Story Start
OK, I couldn't resist starting a story, based on this artwork. A couple of things I'd like to ask: (1) Scavenger, would you mind having this story associated with your drawing? (2) Everyone else, is this start a good tension-builder, or is it too slow?
Military Experiments
As the prison transport crossed the Moraxian Limit, a silent groan of disappointment went through the command center of the pursuing Terran destroyer.
"Check weapons," the captain ordered, stone faced. She had been willing to risk casualties among the human prisoners in an attempt to rescue them, but she wasn't willing to kill them just to stop the squidcats from escaping.
"There she goes," someone whispered as the hyperspacial vortex formed in front of the fleeing transport. But this vortex was unsteady - and too small to for the transport to pass through. Instead, a dozen small spheres detached from the crippled ship and fled, disappearing as they fell into the vortex.
"Ma'am, she's launching escape pods. They're abandoning ship!"
"Launch the marines!" the captain rapped out.
Several minutes later, the marine lieutenant's face appeared in a comm screen. "We have the ship, Ma'am. The scuttling charges have been disarmed. No prisoners, though. It looks like the ship had both kraken and leotaurs on board, as well as some human prisoners, but they all got away."
"Well done," the captain answered. "Too bad about the prisoners, but the brass will be glad enough to get their hands on a squidcat ship. Tell your people 'well done.'"
#
"You want to do what?" the admiral asked.
"We've already learned everything we can from the hardware side," Dr. Harkess explained. She was lean and dark as a panther, and annoyingly civilian. "We need to learn how the squidcats manage to break our people down. You've seen the reports: They're not prisoners anymore, once the kraken and the leotaurs have worked them over. They're," she shrugged. "Harem slaves."
"I know." The admiral leaned back in his chair, frowning. Humanity was barely holding on against the unlikely alliance of the cat-like centauroids and tentacled things that humans had dubbed 'leotaurs' and 'kraken.' And low morale was the worst problem of all - precisely because the squidcat alliance
did take prisoners - and then turned them into 'harem slaves.' This female mad scientist was right on that point, at least.
"We'll have to ask for volunteers, of course," Dr. Harkess went on.
"Volunteers?! You want to ask my people to volunteer for
that?" he waved his hand at the datachip inserted in his desk's reader.
"It's the only way, Admiral," Dr. Harkess told him softly.
The admiral frowned more deeply than before. A minute passed, and then a small evil smile tugged the corners of his mouth. "You may have ten volunteers for your experiment," he told the waiting scientist. "Provided that you yourself are one of them."
The ebony face of Dr. Harkess could not turn purple, but her eyes bulged as a horde of emotions migrated across it. Anger. Fear. Horror. Disgust. And finally, a grudging acceptance.
"Agreed," she said.
#
Marine Sergeant Kathy Smith shut the locker and sealed it. Like the nine other volunteers for "a special project," she now stood nude in the locker chamber. Eight of the other women she already knew, and she held out her hand to the ninth. "Sergeant Kathy Smith," she introduced herself.
"Dr. Emily Harkess," the dark woman answered. "Civilian, not navy or marines. In fact, this whole crazy project was my idea, so you can blame me for what's going to happen."
"What
is going to happen?" Kathy asked.
"You weren't told? You should have been briefed before you volunteered. Anyway, it's - "
At that moment the bosun-buzzer sounded, drowning out all conversation. "Now hear this," an equally loud male voice announced. "All volunteers will form a line at the indicated airlock." A green light flashed over one hatch. "Exit the chamber one at a time, and proceed down the corridor. Now hear this. All volunteers..." The voice repeated its message as the ten nude women, ranging in size and color from short and blonde like Sergeant Kathy Smith to tall and black like Dr. Emily Harkess, formed a line and stepped one by one through the hatch.
(To be continued...)
(Oh, and can someone think of a better title? I'm not always so good at coming up with decent titles for my stories.)
