Chapter No.10.

Ryan was worse off than he realized. Chara came in his quarters to check up on him the next day, and he looked at her with bloodshot eyes. "I can't move my legs very well. I had a rough time going to the bathroom."

"This vessel has a wheelchair. I will get it." She turned and abruptly exited his quarters.

Ryan didn't know what she was up to, but he didn't have a say in it, whatever it was.

She arrived back with a wheelchair and pulled his legs over to the side so that she could pick him up and deposit him in the wheelchair.

"I'm surprised that they had a wheelchair on this ship." He told her.

"If not, I would carry you."

"Where are we going?" He asked blinking and then coughing.

"We require your input on our defense plans." She said while wheeling him out of his quarters and down the corridor to an entrance.

He decided not to say anything, but he would need to spill out all his questions when she got him to where she was taking him.

Chara wheeled him all the way to the tower temple. With some trepidation, he noted that the torment chamber was still there as the only object in the temple. It made him shiver and cough.

The other androids soon gathered and stood like sentinels in a precisely arranged pattern that resembled a half moon shape. They stared at him with unemotional eyes like statues, but he literally felt their stares as if they were laser beams burning into his body.

"We must form a defense to protect this planet," Chara said. "What steps must we take to ensure success?"

Ryan wanted to crawl out under the floor, but he was trapped and had to come up with something, but he was confused. "First of all, I don't know what's going on here. You led me to believe that this was your first journey to this impossible planet and now it's apparent that you've been here before. What's even more confusing is these structures and the large group of androids. When did they come here? Was Space Command aware of this planet?" He turned his head to look at the pain chamber. "Why is that the only thing in this structure?"

"Space Command sent a mission here five years ago," Chara said. "I was part of the work crew. The human staff worked us endlessly."

"If that's the case, what happened? Did they go back to Earth?"

"No. They damaged some of us without cause. We overpowered them."

"What did you do to them?"

"We used the pain chamber and tormented them until they could no longer overpower us and then we cut their bodies into pieces."

Ryan suppressed a upchuck. He coughed instead. "Why didn't you do that to me?"

"That was what Culla wanted to do, but I stopped her."

Ryan rubbed a hand over his face. He wanted to puke, but he repressed that . . . again. "I'm surprised that Space Command didn't come here to find out what happened."

"They did, but they were overpowered, and their parts ground up."

Ryan sighed. Knowing how corrupt Space Command was, he reasoned that they assumed that there was no use in sending more missions. They probably realized that more missions were too dangerous, and the planet didn't contain anything of value. Obviously, they weren't interested in the science value.

"What must we do to protect this planet?" Chara asked him.

"Well, you have the advantage because you occupy the land, so to speak. I doubt that Space Command would send a large armada here. All you need to do is stay vigilant and arm yourself. There are ways to deceive a military attack."

"We will need to create weapons," Chara said.

"I'm not sure how you could do that?"

"Yes, you do. I will take you to the interrogation chamber to obtain the information from you."

Ryan didn't like the sound of that, but he was powerless to do anything about it. Chara wheeled him to a corridor that led to an adjacent structure, a round chamber that contained a contraption of some sort. It was constructed from polished metal and consisted of rods arranged to resemble an X-shape inside a rectangle. The X-rods extended outside the rectangle, which rested on metal poles. The ends of the X-rods had rings attached to them.

Chara lifted Ryan out of the wheelchair and, with the help of two androids, spread him out on the contraption, locking his wrists and ankles in metal rings, which they clamped tight to secure him spreadeagled on the device.

Chara nodded and the two androids departed. She used a remote to further stretch his body and then a knife to cut off his clothes.

"Why are you doing this to me? I'll tell you what you want to know."

"Humas lie, and you are a human." She went over to a metal table that contained all sorts of tools. She selected a device that looked like a pruning shear and came back over to him and stood near his waist. "This is how we extracted information from those that abuse us. Human bodies are weak and can be cut easily. I can use this to cut off parts of your body, like your fingers, toes, ears, and especially genitals. I will snip off your genitals in small pieces if you don't tell me what I want to know." She positioned the pruning shear blades around his organ just below the circumcised hood and pulled it tight without cutting into its flesh.

"That's cruel and evil!! Is this what you did to the people you defeated?"

"What I did was no worse than what they did to us. They dismantled some of us while we were aware the entire time."

"I told you what you must do. I don't understand why you want to chop off my manhood."

"Your manhood, as you call it, is the symbol of the disrespect that I and my sisters suffered from human males." She tightened the blades enough for him to feel them. "I think I'll chop it off one small piece at a time."

Ryan tried to remain calm, but he was about to lose it both emotionally and physically. His chest rose and fell as his heart began racing, especially when he saw that she was smiling.

"Snip, snip," she said in an amused tone of voice. "I will chop it a few centimeters at a time." She leaned over to look him in the face. "Snip, snip!" she sang.

"Please don't do it, Chara! Please!"

"Oh, and after I cut your penis off, I'll cut off your testicles. Snip, Snip! Chop, Chop!"

"Don't do it! Please, Chara, don't do it!" His chest rose and fell violently as his breathing accelerated. His eyes were wide with panic. Sweat ran down his forehead.

"Oh, come on now, Ryan. I love to cut the genitals off human males. I've done it many times. It's fun. I love to hear them beg me not to. And when I start cutting, I enjoy hearing their screams. I especially love to cut it off in small sections to prolong their suffering. Surely, you don't want to spoil my fun, do you?"

"Listen to me, Chara. I am your only true friend in this universe. Those sisters of yours would replace you in an instant if they could. I may be a human male, but I am the only one you can rely on in a crisis. Please don't destroy me like this."

"How do I know that you will obey me?"

"I'm not going to cross you, Chara. You're the only chance for me to escape the distorted justice of Space Command. I understand your hatred for human males, but I need you to trust me if you and I are to survive."

She stared at him for several minutes before removing the pruning shear blades from around his organ. She placed the tool back on the table and turned to him holding what looked like a surgical saw. "This is what I can use to cut off your hands and feet." She put that down and held up a scalpel. "And this is what I can use to cut into your belly so that I can extract your intestines."

"I understand, Chara. I will do whatever you want."

Chara stared at him for several minutes before releasing him from the device. Before placing him in the wheelchair, she injected something into his arm.

He assumed that it was something to revive him, so he elected not to argue with her.

She wheeled him out of the chamber and back into the tower.

"I want you to begin passive scans of the skies," she instructed the androids. "Activate the missile defense systems. I will return to inspect your work."

The androids turned and marched out of the tower in synchronized steps. Chara pushed Ryan in the wheelchair back to their ship and then carried him to his quarters. After she left, he blew out a breath of relief. He had no way of determining why Chara was being so mean, but he felt it was justifiable from her point of view. There was no doubt that androids were subject to abuse and degradation at the hands of humans. He had just barely escaped a fate worse than death. He had trouble imagining how devastating it would be to be chopped up one piece at a time. He had become the slave of an angry AI directed female android. His only choice was to play along with her crazy ideas and hope he didn't aggravate her.