Introduction

 

Amie groaned as a spike of pain rode up her hamstrings. She had been in the stocks all day, bent over with her naked tail in the air. The marine officer beside her saw the agony on her face and frowned sympathetically.

She closed her eyes. She didn't want his sympathy she wanted him to END THIS IMMEDIATELY! He had the authority--he was a general or something--with a single word, a single wave of his hand he could stop this. More importantly, he could save her from what was to come.

She licked her full lips in invitation. She would show her gratitude with her body. There was nothing wrong with exchanging one favor for another. But the look in his eyes said no, he wasn't going to intercede. Pain was the principal currency on the ark nowadays; it was a natural part of their lives. Why would he pardon her?

He stood up and slowly replaced the ladle in the water bucket then stepped off the platform. She whimpered piteously then showed her tongue. What other weapon did she have other than her looks, her sex? They were going to whip her soon; they were going to set her ass and legs on fire with horrendous strips of leather. She began to shudder again causing her burning muscles to cramp even more painfully.

A single word from him and this horror would end ... a single word.

The other men who had stopped by the platform had leered at her. Their hooded eyes had violated her long body, lingered on her tits and nipples then moved down to her cheeks, to her full and exposed lips. One marine had stood nearby drooling, his spittle running unnoticed down his chin. She had tried to ignore him but his eyes were terrifying, insane with desire.

The officer was different. He had not leered, only admired. She could sense the strength in him, the restraint ... the power. For a moment, she forgot the pain and the fear and imagined his hands touching her naked body, pressing on her flesh, his tongue in her mouth, his cock in her cunt. It was an outrageous fantasy, but she needed a fantasy at this moment. She needed to be distracted. The stocks multiplied the terror of the whipping to come.

Her body shuddered. She tried to hide it, but it was impossible to hide anything in this position. A marine standing nearby noticed her trembling and pointed it out to his friends. They all laughed. She closed her eyes as humiliation swept over. Slaves were not supposed to feel humiliation, but she wasn't a slave yet, at least not in her heart.

She cursed her weakness. She wanted to be brave, to face her punishment with courage, but the stocks had sapped her spirit. She had seen other girls immobilized this way and whipped. Their awful screams seemed to penetrate to the brain's core. Their twitching bodies seemed to express the impossibility of their suffering. The pain was everything to them, but they had no power to over it, no control.

The officer had spoken to her. He had asked her what she had done to be punished so harshly. She had looked into his eyes then answered submissively without thinking.

"It's too shameful to repeat, Master, but I deserve to suffer for what I did."

She cringed with the memory. How could she have said that? She didn't deserve to suffer not like this, not like a piece of unfeeling meat. What she really wanted to do was to scream at him to tell him that she didn't deserve this, any of it, that no one deserved this ... that no one had the right...

"It's almost over for you," he said casually glancing at the setting sun. "Just a quick whipping and it will be over. A few minutes of pain to pay for what it was you did..."

Just a quick whipping...! Did he understand the effect of leather on bare skin, on a woman's bare skin? Did he have any conception of the mental explosions the whip caused? Of course not ... he was a man, a Master. He was one of those who held the whip not one of those who were kissed by it. There was a difference. To him, her pain was an object lesson, a reminder of her submission, a natural part of her slavery.

Incredibly, she had batted her eyelashes and shaken her bare ass provocatively at his words. Was she insane ... from the pain? She twisted her body trying to find an answer when she felt a slippery wetness between her legs.

She had come... Just being near him in these circumstances had caused her to come. She felt a wave of wilting shame then, surprisingly, excitement. She glanced up at his retreating back once again. He had not turned around. He had already dismissed her.

In a moment of sudden panic she thought about calling after him before he was out of hearing range. She would beg--appeal to his intelligence, to his humanity. She would offer herself to him--hold out her mouth and ass and cunt as payment ... her entire body for his pleasure if only he would help her.

But she stayed silent knowing it was useless. He was one of them, one of the Masters. He set the rules. Men like him now controlled the ark. They had no absolute concept of right and wrong anymore; for them, it was all about strength.

In a few seconds, he had moved too far away to hear. Out of the corner of her eye, she spied the whip-master walking towards the platform. A small crowd of onlookers was moving in closer. They were quiet now anticipating the excitement to come from her suffering.

Perhaps there's still time for me, Amie thought desperately. Perhaps the whip-master needs to prepare ... a few more minutes ... a few more seconds. She glanced up again in panic. The officer had stopped and turned back towards the platform. She could feel his eyes on her, watching her, judging her.

***

Colonel Jacobs looked back at the girl on the whipping platform. The whip-master was unfurling his flogger, exercising his arm. He felt sorry for her, but he was also sure her punishment was deserved ... and necessary. The detainees they kept in the MZ (Military Zone) were a willful and spirited lot. It was bred into them by the Genetics Department. No one wanted a race of zombies, the breeding ensured they were intelligent and ... and beautiful. Unfortunately, it also made them willful. Discipline was essential for their survival.

Beautiful ... they were all gorgeous, all foxes in their own way. But even in an ark full of beautiful women, this one was exceptional--tall, slender, with a tiny waist and pointed tits, and long, long legs. Her face and mane of thick hair had brought on an unusual erection in him.

He knew part of his interest in her was her unusual looks. All the girls on the ark were beautiful in their own way. They were the refined product of genetic engineering--natural creatures, foxes.

The man pulled back his arm and brought all of the strands down hard on the back of her legs. Her screams were loud and healthy. The stocks allowed some body movement, but not enough to move her ass and legs out of his target zone. He followed the first swipe with a quick second and a third. He could see her lungs heaving, her nostrils flaring; she was desperately trying to breathe through the pain. A group of men were watching, unmoved by her agony.

We are all savages at the core, he thought, all affected by pain and pleasure. He imagined those long legs wrapped around his back and felt a wave of sexual excitement course though his body. He turned away and continued towards the headquarters building. He didn't want his men to see him like this.

Still, she was hard to forget. Perhaps he would look into her situation. Many of the men in the MZ had "sponsored" women detainees, putting them to work in their homes. Maybe this was something he should consider. The military was a lonely life especially when one bore the demands of command.

Her screams followed him inside. Over the next few days they echoed in his mind turning his casual idea into a full-blown obsession.

 

Chapter 1

 

It started in a neighborhood tavern. Men were drinking, talking ... voicing their anger and frustration. One voice was more intense than the other. It wasn't particularly loud, but it began to attract attention. Others stopped talking to listen then moved closer straining to hear.

The man speaking so convincingly was in his forties, average looking with one notable exception--his eyes burned with a fierce determination. Some later described them as mad. It didn't matter almost everyone who listened was affected.

He spoke about the major issue of the time--the alliance between the Bridge and the Finders. How it was unfair to the villages, how it brought them such great shame, how it violated common decency and the Ark's Articles of Colonization.

"Protecting the Finder savages who enslave our men and women is as much a crime as the enslavement itself," he hissed fiercely. "There is no possible justification for it. There is no possible excuse."

The room, normally full of boisterous men, was deathly quiet as he spoke. Men nodded in agreement as his voice grew in fervor. For years, the Finders had been tolerated because they did the dangerous work of exploring the deep caves for water, but the villagers didn't like them. They were different and over time grew even more alien. Most people believed they had been afflicted with a kind of madness in the deep caves, that they had turned savage in the dark lonely stretched of empty caverns.

Now they were stealing their young women, kidnapping them, sometimes taking the men as well. The villagers took slaves themselves now in retaliation and not just Finders but those villagers the Finders had enslaved. Even the Bridge was taking slaves now. They called them detainees, but they were slaves. Their entire world had been turned upside down and it had all started with the Finders. They were to blame.

As he spoke, the anger grew. But it wasn't just the man's words or his logic; it was the way he touched their feelings and long-held values. He drew power from their most profound emotions especially from their unspoken fears.

At some point, he paused dramatically and looked around the room, locking onto each man's eyes. The men were hypnotized. Only then did he talk about the need to unify, to fight back ... to avenge the great wrongs inflicted on them by the Finders and the Bridge, to turn their lives back to the way they had been before...

The primal cheers of the crowd confirmed their support.

It was time to speak the unspeakable. He talked about extermination claiming it was the only way they could survive, the only way they could return the ark to it "sacred mission," the only way to restore pride to the villages. It was their duty as colonists to hunt down and destroy these vermin. All talk of water exploration was pushed aside; this was not the time for logic or reason.

By the time he was finished, the crowd was a mob. Men flowed out onto the dark streets enraged. He held them back, turning their rage down to a simmer.

"We need an organization," he shouted. "Nothing can be done until our numbers are overwhelming."

They listened and accepted the wisdom of his appeal, accepted his leadership. In a few months, he had given this same message in a hundred villages, always leaving behind a hardcore of his most fervent supporters to continue to organize, to stoke the villagers' anger.

The organization he eventually created was called the Colonial Federation for Justice, the CFJ. He took the modest title of secretary. His name was Andres Burgoyne.

***

Jodi screamed as the belt struck the inside of her thighs, but only the sound of a muffled grunt reached her ears. She hated the hood and the leather gag that filled her mouth. Screaming should always be part of her punishment, she thought. It established the extent her pain. Without it, her Master couldn't weigh her suffering against her offense.

Her offense...! It really wasn't much of a crime. She had laughed at one of the new slaves, taunted the girl for her clumsiness, laughed at her new-slave terror. It was wrong but not unusual. New slaves were always ridiculed by the more experienced. It was a common practice in the deep caverns.

The belt struck again this time on her calf. Half of her mind exploded in pain; the other half followed the pain as it moved to her brain then radiated throughout her body. She tried desperately to move her leg out of the way knowing it was useless. He had put her face up on the bed and tied her ankles, knees, elbows, and wrists to its side-rails. She was splayed open her entire body available to his torment.

Jake held her to a higher standard. He was a warrior now, a confidant of DaSilva, a leader. He expected her to follow the same rules he set for himself, to stand apart from the other slaves. They belonged to lesser men; they could get away with more. It wasn't fair, it wasn't...

The belt struck her thigh again but this time on the other side. It was terrifyingly close to her labia, to her cunt lips. She could feel her nostrils flaring inside the hood struggling for the air needed to fill her heaving lungs; she felt her eyes widening trying to penetrated the leather. It was terrifying to be cut off this way, to receive pain as if it was the only thing in the universe.

He paused and as the pain eased she could feel her cunt vibrating involuntarily. The vibration passed to her labia signaling that her lips had swollen. She heard the belt cutting the air then felt the horrible burning pain of the belt tip touched the side of her breast. The radiating pain told her that her nipple was also enlarged and hard. She pressed down hard on the gag and confirmed that her lips were enlarged and sensitive as well.

His punishment was a taste of Hell, but it had its compensations. Whenever he punished her, her body responded sexually. She couldn't stop it nor control it in any way. Not that she wanted to stop it--her sexual response was a natural anesthetic, a physical defense against the raw pain. She could feel her torso moving, twisting as the mix of pain and desire frantically sought an escape.