Ficlet: Nothing in Her Way (Gaila)
Title: Nothing in Her Way
Author: igrockspock
Character: Gaila
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Not having good choices is not the same as not having any choices
Warnings: Gaila backstory. Contains non-graphic mentions of non-consensual sex and violence.
Notes: for "she had not yet decided whether to use her power for good or for evil" at where_no_woman's latest drabble fest and "darkfic" on my cliche bingo card
She grows up hearing that she has no choice. That birth has made her a slave and that biology will make her like it. And if neither of those do the trick, she'd better learn to like it because she's never going to have any life but this. The thing is, if she can choose to learn, she can choose not to learn. More accurately, she can choose what to learn. First she learns sex because she has to do it well to stay alive, and when she seems to love her job, she's free to learn other things in secret -- what sorts of scrap metal and leftover wiring could craft a homemade phaser, how to swipe data PADDs as easily as she snatches wallets, how to read the long chains of technical Standard words that make up a flight manual. Every time she fucks, she thinks I am making a choice not to kill you instead. It's not a good choice; the Syndicate would rape, torture, and kill her if she laid a finger on a paying customer. But not having good choices is not the same as not having any choices, and knowing that is why she survives 10 years of captivity.
Every time she remembers her choice, she feels powerful because she just spared her customer's life. The truth is, she does want to kill them. She likes to fuck -- or rather, she could imagine liking it if she could choose who, when, and where -- but she hates that they think they own her. More accurately, she hates them for thinking that they own her. What she wants is no worse than what they do: they use her body like there's no person inside; she wants to choke the life from their bodies as if there's no soul inside. To tell the truth, she's better than they are. If she shot them, they'd hurt for an instant; when they rape her -- and it is rape, even when they take the trouble to please her -- her whole soul aches afterward, and sometimes her body too.
So when she finally stumbles across a customer stupid enough to store his ship's access codes in his communicator, she doesn't feel guilty about killing him in his sleep. He's just a thing in her way. So's the guard at the end of the corridor, the other whore who's about to sound the alarm, the two technicians watching the entrance to the docking bay. Then she's in his ship, on the edge of Orion space, with enough raw ore in the hold to bargain her passage to wherever she wants to go. Two vessels hover at the edge of sensor range. One is a Klingon pirate ship with a crew so coldblooded it puts the Syndicate to shame, but since the Klingons see no honor in forcing anyone to fuck, she'd be happy to join them. The other is a Vulcan diplomatic vessel, and she knows the Vulcan High Command will offer asylum to anyone with logical need of it. She also knows that people who live by logic live without the greed, lust, and envy that made her a slave for a decade.
For the first time in her life, both the choices are good ones, and when she decides, she doesn't think about justice or truth or God or morality. All she cares about is what's good for her. All she cares about is where she'll have the most power.
Author: igrockspock
Character: Gaila
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Not having good choices is not the same as not having any choices
Warnings: Gaila backstory. Contains non-graphic mentions of non-consensual sex and violence.
Notes: for "she had not yet decided whether to use her power for good or for evil" at where_no_woman's latest drabble fest and "darkfic" on my cliche bingo card
She grows up hearing that she has no choice. That birth has made her a slave and that biology will make her like it. And if neither of those do the trick, she'd better learn to like it because she's never going to have any life but this. The thing is, if she can choose to learn, she can choose not to learn. More accurately, she can choose what to learn. First she learns sex because she has to do it well to stay alive, and when she seems to love her job, she's free to learn other things in secret -- what sorts of scrap metal and leftover wiring could craft a homemade phaser, how to swipe data PADDs as easily as she snatches wallets, how to read the long chains of technical Standard words that make up a flight manual. Every time she fucks, she thinks I am making a choice not to kill you instead. It's not a good choice; the Syndicate would rape, torture, and kill her if she laid a finger on a paying customer. But not having good choices is not the same as not having any choices, and knowing that is why she survives 10 years of captivity.
Every time she remembers her choice, she feels powerful because she just spared her customer's life. The truth is, she does want to kill them. She likes to fuck -- or rather, she could imagine liking it if she could choose who, when, and where -- but she hates that they think they own her. More accurately, she hates them for thinking that they own her. What she wants is no worse than what they do: they use her body like there's no person inside; she wants to choke the life from their bodies as if there's no soul inside. To tell the truth, she's better than they are. If she shot them, they'd hurt for an instant; when they rape her -- and it is rape, even when they take the trouble to please her -- her whole soul aches afterward, and sometimes her body too.
So when she finally stumbles across a customer stupid enough to store his ship's access codes in his communicator, she doesn't feel guilty about killing him in his sleep. He's just a thing in her way. So's the guard at the end of the corridor, the other whore who's about to sound the alarm, the two technicians watching the entrance to the docking bay. Then she's in his ship, on the edge of Orion space, with enough raw ore in the hold to bargain her passage to wherever she wants to go. Two vessels hover at the edge of sensor range. One is a Klingon pirate ship with a crew so coldblooded it puts the Syndicate to shame, but since the Klingons see no honor in forcing anyone to fuck, she'd be happy to join them. The other is a Vulcan diplomatic vessel, and she knows the Vulcan High Command will offer asylum to anyone with logical need of it. She also knows that people who live by logic live without the greed, lust, and envy that made her a slave for a decade.
For the first time in her life, both the choices are good ones, and when she decides, she doesn't think about justice or truth or God or morality. All she cares about is what's good for her. All she cares about is where she'll have the most power.