The Windmines of Bora Bora

'A one-way ticket to hell', as it was known among Yaiciz's slave population. No one came back from the windmines. Of all the places Ivan had planned never to end up, Bora Bora was third on the list, right behind being returned to the tender care of his sister Anya, and going back to being a pet of some other batshit crazy Quetzal relative of his.

He used the continued hold up behind him to scan the vast expanse of the landing field for some chance of escape. Not that he expected one to materialise. That would have been a miracle, worthy of an investigation from that stupid Church TV show. There was plenty of heavy machinery and vehicles hauling cargo all over the place with a fitting assortment of workers in all sorts of corporation duds. But it was all well organised chaos, with plenty of light from huge floodlights illuminating the dim Yaiciz afternoon. A flock of Mikkti, the ever-present flying vermin of Yaiciz, perched on a stack of containers nearby, hungrily eyeing the slaves and screeching at each other. The BoBoMECs watching over them were bored, but vigilant. Even if Ivan hadn't been chained to the dead weight of more than fifty other slaves, he would have bet against himself when it came to escaping.

So apparently, he would have to be the first slave to make it off Bora Bora alive. Ivan gritted his teeth in angry determination. Fuck Anya. He wouldn't let her win.

"Fuck! FUCK!" The BoBoMEC behind him was still beating the cowering slave.

God knew what kind of personal frustration he was trying to get out of his system, but his colleagues finally seemed to realise that they wouldn't get anywhere if that one slave got beaten to death. Plus they would lose their bonus for delivering all of them alive. Two of them intervened by pulling their pal off the slave and the slave back to his feet. Some well applied prods from the stun batons got the line moving again, shuffling towards the open maw of the cargo shuttle.

Ivan noticed how each of the slaves hesitated for a just a moment before stepping inside. All of them were aware of what fate awaited them on Bora Bora – back-breaking work until they were used up and died. None of them balked, though. None of them broke down crying or begged for mercy. They had all been slaves long enough to either have their spirits crushed entirely or know that there was no mercy to be found for the likes of them. Being sent to the windmines meant that you were good for nothing else any more. Or maybe some of them had managed to get a dose of Soma, the ubiquitous drug that was handed out more or less for free here on Yaiciz, and had dulled their sense of self to the point that they were nothing but meat robots, at least until the drug wore off again.

Once again, heartfelt hatred for his sister welled up in him. Her and the cold-hearted system that she and her ilk perpetuated.

Yes, he was a runaway slave who had successfully evaded capture for the better part of a year. But he was still good-looking under all the grime and slave tattoos and, at not even twenty years of age, he should have been worth enough to spare him this trip to the mines. He snarled soundlessly. He knew he had Anya to thank for this. Like every time one of his gang got arrested, the other members had tried to bribe the security officers who'd picked him up. But for the first time, their generous offer had been denied, along with the information that Countess Anya Quetzal herself had ordered Ivan deported to Bora Bora. At least his boys had been allowed a last visit to explain that it wasn't their fault.

Keeping his head down, Ivan stepped inside the shuttle. The interior was dim, only a little light filtering in through the open hatch, but it wasn't hard to find his way, He just followed the pull of the chains on his wrists until he all but stumbled over the slaves in front of him, already sitting down on the bare, metal floor. There was just enough room to fit the slaves in without crushing anyone. Certainly not enough space to maintain anything like personal space, unwashed bodies pressed against each other. The air inside seemed even worse than the incessant smog of Yaiciz outside.

Once everyone was loaded up, the shuttle hatch closed with the audible whine of machinery that only received minimum maintenance, plunging the human cargo into near complete darkness. Moments later, the shuttle's engine grumbled to life.

Ivan had been on enough such transports to know to brace himself for the lift-off. He pulled his knees up and wrapped his arms around them, putting his head down on top. Others around him were apparently less experienced – cries of surprise and pain rose as bodies jostled against each other. Ivan tried his best to ignore his travel companions, but it was hard when one toppled against him, painfully poking him in the side with an emaciated, sharp elbow.

With a low curse, Ivan pushed away from the other slave. He was lucky enough to be near one of the corrugated steel walls. With that at his back, he felt a little safer, if not more comfortable. Then again, nobody expected a cheap freighter bringing freshly acquired slaves to the windmines to be comfortable.

The only light in the cargo bay came from a tiny emergency bulb above the cargo hatch. In the dull red glow, Ivan could make out huddled shapes, a pile of lost lives if there ever had been one.

The air grew staler and damper with every minute, full of the stench of unwashed men and human excrement. Probably, the crew had switched off the life-support for the cargo bay, Ivan mused. The trip to Bora Bora would take less than an hour, no point in wasting fresh air on slaves. Anything that cut into profit was to be avoided. That tenet of the creed from the Duke of Yaiciz had filtered down to everyone living on the planet. Especially the corporations and guilds who paid high taxes in exchange for the right to operate on a planet with virtually no restrictions on how they ran their businesses.

All of a sudden, searingly bright light filled the cargo bay, inciting howls of outrage and pain from the slaves. Blinking through tearing eyes, Ivan realised that the cargo bay had long, narrow windows after all, and that they had just entered the day side of Yaiciz's moon, the unfiltered sunlight blinding after the long darkness.

Slowly, his eyes got used to the light, and the shapeless creatures sharing his prison turned into people. Men of all ages, all of them ragged and dirty, hunched over with the dead look in their eyes of those who had abandoned all hope. Many were injured, cuts and bruises only cared for in the cheapest way possible, so they wouldn’t bleed on the floor or die in transit.

Grimacing at the sight, Ivan wished for the darkness to return.

But the sunlight kept streaming into the freighter, casting long, slanted rays through the windows. Searching for anything to look at that did not fill him with anger, Ivan found himself staring at an especially dirty man a few slaves up the chain in disgusted fascination. Wearing nothing but a soiled, mud-crusted tunic and pants frazzling at the knees, his hair and beard an indistinguishable thicket of filthy hair, the guy looked less like a slave and more like some homeless, drunkard and beggar. The guy even smelled bad enough to stand out in a cell full of unwashed slaves.

Only when he cracked Ivan a smile of bright yellow teeth, did Ivan manage to look away. He couldn’t say for sure, but he had the vague suspicion that the weird guy had also winked at him seductively. That, really, was a new low even for Ivan’s pretty miserable standards.