In the Maiden, Jag Eleno slept. 

It was not a peaceful sleep. It was the only sort the traitor deserved: blinded, drooling, bound. A catheter to handle the waste. An artificial vein pumping her with fluids and drugs that softened the mind into a compliant slurry. Laodike cut smooth through vast hollows of space until we were thousands of lightyears from the rebel base. When Eleno woke, all the worlds she had known– every scrappy, unimproved colony, every wild mixed savageland– would be so far away she could never return. But she would no longer be capable of caring.

I entered the chamber daily to observe her progress. I knelt before the Highmothers in effigy and felt the buzz of the implant at my temple, the tug that comes from contact with a processing slave. I could not see Eleno; the Maiden was a closed chamber, a sarcophagus of steel and light. I could only see a mask, a carving of the calm sweet face that would soon grace the rebel scum.

Still, I heard the pulse of the mantras. I knew them well. The priestesses had taught me thoroughly. Every child under the Highmothers recited the words at sunrise in neat rows, a tuneless song. Lay down your sword, lay down your heart.

Though it had been years since I’d had the routine, I was prone to returning to them in times of distress, like running a thumb over a worry stone. No need to fear change, no need to fear death, I thought. Death is welcome. Death will grant you a thousand angels.

You are complete, whispered the Maiden. You are love.

To love is to listen.

To love is to obey.

I thought about Eleno often in the waiting weeks. Never had I anticipated such a stunning defeat of the worst thorn in my side. A battle on the streets of Severina, a trap she’d thrown herself into without hesitation. A hero, she called herself. An idiot, more like. An idiot, a womyn-hater, a traitor to her kind.

Rebel leader Jag Eleno was captured at approximately 15:40 universaltime, Hypnalis Square, Severina of the Sanguine System. 

The plan commenced without obstruction. Labryades raided the black market where Eleno and comrades hid…

“It’s them!” An elderly womyn in a gray robe, hunched over her stall, pushed away her children. “Hide.”

A troop of Labryades marched through the dark alley. Their armor gleamed white and silver, their uniform masks turned forward, rods held at the ready. At the head of the party was a singular figure in onyx armor, gun at her hip and a frown on her grizzled face.

Under guise of a routine raid, I flushed out the rebel. My information on her habits was quite vast. I had ascertained, long ago, that she could not resist the opportunity to play hero.

Escape routes were blocked. A fight would only result in carnage in such a narrow space. The only hope for survival was to play as loyal citizens, unaware of the illegality of their wares. As the leader passed, many were quick to prostrate themselves, muttering mantras like scared children.

“Pain is temporary,” said one.

“P-pain is false,” went another.

“Pain is only the shedding of your old life!”

I found a child who did not bow as quickly as the others. The leader commanded for the Labryades to seize her. No permanent damage was done; only fright. The mere threat of the rod commenced her to cry very loudly. It did not take long for Eleno to show.

A laser blast whizzed past the Labryade's gauntlet. The sudden movement halted it before it could strike the girl, and instead the slave turned its head upwards.

“Haven’t you got anything better to do with your time?”

She descended from a balcony in her bulky jumpsuit. Chestnut hair cropped short, goggles consuming her small face. I could recognize her at a distance. I could recognize her by voice. I could recognize her by the air she unsettled in her walk. The rebel scum.

Eleno approached the leader, swaggering in such a way to emphasize the ray-gun holster at her hip. “Who are you, now? I’ve never seen your ugly mug around.”

The leader said nothing.

“Whatever happened to the other one?” Eleno said. “The dark one? What’s-her-face? Always scowling?”

“Slavebreaker Winter is dead.”

Though it is an act of incredible skill and concentration to bid a Labryade speak, I did so. My deception was strong enough that Eleno did not suspect the subterfuge. 

“Her body was lost in the jungles of Gilmyn,” said the leader. “May she rest with the angels.”

Eleno had the gall to look disappointed at the news of my demise. Her face fell, and it was such a disgusting lie that I nearly revealed myself in anger. “Rude of her to leave me,” she said, more quietly than before. “I’d thought we had something special, her and I.”

She bargained for the life of the child. My puppet explained that the girl would come to no harm, of course, and at worst would be separated from her birthclass for a brief reconditioning— a great opportunity for such a backwater territory. 

Eleno grew angry. She tried to argue the same backwards ideology her kind always espouses. 

I had already anticipated her next move.

“Her life for mine.” Eleno smirked. “Wouldn’t that be great for a first mission? Bring in the face of the rebellion in chains.”

“There would be no chains.”

“How about it?” Eleno spread her arms. “Take me.”

A deal was made. 

But traitors are never to be trusted.

The moment the child was released from the Labryades’ grasp, Eleno moved. As quick as the flutter of an insect’s wing, Eleno unleashed her ray-gun. There was hardly any time to think or aim— but Eleno was so renowned for a reason. She melted the leader’s face off with a single laser through the helmet’s slit.

“Jag!” someone cried in sudden fear.

Down went the leader in a sizzle of dissolving flesh. It fell back and collapsed on the street in a limp, bloody heap. 

Eleno straightened up, returning her weapon to its holster. "Someone — bury this thing."

The people scurried to obey. 

Eleno commanded a presence that had the simplest of womyn falling into line. She was beloved by the criminal, the pathetic, the weakest ones. She styled herself as a liberator, as someone who freed helpless victims from the yoke of the Highmothers. As if her kind were not the ones causing the trouble in the first place.

Everyone in that alley was now joined in the same secret, stripping this body of its armor, burying it anonymously, and saying that they had seen nothing, knew nothing when the second round came. 

They paid the others no mind. A Labryade without a handler will simply remain static until reassigned. Eleno had released these people and allowed them to live to another day— the black market could be relocated, and no one was to be processed that day. They would continue, unmarred, in their wicked ways.

So, I launched the gas pod.

Violet smoke burst through the narrow alley. It was fast-moving and acting, and there had been no warning. Womyn collapsed like rocks at the start of an avalanche— one by one, at first.

Beneath their helms, all my Labryades wore breathing apparatuses that rendered them immune to the effects. Myself included. 

My slaves kicked the startled Eleno to the ground. Her bag fell in the scuffle and its contents scattered across the dirty stone. Little unlabeled glass bottles— as if the contents were not clear. Confidently I approached her, my every footfall deliberate. Eleno tried to cover her mouth, but what good would it do? I had her, at last.

I removed my Labryade helmet, and my raven hair flowed over my pauldrons. My breath was a sharp hiss through the apparatus, but my eyes were uncovered and filled with hatred. 

Eleno’s final words were slurred. “I… you…”

“You failed,” I said.

Her mouth bobbed, but nothing came.

“I did not die, despite your best efforts. You will come with me, and you will be made useful,” I said. “There is no use in fighting.”

She made a desperate burst forward, but her drowsy spirit could not hold the body. Her weakly grasping hand made for the bottle, the essence of Man. I scoffed at her. Beneath my heel, the glass shattered. 

“There is no need to fear change,” I reminded her.

Her expression was incomprehensible. All the posturing, all the lies melted away. I expected anger. I expected her to fight, or to succumb, at last, to reason. But all I saw was bone-deep sadness. “Guess that’s it...”

“Death is welcome, rebel scum,” I said.

“Guess I’ll be…”

“Mine.” I smiled. “You’re mine now, you foolish little girl.”

“I’ll just be…” Eleno’s fierce eyes grew dim. She laid her head down. Her freckled nose in the dirt. Her mouth lolling open. “You…”

An order given. A small ship landed, and from it flowed a battalion to round up the sleeping masses. The process was blisteringly efficient. Eventually, they would be processed as material, and particularly prominent or stubborn rebels might be sent along to the Maiden. I did not waste much thought on them. The remains of the market were lit on fire, so that it may never rise again.

I took Eleno into my arms. She slumped, like a child who had fallen asleep on my shoulder. My slaves stepped around me in orderly rows among the fire and the smoke, and I passed through them like a hand through water. I brought Eleno onto Laodike.

She was prepared by me, personally. Stripped bare. I checked every crevice to ensure that she could find no tool to slip or snap and scurry away again. I inserted my hand into her mouth, and did not remove the gauntlet. She was so deeply under that even the prick of metal, blood blooming inside her cheek, did not wake her.

"I'm sure you would rather death," I mused, "since you so insist on male treatment."

I’d practiced the speech a hundred times in my dreams, smoothed all the little quirks of emotion until it was nothing but the most bitter, most truthful twist of the knife.

I said, "What a shame. If that is truly what you wanted, you should have never been born." I tilted my head. "But, you are here. And you are a womyn, despite what you may insist. As such, you will join our ranks."

Calibrating the Maiden is a deliberate, finicky task. I was one of the chosen few trained to use it. When placed inside the vessel, the hook between the mind and body is softened; an implant installed, her mind rewired to flow with mine. It is a powerful thing that must only be used for proper improvement. To those who will not see the light, we must force open their eyes.

Eleno did not awaken. I almost wished she had. I wanted to see her wrench to startled life. I wanted to see her lash against her bonds in a gas-addled panic. I wanted to see that disgusting body of hers, sun-worn and hairy… I wanted to see it softened to something beautiful and feminine. I wanted to see it writhe.

But she did not rise. Her old self was peeled away, and her new being inserted swiftly and efficiently. A sweet irony: she was not a difficult subject. The most stubborn rebel scum the Highmothers had ever known, a delusional little girl insisting to be a part of a race long dead — and it was I who conquered her. Where countless others fell to Eleno's trickery, I remained steadfast. I had found Jag Eleno, the womyn-hater, the menace — and now she was nothing but a vessel for my will.

There was a reason, after all, they called me Slavebreaker.