When Anji awoke for the second time, the first thing she noticed was the fact that she is tied to a metal chair. The second thing she noticed was that she is surrounded by four... males. She wore some sort of rags they scrounge up somewhere. The thought that these men touch her naked body was mortifying. She is more concerned though with the thick metal choker attached to her neck that bites deeply into her skin.

She flexed her muscles, testing the metallic rope around her wrist and ankles bound to the chair she is sitting in.

Automatically, her training as a cop kicks in. Without saying anything, she scanned her surroundings, especially the four captors. They are in a similar metallic room that she woke up in previously but not the same room. She is guessing that either they are somewhere underground or in a ship. The smell of the stagnant air, mixed in with body odor and grease, and a lot of something else that she cannot recognize.

Eventually, her gaze returned back to the leader who is sitting in front of her, staring intently into her eyes.

"By the asteroids, who are you and what is your connection with the Tal Rukus?"

Anji's eyes darted to the voice coming directly from the leader's bracelet. The leader is saying something gibberish. probably some sort of east European language.

She waited a little bit longer, unsure if the bracelet is finish speaking. When she was ready, she deliberately turned her eyes directly in the leader's face before saying, "Listen to me closely, I don't know who you are or what you're planning. But assaulting a police officer is a serious crime. So you better let me go right now before this gets any worst for you guys."

The leader looked at his bracelet for a second, then back to Anji, then at the bracelet again. Anji raised an eyebrow when the leader shook the bracelet.

"What is a pow-lish?"

Anji blinked, then answered almost automatically, "We maintain order."

"Aah, you mean you are the Tal Rukus' enforcers."

"What?" Anji asked, totally baffled.

"What do you mean 'What'?"

"What the hell are you talking about?!" Anji said, flaring up.

The leader turned to one of his subordinates. "Does anyone of you understand this lesser creature?"

"Call me a lesser creature again asshole, and I'm gonna shove my foot right up your ass!"

The leader stared at her with complete disgust in his face. "I don't want to mate with you, stupid female. The very thought revolts me."

Anji stared at him, her jaw open. "Who the fuck are you people and where the fuck am I?!"

One of the subordinates leaned toward their leader. "Why does she keep mentioning mating? What is wrong with her?"

"I don't know either, maybe this is the time of season their female race go into heat."

Anji ignored the comment and asked the question that is now foremost in her mind. "And another thing, Why the hell are you guys in cosplay? Is there a convention nearby?"

"Maybe the translator is malfunctioning. I don't understand a sentence that is coming out of this female's mouth."

"I'm talking about your pointy elven ear, your golden hair, that stupid tail moving behind you and the blue paint you cover yourself in! You guys look like freaking Avatar rejects!"

"My ear is not that pointy," said one of the guards defensively.

"I have enough of this," the leader said, and reach up to one of the guard's belt and pulled a device that to Anji's mind look like a metallic dildo. The leader stabbed the device in Anji's stomach And she screamed as volts of electricity traveled inside her body.

Bastard use a cattle prod on me! Anji thought grimly. When I get my hands on him...

"Let us start again, shall we," The leader said calmly. "We start simple. What is your name?"

"...Anjanette Agayarri," Anji said finally, gritting her teeth.

"Good, now we are getting somewhere. What kind of species are you?"

Anji rolled her eyes. "Human," She said.

All four of her captors guffawed, and Anji almost joined them because of the leader's laughter, which by far is the loudest, sound like a cowboy getting his nut crushed. "Yee Haah! Yee Hah! Yee Hah! YeeeeeeeH!" The leader said. "Oh please forgive me, oh female creature, This Dayajin doesn't know that we are in the presence of a great one!"

Then abruptly, the leader's laughter just stop, then stabbed her again with the dildo. Another massive volt of electricity hit her and she yelped. "What the fuck was that for?!"

"Stop lying to me," The leader said coldly. "Again. What kind of species are you?"

"Fine! If you must know, then I'm a Klingon!"

The leader turned to his biggest subordinate who shrugged back at him. "Some backwater species from imperial space, probably."

The leader leaned toward Anji. "What is your connection to the Tal Rukus?"

"Who or what the hell are the Tal Rukus?!"

"Wrong answer!"

"Wait! wait!" screamed Anji, her voice slowed and became more reasonable as if explaining something to a child. "Look, I was stuck in that coffin for god knows how long, and maybe, just maybe, my mind is not yet getting up to speed. If you can just refresh my mind with a few data maybe I can help you better."

The leader stared at Anji for such a long time that the girl wasn't really sure if the leader understood him. She was about to repeat herself when the leader started speaking again, but this time in a resigned tone.

"In sector 5628-2A of the dead space, a small private group of miners and prospectors started mining a giant asteroid. It wasn't anything special. They were mining the asteroid for tin, barium, copper and magnesium mostly. Not really rare elements but enough to make a respectable profit for their trouble. But a problem arises when they discovered an ancient artifact buried inside miles of rock and dirt. They tried to call their own government in the Solar empire but instead, they got the attention of a very powerful organization called Tal rukus. They offered enough credits that whatever they will get from their government as finder's fee look more like crumbs. The miners happily gave the artifact to the Tal Rukus, but no matter how powerful Tal Rukus is, space is still vast. Unfortunately, they do not have any ship in the area and the closest one can only arrive after 2 months. So, they acquired the service of a nearby entrepreneur in the area, namely me and my crew. As a businessman, we, of course, took the lucrative deal."

"We are businessmen?" Said one of the leader's crews to his right, as he turned to his companion. "I thought we are pirates?!"

The leader closed his eyes slowly and took deep slow breaths. Anji could almost hear his mind count animals in his head. Then opened his eyes again and smiled pleasantly to Anji. "Where was I? Oh yes, as I was saying We accepted the contract as transporters to bring the artifact in Kesani space. It will take us more than an entire 2 velashan orbit before we can complete this journey, and we have to cover almost 28.4 Billion km of the dead space territory. but that is nothing new to us. We're used to it. The problem is despite this lucrative business, the Tal Rukus have one condition: Never examine or touch or open the artifact in any way."

"So what? then don't touch the merchandise."

The leader's face was unreadable as he stared at Anji for a long time. "There is a wee bit of a problem with that statement, you see... YOU are the merchandise."

Anji stared at the leader uncomprehendingly."Wait, I'm the one those miners dug up in the asteroid?" Anji asked incredulously. When the leader slowly nodded, a small new source of hope rose up in Anji's heart.

"We have to go back to that asteroid!" Anji said frantically. "I think there is another artifact in there just like mine, for a little girl! If you bring back that other artifact in as well, then whoever this Tal Rukus is they won't be mad at you anymore!"

The leader laughed bitterly. "That is a good plan, young female, only there is one minor problem. Part of our contract with Tal Rukus is that the miners are considered to be loose ends and after they transfer the artifact-you, into our cargo hold... let's just say that none of the miners can tell anyone else about what happen there because no stone bigger than your head is left of that asteroid."

Lulu...

"You bastard," Anji said, grating her teeth. She tried to flex her muscle one more time, hoping she can break the chain holding her. She failed.

"Enough of this!" The leader said, standing up and brandishing his weapon in front of Anji menacingly. "I will ask you one last time, What-"

An ear-splitting siren blared across the room. "Red alert! Red Alert!" A computerized female voice said calmly.

All four of the cosplayer moved into action. Two of them left the room and going somewhere Anji didn't know. The big subordinate replaced the leader and pointed a futuristic gun in Anji's temple. The leader went directly to a corner of the room, tap his wrist and a 3d image of another cosplayer pop out instantly.

"Report!" snapped the leader. The other cosplayer in the 3d screen was high resolution enough that Anji can see the fear in his face.

"One of the ancient drones is deviating from its course and is heading to intercept us!"

Judging from the leader's face, whatever that ancient drone is, it doesn't normally do that. The reaction he is showing is the same a person will show if he is watching the academies and the host declared, "and the winner for best picture is... Jackass 3!"

"Turn around and get us out of here!" ordered the leader.

"It's already here! Damn that thing is fast!"

"Evasive maneuvers!" Shouted the leader.

The room shuddered for several seconds like they are in a Tokyo building during a massive earthquake. Then the world turned upside down.

Anji was disoriented for a moment but the other two people in the room were not so fortunate. Both the leader and the subordinate slammed them towards the ceiling, then just as fast, crashed back down to the ground. The big subordinate was out cold but the leader was still moaning painfully.

A voice rang out of the room that to Anji's ears sounds suspiciously like the amazon text-to-speech app.

"Drone 51582 detected the presence of an elder in this vessel operated and crewed by species 189, also known as the Dayajins. This is not acceptable. No elder must be harmed. We demand the custody of this elder."

"By the stars, what are you talking about?!" Screamed the leader.

In answer, a bluish light began to surround Anji and crystallized into a circular energy shield enveloping her. The shield disintegrated everything inside it, except for Anji herself. The chair, the chains, the choker and even the clothes Anji was wearing vanished like dust in the air.

"Preliminary scan confirm that this female's DNA is 99.99998 similar to an elder. She is now under the protection of the Brykar Unity."

Anji saw the leader's eye widen as he lay still on the floor. Anji can see disbelief and fear openly shown in the leader's blue face.

"Aaah... drone?" Anji asked hesitantly. looking back at the leader. "What the hell is an elder?"

There was a beep then the drone answered.

"Elder is the universal term given and used by all other species in the cosmos for the first species to transcend this universe: species 01," the drone reported.

The fear in the alien leader's eyes already answered Anji's question even before the drone finished.

"...also known as Human."

The leader pulled out a gun and fired multiple shots at Anji, screaming as he did so. Several bullets impacted the shield but the leader's gun never even came close to penetrating it. Anji yelped in surprised and hid her head in her arms.

"Warning! Hostile intent detected. countermeasure activated."

A huge red beam sliced the room in half and the next thing Anji saw is that she was floating outside. the leader and his unconscious subordinate were sucked out and then a massive explosion surrounded her. When Anji look again, she was outside and she witnessed the death throes of a starship several meters away from her as it was rocked by several massive explosion.

A huge chunk of debris, the size of a bus, struck Anji's shield and Anji screamed, but the shield held. And just as quickly. no more fire or explosion can be heard and everything was quiet once more.

Too quiet as what remained of the starship Anji glimpse is nothing more than floating hulk of garbage.

But Anji had forgotten all about the ship because she was hyperventilating herself as she stared at nothing but vast blackness. Then in a total panic, she started screaming at the top of her lungs.

But her scream was but a lonely echo as she floated slowly around since no one can hear you in the depths of the outer space.