Exploration Read Free

cabin.
     
    "I trust you fulfilled your duty by destroying your navigational computer and systems log. I hope it provided you with a sense of satisfaction. It will be your last action as an officer in your Corps. From this moment on you and the Commander are slaves of the Modos Syndicate and, more to the point, all of you are now my property.
     
    ***
     
    Captain Ruck leaned back in Cat's command chair. It was funny. He knew he had been given command of the Yorktown ; but he still knew, at an instinctive level, that this was Cat's ship and always would be. The forward view-screen was playing a live feed from the newly promoted Admiral Kimbridge's ocular and auditory implants.
     
    "I guess that pretty much confirms what we suspected regarding motive," Jason said out loud to those on the bridge.
     
    "The real question," Admiral Faragon added, "is where are they taking the slaves and how do we disassemble what is obviously a well-established practice. We can't tolerate having our citizens kidnapped and forced into bondage. On the other hand, it would be marvelous if we could find a way to avoid going to war."  
     
    Commander Kirkland turned from the First Officer's station he was at to address the Admiral hesitantly. "If I may speak freely, Sir?"
     
    "Always Ken."
     
    "Sir, I understand our priority has to be our citizens, but one of the GCP's founding principles is the acknowledgment that all sentients have certain inalienable rights, and that slavery is fundamentally at odds with a number of these. Having freed our people are we going to be content to allow such a practice to continue even if it no longer involves our citizens?"
     
    The Admiral nodded thoughtfully. "I appreciate your concerns, and rest assured I share them. The problem as I see it comes down to the rights of a society to rule itself as it sees fit versus the rights of an individual within that society. Do we have the right to impose our morality on another group even when we find the actions of that society reprehensible?"
     
    "Sir, that's above my pay grade, but I would counter with another question... At what point does a right become a responsibility?"
     
    ***
     
    Cat shuffled forward a few inches. Everyone, to include the Torn Wing's complement of convicts and crew, were now on the Modos ship called the Bluefin . All were prisoners. The Bluefin was a slave transport, but it seemed to be more than that. In many ways, it was apparent that the ship was designed from the 'get go' to process slaves... Slaves of different biological and psychological backgrounds.
     
    Each slave was run through a battery of tests. Some medical, some physical, some psychological. It seemed this ship was designed, in part, to prepare and quantify the newly acquired slaves for something. And if Cat was suspicious, which of course she was, she suspected that 'something' was prepping them for eventual sale.
     
    One of the first things done was to remove all personal possessions. This included clothing, jewelry, and internal commlinks.  This last was accomplished by inserting an ultra-thin needle and physically fusing the internal electronics of the links rather than their physical removal. It was obvious their captors had experience doing this because the procedure was almost painless and did not result in significant collateral damage to the surrounding tissues.
     
    Cat had anticipated this contingency. Her ultra-advanced nanites provided a simulated commlink in the correct location. In addition, they cloaked her other enhancements. The Modos surgeon burned out the decoy without ever suspecting the deception. That had been about half an hour ago.
     
    Cat shuffled a few more inches forward. She was slowly being ushered into a circular room with two Hoppers whose names she didn't yet know. In addition, there were several D'lralu, including her cybernetic friend Ben, already in the room. She reached out to Ben with her quantum link. As she had suspected, they were unable