The transport craft was comprised of multiple cavernous bays that were outfitted with row upon row of sleep capsules, stacked one atop the other, five high. A harsh, white, light-filled the space which was activated and deactivated elsewhere at a time determined by the ship’s sleep/wake cycle.

In the quarters that I had been assigned, some two hundred occupants were already crowded together. At the far end of the space were the refresher units and cleansers, along with latrines, while on the walls opposite, beside the doors through which I had entered, were the meal fabricators. The space in between each stack of sleeping pods contained long rows or metal tables bolted to the floor plates with benches on either side for the slaves to sit.

Sarge directed me to a small group of pods near the starboard fabricators, and introduced me with a gruff voice, to Tryst, a corporal. His uniform, also crimson with black piping, had an insignia of rank on the shoulder.

Pale eyes, and as bald as the rest of us, his narrow face seemed to be made entirely of sharp angles. He looked me up and down with something approaching disdain and sniffed as he pointed to a sleeping pod at the base of the nearest stack.

“Sleep there.” He shooed away a large man with shoulders as wide as my torso was long, who had been sitting in front of the pod. The man moved with a grimace but didn’t complain. “Stay in there as much as you need to, but come out for meals and to use the cleansers.”

He ran a hand over his bald head and shifted uncomfortably.

“We know where you’ve come from.” A pause at that, as though waiting for a response but I stood before him in silence and he gave a curt nod. “Fair enough, no need to go into that. The Vosk don’t come in here and there’s rules about them raping their own soldiers, slaves or not. Stay in here, and you’ll be okay. Don’t wander off to explore the ship because if they catch you alone, they won’t give a fuck about the rules.”

Another shifting of his weight from one foot to another and he glanced at the other three slave soldiers who clustered together beside the pods.

“Okay, you’re, Rylan?” He checked the data slate in his hand. “Class five psionic, and assigned to us. What did they tell you about how things worked?”

Someone snickered and my eyes flicked toward the female soldier who stood furthest from me. Her eyes sparkled with amusement, and she had two faded lines tattooed above her right eyebrow, on skin that had a faint, teal cast to it.

I stared at her for a moment that was, apparently, awkward as the amusement faded quickly from those eyes as her brows drew down.

“You got a problem?”

“Ease up, Saevi.” The speaker was the large man who has moved at the corporal’s command. “Poor bastard’s probably not seen a woman for years.”

“Four.” My voice was soft, and awkward sounding to my ears for I was not used to hearing it for anything but screaming. “I think.”

Other than Alyse, of course, but she didn’t technically count as female as her species of human did not have such a distinction. Her people tended to androgyny, with secondary sexual characteristics long since edited out of their genetic makeup.

Saevi was indeed the first natal female that I had seen since the Vosk had taken us, and I was surprised at her presence. The Corporal seemed to understand that surprise for he nodded slowly before speaking.

“Most females end up in the pleasure pits.” Saevi scowled at that but didn’t interrupt. “A few, like Saevi, are… undesirable, to them, so are sent to serve in the slave battalions with the rest of us.”

I could not fathom what would make one undesirable for the Vosk, and I was not sure I would get an answer if I asked, so instead, I fell back into learned behaviour and remained silent. It was often the safest choice when it came to the Vosk and matters pertaining to them.

“Regardless,” Corporal Tryst continued. “She is part of your squad. Koba.” He indicated the large man. “Is another and Wayde, the final member.”

The man indicated, inclined his head to me. His left eye had been replaced with a prosthetic that was fitted poorly. Angry red scar tissues surrounded the eye socket and down his cheek, jaw, and then neck before vanishing beneath the collar of his uniform tunic.

“My squad?” I looked back at the corporal.

“Yes. It’s our job to keep you alive.” He grinned mirthlessly. “We have a great deal of incentive to do so, as our collars are linked to you. If you die, then so do we. So rest assured that we will do everything we can to keep you alive.”

“Long enough for you to commit atrocities, anyway,” Saevi muttered.

I glanced quizzically at her but she did not seem to want to clarify what she meant, and the corporal shushed her before waving me towards the sleeping pod.

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“Get some rest. We’ll hit the first jump point before lights out and the Warrens tend to fuck your kind up, so sleep while you can.”

I did not know what the warrens were, or what effect they would have on me. Clearly, the soldiers knew a lot more than I did and I wondered at that. There was so much that I didn’t understand and I had been conditioned not to ask questions.

While I suspected that asking them of my new squad mates would not get me beaten or tortured, still, I had learnt the hard way that questions were not to be asked and the barriers created by that were hard to break past.

So, I climbed into my pod, a cylindrical tube two metres long. I just about fit with my feet touching the rear wall of the pod and my head at the entrance. My squad mates watched me in silence for several minutes before finally returning to their normal behaviour.

Which was, apparently, to sit on the benches on either side of the table closest to our stack of pods and talk. Their words were lost in the general hubbub of the room where two hundred other slaves carried on conversations, talking and even laughing with one another.

No Vosk were in the room, and it seemed like they were inclined to leave the slaves to their own devices. The food fabricators would provide meals, while the latrine and cleansers would ensure the slaves had no other reason to leave the room.

Slowly, and with great care, I lowered my barriers and let the tangled emotions and random thoughts wash over me. I closed my eyes, narrowing my focus and sorting that rush of emotion as best I could so that I could get a read on it.

There was amusement, and pleasure which seemed to cover fear and sadness which, in turn, was undercut with a great deal of anger. Anxiousness and stress, along with a sense of gloom and hopelessness.

The emotions of a people who had lost everything and everyone they had ever loved and were being forced to fight for the very people who had taken that from them. Fear of death, of course, but also a fear of winning because with victory would come the knowledge that they had doomed others to their fate.

I slowly raised my barriers, feeling the quiet stillness of only my own thoughts once more. Without physical contact, all I could gather was the general emotions that leaked from a person along with the occasional surface thought. With so many people, it was too difficult to focus on who that thought may belong to, so was pointless examining it too closely.

Once again, I lowered the barriers but this time, rather than simply allowing everything to wash over me, I reached outwards, towards my new squad, forcing aside the cacophony of mental sounds from the rest of the room.

Koba emanated a deep sorrow, an almost bottomless well of darkness that wanted to drag me deep down into it. He had lost much and he felt that loss constantly. It was the basis of who he was, the reason for him to continue.

The loss was easy to assume. His family, loved ones, home, any manner of things. How he hadn’t succumbed to it was a harder question to answer, and more so how he used that loss, that deep well of emotion, to force himself onwards was something that warranted further investigation.

Wayde was pain and anger. He had been hurt badly and it was more than just the part that was visible on his face. There was more damage to him and he wanted to give in to it but the prosthetics that the Vosk had forced on him wouldn’t allow it.

Corporal Tryst was easy to read on the surface. He was a man of duty and honour. His primary concern was the welfare of his squad and he focused everything on that. It made it easier, considering who he was being forced to fight for if he didn’t think much beyond that.

Saevi, however, was something else-

“You done?” Saevi asked, and I twisted in my pod, craning my head to see her staring back at me from the table. The other squad members had stopped talking and were watching me too. “Keep out of our heads.”

“Are you sensitive?”

“No.” There was a great deal of anger in that simple response, and I withdrew myself and raised my barriers quickly. “Don’t need to be to feel your grubby little fingers rifling through our heads. Keep out!”

Tryst put a hand out, stopping short of touching her, but urging calm nonetheless. He turned his disapproving gaze on me.

“We get it, really, we do. But the Vosk have taken everything from us but our innermost thoughts. We don’t need you taking those from us. Do you understand?”

I couldn’t escape the burst of shame at his words, and I quickly forced it down. Shame was not an emotion that would be of use in keeping me alive and sane. Still, the way they stared at me suggested a response was required.

“Your minds are your own. I was merely gaining a sense of each of you, no secrets were discerned, no thoughts heard.”

“Not the fucking point!” Saevi snapped, and again it was Corporal Tryst who urged calm.

“We do not have the ability to protect ourselves like you do,” he said, voice gentle but not soft. “The Vosk don’t have Psykers, so the only thing they haven’t been able to take from us is what’s in our heads. We know you can’t help picking up whatever leaks from us, but you can’t purposefully reach out to us, to take what is ours. You need to understand that.”

Which I did, for it made a great deal of sense. I looked around the room, noting the other squads nearest to my own who were paying attention, though seemed to be pretending not to. I had spent so long with only others of ability that I had forgotten what it was like for those without.

“I apologise,” I said, speaking loud enough that those others listening could hear. “The… training, that I was given did not take such things into account. I shall endeavour to ensure that I do not impose upon your thoughts.”

“So fucking formal,” Saevi muttered, but she seemed somewhat mollified.

It struck me then, and that shame returned. I was formal, and distant, but only due to necessity. There had been no friends, no family, no one but the other slaves for a long time. Everything had been stripped from us and the only way to survive had been to bury every part of ourselves that made us vulnerable.

“I apologise,” I repeated.

“It’s okay,” Corporal Tryst said. “We get it, believe me. Just allow us to retain our privacy, our own thoughts, and we will be fine.”

They turned back to their conversations and I was left alone once more. It would be a simple matter for me to lower my barriers and reach out once again, to run mental fingers ever so lightly over their minds to see if they would notice.

There would be some use to doing that. A way of refining my abilities and improving my control. But I had spent so very long with nothing but enemies and rivals around me. My new squad mates were the first people who weren’t necessarily a threat or an enemy. I was loathe to lose those potential allies.

So instead, I strengthened my barriers and closed my eyes, resting as best I could before we reached the jump point and whatever the Warrens were.