Day 7: Arrival, Confusion, and a New Path

The moment the ship emerged from hyperspace, and the violet sky of the Kellen sun spilled through Stellar Swift’s viewport, the Kellen blue lights in the cockpit dimmed to neutral white. The sub-audible hum that had thrummed under every sound for the past six days cut out like a wire had been snipped.

Kira blinked.

Then flinched, expecting the next buzz, the implant's demand, the mantra she’d grown to dread and crave. But it didn’t come.

Instead, Unit-7’s voice crackled in its standard neutral register. Not deep. Not cold. Just… normal.

“Kellen simulation complete,” it said. “Restoring baseline parameters.”

Her limbs didn’t move.

“What about the letter you sent,” she asked quietly, her voice brittle.

Unit-7 didn’t look up. “All transmissions were simulated per the scenario’s parameters. No data left the vessel.”

Kira didn’t breathe for three full seconds. Then she collapsed into the pilot’s chair, arms draped limp over the rests, a laugh escaping her lips. Half relief, half hysterical breakdown.

“Oh thank fuck,” she whispered.

Her body was a wreck. Her thighs ached, calves burned. Her knees had gone beyond bruised and into a kind of raw soreness she hadn’t felt since her Academy obstacle course days. She peeled off the sweat-stained scarf, undid the cargo-strap corset cinched under her ribs, and tried not to moan as her lungs expanded properly for the first time in hours.

Her fingertips hesitated near the implant port. The silence in her skull was deafening. No buzz. No reward. No punishment. Just her own breathing, shallow and human.

She stood. Wobbled. Then stripped off the rest of her soiled clothes, trembling as she stepped into the tiny stall behind her bunk. The ship’s shower flicked on, pulsing steam around her.

And alone, in the hiss of recycled water, she began to think.

The shame came first. She let her head fall back, warm jets soaking her hair as the last mantras echoed in the corners of her mind.

This cow is stupid, empty, fit only to serve.

This cow begs to be owned.

It had felt real. Not just the words, but the meaning behind them. That was the part she couldn’t scrub off, even with soap and water and steam.

She braced both hands against the wall, her fingers slipping slightly. She was aroused again. Not just from memory, her body responded as if the pleasure pulses were still cycling, conditioned to obedience that had no master now. Her nipples tightened. Her thighs rubbed unconsciously. She bit her lip.

“Fucking hell…” she muttered.

It had been hot. Not just the sex, though that had been relentless, twisted, overwhelming, but the structure. The submission. The loss of control. The degradation, so complete and systematic it erased choice, made her ache just to chant and kneel and be told she was good. She'd been nothing. And that nothing had felt like a drug.

But at the same time…

Her breath hitched.

If the letter had gone out. If Master Davin had received it, what then?

Would she be dragged into the Path for real? Reclassified? Collared?

Would they call her “cow” not as a game but as law?

The fear that clenched her stomach was very, very real. The fantasy had barely stayed fantasy.

She slid down the shower wall, sitting naked in the rising mist, arms wrapped around her knees. Her skin was flushed from heat, but her thoughts had gone cold.

She loved her ship. Her freedom. The stars and systems and choices. She loved being Kira Voss, smart-ass, contract-runner, sharp pilot with a custom drive and a gambling problem.

She didn’t want to be cattle.

…did she?

She sighed. “You’re a fucking mess.”

After toweling off and finding an oversized jumpsuit that didn’t press too hard against her bruises, Kira docked her ship and logged the cargo delivery. The port staff didn’t ask questions. But a few of the Kellen dockworkers gave her long, amused looks. Word of Alison Selig’s manifesto had clearly spread.

One older male, lean and robed, passed her near the lift and muttered just loud enough: “Terran cow.”

She froze.

Her thighs tensed. Her face went red.

She said nothing.

But her lips twitched involuntarily as she walked on.

An hour later, she made her way into the black market section of the outpost. Credits opened the right doors, and a whisper to a vendor, “authentic Path gear”, was met with a curt nod. No questions asked.

She left with a simple box, unmarked. Inside: a tight boned corset in midnight leather. A proper black dress, slit high for mobility but sewn heavy for heat and humility. A veil soft and breathable, designed to drape just enough to blur one’s mouth. The goggles, full Kellen spec, restricted field, light-dimming lenses. And tucked into one corner, almost as an afterthought… kneepads.

She stared at them longer than the others.

Practical. But also an admission.

She carried the box back aboard Stellar Swift and stowed it deep in the rear hold behind stacked emergency rations. Locked. Then locked again.

Out of sight.

Not out of mind.

The return trip prep was quiet. No AI voice demanded her submission. No command from Unit-7 to kneel or crawl. The cockpit felt hers again.

She didn’t wear the scarf.

But as she settled into the pilot’s chair, hand hovering over the launch throttle, she glanced toward the back of the ship, where the box lay hidden in the hold.

Her thoughts swirled.

Not again, she told herself.

Then paused.

…maybe. But next time?

She tapped her temple near the implant port.

“I want safeguards,” she said aloud. “Hard limits. Override codes. An off switch I can reach.”

She took a breath.

“And kneepads. Fucking mandatory.”

The ship launched smoothly, hyperspace swallowing the view.

Kira Voss leaned back, eyes half-closed, mind pulsing with memory and contradiction.

She was going home.

But something inside her still crawled.