This server wore only those very tight leather panties and her wrists were joined by
shackles allowing just a dozen inches between them.  From the way she did her task quickly
and without mishap, it was apparent that she was used to being so shackled.  Her ankles
also bore a small chain between them, but she confined her steps to the limits of that
chain, as if she had been walking so tethered all her life.  Her skin was pretty much a
normal flesh tone, but there was a rash of freckles around her neck and across the top of
her forehead, just peeking out from under the black, short-cropped hair.  Her eyes, when
they met Marlena’s, were a lovely shade of pale pink.  She was young, her breasts firm and
her skin smooth.  But there were faded lines crisscrossing her bottom and both the backs
and fronts of her tights.  A whipping had been administered sometime in the not too
distant past.

As the girl slowly spooned the warm porridge, their eyes met.  That morning, the serving
girl had kept her eyes downcast, and Marlena had seen nothing but defeat in them.  This
women was different.  There was still intelligence in those pale eyes, still some spark of
life not yet beaten down by the harshness of the Kr’ll.

“I am Marlena.  What is your name?” she asked between spoonfuls.

The girl quickly glanced over her shoulder.  The guard was looking the other way,
watching another cell.  “I am Shala,” she whispered.

The words were strangely accented, but recognizable after a fashion.  The conversation
came in short bursts and carried on in whispers.  “How long have you been here?” Marlena
asked.

“About six months,” was the reply.

“They train slaves, I understand.  Are you one?”

“They also punish prisoners,” Shala whispered with anger.  “When they came to my world, I
attacked one of them.  So I’m a prisoner instead of a slavegirl.  I am here to be
punished, not trained.”  She glanced nervously over her shoulder but the guard was not
paying attention to her.  “For the rest of my life,” she hissed.  “Like you are.”

Marlena had to ask what was foremost on her mind.  “Is there a way to escape?”

A look of fear passed over Shala’s face.  “You do not want to try.  The penalty is most
terrible.”

“I want to try,” said Marlena firmly.

“You will die.”  It was a matter of fact statement.

The meal finished, Shala had to go.  Before she and the cart moved on to the next set of
cells, she cast a concerned glance back to Marlena.

The meal went a long way to make her feel better.  Now if someone would come along and
removed those ropes that where hurting her arms...

Someone did come along about half an hour later, but that guard did not remove the ropes
from her wrists.  Instead he removed her totally from her cell and marched her off with a
rope noose around her neck for a leash.

Marlena tried to memorize the corridors and lift tubes, but it was a formidable task in
that underground maze.  Finally they stepped out of a tube into a section where the walls
were no longer carved from stone but a clean, dull white.  The floor changed to carpet, a
welcome change upon her bare feet.  In that section she noted Kr’ll coming and going as
they marched down the corridor, none of them seeming to even notice the naked and bound
prisoner.  Perhaps that was a common sight in this section.

She was taken to a small room that reminded her of a medical examining room, complete
with a table, cabinets, white walls and a bright overhead light.  There were two chairs,
but the guard did not order her to sit and she was too afraid to take the initiative.  So
the two of them stood there until a Kr’ll came in.  He wore a long, bright red coat and
said nothing, but looked Marlena up and down carefully.  Then he turned to the guard and
said something in Kr’ll.  The guard immediately grabbed Marlena and pushed her face down
onto the table.  The padding was cold against her breasts as he held her there.  With her
arms still bound, there was nothing she could do beyond kicking her legs, and that did not
seem too wise.  Whatever they were going to do to her, they would do it.  And use any
amount of force and/or pain needed to get it done.