Kali was sweating. Even with [Greater Strength], holding up the huge metal sheet to protect their desperate charge wasn’t easy. Especially when a lot of different bullets were hitting it and pushing back against her.

Still, she held fast. They weren’t far from where the enemy was hunkered down. Maybe thirty meters, it was a short distance to run. But under fire? It felt like it was taking forever.

Bullets rained down around her as they ran through it. She saw someone go down to a shot going through his leg, his shield had been small. But most bullets hit her ‘shield’, straining her arm to hold it up. Still, it was holding.

Soon enough, they were upon them, close enough that the others didn’t dare to shoot into the melee that it was transforming into.

They were at a disadvantage, mostly using crude weapons or even fists in most cases. They ran over the first few, but as they were done clobbering them, the others started to open fire.

There was clearly no hope for their friends, so they would take them down whatever the cost. Former slaves fell one after the other to the hail of bullets.

Kali took a grazing bullet before she remembered she had the anti-ballistic shield underneath her cloth, and turned it on just in time to block some stray bullets.

They had barely taken down ten, and had lost half their numbers already. The surviving slaves had all taken cover and were being pinned down by the others that had been split from the group they had charged.

It was a smart move from them, making them able to use their ranged advantage again and again. Even now should they rush at one of the groups, the other two groups that had formed would have a free line of sight on them.

Could they win? They were all in cover now. They couldn’t really sustain running around at this rate. The fact that they had split made taking them down difficult.

Kali was thinking hard. There had to be a way. Maybe they just went for one of the ships and escaped? They didn’t need to take them down, they just needed to escape.

Looking around, she spotted a ship that looked big enough for all of them, the only problem was that it was behind one of the groups shooting at them.

Gesturing to the others, she tried to tell them of her plan with hand signs. She wasn’t an expert, and she wasn’t sure they had understood what she was trying to say, but they had no time. She had gotten some nods at least, and would have to hope they had understood enough.

Standing up, she started running ahead of everyone else. More than half of the enemy started to shoot at her, their bullets bouncing off her magical shield, for now.

She knew it wouldn’t last long under this much stress, and accelerated more than she thought herself capable of. Once she had taken up most of their attention, the others followed behind, but taking cover when possible to dissuade them from shooting at them.

She was obviously a much higher threat right now.

Kali was only a few meters from the group of soldiers, and suddenly she realized they were ten to one until the rest caught up.

Frowning in concentration, she used all her momentum and strength to tackle the first enemy against the cover he was using. She heard a loud crack from the impact, the lizardman she had tackled clearly in pain from a few broken bones.

Getting into a stance she advanced on the next one, but before she could engage, a few others surrounded her while a few continued to shoot.

A loud bang made her look back for a second. She saw the other troops closing in from behind. They had blown a junk barricade to bits and were streaming through the hole.

They didn’t have much time. A punch connected to her jaw and took her back to more pressing matters. She almost fell to the floor right then and there, before catching herself and countering with a punch of her own.

She broke the man’s ribs with her punch.

“Watch it! She has a strength skill!” One of the enemies circling her said.

No one seemed brave enough to be the first to go in. But they were circling around her slowly and she would soon be completely surrounded.

Deciding she was better off taking the initiative, she rushed at one of the weaker looking ones. The man was shorter than her and clearly not used to fighting. However a girl next to him pushed him out of the way in time, intercepting her telegraphed punch.

Instead of waiting to get rushed from behind, Kali pushed forward while taking some light hits. She had to break out from the circle they were trying to form, or she would be overwhelmed in no time.

She shoved aside two enemies while taking some hits, but they didn’t have real melee weapons and so it hurt, but it wasn’t that bad. Breaking through from their encirclement, she saw that she was just in front of a ship.

Without stopping at all, she ran up the ramp, and pushed the close button. The ramp slowly started to retract, but a few of the enemies managed to get up.

They were four and did not look weak. It would be a losing fight for sure, so instead of trying to take them on, she ran to the cockpit and locked the door.

As she sat herself down, she heard loud banging on the door. Grinning at her small success, she sat herself down and started to look for the ignition button.

It couldn’t be that hard to pilot one of these things, right?

It was, she looked around frantically at all the buttons that didn’t make that much sense.

In the end, it took her an agonizing long minute to even turn on the engines. The ship slowly started to hover and turn, the full situation on full display in front of her.

There were different clusters of slaves, some had been captured, some were still fighting and some would never fight again.

The slaves that had been captured were mostly the old and the kids, most of which were looking at her with hope. Some even clearly urged her to escape now.

It was like her victory would be theirs somehow. It would show them it was possible. Freedom wasn’t out of reach, at least, not for everyone.

But Kali hesitated, and as she did, she saw the enemy captain pointing a finger at her and yelling to someone beside him. The other man took out a huge and long weapon that he propped on his shoulder, and she knew she had to get the hell out right now.

Her ship clumsily moved up and forward, intent on ramming the hangar door open. Out of the corner of her eye she could see energy concentrating in the weapon, just as she was about to hit the hangar door, a loud explosion threw her out of her seat.

The ship crashed to the ground, the metal screeching as sparks flew. Her ship’s momentum ground to a painful halt as she slowly sat up, back against a wall. She was bleeding from somewhere on her head and the warm liquid slowly blurred her vision in one eye.

She had a hard time processing what was happening, and before she could truly make sense of the situation, another loud bang weakly shook the ship. A few seconds later, several hands lifted her up and restrained her before sweet oblivion took her.

****************************************

Philip was ecstatic. He had bravely commanded from behind, and made everything go right. Especially his safety. He had seen Marco’s men breach open the ship and pull Kali out.

Soon, he would have his hands on her, and he would get his revenge. He let the other crew members take care of the surviving slaves and clean up the hanger. He had better things to do. Like making sure Kali was not going to escape again.

So he followed the men who were carrying her away and caught up to them. Halfway back to the prison, he told them that he would need to interogate her, as she was clearly the slave’s leader. So they needed to chain her up and put her in his private quarters.

The men rolled their eyes but didn’t speak up. Philip followed after them and soon enough she was getting tied up in his special room.

Originally it hadn’t been meant for this, but it had slowly morphed into the pain and pleasure room it was today.

Not all of his participants had been willing…

After having set her in chains, they let her slumped form against a wall and just walked out. Some had a frown or threw disgusted looks his way but still, they kept silent.

As they should! He was doing important work here. He would be merciful and let her rest for a bit. Closing the door, he made sure to lock it just in case. There was no telling what she was capable of.

Philip had been tasked with writing up a full report of the situation and what had happened, but he kept glancing through a small window into the more private room, barely making any progress if at all.

He simply couldn’t wait for her to wake up. To see her look of defeat when he would stand before her. She would rattle her chains in a desperate attempt to escape, but it would be useless, he knew she had a strength skill and had used extra thick ones. No amount of muscle would break them open.

But she wouldn’t know, and she would use all her strength, only to give up her futile efforts in the light of his foresight. Then, slowly and methodically, he would have his sweet revenge.

Oh she would resist, they all did. But slowly the pain would break down all of her resistance until she was finally ready to understand his superiority. Plus, she would heed all of his commands, which was something he was eager to see.

A movement in the room brought him out of his daydream. He felt like a kid opening a huge present. Completely giddy with anticipation.

He walked in and saw her vacillating slowly, gaze unfocused. Clearly in a haze and not understanding at all what was happening.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.

So he decided to use a few drops of healing potion to let her regain some cognitive ability. He needed her to understand exactly what her situation was, now.

As the drops fell, he saw a nasty wound on her forehead slowly close, and she soon fell asleep afterwards.

Dammit. He used the rest of the potion on her, so he wouldn’t have to wait for her to recover all day. He had already waited too damn long. He had gone through enough trouble to get here. Philip would wait no more.

“W-What?” His victim slowly opened her eyes, her head wobbling unsteadily as she tried to grasp her desperate situation.

She looked around, tried to move her arms but only made her chains rattle. Confused, she woke up a bit more, until her eyes finally landed on him.

“Who are you?” She asked, confused. Philip almost popped a vein right then. The gall of this bitch. This time he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of a reaction. He was smarter than that.

His fists were clenched and arms trembling with rage as he waited for her to understand her situation. She had been looking at him with confusion for a few seconds now.

“Oh, I remember, the crazy guy we put in prison. Sorry about that, nothing personal.” She said with a tired chuckle. Like it was some great joke.

It was pathetic how obvious her provocations were. She had already done the ‘Who are you’ once, and now she called him crazy. It was honestly a weak attempt to destabilize him, but he recognized the effort.

“You know.” He started, while taking out some tools he laid on a table out of her reach.

“I’m going to take great pleasure in this. I’m going to savor every moment of pain and suffering you go through.” He finished laying out all his tools and looked at her.

Was that defiance he was seeing in her eyes? This would be fun indeed. He let her imagine what he was going to do to her, just standing there, inspecting the different tools.

After a minute or so of this, he continued.

“But not now. I’ll come back later. I want you to imagine the worst I’m going to do, and then realize that is nothing compared to what I have in store for you, Kali.” He said while relishing saying her name.

“You know, I remember something the others told me while we were on the move.” She said with a malicious grin.

“About a coward that had pissed himself in front of defensless slaves.” She continued.

“I guess you really are a coward. Only when you think you have control do you even dare to act strong. A coward through and through trying to dominate something to gain a semblance of control in his twisted life.” She laughed at him.

“I’ll show you who’s a coward!” He yelled at her, knuckles white around the scalped he was holding. He knew she couldn’t move forward more as her chains were taut. Advancing towards her, he held his head in front of hers, only a few centimeters away.

“I’ll show you a world of pain, you little bitch.” He whispered violently with spittles flying in her face. His face was red from anger.

“You’ll do nothing, you little shit.” She said as she headbutted him.

Philip was confused for a moment, reeling from the blow. How? He had fallen on his ass from the blow and surprise, and was now looking up at a freed Kali looming over him.

His blood fled his face as he became white like a sheet. How was she free? He hadn’t even heard her strain against the chains? This was impossible.

It was a nightmare he was having, not real, it couldn’t be. Kali was probably still in his room and he was simply sleeping, taking a nap to recover.

Yes, that was it, of course.

A kick to his stomach sure felt real though.

“You really are the one that peed himself!” She said as she laughed at the warm liquid spreading from his groin.

She was going to kill him, he knew. Killed by a lowly damn slave.

He tried to back away, unable to get his legs back under him, he just continued to back up on the ground until he hit a wall.

Slowly, Kali advanced towards him, then pointed towards his right hand.

“You gonna grow some balls and use that or?” She taunted.

What was she talking about? Philip slowly turned to look at his right hand, like in a dream. His hand was still clutching the very sharp scalpel like his life depended on it, which it actually might.

Before he could react, she kicked him hard again, and this time she caught his wrist and squeezed until he let go of the dangerous weapon.

Philip was terrified. His eyes were fixed on her beautiful and dangerous face, unable to look away. His body didn’t feel like his own anymore.

Kali suddenly stopped. Philip didn’t understand, his brain felt like mush. There had been a sound.

Then it repeated and this time he understood.

Someone was knocking on his door.

“Philip, open up, you devious cunt.” A familiar voice reached him. It was Marco, and by his tone he was angry.

Kali grabbed him and held a knife under his throat, and the other on his mouth.

“If you yell, or act suspicious, you are dead. Nod if you understand.” Philip nodded repeatedly and fast at that.

His mind was slowly clearing up, and plans were starting to form. He would need to play this smart. Very smart if he wanted to make it out alive. But he knew it would be alright.

Philip was the smartest man alive after all.