She drifted. Each period of waking brought the inevitable flood of memory, the crazed look in Nero's eyes, and the gaping slash of red across Lulubelle's throat, light seeping from her face before Nero struck Macbeth down. She woke first on her side, still in the clothes Calliope meant to disguise them, her grand escape. Her hands and feet were bound, not with Nero's metal shackles, but Nisseri bioelectric cuffs. Her head pounded, the knot at her temple a throbbing ache, blind spots dancing in her vision in time to her pulse. She was dimly aware of the hum of a transport engine, the knowledge it carried her away from the Chrysostem House brought no comfort. "Perhaps time in the mines will harden you up again."

Her next bout of awareness found her strapped upright, seated across from the startling alien visage of a Barlok. Tension shot through her, adrenaline chasing away the haze in her brain. Barlok mercs? No, this one wore cuffs, strapped in by a harness similar to hers, altered for the alien's numerous appendages. His smaller eyes focused intently on her face while the two larger ones set above them roved all over. The effect was disconcerting.

"Hello, female," he growled in unispeak. His odd shaped mouth should have been incapable of speech. A Barlok, in Nisseri cuffs, headed for Pathosian mines. Macbeth focused on him, allowing her mind to skirt the fresh wave of memory threatening to surface. Push it down, survive. The Barlok's furred body was mostly bare except for a ragged scrap of cloth covering the cross section of his six legs. He made a sound at her obvious perusal.

"Look your fill, female?" His tone was gruff, but patient. "You act like you've never seen one of my kind before."

"Not so close," she rasped. Her voice was hoarse from disuse. She coughed, the bioelectric cuffs tightening against the movement. She forced herself to stop when the harness began to cut off her air.

"Good thing you stopped hacking, or you'd draw our shock happy Keeper over," another low voice reached her ears. Macbeth dragged her eyes from the Barlok, registering her placement in a row of all male prisoners, a mixture of human and Fey. They wore drab garments, their hair shaved close to the skull. Was hers? She reached up, the cuffs giving her just enough range to feel the short layer of fuzz over her scalp. The speaker leered at her, a human with a smattering of Fey ancestry, lending sharp angles to his lean face.

"Nice shiner. What did you do to displease your master?" His lip curled.

Macbeth swallowed, her own scream replaying in her head. The Barlok growled at the man while she cast her gaze away, trying to shove down the bile creeping up her throat. Her fellow prisoners bore a mix of hard expressions and vacant stares, the unbreakable with the broken. Where do I fall now? The Barlok across from her was a lone specimen, but not the only odd alien of the group. An enormous salamander-like creature lay curled at the end of the row, its thick body thoroughly strapped down. Tentacles hung from its scalp like hair, undulating as if underwater. Instead of eyelids, thick white membranes covered its large almond shaped eyes. Its head drooped in a state of rest. Macbeth had seen Barloks from afar in the markets, studied their culture in the distant warmth of her room, so long ago, but she'd never seen or heard of a creature like this one.

As if it felt her eyes, its great wedge shaped head jerked up, the membranes sliding down over blue eyes, the deep vibrant blue of the summer ocean, stark against the alien's pale milky skin. It stared at her briefly before thrashing in its restraints. Those tentacles writhed in panic.

"Ah, it wakes," said the sneering man, rolling his eyes. "Keep up the racket beastie, they'll just put you out again."

The alien fought harder, but made no noise from its small mouth. A few of the other inmates jeered at it to knock it off.

"It can't help being scared," Macbeth said, looking away when it stilled briefly to meet her eyes. She found the Barlok also starring at the alien, his expression difficult to understand.

"The Theros is right to be frightened, it will never leave this ship alive," he rumbled.

"The bloody merc pities the monster, big surprise," muttered their mouthy neighbor in Fey tongue. The Barlok tensed, obviously understanding him, but Macbeth felt a flare of her old temper.

"Is spewing trash all you do?" she snapped, earning a glare from the man and another intense look from all four of the Barlok's eyes. Footsteps reverberated through the metal floor, interrupting any further dialogue between them as a Nisseri Keeper swept into the room.

Macbeth sucked in a breath as he passed, catching a whiff of chemicals and putrid meat. The Keeper was swathed in cloth, covering most of his skin, leaving only his face uncovered. He made straight for the thrashing alien, jabbing it viciously with a stun stick. She winced, remembering how painful those shocks of electricity were, but the creature didn't settle, earning repeated jabs. Macbeth thought she heard it screaming.

"Stop, you'll kill her!" She yelled. Her?

The alien started seizing as the Nisseri reeled on her. Whoever pieced this one together took little care, leaving thick scars at every seam. He glared with uneven eyes, one Fey, one Barlok set above a misshapen nose and snarling mouth. A Theros tentacle dangled down the side of his face like a stray lock of hair. No wonder the alien grew more panicked at the sight of him.

Without a word, the Keeper stalked up and back handed her, sending a fresh wave of pain through her healing face. Macbeth bit her lip until the pain subsided, finding the Nisseri watching her.

"Bastard." She spat at his feet. There was nothing this man could do to her to make her complacent, short of killing her. His strike was a tickle compared to Nero's ministrations.

"Silence," the Nisseri said in a garbled voice, jabbing the stun stick through the straps of her harness. Her body jolted at the invasive current of electricity, making her teeth click together. He moved on before she sagged back down into the harness.

The Barlok clucked his tongue, his large eyes following the departing Keeper as his smaller ones peered at her. "Why did you bait him, female?" His furred arms bulged against the restraints, further confirming what she suspected. His 'kind' abhorred violence against females.

"Why is an Honorbound Barlok on a Nisseri slave ship?" Macbeth countered, her voice low for his benefit.

The Barlok relaxed back into his restraints. "The answer is long and complicated, much like a human woman with diplomatic translation tech in the same situation."

Her lips twitched. She liked the surly Barlok. She sunk down further into her harness and froze. Did the straps just give way to her?

"What is it female?" She forgot the Barlok continued to study her.

"Macbeth," she replied, slowly pushing against the straps. They gave another inch. Her pulse pounded as an idea took shape. She glanced at the line of prisoners wondering if anyone else noticed but they were all preoccupied with themselves. She wrenched on the harness, pulling the bioelectric lock high enough to see. Her lips parted. The lock was dark, powerless. Had the Keeper clipped the mechanism when he jabbed her?

"Barlok, do you know how often the Keepers come to check on us?"

"Thrack," he inclined his shaggy head to her, growling on the 'r'. "They come every three hours, to take care of biological necessities among the slaves." He used a human measurement of time. Along with his comprehension of the Fey language, she wondered again how he landed on a slave ship.

She continued to twist, gaining more freedom for her arms. "How many?"

All four eyes were on her. "Only one." The smaller set widened, catching sight of her lock. He leaned out toward her, speaking in a voice so low she barely heard him a couple feet away. "Free me, Macbeth, and I will help you, on my Honor."

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. If she could get free, she'd take his word. His eyes weren't the only ones on her, she felt the silent gaze of the Theros on her as well. Could the alien verbalize? If she thought the Barlok's mouth wasn't made for speech, the Theros possessed nothing but a small slit, wide as her thumb. She pushed both of them from her thoughts, continuing the tedious process of freeing up her arms. When she was satisfied with her range of movement, she positioned herself and waited.

It was a small eternity before footsteps shuffled into the room. This Nisseri was different than before, though equally covered in cloth, carting a tray of collection vats, tubes and sinister looking syringes. She held herself up as the Keeper started down the line, lifting each prisoner's shirt to thrust a large needle into their bladder, draining their urine into the collection vats, a cruel, painful process. She tensed as he came closer, the chemical rot smell clogging her nostrils. Two men down. Thrack went still. One man down. The other slaves began to pick up on the building tension, their eyes wary. The Nisseri stood before her, grabbing a fresh drainage needle, face turned toward the tray.

Macbeth lunged, looping the strap of her harness around the Keeper's neck. She tightened the noose. The Nisseri flailed, sending the tray crashing, urine spilling across the floor. No time to fret the noise would draw company. She yanked harder. The other prisoners were silent, waiting to see how this struggle ended. Could a human female over power their Keeper? They did not know how driven she was to win. There were debts of pain to reap.

She twisted, feeling the bones in the man's neck crack against her sternum. She dropped the body, maneuvering free of the harness. No thought for the alien she just killed. Macbeth grabbed the Keeper's arm, noting the spongy quality of the flesh beneath her hands. The smell of rot doubled as she ripped the cloth off his bruise colored fingers, using them to undo the bioelectric lock on her cuffs.

The moment the restraints clattered to the floor, the pleas began, prisoners calling in loud voices for their freedom. Even the dead eyed ones strained against their bonds. Macbeth turned to Thrack first, struggling with the corpse's weight to unlock his harness. He sprang free, immediately rushing for the next prisoner and tearing the locks apart. How had they kept him restrained? She gaped at his empty harness, much thicker and heavier than the others. The Barlok were strong. Thrack spoke to the others as he freed them in a voice made for command.

"There is a large extended clan on board this vessel, but once we overpower a few Keepers for weapons, we will advance on the control center. This ship is a network of tunnels, they cannot attack in large numbers in these narrow spaces and we have the element of surprise."

Macbeth patted down the dead Keeper, the mix of chemicals, urine, and rot making her gag. She held her breath, locating a laser cutter and bolt gun on his waist belt. Using the cutter, she loped off the Nisseri's hand at the wrist, tucking the bolt gun into the small of her back. She approached the other end of the row, using her grisly key to speed up Thrack's progress. The mix of human and Fey listened to the Barlok without question. Whatever reason landed him in here, Thrack possessed a large amount of tactical Intel against their jailors. A few men armed themselves with the lengthy drainage needles, brandishing them like spikes. The mouthy one grabbed the stun stick, but he nodded at her with grudging respect as he passed. Many of them tread carelessly on the corpse, knocking cloth away from the Nisseri's skin.

She stared, before tracking down the Barlok, shouldering up to him as she finished unwrapping the cloth from her 'key', revealing oozing black flesh, rotting while alive.

Thrack snorted at the sight. "Our captors are weakened by the Nisseri Blight, fortune favors us."

Macbeth knew of the Blight, the plague like sickness dogging the Nisseri race for centuries. Feeling ill, she backed away from the throng of slaves so eager to begin retribution against their captors. She saw the Theros still in its restraints. Why hadn't Thrack freed it? She approached it, startled when it struggled anew. A familiar ache started up in her head, except there was no speech for her implant to translate.

"Easy, easy, female," she gritted out, half aware of her words. The Theros stopped, peering up at her with those liquid blue eyes. Macbeth nodded, her implant crackling on nothing in her ears. "I'll free you, hold on." The pain intensified, sending her to her knees in front of the Theros as she fiddled with the multiple locks along its lithe body. As she undid one at its throat, a tentacle brushed the back of her hand.

Macbeth's vision blanked. Before her eyes spread a world of glittering blue, a world of endless oceans, diamond bright in the sun. Home.

She jerked back, panting, her hands shaking as she undid the last lock, letting the Keeper's hand tumble to the floor as she backed away. The Theros rose up from its restraints, towering over her by a good foot. Its massive head titled down, the tentacles waving out, tasting the air. One slender arm lifted, reaching towards Macbeth's face.

She scurried away, her eyes wide. The Theros stared after her, its arm still lifted toward her when the Nisseri arrived. Chaos broke as the freed slaves, thirty in all, fell upon the pair of keepers, tearing into them, stripping them of any potential weapons before flipping their carcasses to the side.

Thrack convinced them to stay for another group, hoping to gain more weapons before they took the ship. They were not kept waiting long, five Nisseri arrived this time, better armed, perhaps suspecting something amiss. Thrack took down the first armed Nisseri through the door, swinging a pair of fists in a strong uppercut that knocked the Keeper off his feet.

With most of the slaves now armed in some fashion, the Barlok charged into the hall, the others falling in behind him. Macbeth brought up the rear, palming the bolt gun. She glanced back at the Theros, but it hadn't moved, hadn't even dropped its arm, staring after her. She shook herself, entering the fray.

Each and every Nisseri they came across met their end with breathtaking violence, most too surprised to raise a weapon before the slaves fell upon them. Years of ill treatment at Pathosian hands bubbled up in mindless rage. Blood sprayed the walls. One vacant eyed human stabbed a drainage needle into a dead Nisseri over and over. The group left him behind as the Barlok surged forward. She didn't know how he knew, but Thrack's direction was deliberate, every turn, every split in their path he made without pause.

How did he know this ship so well? The next turn brought them to an open room brimming with an array of tech from multiple races. The control center. She could tell in a glance the Nisseri outnumbered them, but as they blinked at the gore covered slaves, Thrack lept into the air. He landed nearly twenty feet away atop a control panel with a metallic crunch. Reaching out with all four arms, he grabbed the Nisseri in front of him, wrenching off his head.

"Take the ship," he roared, falling on the shocked cluster of Nisseri around their downed shipmate. The men surged forward, taking out a third of the room's occupants before the crew recovered enough to draw weapons. The remaining Nisseri fought back, but the tide was not in their favor. Nothing but fatal wounds stopped the attacking slaves, and they kept fighting until their dying bodies gave out.

Macbeth hung back, watching the hall for reinforcements coming up behind them. The Nisseri continued to fall, their dwindling numbers backed into corners, hunkered down behind obstructions. Thrack visited each pocket of resistance, systematically breaking them. She forced herself not to view the wholesale slaughter, grateful for her vigilance when a heavily armed group charged round the corner.

"Incoming," she yelled to Thrack, raising the bolt gun. Macbeth had little weapon experience. Her shot ricocheted off the wall, nowhere near the oncoming Nisseri. Their aim was much better.

She cried out as a bolt punched into her gut, the force pushing her into the wall. She clutched her stomach, eyes wide as her blood spilled through her fingers. The slaves rushed past her, clashing with the new arrivals. Screams and shouts rent the air. Macbeth lost track of the fighting as her treacherous heart continued to beat, each pulse sending more blood through her useless hands.

She was going to die here. No, no, she had to live, had to make him pay. Macbeth pressed her hands against her wound, willing her blood to stop gushing out. Her body wouldn't listen, her limbs were growing heavy, cold. Someone, something, rose up in front of her.

Macbeth struggled to lift her head. The Theros hovered in front of her, its snakelike body held half aloft, eye level to her. Her vision wavered as it reached for her face with a delicate blue white hand. She was too weak to jerk away. Smooth fingers pressed against her sweaty forehead. The voice was everywhere, nowhere, soundless, echoing through her dying mind.

(Save you)