She looks at me as if I've grown another head. "And you'd just steal them from helpless, sleeping people?"
"Well, no. I would look for helpless, sleeping criminals. Or Threshians. Those I wouldn't feel too bad stealing from. Were there any that weren't human?"
Jade crosses her arms under that magnificent chest of hers, a mutinous look on her face. "You mean like Helen?"
Mmm, good point. "Obviously I wouldn't take out a qura'aki. I'm not THAT dumb."
"First of all," Jade says in a tone that brooks no argument. "You are not dumb. And second of all, we are not slaughtering people just to suit our own needs." She lifts her chin, indicating the broken wiring in my hand. "That isn't available anywhere else?"
She's magnificent when she's angry, and I love the sight of it. I want to bask in her fury and worship at her feet—or between her thighs—but I can tell she doesn't want to hear that right now. So I do my best to answer. "Well, there are lots of these wires. It's just that most of them are broken or look like they're about to fry. This ship's on an older sort of engine, and it tends to require a lot of maintenance, which hasn't been done in years. I'm afraid that these power fluctuations are going to keep happening, and if they go down again, I'm concerned that they're going to take a critical system with them that we need. We're better off holing up in a room or two where we know everything's working efficiently versus running the entire ship half-ass and hoping for the best."
Jade considers this. She studies me. "Do you think it's serious enough that we need to take action like that?"
I sigh. "I was hoping that wasn't the case, but I've looked at twenty-one of these wires today." I hold the one in my hand up again. "Thirteen are only working because a component melted around them. Four are on the verge of breaking. We need a full seven to run the climate control panel."
Her jaw clenches. She looks up at me, and then back at the wire I'm holding. "Are you lying to me?"
"I really wanted to, but then I thought you'd never have sex with me again, and I'd really really like that to happen again." I give her my most charming smile.
Her mouth twitches and I know I'm winning her over. "We're not killing anyone," she says softly. "I'm not doing that. Can't we just cannibalize the pods we came in? Those of us that were woken up?"
I look at her in surprise. "They're still here on the ship?"
She nods.
"Yeah, we can do that." When a relieved smile crosses her face, I press my luck. "And then we can have sex again? It's been hours since I licked that glorious cunt of yours and I'd sure like to refresh my memory."
"Is this what I have to look forward to for the next month?" she asks in an amused tone, even as her hand goes to my belt.
"Honestly? Yeah."
Jade just laughs, and I'm glad she doesn't hate me. Also glad because I'm pretty sure laughter means I will absolutely get to feast on that glorious cunt of hers after all.
51
JADE
Just because I'm protecting the sleepers doesn't mean they don't creep me out.
Walking through the cargo bay reminds me of walking through a morgue. Not that I've done a lot of that, of course. It's just that if I had, this is what it'd feel like. Passing container after container of sleeping people with waxy-looking skin, chests unmoving, eyes closed. There's so damn many of them, too. It's just row after row of bodies. Of people, stolen from their homes and dragged out to god-knows-where for a horrible fate.
It's one reason we've been so reluctant to leave the Buoyant Star behind. We had a taste of that horrible fate. We know what it's like when you wake up.
Adiron is with me, though. I passed through the cargo bay door with no issues, and he accompanied me. Of course, he immediately pried open the door panel and started ripping out wires, and now the thing hangs open permanently. I tell myself that it's fine. That Adiron's destructiveness comes from a good place. The next time these sleepers wake up, I want them to be in a much better, safer place.
I wander through the rows, not peering at the faces that stare out from the windowed pods. I tried to look at most of them, once. The sight of all those human faces—young and female—was far too upsetting. There's a mixture, of course. There's the occasional male slave, and a few that are from other planets, but the overwhelming majority are human females. I have an idea of what they're going to be used for.