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Closed in Chains
Sharon Green
1
Tain Halliday struggled back to consciousness, at first having no idea where she was. She lay on something that felt like bare metal, and when she forced her eyes open she found she was right. It was metal she lay on, just like the metal of the bars a few feet in front of her eyes.
Damn! Tain thought as she sat up and looked around, memory returning in a literal flood. That damn female did get us caught! If I live through this and somehow manage to get away I’m going to kill Coleson!
Rather than wishful thinking, the intention to kill was more of a sworn oath for Tain. Coleson was head of Tain’s department back at headquarters, and he was the one who’d made no effort to refuse taking on one of the director’s lame nieces. The girl had no aptitude for being an agent, but because she wanted to be one she and her uncle had seen no reason not to indulge her whim.
And they still won’t see why this was such a bad idea, Tain thought as she settled into a cross-legged position and looked around at the other cages standing near hers. The little imbecile was supposed to take my orders, but instead she blundered around until she set off a trap that caught us both. That will become my fault, of course, because I was supposed to be in charge. But when that happens and I’m accused of not doing my job, at least I’ll have the pleasure of punching out a director. Right after I punch out his niece…
But right now the girl, E
And now Tain sat naked in her cage, seeing the other naked women in other cages. Many of those women were crying softly, the rest either silently angry or resigned to the point of depression. Tain’s department had been given the job of finding a way to end the practice of enslaving women, but the job wasn’t proving easy. Women on this world were raised to think of the practice as normal, so if they happened to be enslaved most of them went along with it. Not that they were given much of a choice…
“No!” a shout suddenly sounded from one of the cages, unsurprisingly the cage holding E
Tain just sat where she was, a faint smile curving her lips, unworried about what E
The girl kept shouting for a good couple of minutes before anyone appeared in response. The women and girls in the other cages watched silently all the while, and when a man appeared who looked like a guard to Tain some of the other captives lay down and turned their faces away. A number of the other women wore expressions that said they were waiting for the loud-mouthed captive to be taught to be silent just the way they were being, an event that didn’t take long in coming.
The man who appeared wasn’t all that tall, but he was broad in the shoulders and wore an a
“It’s about time you got here,” E
Rather than answering, the man E
The girl screamed in outrage over the way she was being treated, but had no choice about going where the guard took her. That place was only a short distance away, near the wall between two of the cages where there was a low wooden shelf holding various items. The guard reached to the shelf with his free hand and got what looked like a thin branch to Tain, and then he was suddenly using the branch on E
The guard spoke softly to E
We’ve obviously been loaded up with the drug that makes it impossible to disobey the orders of anyone in charge, Tain thought as the guard went back to using that branch on E
The guard gave E
Once the guard finished with whatever he was doing, he put E
And then there was nothing to do but wait. The number of other women in cages told Tain that it wouldn’t be long before they were all sold, not when there was a chance that one or more of the women’s men would show up demanding to have his or their woman back. Not every man on Oliven believed in enslaving women, Tain’s department had found out that much, but that group wasn’t organized while the slavers and their supporters were.