Chapter 3

Trianna Yang and Shey watched through the plastiglass window that separated the rest of the hall from the medical lab. There, Dr. Darling and Dr. Carothers both worked together above the Captain’s prone body. Trianna frowned. “Hey, Doc, how’s the Captain?”

Dr. Carothers lifted his basilisk glower and grabbed onto the hanging microcomm that connected him to the rest of the ship in his hermetically sealed emergency ward. He growled into it, and his voice emerged as grainy echoes from the PA system. “Damn it, Tri, I’m a doctor, not a soothsayer. It’ll be how it is when it it is. Now get off my back.”

Trianna turned to face Shey, frowning. “Great,” she said, quietly. “Not only do we get an old souse, but he’s also a Calvinist.”

Shey frowned intently, watching the Captain under the heavy layers of blankets and breather masks. “John will pull through,” she said. “If it was a serious bioweapon, I think he’d be dead by now.” She pushed herself up right with the careless sensuality Sensurians were known for, her fingers darting through her crimson hair as she turned to face Trianna. “We still have a Swiffo ship to deal with. If they’re beaming SO Radio back to the Zemturaga, then the Totality will have a battle fleet here – no matter how disrupted their internal organizations are.”

Trianna sighed. She looked back at the glass as Dr. Darling swung a scanner apparatus down to start beaming energy waves into the Captain’s head.

She touched her fingers to the glass, placing them where the Captain’s cheek would be.

“Stay kicking in there John,” she said, quietly as the doctors continued to work. Then she turned and she and Shey hurried down the corridor and towards the bridge. The Excalibur rumbled slightly as her RCS thrusters kicked on, bringing her prow to bear on the distant glimmering of Pluto. The entrance into the SOF was almost unnoticed – but it would soon bring them to that distant world and the mysterious blip they had received.

As it flew, John Tangent remained asleep.

And as he slept?

He dreamed.

John strode through the thick forest, brushing aside the leaves and branches, wincing as he felt the branches and bramble slapping against his body. He grunted, then burst forth, stumbling out into brilliant sunlight – brighter than he had expected from the dimness before. He stood on a grassy hill overlooking a grassy vale that itself was home to a burbling river that wound through the greenery, with no sign of human civilization anywhere to be seen. The vast curve of silver in the blue air, though, made it clear: He was on Earth, for no human world ever found or ever settled since humanity had cracked faster than light travel had something to match the immense size and position of Earth’s titanic moon, Luna.

The sun was brilliant and warm, and as he looked down at himself, he saw he was quite naked, and had a few small scratches and scrapes on his body from his flight through the forest. He winced, touching one scratch, lifting his finger to examine his hurt finger, then muttered to himself. “This might not be a dream, John. Don’t assume you haven’t been kidnapped by some alien to some...” he frowned. “No. That’s Earth. Earth trees. Earth moon. Earths sky. Earth air. But if I’m dreaming of Earth ... why?”

He had never set foot on his ancestral homeworld. He had barely explored her cities and her wilderness in the simulacra pods back on Zeta colony. His life had been nothing but endless Luciferian ruins and the hardscrabbe subsistence carved out among them. He pursed his lips and started to walk down the vale, the breeze blowing along his naked backside like the comforting caress of a woman. He came to the river. Fish leaped from the river as they swam upstream, and the water looked pure and clean. He knelt beside the waters and looked down at himself.

John Tangent stared back, just as he had expected. His hand cupped his cheek and he shook his head slowly.

“Well, at least you’re not transposed into another body,” he said, quietly. There had been stranger events that had happened to United Nations star captains – traveling in the Space Opera Field had its risks, doubly so when one slipped deeper and deeper into the faster and faster tiers of travel. He was about to wash the sweat from his face when a scream split the air. It was high and female and coming from a small copse of trees. John sprang to his feet and looked down at the river and spied some rocks that would make a passage. He leaped from rock to rock, bounding across the narrow span and landed on the far side, pausing only to snatch up a few throwing stones. He had no other weapons – and had the uneasy, unsettling mental image of running up against some thugs armed with needlers or cryoguns. He forced the thought out of his head and instead darted towards the fringe of the trees. He pressed a shoulder against the bark, panting softly, and peeked around the edge.

He saw the woman first.

She was no Terran.

She was bright pink, with little antennas emerging from her forehead, and brilliant blue eyes. She was dressed in frilly finery – flowing gossamer voidsilk from Betelgeuse, with Alphan star sapphires and Proxian flare gems on gold filigree like the finest of smiths from France or Seattle. The whole ensemble accentuated her pink frame, with was more fae than curvaceous, and had room enough for her back to be bare, which was required: She had a set of interlocking, iridescent wings akin to that of the Earthican dragonfly. She was trying to flee, but something huge and brutish had grabbed her right arm, tugging her to a stop as it let loose with a low, guttural laugh.

A Kruul.

There was no species in the galaxy more perfectly designed for the Zemturaga Totality and their brutal systems of slavery and vassalage – for only the Kruul could say they were designed. From what little the United Nations knew, something or someone had altered the Kruul from the depths of their genomes to the highest strictures of their enshrined Constitution (called the Articles of Cruelty) so that they would be the perfect Battle-Thrall. Their religion venerated evil and barbarity, their bodies were enriched and pleasured by acts of spite ... their Captains could and would be put up on charges if they committed any of the acts the Kruul Navy considered war crimes.

Accepting surrender. Prisoner Exchange. Not using torture. Forgoing looting and plundering. Even fighting fairly had gotten one Kruul captain, according to the history tapes, drawn and quartered.

And one was grabbing this fae woman, laughing as he tugged her back into his beastly, orange furred embrace. “Don’t run, pretty pretty!” The Kruul laughed, his paw cupping at her dress – clearly preparing to tear it off her body!

John saw there were two other Kruul – but thank god, they were only sporting. Rather than carrying their standard sidearm, the Mastication Field Emitter Pistol, they were instead armed with brutal axes and longswords and daggers, which hung from their tool belts. They were otherwise, like John, nude. Unlike John, the Kruul were made for nudity in a way Terrans weren’t: Their bodies were covered with thick, slablike muscle, hardened skin that could turn aside blades and even some bullets. Their only weakness were their glittering compound eyes and their relative slowness and clumsiness when it came to agility.

That was John’s only hope.

He sprang from around the tree, and blew a sharp whistle through free hand. “Hey, vac-heads!” he shouted. “Why don’t you pick on someone your own size!”

The Kruul lifted their heads and he threw in the same motion. The rock he had chosen drove into the compound eyes of one of the Kruul, who clutched at his face, stumbling backwards. Blood spurted between his thick, stubby fingers, while the other Kruul growled and advanced. They knew their weaknesses: Rather than charging straight for him, they fanned outwards and drew their weapons at the same time. Their thumping footfalls shook the trees and sent leaves scattering. The one that he had wounded stumbled to one knee, clutching at his bloody eye.

“You will pay for that Terran!” the Kruul growled. “I will drink your blood and use your skull as a paperweight!”

“You’ll have to get some first,” John said, licking his lips nervously. He stepped backwards, then threw another rock. This one hit a Kruul in the sternum – and while it’d have driven the air from the lungs of a Terran, the Kruul simply ignored it as it rebounded from his muscular chest. The wounded Krull started to stand, reaching for his longsword with his free hand as blood continued to drip between his fingers – but the sword was gone. John blinked, then saw the fae woman, sprinting around the fanning Kruul, her arm bruised from where she had been grabbed.

“Here!” she shouted.

John caught the blade from the air just as one of the Kruul stopped fanning and started to close in. His feet thumped heavily – and a lack of agility didn’t mean a lack of speed. When they went in a straight line, the Kruul could go quite quickly! He rushed towards John, swinging his battle ax. But John was no mere amateur – he had trained long and well on the arts of premodern weapons. The United Nations Navy had only been exploring space for five, six decades before the Zemturga Totality had obliterated it ... and in that time, no less than thirty star captains had been placed in death battles involving premodern weapons. Something about traveling through the Space Opera Field just really liked edged weapons and clubs.

So.

John’s body had been given electro-stim muscular induction on top of his training.

And his mind?

Five years, subjective, of combat training from the finest minds of the United Nation’s martial schools, pounded into his head in a simulacra pod between his training on starship operations and command.

He sprang aside with fluid grace as the ax plunged into the ground where he had stood. His feet skidded on the wet grass and he slashed upwards, his blade biting into the back of the Kruul’s thigh. Green blood splashed onto the ground as the huge beast bellowed in fury. His comrade thumped around him, swinging at John’s head. John parried with a spray of sparks, then parried again as the Kruul continued to try and hack him apart like he was a particularly annoying log. John felt the strength of each impact, throbbing down his arms as he gripped the sword in a double handed grip – then he caught the next swung against his crossguard. They two blades locked and he twisted, then thrust, knocking the Kruul sword aside and driving the tip of his blade into the alien’s throat. He stepped aside as the Kruul clutched at his neck, spurting blood wildly.

The Kruul missing his eye and the Kruul with the ax gaped as their comrade fell face first to the ground and twitched. The ax wielding Kruul growled and then stepped backwards. But the one who had lost an eye simply reached behind himself. He yanked a remarkably small device from a concealed pouch on his belt and planted his broad, flat feet wide, aiming the barrel of what could only be a Mastication pistol directly at John’s chest.

“Hah!” he rumbled. “I was going to have fun ripping you limb from limb. But instead, I will let the pistol do it. So long as your death is agonizing enough to make up for the eye.”

“No!”

The pink girl ran before John, startling him. She spread her arms, her wings buzzing. “Don’t hurt him!” she exclaimed. “Y-You wanted me, you can’t shoot me and ... and ... have your way with me at the same time.”

“She’s right,” the Kruul with the ax rumbled. “Captain, what do we do?”

“Damn. The codes are always so unclear on this,” the Kruul Captain muttered. “On the one hand, killing the pink wench so horribly would please our Gods of Evil. But first, we do wish to ... pleasure ourselves with her supple, nubile body. Which brings our Gods more joy? Her torment or our joy?” He paused, considering. “Then again...”

John, meanwhile, leaned forward and whispered to the girl. “Step towards them. I have a plan.”

The girl gulped, then nodded bravely. She took a step forward.

The Kruul were still having their theological discussion. “ ... if we were to defile her corpse, would that be more evil or less evil? She would not be around to suffer it, but it would be significantly more perverse.”

“You mean defile her with sword and ax, yes? Chop her up, make a tableaux with her body-parts and skin?”

“Of course! You didn’t mean ... oh Gods! You thought I meant- no! Even we have standards, my Captain!”

“It is true we ... hey! What are you doing?” The Kruul captain aimed his attention once more at the pink girl, who had taken several strides closer.

“I-I simply wish to be nearer to your magnificence, oh mighty Kruul Captain!” she said, her voice nervous. “S-So you might. Ravage me? More easily? And spare the brave hu-eeep!” She squeaked as she was shoved aside – and John, who had been standing behind her still, leaped forward. He cleared the distance between her and the shocked Kruul Captain in a single flash, his longsword swinging down. The Kruul captain’s hand and pistol flew as one as he clutched at his wrist, bellowing in rage more than pain. Then John swung again and his head joined him.

The last Kruul roared and charged. John, turning, was caught by the attacking alien’s shoulder and body and sent arcing through the air. He landed hard on his back, the grass and soft earth doing as much as they could to cushion his landing. He sat up with a groan and saw the Kruul advancing towards him – ax raised over his head. “You die now, Terran!” he gloated. “And then I will have my way with your woman. Hahah! For evil!” He lifted his ax higher...

And then a loud whirr sounded behind him.

The Kruul screamed in horror, first. Then in pain. His skin dimpled as thousands of bite marks appeared over his body. His hands clutched at his face as the ax fell from his fingers – which were already missing their tips, blood gushing from where flesh had been chewed away. Behind him, John saw the horrified pink girl gaping at what she had done, the Mastication pistol dangling from her now nerveless fingers. John leaped up, careless of his bruises, and grabbed onto her.

“Don’t look!” he said, grabbing her, holding the back of her head, pressing her face to his chest as he looked away from the horrifying sounds and sights of the Kruul – and after what felt like an eternity, the sounds stopped, while the pink girl sobbed against his chest, her wings drooping, her antennas curled in on themselves as she pressed her warm, lithesome body against him.

John risked a glance.

The only thing left of the Kruul was a splattering of bright green blood, a few scraps of flesh, and...

Burrrrp!

A pair of boots that flew from the pinprick hole that was the center of the Mastication field.

He hadn’t even known the Kruul had worn boots.

The pink girl sobbed against his chest. “Oh! It was so horrible. Those noises. That ... oh! Who would even make something like that?” She pressed herself against him, as if John was a life-raft floating in the depths of the ancient Atlantic. She slid her arms around his back, holding him closer as John caressed her back, his cheeks heating slightly as he remembered his nakedness – let alone the reaction of his body to surging adrenaline and the press of this lovely, lovely woman against him. His voice was husky and soft.

“I’m sorry. It’s ... the Kruul are just like that. We don’t quite know why.” He kissed the top of her head – her hair, in contrast to her skin, was bright teal. Her scent was of lilacs and strawberries. His nose flared, breathing her in and his manhood surged to even more eager excitement – but through heroic thigh clenching, John was fairly sure that he managed to seem merely awkward, not ... ahem ... forceful. He pushed her back, gently, to look into her face, to see her tears were the same bright, glowing blue as her shimmering eyes.

“Thank you,” she sniffed. “Oh thank you, brave ... human? They called you human?”

Her hands cupped his cheeks. Her fingers were silky.

“We’re also called Terrans,” John said. Her fingers caressed behind his ears and John noticed he was a head taller than her.

“Terrans...” she whispered, softly. “I’ve never heard of Terrans before.” She blinked. “Wait. No, I have! I have heard of Terrans before. Those awful Zemturga hate you.” She blushed. “I’m a ... well, there is no direct translation of my species into your language. I suppose the closest you could say is that I’m a Guardian Angel.” She smiled, shyly. “That’s why I recognized you.” her fingers stroked from chin to neck to chest as she stepped back, looking him over. “You were in the Zemturga hold – and the bioweapon and...” Her face brightened. “Ah, I see now!”

“What?” John asked.

“This dream – it is fragments of your thoughts and mine, mixing together. I must have entered you, to help battle the bioweapon,” she said, nodding slightly, her antennas twitching up slightly.

“Then I’m on some biobed, having my body poked and prodded by Dr. Darling and Dr. Carothers?” John frowned, his hand going to her hand, covering it, keeping it pressed against his chest. His stance relaxed – and he realized that his arousal had escaped from between his thighs, thrusting forth like an eager, erotic exclamation point. Fortunately his ... guardian angel seemed entranced by his face, looking into it eagerly.

“Yes.” She smiled, shyly. “Those Kruul? They were representations of the bioweapon at work in your body, and by defeating them, we must be coming into alignment. Never fear, you will waken.” She giggled, then blushed. “ ... I hope.”

“You hope?” John asked.

“I guess?” She said, smiling shyly, her wings buzzing.

“What do you mean you guess?” John put his hand on her shoulder. “What’s your name? I ... how old are you?”

She opened her mouth, then closed it. Her wings buzzed again. “W-Well, my name ... I ... haven’t ... chosen one yet.”

John frowned. “How old?”

“Um, approximately...” She thought. “Counting the time from ... when I first ... ah, carry the...”

Distantly, John thought he could hear a voice.

Captain?

No. He was being aroused. Er. Awakened. He focused on the dream.

“How long?” he asked.

The pink girl blushed. “Um. T-Two. Hours?”

“Two-”

“I learn fast, don’t worry! I’ll be the-”

“Captain!”

John’s eyes snapped open. He blinked, slowly, and groaned, feeling the intense discomfort of a catheter and an erection throbbing through his hips. Above him, the beautiful features and full, rubber lips of Dr. Darling contrasted with the perpetual scowl and white hair of Dr. Carothers. Dr. Darling spoke first, her voice breathy and sensual as ever. “Captain Tangent. Can you hear me?”

“Yeah...” John mumbled through the oxygen mask he wore.

“Ah, great,” Dr. Carothers said. “You’re lucky to be alive, Captain. Zemturga biota was tearing up your nervous system like my husband going to town on a turkey.” He worked a crank and the biobed shifted to an upright position, letting John sit up. He breathed slowly, then took the oxygen mask off his face – his head settling.

“Did you cure it?” he asked.

“With help from the God-Almighty, yes,” Dr. Carothers said, grumping. “We were hitting you with every antiviral treatment we had. We used dolyquoxitain, triptafill, viortan squeezings. Hell, we even threw penicillin into the mix, just for a laugh. Nothing. Then, every last Zemturga bugger in your system up and died like it was hit by a concentrated microwave beamer.”

“It was deeply strange,” Dr. Darling said. “But we did detect trace amounts of quasicausal psychodynamic energies in your body, centered in your hippocampus and the rest of your temporal lobe. It was almost as if you were dreaming.”

“I was,” John said, his voice hoarse. “Have either of you heard of a Guardian Angel?”

“Course I have,” Dr. Carothers said, grumping. “I went to Sunday school, better than you ever did, you whippersnapper.”

“Not that kind of Guardian Angel,” John said, rubbing his throat. Dr. Darling offered him a glass of water and he drank with relief, feeling his discomfort fade as his erection did. He stopped wincing. “An alien. Some kind of Space Opera Field born entity?”

Dr. Darling nodded, slowly. “There are legends of such creatures. But none have ever been seen by credible witnesses.”

“Well. I may be your first,” John said. “Before I check out, can you deep scan my brain with the thought analyzer and store my dream? I think Dr. Darling and Lieutenant Sheyshan will want to study it. I think you both will want to study it a lot.”

He looked from Dr. Darling to Dr. Carothers. “As for you...”

“If you’re going to ask me when you can leave the biobed, the answer is not until I’m done checking you over,” he said, frowning. “We need to be sure you’re not carrying anything infectious. But once you’re cleared for duty...” He made a face as the thought scanner, swung down by an eager Dr. Darling, clicked into place around John’s head. “ ... well, I’d still prefer you take a week or three off. But since that’s not going to happen.”

John chuckled.

“This will sting a little,” Dr. Darling warned him.

“How bad-” John started.

The bridge crew heard the scream.

“So, you’re insane?” Trianna asked as John stepped onto the bridge with her.

“Not yet,” he said, amused. “Not until I start seeing her in real life. Or, she can’t prove she’s not just a figment of my mind’s imagining.” His finger reached up and tapped the small rectangular metal stud that had been placed against his temple. “That’s what this is for?”

“Ah, a mental scanner!” Shey said, stepping over from her science console – the rest of the bridge crew turning to watch their captain return. “It’ll alert Dr. Darling if anything strange happens?”

“Precisely,” John said, then smiled wryly. “Don’t worry. I don’t plan to be all protagonist-ey about this. If anything strange, anything at all, happens I’ll tell all of you can you can stun me and ship me to the medical ward so the professionals can figure out what is going on.”

Trianna chuckled, while Albert grinned from his console. “Can we stun you any time we want and just pretend you were acting weird?”

“No,” John said, dryly as he took his seat.

“Good to know,” Albert said. Then, frowning. “Sir, we’re almost done decelerating – we’ll be out of Tier Two and in orbit around Pluto within the next five minuets.”

“Anything more on the Swiffo?” John asked.

“Not yet, sir,” Shey said. “The Swiffo are the galaxy’s best hiders. Even when we Sensurians were a part of the Totality, we didn’t know where the Swiffo came from, where they were going, what they were doing, and even what they looked like. They only communicated to us through blacked out screens and radio. We don’t even know what they did in the war. They were Battle-Thralls, but we never saw them doing any fighting.” She frowned. “Of course, if they’re the sneakiest sons of bitches in space, as others have claimed, then their fighting would all be subtle too, no?”

“True,” John said, his frown intensifying. “And yet, we picked up their signal...”

“Maybe they made a mistake?” Albert asked.

“Or it’s a trap,” Eugene said, his voice grim.

“My thoughts exactly,” John said. “Trianna, make sure our guns are warmed up when we arrive around Pluto.”

“Aye, sir,” Trianna said.

Shey bent over her console, continuing her scanning sweeps. John remembered what she had said before – that there was a chance that the Sensurians might be reborn once more. He wanted to ask her for more details ... but, well, they were about to arrive at a potentially dangerous situation, and he wanted to be focused. Attentive.

Exciting, isn’t it! A giggling, familiar voice spoke to his left. John swung his head around – but saw nothing there. No one. And before he could speak, the Excalibur burst from Second Tier and into Realspace around the beautiful, hauntingly isolated world of Pluto. The planetoid sat nearly as far from Sol as her sister dwarf worlds: Charon, Ophedius and Cliner, the last of which had only been discovered when FTL capable ships had traveled beyond the solar system for the first time. The world’s surface showed up as glossy purple and gray on the false color screen, and Shey isolated a blip of glowing white power-emitting artifice on the polar region.

“That’s the Swiffo ship, it looks like,” she said.

John considered telling everyone he was hearing voices. He touched the metal plate – and there was no chirrup or alert. His mental scanner hadn’t gone off ... and damn it, he did have to at least try and guide his crew through this moment. Star Captain’s had a job to do, and that job included first contact situations. He sat up a bit more in his chair and said, firmly. “Send a radio beam down to that blip. All channels.”

“Done,” Shey said.

“Swiffo ship, this is the UNN Excalibur,” John said. “We are the flagship of the New Interstellar Alliance. We come in peace and wish to communicate with you.”

Silence. Nothing but the grainy whistle of distant stars, crackling and buzzing through the radio system.

“Nothing, sir,” Shey said. “I’m doing a more focused scan.”

He, Trianna and Eugene walked to her console, where she threw up the scan. Trianna grunted. “That’s definitely a starship all right. But we’ve never seen a Swiffo ship – for all we know, it’s one of their Planetkiller Doomships that can crack our star in half over its knee.” She said, while Eugene shook his head, leaning forward. The ship looked a bit like a bunch of rocks that had been glued to an over sized oyster. The rocks each were emitting the energy patterns that made it clear some were engine emitters, some were beam emitters, some shield projectors. John frowned.

“Well, wait,” John said. “Eugene, do you see it?”

“Either the Swiffo use technology so different from every other species out there or...” Eugene said. “Or they have no fighter bays. I don’t even see a shuttle bay. Shit, I don’t even see an airlock on this thing.”

“Running a bioscan,” Shey said, her fingers playing along the controls. She frowned, then turned back to John – the motion sending a tiny spurt of her pheromones up despite her masker. He forced down the immediate reaction, focusing on her words. “Sir, I’m detecting one life sign aboard.”

“A single Swiffo on a single Swiffo ship,” John said. “This is getting stranger and stranger.”

They all regarded the image.

“I think we need to knock and say hi,” John said. “Call up the marines.”

The United Nations Navy and the United Nations Marine Corps had always been two co-equal partners – but on Zeta Colony, there had not been enough training and material to really fully reproduce the Marines. There had been some security officers and some side arms, but none of the powered exoskeletal armor, none of the sophisticated combat weaponry, and none of the intense training that had made the UNMC so dangerous and effective in the war against the Zemturga Totality. Fortunately, Commander Lagrange on the Starbase had been able to help.

Of the several thousand people that worked aboard the former Zemturga starbase in orbit around Earth, there had been enough who had been UNMC veterans to cobble together a platoon. They didn’t have the schematics for their power armor, but they had the designs for their side arms and for armored space suits – and they had enough raw material for the starbase’s vast fabricators to get to work, spitting out rifles, armor plating, and uniforms to outfit them. Stationing them aboard the vast Excalibur hadn’t even cut into their living space!

Thus, Terrain Vehicle 1 was launched, piloted by Delta Vee, with a load of six tough and gorgeous space marine girls aboard. Each one had traded in the silky gowns and slave collars of a pleasure serf for hardened armor and picked up their old ranks: Sergeant Danielle “Devi” Delacroix had a cigar dangling from her lips as she watched through the screen, her armored hands gripping the handles above Delta’s head. She rocked left and right as the TV1 screamed down towards Pluto.

“All right, ladies!” she said, turning from the screen to face the fire team. “We’ve going down to knock, politely, on the door of this Totality spaceship. We’re going to be ready for a fight, but the Captain wants us to take whatever Zemturga slave in there alive so we can question them. Prep for cryogenic fighting out there, I don’t want to lose any of your fine asses by stepping on a hydrogen ice patch. Leslie!”

Lisa “Leaf” Leslie jerked her head up from where she had been worrying at the strap of her hip-armor.

“Stop fucking tugging at it and get it seated,” Devi said, reaching down to yank the strap firm.

“Y-Yes, Sergeant.”

“Ah, I love being in the marines again,” Devi said, taking the cigar from her mouth, then tucking it into the vest pocket of her vac-armor, before shouting. “Hats on!”

Visors clicked into place. She swung hers down last.

“Check seals.”

The marines started to sound off.

At the front, Delta glanced back.