Chapter 4

Cassandra’s head pounds, she tries to open her eyes but the light hurts too much, she closes them again. She raises her hand to her forehead as she tries to remember what happened. Images flooded back to her and her eyes snapped open. Above her is rock, obviously a cave. She rolls her head to the side, the pain causing her to wince, she found the cave wall in front of her face.

Slowly she manages to turn her head to the other side. She was in a cave, one end blocked by metal bars before opening into a passage way. The cave is obviously a prison cell, and it is filled with women, she counts at least 20, some she recognised from when she had been stationed on the base, another was one of the soldiers she had been with at the camp. The rest all seem familiar but there is no recognition there.

She starts moving other parts of her body, first her hands. Her fingers feel stiff they are still in the gloves and the little finger on her right hand feels broken and shoots pain up her arm when she tries to move it. Her arms move and they are sore but felt intact. Reaching round she finds she is lying on a stone slab. Moving her leg out she manages to push herself up into a seated position despite the pain.

She looks down at the body, the suit torn in many places, bloody gouges were visible in places where claws had gone through more than just the suit. The silver gleam of metal shows through in many places where the outer layer had been peeled free. Her left breast was now only covered by the metal strip that had run up the inside of the suit over her nipple, her right leg mainly bare down to the boot and a nasty gash running down the back.

As she checks herself out the other women seemed not to notice her, they are only interested in the floor before them. As Cassandra gazes round she notices that none of them were properly dressed. Some were naked, others wore tatty coats or shirts with no buttons left, a couple had T-shirts that showed more flesh through tears than they covered. The fellow soldier looks ridiculous in only her boots and pieces of material from her suit tied together into some kind of bikini.

She has a feeling this isn’t the first time she has woken up in here. Memories of someone with a wet cloth tending to her, whispering to her about behaving, about being good. Her mind is foggy and the face is blurry but looking round it wasn’t any of these women. The face seemed more like a child’s and all the women here seem middle aged although looking closely she realises some were much younger, one could have been early twenties but her face would be more suited to a forty year old woman.

Her head is spinning and she felt like she might throw up. Resting her elbows on her knees she lets her head drop into her hands carefully avoiding her painful little finger. The dizziness eventually fades and she starts checking her injuries. Despite her care, removing her glove causes bolts of pain to fire up her arm. Beneath the glove her hand is badly bruised the skin purple and swollen. Moving her finger is agony and she can hear a faint grinding sound of snapped bones pushing against each other although she could not be certain if the sound was real or imaginary.

Her other wounds seem to be healing, scabs covered her body. The gashes didn’t look fresh, many already looked over a week old. She estimates it must have been between one and two weeks since her capture and throughout the time someone had regularly checked her wounds and given her water.

Slowly she gets to her feet, they felt unsteady and it takes her a few moments to get used to standing on them again. A couple of the other women turn to look at her but they quickly go back to the patch of floor that was holding their attention. Walking carefully and slowly she made her way to the soldier she recognised.

“Private, what is the situation?” The sounds that come out of her mouth were dry and raspy.

Slowly the soldier lifts her head, her eyes meet with Cassandra’s but look empty. Cassandra finds herself questioning if the soldier sat at her feet can actually see her, she looks back to the slab she had got off half expecting to see her dead body lying there. The soldier seems to get bored and her head flops back down to look at the floor.

Cassandra opens her mouth to repeat her question but decided there was no point. Instead she made her way to the bars. The bars are embedded into the floor and then have another running across them embedded into both walls. They are strips of metal that had clearly been beaten into shape, the hammer marks were still visible. A large door in the bars was again simple, the hinges looked bulky and it doesn’t appear to have a proper lock. She moves over to the opening edge of the door to see how it was held closed.

Two pieces of metal act like a lock holding it shut. They are twisted together using the strength of the metal and relying on the prisons not being able to untwist them in order to keep it locked. The bars were closer together around the edge of the door making it difficult for Cassandra to reach round to the twist. Pushing and pulling on the metal accomplishes nothing.

Giving up on the door and the bars she turns her attention to what was on the outside of their cell. The passageway was wide, the opposite wall had gas lamps mounted which provided all the light for the cell. Further down the passage way on the opposite side appears to be another cell, the lamps opposite it must have been out as making out anything past the bars was impossible. At the other end of the passageway is a door, it appears wooden in a metal frame, no lock is visible from this side but from the wide gaps at either side of the door it looked like it is barred from the other side.

Tired from moving around and her examination of the cell wall Cassandra heads back to her slab. It seems like the best thing she has for a bed, others simply have mounds of torn clothing that could no longer be worn as a pillow on the floor. Those women lucky enough to have a large coat striped off and used it as a blanket. The cell is warm with them all in there and the gas lamps burning.

Slowly Cassandra drift to sleep. In a timeless world it was impossible to know how long she slept. She is awoken by the sound of the big wooden door opening. She stays perfectly still with her eyes fixed on the bars. Three of the aliens walk to the cell door one pulling a chain that acted as a leash for a young girl. It was the girl who had tended her wounds. She is naked except for a loin cloth made from a belt of string with a strip of brown cloth hanging down at the front.

As the leading alien untwists the locking mechanism of the door the one pulling along the slave pulled apart the link connecting the chain to the metal collar freeing her of her leash. The third alien passes two buckets to the slave girl. The door opens with a jerk and the slave walks in clearly having difficulty carrying the two buckets. Placing one bucket down she reached into it and pulls out a handful of what appears to be chunks of meat.

The other women are awake and watching the slave girl aswell, the faces of the other prisoners ranged from looking happy to see her to looking like they wanted her dead. Each gratefully accepted the meat that was thrown to them. With the meat distributed, bread came from the bucket next. Each woman sat eating their bread and meat, their interest in the slave girl dissipated. Cassandra didn’t move, she just watched everything. Food distributed the slave girl pulled out another chunk of meat and piece of bread.

Carefully making her way across the cell she approaches Cassandra, bread and meat in one hand the second bucket in the other. She places the bucket down and Cassandra could see it was full of water, over the edge lay a cloth. Kneeling down the slave met Cassandra’s eye level. “Morning, it is good to see you doing better.” She picks up the cloth and then dunks it in the water. Pressing the dripping cloth to Cassandra’s lips she dripped water on the cell.

The water was cold and Cassandra sucked it gratefully from the cloth. “I think you may be up to some food, here is some meat and bread.” She placed it on the slab next to Cassandra.

Cassandra lifts herself into a sitting position, the slave girl moves in response. “How long have I been here?” She takes up the meat and tore a strip off.

“I don’t really know 9 days I suppose, but those aren’t days as you would see them. Time is different and I don’t know how many hours there are in the days here. They are shorter than back on Earth.” She dunks the cloth again and hands it to Cassandra before standing up. “How much do you remember about my previous visits?”

“I remember your face but nothing else.” Cassandra was chewing the strip she had torn off, it was dry and chewy but it tasted very good to someone who hadn’t eaten in over a week.

“Well, basically, this is the prison cell. It contains twenty women since you and the other soldier joined. There is a toilet area over in that corner, it is actually a hole running out from the cave into another one. I will bring food and water each morning and then more water later in the day, water is for drinking unfortunately there is not enough for washing. Cloth is also of short supply so providing clothing or bedding is not possible. This bed is really only if someone gets sick but I think your injuries warrant you to use it for a couple more days, then you will have to find a place on the floor. Don’t try to escape, please, they don’t let those that attempt it to live. I suppose you will learn the rest in due time.”

Cassandra got a strange feeling about the last part, there was something strange going on. “What happened to the men?”

“Most of them were killed in or after the first attack; it is not part of their culture to let the men of their enemy live. Some were kept as prisoners and put to work but they were virtually useless with their weak strength, they are all dead now. I must go now, I am glad you are feeling better, I was worried you weren’t going to make it.” She got up and picked up the food bucket and made her way back out.

The alien that had carried the buckets enters the cell after the slave had left. He grabs one woman by the arm at random pulling her to her feet and then seems to randomly chose another pulling her to her feet as well. He pulls them out the cell with him. The slave girl gave each another piece of meat before her keeper reattaches the chain to her collar. The door is secured and they leave, one pulling the slave who carried the bucket the other two dragging along a woman each.

It was a couple of hours before the women were returned, one had fresh bruises, both carried more meat this time not chunks but some kind of bone. Neither said anything as they were put back into the cell and no one said anything to them, Cassandra was already hungry and knew the others must have been too but no one asked for the food.

It was another week before she found out the reason they were taking two women each morning.