Rixie paced the floor of her suite. It was late evening and she’d returned from the holosuites an hour previous. On the one hand, seeing Alex had done wonders for her mood, on the other it only reminded her exactly what was at stake.

“Would you stop?” Zhalem muttered from her place on the couch next to where Rixie was walking. “You’re making me dizzy just looking at you.”

Rixie stopped in her tracks and turned to her friend, as if suddenly realizing she was there. “Sorry.” Rixie muttered sheepishly.

Zhalem didn’t say anything for several seconds, merely stared at Rixie, her eyes narrowed into a piercing look. “You okay Rixie?”

“Yeah… why?”

“Well, it’s just…” Zhalem bit her lip and hesitated, before continuing on. “I can’t help but notice you seem awfully keen on rescuing Sam.”

“Why wouldn’t I be? What they’re doing to him is disgusting.”

“Yes… it is…” Zhalem nodded. “What I mean is you seem awfully keen on rescuing Sam… specifically. To the point where you’re ready to throw away the entire mission to get him out.”

“What are you suggesting?” Rixie’s eyes narrowed and her mouth scrunched into a frown.

Zhalem sighed. “I’m just saying that maybe you’re having a hard time being objective here… considering…”

“Look…” Rixie rubbed her face wearily. “I get what you’re driving at… but the thing is… he’s from Earth, he was taken the same time Alex was, which means at some point I had him in my grasp… and I basically chucked him out into a universe he wasn’t prepared for and didn’t think twice about it. It could have easily been Alex forced to fight for his life. And I….”

She fell silent and shrugged helplessly.

Zhalem nodded. “I get it… well, mostly. I’m just saying don’t lose focus. You take down Zakrov and you save them all, including Sam.”

They were interrupted by a buzzer informing them that someone was at the door.

The two hoplite women exchange glances before Zhalem went to answer it.

Moments later, she reappeared holding Sam’s carrying cage, which she quickly set on the table in front of the couch, opening the hatch so he could climb out. Sam gratefully took the clothes that Rixie offered him and quickly dressed himself.

“There’s something you need to know, Sam.” Rixie said without preamble. “I told Renna what was really going on.”

The young man’s head shot up and his eyes met Rixie’s accusingly. “You had no right to do that.”

Rixie shook her head. “I’m sorry Sam. I had to. I need her help to get the proof that I need and finally end this. This is the only way I’m going to be able to get you and the rest of the people who are being forced to fight free.”

Sam shook his head angrily.

Rixie bit her lip. She couldn’t quite manage to see the situation from Sam’s point of view. She couldn’t understand why he was so adamant about carrying on the way he had been… but she consoled herself with the thought that soon it wouldn’t matter either way.

The door buzzer sounded again, and Zhalem went to answer it. When the door was opened, Renna stepped inside and looked around timidly. As soon as she saw Sam she made straight for him, kneeling beside the table so she could look him in the eye.

“Sam… why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you say something, let me know what they were doing to you?”

The human shrugged and sat down on the table top. “What could you have done Renna? You weren’t in any position to help me.”

“I could have told someone!” Renna responded. “I could have gone to the authorities!”

Sam shook his head. “Maybe. And maybe that would have helped, or maybe these people would have gotten wind of what was going on and… gotten rid of the evidence. I couldn’t take that risk. Especially since there was a good chance they would have considered you just as disposable as me.

“But…” Renna shook her head. “It’s sick. It’s disgusting… you were being forced to hurt others, and yourself, all for the amusement of some rich, spoiled, sadistic little…” She swallowed and the color seemed to drain from her skin. She rose and took a step back, with a horrified look on her face. “And I made money from it. I made money from your blood…”

She looked like she might be sick.

“Don’t you dare, Renna.” Sam snapped, angrily rising to his feet. “Don’t you dare think you have any responsibility for what happened to me! I told you to do that. I told you to do that because I wanted to help you. Because you were the first person in this fucked up place to show me an ounce of kindness, of decency. Don’t you dare compare yourself to those psychopaths.”

Renna shuddered and stared at Sam, her breathing was shallow, and she looked for a moment like she might pass out.

Instead, she stepped forward again. She knelt down and stared at Sam as though she’d never seen him, or any human, before.

“You’re not just animals, are you…?” Renna whispered, comprehension dawning on her face.

“No.” Rixie said softly, coming to stand next to the young woman. Rixie placed a hand on Renna’s shoulder, and gently squeezed. “They’re so much more than that.”

“I…” Renna swallowed and tried again. “I never realized. I mean, I never had a pet human before… we could never afford one… so I didn’t see them all that often, just occasionally when a friend had one but… by the emperor himself… what have we done to them?”

“Horrible things.” Rixie acknowledged. “Several dozen generations’ worth of horrible things. But, Renna, we have a chance to right this one. To put a stop to the torment… but I need your help. Will you help me help them?”

Sam and Renna both turned to face her. The young woman bit her lip. “I… I’ll do anything I can.”

“Good.” Rixie nodded. “I need you to get me access to Vasha Zakrov’s suite. I need to get the pendant she wears around her neck, and since I doubt she’ll ever take it off… that means I need to steal it from her.”

Renna’s eyes widened nervously, and her lip trembled slightly, but the young hotel maid squared her shoulders and nodded resolutely.

“Okay.”

“Good. Give me your pass key and then get out of here. Go find some friends and go somewhere public where you’ll be seen by a security camera. If anybody asks you, claim the pass key was stolen.”

Renna blinked. “That’s it?”

“Yeah.” Rixie nodded. “That’s it. And here:” The taller woman handed her a small card with a name and a datapad number. “If the worst happens and you get in trouble, call this woman and tell her I sent you. She’ll make sure you land on your feet, okay?”

“Right.” Renna slipped the card into her pocket and handed Rixie the data key.

“Thank you. Now, please, get out of here.”

Renna glanced over at Sam. She wanted to say something to him, anything, but she suddenly found her throat had closed up on her. So she gave him a small smile of encouragement, and then slipped out the door.

Sam sighed, watching as the door closed behind her. “All right, what do you need me to do Rixie?”

The gigantic titan woman glanced down at him. “I need you to stay here while I get the data, and be ready to bolt once I get back.”

“Not going to happen.” Sam snapped back.

Rixie knelt down to his eye level again. “This isn’t one of your movies, Mr. Rodriguez. No one’s going to stop the scene if something goes wrong, and we won’t get a second chance at this.”

“I know that.” Sam retorted. “But the fact is you’ll be better off if you can get the data without Vasha knowing about it. And while I’m sure you’re more than fully capable of this, Ms. Tam, I’m a lot stealthier than you can be.”

“You’re proposing to steal from a woman who is over a hundred feet tall, Sam.” Rixie countered.

“You think I don’t know that?” Sam shot back. “You think I haven’t been painfully reminded about the difference in our statures on a daily basis for the last who-knows-how-many months? But more to the point, I deserve a shot at getting some payback for what I went through. I deserve to have a hand in taking this entire operation down, and you don’t have any right to tell me I can’t!”

Rixie fell silent. She tried, desperately, to think of some response. A reason to keep him there and away from danger. But, he was correct. She didn’t have any right to deny him. And he was capable of getting in and out without being seen better than she was.

So, instead, she nodded. “You’re right, Sam. Let me show you what you’ll be looking for.”

*.*.*.*

Sam stared through the grating of the vent he’d just crawled through. Unfortunately, Renna’s access card could only get him so close to Vasha’s bedroom and he’d had to trek the remaining distance from the entry room of Zakrov’s suite through a series of vents.

He was grimy, and more than a little bit drained from the journey, but the hardest part was still to come. Carefully, so as not to make a sound and accidentally wake his intended target, he pulled himself through the slats of the grate and landed on the thick carpeting on the other side.

He stared across the vast landscape of the bedroom floor, peering into the gloom of the darkened room until his eyes beheld the edificial structure that was Vasha Zakrov’s bed.

A relatively soft snoring sound emanating from the top of the structure informed Sam that the occupant of the bed was currently asleep.

A fact that simultaneously relieved and terrified Sam.

Taking a deep breath to steady his nerves, Sam began the trek across the floor and towards his goal at the summit of the massive bed in front of him.

The first thing Sam learned about his adversary, she was a bit of a slob. Massive articles of clothing the size of circus tents littered the ground between where he stood and the bed. Apparently, having a maid to clean up after someone caused them to be negligent over where they dropped their undergarments. Wryly, Sam’s mind flashed back to his now dimly recalled life back on Earth where he habitually discarded clothes in his wake.

The irony wasn’t entirely lost on him as he carefully made his way over a beige colored blouse made from some slippery silk-like material.

The snoring grew louder with each step that Sam took towards the bed in the center of the room. Soon enough he found himself standing at the base of Vasha’s bed, staring up at the dizzying height that he would soon be climbing.

Sam shrugged his shoulders and surmised that the climb wasn’t going to get any shorter. He took a handful of the bedspread in hand and began to pull himself to the top.

One good thing about his “lifestyle” since he’d been imprisoned, he’d managed to retain the athletic physique that he’d been famous for back on Earth. Knowing that at any moment he could be thrust into a potentially dangerous situation where his only saving grace was the power and speed his body possessed was ample motivation to keep his body in top shape.

Little by little, Sam hauled himself up the side of Vasha’s bed, his muscles burning from the exertion. Thankfully, the planet’s lower gravity compared to Earth made the climb not quite as arduous as it could have been.

Soon enough, Sam found himself at the summit of the bed. He pulled himself over the top and stood on top of Vasha’s bed. The sight of the sleeping Titan woman dominated his vision.

He found himself standing at roughly where Vasha’s abdomen was. The cruel woman was laying on her back, her sleeping face turned towards the ceiling, the landscape of her torso rising and falling with each breath she took.

The snoring noise was nearly deafening now.

Vasha’s landscape body was illuminated by the pale moonlight that managed to seep in through her bedroom window. Sam swallowed nervously as he realized the only way to reach his objective was to attempt to traverse across her torso in search of the prize that was even now hanging around her neck.

Knowing that that situation was unlikely to change, Sam decided that the best course of action was to get on with it and hope for the best.

For several minutes he paced the bed alongside her body, trying to decide the best way to ascend to her torso.

Finally, he elected to attempt to crawl up on her wrist and use it as a step up to the rest of her body. Stepping as lightly as he could, he made his way towards her wrist.

A slight mumble escaping the titan woman’s lips was the only warning he got. Sam jumped to the side just barely avoiding being flattened under her other hand, which fell onto her wrist with an audible slap.

Sam’s heart thudded in his chest and he took several deep breaths to calm himself. That had been way too close for comfort. After a moment, he heard the giant woman mutter in her sleep and she rolled back over onto her back, her hand sliding back over to rest on her stomach.

Cautiously, Sam climbed back onto her wrist. He paused momentarily, but when he didn’t get any reaction, he continued his careful climb up her wrist, until he was able to grab the folds of her nightclothes and use them to haul himself up onto the front of her torso.

He took a moment to look around the terrain, which rose and fell with each breath the titan woman took.

In front of him rose the massive hills of her bust, and surmised that the object he sought lie somewhere beyond them. Vasha stirred underneath him and Sam shuddered. He took no pleasure from his current location and needed to finish his task quickly before she awoke.

Ignoring the thunderous snoring, the “ground” shifting under him with every breath Vasha took, and the way the silky material of her clothing made for poor footing; Sam made his way across her body and towards his goal as quickly as he could.

Eventually, he reached her bust. Without hesitation, he gripped the fabric of her clothing and began to ascend the slope of one of her breasts. He knew he had to move carefully, because he was treading on sensitive flesh. If any part of the operation was likely to awaken her, this was it.

And it’d be impossible to hide from her in that case.

Sam crested the top of the hill and carefully made his way to where the gold chain around her neck indicated the location of the flash drive, or whatever it was that titans called their data storage.

He paused momentarily to make sure she was still asleep. When he was sure he was still in the clear, he cautiously made his way across her collarbone and towards the gold chain that lead the way to the data drive.

Eventually, thanks to following the necklace and the available moonlight, Sam found what he sought. The jump drive was about four feet long and eight inches thick. On Earth it probably wouldn’t have weighed more than he could carry, but it would have been cumbersome for him to move in a stealthy manner.

Thankfully, on Archavia, Sam easily pulled the item loose from the cap that kept it attached to the chain and threw it over his shoulder.

Vasha let out a snore.

Sam froze, his heart pounded in his chest as he prayed for her to fall back into a deeper sleep. After about a second of incoherent mumbling, the giant woman settled down again.

Sam let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Carefully, he hiked the data drive up onto his shoulder and clambered over her collarbone and down onto the bed next to her.

The mattress underneath him shook like a minor earthquake as the titan woman rolled onto her side behind him. The sheets shifted under his feet and Sam fell to the mattress, letting out a small grunt as the drive landed on top of him.

Muttering darkly, he hauled himself back to his feet, hoisted the data stick and ran as fast as he could towards the edge of the bed.

Without giving him a chance to second guess, he leaped off the side of the mattress and slid down the comforter, landing on the carpeted floor with minimal damage.

Then he heard the bedsprings above him shift. Sam’s eyes popped open and he looked over his shoulder as the massive woman stirred and sat up, yawning loudly.

Thinking quickly, Sam picked up the data drive and hauled it under the bed. He stood as still as he could and waited for what the titan was going to do next.

The mattress above him shifted again and a large bare foot slammed onto the ground in front of him. All Sam could hear was the blood pumping in his ears as the bed moved again and a second foot fell to the ground.

Vasha stood and stretched, looking around her room blearily for a moment. Eventually, her massive body turned and she stomped towards the attached bathroom.

Sam knew he wouldn’t have much time. Throwing his prize over his shoulder again he ran full out for the grate that he’d used to make his entrance.

He’d gotten within feet of it when he suddenly heard a very loud curse coming from the bathroom. A moment later, the door burst open, flooding the bedroom with fluorescent white light from the overhead light in the bathroom.

Outlined in the door was a very panicked looking Vasha Zakrov, who practically fell onto the floor and began frantically combing the carpet, presumably looking for the item that Sam currently possessed.

Sam grinned, knowing she was nowhere near finding it, as he shoved the data stick through the grate, where it landed on the metal surface beyond with a loud bang.

Sam and Vasha both froze.

Sam glanced over his shoulder; Vasha was looking straight at him, mouth open in shock. She surged to her feet and was running for the grate. Fortunately, in her haste she had a hard time gaining purchase on the carpet, which delayed her in her attempt to capture Sam.

Sam, meanwhile, was hauling himself through the slats of the grate. After several seconds that felt like hours he managed to pull himself through the grating and safely beyond Vasha’s reach.

He looked back just in time to see her kneel down in front of the grate, her reddish brown eyes peering into the vent to see if she could spot him, but by that point Sam was well beyond her line of vision.

He wasn’t willing to rest on his laurels. He knew he had to get back to Rixie, and fast, because now Vasha was sure to be on the hunt for him.

Quickly as he could, Sam made his way through the labyrinth of heating ducts and ventilation shafts until he arrived at the agreed rendezvous point. The grate there had already been removed and Rixie and Zhalem were both waiting anxiously for his arrival.

Almost the second he’d stepped out of the vent and into the light, he felt a hand close around him. Sam felt a moment of panic as his mind suddenly wondered if Vasha had gotten ahead of him and had somehow figured out where he’d be going.

But no. The enormous fingers that surrounded him opened up to reveal Rixie’s anxious face. The titan woman broke out into a relieved smile, however, when she was able to see that Sam was safe and he’d managed to steal the data disk.

“Vasha saw me.” He gasped, still slightly out of breath from his escape.

“Not a problem.” Rixie said, looking at Zhalem. “We’re more than ready to leave, and I know a place where we can hole up until tomorrow.”