The silver and blue-accented interface flashed red and reset itself to the default page again. Kenzie muttered a series of expletives that would make a sailor blush and slapped the smooth screen, causing it to short out completely and go black.

She’d slowly been learning how to use the various instruments and machines in the decked-out medical bay for the last six months, but had barely begun to scratch the surface. It had taken at least half of that time to get everything swapped from Nessik to English so she could even understand it. At least she thought it was Nessik; she didn’t really care either way. There were too many languages to keep track of, and she thanked the Lord every day that Eli had the good sense to give them all neural translators after coming aboard The Helgafell. 

In the two years… was it two years? She’d been floating around the system, bought and sold and bought again; she’d never been anywhere long enough to learn any one language to any degree, to her own detriment.

Every single creature out here speaks a different language… how does anyone learn anything?

Eli, however, was fluent in multiple languages, so much so that he hadn’t even comprehended anyone else’s need for translation. He’d just popped his head in one day, three months after he’d bought her and stuck her in a white lab coat, and apologised for not having changed it earlier. 

The thought had never even crossed his mind until she’d brought it up. 

After that, he’d disappeared down to another backwater planet and had come back with a box full of neural translators, which he’d taught her how to properly implant into everyone. The gladiators and slaves alike now had them, though she felt it was wasted on the gladiators. 

A mere slip of the mind to him had been life-altering for her. She’d spent two years being linguistically isolated, with the few other humans she’d encountered being foreign. 

Anyway, it was no longer a problem and practically unnecessary since most of the slaves Eli had been bringing aboard were all English-speaking Earthlings. 

He liked humans and seemed to be filling his ship with as many as he could find to emulate home. 

She couldn’t blame him for that, but she could blame him for a lot.

The collar around her neck itched at the very thought of him, but she refrained from touching it or trying to scratch the itch. She’d seen people’s heads pop off when they tried to fiddle with it. 

Not people… Aliens. 

Non-human creatures from other planets. 

The whole notion was still unbelievable, even as she stood on a spaceship, in space, surrounded by unimaginable, futuristic technology, and actual non-human beings she couldn’t have imagined in her wildest dreams. 

The worst trip in the history of bad trips. 

She drummed her fingers on the desk and stared down at the blank screen, willing it to wake back up and do what she needed. 

What she needed was to create a fresh supply of supplement-filled capsules to give to each of the Gladiators on Eli’s new roster. If she couldn’t get it to work, she’d have to create them by hand, which was tedious. Each Gladiator was a different species, and each species had different nutritional needs.

You got this. 

She let out a long breath and tapped the screen again to wake it up. 

Fake it till you make it. 

“How’s it going?”

Mary’s voice was timid and light from the double doorway Kenzie hadn’t heard slide open. 

She peeked around the frame, pressed up against it like a scared child rather than a thirty-something-year-old woman. Red-haired, blue-eyed, freckled, pale, and all skinny limbs. 

A strong wind could blow her over. 

Not that there was any wind in space, but the alien fighters on the lower deck could break her in half with one hand. 

Kenzie found her to be a meek, weak-minded person, and while she was glad to have humans around her again, she didn’t particularly like Mary.

“About as well as usual,” Kenzie said in a controlled, nonchalant tone. “I just haven’t learned enough about this tech yet to make it work properly.” 

It was looking more and more like she’d have to sort out the supplements by hand. For that, she needed the exact recipes for each individual alien. 

Which were all saved on the interface. 

Somewhere. 

“What are you working on?”

Kenzie chewed on her tongue for a moment before answering, and Mary took that opportunity to slip into the med bay, but she stayed flush up against the wall. 

Grow a fucking spine… 

“I need to create a starter batch of supplements for the… fighters. But all the information I need is saved on the computer somewhere, and I just don’t know how to find it.” She said with a heavy sigh. 

Mary had quietly walked along the wall right up to her station without her realising it while she was talking, and now stood next to her, looking down at the screen. 

“Well, I suppose that information would be in their profiles, right?” 

Kenzie blinked? 

“What?”

“Their profiles,” Mary said again. “Each man has his own profile. It should have all of his medical information collected from the Biovex scanner thing, and should have a running analysis of their ongoing health and performance, updated after each scan.” She tapped the screen and opened a menu, then tapped it a couple of more times, and Thrago’s image came up along with all of his information. 

Just like that. 

Kenzie blinked. 

“How… how did you do that? How did you know that?” She was at a complete loss. She’d been fucking with this thing for weeks, and this idiot had pulled up what she needed without even using the specific machine before. 

Maybe she was the idiot here, not Mary. 

Mary smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I was a software engineer back home. Computers and code are kinda my jam.”

Kenzie let out a long, controlled breath and drummed her fingers on the desk. She needed to reevaluate everything that had just gone through her mind regarding Mary. 

Mary was useful.

What had she called the scanner? A Biovex? That was the first time she’d heard the word, but it did feel familiar. Maybe she’d read it somewhere on the interface and hadn’t registered it. 

You’re smashing it, Kenzie. 

“Ok,” she said. “I need you to show me that again. Slowly, this time. I need to get these supplements made before Eli gets back.” 

She smiled and started tapping on the screen with both hands, and Kenzie moved out of the way. 

“We should probably prepare a blank profile for the new guy they’re bringing aboard,” Mary said without looking up. Her fingers flew over the interface like she’d been using it her entire life, rather than one hot minute.

“New guy?” Kenzie asked. “They’re bringing in another one?”

“Yep,” Mary said. “Both bosses get four fighters. Eli’s gone down to that smelly slave planet to find his fourth. Evidently Crayton already has all of his.” She muttered that last bit, like she was afraid anyone would hear her say the name. Crayton. Kenzie couldn’t fault her for that. 

Whatever hatred she had for Eli, she’d take him over Crayton any day of the week. He was a breath of fresh air and downright lovable in comparison. 

The bar was in hell, but still. 

“I didn’t realise…” Kenzie started. 

Another one? God dammit. 

It was depressing and frustrating all at once.

She had her hands full with the three lumbering assholes toddling around beneath them, all three raised and brainwashed to believe that fighting to death in a Roman-style colosseum was their life’s purpose.

How long until one of them raped her to death and ate her corpse? Or worse? Was there worse?

“Yeeup,” Mary said, and a panel on the wall beside the interface opened up, and three little trays appeared, each with several colourful capsules inside. One tray for each alien. 

Thrago’s had the most.

“The upside to serving upstairs is I get to listen in on what’s happening. Eli is already on his way back with his new guy. He’s not happy, if you know what I mean, so I needed to make myself scarce.”

“Did everyone else make themselves scarce?” Kenzie asked. There were five of them so far; humans serving Captain Eli. Or Master Eli. Or whatever. 

“That is unknown information,” she said matter-of-factly and turned away from the screen to face her. 

“You don’t like me very much,” she said bluntly. 

Kenzie stuttered. “That’s not… No, I—”

“No, it’s true,” she said, a little sterner. “I see the way you treat Alan, Raj, and Diya. You don’t like me.” She gestured to the interface. “Just don’t forget who helped you with this, and can help you more in the future. I don’t know everything about this stuff, but I know more than you.”

She took a step forward, and it was the most… non-meek thing she’d seen the woman do. “Just don’t forget we all came from the same place. We’re all humans, from Earth, here together. You might be the doctor, but your collar is just as tight as mine. I set up a new profile; it should be synced with the Biovex. All you need to do is put in the name when you put the guy on the gurney for his initial scan. Friends?”

She held her hand out to Kenzie for a handshake, and she stared down at it for a long second, bewildered, before finally taking it. 

Her hands were smooth, as if she’d never done a day’s labour in her life. 

“I’m… sorry, if I made you feel—”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said and let go. “This isn’t exactly a conventional situation. I’m still not fully convinced I’m not in a drug-induced coma somewhere.”

Kenzie had to fight not to smile, but she lost. “It would be a lie to say I don’t wonder the same thing every morning.” 

“Yeeeeah, look at that, we’re already bonding. Up high, new bestie,” she put her hand up for a high five, but before Kenzie could even contemplate the silliness of it, a distant clang reverberated through the massive ship, and Mary’s hand fell away, and what little colour she had in her face drained away.

Eli’s shuttle. 

“I think that’s my cue to disappear for the foreseeable future. This place has, like, a hundred rooms all decked out like a fucking hotel. I’m sure some of them need to be cleaned. Very far from here”

She didn’t wait for an answer or even say goodbye. She disappeared as quickly and quietly as she’d appeared, and Kenzie took a deep, shuddering breath.

They were bringing another one aboard. 

As much as she feared them and what they might do to her, the three Eli had were absolutely tame compared to the ones Crayton had caged up right now. 

Hopefully, this new one would be the same.