Space Station Andromeda 13 – Year 2385

Tara squirmed in her sleep. Her brow beaded with sweat as she called out to her father . . . 

She was six again and she was running in some dense forest. Her feet felt heavy as she pulled on her daddy’s hand. Why couldn’t he walk faster? She looked over her shoulder and saw the hulking Klai warrior come toward them . . . He had a gun in hand and he was close behind. Tara panicked and ran faster. Her fingers slipped from her father’s grip and she stumbled and fell. No!

She was too late. The Klai man had her father . . . He had shot him, and she screamed with horror as her father fell forward, dead . . . 

She woke up with a jolt, her breathing labored. She still had nightmares; old dreams disrupted her sleep back when her father died, and then later her mother. Tara took a deep breath calming her erratic nerves as she pulled her legs up, curling into a ball, hugging herself.

Two years after her father’s death, little Tara was left all alone in the galaxy when her mother died in an accident. An explosion at the sick bay’s heating chamber killed her. She had been a nurse. Eight-year-old Tara ended up in the foster home for human clones. A place she came to loathe later in life as she grew up. A place that stifled her to death . . . In reality, it was a prison run by a cruel woman, Ms. Sharon. She still remembered Ms. Sharon: a selfish, middle-aged human who followed a strict code religiously. “Rules,” she would say, “are important to implement as the authorities want peace.”

But Tara knew better. The “rules” were mostly her own. She still remembered the time when Ms. Sharon had made the kids clean the halls and rooms or else she would not give them food. And if they disobeyed, she would punish them by locking them up in a dark chamber for a full day.

The other clones there were mostly older than her, and they all went to work during the working hours at the Station. There were only two other kids around Tara’s age. The girl left the orphanage soon after Tara arrived. The boy, who was a few years older than Tara, seemed to like her. She liked him too. He would help her with the chores whenever she couldn’t do them. And Tara found a friend, only to lose him a year later in a strange accident near the docking area. He had gone to deliver a package for Ms. Sharon. They found his body sprawled among the cargo crates that they were unloading.

“It was a nasty fall,” she heard one of the older girls tell Ms. Sharon. “Broke his neck.”

His death was like an ice-cold knife through Tara’s heart. Ms. Sharon never spoke about it. And Tara was alone again.

***

It was years later, when Tara was twenty-one, she was hired by the research facility at the station as the cleaning lady. Part of her earnings went to Ms. Sharon of the Foster home, as she was still in her custody. She would stay in her custody until the day someone bought her or she would grow old serving her. And only a year later, Tara Dawson left the foster home with a human merchant who had bought her at a very good price.

“It’s getting crowded in here,” Ms. Sharon had said nonchalantly as Tara stared at her in disbelief. “I have found a good client. He is human too,” she said – as if that would comfort her.

The merchant, Cayne, had his own quarters at the Station and he seemed wealthy enough to keep her as a slave. It was then that he put that thin band around her neck. The collar that all slaves wore which, she later found out, was a death trap. It was to keep the slaves on a leash and make it impossible for them to escape the Station. The control was inside the band he wore on his hand. One press of the button and the collar would inject nanites in her blood, killing her. It would be a painful death. There was no escape, no hope.

The door slid open, and she literally jumped, startled. Cayne entered, stumbling a little and came toward her bed.

What did he want now? Tara panicked as she climbed out of bed and stood at a certain distance, pulling her cloak around her arms. Her long brown hair fell down her back in waves.

“Master . . . ?” Tara staggered back against the wall as he took a step toward her. She knew that look in those dark eyes. The dim light of the room did not hide it. It was a look that made her feel naked, accompanied by a smug leer pasted on his mouth. He had been stalking her with that lewd gaze ever since she had arrived . . . Ever since he bought her from the foster home.

Her heart thudded in her chest as she trembled like trapped prey. Her big brown eyes widened as tears threatened to spill over. A chill ran down her spine as he took another step forward and came close.

He grabbed her wrist painfully and twisted it ever-so slowly.

“Ah!” she screamed. “Y - you are hu - hurting me!” she stammered.

He wouldn’t let go. She didn’t notice his other hand was in his coat. The grasp on her wrist grew tighter, painful. “You think you are too pretty for me, eh?” he seethed. She could smell his alcohol-ridden breath. His eyes were bloodshot as she cringed away from him, exposing her neck. He licked her there, right above the thin collar she wore.

And with all the strength she had left, she brought her knee up, kicking him in the groin.

“Bitch!” He doubled over, screaming. “You fucking bitch!”

She crept away from him and dashed toward the door, but he had locked it with a code she didn’t know.

“Where do you think you are going?” he said, grabbing her by her hair as he dragged her back toward him.

She screamed as he pinned her to the floor this time.

“You are my slave and you will give me what I want or I will skin this pretty little face of yours,” he threatened her through clenched teeth. “Remember, you are a clone. Just a copy. You were created to serve us.”

“I had a family! A father and a mother who treated me as any other human, and they loved me!” she sobbed. “No! No!! Let me go!!!” she screamed. Her arms reached for something, anything to defend herself. “I will not be your slave!” Her fingers closed in on a small lamp which was made of flimsy fiberglass. She slammed it on his head, which did little to slow him down.

He groaned as she crept away from him again toward the far end of the room. She needed to get out of there, fast. But this time, he was too quick for her.

She never saw it coming. A spray of ice-cold liquid hit her in the face. She quickly turned her face away and tried shielding it with her cloak’s hood. And then the burning started. Hot, searing pain shot through her face as the acid ate her skin. She could feel her skin being peeled back and it burned as if hot chili peppers had been rubbed over her raw flesh. Blinding pain numbed her as her screams shattered the silence of the quarters, but they did not reach beyond the walls of the space station Andromeda 13.

“Shut up! Shut up, you stupid cunt!” he bellowed as he slapped her hard across her face. Something warm and metallic rose to her mouth and she choked, coughing up blood. Her scream became a gurgle as a torrent of tears streamed down her cheeks.

“Now you are no longer pretty, you hear me?” he said menacingly. “And this will remind you to obey your master, you worthless cunt.” He ripped off her pants then. He had her pinned on her back on the floor. His weight kept her from moving. Still, she screamed . . . And he rammed into her again and again and again, until her screams turned into whimpers and she stopped struggling and wept silently into the darkness.

That was the only time Tara resisted. In the days that followed, she grew quiet. So quiet that you would think something had died within her. The light in her beautiful eyes dimmed with perpetual sadness. He had scarred her inside out.

She stared at the mirror. The hideous creature gazing back at her was hollow-eyed. One side of her forehead and cheek had been wasted. Her eyes miraculously survived when she had pulled the hood of her cloak over her face. But the damage had been done. She was ugly, forever disfigured. And forever at his mercy, she thought with bitterness as tears blurred her vision. Nobody would want her now. Not even as a slave . . . 

He had allowed her a brief visit to the sickbay when she got really sick and fainted with constant pain. But they couldn’t reconstruct her face until her master paid, as it was expensive. Of course, he didn’t bother. He told the doctors she had an accident. So, she came back with a few pills that subdued the pain.

She had been a virgin when he ravaged her . . . And now, fear was her constant companion. She avoided looking him in the eye, all the time pulling down her hood. Her hands shook and her stomach knotted every time she laid food on the table before him. And she felt jittery all the time.

She did not know how much longer she could take it. It was too much and it was driving her insane. She kept thinking of ending her life. Every time, a voice in her head stopped her.

Would it matter if she died? She was already invisible. Just a copy . . . Not even an original . . . Nobody cared whether she lived or died. But she wasn’t living. She was simply existing – trying to survive each day in this hell hole. She wished she could run far away to some planet where she would actually live. She had never been off the Station and she wanted to see what the worlds looked like out there. But she knew it wasn’t possible as long as this collar was around her neck. And in that moment, death seemed to be the only way out.