by C. F. Harris
Plus I have to admit I was damn curious about what exactly they had planned. Not to mention I hadn’t answered my question definitively about their faster than light capabilities or lack thereof.
Everything I saw from this place indicated they were far less technologically advanced than we originally thought, but I didn’t have enough information to confirm those suspicions.
So I let the guards carry me away.
7
Dalia
At least being carried away gave me a chance to mull over everything that’d happened since I was captured. Something about the way that beam drained all the power in my scout ship bothered me. It was all I could think about as I was carried through their massive ship.
Well, the only thing other than cataloging every little thing I could memorize as they dragged me along. You never knew what might be useful in blowing them the fuck up later on.
I ran over the attack in my mind again and again.
I jumped out of FTL right on top of them. They used some strange weapon that drained almost all the energy from my ship, but they also seemed to rely on that to take me out entirely. They hadn’t fired anything else.
Not that I could blame them. After all, it’d worked pretty well for them. It’d been enough to take me out.
Only if I got away from them they wouldn’t be able to take me by surprise again. My thoughts were interrupted as I was thrown to the ground. I looked up and found myself staring at another unarmed Klik who wasn’t wearing body armor. It did have some sort of body paint I didn’t recognize, but I figured the intel pukes could probably fill entire databanks back home with the various noncom paint schemes they didn’t know about because it wasn’t likely that kind of Klik would be in the middle of a pitched battle to get captured.
Sadly there wasn’t a chance of me trying anything with him. Not without being gunned down. Both guards who’d brought me here were keeping a close set of eyes on me and, more importantly, keeping their weapons trained on me. They were also standing at an angle where one of them could get a shot off even if I managed to re-materialized my gun and take out the other.
I bit back a curse. Why couldn’t I get lazy guards? Why did they have to stick to good tactics even when they thought I was completely defenseless?
This new Klik stepped forward and made an odd series of rattling noise in its throat that I knew was a Klik greeting. Its eyestalks waved back and forth. I wondered how easy would be to snap some of those stalks right off of the motherfuckers carapace. Shell. What the fuck ever it was.
It said a few words in Mandarin and I cocked my head. I could speak Mandarin and Klik, but I figured playing dumb would be helpful. Maybe they’d do something stupid and give something away in a language they didn’t think I could speak. It tried Spanish next.
Right then. So they knew the three major earth languages. The question was whether or not this one could…
“English?” it asked.
I’d already given away that I knew English up above, so best to stick with that.
“Yes,” I said.
I didn’t bother with nodding or using any other body language cues. In my experience dealing with exobiologicals, body language was usually lost on them unless they’d spent their entire life studying human behavior.
“Very good,” it said. “”You will do nicely for the next experiment.”
I arched an eyebrow. Experiment? What the hell was going on here? I tensed and prepared to pull out my weapon. Chances were I’d die the moment I pulled it out, but I’d go out fighting.
I definitely wasn’t going to go out allowing myself to be dissected by some alien mad scientist. If I was going out then I was taking this bastard with me.
Though I guess it wasn’t fair to say they’d be dissecting me. I was pretty sure it was called vivisection when they cut into someone who was still very much alive.
The Klik hit a button and let out a series of warbling noises that sounded like a combination of pops and hisses from a bad radio transmission. It was telling another Klik, a superior from the way it was tacking on the honorifics and polite phrasing with a level of ass kissing that was the same around the galaxy regardless of species, that the subject was ready.
I was tensed to strike when a door opened on the other side of the room. Another creature that had similar markings on its shell, though far more elaborate, came scuttling through the door.
This new creature held an old style tablet out in front and waved those weird tentacle things extending from its claws up and down the screen.
It seemed distracted. Of course I had no way of knowing if it was really distracted. It could also be exhibiting anger, love, lust, or something else I’d never heard of. I had no way of knowing for sure because of the aforementioned difficulty in parsing alien body language.
“Excellent,” it said in English when it finally looked up from its tablet. “You are very fortunate human. You are going to be the first subject in our interspecies experiments!”
Interspecies experiments? I didn’t like the sound of that.
One of the creature’s three eyestalks moved up from the tablet it was manipulating and it immediately stopped. It turned the other eyestalk to the creature that had initially addressed me, I assumed it was some sort of research assistant or something, and it made a noise that sounded like an ancient tire slowly losing air.
“What is this?” The more senior one asked in their language.
I schooled my face to a blank expression and tried not to react. These were presumably experts in human behavior, after all, and who knew what cues they might pick up on?
“It’s the human you asked for,” the assistant said.
“This one is a female! How long have you been working with humans and you can’t even tell the difference between their genders?”
The eyestalk on the junior researcher, that’s how I thought of it for all that I had no idea what its body language meant, lowered. Maybe a show of submission? Who knew? Either way, this conversation was interesting. I looked around the room so it wasn’t obvious I was listening in and able to understand every damn word.
“You told me we had a warrior!” the senior one said.
“But she is a warrior! Her ship was powered up and on the verge of doing serious damage before they hit her with a power drain.”
Huh. On the verge of doing serious damage. Sure that was an understanding of our battle that was being filtered through the understanding of a research assistant who probably didn’t have much ship to ship combat experience, but it still made me feel pretty good.
The senior one hissed and the junior one went silent. Meanwhile I was careful to stare blankly at one of the guards like I was plotting a way to take him out and not listening in on their conversation.
“No matter,” the senior one said. “We can still work with this. It just won’t be as good as having an actual male of their species to work with. We’ll use her as a reward rather than as a combatant.”
I had a hard time pretending I wasn’t interested in what they were saying now. What exactly were they going on about? Reward? Combatant? What sort of experiment were we talking about?
I was a member of the Fleet. I was sworn to uphold and defend humanity. The last thing I’d do was allow myself to get pulled into some damned experiment where they were forcing people to fight!
The senior researcher pulled something out of a belt at its side and scuttled towards me. It waggled one of its eyestalks and one guard lowered its weapon and scuttled towards me even as the other kept its weapon trained on me.
They were too fast. I couldn’t pull out my weapon before they were on me. My arms were enclosed in strong claws and I was held fast by one of the guards.
I tried to struggle, but they were strong. Damned strong. I wondered if all of them were this strong, or if it was just my luck to have a couple of guards who were the Klik equivalent of the ground troops that sometimes traveled with the Fleet and spent all their time pump
ing iron in the gym when they weren’t going down to some planet on a bug hunt.
Maybe they were augmented by that armor. I fully intended to test that if I managed to get out of here.
I was particularly annoyed because I realized, too late, that I’d allowed this to go on for far too long. I’d kept up the charade, refused to pull out my weapon and try to break free, because I was looking for information. Not to mention I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to take out both guards at the same time.
Now it looked like I’d allowed myself to be escorted straight from the fire into the frying pan, or however that ancient phrase worked. The senior researcher pressed something against my shoulder. A sharp pain hit me, accompanied by a hiss. Then the pain was gone.
I looked down to my shoulder and saw that the Klik had pressed something against me. And if I didn’t miss my mark I was pretty sure it’d just injected me with something. What the hell it had injected me with was anybody’s guess, but it couldn’t be anything good. Not if they were doing human experimentation on this bucket of bolts.
My two guards pulled me forward towards the door. I tried to struggle, but the more I kicked the faster whatever they’d injected me with worked.
That was the problem with getting the blood pumping when you had something moving through your system. Blood pumping faster made for a better delivery of whatever it was, but there wasn’t a chance I was going quietly.
I was still kicking at them when the world went black around me. I had time to wonder just what the hell they were planning and then sweet oblivion took me and I didn’t have to worry about anything for a short little while.
I woke up, confused, staring at bars that looked into darkness beyond. The bars hissed up and I felt sharp pain pressing against me. I turned to see a guard holding a glowing spear of some sort that it shook at me menacingly.
“Okay, I get the point,” I muttered, holding up my hands to show I was playing nice. For now.
I stepped through the bars and looked around. Nothing could’ve prepared me for what I’d find there. They’d mentioned experiments. They’d mentioned combatants.
I just never expected to find myself in the middle of an arena that looked like something straight out of a movie about ancient Rome with Kliks making up the audience and a surprisingly handsome green humanoid alien standing near another entrance eyeing me warily, but also with interest.
What the fuck was going on here?
8
Kir
I stared at the long sparse hallway as I was led to the latest "experiment." It disgusted me that I was being used like this. That my people were being used like this.
I wondered what it was going to be today, and that was good for a laugh.
It would be the same thing it was every day. A fight to the death. So far I’d won, but what if this was the day everything was different?
"You're going to have a special surprise today scum,” the Klik guard behind me said.
They weren't taking any chances with me this time. My insubordination the last time was enough to earn me a personal guard. Damn it. I didn’t even get this time to myself like usual.
I didn’t have a prayer of escaping, but it was always going to be more difficult if I had a guard following behind me in that damned Klik power armor. What I wouldn’t give to get my hands on his plasma rifle.
He might be in power armor, but my words could pierce that armor well enough. Time to irritate him with the only weapon I had at my disposal: my sometimes annoying wit.
"Really? You're going to surrender your ship to me? Awfully nice of you to stop delaying the inevitable.”
Something jabbed into my back and I fell forward as pain bloomed through me. My knees clanged against the solid bulkhead below and I let out a cry of pain.
"You son of a…"
It occurred to me that I didn’t know enough about their mating process to know if calling them a son of an anything would be an insult. Who knew if a species of interstellar crustaceans even had proper families?
"The prisoner will be silent," the Klik said in that strange hissing rattling voice.
It was always odd listening to them talking. As though whatever ancestor they'd evolved from hadn't quite gotten used to talking in open air. I guess that was one of the drawbacks of being a species that had only more recently come out of the oceans on their world.
Assuming their world had oceans. That was another thing no one really knew about these mysterious raiders.
I had a few choice words for the guard, but I kept them to myself. There was no point in antagonizing him again. That would only result in more pain, and the last thing I needed was for the damn Klik guard to disable me before I even got into the arena.
I might not like being a part of these "experiments," but I liked the idea of being dead even less.
We rounded a corner and I saw the familiar sight of the arena entrance up ahead. So much for the slim hope they were taking me to something new that didn’t involve fighting to the death.
I stepped in front of the door and waited for the bars to slide up. They obliged, hissing with barely any noise. I looked into the dirt arena and was amazed, not for the first time, that the Kliks had been so dedicated to creating a gladiatorial arena that they’d shipped dirt from some planet onto their battle cruiser.
I suppose it was a testament to the ridiculous lengths they’d go to in the name of torturing the creatures they'd captured.
I wheeled around and faced my captor. The one who'd been torturing me with that delightful pain stick as he prodded me down the corridor. The bars hissed back up and I made a rude gesture, holding my fingers out and making the best approximation of a wiggling pincer movement without pincers of my own.
The Klik’s reaction was immediate. It hissed and slammed against the bars. Which was just fine with me. It was on the other side of those bars now, and there wasn't a damn thing it could do with that pain stick now.
"Go fuck yourself," I said. Though once more I wondered how much of an insult that truly was considering how little I knew of their mating habits.
I turned my back on the thing. It's not like it was going to come crashing through those bars. They were good and reinforced. The Kliks were nothing if not thorough about keeping their captives good and captured.
I looked around the arena. My opponent hadn't appeared yet, but I knew he’d be here soon enough. I wondered who it’d be this time around. Would I find myself face-to-face with a comrade from my penal battalion? Would it be another officer who’d been reduced to his baser animal instincts during his time as a captive?
The door to my right opened. It was a smaller door near where my "prize" had been forced to sit during my last go round.
I frowned. That fight hadn't been a fun time for me, and I couldn’t imagine it was much better for the “prize.” Watching two men fighting over who would have the privilege of raping her and then being killed at the end because I refused to play ball.
Yeah, I had a hell of a grudge against the Kliks after that experience. I was going to make them regret the day they took me captive.
Assuming I ever managed to escape. That was the big question.
All thoughts of revenge disappeared as I got a good look at the creature who stepped through. My breath caught.
She was gorgeous. She was the most perfect woman I'd ever seen, and she also appeared to be an exotic beauty from some species our people had never encountered before.
Though there was something that felt very familiar about her despite being from a completely unfamiliar species. I had the nagging feeling I should know her from somewhere, though I had no idea where that could be since I’d never seen her species before.
I licked my lips as I looked her up and down. I knew the Kliks had traveled to other star systems beyond the boundaries of known space. After all, we'd run up against them in our expansion and discovered that uncharted space could expand into our territory as easily as we could expand into that uncharted
space.
This creature must've been from one of those uncharted areas. One of the spots on the 3D holomap of the galaxy that was empty save for our best guess as to where the stars would be positioned based on their galactic orbit.
She was beautiful. Intoxicating. She had a strange pinkish tan skin. Her hair came down to her shoulders rather than the shorter hair that was preferred by the women on my world. It was a lighter color which was unheard of among my people.
She had curves in all the right places, and somehow those exaggerated curves looked enticing on her. The women on my world tended to be more slight of frame, except for the ones who went for enhancements.
Not that there were many women doing that sort of thing these days with the war on.
She turned her eyes on me and I took a step back. I might find her alluring, I might be wondering why she seemed so familiar, but the feeling didn’t seem to be mutual.
There was pure hatred in that gaze. She wasn’t happy to be here. I wondered if she had any idea what was going on. What she was supposed to be. It was entirely possible she was from a part of the galaxy where they didn't know the true depths of cruelty the Kliks could sink to.
She opened her mouth and words tumbled out. At least I assumed they were words. They weren't anything I could understand though.
From the way she stared at me expectantly it seemed she hoped I would be able to translate, but I had no way of understanding her. She truly was alien in every sense of the word. Beautiful, but alien.
Despite that alienness, despite the anger in her eyes, I felt a stirring down between my legs. I felt a desire that was intense. Overwhelming.
Maybe it was because it had been so very long since I’d known the touch of a woman. Any woman, alien or from my people.
But something told me that wasn't the case. No, a little voice in the back of my mind whispered that it was this exotic alien beauty that was doing this to me, and that I wouldn't feel this way if it was one of my own people standing there.
