Slave World by Johnny Stone

blood enemies of the Mandolins.
    “Where’s John?” I croaked weakly, still not looking up at him.
    “Who?” Deep Voice sounded honestly surprised.
    “John, my droid, where is he?”
    “Isn’t that sweet, she’s worried about her droid,” Glasses chuckled, followed by the group as a whole. I shrank in size even further.
    “Did you see the size of that dong he had?” A rough looking woman with bright purple hair, no less covered with artwork than the others, chimed in. “I’m impressed, girl, I’d be worried about him too, if that were my man.”
    “Holly, you’re such a skank. You don’t give a shit what crawls between your legs, do you?” Another of the men interjected, half in disgust, half in disbelief.
    “Yeah, well maybe if you could keep it up for longer than ten minutes,” Purple Hair snarled, pushing her way angrily towards her apparently inept lover, as the first signs of a scuffle began to break out. That’s what I hated about these Sesik goons; they were like a pack of rabid dogs, volatile and out of control more often than not. Worse yet, they were extremely violent, and dangerously unpredictable.
    “Shut the fuck up, both of you! Everybody out, go find something to do. Out! Brian, bring that piece of crap droid in before you go.”
    The room cleared except for Deep Voice and Glasses, while plans for my escape started to formulate. With the ship AI down, there was no way of locking the controls out other than doing it manually from the cockpit. If I could do that, at least I’d have some leverage again, maybe cut a deal with them? First, I would have to get by these two first. My eyes turned hard as stone, jaw clenched. They have no idea who they’re fucking with.
    “Hey, sunshine, say hello to your loverboy.”
    I looked in the direction of the door, as Brian rolled something round and metal, noisily across the deck. It bounced off the bulkhead, coming to a stop several feet away from me. I saw red, mind frothing with rage as I gazed blankly down at John’s head. He may have only been a droid, but I loved him.
    “Your boyfriend, was he? Figured as much. Guess that must really piss you off, huh?” Deep Voice asked, curiously taunting me, taking a step closer. Maybe if he’d seen the look in my eyes, he would have thought twice before doing that.
    “You bastard,” I seethed. “You didn’t have to destroy him. He wasn’t dangerous; he didn’t even have basic self-defense protocols.”
    “You’re right, I didn’t have to, but I wanted to. Question is, what are you going to do about it?” I’ll show you what I can do… I lunged for Quin; the mocking effigy of everything I’d grown to hate over the years, every leering face and every senseless act of violence that had taken someone away from me that I loved. I paid no mind to Glasses whatsoever, not even considering him a potential threat, for some odd reason.
    As quickly as my attack began, it ended. My legs gave way from under me and I hit the deck, screaming in surprise-filled pain. My entire body shook with spasms, jerking uncontrollably under the most excruciating agony I’d ever experienced. I was on fire, being cooked from the inside out, while an electrically generated hell smashed my sanity to ruins.
    “Fucking-A, did you see how fast she moved?” Deep Voice backpedaled away in shock from my writhing form.
    “No shit, I almost wasn’t able to zap her in time. By the way, that’s a medium setting. I could probably kill her if I turned it up to maximum.”
    “That’s enough, Dobbs, looks like she passed the first test. You said it could be reversed right to make her docile and obedient.”
    Just as unexpectedly the pain disappeared and I gasped for air, curling into a ball of lingering torment. What the hell was that! “Please no more, I’ll do whatever you say, just don’t hurt me again,” I managed to whisper. The rage and determination I’d felt moments before had been reduced to splinters in the span of