She was reaching up to take him in her arms. She had to strain up and over to accept the precious package because her feet were frozen to the bottom step. The boy was giggling as his tiny body passed from his father's hands to hers. No sooner had she gotten her grip than the pulling started. She tried to hold firm but the boy was slipping away. Her wrists and shoulders ached as she tried to maintain her grasp on to her son. She could almost feel the muscles stretching as her shoulders threatened to separate. In a blinding flash of light, he was pulled free of her care forever.

"NO!" Rory tried to scream but her voice, her anguish was smothered in a dusty wind.

She was being dragged by the wrists down the gangway of the space craft. Rory shook her head trying to clear her vision and her thoughts. Three inch black metal bands were fastened around each wrist. A magnetic field held the bands tightly to each other and its force pulled her toward a human guard at the base of the gangway.

"So much for my brilliant suprise suicide plan," Rory thought to herself with a gentle head shake.

The last half of the trip was clouded in her mind. She had vague memories. Shadowy recollections of the ghostly Varicants washing and feeding her over the last few months. They kept her heavily sedated since their first and only conversation.

"Fuckers!" Rory muttered. "If I could get my hands on you," she smirked at the thought, "they'd pass right thru."

The Varicants, who's forms are little more than gaseous clouds of matter, hovered on either side of the gangway. They paid no heed to the bedraggled line of prisoners being off loaded. The Varicants' focus was on the handful of prison guards waiting for the new arrivals. A heated debate seemed to be ensuing between each group's respective leader.

"Look, we need all the supplies command sent. End of story. Period," the human guard stated with a finger point to accent the last word. "My government paid for the stuff and paid you to ship it out here. So, we should get every last speck of it."

"Captain, our agreement has always been for eighty percent. Surely, an honorable soldier as yourself will stand by a verbal agreement," the Varicant shifted into a soothing pink color as he spoke.

"That was before I realized how much dirt you were diverting. Millions of cubic tons! Plus a percentage of the supplies! Get real. This is a bullshit operation. Me and my guys are getting screwed over every which way to Sunday and back."

The Varicant flashed black for a singular moment and then returned to pink, "Bottom line then. Tell us what you want."

The group of guards nodded to each other with broad grins. They were oblivious to Rory stumbling off the gangway. She landed hard on the jagged stone of the landing site. Hitting the ground as silently as possible, Rory remained down. She wanted to hear more of their conversation. The other prisoners stumbled and tripped over her.

"Cash, good old cash. My team rotates out soon and I want to make sure we were all enriched by this learning experience," the Captain laughed.

In spite of her best efforts, Rory could not resist the pull of the magnetic field. It dragged her along until she could get her feet under her. Long gashes opened on her upper arms and legs from the unprotected contact with the rough terrain. Rory swallowed hard trying to ease the growing lump in her stomach. She would need to be sick very soon.

"Hey, Captain," a voice near her called out, "we got one of our own here. Crawl Bitch!"

A fist caught Rory in the right ribs. She stumbled from the blow and fell over. The magnetic field continued to tug her crumpled body forward along the rocky surface.

"HOLD!"

The Captain's voice roared from behind her. Rory gasped with relief when the pulling on her arms stopped. She knew the respite would be short lived but reveled in the feeling for a brief moment.

Strong hands grabbed the shirt front of the black uniform she had been dressed in, "A friggin' coward!"

His cold hand slapped her cheek. Rory felt her unsettled belly roll with the hit. She forced back her nausea and glared at the young man pulling her to her feet by her clothes.

"Soldier," she managed to croak in her dry throat, "where's your honor? Beating the defenseless is a code violation and," she took a deep breath trying to ease her stomach, "totally pathetic."

The Captain backhanded her. She fell to the ground with a rip of torn clothing and a whimper.

"Don't you dare lecture me! I'm doing the job every friggin' seventy two hour day, nine days a week, eighty seven weeks a year on this barren hunk of mineral and wind while people like you are given grief to the government. You bag of shit!"

The Captain punctuated his remark with a kidney kick. Rory shrieked in pain. She curled into a tight ball and began to rock her battered body. The surrounding guards and Varicants shared a the laugh at the site.

"Captain, this one's a troublemaker. She abandoned her post. She left your homeland, your wives and your children unprotected from the enemy," the lead Varicant explained, "while you and your men have been serving tirelessly so far from home."

"BITCH!" Another kick followed the shout. "Okay men, everybody gets a free crack," the Captain announced. "You lot want a hit or two?" The Captain nodded to the cloud like beings.

The lead Varicant sighed, "No, we've had our fill of this particular prisoner. Do as you like with her. However, we still need to reach an agreement on the numbers."

"Right," the Captain had momentarily forgotten his argument with the alien. "Leave us eighty five percent of the supplies and forget you dumped this piece of crap here."

"Agreed. However, I need to caution you the prisoner is being monitored from Old Earth. Your government wants her to serve her full sentence and not escape into a premature death."

"Figures," the Captain sounded dejected. "Men, just use your feet and hands on her."

Rory pressed her face closer to her thighs and took a deep breath.

The flat bed vehicle bumped along the ragged, makeshift road rattling Rory to the core. She was positioned on her knees with her wrists secured above her head. It was hard for her to remain awake after the beating the guards had dispensed but the ever chilling wind and rough ride served to periodically startle her back to the present.

And what a grim present it was. For as far as her eyes could see, semi permanent, twenty man tents were lined up in neat rows. Outside each were open fires with cooking pots. Small bands of people huddled around the fires to get their food before racing back inside the tents. Rory didn't question their haste as she could feel the temperatures were dropping by the minute.

"Maybe they'll let me freeze back here," Rory considered as she glanced over her shoulder at the two guards in the closed cab of the vehicle. "Must be warm in there," she announced to the wind. A slight howl answered her back and she shuddered against it.

The vehicle jerked to a sudden stop. Rory's head snapped forward and back with the motion dizzying her fragile senses.

"Bearses, hey Bearses! We got a new one for you," the guard in the cab announced over a loud speaker.

"They're not taking any chances," Rory thought to herself as she watched the men wait inside the armored and heated cab.

"Come on, Bearses! The longer you take to get your ass out here, the colder it gets." The voice was taunting.

The wooden door to the tent pushed open against the wind. A tall, thin man emerged hugging himself to keep warm. Immediately Rory's wrists were released, she collapsed forward and fell off the vehicle. She began to wretch miserably as soon as she hit the ground. Her belly had endured all it could stand.

"Come on, get inside. You can puke just as well indoors," Bearses grabbed a fistful of her hair and pulled her, crawling on all fours, into the tent. "Toilet's straight ahead. Move it! You only got a few minutes to take a berth and make warm for the night."

Rory emptied her stomach into the dirtiest crapper she had ever seen. She could feel the creeping cold and finished as quickly as she could. Her body seemed to understand her life depended on getting warm.

"Where to?" Rory managed to ask as she stumbled away from the toilet.

"Everyone bunks with at least one other prisoner to make warm. The nights are subzero in the common areas of the tents. Even with the Varicloth canvas surrounding the individual berths, the tempts inside the berths can easily drop below forty. With heavy winds, the berths can get as low as thirty. Two bodies generating ninety eight makes it survivable with the Varicloth canvas and blankets. Three bodies," he snorted and a puff of white exited his nose and frosted his beard, "makes life livable. So, let's get you settled for the night. We'll talk more in the morning."

Rory understood little of what the man was saying. Her body was demanding rest and warmth. Her brain was on automatic.

"Right, morning."

"Follow me," Bearses motioned her toward the far end of the tent. "Rabbit, Rabbit, you got a new owner. Stop your shivering and sniveling and give me a hand with her."

In response, a tuft of blonde hair poked out from behind the canvas of the last berth. All the activity was lost on Rory. She could not see at this point. She was stumbling forward on freezing feet. She clutched at the posts between berths to steady her way behind Bearses. When he stopped walking, she crashed into him.

"Rabbit, grab her shoulders and I'll hoist the rest of her in," Bearses shoved Rory up against the berth. "One, two, three and up and in. Nighty night."

Rory felt her body being pushed, pulled and shoved. She was too sick to resist. Somebody was helping her. She allowed somebody to help her. Her reward for cooperation was warmth. Warm air surrounded her shivering body. She let herself slip away into its comforting embrace.

Rory was cuddling the body pressed firmly against her. Warm. So, very warm. She let herself relax and enjoy the moment. How long had it been since her body felt like this? How long since she had enjoyed this kind of comfort? Had it been years?

Yes, it had been years. It had been years since she and Stephen made love. Years since the last time he nestled himself between her thighs and made her scream his name. Endless years since Stephen and Andy died before her eyes.

Stephen is dead.

"WHO? Who are you? What the fuck?" Rory snarled as she struggled to figure out who was pressed against her in such an intimate way. Rory realized with a sudden shock there was a hand between her legs. "FUCKING A! Get off me!"

The blonde head suckling her breast snapped up with startled eyes at the curse. Rory did not consider how frightened the woman looked before she tossed her over.

"You fucking dyke!" Rory slammed a balled fist into the woman's nose. "You don't ever touch me!" Another punch connected with the blonde's belly. "Pervert!"

"Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry," the cringing woman wept. "No hit, no hit, sorry, sorry, sorry. Please, let me make warm, please. Don't let me freeze. Please, only meant to warm you."

"What the…,? What the fuck are you talking about?" Rory muttered in a hoarse but furious voice.

Her strength was spent on her outrage. Rory had to ease her pounding head back to the nest of fabrics serving as her bed.

"What do you mean, warm me? There are blankets. I get mine, you take yours. Take 'em and get over there away from me."

"No, we freeze. Please, no, no, no," the blonde head shook from side to side. "Please ma'am, I not mean to be 'fucking dyke' to you. Please, I do nice. Whatever you want. Can we make warm now?"

Blood dripping from the woman's nose seemed to instantly crust on her upper lip. Rory began to notice just how cold the berth was growing. The heat trapped by both bodies under the specially made Varicant blankets was lost when Rory tossed the woman out. They would both freeze if Rory didn't act. Looking around the berth, Rory saw a handful of torn cloth amid the clutter. She grabbed several strips and quickly wiped the blood from the woman's nose before braiding them together.

"Get over here." She barked the command.

Rory's order was quickly met. The compliant woman was flipped onto her belly. Rory lashed her wrists together behind her back.

"This way you get to keep warm," Rory spoke as she repositioned the woman on her side and under the blankets, "and I get to keep your filthy hands off me. He, Bearses, he called you Rabbit, right?" A quick nod of an answer replied. "Well Rabbit, you need to understand one important thing. You sicken me. People like you are a plague on society. I think women like you should be drowned at birth so you can't infect good folks with your twisted idea of sex. I hope I'm making myself perfectly clear to you. Am I making myself clear, you dyke piss guzzler?" Rory grabbed the woman by the chin and shouted directly in her face.

Wide, frightened eyes fixed on Rory. Rabbit nodded slowly. Her eyes never left Rory's face. Rory had seen this particular look a thousand times before.

"You think I'm gonna kill you right here, right now, don't you?" Rory asked.

Again, Rabbit nodded with wide, frightened eyes.

"Not tonight. Maybe in the morning but not tonight," Rory settled in under the blankets and wrapped herself around the trembling, bound body of a young woman named Rabbit. "My head hurts too fucking much to try to kill you," Rory mumbled before falling back to sleep.

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