Which, I suspect, is exactly what Jade and her friends were hoping. Show off the qura'aki, jiggle their tits, and when the males are good and distracted, take 'em out. I mean, we fell for it, so it's not like it's an ineffective plan. The rare qura'aki is what clinches it. Even someone as scowly and dismal as Straik fell for that one. I wonder how many ships they've robbed along the way. Ten? Twenty? A distress signal is one of the oldest tricks in the book, of course, but they've added a fine twist.
Oh man, Zoey is going to laugh so hard when she hears this.
Then I sober, because I think Zoey might like Jade. That's important to me, because I plan on keeping Jade. Not as a slave, of course. As my female. My mate. Jade doesn't know it yet, but she's stuck with the dumbest keffer in this system…which doesn't say much, because this system is pretty deserted.
I make my way to the elevator and down a floor. Sure enough, the moment I step off the elevator, I see another a'ani guarding one set of doors. He's wearing a breather, too, the shiny nose-clip preventing him from the same situation we were in. Smart.
I saunter up like I know what the kef I'm doing, and scratch at my chest again. Everything itches. It's miserable. I glance down and notice that I'm breaking out in welts. I might be allergic to something. Ah well. It'll go away soon enough. I scratch at my skin again and nod at the big double doors at the far end of the hall, the ones that aren't guarded. "What's down there, Basch? Janitorial?"
He frowns at me with those mobile eyebrows, just like the humans have. Like my sister Zoey, he's able to pull off the “Are you keffing stupid?” look with ease. "It's the cargo bay."
"Right." I gesture at the doors in front of him. "And in here are the prisoners?"
The a'ani nods.
"Great. I need to go in and talk to them. Don't shoot me, all right?" I grin at him and head in like Straik and Mathiras totally sent me down here.
I'm not entirely surprised when the a'ani steps aside and nods at me. That's one reason clones make great subordinates. They don't ask a lot of questions. I stand in place and put my hand on the pad, and the doors open up a moment later. Huh. I'm not locked out. Well, that makes things easy. I thought for sure Straik would revoke some of my clearances after the laundry stunt, but I guess not.
With more than just a little swagger, I saunter into the prisoner hold.
13
ADIRON
Lord Straik sa'Rin's prisoner hold isn't much like the cells I've been held in in the past. There's not a corsair in the universe that hasn't spent at least one night in jail, and most of mine involved being elbow-to-elbow with some grungy ooli or praxiian, jostling for space on a hard bench, and trying to catch a few hours of sleep on a filthy floor. Everyone would be wearing shock collars, and if you were lucky, there'd be a lavatory of some kind. You'd be manacled to your fellow prisoners by your feet and there'd usually be a dead guy somewhere in the room, just because some idiot was bound to pick a fight he couldn't win.
Oh, and the entire place would smell like sweaty balls. There's no smell quite like a jail smell…except for sweaty balls, I guess.
This room smells like flowers.
I wrinkle my nose as I walk in, because why the kef does a prisoner hold smell like flowers? I study the too-clean, pristine walls with nary a dent, and sure enough, there's a scent dispenser located near the ceiling. Well, that's just dumb. Some enterprising prisoner could climb up and disable it, and use the scented oil to blind or poison someone…provided they weren't cuffed, though. Cuffs are easy enough to get out of, if you know how. It's just more evidence that sa'Rin doesn't have the killer instinct that makes for a good corsair. He's far too pampered.
This cell is the height of luxury, prison cell-wise. It's temperate and comfortable, and I'm almost surprised there isn't soft music being piped in along with the flower scent.
In the harder jail cells, prisoners are given magnetic cuffs on their wrists (or legs) and then those cuffs are attached to a bar on the wall. There, the prisoners usually have their hands above their heads on the magnetic bar, their feet stuck to the second magnetic bar near the floor. It ensures that the prisoners won't try anything. In this pleasant room, the four females are seated in individual chairs, lined up neatly, and even though their hands are cuffed, they're comfortable.
Looks more like a tea party than a keffing holding cell.