Chapter One

 

 

Fiona fought the rising nausea and pulled her shirt closed as she left the general’s bed.

“Aw, Feefee, can’t you stay for a bit? I am feeling inspired.”

She shook her head. “No. I have to be back on duty tomorrow morning. I am working in the gardening centre.”

He got out of bed and went to the bureau. “Well, here you go. I must say, I don’t know where you put it all.”

She smiled weakly and fought her shudder as he ran his hand down her spine and trailed a wet kiss across her lips. She took the month’s worth of credit chits and smiled slightly at him before she took her leave.

Fourteen months of hell had locked her into the cycle of whoring for her boss. He had been a green senator, and she had been on her first day as his aide’s assistant when the asteroid turned the world into a haze of cloud, ash, and static storms.

Her boss had died the day that the dust wave had hit them. Her asthma had locked her airways as it had so many others. The senators ahead of Senator Cormin had been killed in a variety of ways, and so she and her new boss had been shuttled into an underground facility to wait out the toxic storms.

In a very suspect decision, few—if any—families had been evacuated to the bunker. It was military men, politicians, and theoretical scientists trying to guess a way out of the eternal winter caused by the planet-killing asteroid.

With Fiona being one of the only women on the base, sex had come into the equation at the six-month mark. Instead of trying to seduce her, they had begun to go to the senator who simply ordered her to their rooms at odd hours. When she hesitated, he fired her. Not having a job in the base meant that her rations were no longer a right. She had to earn them in other ways. She began to whore herself out to eat, and the senator offered to reinstate her, for a price. He connected her to the most influential of the men—she got protection during the day, and the price was a visit at night, once a week.

She had seen enough wrinkled skin to mentally craft an elephant.

“Did you get them?” The senator was waiting for her outside her room.

She handed over the ration chits, good for a lot of favours and more influence.

“You know, the line of men wanting to get inside you is getting ridiculous. Some of your old favourites can’t even make it to the list. You might want to start giving it away now and then, just to keep them happy.”

He cupped her cheek, and she jerked her head away.

With a deep sigh, she entered her quarters and locked the door behind her.

She hadn’t told him, but she was already giving it away. If her body were the price for a chance somewhere else, she would take it.

Months ago, a signal had come through their systems, and an invitation rang out for those who wanted to leave the dying world that they had been born on. The first round had left already, and Fiona was planning on being in the next batch.

Thanks to using her more obvious skills, she had gotten a breather and exo suit. She had a week of rations, and all she needed was to get to the doors and out of the base. Her pass had been paid for in advance.

Every kink, every role play, and every sweating body that she had lain under or over was etched in her memory.

She would be able to get to the rendezvous coordinates in three days. The big holding point was her ability to leave. If her guard changed his mind, she was fucked.

She headed to the shower and scrubbed herself from head to toe. The general wasn’t a bad lover, but he was quick and lost his erection if he tried anything to make him last.

Fiona shampooed her hair and braided it tight. It would still be damp in the morning, but she couldn’t stand to leave it loose if she didn’t have to.

She looked at the shower stall wistfully and spent the same glance on the toilet. It was going to be rough in the wilderness.

Fiona headed to bed and forced herself to sleep. It was a skill she had learned over the last year.

Survival counted on her keeping her wits about her. The senator would have had her staked out while he collected funds and favours with a line spreading through the commissary.

He was trying to urge her into multiple partners, and that was why she was running. Now it was coaxing, but soon, it would be a command.

Leaving now was her best chance at something new—air she could breathe and food she didn’t have to sell her body for.

She had a bright mind, an eagerness to learn new things, and here, her prospects were sliding backward.

Fiona had another year on her birth-control shot, and she had probably already picked up some kind of venereal disease that hadn’t yet manifested. It would be astronomically unlikely for her to have come out of this mess without a problem.

Her body unclenched, and she dosed into a stupor. In the morning, she would make her move.

 

She spent her morning in the hydroponic centre, harvesting food and working with some of the other lower functionaries at the base.

At lunch, she mentioned that she was heading to her room, and she headed toward the quarters until she was sure she was alone, and then, she veered off in the direction of the public showers, grabbing her go-bag from the lockers and slinging it over her shoulder like a gym bag.

A relaxed saunter took her to the gates where Arthur was waiting for her. To satisfy the cameras, she kissed him slowly before picking his pocket in the agreed-upon manner.

The passkey wasn’t a key, it was a ratchet. She was getting out through the air system.

Fiona slipped the ratchet down her pants and smiled at the guard. She wanted to run, wanted to charge out for freedom.

Instead, she stroked her hand down his chest, caressed his erection through the fabric, and then, she headed down the hall to the access panel.

The ratchet took a few tries before she was able to pull the bolts and get into the air systems. She crept through the ducts with her bag on her back until she reached the filtering centre. This was the easy part. The codes to open the outer door were known to the high councillors inside the base, and she had slept with them all.

With swift punches of her fingers, she opened the door, slipped outside into the toxic air, and closed the door behind her.

Moving quickly, she changed into the exo suit and breather. Without hesitating, she ran away from the base as quickly as she could. When she knew she was lost in the grey dust and fog, her heart beat a little easier.

Behind her, she heard shouting and male voices calling her name. She charged into the dimness as quickly as she could, following the path laid out by the directional system.

Fiona had one chance to start over, and even death in the wastelands was better than life being used without thought for her in any way.

Circumstances had screwed her over, now it was time to take her own back. Her life was going to get under her own control, even if she had to sell her soul to get it. Freedom wasn’t something she took for granted. She was willing to sacrifice some of it to gain control of her future.

She kept crashing through the dead woods and down the hillside until she was sure that they wouldn’t follow. The wind blasted at her suit, pushing and pulling her with every step.

Fiona needed to hike for six hours to get halfway to her target destination. She was going to be sore when she reached the rendezvous.

 

Camping out in the wind and dust was difficult. She huddled against the trunk of a tree and covered herself with a thermal blanket. The few hours of sleep that she was able to get were all that she needed to get to her feet and march through the still grey air of morning.

Fiona stumbled through the ash and brambles, sucking air through the breathing mask. She kept going, checking the compass as she went.

When she spotted the surprisingly new structure in a hazy meadow, she headed for it.

It was in the right direction, and at least it was shelter for a few hours before she continued again.

She stepped inside and was in an airlock. Through heavy, clear panels, she saw a variety of aliens and several humans. The humans were eating and getting some kind of scans.

At this point, the interior looked far more comfortable than what was howling outside, so she pressed her hand to the interior door.

A gas struck her from all sides, sending her senses into fight-or-flight mode. When the onslaught was over, the inner door opened and a man reached out to touch her hand. She flinched and pulled her hand away from the golden-skinned man.

He looked at her with soft amber eyes and smiled. “You are safe here. No one will harm you.”

“Thank you. I am just... I would prefer not to be touched.”

She recognized a few faces from the base, and to her horror, they recognized her.

Two of the men elbowed each other and smirked at her. The man speaking with her turned and eyed them. “Would you prefer to change in the privacy of a concealing curtain?”

“I have to change?”

“Yes, you will be given a shift and slippers so that all the med scans can be done easily.”

She sucked in a deep breath and stiffened her spine. “Where should I go?”

He led her to an alcove and handed her a folded soft fabric with ballet-type slippers on top.

She stepped into the relative safety of the three walls. The curtain was slid across the opening, and it was time to make her final decision.

If she took off her clothes, she was peeling away her home, her family, ancestors, and all she knew. On the other hand, if she put on the shift, she would start with a clean slate. She had taken her clothes off for less potentially profitable reasons; before she could change her mind, her pack hit the floor, and her fingers went to the dirt-stained clothing that she wore.

The coveralls dropped, and her hands went to her underwear, unsure if they meant everything.

Shrugging she stripped completely. Standing with her feet on the cool, tiled floor of the prefab building, she took the shift and pulled it over her head. It fell to her knees and covered her completely. The slippers moved against her skin and snuggled into a comfortable fit.

Automatic slippers were a new one for her, but she ignored their movement and headed toward the medical area that had been pointed out to her.

Her metallic-gold alien came to her side and smiled, though the slits he had instead of nostrils were a little off-putting. “None of the scans will hurt, but some might tingle. Are you ready for them?”

“Don’t you want my name?”

“Your name does not matter to me, nor mine to you. After you leave, there will be another human, and when you are on the station, there will be other guardians shepherding you. Remember them.”

Fiona smiled slightly. “You are the first friendly face I have seen in a very long time. I will remember you.”

“As you wish. Please, step into this scanner, and we will begin.”

She nodded, stepped into the machine, and settled into place as it began the scans. It was the most relaxed she had been since the impact. She was safe, no one could grab her, and for this one moment, her life was her own again. She fell asleep.