To the East

“We’re here.”

Leon nudged Brolath until the Regulian wearily opened his eyes. It was pitch-black outside the car, save for the beams from the headlights revealing a narrow country road with two humans standing on it, huddled over something on the ground and caring not for the car parked behind them.

“Thank you,” Brolath groaned and reached towards the backseat, bopping Rorgh lightly on the tip of his nose. The Lupiad whined as he awoke.

It had been a long an exceptionally unproductive day. The Rail Union had told Brolath that R-31 was stopped at a small town outside of Munich, but upon driving all the way there, Brolath had merely found the engine, detached and sitting idly in a maintenance yard. The local town’s rail workers were even less forthcoming and plead ignorance.

There was some discussion about heading back to Munich to raid the brothel but Brolath wrote that off. One of the people on the train saw him and there was a chance they hadn’t connected Brolath to Abel, but if he went to the brothel all bets were off.

That left only one last lead to investigate and the Claw reported that it was several hours away, lying at the side of a road.

“Stay here, my precious human,” Brolath rubbed his cheek up against Leon’s before nudging the door open and stepping onto the road.

“Regulian Guard!” Rorgh shouted as they approached the huddled crowd, who turned to face them. They were wearing drab shirts and pants and had iron collars around their necks. Decay was rank in the air. “Identify yourself and your owners.”

“Hans,” one of them, a young man with short, brown hair bowed before motioning towards his fellow slave: who was a similar age but had been permitted by his master to wear his blonde hair long. “And this is Fredrick. We are owned by the Royal Earth Farming and Brewing Company.”

Brolath leaned into Han’s face and sniffed him before exhaling sharply in the small human’s face, “Do your owners know you’re out here at night?”

“Our master is quite liberal with our rules, so long as production is kept up and we keep the executives happy, if you know what I mean,” Fredrick chuckled a bit after he finished his sentence.

A lenient master, Brolath scoffed internally. This place will be anarchy within a year.

“I assume you’re here for-”

Brolath leaned into Hans’ face and snarled, “Did I address you, slave?”

Hans recoiled and crouched onto the ground, covering his head, “I’m sorry, sir.”

With the human on the ground there was nothing obstructing Brolath from seeing the target of the humans’ curiosities: a mangled pile of gore which was being feasted upon by a swarm of buzzing flies. Only the remains of a blonde tail, which was covered in mud and blood, gave it away that this was once a very familiar Sirian.

“By the Emperor!” Rorgh choked and covered up his sensitive nose with his sleeve. “What happened to him?”

Frederick shakily raised his hand, not wishing to anger Brolath and speak out of turn. Brolath stared at the human for a good few seconds before he nodded for him to speak.

“He wasn’t this bad when we first found him, sir,” Frederick brushed back his golden bangs. “But the foxes really went to town on him.”

“Foxes?” Brolath took a step towards Frederick, who flinched back.

“They’re a small animal, look kinda like Vulpeculans,” Frederick began to sweat. “They were eating the Sirian for a good awhile before you came.”

“And you just let them devour the remains of an honorable member of The Claw?” Brolath took another step forward and this time the blonde human panicked and fell to his knees.”

“Fuck! The Claw!? I...” Frederick pressed his face into the dirt, “...I didn’t know! I thought...I thought...”

“Captain,” Rorgh put his paw on Brolath’s shoulder, “it doesn’t matter. Frontus was already dead, there’s nothing we could have-”

“Quiet!” Brolath roared and snatched up Frederick by the neck. “What did you think, slave?”

“I don’t...” Frederick choked.

Lifting the human up and roaring right in his face, Brolath repeated his question.

“I-I just thought he was some kinda execution!” Frederick squeaked out. “N-not the first time I’ve seen a body thrown off a train!”

Brolath tightened his grip on the human’s neck, “You saw a train? What numbers? Where was it going?”

“I don’t-”

“Before you answer,” Brolath dug his claws into the slave’s skin. “I can break your neck with one motion or I can sever your carotid with a mere flick of my finger. I suggest you keep that in mind when you answer.”

Frederick was shaking and Brolath could smell the rancid scent of urine welling up in his pants, “I-I don’t...I d-d-d-don’t…”

“Captain! Enough!” Rorgh growled.

Brolath turned to face his Adjunct, who had his fangs bared, and Brolath released the human, letting him fall to the ground choking for air.

“He’s telling the truth, Captain,” Rorgh continued, crossing his arms.

“That Lupiad nose of yours, eh?” Brolath tapped the side of his snout.

“Along with the human’s body language, speech, and perspiration,” Rorgh pointed at the human who was still on the ground gasping. “He was not afraid of the question out of deception but because he had no answer and feared your anger.”

“You sure about that, Adjunct?”

“Lupiad body and facial language is more similar to theirs than Regulians. Save for the perspiration it all comes quite naturally to us,” Rorgh sniffed.

“I don’t know about that,” Brolath growled lowly at the quivering human.

“E-47!” Hans suddenly cried out.

Brolath and Rorgh turned to face the other human, who was still cowering on the ground.

“What’s that now?” Brolath asked.

“The train’s ID! Saw it on the engine!” Hans looked up from the ground, his eyes were wide and his breath was shallow. “Trains with those numbers, usually they travel towards Eurasia!”

“Is that the truth?” Brolath stepped towards Hans, who recoiled once again.

“Yes, just please...leave us alone! Our master will have your hide if you harm us!”

Brolath nodded towards Rorgh and slowly began to walk back towards the car.

“Eurasia is a big place,” Rorgh muttered. “Dangerous too.”

“I heard Duchess Yora Ironclaw helped clean it up.”

“It’s still a vast land. Lots of rebels hiding about and the mostly Lupiad-Sirian colonists tends to have more loyalty to their companies that hired them than the government,” Rorgh sighed and rubbed his chin. “We only have one day before Proclath’s deadline.”

“Damn!” Brolath kicked at some dirt. “Another dead-end!”

Rorgh’s bushy tail slowly swayed behind him as he rubbed his chin, “Captain, I would like to make a call. Can you put me in touch with Minister Shalth?”

“What for?”

“I’d like to get someone’s contact information,” Rorgh sighed. “It’s a long-shot and I feel like I’ll be embarrassed if I tell you and it turns out I’m wrong.”

“Don’t you trust me, Adjunct?”

“Do you trust me, Captain?”

Brolath lashed his tail, affronted by Rorgh’s directness but soothed himself.

“Very well, make the call.”

Countless hours had passed and Abel was exhausted. It seemed every hour the train stopped and a crew emerged to switch the engine and cover up the cargo cars serial numbers. It had happened so often now that Abel no longer knew where they were aside from it being someplace very isolated with only endless rows and rows of farms on the horizon.

Still, Abel was determined to remain awake and kept himself amused with a dating game that was already installed on his datapad: Enslaved Hearts. It was a game that honestly offended Abel to the core and he had only downloaded it as research material when studying Regulian propaganda, but its premise of a human slave who is lusted after by a series of nobles who want to purchase him as a sex slave, served two purposes on the train. One, it was both outrageously disturbing to Abel’s sensibilities and the artwork in the game was good enough to arouse him both from slumber and his cock in his pants; this helped keep him awake. Two, it offended Stein’s sensibilities even more to the point where he stopped looking at Abel’s datapad whenever he entered the same car as him.

Which was a very good thing for Abel as he was desperately trying to connect to an unsecured WiFi network outside of the train so he could transmit his location to Brolath without the rebels knowing it.

This proved to be more difficult than Abel had hoped. Most networks were secure now, especially since Earth was hooked up to the Extranet and in order to provide basic security against enemies foreign and domestic, they require to be password locked. However, Abel’s datapad did have an old internet adapter installed in it that WhiteStarOS had drivers for. There was always a chance an old, insecure router might pass by and it would be enough to send the message through the internet and into the Extranet for Brolath to receive.

It was a tall order but what else could Abel do?

The door leading to the next car swung open and Hada stepped in, carrying a tray with a glass of straight whiskey and another glass with vodka on the rocks.

“Bar car service, sir,” Hada’s lips curled around her cheeks in a smile as she performed a mock curtsy.

“Christ,” Abel shuddered and took the glass of whiskey from the tray. “You’re creeping me out. Cut that shit out.”

“Can’t a woman put on a little act once in awhile?” Hada laughed and pinched the vodka glass between her fingers before letting the tray drop and clattered to the ground. “Hell, at least I was just doing it for laughs and not...”

Hada paused and clenched her grip on the glass.

“Sorry,” she sighed and sat down across from Abel, “I know it wasn’t easy.”

“I don’t really feel any shame in it,” Abel said as he brought his glass to his lips. It was a nasty, cheap whiskey but it would do the trick. Lalth held power over him for but a brief moment and now he was gone, there was very little to angst about in Abel’s mind. “Had to do what was necessary for the cause, you know. And it’s not like I’m against fucking aliens unlike someone we know.”

“Stein has his reasons to be the way he is,” Hada sighed. “You know he wanted you dead, right?”

Abel tapped on his datapad, pretending to read a part of the visual novel with exceptionally purple prose describing how the human protagonist wants to be raped by a Lupiad noble who sniffed him once at a slave auction. The game honestly seemed to think or wish to portray this as true love.

“You told me as much before.”

“Glass stopped him. Glass.”

“Who is Glass anyways?”

“Fuck,” Hada looked to the side, out the window to the rolling countryside. “Abel, I’m not sure how much I can tell you.”

“Well, I just executed a Sirian with a chemical agent that had no effect on me, so I’m guessing he’s behind the recent gas attacks I’ve heard about.”

“He might be, might not be.”

“Aren’t we friends?”

“If I knew everything, I’d tell you, Abel, honest,” Hada sipped from her glass. “But this is all on a need to know basis. I’ve never met the man himself, only know what I’ve heard but if he interceded on your behalf...”

Hada trailed off, slowly taking another sip as she looked out at the countryside.

“Fuck, you might be special or something.”

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“Glass is a pragmatic guy. Lets face it, your documents activated some kind of trigger that killed...fuck, I don’t even know how many former slaves. Then you show up after a long period of quiet all giddy as can be to rejoin the fight?” Hada rubbed at her temples. “Stein only made you do the last mission to see how far you’d humiliate yourself before he executed you. He thought he’d get a kick out of a so-called informant putting out to his alien masters, you know?”

“Well,” Abel flashed Hada his datapad just as it showed a Lupiad forcing his swollen knot inside the protagonist, “I think just by having this I’m a traitor in Stein’s eyes.”

“Enslaved Hearts, that was a fun project wasn’t it?” Hada closed her eyes and sighed, remembering better times. “What was your first ending in it anyways?”

“I went the Lacertan path.”

“Stein would not like that,” Hada chuckled. “He thinks jacking it to the lizards is even more degenerate than the Regulians.”

“Well, it’s the only ending in the game with no porn, thank you very much, anti-Lacertan porn laws,” Abel laughed. “It just fades to black and describes your character getting raped and murdered by the evil Lacertan. Pretty fucking disappointing if you ask me. The Lacertan character was kinda handsome.”

The air went silent and Hada fidgeted in her seat. Abel wouldn’t have dared say such a thing in front of Stein but despite whatever philosophical divide he had with Hada, he trusted her not to betray him.

“The Lacertans are just as bad, if not worse, than the Regulians,” Hada ran her finger along the rim of her glass. “We cannot trust either of them. Humanity needs to make its stand, alone.”

“Maybe. Call me soft though, I’d rather have...” a pop-up notifying Abel of an insecure Wifi router showed up on the screen. Abel tapped it before continuing, “...friends to watch my back. Maybe if we can’t trust the Regulian, we can be friends with the Lacertans?”

Hada snorted, “I’d rather spread my legs for the next Regulian Emperor than let the lizards fuck me. C’mon, didn’t you read those documents you leaked? Most were bullshit, but they were in Canada digging up dinosaur bones and claiming it was proof Earth was theirs. Sound like a swell group of people for you?”

“Hey, c’mon,” Abel smiled as he casually tapped at the WiFi network every time it failed to connect. “I’m sure we can patch up our differences, maybe teach them the human emotion known as love, and all will be right in the world. Smooth scales against your body, don’t you want to know what that feels like?”

“I expected this kind of talk from Gure,” Hada frowned.

“Someone’s gotta sub for him,” Abel’s eyes lit up as he saw the network connect. “You miss him too, I bet.”

Hada returned to gazing out the window just in time for Abel to type a quick message:

On train to Siberia.

Abel hit send and it went out just before the train passed the range of the router and he could only hope that its owner paid for Extranet access.

“Gure is a good person,” she sighed. “But too soft and kind for what needs to be done. There comes a time in any revolution when one must shoo out the clowns...”

Hada cut herself off, biting her lip.

“I’m sorry, that came off as cruel,” Hada sighed and leaned back in her chair. “He is a kind and funny friend but there is no time for laughter now. We face enslavement and extinction or freedom by any means necessary.”

“What means are we talking about, Hada?” Abel asked.

“Even if I happened to know, which I’m not saying I do, Glass would not approve of me telling you.”

Abel wanted to press her, use their old friendship as leverage but something in his head told him to hold off. If he got too desperate now he’d reek of being a spy and even a human could smell his deception.

“I want to make sure that humanity gets out of this better and stronger,” Abel whispered, looking into his glass of whiskey. “You know who I pity the most in the galaxy? The Regulians.”

Hada narrowed her eyes at Abel, “Don’t let Stein hear such bullshit.”

“It’s not. Of course I resent the Empire for what they’ve done to us, but what have they gained? They come, they see, they conquer. They can build spaceships that can travel across the galaxy in the blink of an eye but their history has done nothing but encourage their worst instincts. War, murder, slavery...they’re children in a world that never allowed them to grow up and they’ve made a culture around celebrating the worst instincts intelligence brings us. God knows humanity has had its problems but I like to think we’re getting better. I think if the Regulians lost, they might have to learn to grow up and learn some empathy but I don’t want humanity to destroy itself and become Regulian in the process.”

“Humanity will be fine,” Hada nodded slowly. “That much I can tell you.”

Abel took a long sip of whiskey.

“And there will be no slavery of any kind.”

And murder and war?

The question rang around Abel’s head but he dared not ask his friend it, fearful of what he might hear in response.

Night had fallen while Rorgh chatted away on a datapad inside of the car while Brolath and Leon braved the chill, summer evening air. The human’s pale skin shimmered in the light of the full moon and he shivered, prompting Brolath to edge closer and wrap his arm around his shoulder.

“Don’t,” Leon said and slapped Brolath’s arm away.

Despite the obvious size and power difference, Brolath recoiled, giving the human some distance. Outrage welled up in Brolath’s brain, the very same as when he saw Leon give Rorgh a peck on the cheek, but the Regulian kept it in check.

It was unseemly for a Regulian to unleash his wrath upon his slave every time he spoke out of turn. It was far more appropriate to use subtle domination tactics while trying to convince them they were wrong.

Brolath lashed his tail and crossed his arms, puffing out his chest.

“What’s wrong?” he asked with a slight snarl, enough to get the point across without losing control. The perfect expression to let an unruly slave know it was time to immediately fall in line.

“I’ve seen that look before from clients. You need a reminder,” Leon defied the threat and stood tall despite his frail body. “You don’t own me.”

Leon stepped forward, forcing Brolath to back up.

He’s not my slave, Brolath forced himself to remember.

“And I don’t like the way you treated those humans.”

“They...” Brolath sniffed, looking back down the empty road, “...they were not cooperating and they were mere slaves.”

“And that gives you the right to treat them like dirt?”

“I treated them like slaves.”

“During the invasion, one wrong move by my parents and I could have ended up like them, would you have treated me like them if we met?”

“No, you’re...” Brolath sniffed the air as a breeze carried Leon’s calming scent, “...you’re special.”

“Don’t get me wrong, my lion, I find your Regulian chauvinistic ego to be charming, in a way, at the best of times,” Leon reached over, brushing his fingers through Brolath’s brown mane. “But I should hope that tonight is the worst of it, I could not bear to see you so callous again.”

“I’ll try...” Brolath stared down at the human, unable to read his expression. Slowly, the Regulian inched closer, kneeling down and wrapping his arms around the human, waiting for Leon to object at any moment. Only when Brolath’s nose touched Leon’s cheek and breathed in his scent, was Brolath confident that the human was okay with his touch, “...I’m sorry. I don’t really know humans that well.”

“You’re only Regulian,” Leon brought his lips to Brolath’s nose and kissed it. Brolath growled lustfully and began snuffling the human’s neck. “But I am serious, if you do anything like that again I will leave. I enjoy your company but I will not be bought and I will not be threatened like them. I stayed an independent worker in the Communes out of choice, I’ve seen what happens to people enslaved during my childhood in Louisiana.”

Brolath suddenly halted his snuffling, letting the last traces of Leon’s scent dance around his brain.

“Louisiana?”

“Cajun country, yeah,” Leon sighed. “Was on a trip with the family when the end of the world came. Quite the birthday.”

“Joel’s Motel.”

“Ah!” Leon exclaimed, looking up at Brolath with a confused look. “I...I remember that name...the motel where it all went wrong…”

Leon drifted aimlessly with his memories, “It was the cheapest place, dad was so stingy and was determined to save as much as possible, even during a vacation!”

Brolath suddenly dashed towards the back of the car and popped the trunk, rifling through a duffel bag full of his spare clothes.

“Where did you hear that name, my li-”

Brolath found his target with his claws and pulled out a stuffed lion, bringing it to his snout and smelling it. There was no mistake, the scent had changed as its owner had aged, but the telltale traces were there.

Silently, Brolath spun around and placed the lion in his hands.

“This is for you,” Brolath whispered.

Leon’s mouth opened wide with surprise as he spun the lion around in his hands, examining every facet of it like a long lost memory. Part of him thought if his eyes were playing tricks on him.

“This...was mine...” Leon brushed the lion’s mane, “…how did you…?”

“We went to the zoo the day before the-” Leon paused, feeling no desire to go into the memories of the invasion, “…I saw this in the gift shop and I grabbed hold of it and wouldn't let it go…my parents then bought it for me.”

Tears began to stream down the human’s face.

“I cuddled up with him in the motel bed, that was the last night the world seemed normal...”

Leon couldn’t find the words and hugged the lion tight.

“I found this while investigating the case in Louisiana,” Brolath brought Leon into a hug, wrapping his tail around his rear. “Your scent, I knew it was familiar but I never thought...it’s too much of a coincidence.”

“Must be fate, hm?”

“I don’t believe in fate,” Brolath hugged tighter. “But I hope you enjoy my gift.”

“This...” Leon raised his face, moisture running down his eyes, “...I adore you when you’re like this, my lion.”

“I’ll try to be like this more, my...” Brolath caught the word slave on his tongue before correcting himself, “...my Leon.”

A cold wind swept across the road and Brolath hugged Leon tight to keep him warm.

Another gust soon hit them, this time far more powerful. Soon the sound of engines came along with it and Brolath looked up to find a dark object shooting down towards an empty field across the road. Even before the floodlights came on, Brolath recognized it as a lift-copter by the whirring of its wing-mounted jets.

Rorgh suddenly stepped out of the way, waving towards the lift-copter.

“Our ride is here!” the Lupiad smiled.

“Adjunct,” Brolath’s mouth hung open as he saw Regulian marines jump out of the lift-copter and lighting up signal flares, “what the hell is this?”

“I made a few calls and reconnected with an old childhood friend. Long story short, Duchess Yora chartered us a lift-copter to take us to Nova Heryana, the jewel of Siberia!”

“I didn’t know you had such connections!”

“Neither did I!”

“I think you’ve got one hell of a story to tell.”

Rorgh motioned towards the lift-copter, “All in due time.”