“Hey, it’s not on me that your people running the place shit the bed.”
“Shit the bed? That is something children do, not Dohrag warrio?—”
“It’s a figure of speech,” she grumbled. “It means they seriously messed up.”
A flicker of amusement gleamed in Valin’s eye, though only for an instant. It seemed he was aware his men were not always the sharpest tools in the crayon box, or something like that.
“Defecating in one’s bed is, indeed, making a mess,” he said, his tone a hint calmer. “But that’s beside the point. The issue is you attempted to flee. You?—”
“I’m a goddamn slave, man. What would you do if you were in my shoes?” she shot back, her frustration overriding her common sense.
“Your feet are far smaller than?—”
“Oh my god! Not literally!”
He glared at her. Shalia realized she’d stopped working to argue with him. Argue with the biggest, burliest, meanest son of a bitch on the ship. She quickly picked up another crate and continued her task.
“No. You are doing it wrong. That goes here.” He pushed her aside, shoving the crate into place with only one hand.
Shalia felt his muscles flex through his clothing as they made contact. The man was like chiseled granite. Radiantly warm, wonderful-smelling granite. With an attitude. He loomed over her, his heat easily palpable this close.
“From this point on you will only be working aboard the station. There is nowhere to run. No way to flee. We have but one shuttle, thanks to your friends, and you will not be aboard it again anytime in the near future. Perhaps when the new workers arrive, then you will be transferred to the surface, but not before then.”
“You mean slaves. When the new slaves arrive.”
“Call it what you will. You are working for the Dohrag empire now, and I cannot—Iwillnot have you be a drain on my command. You will work hard, and you will earn your keep, is that clear?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“There are many tasks you can perform aboard this resupply platform. Come, I will show you.”
Shalia followed close, not about to draw the man’s ire. He seemed annoyed but in decent spirits today despite the supply shuttle’s fuck up. But she knew that could change in an instant. It was one of the first things she’d learned when taken into the Dohrag camp. Keep your head down, and work hard, because they were legendary for their tempers.
Shalia felt a stirring in her skin as she walked the corridors of the station with him. Being so close was making her pigment almost tickle. Something about this man made her body do things of its own accord, in spite of their mutual dislike.
They spent a few hours together, walking the craft from end to end. It wasn’t a very big space station, and once he’d shown her the layout, it all seemed even smaller than when she’d first arrived. Yes, there was a fair amount of area contained within its walls, but the way it was sectioned off to prevent decompressionif there was any sort of accident meant a lot of it was kind of useless space. Not exactly useless, as it kept them from dying from the vacuum, but underutilized areas that simply weren’t constructed with maximum efficiency in mind.
Shalia wasn’t impressed. The Dohrags, for all their bluster, may have been a formidable military foe, but their supply logistics setup was anything but impressive.
Valin led her personally the entire time, barking orders at his men as he passed. Since the incident in the showers, it seemed he had taken a firmer stance with them to quell any thoughts of insubordination. So far as she could tell, it seemed to be working.
“Commander Valin. Message from the shuttle, sir,” an announcement crackled over the internal comms system.
Valin held up a hand, signaling for Shalia to be silent, then activated the nearby console. She watched the sequence closely. There was no telling if one day that knowledge might come in useful.
“Valin here. What’s your status? Is the harvest going smoothly this time?”
“Commander, we were gathering supplies as you requested, but we noticed on scans that there was some sort of disturbance not too far away. It looks as though there is a party on foot moving away from the area. They might be escaped prisoners. Scans aren’t conclusive, but a few appear to be the same race as the one currently being held.”
“You are short-handed and undermanned,” Valin said, forcing himself to remain even-toned though the man had irked him calling his order a request. “Note their position, wrap up the harvest, then return to the station to equip a proper retrieval unit.”
“We can do this. We’re already en route.”
Valin’s demeanor shifted in a flash. Shalia could almost feel the surge of tension and anger crackling off his skin.
“What did you say? That isnotyour directive, is that clear?You were given a direct order to continue the harvest. Turn that shuttle around, finish your job, then return to the station to load a retrieval team.”
“We have weapons and men already on hand and ready to go, Commander. We’ll have those prisoners in no time.”
