\n
\n\n Nothing I Ever Had
\n\n Part 1
\n\n by
\n\n Chakat Deirdre
\n\n
\n -----
\n\n
\n
\n\n Chakats, The Chakat Universe, Chakat Midnight, M’Lai, Leanna, Baneth, etc are Copyright Bernard Doove.
\n\n Admiral Kline and Rosepetal (Rose) Silpurr are the creations of Boyce (aka Boycie aka Admal aka Mewmal) Garald Kline jr and are used with permission. (or at least he knows about it ^.^)
\n\n Skunktaurs are Copyright Bob Reijns.
\n\n The following book is Copyleft by Chakat Deirdre 2009.
\n\n As such you may:
\n- \n Copy, Distribute, and Share this work freely.
- \n Remix or Adapt the work
\n Under the following Conditions:
\n- \n You must attribute the work to the original author and source. You may not remix or adopt the work while making claim it is endorsed or supported by the original author and you must clearly mark what is added and/or modified from the original in a commonly acceptable manner.
- \n You may not under any circumstances use this for commercial purposes or financial gains.
- \n If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you MUST distribute the resulting work under similar terms/licensee. (i.e. if you draw a picture inspired from this work it is illegal to restrict distribution and/or make profit from it.)
\n With the Understanding that:
\n- \n Any of the above terms or conditions can be waved by the author.
- \n In no way does this license effect or restrict: Fair use rights; apart from the remix rights granted by this license, the author’s moral right; Rights other persons may have in arrangement with the author or common legal code(s).
\n -----
\n\n
\n Part I
\n\n
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\n\n
\n\n “Found another over here!”
\n\n A voice, someone had found them. It wasn’t time though; they shouldn’t have reached their target for at-least another week.
\n\n “Definitely another shipment of slaves, no sign of any crew thought.”
\n\n It was a female… who were these people? People trying just to help? Raiders? Pirates? Perhaps worse, Starfleet.
\n\n A large feline in a uniform walked in front of her cell. An alien, not a Chimera. Like a tall strong tigress holding a phaser rifle. She had to be a Rakshani.
\n\n “Another one here,” the Rakshani said.
\n\n She was the voice that woke her up. That uniform meant only one thing, Starfleet. The greatest threat to interstellar peace and prosperity. A pseudo empire that spouted democratic propaganda as if it wasn’t a giant bloated military apparatus only interested in its own continuation without regard to any damage it does.
\n\n “Let me see.”
\n\n This time a male’s voice. Human judging by the sound of the vocal cords. She tried to smell the air, but the wonderful surroundings of the automated smuggling ship blocked scent identification outside the cell to prevent scent imprinting.
\n\n “Hmm,” the male voice said.
\n\n He was about 175 cm, 74 kg, and defiantly human. Brown hair, blue eyes, Caucasian.
\n\n “Find the release for the cells, we should start processing them soon. This wasn’t an abandoned freighter, it was an automated smuggler,” He smiles and looked at the alien, “I wonder what your captain will think when I tell her as a matter of law she just engaged in piracy.”
\n\n What he said was true, but Starfleet never cared. Unless the ship was abandoned, in distress with no crew, or in federation space the boarding would be illegal. Who though would care in the federation? They would just view them as ‘saving these poor slaves from their fate’.
\n\n There was a buzz as the cell doors opened.
\n\n “Damn it! Warn me before you do stuff Rain!”
\n\n The Rakshani backed up a few steps getting ready incase something happened.
\n\n “I didn’t do anything!” said a male voice with a slight purr.
\n\n “Idiots it’s an automated system so they don’t stay cramped up all day in the cells for weeks. And put your weapons down, you trigger some kind of a defense mechanism don’t think I will put myself in danger to cover up your idiocy.”
\n\n She smiles, this human was probably from the NAW, or at least knows what he is doing.
\n\n He looked over the 8 open cells, “Slaves you are to follow my commands as your new human authority. Fall into line for presentation and keep it orderly!”
\n\n All of the slaves scrambled onto their feet/paws and stood at what could best be described as a relaxed attention. Of the 8 slaves 5 were females and 3 were males.
\n\n They all stood proud, but had their eyes downcast, ears lowered, and tail low to show submission.
\n\n
\n\n The Starfleet personnel all watched. Mostly they were morphs with a few aliens mixed in. About half were security… about a dozen in all… plus the human.
\n\n “Mister Card, I don’t appreciate you giving them orders without my permission or at least notification.”
\n\n All of the slaves tensed up. It was a vixen who said it… a morph. He was the authority and a Human… a creator. How could they just disrespect one from those that gave them life? It was enough to make her want to weep.
\n\n “Commander, if you want my help we are going to do this my way. I know a hell of a lot more then you do about every facet of their existence. Even if you tell someone they are free does not make it so. And believe me when I say I care a hell of a lot more about their wellbeing then you do.”
\n\n
\n\n ----
\n\n
\n\n Jasper Card turned around and looked over the slaves. Eight. Mostly female. They have already been fully trained but why they were on an automated transport didn’t make sense. They are used for smuggling and low profile transportation of goods or slaves.
\n\n These slaves weren’t the usual black market stock Starfleet was use to handling, he could tell that already. Also judging from the plain metal collars around their neck they weren’t being rushed to a sale. Who would pay a large amount of money to transport just 8 legal slaves in a state of the art automated transport long distances?
\n\n
\n\n He took out a datacorder and held it up close to one of the slaves’ collars. The data was forged. He next scanned the back of one’s neck looking for the sub dermal ID tag. It was forged too.
\n\n
\n\n “Commander if you want to be useful have the captain send a few shuttles over for their transport and get the closest ship with decent medical facilities over here ASAP.”
\n\n The vixen was about to protest but a quick glare made her change her mind.
\n\n Normal slaves, legal slaves, the black market didn’t have this kind of resources of extravagance for just a few slaves.
\n\n Two foxes, a male and female. Two lions, a male and female. A female red panda. A female roo. A male Horse. Some kind of a female scaled species.
\n\n He walked up to each one and held his wrist close to their noses. They took in his scent and memorized it. One by one they took in the human’s scent.
\n\n It was often easier to identify other’s by scent then by smell. The lines of chimeras, the legal term used in the NAW for morphs that weren’t self owning, had large runs with many in those production runs being almost exactly genetically similar. Scent was used by them to tell each other apart, and RFID tags and collars were used to identify them for humans.
\n\n Taking advantage of that natural system many Chimeras were scent trained onto their owner before shipped from their training if they were sold before reaching the open market. That way they could be assured loyalty and recognition of their owner upon receipt.
\n\n One by one down the line they each took in the scent, committed it to memory, and gave a lick of his hand to recognize his ownership… until he got down to the female roo.
\n\n She took in the scent and her eyes widened suddenly. She then gave the lick too, but he already knew what that slight change meant.
\n\n
\n\n ---
\n\n
\n\n Jasper collapsed into a chair in the Captain’s ready room. The female Caitian captain was looking over the reports he had submitted so far along with briefs from the medical staff over the condition of their new guests.
\n\n In the room also was the vixen commander, Cmdr. Cain. She was his handler. Apparently a civilian from the Non Aligned Worlds, no matter how helpful or trustworthy to date results in the permanent interference of some command rank person following him around interfering with his every attempt to help the slaves and do his job possible. Had Jasper known this would happen he might have second-guessed his leaving his first job to defect to the Federation.
\n\n Also was a woman commander, the ship’s second in command.
\n\n The former and latter he liked, they let him do his job. The second just got in the way and accused him of taking the slaves they find and trying to use them to take over the ship or some crap like that.
\n\n
\n\n “Are you sure this information is correct Mister Card? Every single interaction my crew has had with them shows at best moderate intelligence among them and characterize them as… simple companion slaves.”
\n\n At least he got them to stop using the derogatory sex slave label on them.
\n\n
\n\n “It takes large amounts of money to run automated slave transports. Furthermore there is only 8 aboard, That means someone spent a large amount of money to charter this vessel under the table to transport only 8 slaves.”
\n\n
\n\n “They NAV computer showed it was on route to a large non-affiliated space station, perhaps they were on their way to quickly be resold?” Cain commented.
\n\n
\n\n The human shook his head, “I know the owner of the station. He doesn’t allow financial transactions in relation to any slave on station or in the area. Perhaps black market parts and items, not slaves.
\n\n No, they were being transferred to someone. That place is more of a hub then anything. Want to get to any Non-alligned or get smuggled onto a federation world? Go through there.”
\n\n
\n\n “What about their… intended use?” Interjected the captain.
\n\n
\n\n Jasper shifted a bit in his seat, he wasn’t sure how much he wanted to say about his theories so far. Best not to make their new guests any less at ease then they are now. Not to mention he now had to talk about the sexual behaviors of slaves among a group of females.
\n\n
\n\n “They aren’t companion slaves…” he began
\n\n “But the medical team says they are,” the XO interjected.
\n\n “That’s because the medical staff has no idea what they are looking at. 80% of slaves are from companion lines originally. It’s a common, strong base for development and the ease of controlling them hormonally along with their ease of accepting orders makes them well suited for any number of things.
\n\n I have tested their reactions to different stimuli and they all seem to have received training in at least self defense.”
\n\n The captain leaned forward concerned, “do they pose a threat?”
\n\n
\n\n “I doubt it. Its not at all unusual for the better made morphs to be taught combat basics to defend their owners. It’s only the low-end black market ones that are given training in only the basics and their IQ locked artificially low.
\n\n Its not standard practice like you assume, its unusual. More commonly through early training, manipulation of hormones, and causing emotional dependency can allow you to make a genius level morph that is actually more capable then their owner while assuring just as much loyalty as the low IQ slaves.”
\n\n
\n\n The females all nodded before the Caitian captain started speaking, “I have sent along your request. Command is interested in your first report, as am I. They are dispatching the Pegasus. It is commanded by Admiral Kline and has state of the art medical facilities and a good-sized security force… should they be needed.”
\n\n
\n\n He stood up and nodded, “I should pack then.”
\n\n
\n\n “One last thing Mister Card,” began the Caitian, “I expect to be forwarded reports so I can read up on how things are progressing.”
\n\n
\n\n Thinking for a moment Jasper pointed at Cain. “Ask her,” he said before walking off.
\n\n
\n\n ---
\n\n
\n\n It has been a week since that meeting; there have been two attacks by the former slaves on crew members who accidentally triggered a defense mechanism planted into them. One of them stopped eating and had to be given nutrition through IV.
\n\n Now he was in what was joking called this ship’s medical trying to fix another crew mistake. The male horse was accidentally given a suicide command by a crew member. A built in safe guard triggered by a pass phrase that would compel some specially trained morphs to kill themselves.
\n\n This one had grabbed a sharp object and stabbed it between two of his ribs and nicked his heart.
\n\n “What a shame if we were to lose this,” a female calico patterned house cat morph stated. She was looking under the covers checking to make sure he still had a strong pulse in his lower limbs before closing his chest.
\n\n “Nurse, I asked you to check blood flow to his legs, not his crotch,” Jesper teased back as the nurse blushed and covered the male’s lower body in the thin white covering.
\n\n A male voxxan walked in holding up his blood-covered hands to keep from having to scrub up again, “I think I got rid of Cain for a while.”
\n\n “Thank you Doctor. Just remember our deal, keep her away from me while my hand is in a patient and I will help keep your fine record to zero lives lost under our care.”
\n\n “What the hell is wrong with her? She was screaming at you the entire way to medical!” The nurse exclaimed.
\n\n “She is the wonderful gift from the Chakonan government. In order for me to operate and do those lovely things on this ship I have to be a quote un quote citizen of a federation member to be able to have a civilian rank in StarFleet. In return for Chakona saying I am a citizen of them and sponsoring me coming out here, they get to put someone who will kill me in my sleep if she thinks I am up to something. Hmm…
\n\n Doctor can you check my work?”
\n\n Jesper moved his hands away to let the voxan double check his work for any bleeding he may have missed.
\n\n “Looks good; no bleeding, pulse is strong, heart is pumping normally, and…” The cloth covering the male’s lower extremities started to rise.
\n\n “ITS ALIVE!” Jesper interrupted.
\n\n The feline’s eyes widened as she realized what was going on and blushed heavily. The human just snapped to attention and saluted the raising pole.
\n\n “What the hell?” the Voxxan asked.
\n\n “Well as much as I would like to say that was thanks to my fine fix job I just did, I think it has more to do to your nurse over there being in heat.” Jesper winked, “Though you did put on a good show with your masking fragrance, it was subtle yet did counter most of the potency of your scent.”
\n\n “How the hell did you know?!” she demanded.
\n\n “My dear I have been training how to deal with sla… err… morphs most of my life. I may not be able to smell as well as you can, but I do notice the other signs. Especially the increase in heads you turn in the corridors.”
\n\n “That’s it, clean up you’re out Card. I am feeding you to the vixen.” The doctor said pointing to the door.
\n\n
\n\n ---
\n\n
\n\n It was the day he always feared, transferring to a new ship or station. Just when he gets used to a crew and they become accustomed to him, he has to move on. The only one who stays with him is the vixen that would just as well see him dead.
\n\n The slaves were lined up, with their hands cuffed behind their back with synthetic ties. There were four armed members of the ships security, two at the front with two bringing up the rear. Jesper Card was bringing up the front along with the captain and XO with Cain at the rear.
\n\n They walked through the docking collar on the way to the Pegasus. He knew it was a huge ship he was about to go on, and also that it’s crew had a big part in him getting his job. He was hired after they found an aberration in one of the slaves they captured. Soon they discovered it was not out of the ordinary, her intelligence was more common then they had ever thought possible before. Apparently the federation cant comprehend that there would have been much progress in the creation, training, and taming of chimeras since the gene war.
\n\n
\n\n At the end of the docking sleeve was a black felitaur, a chakat, if he remembered correctly. She had on the security uniform and was flanked by her security team to either side.
\n\n Jesper took in a deep breath before the precession walked onto the deck of the other starship and looked over the new people he would have to help next. Eventually he would visit almost every ship in the fleet, but for now he has to deal with just these people.
\n\n "Hello... uh...." Jesper tries to struggle to decode the pins on her collar, "Commander?"
\n\n "Lieutenant Commander Chakat Midnight, at your service," shi said with a nod of hir head. "Welcome to the Pegasus Mr. Jesper."
\n\n "Its actually Card, my last name is Card."
\n\n The security detail, along with the officers from the other ship couldn’t help but chuckle. They remember when they first welcomed the odd human on their ship. It took months for them to get him to finally relax.
\n\n "Apologies, Mister Card. If you follow me and my team, I'll take you to see the admiral."
\n\n Jesper looks around completely lost on the ship. He looks back to see the slaves being handed over to the Pegasus’ security team as Cain stays behind to supervise. She grins and brings a finger across her throat as if to cut it then points at him. The Captain and XO of his now former ship have to push him forward to keep him from running away.
\n\n Midnight turns to him. "You can relax, Mister Card. No one here will harm you."
\n\n "umm... Sir... ma'm... shir.... sorry I am not used to addressing herms. Where I come from the production of herm morphs are illegal." The human admits blushing.
\n\n "Illegal? Why is that? And it's shir, by the way."
\n\n He shifted a bit uneasy but decided to say anyways, figuring he has to be honest with them to get an honest reply back.
\n\n "In most of the NAW we view them as harder to control, and not having advantages to have in stock. So while we could make them, most worlds ban their productions."
\n\n "Why would they be harder to control?"
\n\n Trying to relax Jesper started to picture the Chakat as just another slave he would talk to through out his life.
\n\n "A lot of the conditioning and controls in modern slaves are now done by hormone and neurological control. Its much harder to alter but still keep a balance when you have high levels of testosterone and estrogen constantly having to be cycled and precisely controlled. Increases implant failure rate and triples its complexity. Though it has been done in the past on one of the more recent NAW worlds."
\n\n Shi nodded a bit, "I can see how that would be now if that is how slaves are controlled in the NAW."
\n\n He smiles and smirks a bit, "We all can’t be like Pharos, making slaves by keeping them dumb and docile."
\n\n "That's one of the planets in the NAW or a person?"
\n\n Chuckling he replied, "They are a bit of a joke in the NAW. They are one of the two big producers of black market slaves."
\n\n "How would slaves be 'black market' where slavery is legal?"
\n\n "Slavery is illegal here, there are large parts of the NAW that does recognize forms of slavery or some morphs as... pets."
\n\n "You're saying that some slaves are smuggled to Federation buyers?"
\n\n He smiles a bit, "officially no... but on some of the fringes... there have been... possible times it may have happened."
\n\n Shi frowns slightly and sighs. "Not completely surprising."
\n\n Thanks to that conversation, by the time Mr. Card and the others finally got to where ever they were going, he was finally no longer a nervous wreck.
\n\n
\n\n Midnight smiled and opened the door to the conference room, "This way gentlebeings."
\n\n Jesper walked in and looked over the conference room, last time he had been in this nice of a room was back home.
\n\n "Welcome aboard the Pegasus, Mister Card. I'm Admiral Kline," the man standing at the head of the table said.
\n\n The other human just stood still at the other end of the table as he looked over the other human. His mind analyzed him like he would someone back home... this admiral spent a lot of time around more feline like species. Already he could see the slightest hints of mannerisms.
\n\n As the others took seats at the table he walked over to a chair and didn’t finally sit down until the captain forced him down.
\n\n Already all of the work midnight did helping him relax was gone. So instead they started the conversation without him. The captain and XO from his... former ship, talked to the Admiral and brought him up to speed with what happened.
\n\n Jesper knew at some point he should intervene and add a few comments but he couldn’t as Midnight looked at him from the corner of hir eyes a bit worried. Soon enough they were done and all eyes were back to him, everyone smiling friendly to him.
\n\n "Um, thank you Admiral. I don't know exactly how to deal with someone of your rank. Last time I talked to an Admiral she was pushing me onto a transporter pad to get beamed over to my first Starfleet ship assignment."
\n\n "I wasn't aware of that. How long ago was that?" Admiral Kline asked
\n\n Mr. Card thought for a while, "half a year?"
\n\n "So that's how long you've been working with Starfleet?"
\n\n "Ever since they went up to my Jail cell and drafted me... Shit I wasn't supposed to say that."
\n\n Boyce chuckles, not unkindly. "I was wondering how someone from the NAW would be working with Starfleet."
\n\n "Well um. what is her name... Leanna something..."
\n\n "Yes?" Kline’s interest was peaked.
\n\n "After they got everyone's report on that they decided to... find someone to help. I was picked up a few days earlier on Chakona for entering illegally, because I got sick and tired of living on the streets for the record. I finally told them who I was, Starfleet found out, and apparently I was the most qualified person they could find. Took them days to convince them everyone from the NAW didn't come from what’s that place Leanna came from. Ugh, I have my memory when I am stressed."
\n\n "Sounds like you were in the wrong place at the wrong time," The admiral observed.
\n\n "I thought Chakona would welcome someone who knew how to deal with what those CNN talking heads were identifying as a growing threat. Got sick and tired of dealing with some of the slave owners back home and wanted a change. Then I got smuggled into Chakona. Couldn't find work because to many hits on my forged documents would start to reveal they weren't authentic, my bank accounts were slowly frozen, couldn’t even get into a shelter because after a few days they want to try and "help" you get into the government's system."
\n\n "So how long was it before you turned yourself in?"
\n\n "A year or two, kinda missed hot meals and warm beds after a while.” Jesper admitted.
\n\n "That's a long time to hide under the radar."
\n\n He smirked and smiled, "That Caitian world I was on was on before Chakona was easy. I was just another of those weird humans."
\n\n "How long were you on Cait?"
\n\n Smiling he started reflecting on what happened there. Everyone was so much nicer there then on Chakona.
\n\n "few months, though I did get to practice medicine for a few days at the big hospital in Kt'trr'nass. They had a mass casualty transport accident and the call went out for any trained doctors. I responded but disappeared before they took names for the awards and interviews of the responders."
\n\n "You're a medical doctor then?"
\n\n "I am what we call a Chimera Vet where I come from. But I have performed almost a hundred nuro surgeries... and I am only 24," he added the last bit proudly.
\n\n "Impressive."
\n\n He smiled and looked at the others at the table.
\n\n "I know I am not allowed to practice medicine officially, but I was hoping with your permission I could work on these slaves. I know their anatomy and everything that is in them better then your doctors most likely. Plus it would be nice to not have Commander Cain screaming at me as I try to save one of their lives."
\n\n "Who?"
\n\n Pauses and tries to collect his thoughts, "She is what you could call my handler. In return for Chakona forging a false identity for me so I could pass the Starfleet background checks they got to name who would fallow me around and keep an eye on me. I swear that vixen morph wants to kill me. Or at least that’s what she was yelling at me as I had a finger in one of the slaves to keep him from bleeding out."
\n\n "Is she joining you here or is she staying on board the other vessel?"
\n\n "She follows me EVERYWHERE. I am lucky she doesn't follow me into the men’s room to make sure its not some evil NAW plot to reprogram the slaves to kill people after they get back to earth or wherever."
\n\n "Sounds like she's taking her job seriously."
\n\n The Rakshani Captain from the other ship spoke up, "That’s what I thought to sir. Read the reports we are currently sending to you. She wanted to have him thrown in the brig for a week after saving a crew-member's life in the mess. There is one thing to show concern, there is another to be obsessed with finding fault with someone, who in my experience, has shown more concern and care for the slaves then anyone else."
\n\n Mr. Card blushed hard and tried to dismiss the complement, "they are cute?"
\n\n "Pardon?"
\n\n "Sorry my bad attempt at humor. I just don’t take complements well is all, " Jesper explained.
\n\n "Oh"
\n\n "So I was hoping I could meet your medical staff and get ready. They needed a ship that had better neurological imaging equipment." He looked over at Midnight, "I also need to talk to your security chief about how to properly handle slaves."
\n\n "Shi's had some experience but is always willing to learn. And we have excellent equipment here for medical needs."
\n\n "Is there anything else we need to talk about, or someone else I need to meet, before I get started?"
\n\n "No, unless you want to see where your quarters are first."
\n\n He shook his head, "the slaves come first."
\n\n "Then I'll let you get started," Boyce replied as he, and everyone else at the table, got up.
\n\n Mr. Card bit his lip, "How do I get to medical?"
\n\n Boyce happily replied, "Out the door, to the left to the turbolift, then down three decks and turn right."
\n\n On his way out the door he stopped in thought for a moment and turned around to the captain he will probably never see again. "Cain said I cant forward you copies of my reports like you asked. But I can tell you what my next report says now. Last night I finished with valid IQ results for all of the slaves. The lowest was 160, the highest was the roo girl with 183." He then turned around and walked to medical.
\n\n All he heard before the door closed behind him was Boyce.
\n\n "Amazing..."
\n\n
\n\n ---
\n\n
\n\n Jesper stood in the lift and looked blankly at the little panel at the side. He had forgotten which deck medical was on already between the conference room and the turbolift doors.
\n\n “Great, I can perform deep brain surgeries better then most federation neurosurgeons, but I cant keep a deck number in my mind for more then a few seconds.”
\n\n Sighing the human took a few steps back and just rested against the back of the lift, lost in thought.
\n\n The fingers on his right hand moved as if manipulating the device had had used dozens and dozens of times to install, remove, and replace the chemical control implants. His eyes closed as he pictured the path of the probe between the left and right hemispheres, on its way towards the centers that regulated hormones controlling pleasure, growth, and other indefinable complex interactions.
\n\n His pointer finger twitched as he saw in his mind a needle pierce the implant, deactivating it. Then a tiny amount of a chemical was placed into it that turned it into a gel. The ring finger twitched, triggering a precise amount of suction to suck up the now gel implant. Lastly he squeezed the invisible handle, the probe injecting a replacement that soon hardened when it got into place and resumed function.
\n\n Suddenly the turbo lift door entered and someone in a medical uniform stepped in. She was a small female mouse morph, blond hair, cute smile, chipper. She looked over the odd human just leaning back against the side of the turbolift, eyes closed and deep in thought.
\n\n “Are you all right sir?” she asked with concern in her voice.
\n\n He opened his eyes and looked over the,,, ensign. She looked like a medical assistant.
\n\n “I was on my way to medical and got a little lost in thought is all,” he half lied back.
\n\n The mouse smiled and almost bounced into the lift, “Deck three.”
\n\n Jesper kicked himself mentally… deck three was where he was supposed to go.
\n\n “Sooo, who right now is in charge of medical?”
\n\n “Lieutenant M’Lai Saarath is currently in charge this shift. Dr. Kelly is the chief, but has the day off. Tell me did you come from the ship we are currently docked with?”
\n\n He nodded and thought for a moment as the doors opened, “yes.”
\n\n It wasn’t long until the two had made it to the entrance of Medical and they walked inside.
\n\n Doctor M'Lai was in her office reading some reports when the doors to Medical opened and two people walked in. The ensign was one of her medical assistants but she didn't recognize the human. "Can I help you?" she asked.
\n\n Jesper tried not to stare at the large morph... no the features and body language was wrong. He looked at the pips on her collar and realized this must be M'Lai... a Caitian. She was well larger then a normal caitian, and in more then one way.
\n\n "Umm, uh. My name is Jesper Card. I came over with the slaves currently being transferred as a medical and well, everything consultant for them."
\n\n M'Lai smiled. This human was not the first, nor would be the last to notice that she was an H cup before he knew the color of her eyes. "All right, Mister Card. How can I and my staff be of assistance?"
\n\n He snapped out of it and began trying to organize his thoughts again, "Mostly I need detailed brain scans to see how the neurochemical implants are doing in their brains. If those are out of alignment it can cause some nasty side effects in best case scenario."
\n\n "That won't be a problem," she assures him. "We have the best medical facilities in the fleet."
\n\n He sniffs the air, despite being a human spending most of his life around Slaves has forced him to rely more on his sense of smell. A slight scent of arousal is being picked up be his nose. He looks back over the caitian and starts to suspect that her... increase in size is nurological more then genetic. Worst is that he has always found those with fur and scale to be more attractive then his own kind. Once again he tries to focus and keep everything professional.
\n\n "Also I have been trained in their medical care in the Non-Alligned Worlds. I know that my certifications and degrees dont transfer to the Federation, and that you dont have final say, but I was wondering if you would object to me practicing medicine while aboard... atleast on them."
\n\n "I have no objection, Doctor. Just because you weren't trained in the Federation doesn't mean you aren't qualified."
\n\n Jesper shifted a bit and thought for a few moments. He knew she meant no insult by calling him a doctor, but decided to correct her anyways.
\n\n "Actually the title where I am from of a Chimera doctor isnt Doctor... its Vet. You can call me Doctor if you wish, but thats technically not my title since a Vet actually has more training then a general doctor on my world."
\n\n "I'll call you whatever you want."
\n\n A few thoughts go through his mind and he tries not to smirk, "How about Jesper?"
\n\n "All right Jesper. And you can call me M'Lai."
\n\n He smiled at her as a few things went through his mind. Leaning forward the human softly said, "M'Lai, would you mind showing me how you do brain scans and how clear they are? On the last ship they were only down to a few hundred nano-meters."
\n\n "Not at all," she says. "We can scan down to the atomic level here if you want."
\n\n "This neural caranial scanner," she says and points out the device. "Much more compact and efficient that what you would find on most other ships."
\n\n Jesper looks at the device and looks up at the Catian, "Mind if I take a peak to see how well it works?"
\n\n "Go ahead."
\n\n
\n\n The vet had the Caitian lay down and stay still as he brings the scanner online and begins the process. He is surprised at how fast the scan is proceeding and how quickly the computer takes the readout and makes a scalable resolution image of the brain in a 3D grid.
\n\n "Wow, its done already..."
\n\n "Only the best."
\n\n He changes to a top down view and helps her back up like a gentleman and starts navigating down between the two hemispheres of the brain, able to clearly see every termination of the nerve cells down to the core between the two hemispheres.
\n\n "So," she says smugly. "Think this will be good enough for what you want?"
\n\n "and this is where I have to do the most neuro surgeries on Chimeras," he mumbles mostly to himself before he stops and notices something.
\n\n "What?"
\n\n He looks over the Caitian then up at the brain on display on the screen, "So thats why." Blushing a bit he closes the display and types in a few things, "Sorry to pry, I suspected but I didn't mean to be nosy."
\n\n "Let me guess, you saw my pituitary gland."
\n\n "And a few other things."
\n\n "I noticed that you noticed that I'm much larger all around than the usual Caitian female."
\n\n He chuckled and blushed a bit before whispering back, "Honestly a bit of professional interest plus I find Caitians.... vary attractive."
\n\n "Thank you."
\n\n "You know I could, take care of that growth... while keeping those areas of the brain... stimulated."
\n\n "How?"
\n\n He looks around, the medical bay and looks at the few people scattered around, "Have somewhere we could discus this privately?"
\n\n "My office," she says, rising from the table.
\n\n She sits down behind her desk, indicating that he should take the other seat. With a smile he nods then proceeds to sit down and quickly tries to remember how much of Caitian neurology while he was on Cait.
\n\n "I assume the... tumor has been the cause of your increase in size. The stimulation to the gland and a few other close by areas. Granted I am by no means an expert on Caitian neurology."
\n\n She looks into his eyes and smiles, "It has."
\n\n He blushes, "and that with the scent of almost constant arousal from you. I am sorry the reason I myself didn't get a brain scan and instead asked you is because I have found a strong dislike among Federation people to those that modify their own genetic code and neurology, which is vary common for vets."
\n\n "Mostly among the humans, given their Gene Wars. On Cait, we are more open about using it."
\n\n "Those with my training usually enhance several of their senses slightly to make it more easy to empathize and deal with their charges. Its hard to heal someone if they can see something you cant or smell something they cant."
\n\n "In your job position I see how that would be useful."
\n\n "I digress, but I hope you don't take this the wrong way. But over the last 5 years, use of deep planted neurochemical implants have replaced the more inhumane controls in higher end slaves. Instead of keeping their IQs low we put something that stimulates portions of the brain as a reward response. Using this we can ensure greater loyalty while greatly improving the quality of life of the slaves."
\n\n "The 'carrot' rather than the 'stick' approach."
\n\n He smiled and nodded, "it is hard to get people to enjoy healing and taking care of slaves when they just come back every week beaten up in need of emergency medical attention. Being a vet is not something you do lightly. You have to specialize in everything from how to help them through a cold, to creating retro-viruses to take care of genetic anomalies."
\n\n She nods. "That doesn't surprise me. I deal with that in my job."
\n\n "As you could imagine that makes Vets... unusually gifted when it comes to working in deep portions of the brain. Often we have to do placement, removal, and replacement procedures on slaves... me I once had a day I had to do 6."
\n\n "Has that become routine in your line of work?"
\n\n He laughs and nods, "yes, those implants have to be precisely placed and to avoid complications to normal functions they aren't really attached to anything. So if someone gets hit really hard in the head... it can shift."
\n\n "What happens if that occurs?"
\n\n "The new ones? Well what would happen if someone cut that tumor out?"
\n\n "It would stop pressing against my pituitary."
\n\n Jesper thought for a moment, he was actually looking for the symptoms, but she went right through them.
\n\n "Hormone and stimulation withdrawal. On the old ones they sometime can get lodged between synapses and causes seizures or worse. The new ones dissolve when enough energy is trying to bridge across it."
\n\n "That can be dangerous."
\n\n "Hence why I screamed at Starfleet Command until they agreed to send a ship with better medical facilities. One of them already has an old style implant that has strayed."
\n\n "We can take care of that immediately."
\n\n He chuckled, "Unfortunately it isn’t that fast. They have to be brought over to the facilities set up for them, my stuff has to be transferred, and all of the current medical and reports on them have to transfer too. No point in rushing him into surgery before we are ready unless its urgent. Until then I may as well get the feel of the medical staff since I will be working with you all and figure out more about this Caitian I find so interesting."
\n\n "How soon does this person need the medical attention? And thanks for the compliment."
\n\n Intelligent, knowledgeable, caring, and perhaps a bit of wit. Jesper thinks he may be in love.
\n\n "Don't know. I need to make multiple implants, test them, get my stuff transferred over, and then do a scan to figure out how I am going to do this. And I cant even start until my NAW Vet equipment is over here."
\n\n "That won't take long to transfer. Our Supply Department is first rate."
\n\n
\n\n He nods and smiles as his communicator beeps. He taps it, "Yeeeeeeeees?"
\n\n The voice comes over the channel, "You better get down her fast, one of the slaves just collapsed!"
\n\n Jesper shot up, "Which one?"
\n\n A moment pause, "The Male Lion sir."
\n\n Mr. Card looked over at M'Lai and his eyes said, 'that’s the one I was worried about'.
\n\n M’Lai stood up from her chair and replied, "Bring him here and we'll work on him."
\n\n Transporter? No, if he seizes it will be dangerous, and if that implant moves any further it could cause permanent damage. Besides, all of his equipment is in that docking bay… most likely now on the bottom of a pile on the Pegasus since it was at the top on the former ship.
\n\n Jesper walks out of the office, grabs a medkit then shouts back at M'Lai before he runs out the door, "My stuff we need is still in the docking bay, come down as soon as you can with a stretcher and a few MAs."
\n\n M'Lai has some medical assistants grab a stretcher as she grabs a full emergency kit and they race out the door after the running Mister Case.
\n\n
\n\n
\n\n Jesper gets to the docking bay before M'Lai and the rest of the staff. The last of the other slaves are being escorted out by security. Mr. Card tosses one of the remaining members of security the med kit has as he charges into the stack of crates containing his equipment to knock everything off and uncover the bottom crate that contains everything he needs. As he opens up the crate he tells the Security officer how to set up the datacorder correctly and what to administer as he pulls out a bag and starts assembling a piece of equipment.
\n\n M'Lai and the medical technicians arrive. "What's that you're assembling?"
\n\n Mr. Card doesn't look up from it and keeps working, "Its what I am going to use to get that thing out of his brain before he gets brain damage and crashes. Now he is about to go into stage two of failure, that’s seizures. Please get him onto the stretcher before it starts or else I am going to have to have an open brain on the floor."
\n\n M'Lai and the medical assistants get the male lion onto the stretcher.
\n\n Jesper drags the case over and takes the medical datacorder from the security officer and cringes when he sees that there is internal bleeding. The Lion starts seizing just as the Vet takes a shaver out of a leather bag that’s also in the container. He does his best to hold the large head still as he prepares a site to remove part of the morph’s skull.
\n\n "Have something that will flat line him now? I cant operate while he is seizing and he is only going to get worse!"
\n\n Quickly M’Lai put a small clear cartridge into a hypospray and handed it to the Vet.
\n\n Jesper injects the Lion with the hypo and waits a few moments for the seizing to stop before reaching into the leather bag and pulling out a little package. He tares it open and removes a sterilization cloth and quickly uses it before pulling out tiny pen light looking device with a sharp point at the end. He quickly starts making the initial incision on the bare skin while everyone watches.
\n\n "Once I get this thing out I need you to take care of the internal bleeding and bring him back. When I get this damn thing out then instead of getting pernamnt neurological damage any second it will be hours..."
\n\n "No problem," she assures him.
\n\n He finishes cutting away the skin before he turns up the power on the laser scalpel and starts cutting through the skull.
\n\n "How much of the skull do you need revealed to take care of the bleeding?"
\n\n "A centimeter square will be enough."
\n\n Jesper makes it three just to be safe incase he needs to use multiple probes. Soon enough he has a small little hole which some blood is leaking out of. With a curse he puts down the scalpel and picks up what looks like a long almost hair thin needle and tares the protective wrap off of it before packing it on the device he assembled.
\n\n "And this is what we use to do deep brain stuff"
\n\n He smiles at her as he pulls one of the four odd looking triggers on it as it goes limp and changes shapes. the probe is a form of liquid memory metal in 4 strips so it can actually move around nerve clusters.
\n\n "I've never seen something like that. Did you develop it?"
\n\n "No, we stole the underlying technology from the federation. You people just haven't approved something like this for medical procedures yet, we fast tracked it."
\n\n Easing in the probe he does his best to navigate it painfully slowly, relying on the sensitive proximity sensor on the front to feed it a few hundred nanometers at a time into the morph's brain. He rotates it a bit and manipulates each of the four triggers.
\n\n "Come on, I have done this a half dozen times on your line before, its gotta be somewhere around here," The vet says under his breath.
\n\n "The implant?"
\n\n "Yah I am having a hard time with all the blood finding it in there. It shouldn't be this hard, usually takes me a quarter hour to ease it in and find it even without good imagery."
\n\n "How can I help?"
\n\n "If you see a vixen morph walk around with the same rank as your XO, keep her away from me and medical. GOT IT! Bastard was 2 millimeters away from where it was supposed it."
\n\n "That was what was causing the problem then? That it was out of position?"
\n\n He presses a button on the top of the probe to switch the modes and squeezes the trigger with his ring finger to have the probe inject a tiny drop of medicine into the implant. It quickly turns to gel as he pulls another trigger to cause the probe to quickly suck it up.
\n\n "I'll take care of the bleeding when you're done."
\n\n "The problem was that it had migrated, and since its the old design it doesn't dissolve or behave unless its forced to once out of position. He is lucky no one has survived a deep brain implant being more then half that off, he should have been dead as soon as he his the floor."
\n\n "Lucky indeed then."
\n\n Jesper holds down the button setting it to return path mode, the probe retracting along its own path back in until it buzzes. He pulls it back and pulls out a little cartridge filled with the now fully liquefied probe.
\n\n "Take care of the bleeding and get his vitals back up. As long as he doesn't wake up before I put the replacement in, all should be fine."
\n\n M'Lai wastes no time and begins working on the lion's brain.
\n\n "Off to medical now, shoo. He isn’t going to get any worse on your way there now."
\n\n The medical technicians carry the lion off in the stretcher after M'Lai gets the bleeding stopped.
\n\n Jesper smiles and looks over all of the blinking security officers that were watching," congratulations! In return for that most amusing surgery you all now get a one way trip to medical carrying some of my stuff."
\n\n ---
\n\n
\n\n “Master this place isn’t safe,” A young female roo girl said.
\n\n “non-sense. If a slave wishes to kill me then I guess I deserve it,” A young Jesper shot back.
\n\n They had just walked into a chimera club back home. Smells of alcohol mixing with dozens of species came together and hit the roo’s nose. She looked around suspiciously at everyone. It is her job to protect and see to her owner’s needs.
\n\n Jesper gently scratched behind one of her ears to calm her down as he held her leash tightly. She was nude with only a black leather collar with matching ankle and wrist cuffs on. Her still developing C cup breasts would sway and lightly bounce as she walked. In her right hand was a sheathed katana, a gift from her master.
\n\n It wasn’t her nudity that got them glances, or that she was on a leash… it was that a human had walked in and had an armed slave.
\n\n
\n\n “How about that one in the corner?” he asked her.
\n\n There was a nervous looking raptoress with black scales and DD cup breasts sipping at a drink.
\n\n “I don’t think we should be here, people come here to get away from human masters.”
\n\n “ANYONE HERE MIND IF A VET STAYS AROUND FOR A LITTLE RELAXATION AFTER HIS EXAM?” Jesper shouted to the audience.
\n\n A series of ‘NOs’ and ‘COME ON IN’ erupted from the occupants, many of them wore collars showing they were in fact slaves.
\n\n “NEXT ROUND OF DRINKS ON ME!” the only human around yelled back.
\n\n A series of cheers came as he found a free table to sit at. She took her place, kneeling on the floor at her owner’s side. Jesper smiled and reached down to slowly stroke her left breast and the sensitive nipple.
\n\n “Oh get up Kari, move the chair over, and sit your cute butt down.”
\n\n The roo girl nodded and followed her owners directions.
\n\n A waitress came up with a smile as Jesper removed the leash from his slave’s collar.
\n\n “Thanks we don’t allow those in here. Now what can I get you two?”
\n\n Jesper smiled and reaches his hand down to lightly stroke and tease Kari’s folds.
\n\n “Alcoholic candy water for me, and strawberry water for her,” he said touching his nose to the roo’s.
\n\n Kari blushed, more from the nose touch then him touching her vagina without concern to who was watching. Her master was 16, horny, a vet from a well-known family, and he could do what he wanted to his property. She just wasn’t used to public signs of affection.
\n\n The waitress smiled and leaned over, “Please just respect the collars and if you are looking for some tail take it upstairs.”
\n\n Grinning he nodded and slipped a finger into Kari’s slit, feeling around. The waitress walked off before his roo leaned over and whispered into his ear.
\n\n “But you don’t drink alcohol master.”
\n\n “I have just been up for 20 hours straight running the no-win crash test. That’s 18 hours straight of surgery on a simulated chimera that the simulation will find every way to kill possible. I need a drink.”
\n\n She folded her ears back and nodded as their drinks came. He took a drink from his beverage as she waited for permission to drink herself.
\n\n Instead he raised his wet finger up to her lips to be cleaned from her juices. She complied and did her best to erotically lick her juices off of the fingers.
\n\n “Love you my sexy kangaroo girl.”
\n\n
\n\n ---
\n\n
\n\n Jesper is working in one of the labs putting the finishing touches on three new implants. These will dissolve if dislodged and as such there can be multiple placed in to give redundancy. Its been about an hour since he started work and he hasn't yet emerged from the lab.
\n\n M'Lai enters the lab. "How are things going in here?" she asks.
\n\n He looks up and smiles. Just testing them and getting them loaded into the delivery mechanisms. "Sorry its taking so long. Is the bleeding stopped and his vitals back up?"
\n\n "Yes. He's resting comfortably."
\n\n He hesitates for a moment, "Mind if I ask you a personal question?"
\n\n "Not at all."
\n\n He puts a cartridge to the side as he goes back to manipulating the other two remaining implants under the microscope. "are you married?"
\n\n She smiles. "Yes, I am."
\n\n He tries to hide his disappointment and smiles, "Its good when a healer can find a mate. Our lives tend to not be the most stable or predictable."
\n\n "Don't I know it," she said. "I'm glad that Rosepetal asked me to be one of her mate's wives."
\n\n He gets the second implant loaded into the little cylinder, "hmm, if I remember that’s the name of this ship’s XO."
\n\n "That's right," she confirms. "And we're both married to the ship's CO."
\n\n "ah"
\n\n Jesper stands up after loading the last one into the cartridge and smiles, "Well back to work shall we?"
\n\n "Certainly," she says. "Going to put a new implant into his brain?"
\n\n He grinned, "3 actually, same as I would for you if you were ever interested. That way if one or two get out of place again the other can take over. These also dissolve and get flushed out of the brain if they get dislodged."
\n\n
\n\n ---
\n\n
\n\n Jesper smiles and walked out of medical, content that the medical staff will be able to deal with the rest. The surgery was a success, no complications, no signs of side effects or nicked brain tissue. His simile however faded after he saw who was waiting for him outside.
\n\n “I still don’t trust you or anything you do Vet,” the vixen said.
\n\n “Commander Cain, I don’t know what’s your problem but I am sick and tired of…”
\n\n “My problem with you Mister Card is that I know who you are, where you are from, and what you have done. My problem with you is Amaranth is known to have abducted federation citizens in slavery there.
\n\n I know your world and your politics and it makes me sick. Your world doesn’t even have a concept of a free citizen morph or the ability for morphs to live in your space and not be slaves. Guests yes, but if they ever break they law they may find themselves forced into your slavery system.”
\n\n Jesper just laughed and walked off into the lift with Cain following closely behind.
\n\n “Admit it, you have done these mind altering procedures before by order of your courts. That you have taken federation citizens and sent them down the roads of slavery.”
\n\n He walked into a lift and started it on the way to his quarters but stopped it a few seconds in at her last words.
\n\n “You listen to me. I heal people; I improve the quality of life. Do you have any idea what a Vet means in that highly opinionated pea sized brain of yours? It means I am not just there to take care of them and do procedures. It means I am an officer of the law and the only person by law that is required to take action and represent on behalf of slaves. I can refuse any court ordered procedure because I am legally recognized with privileges when it comes to slaves and morphs.”
\n\n The human hit the panel to resume the lift and continued.
\n\n “If you have wild accusations against my people this isn’t the forum to voice them. Neither is your news propaganda casts against us. You have diplomats on our worlds, let them bring charges publicly and you will find many NAW worlds willing to prove their innocence openly.
\n\n Instead of engaging us in dialog you send people to talk and all they do is stand there because they aren’t given the authority to talk business or open any real dialog. You say you try diplomacy when our sides rarely ever talk. Perhaps if you tried presenting evidence and were polite you would get more results you like.
\n\n Or is it because you like demonizing the non-aligned worlds? Oh we are these bad evil people that own slaves. We don’t want free trade and we don’t want you entrance requirements. There must be something wrong with us! I know lets prevent our press from covering these people, open movement of people, restrict life saving medicine and technology, and make them the bad people.
\n\n Oh wow, we have these crazy humans blowing stuff up. They don’t like morphs, the LNAW has slavery so they must not like morphs either! Lets connect the two because they have to be involved somehow.
\n\n The sad thing is, we know more about the evils of slavery then you do. We live with it, I LIVE WITH IT. People like you see the world in black and white. There is no such thing as good and evil, no absolutes. Perhaps you should look at yourselves. Even on Pharos the slaves are treated better then the morphs in the Holy Christian Kingdom.
\n\n Living apart isn’t the answer. You also cant live together without talking. Try it some time.”
\n\n And with that Jesper walked off to his quarters as the lift doors opened.
\n\n
\n\n ---
\n\n
\n\n Jesper is standing outside the head of security's door a bit nervous. He tries to calm himself and remembers the trick of just trying to imagine furs as slaves, like part of his job. After a moment of hesitation he finally presses the panel next to the door to chime his presence.
\n\n Inside the Chief of Security looked up at the monitor displaying the outside of hir office door. Shi sees Jesper. "Door open," shi says quietly. "Mister Card,” she says. “Please come in."
\n\n He smiles and walks in. His eyes go over the screens in a glance and keeps track of them as they rotate, trying to place where the chakat normally looks at. He nods and tries to correct his thoughts once more and speaks, "I was wondering if I could have a bit of your time."
\n\n "Have a seat," shi says.
\n\n Nodding he takes a seat and starts reading the chakat's subtle body language as he is trained to. "I was hoping to discus a few things with you and get your feedback and comments."
\n\n "All right," Midnight says. Shi too is studying the man seated in front of hir, trying to read what he is NOT saying.
\n\n Jesper began, "Part of the agreement of my being on starfleet ships is to train their medical staff how to deal and handle with captured slaves. Seeing as a large part of this is identifying and categorizing them I believe the security staff should sit in on these lectures. I was wondering if I would have your support in expanding who can sit in on the lectures."
\n\n Midnight nodded, not taking hir eyes off of the human, “"I think you have an excellent idea there Mister Card and I heartily agree with it.”
\n\n He smiled, "Would you also agree that it would perhaps be best if command staff were also requested to come to the meetings? I am going briefly over information about... well we call it Chimera Theory, that is the theory behind the entire system and development of slaves on several NAW worlds."
\n\n "The admiral wants all command staff officers to attend your lectures," shi assures him.
\n\n He was a bit relived, he never was good at going against authority or speaking to power. Suddenly something came to his mind "Would you be opposed to me taking some of the slaves out and show them around some areas of the ship... to get them out of their holding area for things other then trips to medical or bringing them around to here and there as they demand. This of course would be on a case by case basis and the first several times for each one a member of security or another member of the crew can observe. I just feel they are a little tense from their motion being so... controlled."
\n\n "As long as they stay in publicly accessible areas of the ship and do not go into secure and classified areas I see no problem."
\n\n
\n\n "I know when I first came aboard you had a lot of questions for me... I was wondering if you had any more that you think would fit into the Q and A section of my lectures before hand."
\n\n "I can try to come up with some for you," shi says. "When would you need them?"
\n\n
\n\n He chuckled, "No I just mean off hand. If you want to drill me with hard hitting questions I do have a messaging account on the ship and inter fleet service. I was just wondering if anything was on your mind from last we spoke."
\n\n "I think I would need to hear more of what you have to say before I could come up with more questions."
\n\n
\n\n He hesitated a moment before he sighed, "I also wanted to see if you could help me with something. I admit I will most likely be asking to much."
\n\n Shi is silent for a moment before saying "What would you want my help with?"
\n\n "Commander Cain. I know Chakona's government personally requested her to follow me around and watch what I do. I just never thought that they would make it someone so confrontational to everything I do. Half of the time I think she believes I am a spy and the other half I have some evil plan to use the captured slave I encounter to some dastardly ends I do not know."
\n\n Midnight pauses for a moment, "What kind of help were you looking for? If her authority comes from the Chakonan government, there's nothing I can do to restrict her activities as long as they do not interfere with the safe operation of this ship."
\n\n "I am just wondering why Chakona would request a former intelligence officer that that was stationed before in Rakshani space to look over me. It doesn't make sense. I have tried to get more out of people around me, but they just keep saying they cant tell me or its classified. It would just be nice to understand why it is that she takes my presence around her so personally."
\n\n "Maybe she had family abducted by slavers," the chakat offered.
\n\n Jesper runs this through his mind a few times. Yes that would make sense but... "Then why wouldn't she say so? When she cornered me yesterday in the lift she seemed to personally accuse me and my world for things like that. But we regularly send the federation lists of people that are found in our territory. Every time we keep hearing back that the diplomats wont look into it or deny they belong to them."
\n\n "Would she really admit to someone she considers a slaver to help her?"
\n\n "Why not? We ask the raiders to stay out of our territory, we ask Pharos to improve some of their practices, we ask other people to do things. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Its not a sign of weakness to talk and let others know why you are doing something or ask for a change."
\n\n "YOU see it that way," shi points out. "Does she?"
\n\n He sighs and sakes his head before standing up. "Thank you for your insights and time. I hope to see you and your people at the lecture tomorrow."
\n\n Midnight smiled and nodded, "I'll see you there."
\n\n "Again, thank you," He smiles before walking out of the chakats office and heads off to put a few last touches on his lecture... that is of course to actually start writing the damn thing.
\n\n
\n\n ---
\n\n
\n\n Mr. Card had several PADDs and was in one of the ship’s holodecks looking over each one as if it could attack him at any moment. They all had hundreds of thousands of pages of text on them.
\n\n Part of his contract with Starfleet was to train ship crews on how to properly deal with captured slaves to prevent any issues from arising. Problem was, just the basic text he goes off of is a quarter million pages. Then you have the referenced books, guides, and sourced material.
\n\n He had 8 hours of lecture time to fit in about half a million pages of information. Not only that but during those 8 hours he had to challenge those people to think like they do in the LNAW.
\n\n “Stupid Federation idiots, they bitch about us when they have more slaves then we do. At least we admit it.”
\n\n He glances through historical and current facts and figures from Federation news organizations and government reports.
\n\n “What am I gonna do just start yelling fact and flood them with data? Hehe… Fact: the best way to increase slavery is to outlaw it. Fact: during the 21st century on earth there were more slaves then at any point in human history, even if you stop just before the creation of Chimeras. Fact: There are currently more slaves on Earth then on Pharos due to botched reconstruction efforts and a totally incompetent and government.”
\n\n With a scowl he picked up a PADD with an article from CNN about the rise in the black market sex slave trade in the Federation and threw it against the side of the holodeck.
\n\n No one kept records in the federation of issues with the growing sex slave trade inside and among federation worlds. Its much like the the United States in the early 21st century. Then there was a flood of sex workers from Eastern Europe and southern Asia. A combination of debt slavery and lack of recognition by any government allowed it to explode. Soon there were debt workers coming up from Mexico with such impossible intrest rates to some of those that smuggled them over the border and hooked them up, their children were soon forced to work as debt laborers too in some US factories.
\n\n Infact some estimates had it so bad that there were more debt slaves in the USA around 2010 then total slaves before the American civil war that lead up to the abolishment of slavery.
\n\n It was about that time too that the international child sex tourism business exploded. It took place in countries like Burma and other impoverished nations with large populations and lax government control and even support. Soon you had sex tourism set up in the US, Europe, Australia, and other countries arranging trips to these countries.
\n\n And this was all before 2006…
\n\n He sighed and knew there was only one person he knew that could help him get this speech done in time…
\n\n
\n\n ---
\n\n
\n\n Kari’s eyes fluttered open as she saw Jesper staring in her eyes. She were laying on a mattress with sheets in a converted cargo bay to hold them.
\n\n “Master?” she whispered.
\n\n “Its ok I had them make the clear cells selectively sound proofed and can be made opaque. They can’t hear what we are saying unless I disable the privacy protocol I have running in here.”
\n\n “I was starting to miss you master.”
\n\n He blushed a little and kissed her on the lips softly.
\n\n “Master, when can I return to my duties again?”
\n\n Jesper smiled, “Soon enough, I have a plan to get Star Fleet to let you stay mine.”
\n\n “And then what?”
\n\n He thought for a few moments, “hot wild sex for a week?”
\n\n Kari giggled and gives Jesper a soft kiss.
\n\n “Don’t tease me master,” she replied with a wink.
\n\n
\n\n ---
\n\n
\n\n The Pegasus had more facilities then most NAW space stations. State of the art medical facilities, nice quarters for everyone, a nice mess, and even small little shops. It wasn’t until now that he realized it also had several large meeting spaces, both for large lectures and smaller conferences.
\n\n He was now in one such lecture hall. Normally used in rotation for department training and meetings, one was now set aside for his use once a week all day.
\n\n This one was large enough to hold multiple departments worth of people at once. Chairs for bipeds and soft pillows for taurs. Each seat has a small fold away table currently occupied with a data PADD each. All of the books and texts he references and wants them to have available for reference are loaded in them. Its needless to say he removed some unnecessary and… unpleasant parts from them.
\n\n
\n\n Jesper was standing at the podium with Kari at his side. He had written and brought together the presentation out of nowhere last night. It was about three hours before he decided to grab his slave and use her as a prop. Granted it was more because she proved a pleasant distraction he could occasionally focus on, rather then any objectification.
\n\n
\n\n “Oh Kari, I am so screwed. How am I going to pull this off?”
\n\n
\n\n A voice came from his right, “You’ll think of something.”
\n\n
\n\n Both looked to notice the stealthy chief of security had snuck in and was taking hir seat, the first to come. Jesper was a bit worried though; he had taken Kari to his room last night without clearing it through security. Midnight probably knew… was her presence here first and in the front row a signal to him? No, he was just being a bit paranoid. The chakat, besides M’Lai and the rest of the medical staff, were most likely his only strong supporters on this ship.
\n\n
\n\n “Um, thanks,” He finally replied to hir as the rest of the officers and staff walked in.
\n\n A bit of commotion of idle chat and a few pre-emptively looking over the data stored on PADDs before them. Jesper was counting down the seconds until it would be time for him to start. His fingers gently stroking Kari’s back, trying to calm himself.
\n\n He looked up and noticed all of the officers standing; the Admiral and XO had walked in. Jesper never felt all that threatened by Kline. Intimidated, yes. Bet never scared of him. He never liked much being around other humans, perhaps that and the fact his butt was pretty much relying on the Admiral’s positive review for his future. Cain could pull all the stunts she wanted as long as he kept getting glowing reviews from the medical and command staffs.
\n\n Now the XO, a Caitian female and apparently also the admiral’s wife, was a different story. While Kline showed an inquisitive problem solving mind, this XO seemed to be all business and hard to read. Jesper had gotten down reading chimera and human body language long ago, but the subtle differences of the alien races always threw him. She seemed strict, then again this is a military ship. It was common knowledge XOs are used across almost every specie’s military structure as a tool for discipline and loyalty. With M’Lai at least he could fall back on professionalism and the comrodery of doctors, but with the Commander…
\n\n
\n\n “Thank you all for taking your time and coming to this first in a series of lectures I will be giving,” Jesper began. “My name is Jesper Card, and yes its true I am from the Non-Alligned Worlds. I am here before you because I have extensive knowledge on nearly all aspects of NAW slavery. I am what is called a Veterinary Chimera Specialists back home. Vets are considered the highest accomplishment in the medical community where I come from. We literally start training and specialize in everything from the genetic creation and programming up to post death services. We are the legal advocates for Chimera and are officers of the court when it comes to slaves. As such we have to be well versed in more then just physical wellbeing of slaves. This includes psychological and even a well versed understanding of legal needs.
\n\n Not all worlds in the NAW have this definition of vet. On Pharos a Vet simply takes care of chimera, on Aslan its like what I described but without the legal parts. Where I come from is a place called Amaranth, and we do things quite differently.
\n\n For starters you have probably noticed I used the term Chimera a lot. On Amaranth we use the term Chimera for any morph, as we view the word morph as a derogatory term. Also the term pet or slave is interchangeable where I come from. Slave is a title, pet is an alternative to saying slave that has connotations of affection.”
\n\n He waited a few moments, took a sip of water and continued.
\n\n “If at any time you have a question when I get into topics, feel free to politely interrupt with them. Today’s session will be ‘Introduction to Chimera’ with one of the recently rescued slaves agreeing to help me demonstrate some basic commands and how-to latter. First, however, any questions?”
\n\n A few moments pass, then he continues.
\n\n “Everything I am about to tell you are simplified highlights from the books and texts I have loaded into the PADDs before you. The big one is pretty much the holy bible to Vets and the primary source of my lecture today. Its literally a quarter million typed singe spaced pages detailing pretty much the combined knowledge of my field as of its last revision. I have removed some things you don’t need to know because I know a few of you would try to read it all… and would blow a blood vessel in your brain trying to do so. It is quite thick reading and even took me almost 10 years to get from cover to cover. If you want to, take your time and go through it slowly. I don’t want the rest of the medical staff suddenly having to deal with an influx of migraines and headaches. Knowing them they would get revenge by referring you all to me.”
\n\n A few chuckles come from a group of medical staff that had congregated in the upper section.
\n\n “But seriously, this book gets into such detail it will tell you what species nose’s are supposed to be wet when they are healthy, and molecular explanations in cross sections of claws. It also contains line, species, species revision, and genetic information. If I didn’t cut a few sections out, some of you could probably make your own chimera if you ever wanted to.”
\n\n A medical tech interrupted, “So it’s a complete medical database of all created slaves? Beyond the obvious, how else will this help us?
\n\n “Now this is general and doesn’t contain every line and every revision, but it does contain most of them and all the common ones. For the second part of your question, it literally has flow charts of common conditioning, reasoning, and aggression responses programmed into the different lines. With all of this combined, you will be able to better understand subtle behavior changes and their causes in general. “
\n\n “Thank you,” The tech replies.
\n\n Jesper took a moment to take another sip of water before resuming.
\n\n “I think we can skip over the what’s a slave part, so lets get right into the differences of Chimera and slaves across the NAW. Yes, there are rather radical differences in slavery. Pharos is known for its vary basic slaves and laborers. You encounter them a lot. They cheaply and efficiently make a high volume of slaves, leading to large surpluses for their domestic markets and minimum restrictions. Aslan can be considered a more moderate slavery. Its known primarily for their companion lines; good loyalty, about average intelligence, rather capable. Even their laborer lines aren’t to bad, at least when compared to Pharos. As for Amaranth, we are known for high loyalty and above average to genius level IQ chimera.
\n\n I used these three worlds intentionally. Each corresponds to different levels of where the slave system is. Pharos has almost no protections or restrictions on the creation of Chimera. Aslan has basic protections against abuse and misuse. There are also restrictions on how you can program and train them. Amaranth is the strictest when it comes to the use and role of chimera.”
\n\n “Such as,” someone asks.
\n\n “Laborers are against the law simply because using a Chimera in heavy labor is illegal. Chimera are not for lifting heavy things or doing repeated tasks, that’s what machines are for. Chimera are covered under the same government health program as are humans. So if a Chimera gets hurt, your neighbor is going to be upset because his taxes just went up. On the flip side, Amaranth does not recognize any chimera in its territory as free. In the past it was used as a loophole so we got rid of it all together. Instead if, lets say, our security chief wanted to visit; you would be legally considered property of whatever government you had citizenship with. That way if anything happened to you, instantly you would qualify for the same medical care as any Amaranth citizen PLUS you would have extra legal protections and a legal advocate. Also its normally easier processes a transfer of property out of world then a free person.”
\n\n “So there is no uniform set if codes in the Non-Aligned Worlds for slaves?” A security guard asks.
\n\n “The NAW is not like the federation. We have some treaties and agreements. A mutual defensive pact, semi-open trade, and some restrictions on goods. One of those restrictions are on slaves, but its hard to enforce them against other worlds because they just get better on hiding it. The idea is to make sure they can’t sell or trade them through worlds that are more strict, which in turn causes demand to plummet more. Unfortunately, this just is making them look elsewhere and take more risks with those they cant sell domestically and in the NAW.
\n\n “Where are they expanding to?” the guard asks again.
\n\n “Well believe it or not there are places worse then Pharos that aren’t part of the NAW, but they can’t absorb enough of the excess production… so they sell it to the next closest destination… you.”
\n\n “I was afraid you were going to say that,” Kline mumbled.
\n\n “Slavery is an entirely profit based system, its basic capitalism. Their market is shrinking so they need to find another place to offload their extra goods. NAW treaties say you can’t euthanize a slave except under vary restricted well-documented circumstances. Worst-case scenario is they send a beaten down transport into federation space and it gets captured. They lost minimum money on the transport, they no longer have to worry about taking care of the slaves, and they technically didn’t violate any treaties. If they are lucky they can get to a growing federation border world and unload their stock for hundreds of times the selling price in the NAW. You can sell a bunch of non-standards compliant slaves at hugely inflated prices that would sell at a loss even on Pharos. Literally one cargo transport worth of slaves could pay for 10 unsuccessful trip with money left to spare. There is little demand in the Stellar Federation, but zero supply. They can just charge what ever they want as the sole provider.
\n\n “Any suggestions on stopping it?” Commander Silpurr, the XO, asked.
\n\n Jesper shakes his head, “That’s the main reason I came to the Federation. Without your help working with the other Non-Alligned Worlds, we can’t bring Pharos and other worlds like Pharos into compliance. They are using you as a loophole. No one in the NAW even really likes Pharos that much. They cost everyone huge amounts of money when they do get their slaves onto our worlds to bring them up to compliance with local standards. Their slaves get sicker faster and have more medical issues. The only reason they make these kinds of slaves is because they are comparatively cheap. You will never end slavery through force or even declaring it illegal. Help us make it a financial disaster for them to keep this up, that’s what will stop them.”
\n\n “That makes sense,” he hears someone say.
\n\n
\n\n “Back to the lecture. One can tell these systems apart by two basic features: Regulation and Healthcare. Pharos has neither, Aslan has the former, Amaranth has both. If you don’t understand how this makes a difference, if you found up your taxes went up because your neighbor has been hitting their slave, you will be more then just morally taken aback. This is also part of the reason why we outlawed the use of Chimera laborers.”
\n\n “Why is that?” Lt. Cmdr. Midnight asked.
\n\n “Human goes to hospital, gets patched up by doctor, might get disability payments. Chimera goes to hospital and Vets get to start doing their job. Its more expensive to have us do the patching up. Plus there is the paperwork, as the legal advocates and the first line of slave and chimera law enforcement, we get to do a little investigating and some other fun things.”
\n\n The chakat looks a bit amused, “Such as?”
\n\n “As a Vet acting on behalf of a Chimera and Slave I am allowed to seize property, fine, and arrest without prior court or law enforcement action. I could even sign my own search warrant as long as I submit a probable cause claim to the court before executing my warrant. Granted if I abuse my power the results are more sever for me then with a police officer. Also I only have those authority when a Chimera is involved and in potential danger.”
\n\n “Ever have to do any of that?” Shi asked.
\n\n Jesper sighed and thought for a moment, “Once I did execute my own search warrant. Only time I ever wore my government issued sidearm, actually. Anyone else have questions?”
\n\n Again, he took the few moments of silence to finish off his glass of water and remember where he left off.
\n\n He gestured to the roo girl at his side before continuing, “Here is an example of an Amaranth chimera. High end compared to most of the other worlds with intelligence above even human norms. Her technical class is called Courtesan, a sub class of companion slaves. The name comes from classical to late ancient Greek culture on earth. Their primary role is intellectual companionship and stimulation, not necessarily sexual.”
\n\n “But it seems like she would, ahem, clearly have a sexual component,” a voice came from somewhere in the middle of the group.
\n\n The Vet looked over Kari, large pert breasts, wide hips, it had been a while since he had looked at her like this. She did have the body of a breeder.
\n\n He cleared his throat, “Again she is an offshoot of a companion line. It’s a bit of a tradition that started back on Earth; you have two basic methodologies of control. First is through decreasing the intelligence of the subject, you see this in laborers. Where I come from we view this abhorrent. The other is hormone control. Keep as much of the intelligence as much as possible make them dependent… at least at first.
\n\n This created two basic lines that all chimera have been based off of since. Even Chakats were taken off of a heavily modified war beast taur base, which was based off of the original war beast base, which was based off of a modified companion base, which traces back to some of the first chimera sex slaves on earth. While a Chakat may in behavior have little in common with even the original war beast lines from Earth, it’s there. You simply don’t start from scratch with every new line, your odds of making a mistake become enormous and… well not even Pharos is that evil.”
\n\n A security officer nodded, probably the source of the original question.
\n\n “Courtesan slaves will spend most of the day with their owners as they grow and assist them in their educating and daily lives. Most classes will be attended by both, with the slave taking in facts and figures with all the small details. The owner is then freed up to do abstract creative thinking as the slave acts as a reference source.
\n\n This all leads up to a rapid education system where the two will rely upon one another increasingly over the span of their life. This is now the basis of Amaranth education. Its also the only way we hope that the NAW will eventually be able to stay competitive with the Federation worlds. Between the master and slave, you have one of the most educated workers in known space.”
\n\n “I still don’t see the reason for having them at all,” he heard the young mouse girl he met earlier from medical ask. “Wouldn’t a computer be just as effective?”
\n\n He smiles, she was a cute and always full of questions. “A computer can store and recall information. Without programming it does not intelligently processor convey that information. It’s limited. Now imagine if you had someone you; knew all that you had learned in the past and more. Understood how you thought. A good assistant when you have someone on the surgical table is more effective then someone in a corner looking through medical texts as you wait.”
\n\n “True, but the ‘assistant’ in this case doesn’t have the choice if they want to be there or not,” she countered.
\n\n “Exactly, and that’s the fundamental difference between the NAW and Federation. You believe that Chimera have gone beyond their original design and intention, that they are fundamentally different from the first that were created. We view the creation and existence of Chimera as a selfish exercise by humanity. That Chimera were made by humans to serve a human use, to be tools and pets that assist humanity. Even with the creation of Chakats, you were made to fill a need of your creators.”
\n\n It was Midnight this time that interjected, “They were created after the Gene Wars to help cleanse and rebuild the planet. We were given equal rights with our creators.”
\n\n “I completely understand, but it was still a selfish excursive. The Turners made Chakats because they wanted to prove something. A sign and symbol of the good of genetic engineering, granted, but still selfish self-interest. I am making life so that I feel better about what we have done. It isn’t nearly as far away from what we do as you think.”
\n\n “At a start, yes, but we moved forward from that point. Your slaves don’t.”
\n\n “Don’t they? Look at Pharos, there is your start. Now look at Amaranth, you have a possible end. Even though they are still slaves, I would believe those that come from my home are more content then those then from Pharos. In part because we allow them to be discontent. They are smart enough to think, to reason, to understand their place and see what’s beyond it. It might not be progress to your standards, but you cant say we aren’t making progress.”
\n\n It was Kline this time that interjected, “Small comfort for those on Pharos.”
\n\n Jesper grinned, “Then help us. We have tried what we can, I am here to ask you to work with us on this problem. The rest of the NAW cant clamp down if they keep finding other markets to sell their abused and misused slaves. We could kick them out from the NAW sure, but then without their help we weaken ourselves to you.
\n\n Right now we thing you’re the greater threat then they are, prove us wrong.”
\n\n
\n\n The voice of a vixen comes from in back, “I just figured it out. That roo girl is your courtesan slave. Why else does she respond to you more then the others and hang off your every word. That’s why you told the last ship where to find the cargo transport, YOU set it up!”
\n\n
\n\n Kari cringed a little as Jesper just glared up at Commander Cain. She will be the death of him yet.
\n\n
\n\n “Do you have evidence to support this claim Commander?” Asked Admiral Kline.
\n\n She walked down and passed the Admiral a PADD she had brought in with her. Kline glanced over it and looked through the information before handing it to Jesper.
\n\n It was bits a pieces collected from his Starfleet briefing jacket, classified personnel records, and items sealed under privacy protocols in the ship’s computer. Bill of sale, Registration, and Kari’s genetic profile all from Amaranth. It even contained his birth records with his real last name.
\n\n “These are from my files, illegally obtained though.” Jesper admitted, holding his slave’s hand.
\n\n For the first time Kari spoke, “Um sir… cant we discuss this somewhere privet?”
\n\n
\n\n “Lets go to my office,” Kline said before addressing the rest, “We will finish this meeting after a 30 minute break. Cain, you will not be required to attend the rest of the session.”
\n\n As the Admiral got up the officers once again rose from their seats as he walked down and left the room with Jesper and Kari in tow.
\n\n
\n\n ---
\n\n
\n\n Boyce Kline took a seat in his sizable office behind his desk. Commendations, pictures, gifts, and various objects were on the walls. Clearly despite is relatively young age for an admiral, he had accomplished much.
\n\n After offering both a seat Kline began, “Who wants to start?”
\n\n “Well its all true, but in my defense she did illegally obtain most of that information.”
\n\n “I will deal with her later, for now I want to hear YOUR story… and hers.”
\n\n
\n\n Jesper shifted nervously in his chair, “She is right. She is my property and Courtesan slave. I did arrange to have her transported into Federation space, and I did make sure the frigate would be in the area. Also, her name is Kari.”
\n\n Boyce leaned back and rubbed his temples, “go on.”
\n\n “The captain asked if I knew one of the shipping corridors Pharos uses to smuggle slaves into the Federation. I gave her the location and arranged to have Kari on one of the less… rickety transport ships used. I had nothing to do with the other slaves being transported though.”
\n\n “And why did you want Kari on a transport into the Federation?”
\n\n The roo girl just smiled, “Isn’t it obvious?”
\n\n “No.”
\n\n She grinned and practically pulled Jesper out of his chair in a hug his head resting against her breasts, “He missed me of course!”
\n\n
\n\n The Admiral chuckled a bit at the two while Jesper just stayed limp in her arms. No way was the Vet going to try and resist an over enthusiastic slave that crush his rib cage in a bear hug.
\n\n “So you two have a personal relationship rather then a normal master/slave relationship?”
\n\n Kari looked a bit confused not understanding, “No, why would you say that? He owns me.”
\n\n Boyce then looked to Jesper who was getting his hair lightly petted by the roo, “This is a normal relationship for a Courtesan slave and their owner.”
\n\n Kline nodded and almost smiled, “I see, if there wasn’t the taint of slavery to it I could see its appeal. Having someone always there for you. I do wonder though, I pray you two will not take offense but I am curious – are these pairings always male/female and is it expected you two would become… intimate?”
\n\n The roo girl blushes and nuzzles her master who replies, “The pairings are by request of the parents, child, or randomly assigned. Its normal for their to be some intimacy. As the slave’s owner, you are responsible for seeing to a number of their needs… one way or another.
\n\n So… does that mean I can keep her?”
\n\n A chuckle came in response, “It would be her choice of weather she wants to stay with you or not.”
\n\n A moment latter Jesper’s face was starting to turn purple as Kari bear hugged him, lifting her master off the ground.
\n\n Kline just watched and commented, “A human writer once said ‘if you love something let it go. If it comes back to you it is yours. If it does not, it never was yours to begin with…’ or something like that.”
\n\n He reached down and lightly touches behind an ear, instantly causing the slave to stop crushing his rib cage and drop him… one of those little tricks some slaves are programmed with. “It helps when that thing doesn’t have the strength to crush your rib cage, sir. Was there anything else?”
\n\n “No, that’s all for now, dismissed.”
\n\n
\n\n -----
\n\n
\n\n End Part I
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