I dragged the heavy body of the Satesian out by his ankles across the metal floor along the corridor towards the hall. His body started emitting an acrid, putrefying odor.
No way am I going to let him stink up my cell.
Of all the fresh dead bodies I came across, ever gave out the overpowering stench released from the dead Satesian with a vengeance.
All prisoners walking towards me quickly moved away to the side, leaning as close to the wall or the cell. They pinched their noses with their fingers or covered their mouths with their hand, clearly displaying their skinned and bruised knuckles.
The odour was that foul.
I could see disgust written all over their faces and one reversing in his direction to flee straight for the hall.
"EEEEEEEEeeehhhhhh," the shrieks came from a passing cell.
The smell can't be that bad, can it?
"HOLD THE FUCKER!" Garan's bellow rang out from the cell while two Perunians rushed past me to help him out.
From the corner of my eyes, I saw his body stiffen up as he sniffed around. Garan quickly looked away, pretending not to see me while he injected his struggling test patient with a syringe full of whatever it was.
"Ah shit, the smell," one of the passing Perunians muttered, pinching his nose.
Blame it on Garan for injecting the damn sewer sample, I thought while pulling the corpse while holding my breath for as long as I could.
A filthy mess of bloody prints and trails of reddish and greenish blood from the dead and injured greeted me when I entered the hall. Bits of hair, fingernails, and even an eyeball laid scattered on some small puddles of blood across the hall.
Five prisoners busied themselves pulling mangled bodies to the side of the hallway. Others were nursing their wounds.
All done under the watchful eyes of the twenty armed guards standing around in safety behind the forcefield up on the entrance before the caged walkway.
A messy pile of around bodies laid at the side, mostly Satesians laid scattered around. Other prisoners were scavenging for bits and pieces of clothing, taking or tearing clothing whatever they could.
Those bodies didn't stink as bad as the one I was dragging out. The faces of the dead were too bloodied or disfigured to figure out who they were.
I spotted a few tips of something gleaming from the bodies and noticed the damaged mesh walkway with a few more missing bars dangling from the hinge. The Ultramax still hadn't fixed it from the last encounter.
"WHAT'S THAT AWFUL STENCH?!" one prisoner blurted loudly with his back turned to me. His companion nudged him and they both looked at me and quickly scurried away once they discarded the bodies near the pile.
"YOU THERE!" one guard yelled from his position. "LEAVE THAT BODY THERE AND RETURN TO YOUR PRISON QUARTERS."
I looked up. He pointed at me while covering his nose with his arm. The other guards scowled.
Yeah, like I want to spend another minute with this fetid corpse. My hands let go of the corpse's ankles, secretly thankful for their orders. I moved as quickly as my legs could take me away from the rank odour.
"Emergency lockdown commencing soon. All prisoners to the quarter. Hall access is now restricted. Door closing in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…" the voice of the Ultramax's automated speaker system echoed over the hall.
I ran as fast as I could with the other straggling prisoners. Our group got into the cell quarters in time to hear the main door slammed.
The whole scenario outside was a blood bath of at least over twenty-five prisoners. All dead.
"Who are the dead?" I asked a passing Perunian with his shirt tied around his waist before entering my cell.
He looked around Zhiva's age with his hastily cut short blonde hair.
With his tall yet slender athletic built, he towered over me, revealing the full view of his fully tattooed blood smeared chest.
He seemed unsure if he should say anything at all.
"Rival space pirate gang," Thrain's irate voice answered my question while I hurried to my cell to clean my hands with the sonic washer.
A tap on the mechanism in the cell unfolded the space saving sonic washer with a small basin a toilet bowl. Fortunately, the Ultramax sonic washers auto-clean during each lock down.
I placed my hands in the small basin, which activated.
A swirl of mist running along the flow of the ultrasonic waves ran through, tingling my fingers and palm as the mist separated every darn dirty particle from my skin, disposing of them through a small suction.
I hated filth, and the slimy puddle of froth and saliva needed to be cleaned with something. The Ultramax left us with bare minimum provisions of what we needed unless I used the half filled bottle of supplied water that came with the meal drops.
Water has a problem. With no cleaning agent, it will spread the mess of bacteria and viruses around.
"Need this?" Garan stood by my cell, dangling a bottle with one quarter's worth of moonshine and a torn piece of a prisoner's top.
Moonshine could act as an emergency cleaner with its high acidic contents, which killed bacteria and some viruses. Not fully clean, but better than water.
"Yes, after the mess you left," I replied, reaching out for the bottle.
He pulled away the bottle before my hands could get hold of it. "Not even a thank you? I killed that Satesian for you."
I narrowed my eyes at his mischievous grin.
"Plus, I treated the human for you," he said, lifting his chin up at a sleeping Trey.
"What do you want?" I asked, apprehensive about his words.
Nothing is free in the universe.
Garan moved closer and leaned in to whisper with his breath brushing my ear, "how're you going to repay me?"
Wild thoughts ran through my mind while I stood still. How would I know what this maniac wanted? A lab rat to run experiments on? My cybernetic implants?
His predatory eyes gleamed while the tip of his tongue ran across his lower lip, causing my instincts to scream for me to distance from him.
"He wants nothing." Zhiva appeared behind, interrupting the uncomfortable moment, much to my relief.
With his hand gripping Garan's shoulder, he insisted, "As we discussed, I'll pay for those favours."
I never had brothers or sisters.
I saw every fellow Kamuy cadet as a competitor, not as a family member.
Only when we became officers, they called us a family and ordered us to watch over each other, which we did to minimise loss of troops. More for strategic tactical reasons than 'family love'.
Different species spoke of sibling love in the family, but haggling over a price to pay for favours didn't feel like sibling love to me. Then again, the interactions between the two brothers reminded me of mine with Arabaki.
Garan sighed and stepped back away from Zhiva's presence. "That Durgian woman then."
"Take that little minx then," Zhiva replied without hesitation, as though he prepared the woman as a bargain piece of meat to be bartered over.
"She's mine for the entire stay. No one else. Exclusive."
"Done."
"Don't regret it later. This one's a stiff." Garan cocked his head at me and handed Zhiva the bottle.
"Give me the cloth as well."
Garan shoved the torn clothing in his hand and walked away.
"When you are free, come over," Zhiva reminded me again as he held out the items and I eyed him before taking both from his hands.