Kela shivered in fear as she huddled naked on the floor of the holding cell in the Asikiwa craft.

They had captured her with matter transmission technology and stripped her of everything before locking her in this cold, white room reminiscent of a refrigerator interior.

She had been flying her ship towards as safe area in the Telfia system, having narrowly escaped destruction by an Asikiwa patrol craft.

Both Eladia and Alida were injured in the attack, though Kela did not know how bad.

Tears blurred her eyes. She never asked for this. Cellen had used her like a puppet, drawing Asikiwa attention from her and onto Kela.

Kela did not know a whole lot about the reptilian Asikiwa but she had heard rumors and tales of how they either ate or changed thier captives into horrible slave beasts.

She believed that the former was her fate for what she did was not anything short of a major attack, its actions freeing 10,000 captives and leaving Riefan open to occupation by the ACDF and others.

It was so cold in here. Her hands and feet hurt, numbed. She shivered more violently as the cold spread through her body.

Kela had thought of death before, in the Teshin prison, more than once. But never as strongly as this. She was tired, the cold making her lethargic. She dozed off suddenly and lowered her head, sleeping.

********************************************************

An unknowable amount of time later, she was awakened by a swift kick to her side with a clawed foot.

Extremely hot and searing pain erupted all over her right side as its claws pierced her flesh.

Kela gasped in sharp pain and suprise.

An Asikiwa in green wraps that covered most of it, placed a bowl of something hot and a wooden spoon on a tray before her. It also put down a clear jug of water with them.

"Eat, warm. Die soon," it said in a gravelly not quite voice. It spun on unseen feet and left the room, the doorway shut by the wall, which seemed to flow over the portal like water.

Kela sobbed in pain and fear. Blood now soaked her painful right side. She couldn't bring herself to eat. Die soon, it said. She felt so stupid. She should never have listened to Cellen.

Kela could no longer curl up due to her side. Cold seemed to crush her in its painful embrace.

Shivering and teary, she picked up the spoon and shakily dipped it into the soupy stew. Large chunks of unfamiliar vegetables and stringy meat rose to the surface of the thick gruel.

It smelled good. Spicy, not unlike Cristalian food, which Kela normally loved.

But the meat.....Asikiwa ate people, so said everyone. Could this be meat from some unfortunate soul? The thought made Kela ill.

An Asikiwa voice spoke from seemingly nowhere. "Eat food. You need. Meat is not from person, is from animal. Eat."

Kela wished they would just kill her and be done with it. She dipped the spoon in and took some soup up with a few vegetables and a piece of meat. She carefully put it in her mouth.

It tasted really good. As if she had told them what she liked, which she had not.

She slowly ate the rest and drank some water, suddenly aware that there was no bathroom in here. She hoped that she wouldn't have to go before they got to wherever they were taking her.

A sudden drowsiness struck her. Her body felt numb all over and she went slack despite the stiffness from the cold. She had been drugged, she realized but lost her grip on consciousness and slumped against the wall, unknowingly drooling on herself.

********************************************************

The pain in her side woke her from a dreamless sleep.

Much to her shock, she was laying in a bed, thick micropore bandages covering what she knew to be 4 nasty puncture wounds from when the Asikiwa kicked her.

She was still naked and had to pee. She sat up stiffly and looked around. She was in a simple room with a couple of tables, a dresser and a wallscreen, currently showing an odd game being played by uniformed creatures like the Asikiwa but smaller and differently proportioned.

Even Kela knew who they were, the semi-sentient Kerewa, horrible soldiers of the Great Asikiwa. They did eat people almost exclusively. But this seemed to be a delayed broadcast from another planet according to the graphics and broadcast quality.

She saw an open door and a tile floor beyond, no doubt a bathroom. She shakily got up, holding her side, which felt as if she had been shot. It hurt with each movement.

Kela walked across the cold floor, noticing the open window near the door. She looked outside to see a grassy field and a groundcar road beyond a couple of alien trees.

The sky was a clear blue and it felt warm outside.

What was this?

Her body reminded her of her need to go. She went into the bathroom and saw no toilet, but a tile lined hole in the floor like a tiny toilet bowl.

She had seen this before. Some Teshin facilities had these.

Kela cringed as she lowered herself and proceeded to go.

At this moment, a hologram appeared befor her, startling her. It was of a creature she had never seen before. It had grey feathers and a short, rounded body with a naked beakless head wih large eyes. Its legs and feet were not unlike Alida's.

"I see that you are awake," it said in a pleasant genderless voice.

Kela blushed and tried to cover what she was doing. "Um, do you normally interrupt private moments?"

The bird creature scoffed. "Urination is not a private moment. You can forget any privacy you thought you had. Your life will end soon and it will no longer be a concern of yours."

Kela finished and jumped when something sprayed warm water on her like a bidet. She blushed even more, noticing that the holographic bird creature watched her intently. "Who are you?"

"I am Melen, an Altiki ghost maintained to break the bad news to others that will share what I went through."

Kela slowly stood up and Melen chittered wih obvious laughter.

"A female. The Asikiwa hate humanoid females so. I imagine they have something special planned for you."

Kela became angry. "Where am I?"

"You are in a habitat in orbit around Hemetia. This habitat was built by what was once known as the Farmers' Alliance."

Kela walked back into the room slowly, the holo-Altiki following her. "Do I have anything to wear?"

"In the drawers are clothing. Pick what suits you best but mind that you will die in it."

Kela looked at it. "Die? Why? Why go to the trouble when they could simply bite me or break my neck?"

It chittered. "You did something to them, female. They want you to suffer before you die."

Kela opened one of the drawers, finding a white body suit and underwear. She pulled these out and had to sit on the bed to put them on.

It was agony bending over to put on the socks and shoes also in the drawer. She managed to put it all on and wiped tears from her eyes. It hurt so.

Melen walked to her. "You are scared?"

She nodded. "Yes."

"Good," it said.

She swung at it with her left hand but her fist passed through photons and air without resistance.

It chittered even louder. "You sad creature. Why don't you sit down and pray like most do? Not that it helps in the end."

Kela shook her head. It was trying to break her. She learned how not to let it get to her in the Teshin prison. "Why did they kill you, Melen?," she suddenly asked.

Melen flushed a reddish skin color. It looked different from Alii Kel, the Altiki hologram that helped control her ship. Like Kel was an older version of this more evolved creature. "I was captured from my crippled ship during the Teshin Civil War. They incorrectly blamed me for the deaths of a million Kerewa. I actually killed eighteen million of the beastly things." Was it boasting? Sounded a lot like it.

Kela scoffed. "I didn't do any such thing."

"On the contrary, my dear. You are responsible for the deaths of 137 Asikiwa and the destruction of thier expensive warcraft. A heavier crime by far."

Kela shook her head. "I didn't kill them, well, not 137 of them or blew up thier ship, the ACDF did that."

Melen imitated her head shaking. "To them, you are responsible. If it were not for you, the ACDF would not have had the opportunity or ability to destroy that ship. Therefore, it falls all on you."

Kela looked down at her white clad legs. "What will they do to me?"

Melen pointed to the wallscreen with a sad looking, frail wing-arm. "Look at the last one that suffered this fate, just this morning."

Kela looked to see a Teshin female being led in chains to a wooden chair by an Asikiwa clad in red wraps.

It retrained her to the chair with thick leather bands and removed the chains.

The female was crying, tears leaving streaks on her face. Then a look of utter terror came over her.

The Asikiwa returned with a kinetic circular saw, its blade polished to a mirror finish and a fine edge. It buzzed as the Asikiwa started it.

It then swiftly placed it on the Teshin's left arm, the blade easily slicing into it with laser precision. reddish blood and ichor was sprayed out but contained by a guard on the saw that dripped bloody red.

The Teshin female screamed. Her left arm gone from just below the elbow. It bled profusely.

The camera POV turned to the Asikiwa as it stripped the flesh from her arm and tossed it to what looked like a creche of juvenile Kerewa, who fought over and tore it apart, gobbling each up with drooling jaws and needle teeth.

The camera followed the Asikiwa as it returned to the Teshin female, who was starting to go pale. She screamed for mercy.

If the Asikiwa understood her, it seemed not to pay any mind because it then used the saw to cut both her legs off.

Blood gushed from the wounds into a trough below the wooden chair.

The Teshin female was dying of blood loss and shock.

The Asikiwa carefully and quite swiftly turned the saw aside and sliced off her head, catching it in a clawed three digit hand.

Blood was everywhere, making Kela sick to her stomach. The female's body was summarily cut up by another Asikiwa while the one with her head dipped it into an acrylic preserving cast.

The rest of the body was skinned and fed to the little Kerewa, who were in a frenzy of teeth, blood and claws.

Kela watched in horror as the other Asikiwa collected the skin and took it to be processed into something. "Oh, oh, that's horrible," she whispered.

Melen chittered. "Merciful compared what they do to Altiki. Yes, you will become food for those young beasts. Your skin will be made into mats for those Kerewa to sleep on and your head will be in a museum of killed criminals, which the Hated....ah, Asikiwa seem to enjoy."

Kela felt a new and crushing dread. "You allow them to do this?"

"What can I do? I've been dead for 2,378 years. I'm nothing more than an animated shadow now. I would help if I could but I cannot."

Kela looked at the floor. Afraid.

********************************************************

About an hour later, the red clad Asikiwa came in and siezed her. It locked her in the chains and yanked on them, making her stumble and fall, crying out in utter pain.

It hauled her upright and cuffed her on her left cheek, scratching it with its hand claws.

Kela cried out and was pulled outside, to the wooden chair.

The little Kerewa jumped as if happy to see her.

Kela saw the kinetic saw on a stool, freshly cleaned. As the Asikiwa pulled her along, she acted on a spur of the moment decision. She would not die alone.

She spun out of the Asikiwa's grasp, grabbing the saw and starting it by slapping its control face.

The Asikiwa snarled as she fumbled with the unwieldy shaped saw. It reached out to crush her head.

Kela swung the saw with practised grace and it sliced into the Asikiwa's arm.

It roared and rose up to kill her.

A yellow white plasmic pulse tore into its face, bursting its entire head, showering Kela with its dark red blood and grey brain matter.

The Asikiwa crashed down to the ground, dead.

Kela whirled to see a Laneran female ACDF officer in grey and blue camo fatigues approaching her with a plasmic rifle.

"Drop the saw! I'm here to save you!" she yelled.

Shocked by this surreal ordeal, Kela dropped the saw and it died as soon as it left her hand. it clanged to the ground, its blade breaking apart.

The litte Kerewa cried out shrilly.

The Laneran came to Kela and used a laser cutter to free her. "My name is Rikki. I came after you when the Asikiwa took you."

Kela shook with adrenaline and fear. "M.m...me?"

Rikki pulled a plasmic grenade from a pocket and clicked it on. She deftly rolled it around in the Asikiwa's blood and tossed it among the Kerewa, who lept upon it and were vaporized in a wash of white-hot plasmic fire.

Kela nervously laughed.

Rikki took her by the hand. "Come on." They hurried across a field to where a pearl colored ACDF attack ship sat. Rikki let her go and ran inside, to the pilot area.

Kela collapsed on the metal floor in the crew area as the ship lifted off and the ramp door closed.

A sudden gush of wind came from below, then abruptly stopped.

There was an ear cracking boom from outside and intertia from the ship's thrust pulled Kela across the floor, leaving a messy trail of blood, some of it the Asikiwa's but most of it her own from her side.

********************************************************

Kela awoke on her own bed in her ship. Her side was tender but a quick check showed that it had been healed.

Her face hurt from where the Asikiwa had hit her. She could feel the bandage on it. She gingerly touched it and that stung fiercely.

She hoped that she wasn't scarred.

She wore her normal sleep shirt and her yellow hair was tied back neatly.

She got up and went to the door, which opened and she saw nobody in the ship.

"Hello?," she called.

No answer.

Then Kel appeared before her in holo form. "Ms. Kela. The others have been taken to a safe location. They are all safe."

Kela frowned. "Why? I'm alone here?"

"Not exactly. I'm here too. The ship is following an R-Class ACDF ship to a place called QM-418, in the Commonwealth. I do not know why but I believe we are going to a meeting."

Kela sighed. "I need some time alone, Kel."

It nodded. "I understand. Being captive of the Hated is never a good thing. Call me if you need me." Kel vanished.

Kela looked down. A tear dripped down her face. "Why me?," she whispered to herself. She went back to her bed, laying on it to cry.

This is part of a handwritten story that will not appear (because this chapter is from Rikki's POV)

� 13 March 2004 Gregory Thompson