Pain throbbed in Junebug's shoulder as she tried to sit up. Unfortunately even with one hand free she wasn't able to loose the straps that bound her ankles and remaining hand. Pursing her lips she thought for a moment and then thumbed the stun batton live in a long arc that heated the teeth almost red hot. Without waiting for it to cool she thrust it down into the strap around her wrist. The plastic warped and melted and Junebug yanked it to snap the last few fibers. From there it was an easy matter to unlock her feet.

"Surrender heretic... Terran filth," the acolyte muttered weakly. He was clutching his stomach still unable to completely regain control of the spasming muscle groups. Junebug stepped over to him and punched him in the face, hard enough that his head bounced off the wall with a crack.

"Welcome to Earth," she muttered.



The bowels of the colony ship were huge, designed as they were to ferry thousands of people, live stock, supplies, and equipment to distant worlds. Junebug slipped through the mase of passages, looking for some kind of central accessway that would take her upwards.

"Saxon," she muttered into her comm, "we could really use your scaly ass right now." There was no answer. The mastoid implant was designed to be linked to a more powerful unit in a vehicle and its unaided range wasn't unlimited. Hopefully that was a factor of range, and Saxon wasn't dead on a bunch of pitchforks. She grinned at the image. If these hicks thought they could take Saxon down like a monster in a holo, they were going to be in for a surprise. Fairly briefly.

Sayeeda ducked into a doorway when a pair of acolytes came around the corner. They didn't seem alarmed, merely strolling along. By their conversation they were trying to debating whether lust or greed was a more damning sin. The hum of machinery caused her to turn. Behind her were a set of air tight doors, likely originally to section off a large life boat or ships launch. Glancing down she saw that the layer of dust that coated the rarely used decks was disturbed. Intrigued she moved to the door and opened it with a touch to the control panel. Inside the air smelled of antiseptic and electronics. 

"Fuck," Sayeeda muttered. The walls were lined with life support pods, not dissimilar to the ones that had kept Taya, Neil and Junebug alive for three years following their escape from Taya's homeworld. Inside were women, their bodies all showing signs of recent pregnancy. Banks of monitors showed vital signs. Each one had a name printed above their pod. Rachel, Ruth, Ester, Sarah and so on. The pod furthest from the door held a slim blonde that carried no baby weight. Taya was dressed in a white shift that floated in the nutrient fluid like a drowning victim.

"Well this is fucked up."

"It is the only way," a voice came from behind her.

"I have a gun, please don't do anything rash Captain Cyckali," Gerome said apologetically. Sayeeda turned to see the elderly cleric holding an electromotive shotgun at waist level. He was liable to break his wrists if he fired it like that, but Junebug would still be torn appart by the spreading aerofoiled shot. She gauged the distances and didn't like her chances.

"You don't have a though shalt not kidnap a bunch of people and trap them in stasis pods in that book of yours?" she asked, raising both hands. Gerome clucked regretfully.

"When we first got here we were full of hope and faith," the old man explained, guesturing with the muzzle of the gun for Junebug to move down towards where Taya lay in stasis. Junebug moved, slowly, following the guesture.

"But then you opened up a sideline in kidnaping and rape? All kinky after you got dissiulioned," she pressed. Gerome made a disgusted sound.

"There are microorganisms here, nothing that will kill you and nothing we picked up on our initial survey. It results in infertility for anyone who spends more than a few months on the surface. We tried hiring microbiologists to create vaccines but nothing worked. We couldn't let the Light of God go out on this world."

"So now we get to the kidnapping part?" Junebug prodded as she passed Taya's pod.

"There are always a few traders, drifters, sometimes women would choose to stay with us, they don't suffer," Gerome said pleadingly. Sayeeda stopped disgusted beyond her fear of the gun.

"So you keep them as breeding stock?! What the fuck is wrong with you people?!"

"Please don't make this any harder than it needs to be Captain," Gerome begged. She could envision the colonists debating the ethics of such a monstrous plan. It always seemed like sufficiently motivated religious folk could justify any horror in the name of a higher power. Half of the wars she had fought in her time with the Armored had religious motivators even if it was normally civil authority that did the hiring.

"So you kidnap people and impregnate them over and over," she asked.

"It's a sterile proccedure, there is no actual intercourse," Gerome appologised.

"Yeah well that makes it much better," Sayeeda responded dryly. She reached the empty pod beyond Tayas. The writing above it said 'Deborah'.

"If you will climb in please captain, I promise it will be over quickly, you will age slowly but eventually you wont be fertile any more and we will let you go," he assured her.

"I'm already infertile, that's why you had you doctor looking me over remember," she restored putting one hand on either side of the access portal.

"It will just be until we can review your results, please I don't want to kill you," Gerome all but wept. Sayeeda sighed and let her shoulders sag slightly.

"Not really a Deborah though," she commented, "more of a Lilith." Junebug tensed her shoulders and leaped upwards. The gun boomed behind her but she was already kicking off the stais pod, flipping up and over Gerome's head narrowly avoiding the ricoheting pellets. An experienced gunman might have got off a second shot but Gerome was barely managing to hold the weapon, a look of horror on his face. He began to turn but Sayeeda was behind him. She caught the barrel of the gun in one hand and drove a palm into his shoulder, ripping the weapon free. She kicked him in the hip slamming him into the pod. It wasn't a fight. He was an old man and a noncombatant.

"Lord! Deliver me from evil!" he shrieked. Damn it was pathetic. She stepped forward, gripped him by the back of the tunic and heaved him into the pod, slapping the closure. It wasn't the approved way to put someone in stasis, but she pulled the activator switch anyway. There were already shouts of alarm so she rushed over to the Taya's pod and began looking for the decanting sequence.