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.”