Sam sighed as she
rested her head on her left hand. Nothing interesting had happened in
weeks; ships came and went, trading mostly with one another, checking
in with Sam only to ensure that their passports were still valid. It
was a long way from Hayward to any other planet, and so it was rare
that anyone stayed for more than a few hours.
Thus, the Cinder
Corporation had left only her to keep watch. “Not like anyone is
going to be passing illicit goods through here. It’s too hard to
do, sinc

“It didn’t
excite you?” Mara asked, frowning.
“I’m not…”
Sam sighed, “I don’t like almost being eaten, alright?”
Mara licked her
lips. “Would you prefer actually being eaten?”
Sam’s eyes widened
in horror.
Mara shut her eyes
and began cackling. She held Sam closer to her chest as her body
shook with each laugh. “That look!” Mara said. “All of it was
worth it for that look!”
Sam frowned.
“Aww,” Mara
said. “I scared you pretty bad though.” She brought Sam

Sam took several deep breaths before
rolling over on her side and scrambling to her feet. She sprinted
away towards the container, slowing only to pick up her shoes, her
undergarments, and her pants, abandoning her shirt in the interest of
saving time.
“Sam,” Mara called.
Sam looked over her shoulder for a
second. Mara was starting to stand. Sam stumbled, nearly pitching
forward, her shoes falling out of her grip, but she recovered, and
redoubled her efforts.
“Just wait,” Mara said.
Sam

When Sam awoke, she was shivering. Her
breath frosted in the dim light, and when she wrapped her arms around
herself, she nearly couldn’t feel it.
She sat upright and put her clothes
back on, and while she felt a little warmer for it, she didn’t
think it would be a good idea to sleep. The steel walls of the
container were frosted over. She wandered towards the opening of the
container, slowly. She was trying to be quiet, but she realized that
with her shivering that was likely impossible.
S

Sam was told to wait within the
container, which amused her, as she didn’t think she’d have any
better chance of escape outside of it. Two of the eight soldiers
stood by the entrance, as though one wouldn’t be enough to keep an
unarmed, unaugmented civilian from escaping. She sat down on her cot,
drew up her legs, and closed her eyes. The soldiers were silent other
than the whisper of their suits’ servos, and the padding of their
feet as they patrolled, and Sam found it oddly easy to con

Sam was pulled to her feet and marched
forward through the woods in the direction of the ship. Her skin was
still red and sore and her pants were pockmarked with holes. And she
was tired, and weary, and she wanted to stop. But her side was still
sore from where she’d been kicked and she didn’t want to risk
angering her captors any more than she had to.
After she’d been pulled out of the
lizard, she’d seen one man and two women. The man walked ahead, his
rifle drawn. The women walked a sh

Sam let go, sliding down before
crawling past Hera to the wall, as far away from the two kami as she
could get. “You can come in if you want,” Hera said, standing,
reaching into her dress to readjust her bra. “She’s easy to tend,
if that’s what you’re after. Easier than most humans.”
“To tend?” Sam asked. She only felt
the haze when she noticed that it was hazing. A smoke was clearing
from her head. “To tend?”
“She doesn’t know anything, does
she?” The kami with the m

Considering how tall Moonshaker and
Valeri were, Sam realized their walking pace was probably ten times
what Hera could manage with Sam beside her. Sam began to wonder how
long it would take them to find Mara, if Mara always seemed to
disappear whenever the Cinders came close.
To get them started, Hera pointed
Valeri in the direction of the truck, and Valeri let her hand down
long enough for Hera to catch the scent.
Early on in their walk, Moonshaker had
spoken into a radio at her wrist, lying

They
continued into the forest, Sam marveling at the size of the trees.
When they’d stopped beside a stream to let Sam drink the water, Sam
found that, looking up, most of the trees were twice as tall as
Moonshaker and Valeri. Sam could not remember if she’d ever been
far enough north to know if they were new or not. She fell asleep as
the day turned to evening, Valeri’s hand comfortable enough. Sam
woke in the dark when Moonshaker said, “I think I’d like to get
some sleep.” They wer

They spotted smoke
through the trees in the afternoon. Their search had been
unsuccessful, and Hera was on the verge of mourning, saying that the
trail was growing weaker.
“Fire?” Valeri
asked, pointing ahead.
“Duh! Probably just
someone’s camp,” Moonshaker said, quietly. “I don’t know what
anyone might be doing this far out. There’s probably someone we can
eat. I’m... really hungry.
Sam moved closer to
Hera’s side, who didn’t seem to notice her. Sam could see that
there w

There were twelve of them, and Alban
was the last.
An advance scout had announced that
he’d located the Rosecap’s base of operations in the Timber
Cinder area. It was a farmhouse with five barns around it. He stated
that there wasn’t anyone he could see, and guessed that it was
abandoned.
The Sergeant had woken Alban and the
others up from their bunks, telling them this, and then telling them
that they were going to come with him to investigate and gather what
documents they could. They st

Sam leaned her back against the tree.
Moonshaker had searched through her pouch until she’d found a
slaver wearing a loose enough outfit that it might, conceivably, fit
Hera. The slaver screamed as she was lowered down to the ground, into
Hera’s arms. For a few seconds, the slaver thrashed as Hera held
her like a child, and then the slaver moved slower. Hera kissed the
slaver on the cheek and lowered her to the dirt.
The slaver was quietly fearful as she
looked around at all of the kami gath

“So...” Moonshaker said. “You
want our help to get to Ascension.”
“Is that not going to be possible?”
Sam asked.
Moonshaker frowned. “We’ll deal
with that when we have to.”
“I think now’s the time,” Sam
said. “What’s wrong with Ascension?”
“They almost hate Cinder as they hate
kami, Sam,” Valeri said. “If we take you to them, they’ll kill
us.”
“And, look,” Moonshaker said.
“Ascension has a history of playing tricks.”
“Like what?” Sam asked, cro

When Moonshaker and Sam
returned to the camp, it was dark. And from the expression on
Valeri’s face, Sam could tell that something was amiss. “Hey?”
Sam asked from the edge of Moonshaker’s hand. “Valeri? You...
alright?”
“No,” she said.
“Not quite. I keep getting hungry, but it’s like... it’s like I
can’t stay full... I ate two slavers after you left, and it’s
only been ten or fifteen minutes? And I’m hungry again.”
“It might be a growth
spurt,” Hera said, stand

Light flooded down. Sam looked up. “I guess they’re gone? It’s
been a few hours, hasn’t it?”
“Yes,” Moonshaker said. “They stayed to ask about the things
that’d been inside of Valeri, and then asked how we’d disposed of
them. They didn’t look close enough, so I said they died when
Valeri had brought them up, except for the one I’d hit with my
boot.”
“Alright,” Sam said. “Can you let me out?” Moonshaker
immediately pressed her breasts together.
“Aw, don’t you

“But that was really cruel,” Valeri said, stepping out from
behind a tree “I can’t believe you.”
“Yeah, judge me,” Moonshaker said, “after you’d watched me
and done nothing.”
Sam had already been thinking it by the time Moonshaker had said it.
And now she felt a growing sense of dread. She sat down and pulled
her knees up. “Sam,” Valeri said, “should be with me.”
“Do you remember, ten minutes ago, when you threatened to eat her?”
Moonshaker asked. “You’re more

Alex
Vesper stirred, groaning as she rolled over onto her side and felt
the cold steel floor beneath her face. She was cold, and the black
cotton Cinder uniform too thin to keep out the chill. As she sat up,
opening her eyes, she found herself looking around a containment cell
of some kind. It did not become immediately apparent to her as to
where
she
was until she remembered a few details…
Falling asleep at Hayward Station, being told to synchronize
regularly, to remember what happened to the

Sam
stepped through to the other side of the bush, and let out a soft
sigh. She’d
come back, once again, to the compound where she’d been held by the
Rosecaps, where she’d first met Moonshaker and Valeri. Had it been
a week ago? Or more? Sam couldn’t remember. It had been two days
since she’d left, journey through the forest since leaving
Moonshaker and Valeri had been somewhat somber. Worse was the feeling
that Moonshaker might tire of waiting for Sam to return, and leave
with Valeri

Soon,
Sam felt certain that Id, whatever she had been, had left. The void
she’d
felt when Id had first left to go into the tube now occupied a space
in her thoughts. She felt confused at how different it felt… to be
left with her own thoughts. Had she been that way her entire life?
Had she always known Id?
Hugging
herself, she tried to get a feel for this new body. Taller and
stronger, a defined but practical musculature. Looking down at her
arms, her legs, she realized how much of a predato