold on her skin, and the draft in the room made her shiver. She considered standing up and walking to the edge of the room where she could be out of the way, but that would attract too much attention to herself—better to stay where she was.

  They were prisoners—that much was clear. But how had they gotten here? She vaguely remembered the freighter—what was it called? The Sierra Vista? The hold of that ship had been similar to the room she was now in, except larger and better lit. She remembered fleeing there to escape the Hameji—she distinctly remembered the nuclear explosions shining through the windows of the shuttle. Then the gas, the screaming, Ben holding her, and darkness. Then this.

  The Hameji, she thought to herself. They stripped off my clothes and left me here. Had they done anything else to her while she was unconscious? She shivered, and not just from the cold.

  Carefully keeping herself covered, she mentally checked every part of her body. Aside from the soreness, she seemed uninjured—no broken bones, no scars or open wounds. She did have a few bruises though, mostly around her wrists and elbows. How she’d gotten them, she didn’t know.

  Had her captors abused her? Raped her? Probably not—she imagined she would hurt a lot worse if they had. Then again, she’d never had sex before—she didn’t know what it was supposed to feel like normally, let alone when it was forced.

  She shivered and hugged her knees a little tighter. What were they going to do to her her? Her stomach felt light and fluttery, and her breathing came short and quick. A nauseous feeling rose in her stomach, and she started to panic.

  Stop it, she told herself. Stay calm. You’re still alive. You can make it through this. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

  A door hissed open behind her; it must have been a freight door, because it flooded the room with light. She squinted and covered her eyes. From behind, she heard heavy footsteps. She squeezed her knees a little closer to her chest.

  Gloved hands seized her roughly by the arms and lifted her off the floor. She shrieked and tried to cover herself, but her captors’ grip on her arms was too firm. Is this it? she wondered. Are they going to rape me? A jolt of fear shot through her body.

  She stumbled and tripped as they half-dragged, half-marched her into the blinding light.

  * * * * *

  The blue-green orb of Kardunash IV shone brightly through the shuttle window against the empty blackness of space. Dozens of black domes rose above the rich, verdant landscape, pushing through the speckled white cloud cover almost into space itself. Far below, aircraft glittered like gold in the sunlight, tracing lines of traffic between the domes.

  “Isn’t it beautiful?” Stella said softly, more to herself than anyone else.

  In the aisle seat to her left, her older brother Ben grunted and shrugged apathetically. “I guess.”

  Is that what happens when you’ve been away from home for three years? Stella wondered to herself. You lose touch with everything you used to know? She hoped not, but after being away for almost a year as an apprentice astrogator, she could see how it could happen. I’ll never be like that.

  “Attention, passengers,” came the captain’s cheery voice over the loudspeakers in the shuttle cabin. “We’ve just received clearance for atmospheric re-entry and should be arriving planetside shortly. Please secure your seat restraints and prepare for landing.”

  Stella wordlessly secured the straps around her waist and shoulders. On impulse, she turned to her brother.

  “What are you going to do once we’re planetside?” she asked.

  Ben shrugged. “I don’t know. Get around, have a little fun.”

  “You know Dad doesn’t want us to get separated.”

  “Ah, that’s okay; we can take care of ourselves. Can’t we?”

  Stella smiled. “I know I can, but what about you?”

  “Pff! Don’t worry about me.”

  She had to admit, Ben looked like he could handle pretty much anything. With his buzz cut, muscle shirt, and black leather jacket, he looked like a soldier from the Kardunasian Defense Force on leave. Stella had no doubt he could take care of himself—and he
r, too, for that matter.

  A strange sensation in her stomach made her grip her armrests and glance out the window. Through the bulkheads, a low hum mingled with the whine of the cabin’s ventilation system.

  “Did you feel that?” she asked. “I think we just pulled up all of a sudden.”

  Ben frowned. “Yeah, I felt it.”

  He leaned over to peer down the aisle. The young couple seated in front of them had noticed the change, too. “Does it seem like we’re rising?” asked the man in a loud, nasal voice. “It feels like we’re rising.”

  “It does,” Stella said, more to herself than anyone else. “But why?”

  “I don’t know,” said Ben. He leaned over her to stare out the window. The shuttle lurched, and a buzz of nervous conversation rose throughout the cabin.

  “I think we’re aborting our descent,” he said, leaning back in his seat again.

  “Aborting our descent?” said the obnoxiously loud man in front of them. “What the hell for?”

  Ben ignored him.

  “What’s going on?” Stella asked. “Engine failure? Electrical problems?” Stars, if we have to spend two or three hours in orbit for repairs …

  “They’d have announced that over the speaker by now.”

  “Then what?” She bit her lip and glanced down at her wrist console, as if the answer were posted on the planetnet somewhere.

  “We’re probably too far from the Llewellyn to connect with the ship’s network,” he said, as if reading her mind. “Still, it’s worth a shot.”

  Stella was one step ahead of him. With her right pointer finger, she scrolled through the menus to the icon labeled MCCOY—LLEWELLYN, the private network for her family’s sublight freighter. The loading bar began its slow crawl across the screen, while a notification message popped up indicating that reception across this network was low.

  “I can’t get it,” said Ben, trying the same thing with his own wrist console. “How about you?”

  “Almost there,” Stella muttered. The bar reached eighty, then ninety, then finally one hundred percent.

  “Got it.”

  “Quick, access, the Llewellyn’s comm system. See if there are any new messages from the port authority.”

  “I’m loading them up now,” she said. “The connection’s weak.”

  The buzz of conversation steadily rose throughout the cabin, making Stella tap her foot nervously under her seat. The progress bar froze up twice, but she restarted the connection before the error message had a chance to pop up. On the third try, the bar finally made it to one hundred percent.

  “There,” she said, bringing up the last message from the K-4 port authority to their family’s ship. “It says ‘A Hameji battle fleet has entered the system. KDF personnel are preparing to—’”

  Her blood froze in her veins as she stopped mid-sentence. Had she just read what she’d thought she’d read? No, she couldn’t have—but there it was, right on the screen.

  “What?” said the man sitting in front of them. “The Hameji? Here?”

  That can’t be right, Stella thought to herself, her cheeks paling. There must be some kind of mistake. The Hameji couldn’t be here—they were supposed to be somewhere out in the New Pleiades, almost a dozen parsecs on the other side of Tajjur. The war was something out there, not here at Karduna. Not at her home.

  The hushed buzz quickly turned to a frenzied rumble as the news spread throughout the cabin. Ben tried to reassure the people closest to them, but it was too late.

  “I’m sorry,” she told him. “I didn’t mean—”

  “Never mind that,” said Ben, glancing over his shoulder before turning and leaning in close. “We still have a chance. If the captain can find a ship willing to take us away from the planet with them, we might be able to escape.”

  Escape? Stella thought, her mind racing. Would it really come down to that? She looked at Ben as if to protest, but the grave expression on his face cut her short.

  “B-but what about Dad and James?” she asked. They were both back on the Llewellyn, after all.

  Ben sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth. “We’ll just have to hope for the best for them. Anyway, if we’re lucky, the Hameji jumped in on the other side of the planet. That means—”

  The cabin suddenly filled with light, shining in through the windows on Stella’s side. The passengers gasped in surprise, while Stella’s blood turned to ice.

  “What was that?”

  “That was nothing,” said Ben. “Just an opening volley—too far away to do any damage.”

  This can’t be happening, Stella thought to herself, gripping her armrests as the light gradually faded. Still, she couldn’t ignore that there was something inescapably real about the soundless explosion. Even though she was comfortably seated, it made her legs feel weak beneath her.

  “Attention, passengers,” the stewardess said over the loudspeaker. “Please remain calm. The captain and crew have just been informed of a dangerous situation developing in our local sector, but we are doing everything we can to ensure your safety. There is no need to fear. Please remain in your seats and stay calm.”

  “What’s going on?” Stella asked, turning to her brother. “Ben, what can you tell me?”

  “The Hameji will probably move to attack K-4 first,” he said, his words slow and deliberate. “They’ll most likely try to slag the planet the same way they did Tajjur V and Belarius III—”

  “You mean, bring in the mass accelerators?” Stella asked, her nervous stomach dropping through the floor. “Completely obliter—”

  “Yes,” Ben said, leaning in and talking softer. “Since they jumped in from deep space, though, their forces will be scattered all over this sector. I’m guessing they came in from …”

  A hundred different fears clouded Stella’s mind, drowning out her brother’s words. She remembered hearing about Tajjur and Belarius—how the Hameji had done the unthinkable and bombarded both worlds until they were all but uninhabitable. In just a matter of hours, the barbarians had massacred billions of innocent people.

  “So we might be able to beat them?” she asked weakly.

  “Yeah,” Ben said, glancing over his shoulder again. “Maybe.”

  Another soundless flash filled the cabin, making the passengers scream.

  “What was that?” Stella cried, heart racing.

  “A nuclear blast—much closer this time.”

  “Did it hit anyone? Did it kill anyone?”

  “I don’t know,” said Ben, his voice cracking. “Probably not. The Hameji are jumping nukes at our battleships, but our beacons are probably interdicting—”

  Light flooded the cabin, blinding Stella almost instantly. In a second, Ben had his arms around her, pressing her close to his chest. She closed her eyes and held on tight, while around them, panicked screams filled the air.

  This isn’t supposed to be happening, Stella thought to herself. We’re supposed to be going planetside for a few days’ leave. I’m supposed to meet my friends—they’re waiting for me down there right now.

  Lars is waiting.

  Ben let go of her, but she still clung to his arm. Around them, the cabin erupted into chaos, with some people trying to storm their way to the front. The captain’s voice came on again over the loudspeaker.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, please remain calm,” he said, not so cheery this time. “You may have noticed the emergency situation outside, but I assure you, we are doing our very best to get you all to safety. I’ve been in contact with several evacuating freighters, and one of them, the Sierra Vista, will be picking us up soon. Again, please remain seated with your restraints securely strapped. Do not panic.”

  The shuttle accelerated sharply, pushing Stella against the back of her seat. A scream rose from the passengers who weren’t strapped in yet, and a few of them fell into the aisle. Ben reached down and pulled the strap across his waist, then glanced over at her.

  “We’re going to be all right. Just st
ay with me, whatever happens.”

  She nodded mutely.

  A full minute passed in anxious silence. The passengers were a lot more subdued, but Stella could feel the tension in the cabin—could practically taste it.

  “What are we going to do when we get to the freighter?” Stella asked.

  “Stay together,” Ben said. “Ride it out with them.”

  “Will we make it to the Llewellyn?”

  “I don’t think so. Not right away.”

  Stella swallowed and blinked—hard.

  “Where will they go?” she asked. “Will they be all right?”

  “I hope so.”

  Stella’s thoughts wandered to her friends on the surface. Her eyes widened in fear as she realized the danger they were in.

  “What about Lars? Will he make it out too?”

  Ben didn’t answer.

  The shuttle’s acceleration slowed. Ben stared past her out the window, narrowing his eyes. She spent a few moments looking for what he saw, but all she could see was the night side of the planet, stars twinkling in the absence of sunlight.

  “I don’t see the battle,” she said. “Are we clear?”

  As if in response, a series of small, soundless explosions puffed out among the backdrop of the stars.

  “Oh no! Was that another—”

  “I don’t think so,” said Ben. “Our battle cruisers carry at least two dozen jump beacons each, and they almost certainly launched them as soon as the Hameji attacked. If they try to nuke us from across space with a jumped warhead, the beacons will draw their fire. Those explosions are harmless.”

  Stella bit her lip and nodded. The fact that her brother knew what was happening comforted her beyond words. Without him, she’d be lost.

  “So we’re going to make it?”

  Before he could answer, a series of brilliant flashes illuminated the entire sky, searing the interior of the shuttle with light. Stella screamed; Ben grabbed her again, pulling her close. Panic threatened to overwhelm her, but she clung to her brother as if for her life. Her heart pounded, and her whole body shook with fear.