lesbian chauvanist pig

You are circling her in a dusty arena, waiting for a bell, it tolls: she moves with it. You barely get your shield up in time, and the force of her blow knocks you back three full steps, and she’s on you again, you with your shield down and front wide open. She slashes at your upper shield arm and blood wells up and flows, catching on her blade as she pulls back, dripping into the sand.

You aren’t dead, and the pain isn’t real, yet. You rush at her and she’s too ready, she parries your sword and almost twists it out of your hand, but you withdraw, your shield up against your arm’s protestation, and her next blow slashes across it, making you beat your own chest. You meet her next blow better, with well-timed force, and her sword arm wheels out and back. The crowd, at a roiling boil since the bell, go quiet – they’re on her side.

You try to take advantage of her opening but she recovers too fast and she mirrors your shield block with the force of an uninjured arm. She takes advantage better, too, darting forward and slicing the side of your belly, darting back before you can do anything. The crowd is back into it now. You feel the certainty of your imminent death and everything clarifies. You rush at her, shield raised to beat her downwards, blood trickling warm down your shoulder, and only half-seeing behind your shield you stab at her inner thighs, scoring into her leg before pulling back.

The crowd is silent again, but the blood coming out of her is flowing down her leg, not spurting – you’ve missed her artery. Her mask of concentration becomes a knit-brow scowl, and she launches at you. You move to strike her but she parries your sword and twists it out of your hand, slashing across the front of your thighs and keeping in close. She takes another, deeper slash at your guts and, as you try fruitlessly to block, turns it quickly into a slash that breaks against your ribs.

You are stunned. The crowd’s silence is anticipation this time as she knees you in the guts. You vomit, and feel a wave of blood flow from the wounds at your sides. Already doubled over, she grabs your shoulders and twists you onto the ground. She lines her sword up to your neck, swings back, and the bell tolls again. Her anger turns, momentarily, to a figure you can’t see, then evaporates. Your vision begins to blur as she works the crowd for her victory lap. A pair of slaves – attendants by the combatants entrance you recognise from earlier – grab your arms and legs and haul you out of the arena.

You make it to your ludus’ camp without losing consciousness. Ursinus, the lanista, and a Greek slave are waiting for you when they put you down in the tent.

“I’m Herakles,” he says to you, and, as he goes to inspect your wounds, adds “I’m a doctor” in heavily accented Latin.

After a pause, Ursinus asks “Is she salvageable?”

Without turning to face his master or being reprimanded for the same, he replies “She has lost a lot of blood. But, her wounds are shallow. If we clean and close fast, she lives, all better.”

“I see. In that case,” Ursinus trails off, sticking his head out of the tent. “Maxima, in here,” he calls. She comes in.

“You made this mess, you clean it up. Herakles will explain how. Follow his instructions. If she dies, you’re paying to replace her.” Ursinus turns to leave, until

“But she tried to kill—” Ursinus’ glare cut off Maxima’s protest. Her shoulders fell.

He adds, on his way out: “You can patch yourself up when you’re done with her.”

They strip your armour, and wash your wounds with vinegar-soaked sponges that Herakles swears have never seen a latrina, and stitch them closed. Maxima works diligently but resentfully, Herakles offering scant commentary. He gives you heavily diluted wine while she sews herself shut. Soon enough the porters from the arena bring another one in, drawing Herakles’ attention and leaving you and Maxima alone.

“Watch yourself,” she says, getting up and leaving the tent.

You convalesce in a private bedroom – Ursinus wanted you integrated into the ludus after your first fight, but you’re too wounded for an introduction. You drift in and out of sleep interspersed with wine and bread. The edges of sleep and wake blur, until:

“Hey, slut” Maxima barks, slapping you awake. Now in a short tunic, she is straddling your chest, your arms pinned under her knees. A moment’s resistance makes your arm wound burn.

“Don’t try that shit, fuckface,” she glances down and you realise the cold feeling is a dagger pressed to your throat. She pulls it back and with her offhand slaps you, three times quickly.

“Ursinus wants to break even on you before anyone gets to kill you. Wants to see if you can be a brand. I guess they liked the naïve princess thing. But you need to learn how things fucking work.” Saying this, she lifts her tunic to reveal her wound.

“This,” she points, “is out of line. That’s a killing blow if you had better aim.”

“Aren’t we fighting to the death?” you ask. She slaps you again, hard.

“No, dipshit, are you dead right now? Look. You might die. But gladiators are expensive, gladiatrices even more so. Ursinus needs to make his money back. So mercy is the rule. What the fuck was he telling you, just to scare you? Fuck. OK, so, you know less than I thought. But what you actually need to learn is some fucking respect.” She takes a strip of cloth she must have brought with her, balls it up, and, holding your nose so you have to breathe, jams it in your open mouth. She takes a second one and, looping it around your head, ties a knot in it over your mouth, behind your teeth. You want to retch. Your mouth feels impossibly dry.

“You’ll stay still if you know what’s good for you. Do you know what’s good for you?” she asks, and you nod. She stows her dagger in a metal sheath, then crawls down you to straddle one thigh, seemingly making a point of first putting all her weight on your injured arm, then digging into your belly wounds with her knees.

You’re still in your combat loincloth, so when she throws the sheet all the way off you, and holds your legs apart, you’re fully exposed. Under any other circumstances the cool air would be a comfort on a night this hot. But she’s staring at your cunt with hunger. She presses the tip of her sheathed dagger to you, and the cold bronze is bracing. You tense up.

“Don’t get modest on me now,” she says, pushing in before you can exhale. The sheath is cold, the stretch burns, and you cry out. “Shut up, porna,” she snaps. You don’t need the Greek translated. She pulls a fraction out, then pushes back in, your whole body is as tense as a harp-string. She pulls back, and holds it there for longer this time, and as you exhale and start to sink she slaps you, higher this time so her gag can’t soften the blow. As you inhale she pushes in again, and the pain makes you curl up, immediately the wounds on your sides are burning. Your tears well up and flow freely. She grabs your throat and slams you back down and straightened out.

“I said to stay still, fuckface.” You can’t breathe. She doesn’t release her grip as she pushes the dagger in further, then draws it, with you too tense to let the sheath go. She releases her grip on your throat, holding the knife to it again.

“I need you to understand that even if I can’t kill you, I can make you suffer,” she says, drawing the dagger back. She stabs it at your cunt, and you flinch, but she sheathed it perfectly. “If you fuck with me again, no sheath, understand?” You nod.

She crawls forward, straddling your chest again. She unties your gag, dropping the wet ball of cloth on your pillow.

“Now you know what I can do to you. So now, you’re going to learn some respect.” She glares at you, until you slowly nod. “Good.”

She moves further up to you, now her crotch is at your chin. She unfolds at the knees, gets over you, then lowers herself back down.

“Have you done this before, slut?” she asks, then, not waiting for an answer, “its like kissing. Just keep your lips and tongue moving, no teeth. I’ll put you where I want you. If you need air, I’ll know when you pass out, don’t whinge about it before then.”

She lifts herself up over you again, and grabs a thick fistful of your hair closest to your scalp. She pulls you into her cunt, and you start to eat her. The acidic smell of her cunt is overpowered by her sweat; her bush is wet even before you tongue her open. She takes her hand away to hike her tunic up and belt it in place, grinding you into the bed instead. Her adjustments done, she grabs you again, pulling you up onto her her clit. At least you can breathe there. You quickly learn being given any slack is an instruction to go faster.

You lap at her like a dog, as she leans forward over you, doubled over, and she squirts on you, washing down your chin and neck. You stop, and breathe, and she sits back on your chest, catching her breath. She slaps you.

“Did I say you could stop?” She asks, striking you again when you shake your head ‘no’. She’s up again now, holding you deeper now, your tongue reaching into her cunt. She reaches back and grabs at your tit, first pulling at your nipple before digging into it with her thumbnail until you yelp into her from the pain. She slaps your tit before releasing, and grabs the wall with her free hand for stability.

You can barely breathe, your deepest breaths still not enough. As though she knows you might pull away to breathe, she grabs your head with her other hand, and pulls you deeper into her, her cries getting louder as your eyes water and your vision blurs, You are too scared of her to stop, though, and you keep going even as the base of your tongue aches. You feel her cunt clench around you as she comes.

You come to only seconds later. She is still over you, but back on your chest.

“You can stop now, by the way.” She says, sweet if sarcastic, less cruel and harsh than her voice before. “Good slut. Show me respect, keep me happy, and we won’t have any problems.”

She is methodical about adjusting her tunic again, taking her dagger, considering taking her gag but thinking better of it when she touches it. As soon as she’s done she gets off you, before leaning over you, and, almost as an afterthought, biting down hard on your neck, sucking hard.

You are circling her in a dusty arena, waiting for a bell, it tolls: she moves with it. You barely get your shield up in time, and the force of her blow knocks you back three full steps, and she’s on you again, you with your shield down and front wide open. She slashes at your upper shield arm and blood wells up and flows, catching on her blade as she pulls back, dripping into the sand.

You aren’t dead, and the pain isn’t real, yet. You rush at her and she’s too ready, she parries your sword and almost twists it out of your hand, but you withdraw, your shield up against your arm’s protestation, and her next blow slashes across it, making you beat your own chest. You meet her next blow better, with well-timed force, and her sword arm wheels out and back. The crowd, at a roiling boil since the bell, go quiet – they’re on her side.

You try to take advantage of her opening but she recovers too fast and she mirrors your shield block with the force of an uninjured arm. She takes advantage better, too, darting forward and slicing the side of your belly, darting back before you can do anything. The crowd is back into it now. You feel the certainty of your imminent death and everything clarifies. You rush at her, shield raised to beat her downwards, blood trickling warm down your shoulder, and only half-seeing behind your shield you stab at her inner thighs, scoring into her leg before pulling back.

The crowd is silent again, but the blood coming out of her is flowing down her leg, not spurting – you’ve missed her artery. Her mask of concentration becomes a knit-brow scowl, and she launches at you. You move to strike her but she parries your sword and twists it out of your hand, slashing across the front of your thighs and keeping in close. She takes another, deeper slash at your guts and, as you try fruitlessly to block, turns it quickly into a slash that breaks against your ribs.

You are stunned. The crowd’s silence is anticipation this time as she knees you in the guts. You vomit, and feel a wave of blood flow from the wounds at your sides. Already doubled over, she grabs your shoulders and twists you onto the ground. She lines her sword up to your neck, swings back, and the bell tolls again. Her anger turns, momentarily, to a figure you can’t see, then evaporates. Your vision begins to blur as she works the crowd for her victory lap. A pair of slaves – attendants by the combatants entrance you recognise from earlier – grab your arms and legs and haul you out of the arena.

You make it to your ludus’ camp without losing consciousness. Ursinus, the lanista, and a Greek slave are waiting for you when they put you down in the tent.

“I’m Herakles,” he says to you, and, as he goes to inspect your wounds, adds “I’m a doctor” in heavily accented Latin.

After a pause, Ursinus asks “Is she salvageable?”

Without turning to face his master or being reprimanded for the same, he replies “She has lost a lot of blood. But, her wounds are shallow. If we clean and close fast, she lives, all better.”

“I see. In that case,” Ursinus trails off, sticking his head out of the tent. “Maxima, in here,” he calls. She comes in.

“You made this mess, you clean it up. Herakles will explain how. Follow his instructions. If she dies, you’re paying to replace her.” Ursinus turns to leave, until

“But she tried to kill—” Ursinus’ glare cut off Maxima’s protest. Her shoulders fell.

He adds, on his way out: “You can patch yourself up when you’re done with her.”

They strip your armour, and wash your wounds with vinegar-soaked sponges that Herakles swears have never seen a latrina, and stitch them closed. Maxima works diligently but resentfully, Herakles offering scant commentary. He gives you heavily diluted wine while she sews herself shut. Soon enough the porters from the arena bring another one in, drawing Herakles’ attention and leaving you and Maxima alone.

“Watch yourself,” she says, getting up and leaving the tent.

You convalesce in a private bedroom – Ursinus wanted you integrated into the ludus after your first fight, but you’re too wounded for an introduction. You drift in and out of sleep interspersed with wine and bread. The edges of sleep and wake blur, until:

“Hey, slut” Maxima barks, slapping you awake. Now in a short tunic, she is straddling your chest, your arms pinned under her knees. A moment’s resistance makes your arm wound burn.

“Don’t try that shit, fuckface,” she glances down and you realise the cold feeling is a dagger pressed to your throat. She pulls it back and with her offhand slaps you, three times quickly.

“Ursinus wants to break even on you before anyone gets to kill you. Wants to see if you can be a brand. I guess they liked the naïve princess thing. But you need to learn how things fucking work.” Saying this, she lifts her tunic to reveal her wound.

“This,” she points, “is out of line. That’s a killing blow if you had better aim.”

“Aren’t we fighting to the death?” you ask. She slaps you again, hard.

“No, dipshit, are you dead right now? Look. You might die. But gladiators are expensive, gladiatrices even more so. Ursinus needs to make his money back. So mercy is the rule. What the fuck was he telling you, just to scare you? Fuck. OK, so, you know less than I thought. But what you actually need to learn is some fucking respect.” She takes a strip of cloth she must have brought with her, balls it up, and, holding your nose so you have to breathe, jams it in your open mouth. She takes a second one and, looping it around your head, ties a knot in it over your mouth, behind your teeth. You want to retch. Your mouth feels impossibly dry.

“You’ll stay still if you know what’s good for you. Do you know what’s good for you?” she asks, and you nod. She stows her dagger in a metal sheath, then crawls down you to straddle one thigh, seemingly making a point of first putting all her weight on your injured arm, then digging into your belly wounds with her knees.

You’re still in your combat loincloth, so when she throws the sheet all the way off you, and holds your legs apart, you’re fully exposed. Under any other circumstances the cool air would be a comfort on a night this hot. But she’s staring at your cunt with hunger. She presses the tip of her sheathed dagger to you, and the cold bronze is bracing. You tense up.

“Don’t get modest on me now,” she says, pushing in before you can exhale. The sheath is cold, the stretch burns, and you cry out. “Shut up, porna,” she snaps. You don’t need the Greek translated. She pulls a fraction out, then pushes back in, your whole body is as tense as a harp-string. She pulls back, and holds it there for longer this time, and as you exhale and start to sink she slaps you, higher this time so her gag can’t soften the blow. As you inhale she pushes in again, and the pain makes you curl up, immediately the wounds on your sides are burning. Your tears well up and flow freely. She grabs your throat and slams you back down and straightened out.

“I said to stay still, fuckface.” You can’t breathe. She doesn’t release her grip as she pushes the dagger in further, then draws it, with you too tense to let the sheath go. She releases her grip on your throat, holding the knife to it again.

“I need you to understand that even if I can’t kill you, I can make you suffer,” she says, drawing the dagger back. She stabs it at your cunt, and you flinch, but she sheathed it perfectly. “If you fuck with me again, no sheath, understand?” You nod.

She crawls forward, straddling your chest again. She unties your gag, dropping the wet ball of cloth on your pillow.

“Now you know what I can do to you. So now, you’re going to learn some respect.” She glares at you, until you slowly nod. “Good.”

She moves further up to you, now her crotch is at your chin. She unfolds at the knees, gets over you, then lowers herself back down.

“Have you done this before, slut?” she asks, then, not waiting for an answer, “its like kissing. Just keep your lips and tongue moving, no teeth. I’ll put you where I want you. If you need air, I’ll know when you pass out, don’t whinge about it before then.”

She lifts herself up over you again, and grabs a thick fistful of your hair closest to your scalp. She pulls you into her cunt, and you start to eat her. The acidic smell of her cunt is overpowered by her sweat; her bush is wet even before you tongue her open. She takes her hand away to hike her tunic up and belt it in place, grinding you into the bed instead. Her adjustments done, she grabs you again, pulling you up onto her her clit. At least you can breathe there. You quickly learn being given any slack is an instruction to go faster.

You lap at her like a dog, as she leans forward over you, doubled over, and she squirts on you, washing down your chin and neck. You stop, and breathe, and she sits back on your chest, catching her breath. She slaps you.

“Did I say you could stop?” She asks, striking you again when you shake your head ‘no’. She’s up again now, holding you deeper now, your tongue reaching into her cunt. She reaches back and grabs at your tit, first pulling at your nipple before digging into it with her thumbnail until you yelp into her from the pain. She slaps your tit before releasing, and grabs the wall with her free hand for stability.

You can barely breathe, your deepest breaths still not enough. As though she knows you might pull away to breathe, she grabs your head with her other hand, and pulls you deeper into her, her cries getting louder as your eyes water and your vision blurs, You are too scared of her to stop, though, and you keep going even as the base of your tongue aches. You feel her cunt clench around you as she comes.

You come to only seconds later. She is still over you, but back on your chest.

“You can stop now, by the way.” She says, sweet if sarcastic, less cruel and harsh than her voice before. “Good slut. Show me respect, keep me happy, and we won’t have any problems.”

She is methodical about adjusting her tunic again, taking her dagger, considering taking her gag but thinking better of it when she touches it. As soon as she’s done she gets off you, before leaning over you, and, almost as an afterthought, biting down hard on your neck, sucking hard.

There’s the darkness. And there’s the sensation. Nerves alight. Irina Lyra can feel it now. Something’s — fuck, is that her head? Something, god, the pounding, it’s killing her. Hurts to exist, hurts to be awake. That concentrated agony rhythm, a sharp spiking to her right brow. Pulsing in increments, to the tempo of her bloodstream, the beat of her heart. She loosely smacks her mouth. Dry and sticky and awful to the taste. Dehydration, she knows, it’s the first thing her mind jumps to. Something below language. Instinct tells her so. She swallows her thick saliva uselessly.

And then there’s the context, the sleepless memory that shambles out after her mind into consciousness. How she got here. Where is here, anyway? She holds the thought. The recollection will serve.

She came in low and screaming across the sky. The woman out of space. Venusian super-spy. Abandoned the stealth craft, proceeded alone. Disguised herself, had followed in with a known meteor shower. Just another rock. Drop-pod into the ether, the plasma and the night. Fire licking at her boots. Into unbreathable air. Into a hostile world.

Ninety seconds of terror. The roar of retro-rockets, so hard she almost blacked out. Had to come in fast, any slower would have been suspicious. They’re always tracking and telemetry kills. Even more, the satellites. Panopticon eyes, watchers in the sky.

When the half-buried capsule’s hatch burst open and she crawled out into the Martian dark, a dust storm, merciful blindness — the pounding begins again, she groans and scrunches her eyes shut — she buried the hatch as fast as she could, no time to waste. The sand would fill the pod. Her suit, burnt tan camouflage for the surface, powered by micro-turbines that spun with every breath of oxygen, supercritical pressure in the pack. Enough to last her a couple days. In the now, she moves to rub her eyes and hears the clinking of steel and the pain of restraint against her delicate wrist.

And then… nothing. The memory ceases to continue. A file out of playback. Blinking to conjure it in her mind’s eye without avail. She had landed in the Daedalia Planum, a few hundred kilometers south of Olympus Mons. Far away from the cities, Vallis Marineris or the Xanthe Terra megacities, near… some manner of installation. But that had been it. The mission details had been drilled into her head, and now they had fallen out the other side. She’s somewhere on Mars still, this she knows. The subtlety of the gravity tells her so. It says to her what the handcuffs should have told her to begin with before her mind had reached awareness.

She’s been captured. The knowledge guts her and fills her stomach with molten lead.

A metal door swings open and the light beyond it blinds Lyra for a moment. She seethes and shuts her eyes again, wincing. The impression is stamped into her retinas, a hazy blur cutout of white that fades into a mix of greens and blues. Before it’s gone she realizes there is a shape in the doorway. A person standing tall and to attention. It’s not long before she hears the click of boots against the metallic floor. Approaching her.

“Shut the door. Lights on,” the person’s voice. Androgynous and husky. This is the first thing Lyra notices. The door slams shut and an overhead light, institutional in its bleach spectra, switches on, an immediate heatless sun. Lyra fights to keep her eyes open. Her blonde hair glows at the edges of her vision. The squinting takes its time and the pounding in her head keeps her eyelids closed a while longer. When her vision finally adjusts she’s able to look at the figure seated across from her.

They’re tall. Most Martians are. The low gravity does it to them over the course of their lives, she knows. This one all imperious by the face. A cut jawline, dark eyes, short brown hair, buzzed at the sides and a low-reg length at the top. Straight and mostly ordered. An aquiline nose and high cheekbones. The gender is indeterminate. Lyra glances at their uniform. Black, gray, and orange. Martian Ariespatial Intelligence colors. Something awful is crawling up her throat. She’s trained to be calm for situations like this. Capture, torture, interrogation. But still the fear remains.

“You’re a long way from home, aren’t you?” the Martian smiles coldly. A gloved hand of theirs comes to hold Lyra’s chin up. Positioning her head like that of a scorned child. “Only question is, where are you from?”

Lyra’s eyes flick down to the Martian’s uniform. She scans the bars and ribbons. High ranking, to be sure. The sheer number alone tells her they’ve seen action in numerous campaigns. And then the name badge. In clean orange lettering. Sabaeus.

A massive spike of white pain to her cheek, blinding her again. She feels the slap on her face before she registers the movement of their hand. The recoil sends her head sideways, nearly winds her, she’s choking on herself in the shock for a moment before she’s able to get a grip over her body.

“Look at me,” the Martian — Sabaeus — intones sternly. “Answer my questions.”

“You,” Lyra coughs, fixing her gaze at their narrow eyes, “you want me to know who you are. You would’ve taken those off otherwise.”

“Oh?” A smirk is all that registers from her opposite.

“The badges,” Lyra mutters, then sits up straight. “I’m not saying another word. I know your laws. I know the Interplanetary Convention on Human Rights. Article Fourteen, Section A-Three-Zero of the Ceres Convention. I have a right to counsel. I have a right to repatriation.”

“Smart girl,” Sabaeus ruffles Lyra’s hair. The glove’s material feels unnervingly smooth against her head. Leather. “But that’s not going to work here.”

Before Lyra can object, there’s an instantaneous roar in her ears. All her nerves light up in all the wrong ways. Pain. Pain. Pain. The information blares instinctual. She’s writhing, thrashing uncontrollably in the chair. Screaming. Her consciousness feels removed from her physical form, gagged and muted behind a wall of agony. Electricity coursing through her, tripping her muscles and driving them into a hot seize. The moment of shock seems to last forever.

And suddenly it switches off. Lyra gasps for breath and feels her heart pulsating, twitching in aftershock inside her before picking up a pace again. Her skin is set like gooseflesh and she’s trembling like a frightened rabbit. An animal thing. She hangs her head down with exhaustion and that’s when she realizes it. She’s naked.

Sabaeus reaches out towards her head again with their glove. Wipes away a tear Lyra didn’t know she’d expressed. “That was a lower setting. The doctors told me anything further would kill you, but,” Sabaeus shrugs, “at this point that’s more of an inconvenience than anything else. You think laws are going to work here? I don’t know where you think you are, but the only rule here is power. And power comes from violence. Any basic social scientist on Mars knows this. Talk to me.”

“Torture,” Lyra murmurs.

“Hm?”

“Torture,” Lyra says louder, her voice shaking. “It doesn’t work. The subject will say anything to make it stop. And it renders any information obtained unreliable. Never in the history of humankind has torture served any real purpose other than to inflict suffering on one who has no means of escaping it.”

“Go on,” Sabaeus smiles. “Keep running your mouth, pretty thing.”

“And it’s against the standards of Martian civil and military law. You should know that,” Lyra sits up defiantly and scans her opposite’s uniform, “Commander.”

Sabaeus takes it in. Sighs quietly to themselves, as though they’re taking in the brisk fresh air of a cool Earth winter day. Not that Lyra would ever know such a thing. Venusian cloud cities don’t have things like wind, or winters.

They stand up and unclip a rod from the side of their belt. It extends into a full baton with one quick shwoop. It powers on and arc-light softly crackles at the end.

“You’d have been right at one time, you know,” the commander slowly paces around the small room and stops behind her. “The electrodes in that chair, the remote at my side, only complex manifestations of what was once a very simple process involving sharp metal implements. But we’ve progressed a long way since then. You see, pretty thing,” at this moniker Sabaeus reaches a hand to cup Lyra’s neck, then moves down absently over her chest. She blinks when they grope her breasts passionlessly. Like they’re inspecting her at some meat market. “That only holds true if there is no incentive to give correct answers other than the avoidance of pain, and if we have no means of verifying the information you give.”

Their face comes into view again. A predatory grin and glinting eyes. “But we have both of those things. And I run this place, you little bitch.”

The baton crackles and suddenly the arc-end of it is held just under Lyra’s chin. Right over her neck, her trachea and esophagus. Lyra goes still as the commander continues. “You’re from Venus, aren’t you? Good effort disguising your accent, but I can still hear the softness on the telling consonants. What city?” Hot air off the plasma, right at her throat. “Tell me.”

Lyra swallows. “Go fuck yourself.”

Fire. Fire at her neck, at her throat, screaming its way out of her nerves and into her mind, the sizzling of her flesh. In a blur she’s pushing her chin down, trying to keep the plasma burns off her trachea, but the commander just jams the baton into the side, above her shoulders. Flash-scarring. Then it’s away, and there’s a hammering to it, the baton swinging down against her skull so godawful and so powerfully that she’s sent adrift inside her head, Lyra’s consciousness goes spinning away from herself and the cord that roots her to the world stretches thin. Vision goes dark gray at the edges and the distance feels almost merciful. When the beating stops and she comes to, her head is throbbing wetly with agony, and she can feel the warm trickle of blood oozing drip drip drip onto her thighs.

“Still with me?” the commander’s voice is distant, like underwater. “Don’t go dying on me, now.”

Lyra opens her mouth to say something but has to wait for the blood to finish drooling out of her. She watches it fall slowly in the low Martian gravity. “Aphrodite,” she murmurs. It’s like talking with a mouth full of sand.

“What’s that?” the commander asks her. They tilt her head up delicately, and Lyra tastes metal pouring back into her throat. Her vision is swimming, Sabaeus fragmented through kaleidoscopic vision. She thinks she seems them grinning. “I didn’t quite catch it.”

“I’m from Aphrodite. The city.” It’s a false answer. Lyra’s not from Aphrodite. She’s from New Olympus, a neighboring cloud city, networked solar-powered dirigibles floating in thick carbon dioxide over the Rusalka Planitia. Her mind takes her there now, out of this place. Surrounded by familiar tan-gray skies. It’s close enough to the truth that she feels she can dodge the consequences for a moment. Sabaeus just stands there, watching her like a bug in a jar.

She needs to buy time. This commander isn’t operating according to the standards of captured personnel, that much is obvious. Mars and Venus aren’t at war, of course. Prisoner of War standards do not apply here. Ones related to individuals still do. There’s more than that, she knows. She had been told that Martians were, like their namesake god of ancient Earth civilizations gone by, an aggressive and militaristic people. But something’s different about this individual. Commander. In charge of this base, perhaps? And if they run this place as their own personal fiefdom, then things become more difficult. It’s not about negotiation, or information per se. It’s about survival. She’s not dealing with an interrogator, she realizes. She’s dealing with a sadist.

Lyra thinks, her mind racing. The Venusian Security Directorate, VSD Overlord, knows she hasn’t reported in. Her suit almost certainly would have run out of oxygen by now… her mission, why can’t she recall the details? Head injury, perhaps as part of her capture. That could become a problem. If she doesn’t know what she’s meant to conceal, she won’t know what she can give away as a delaying tactic. They have to know where she is. She knows the possibility of rescue is minimal. But a negotiated release, if they know she’s alive. Sub-dermal tracking implants, if she can get to the surface then maybe through their deep listening stations in the asteroid belt they can…

“You’re lying to me,” Sabaeus sneers. “I don’t much care for liars.”

Lyra tenses up her muscles for another hit. The sting of the plasma, the shock of the electrode. “I’m not,” she whispers. “I promise.”

“I told you, we can directly verify the information you give us. Immediately and without delay. These tactics of yours, they don’t work.” The commander examines their baton, tracing a finger over the teeth of the switched-off plasma torch end. Tapping the sharp teeth of the positive and negative electrodes with a curious finger.

Sabaeus continues. “Our methods of informational extraction are far superior to yours. You Venusians,” they spit, “Comforted and made soft by the closeness of our shared sun, floating in your cloud cities. You’re hardly better than Earth-dwellers. Hell, at the right altitude, you people can go outside without pressure suits as long as you have respirators and heat exchangers. No ambition. No grand vision of a world transformed. No generational project of terraforming and settlement. Just floating around the sky. Limp-wristed artists and aerodynamicists. Prissy little thing, aren’t you?” They reach out a gloved hand and cradle the side of Lyra’s face. It’s an almost tender gesture. “What are you doing all the way out here?”

Lyra doesn’t answer and Sabaeus doesn’t force the matter. Mercifully, or so it seems, the commander has forgotten Lyra’s earlier lie. But how do they know? How could they possibly? It’s not as though Mars would have access to Venusian Intelligence records, VSD would never have sent her here otherwise. Head games, perhaps. Sabaeus assuming the first answer is bullshit from the get-go doesn’t require a genius intellect or deep infiltration. The difference in accent between those cities is too minor for someone off-world to tell the difference. It raises an obvious question.

“If you know so much,” Lyra intones calmly, “then why ask?” “Hm?” Sabaeus raises an eyebrow.

“Why ask anything? You don’t need me. Just send me out onto the surface without a suit and be done with it. You could have killed me when I landed.” She pauses. “But you didn’t. You captured me. You’ve kept me alive. Either you really do need me to answer your questions or you’re keeping me around to satisfy some sick thrill. So which is it?”

Sabaeus says nothing. Stares at her, looking her over with dark, hungry eyes. Then they smile and tilt their head ever so slightly to the side. “Guess.”

The shock comes roaring back. Worse than before. So much worse than before. She’s spasming and writhing in the seat, screaming a guttural wail and now her wrists are free but there’s a crack in the side of her torso, rib broken, the world goes flying and her center of gravity shifts so far off axis, and it takes a moment for her to realize what’s happened is the cuffs were disengaged and she’s been kicked to the floor. She blinks and pants like a wounded dog. Looking up at her captor. Sabaeus’ uniform jacket is off. Just a crisp pressed shirt, dark pants, mag-boots on and baton in hand. Lyra is suddenly aware again of her nakedness under them.

The hand comes down first. The glove, so smooth and tender just moments ago, now rushes violently to her neck. Lyra rolls to dodge. Stupid move Sabaeus made, she can still — man alive, that hurts, her head, her body, it’s a delirious blur of movement and scuffling. She moves out from under them as fast as she can, jumping to the side, getting up on her feet now, no time for a weapon, nothing in the room will suffice, down to her bare hands, she makes space between herself and her captor.

They’re standing now, across the table, the commander’s face so twisted into rage, baring teeth animalistic, all red desert fire and hate for her person and people. Lyra is panting, head pounding, the dehydration and hunger are going to kill her if the Martian doesn’t first. No time to waste. Take initiative. Kill him.

Lyra springs forward, driving her full mass into the commander’s lithe body, and she bears them down onto the cold metal floor. She’s got her hands around their neck, the warmth and the struggle, for a moment she thinks she’s got the upper hand on them. And then the door briefly opens, two guards come rushing in, faces obscured by their carapace armor and insectile red compound-eye visors. Before the automatic slider can even slam shut they easily tackle her against the wall, off the commander, and then there’s a gun at her head.

She can feel the weight of it. The enormity of the bullet inside. The universe narrows down to it and the many-fragmented reflection glow of the ammo-counter display off the guard’s eyepieces. Everything goes black at the edges, death vignette, and her world goes slow and quiet.

It takes a half-second, maybe three, before she realizes she’s not going to die. Not now, anyway. It’s a threat, not an execution. The world resumes, and Sabaeus reenters her field of view. They’re not angry, at least not visibly, not by the facial tells. But there’s a resentment under the surface. Something awful wells up inside Lyra and in her desperation she cannot fight down the sick urge.

“Had you,” she smirks weakly.

To her shock, the commander smiles back. For an instant she thinks maybe, just maybe, there’s a mutual respect building between the two of them. But reading deeper into their eyes tells her this is not true in the slightest.

“Lay her out,” Sabaeus says.

The guards waste no time in moving Lyra from the wall to the floor. They each pin her limbs at the sides, leaving her embarrassingly splayed out on the metal like a taxidermied butterfly. Sabaeus approaches her from between her legs. They gently take their plasma baton, so deadly and awful, in their hand and Lyra’s stomach drops when she realizes what is about to happen next. The commander’s leather-gloved fingers move to softly touch her cunt and spread it wide.

“If you make a sound,” they enunciate the words slowly, “I’m turning it on inside you.”

Lyra freezes. It’s only been a few minutes since she even woke up. How is this happening now? The metal is so cold on her back. The pulsing of her headache inflames the overhead light in regular intervals. Like the solar cycle she is ever so familiar with, long ago raised so close to it. She lays flat and stares up at the ceiling. She won’t notice what’s happening if she doesn’t look. It can’t hurt her if she doesn’t look. She won’t make a sound if she doesn’t look. She thinks of Venus, of home, cities suspended in the ever shifting formless ether, above sulfuric acid and beneath the open sky. The regular exchanges of mining drones to and from Mercury. The night coterminous and dark. She imagines the clouds. She imagines the warmth.

She feels the cold metal of the baton enter her. The insertion is painful, agonizingly so, and she struggles to not wince at the sensation. The sharp electrode teeth are there, she knows it, mercifully they do not face outward from each other but instead in. To convey dozens of kilovolts of difference. All inside her, ready to burn her with the temperature of the surface of the sun. She does not move. She cannot move. She has been trained so well but not for this, never for this. It’s in so deep now, an invading dormant tool, ready to wake and mutilate at the press of the button. The terror makes her want to cry.

She is not home anymore. She can never go home again, in her mind or in her heart. Irina Lyra, Venusian Security Directorate agent, is trapped below the surface of Mars being raped by a plasma baton. It begins to move in and out of her, and soon she feels pressure on her clit, and realizes it’s the fingers of the commander. She does not move her head but her eyes switch helplessly between the guards, hoping against hope that there is some shred of compassion, decency, anything that would stop this. Her gaze only reflects against the numerous lenses. Silent and machine-like, watching her for signs of struggle. They are disciplined. They are still.

The fingers on her clit force pleasure from her nerves. It’s only biological, she tells herself. The commander is using her body against her. It’s an unwitting accomplice to her rape. The baton begins to slide in and out her more easily. Hazily, she wonders if the increased fluid medium will prevent the plasma from forming inside her. So analytical, it’s the only way for her to be in this moment. If she considers this situation in human terms she’ll scream and sob and writhe and that will be the end of her. The Martians will not treat her. The commander will rape her to death.

It’s fucking her faster now, the gloved fingers rubbing her clit elicit a pitiful desire. Autonomic yearning, against the leather. Against her person. It builds over the course of several agonizing and oh-so-slow minutes to a silent, loveless climax, and in a moment of weakness she is unable to stop herself from letting out a small whimper. The terror strikes her deep. Oh god, she thinks, here it comes. Her muscles tense so tight that it smothers the orgasm dead.

The commander says nothing. A promise denied? The climax as proof enough? They extract the baton from within her and with a motion the guards prop her sitting up and return the cuffs to clasp around her wrists. The commander hands the baton, ever so slightly glistening with juices in the light, to one of the guards. They return her to the chair and she slumps over, exhausted, forehead suspended barely above the steel table. The guards leave the room in tandem. It’s a miserable, quiet order. Then she hears Sabaeus clear their throat. She tilts her head up. The commander standing in the open doorway, obscuring what’s beyond. Whatever they see of her, her bloodied body, her greasy hair, her sunken eyes; it all seems to bring a gleeful smile to their face. It’s the first time Lyra thinks she sees the expression reach their eyes.

“That was fun,” the commander grins. “Let’s do this again sometime.”

They leave, the door slams shut, and the light above is switched off.

Lyra blinks her eyes. There is no difference to her now between when they are open and when they are closed, and were it not for the burning sensation when her eyelids are shut, she would not be able to keep track of which state they are in. She allows herself to drift down and place her forehead against the cool metal of the table.

It does not soothe the headache. She smacks her lips once more. Her mouth is so dry. She has never had water on Mars.