“Thank you, Sheloran,” Dave said as they rolled his bed into Ploxni’s room. Medical care was free in the Republic.

Anyone could receive treatment free of cost, especially in emergency situations. It didn’t cost a single credit.

However, it did turn out that there were “luxuries” and “options” that a few (thousand) credits could obtain. “Luxury accommodations” were one of these. Since Dave was stable, having his bed moved into Ploxni’s room was a relatively simple affair.

“It’s the least I can do,” Sheloran said, trying to smile.

“She tried to fight the fire,” Dave said. “She wanted you to know that. She tried.”

Sheloran looked over at Ploxni’s terribly burned body, fighting back tears.

“Why?” she squeaked in a little voice. “She should have just ran… It… It was just a building...”

“Maybe to you,” Dave said. “But to her it was home, the first one she ever really had.”

Home...

Sheloran twitched.

“She loved that place, you know.” Dave said sadly.

“I did too,” Sheloran replied in a small sad voice.

The Drop of Oil is gone! Sheloran realized. She had been so worried about Ploxni that she hadn’t even bothered thinking about it before now. The place that she had invested so much of herself all this time… gone. Her business, her livelihood, destroyed.

Her “fields” ruined...

Sheloran didn’t even notice, but deep within her brain a tiny gland, a shriveled vestigial relic now only a tiny clump of cells, received a single tiny little neural impulse.

How were her people going to feed themselves now?

At the base of her spine, two tiny little lobes started to swell… just a little bit… then stopped. No. They weren’t “her people” anymore. There were plenty of places that they could find work. They will be just fine.

She could stop. She could end this madness before anyone else gets hurt.

And the Harkeen, and a dozen others just like them would take over the Free Port once more...

Blood started to flow into that tiny little gland in her brain...

“Sheloran?” Dave asked.

“What?” Sheloran replied with a start. “Sorry, I must have drifted off there. What did you say?”

“I was just saying how much she loves you guys,” Dave said.

“Well we love her too,” Sheloran squeaked helplessly as she looked at Ploxni. “Don’t worry, Dave. Even though I’m out of business I’ll always take care of Ploxni… somehow...”

“You’re quitting?!?”

“I can’t do this anymore,” Sheloran squeaked miserably. “Ploxni almost died! If you hadn’t been there, she… No,” Sheloran said with a regretful little sigh. “I won’t let anyone else get hurt because of me. The best move is to just quit.”

“But the girls-”

“There are other brothels,” Sheloran said, cutting him off.

“But they aren’t home,” Dave said wistfully.

“Stop calling it that!” Sheloran squealed. “It wasn’t a ‘home’!”

“It was to Ploxni,” Dave said sadly. “for a lot of other people too...”

Dave’s eyes misted over.

“It was home for me...”

Tears started flowing down Sheloran’s cheeks as images of everyone smiling and laughing, even the ones who weren’t “happy” with things… with what they had to do…

She had made it better, at least a little bit.

It was home. It was YOUR PEOPLE’S HOME.

A tiny insignificant gland in Sheloran’s brain started to leak out the barest trickle of… something…

She started to feel, not angry, not exactly…

It was something else, quieter, but much much stronger.

“Um, Sheloran?” Craxina said in a strangled voice as she walked into the room.

Clutching Craxina’s hand, was a trembling young garthra.

***

“Uhrrbet!” Sheloran gasped as she stood in front of her bed. Uhrrbet had been savagely beaten…

And raped…

Repeatedly…

Credit where credit was due. The Harkeen stopped just short of doing anything that would immediately threaten her life.

They wanted her to live.

Sheloran just stood there in horror.

“They tol’ me,” her young son said, “They tol’ me that this was ‘cause of you. They said that you made them have to do this.”

Sheloran just reached out and took Uhrrbet’s hand.

Uhrrbet’s turned to look at her, her eye almost swollen shut.

“I…” Uhrrbet said in a quiet sad little voice. “I really wish I could have made those dresses, Ms. Sheloran...”

“I’m so, so sorry,” Sheloran said fighting back yet more tears. “I should have never gotten you involved.”

“No, it’s my fault,” Uhrrbet said in a meek, utterly defeated voice. “I should have just done what I was supposed to and not caused any trouble. It would have been nice though… making… dresses...”

Sheloran squeezed her eyes tight as they started to squirm.

My people defeated… victimized… all is lost...

Nutrients flooded into that tiny gland. The parched, starving cells started gorging themselves…

And dividing…

***

Sheloran stiffened as an image of Uhrrbet, with dingy matted fur, curled up in the corner of a darkened room filled her consciousness.

The door opened and, with a disgusting chuckle, something walked in.

Uhrrbet numbly stood up and started taking off her stained dress.

The vision shifted.

Not that much later (she knew it wasn’t that much longer) and Uhrrbet was lying on the floor looking at the dimly glowing image of her son.

She missed him so much.

She opened a little bottle and poured all of the pills into her little paw.

She swallowed them and with, a tired little sigh, she curled up on the floor.

Dreaming of dresses, her suffering finally ended.

***

Sheloran gasped and staggered back, quickly letting go of Uhrrbet’s hand.

It’s going to happen, and not just to her. Nobody will save them.

She suddenly realized that nobody did “union registration drives” in the Free Port except for her. Nobody. Nobody went where she went. Nobody registered who she registered.

And too many of the people she sent to other brothels came back…

She hadn’t really noticed before. She hadn’t wanted to. Why were so many of them coming back?

It was for the same reason they weren’t recruited in the first place. They were weird-looking little xenos, and Federation ones at that! Nobody wanted their “classy” brothel turned into a “petting zoo for freaks”!

She could see the ugly colors of her “sisters” in the union’s sneers at her people. She could hear the dissonant tones of their whispers, their mutterings.

Her people wouldn’t be safe! There would be nowhere for them to go! And then, when they resorted to what they would have to do in order to survive, the union would have an excuse to turn their backs on them!

...Craxi!

Sheloran gasped as a terrible vision filled her mind. Craxina, laying dead in the street, with a union registration tablet on the ground next to her. She wouldn’t give up, would she? She would keep trying… Oh Creators...

The gland in her brain started to swell as it started releasing an ever increasing cocktail of hormones and neurotransmitters.

The Free Port, your home, will fall. Your people will fall.

Her breath started coming out in shuddering gasps. It felt like she was burning.

“You have to get out of here,” Uhrrbet said weakly. “They said that you’re next.”

They are coming for you. Who will protect them then? Who will protect your people?

Sheloran’s legs gave out and Craxina rushed to catch her.

Craxina gasped. Sheloran was burning up.

“Eaagghh!” Sheloran cried as she clutched at her eyes.

“S-sheloran?” Craxina asked anxiously. “Are you-”

A quiet little “squish” could be heard as dozens of little ducts around the edges of Sheloran’s eyes finally tore open and a thick greasy, waxy substance forced its way under her eyelids.

The strange grease melted instantly coating the entire surface of each of her eyes.

It burned.

Sheloran screamed. It felt like her eyes were melting!

Your people need you… NOW

***

“Sheloran!” Craxina screamed as her best friend writhed on the floor.

“RrraaAAAaaaAAaaaeeeEEee” Sheloran screamed and then fell silent and motionless.

“Help!” Craxina screamed. “Somebody help!”

Hisssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

Oh no, Craxina thought as she backed away. It’s happening again. She wasn’t sure exactly what “it” was. All she knew was that it scared the hell out of her.

Suddenly, Sheloran’s limp body was “pulled” onto it’s feet, almost as if suspended by strings.

A horrible tearing sound came from behind Sheloran’s closed eyelids.

Sheloran’ s eye’s opened.

Craxina screamed.

***

Karen was doing her rounds when she suddenly heard some xeno cry for help. She dropped what she was doing and started to rush towards the disturbance, along with a dozen other nurses and assorted staff.

There was another scream, a horrifying one.

What happened next was something that she would remember for the rest of her life.

There was this sound… a pure musical note…

Then a chord…

Then… Try as she might she has never been able to describe what she heard… not really…

It was beautiful, and alien…

And terrifying…

Then, it walked into the hall, the single most alien thing she has ever or likely will ever see. It was little, dressed in a simple home-spun frilly smock with a comically large bow on it’s head…

With strangely glowing eyes swirling with colors she had never seen before nor wished to ever see again.

It started to walk towards her as it continued to sing a weird, alien song, moving with an impossibly perfect fluid grace.

It stopped, seemingly lost in thought for a moment as if pondering something truly important.

It up at Karen and smiled, the nicest warmest most friendly smile she had ever seen as it reached up and grasped one end of the ribbon on its head slowly pulling the bow apart.

It looked at the ribbon briefly and, with the saddest little sigh, let the ribbon slip through its fingers and fall to the ground.

It opened its mouth once again and began to sing as it walked towards the exit.

She and every single other person on that floor all instinctively snapped upright, their right-arms swiftly crossing their chest as it sang,

O Fortuna,

Velut luna,

Statu variabilis...

She stood there just rooted to the spot until the voice faded away. To this day she wishes someone had recorded it…

After it (she, as they later found out) finally disappeared and that unearthly voice finally faded away an orderly turned to her.

“What the fuck?” he asked.

“I have no idea,” she replied. “I do know one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I know which room she walked out of and I know why that poor creature is in there.” Karen said her lips starting to curl into a vicious little smirk.

“Yeah?”

“Somebody’s about to get what’s coming” Karen replied.

Sheloran continued to sing as she glided, with a level of grace that Patricia Hu wishes she had, through the hospital and out the front doors.

***

Gregory played “Attack of the Shade Legends” on his mobile as he kicked back in his hover cab.

Yeah, most cabs were automated, but some folks liked that personal touch…

Or were in a position where they needed it, like around a hospital or starport…

or both…

That’s why he liked to prowl around this place, the closest hospital to the star port. It wasn’t exactly predatory. He honestly liked helping people who were lost.

That was the service he provided. People would wander up, sometimes unable to say a single word of Terran, with only the vaguest notion of where they wanted to go. Sometimes they couldn’t even speak Imperial or Fed (he knew both, and a few more besides—he was good at languages) and could only point at a picture on a screen (he had made a really nice app).

A lot of people just couldn’t understand why someone “of his talents” would “waste” themselves on a low-end job like a cab driver. His parents certainly couldn’t.

But prowling the night, gathering up the lost, and guiding them was his jam!

A beep filled the cab, a proximity alarm! Well, not exactly. The external sensors detected someone and his custom AI determined that they were “looking” at him and heading in his direction.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Most of what he made that he didn’t eat went right back into his ride.

He even slept in it. His “living room” was tiny but oh was it ever nice!

He looked at the screen. It was a little thing, kinda like a cute little frog…

But it had some freaky eyes!

It sort of drifted along, definitely out of place.

Yep, definitely one of mine... he thought as he closed his game and raised the back of his seat to a more upright position.

The little frog-girl (it was wearing a “dress”) paused and pulled out a small pistol.

“Nope,” he muttered as he pressed the lockdown button on his dash. The doors silently double-locked and a deflector screen switched on.

He watched as the frog-girl made face and tossed the pistol in to a garbage can with such disdain he could see it from across the street.

He started to reach for the “blackout” switch as she started to continue towards him but paused at the last moment.

She needed him! Well, she needed someone…

And she was just too interesting looking. She would be great for his cab-cam! His vlog made him as much as his fares and he just knew she would make some great footage.

He pressed a button, opening the rear doors and she got in.

“Hello!” he said cheerfully. “Gregory’s the name and driving’s the game! Where can I take you?”

Sheloran just sat there, unblinking, her eyes burning with a thousand colors.

“Um… Hello?” he asked. Man! Was she freaky! This was great!

“...Store...” Sheloran said in an unearthly voice after a few moments.

“What do you want to buy?”

“...everything...”

“Everything?” Gregory asked thoughtfully. “Well, at this time of night, ‘everything’ is the Barn-Mart Ultra!”

“...ok...”

Gregory smiled and punched in the destination. The car quietly rolled forward and off into the night.

***

About an hour later Gregory was sitting in the Barn-Mart’s parking lot waiting expectantly.

The frog-girl didn’t talk, at all, no matter how hard he tried to start a conversation.

It was looking like the vlog was going to be a bust on this one. Still, he didn’t mind. His passenger was the living embodiment of “lost”.

The doors of the huge shop opened and out came his fare pushing a cart laden with stuff.

He got out to help her unload.

“Strange” didn’t even begin to describe her purchases. There were grav vehicle parts, two large “megacaps” like he had in his car stereo, a home theater holographic projector, some arts and crafts stuff, a huge spool of “space-wire”, a super-thin very high tensile strength wire, some gloves to handle the wire without your fingers falling off, a bunch of other stuff...

Two blaster pistols… two heavy stun pistols… a pile of energy cells...

“Those are going to have to go into the trunk,” he said firmly as he pointed at the weapons.

The frog-girl just shrugged and let him put them safely away.

Now this IS interesting! Gregory happily thought as he hopped back into his car and they drove off.

The return trip was beyond fun. Gregory watched in amazement as the weird little frog proceeded to destroy several thousand credits worth of high end electronics, littering the back of his cab with wreckage.

That fifteen hundred credit holo-projector? She only wanted two things out of it and it looked like she broke one of those. Same thing for those grav vehicle parts. Hundreds of credits destroyed for a small handful of things.

It made absolutely no sense and he LOVED it! She trashed EVERYTHING! Pieces of high-credit debris were literally bouncing off of the clear partition between them.

“So,” Gregory asked, “What are you making.”

“Resh’ka-spath voz Plath,” she muttered as she crooned at the chaotic pile of rubble she was making.

“Now that wasn’t a language he had heard before, neither had his AI! It wasn’t in the books! Neat!”

She pulled out a small internal imager she had bought and looked at one of the megacaps carefully.

She pulled out a small knife…

“You really want to be careful with those,” Gregory said urgently watching as she started carefully cutting at the ruggedized outer casing.

“No, seriously!” he exclaimed. “You just ruined it! Don’t try to charge that!”

She paid him no mind.

When they reached her hotel she gave him a huge tip.

“...mess...” was all she said.

“Don’t worry about it!” he said cheerfully. “Um… You seem to be in a little bit of a hurry. Are you going to need a ride again? I can wait.” This was about to get good and there was no way he was going to miss it!

I mean, why install high-dollar shields in your ride if you never use them!

“...wait...” the frog-girl muttered as she grabbed the weapons from the back and sprinted inside.

Damn, was she fast.

***

Gregory was dozing in his cab when the proximity alert woke him up a little past sunrise.

She was coming back. The cute little dress was gone, replaced by with what looked like a silk bathrobe.

Weird, but then again that was sort of par for the course.

Her eyes looked different too. They looked more normal. Well, normal-ish anyway.

“Sorry to keep you,” she said.

“Oh no worries,” he replied.

“Where to.”

“Harklogrowl restaurant, Free Port.”

“Says here that they aren’t open yet,” he replied looking at his screen. “They don’t open for lunch until-”

“Drive.”

“Ooookay...” he replied.

As they reached the interstate the frog-girl pulled out a tablet.

“So what are you reading about?” Gregory asked absolutely consumed with curiosity.

“…Threen...” she muttered absently.

***

Inside the restaurant and their base of operations in the Free Port, Jazzhon sat at the head of the table, grinning from ear to ear.

They showed that little frog-bitch!

“But, I paid you… I paid you! Please!… Please!!! Please no!” a terrified voice screamed from a tablet that everyone was passing around as they howled with laughter.

“Yeah I broke that little thing in but good!” Hrog snickered. “She even promised to show up for work when she gets out of the hospital! Told her that if she didn’t work for us her kid would!”

“You did good, Hrog,” Jazzhon laughed as everyone’s plates were set in front of them. They all just sat there waiting, staring at the food.

Finally, Jazzhon’s plate was placed in front of him. He slowly raised his fork… He always liked to make them wait just a little. Not long, just long enough to remind them who ate first.

And then he brought the first mouthful of meat to his maw…

Ok, that was enough teasing them. He ate.

With a little cheer, everyone followed suit.

“Kizzrou and his guys are late!” Jazzhon grumbled. “Anyone hear from them?”

“Not a peep, boss, but we know they did the job! Whole place is burnt!”

“Yeah, they probably just layin’ low or something,” Jazzhon shrugged.

They continued to laugh and eat as they discussed what their next move would be. They would lean on the Free Port, hard, make sure everyone knew their place. They needed to learn what happened to people who dealt with scum like that Shel-

“You can’t go in there!” one of the cooks yelled as the doors to the kitchen opened…

And Sheloran walked in.

She glided effortlessly over to them as his guys jumped to their feet, drawing weapons.

A primal fear gripped Jazzhon. She wasn’t scared… She wasn’t even mad!

She looked amused.

He and every single Threen in that building all knew, fundamentally and instinctively, one thing.

They had fucked up.

“If you aren’t Harkeen,” Sheloran said in a pleasant dreamy voice. “Leave. Now.”

“You got some nerve showing up here,” Jazzhon said sounding a lot more confident than he actually was.

“Well, you said I was next,” Sheloran said with a smile as she kept walking towards them.

“Yeah, you will be if you don’t learn your place!”

“The building’s insured,” Sheloran replied still moving slowly and gracefully towards where he was sitting as his men started to surround her. “I’ll be back in business in a day. I’m not only still writing loans, I’m cutting my rates.”

“Yeah?” Jazzhon replied. “You do that and-”

“You’ll make me next?” Sheloran smiled. “Grab me? Throw me in van? Sodomize me with sticks because your flaccid tiny penises aren’t big enough to do damage on their own?”

“Uh...” Jazzhon replied. This isn’t how it was supposed to go at all!

“Well, here I am. Make me next… You make me next, not your men, you.” She said as she arrived at his table.

“I’m not just going to do loans anymore,” she said in a pleasant trilling voice. “I’m going to do gambling, smuggling… protection… everything. I’m going to put you out of business, send you home to your papa with nothing. The Free Port is mine.”

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” he asked in outrage.

“Just a girl waiting to be made next,” Sheloran said with complete confidence, absolute calm.

Jazzhon looked at her with a mix of uncertainty and suspicion. This had to be a trick! She had to have people close! He glanced toward the big clear glass windows.

Was it a sniper? That would explain why the fur on the back of his neck was standing on end.

Was she wearing a wire?

“You think I’m stupid?” he sneered.

“No, I think you are a Gvak-Shrrrrrrrr,” she said letting that last “r” roll off of her lips as everyone gasped.

He was stunned into silence. To be called that, in front of his men!

Then she reached out…

and took his plate!!! She took it!… She took his food!… She took it right out from in front of him!

As his men stood there shocked to paralysis, she picked up some noodles… HIS NOODLES and popped them into her mouth…

AND THEN DUMPED THE REST OF HIS FOOD… HIS FOOD… ON THE FLOOR!!!

There was no greater insult! No greater slight!…

No greater challenge!

He was too angry to even speak.

“That was nasty,” she said, making a yuck-face, as she reached out and… TOOK HIS COFFEE

“Y… You… You…”

“Thanks, Gvak-Shrr,” she said as she sipped HIS COFFEE. “I do feel bad though, putting all you you nice little Shrrs out to starve so I tell you what. I’m expanding my core business too. I don’t have enough boys. I’ll get you all signed up, get you makeovers, get you all pretty… Creators know you will need a job after I post this,” she said as she revealed a small camera pinned to the collar of her robe.

“Take… take this… bitch in the back...” he gasped barely able to speak. “And… and...”

His men looked at each other uncertainly. None of them wanted to move.

“… and STRETCH HER HOLES!!!” Jazzhon screeched. “… DO IT!!!!”

His men started to close in around her.

Sheloran smiled as she could feel her heart starting to pound in her chest…

Her heartbeats seemed to slow down as the Threen closing in started moving slower and slower

The colors became brighter and move vivid as she lifted her secret eyelid…

An outstretched claw was getting closer leaving streaks of color behind it as it slowly drifted down towards her neck.

She lifted her chin with a little smile as she waited paitently for it to close around her throat.

They had to touch her before she struck... Well, they didn’t have to touch her…

It was just tradition, the ultimate act of utter contempt for your foe,… and a lot more fun that way...

Jazzhon started to jump to his feet when she did that weird shit with her eyes.

He figured it out. Creators help him!

It was a trap, but it wasn’t a wire, or a sniper…

It was her!

He had to get out of here! Screw honor! Screw his reputation! He had to-

Sheloran watched him slowly, ever so slowly start to try to get up. He understood. Good.

She felt a slight tickle as a single claw tip caressed her cheek.

She jumped forward, slowly floating through the air (in her perception) as her hands moved towards the two flayer pistols that she had in her robes. They weren’t true flayers but they were decent.

No they weren’t. They were horribly crude but considering the time she had and what she had to work with, she couldn’t help but feel pleased, even a bit proud.

She snagged the top of the table with the tip of one of her toes, altering her trajectory as the first of their blaster bolts rent the air exactly where she should have landed.

She kicked off of the table, sending herself lazily spinning through the air in the opposite direction as her hands finally started to draw the two flesh-strippers from the sash in which they were artfully slung…

She started to sing as the first of the Threen, screaming, started to tear apart…

Then the second…

And then the third…

***

Jazzhon ran in a blind panic into the rear storeroom.

He had to get out! He had to get away!...

Away from her...

As he desperately tried to urge speed from his corpulent frame he tried to make sense of what he saw.

He couldn’t.

He didn’t even know what she used.

All he knew was that his men were gone, literally torn to pieces in front of him…

They didn’t even have a chance!

Oh Creators! The singing… The singing was getting closer!

He spun around and fired at the shadow closing in behind him.

He missed. He knew he would miss. She was just too fast.

Where did she go? Where was she? The singing was close but it was all around him now.

He heard nothing but that song… that horrible horrible song.

He whirled around desperately.

Crack!

He felt a little tickle along his wrist…

Then… pain…

He looked in horror as his pistol, and his hand started to fall.

He tried to run.

Crack!

He fell, leaving one of his feet behind him.

He screamed in pain, confusion, and most of all, blind terror.

Crack! crack! Crack!

Three of his fingers disappeared on his remaining hand.

Whipwire! he thought in terror. A length of anyone of a thousand different materials, all of them thin and strong enough to be sharper than a razor along their entire length. It was a cheap and clumsy but dangerous, usually to everyone involved but if someone was a master of it...

Crack!

His other foot was sliced in half and then Crack! it was gone!

Crack!

What was left of his remaining hand was severed and cast aside. He looked at the stump left.

“Please!!!” he howled.

The singing just got louder.

Crack!

He lost an ear.

“I got money! I can pay you!” He shouted. “Anything you want!”

Crack!

He screamed.

Crack!… Crack!… Crack!… Crack!...

***

Over a million years in the past, the Heretic walked slowly through a magnificent garden.

It was breathtaking, glorious…

Even after all these years, it still delighted her. She paused at her favorite fountain, a huge bronze obscenely obese tol pouring crystal pure water from a goblet into his huge gaping maw…

And peeing it into a pool filled with brilliantly colored fish.

“Good ol Fatty,” the Heretic said wistfully. He had been a great man. In her opinion greater than any Plath she ever knew.

He had actually managed to ‘conker’ the entire world, holding down even the most obstinate of his foes down and patiently shoving food into their faces until they gained weight.

Of course, that’s not what he’s remembered for the most. No…

It wasn’t his strategic and political genius, his societal masterpiece of a world government, his patronage of science and the arts that advanced tol culture and science at a rate that was simply beyond belief. It wasn’t his institution of universal education. All in a single lifespan.

An achievement that would shame even the greatest among the progenitors themselves.

Was that what they celebrated about Ol’ Fatso? The Tol? Of course not. Oh he was recognized for that, appreciated for that.

But what echoed through song and legend? That would have to be his deathbed party, his final royal command.

Even she had to admit it, it was one hell of a blow-out. The festivities lasted for years, even longer than he had planned, the perfect send-off for the perfect man.

She loved that mountain of goo and still missed him every single day.

A Tol approached bowing respectfully.

“Why do you fukkin’ do that?” she snorted.

“Because it annoys you so!” the Tol chuckled and then stopped, looking at her earnestly.

“You heard,” she muttered.

“Yes,” he said sadly.

“Well it happens to everyone,” the ancient heretic replied with a smile.

“The… the scores from the end of the semester are tallied,” the Tol said in a quiet voice.

“And?”

He handed her a sheet of paper.

“Excellent!” she said brightly. “Even Klebbit! I new that little goo had it in him!...”

The ancient Plath narrowed her eyes at her assistant.

“What?”

“It’s just…” the Tol said sadly. “What are we going to do without you?”

“Thrive!” she said cheerfully. “You are going to take what I’ve given you and you are going to fukkin’ run with it! You are going to grow, and develop, and learn… Oh you are going to learn so many things! You will leave me behind in the dust where I belong and go and do your own thing, your own way!… Not that you’ve ever done it any way but your own way…”

She tottered over and gave the Tol a big hug.

“You will transcend even us in the end!” she grinned.

“I seriously doubt that,” the Tol replied, a bit shocked.

“I don’t! Not for one minute I don’t!” The old Plath smiled. “In fact, I know you will.”

“Is this some of your witchplath again?”

“As a matter of fact it is,” the old Plath chuckled darkly.

She sighed.

“Old friend,” she said. “I need your help.”

“Anything, teacher!”

“I...” the heretic said looking up at the statue of The Fat King. “I wasn’t always… good. In fact I’ve done horrible things… for the worst reasons...”

“Teacher?”

“Even my plans for you, for the Tol… Fatty forgive me!… were rooted in the blackest, most tainted of soil.”

“What?” the Tol gasped.

She nodded, beginning to weep.

“I was going to betray you, a young thriving vital people for the sake of a failed race, a doomed species, an evil species… We are, you know,” she said, tears streaming down her cheeks. “We hide it well, draped in silk and grace, but we are evil.”

Her colleague and former star pupil looked at her in horror.

“I’m going to tell you something,” the old Plath said with a shuddering sob. “I just pray you will still call me a friend afterwards...”

After she finished, the Tol just looked at her.

“That,” it said, “was without a doubt the single most fuked up thing I’ve ever heard.”

The Plath just looked at the ground unable to even meet his gaze.

“I’m so sorry...”

“Well you fukkin’ should be!” it said giving her a gentle shove. “That was some real dirty dealing there! In fact I feel dirty just listenin’ to all that. What you did… or are going to do… or did and it’s gonna happen… fuk!… makes my head go all funny just tryin’ to figgure it out! Only thing I know for sure is that you are a first class meepfilcher!”

The Plath kept looking down.

“So, how we gonna fix it?” the Tol asked.

The heretic looked up hopefully.

“So you will help, even knowing everything I’ve done?”

“Sure!” the Tol said brightly. “Sounds fun! And we’re still friends too.”

“We… we are?” the old Plath asked hopefully.

“Sure we are,” the Tol said wrapping his arm around her. “A lot of my friends are assholes!”

The old Plath burst into laughter and felt, for the first time, that everything was going to be ok.

***

“So how long have you been in here?” Visha asked Lucky as she took Lucky’s bishop.

“Five years,” Lucky muttered staring at the board.

“That long? Why haven’t you been either sentenced or deported?” Visha asked as she sipped a cup of rather disappointing coffee.

“Oh that’s because-”

“Guys!” Tizz shouted making both Visha and Lucky flinch! “You will NEVER guess what just happened!”

“Why is it that you always say that?” Lucky said with some annoyance. “Just say-”

“You know the Harkeen, right?” Tizz said breathlessly completely ignoring Lucky’s reply. “You know how they’ve been running the Free Port like since forever?”

“Just like they hold most of similar areas,” Visha replied. “Annoying little creatures but-”

“Well they just took on Sheloran!”

“Oh?” Lucky asked.

“Lucky!” Tizz gushed. “You were right about her...”

“Woah…” Lucky replied, her ears sticking straight up, a few moments later.

“They say he looked like sliced baloney when she was done with him!”

“Nobody let her have any yarn when she shows up,” Lucky chuckled. “Maybe keep the noodles away from her too...”

“It will be nice to get a chance to meet her,” Visha replied. “I never really got a chance to-”

“Oh she’s not coming here!” Tizz exclaimed.

“Oh?” Lucky asked, “Where are they… Ohhhhhhh…”

She trailed off into silence as Tizz just pointed upwards.

***

Sheloran groaned.

“Craxi?” she called as she opened her eyes. “I guess I...”

She was sitting, completely alone, in a tiny room.

She tried to stand but couldn’t.

She was chained to a bench… with chains, big, huge, heavy chains.

“Wha?!?” she exclaimed as she began to struggle.

“Calm down!” a Kalesh said over a speaker. “We are almost there.”

“Almost where?” Sheloran asked. “Is this the hospital?”

“Hospital?” the voice replied somewhat amused. “If you need medical attention you will be treated upon arrival.”

“Arrival where?!?” Sheloran squeaked. “What is happening?!?”

“You will be fully briefed upon your arrival,” the voice replied. “Just try to relax. It goes a lot better when you relax.”

“What goes better?!?” Sheloran squeaked even squeakier.

There was no reply.

Ok Sheloran, think... she told herself as she tried to make herself calm down. I was at the hospital and Ploxni was… and then Oh Great Prophet, Uhrrbet!… Oh Creators… and then I got kinda dizzy and… and...

and...

…

and then I...

“Eeeeeeeeee…..” Sheloran squeaked her voice raising higher and higher. She would have buried her face in her hands and rocked back and forth but both were quite impossible, you know, because of the chains.

***

The strange slightly buzzing room made a bumping, grating noise and then fell silent.

“We are preparing to debark you. We are armed and we are authorized to use lethal force immediately and without any additional warning! Do you understand?”

“No!” Sheloran squeaked. “No I don’t understand! I don’t understand anything! Who are you? Where am I? What is-”

“You will be fully briefed shortly. Again, we are about to open the hatch and debark you. Right now, the only thing you need to understand is that we will fucking kill you if you do anything stupid. Do you understand that or do I need to repeat it again?”

“I… I understand...” Sheloran said meekly.

There was a grinding sound and the entire rear wall of the little room slid back and away revealing what looked to be like a small docking bay.

Standing there were six big humans in full combat armor and carrying AK’s and shotguns.

There were also two dogs and not the cute ones! (ok, maybe they were a little cute...)

A hatch (like the ones on a spaceship. Oh my Creators am I on a space ship?) opened and another armored human, unarmed this time walked into the little bay and up into her room.

They walked up to her with a scanner and stared at it for a few seconds.

“I am now going to approach you!” the human female said in a loud and clear voice. “I am doing so in order to release you from the bench and fasten these restraints on you.” she said raising up four wide thick cuffs attached to each other with yet more chains.

“It is not my intent to cause you any physical harm,” she continued. “Do you understand and consent?”

“WhereamI? AmIonaship? OhCreatorsareyoupoopingdeportingmeeeee?!?!?”

“(sigh) You will be fully briefed shortly,” the armored female said wearily. “Do you consent to being handled?”

“I guess?”

“I am now approaching you.” the female said as the guards holding AK’s leveled their rifles at Sheloran’s head, their fingers lying alongside the trigger guard, maintaining trigger discipline.

“I am now going to guide you to your feet,” the armored woman said as she gently pulled Sheloran to her feet. “I am now going to attach your wrist restraints. Please put your hands behind your back.”

The cuffs closed and then gently inflated snugly and securely holding each of her tiny little wrists.

“I am now attaching your leg restraints...”

Sheloran just stood there, completely confused, trying to be as reassuring as possible.

Once she was restrained, the guards lowered their weapons.

“Please step from the shuttle!”

Sheloran, dragging comically huge but thankfully light titanium alloy chains, shuffled out of… a pooping raven assault lander… what the poop?

The guards fell in behind her.

“There is a white line painted on the floor!” the unarmored woman said as she stood beside her. “Follow the white line...”

A hatch opened.

Not knowing what else to do, Sheloran followed the white line.

She soon found herself in a small room facing a two-dimensional display mounted behind a thick pane of some clear material.

The screen switched on and a crest appeared, the crest of the Republic Armed Forces.

(Cheerful music plays)

Welcome to The Tartarus Detention Facility!

An image of a dull grey space station with gun turrets appeared.

Congratulations! Your abilities and achievements have been recognized and you have been given the special honor of being considered too dangerous to be incarcerated anywhere else! Either due to your natural abilities, impressive feats of violence, or daunting disciplinary history, you have been declined by facility after facility but do not fear! EVERYONE is welcome here! No matter who you are or what you have done you have a HOME here at the top Republic maximum-security detention facility!

We have the sneaking suspicion that this might not be your first time as a guest of the Republic (ha ha) but we do things DIFFERENTLY here in Tartarus!

So please pay attention, your life may depend on it!

(Cheerful music continues)

“Oh poop….” Sheloran gasped in a tiny voice.