An excerpt from Chapter 2 of Captains of a Tyrant Fate. Obviously, like the book as a whole, it is NSFW so, um, don't read it at work!

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Chapter 2: Exploring

Wild Sapphos, Kaninchen System, Independent Space

Nada

I was excited. I rarely got to go anywhere with my Captain; we were always in hiding or on the run. But Rajani had agreed that I could come on this trip as long as I remembered it was a ‘casing the joint’ thing, and not a date. As if ‘casing the joint’ wasn’t the best sort of date! I assumed, anyway; I haven’t been on a lot of dates.

We took Brigita’s old shuttle in; it would attract much less attention than either the Squid or the manta. Wild Sapphos was technically an atavistic stronghold, although it was just a small asteroid in a Commonwealth system. But they wanted to do things their own way, like, for example, banning men and children from entering. All self-identified, of course, so a few men did make it down. Some even made it back.

Immigration was very informal compared to Imperial worlds, and apparently very formal compared to Commonwealth worlds. We stood in a chain-linked fenced section of the spaceport while the official security gang—The Scythians—scanned us. There were five of us. I had worn skimpy shorts, a bra and a pleather collar. I wasn’t quite brave enough to go naked, though they didn’t have any rule against it. I had hoped the Captain would hold my leash, but she had handed it off to Moniker. The Captain wore a well-fitted dark suit, a bit more casual than usual, collar open and more decolletage on display. Najla wore her normal stuff; short skirt and a plaid shirt. The two robots did not make up part of the party, officially; they were ‘in disguise’ as dumb drones. Moniker managed this better than Maid did; they were looking around a little too much. Maid was also missing their beam-throwers; they didn’t talk that often, but they had mentioned how annoying it would be to have to punch everybody to death. Maid said that sort of thing sometimes, but they didn’t mean anything by it.

They scanned us for guns and bombs; we didn’t have either. As I said, we’d removed the beam-throwers from the robots too. They encouraged swords though; the Captain was wearing Lalitha’s military sabre. Najla had, like myself, turned up her nose at the idea of a sword, though she had a telescoping baton at her waist.

The security gang was more professional than I expected from their haphazard appearance; thorough and polite, in a gruff way. I shouldn’t have been surprised; Brigita had been a member, nearly a decade back. That was one reason she stayed back on the ship.

The gang member scanning me was muscular, with varicoloured tattoos down her arms, and a side-shave. She scanned me in a businesslike way, at least until the Captain said, “You can be somewhat rough with my slave, if you’d like.” The woman looked at me, and I nodded minimally. She smirked and roughly grabbed me, groping and scanning me in a very pleasant and humiliating way.

Having made our way through security, we found ourselves in the one and only city itself, hewn into the inner rock of the asteroid. It was busy and vibrant, in a rather Commonwealth way.

The captain took us on a circuitous route, checking out the less used parts of the station, particularly around the spacedock.

“Keep a lookout,” Rajani said to the others. We were in a fairly dingy looking alley, discarded shipping crates gradually rotting into soil.

“What are we looking for?” I asked, but the Captain took my leash from Moniker and slammed me into the wall. Any further questions were stolen from my tongue by the Captain’s lips pressing into mine, hungry and fierce. Her hand dived into my shorts, and into my cunt with little preamble. I was already wet, though. Any sort of rough treatment and I flood like a dam has burst. She curled her fingers inside me, pulling me onto tiptoes. Working those fingers within me; Rajani knows all my shortcuts and cheat codes. She’s showing me that she’s completely in charge of my body; that she can pull pleasure out of it with a rough precision that leaves me breathless. I orgasm, shuddering and jerking. The Captain tastes her fingers. Then turns and tugs the leash. “Keep up.”

“Not particularly professional, Captain,” remarked Moniker.

“Don’t be jealous, Mon, you’ll all get a turn with her,” said the Captain. “Well, except Maid, of course.”

“Unless they want to,” I volunteered.

Maid looked at me and the Captain, head tilted. “I will think on it,” Maid said. As I say, they didn’t talk much.

“Well,” said Najla, grinning at me. “As much as I’m in favour of all sharing the Captain’s toy, we should probably go about the actual mission.”

The next stop was the Exchange. Moniker and Maid were both carrying containers of Supplementary Compiler Matter; we exchanged them for Oscu, this place’s money. It wasn’t a real economy, from what the others said, more a piece of play for Commonwealth tourists. Anybody with an unconstrained matter compiler could print off reams of this stuff, but it was apparently fun if you weren’t used to it. Perhaps I was a prude, but money as kink seemed very strange to me. Well, at least I thought so until the Captain kissed me, and stuffed a couple of notes into my bra; that kind of won me over.

We meandered our way through the city; to get the lay of the land and also obscure our actual destination from any watchers. The city was chaotic, neon-filled and haphazard, but struck me as somewhat stagey. There was a sense of pretence, of heightened drama, of play. Perhaps me and the Captain were the only ones to notice this; it was plenty dirty, but there was none of the grit of a real Imperial city. By which, I supposed, I meant that no one was starving or dying.

The place we’re looking for was called the HexWench Club; a rather unprepossessing cubic building with wraparound displays showing fighting/sex. It was crowded, but not too crowded, and we managed to find a seat in the upper tiers. The centre of the room was a plastic cube, an arena, containing robots fighting, curved swords clashing.

I looked around; a mix of customers, some checking the fight, others drinking, socialising, flirting, embracing. I wasn’t the only one wearing a leash, which made me happy, in a weird, not quite describable, way. There were also a lot of robots—drones, I guessed—standing around, behind tables, inert. Moniker and Maid were following their example.

We got drinks; they were all the same price. They all came from the same matter compiler, after all, and there was no need to make things complicated for the bar staff. The Captain and Najla sat either side of me, each putting a distracting hand on my upper thighs.

There was a crash from the central arena; a severed robo-limb hit the perspex wall. The bigger of the two robots brought its sword down for a disabling blow. Sparks filled the space and cheers went up from some sections of the crowd. Money changed hands; the odds boards were updated.

Najla, unfortunately, removed her hand from my thigh and took out her pad. “Do you want me to put us on the battle list, Captain?” she said. “Probably the quickest way to get attention.”

“I’ve spotted some teams,” said the Captain. “Where is the other one competing at the moment?“

“Bottom right,” said Najla. “The ones with all the pads but no obvious VR equipment.”

“You okay fighting, Moniker?” asked the Captain.

Moniker inclined its head slightly. Most of its processing would be local; the Black Squid was in range, but there was several seconds delay.

“Okay,” said Najla. “Added. It will take a while before we’re up.”

“I’m sure we’ll find something to do,” said the Captain. She took my chin, turned my face and kissed me, exhilaratingly hard. While I was still recovering from that, Najla turned me towards her and also kissed me. I whimpered.

⁂

I was a blushing, red-faced mess when the announcers called for Monikiller. Najla had come up with the name. Moniker walked down to the perspex cube; the Captain and Najla set out pads and controllers, as if they were instructing Moniker. Of course, Moniker needed no such instruction. It was fighting Robutch, a large robot, maybe based off the plans of a cargo-bot. Moniker pulled a sword from the retractable plinth, looking at it with obvious amusement. The crowd seemed to think this was acting on the part of its controllers. The other robot waved its sword in an elaborate kata, stomping and whirling. Moniker just looked on, sword tip resting casually on the ground like an ornamental walking stick.

At a signal from the announcers, Robutch sprang into action. It surged across the areas, bringing the sword down in a deadly arc. Moniker stepped aside, and flicked its sword out, cutting the behind of Robutch’s knee, piercing the light armour. Robutch stumbled, lubricant gushing out from behind its knee. Moniker drove its sword through its spine, and all Robutch’s lights went out. The crowd was caught out by the quick win and were mostly silent.

“Oh god, Moniker, you’re supposed to pretend you are being driven by humans,” muttered Najla, tapping at her pad. Moniker learned though, and the next couple of fights were performed somewhat less effectively. Though Moniker did always have this attitude of mild amusement throughout. After three fights we retired to considerable—but slightly confused—cheers from the crowd. Moniker had barely returned to our table, when a new robot arrived. It was clearly a telepresence unit, white plastic and smooth limbs. The display screen that it had for a face, was just showing the HexWench logo.

It addressed the Captain. “Perhaps you and your entourage would care to join the proprietress on the lower level? She has some questions about your robots.” The robot put a silver card on the table and left without any further ado.

“Let’s finish our drinks first,” said the Captain, giving my thigh another squeeze. “Don’t want to appear too keen.”

“Do you know what would really cement that not-too-keen-thing?” I asked. “If you and Najla took me somewhere—anywhere—and railed the shit out of me.”

The Captain raised her eyebrows. Najla smirked again.

“You see,” said the Captain, “it’s very important that you don’t appear too keen. Wouldn’t want to give people the opportunity to torture you with denial, would you?” She kissed me, stupidly gently, and then we finished our drinks.