Chapter 4

"Even if some people on Earth know about these other planets, and they kept that information from the public, it still wouldn't make me a slave. I was free to do whatever I wanted," I tried to reason, and explain why I wasn't a slave, while not really believing that would be the case if what Nereis had said was true.

"Sir, I might be kneeling in a cell, but at least I know I'm in a cell. I know that there are things outside this cell," Nereis replied. "Now if this cell was quite a bit bigger than it is, and had its own water supply and a food source, then we added some more people in here with me. We also say that the cell is closed on all sides, so we can't see out of it. Then we assume that everyone in the cell had all grown up in it. So all of us except for one person, believed that the cell was all that existed, and we didn't know there was anything outside the cell. However this one other person, knew that there was things outside the cell; he even sometimes left the cell without the rest of us knowing. He told everyone outside the cell that they couldn't visit, and told everyone in the cell whatever he wanted to tell them. He could also bring back items and ideas into the cell, and because he was the only one who could get those items, it gave him even more power. Soon he ended up controlling the water and food source. If all this was true, I might have less restrictions placed on me while in the cell, but I would still be captive and controlled by someone else. So would I really be more free than I am now?"

"Alert. Unknown Vessel approaching," called out a female voice, sounding as if it was coming from all around the room, just as the male voice normally did.

"Challenge Alert. Incoming Challenge," the voice continued. An alert didn't sound good, but the voice was very calm and almost peaceful sounding, so I was hoping that it wasn't anything serious.

"That's impossible! Why would anyone challenge a prison ship?" Nereis gasped.

"I really wish she would stop with the impossibility declarations. Finding myself on a prison spaceship is enough of an impossibility for one day," I sighed to myself, before letting myself have one non serious afterthought. "Maybe a ball gag will cure her of them."

"Emergency Protocols Enabled," the female voice called out, putting a final end to my hope that this alert wasn't serious.

"All prisoner's prepare for the emergency cleansing procedure," this time, the voice was the male one.

I turned my attention back to Nereis, so that I could ask what was going on. My mouth was already starting to open, when I noticed that she was also starting to move. The movement of my mouth stopped, leaving my unasked question hanging from the tip of my tongue. I stood motionless, watching her movement. While her left hand gently pressed on the concrete floor, helping her to retain her balance, her lower legs started to emerge out from under her upper legs. The hem of her silky nightgown slowly started to creep up her thighs, mesmerizing me with its slow but steady progress.

"This place certainly has some things going for it," I allowed myself to think, while I continued to watch. Seconds later, a small glimmer of reflected light rewarded my display of devoted attention.

After spending a moment pulling myself out of the trance and wondering why she was wearing silver colored panties, I looked up to find Nereis now standing in the standard, head lowered and arms gently held together, pose, with a small shy smile forming on her lips.

"Sorry, Sir. Not the most graceful way of standing, but it is an emergency after all. Although there should be no way that we are being challenged. They must know that we are a prisoner ship and they can't possible be planning to attack us."

"Attack us?"

"Emergency cleansing procedure commencing," the male voice called out.

"You might want to prepare yourself for this, it can feel a bit strange," Nereis told me.

I wasn't sure what she meant by preparing myself. If she meant that I should take up a similar pose to herself, then it wasn't going to happen. If that voice wanted me in a submissive stance like that, then he would have to come out here and force me into it.

Soon however, I at least understood what Nereis had meant about feeling strange. The tingling type of sensation had started from the very top of my head, and then proceeded to slowly envelop the rest of my body. The sensation intensifying around my lower abdomen.

"Wow, I guess it saves having to bother with a bathroom," I thought, as I realized at least part of what it had done.

"Emergency combat outfitting commencing," announced the male voice, interrupting my thoughts.

"Combat? Did he say combat?" Before I could take that stream of thought any further, I felt another tingling sensation. This time the tingling was less intense, and it seemed to leave my head unaffected.

As soon as the tingling stopped, I knew something had changed. I couldn't really explain how, but my body felt different to how it had done moments before. Looking down at my body, I saw that I was now wearing what looked like a green flight suit. I wasn't even sure what I had been wearing before, having not paid much attention to it. I assumed that I had been wearing the same jeans and shirt that I was wearing last night. Whatever I had been wearing, I knew it hadn't been this flight suit.

After quickly examining the suit, it left me with another one of those feelings that this couldn't possible be a spaceship. The suit was too similar to the ones that I had worn when the owner of the flight school, where I had learned to fly, used to take me up in his ex-air force jet trainer. "Why would a spaceship have clothes so much like the ones on Earth?" I wondered.

Looking back towards Nereis, I could see that her clothing had also changed. She was now wearing a black dress. The ruffles and lace covered body of the dress was very figure hugging and narrowed tightly around her waist. The neck corset that she had been wearing, had now been replaced with a very similar one, only this one was also black. While the skirt part of the dress flared out from her body as it descended from her waist, until it ended with a white lacy hemline around her thighs. From there her white stocking or pantyhose covered legs descended to the black high heeled shoes that she was wearing. My first thought had been that it looked a bit like a french maid's dress, but it even though it was only mid thigh in length, it looked more conservative than a french maid's dress. There was also no white lacy apron to be seen. The ruffles and lace of this dress, along with the tight fitting body gave it an almost Victorian look, however I didn't think many Victorian dresses had finished at mid thigh length. The closest style that I could remember seeing, had been when I had traveled to Japan once. I couldn't remember what it was called, but there was a kind of Gothic fashion that was popular in Japan. However the last but even more unusual thing about Nereis's clothes, was that just below her knees there was a short strip of material connecting her stockings together, and I was sure that wasn't standard on those Japanese dresses.

"Temporary crew team assignments, Prisoner D457B, Prisoner D452C and Prisoner D454C are team one. Team one and the Guardian prepare for transportation to the command room," the male voice called out.

This time, I knew that I should expect something to happen. So it wasn't too much of a surprise when I once again could feel the tingling sensation enveloping my whole body, stronger this time than before. A split second later, my vision filled with blackness.

Then a sudden bright light followed, shining directly into my face, which caused me to tightly close my eyes. Then slowly, the tingling sensation eased. Thinking that it might now be safe, I started to open one eye. In front of me, I could see one of those large white wall panels. After opening my other eye and turning my head to take in my new surroundings, I could see that I was back in the control room that I had found earlier.

I was standing on the red mark in the middle of the room, while Nereis was sat at a desk to my right. At the desk to my left sat another one of the women, and as with all the women other than Nereis, I had no idea what her name was; I decided that was something that I would have to fix soon. While sat at the remaining desk, that was positioned between my location and the door, was the woman that I had managed to get punished earlier; the red ball gag was still firmly in her mouth.

"Incoming communications," the same female voice as earlier, called out.

"If I can't work out how to remove these voices from the ship soon, then I'm going to have to give them names," I thought to myself.

"Do you want to accept the communication, Sir?" Nereis asked.

"I guess I have to?" I said, although it was more of a question than a statement.

"Unknown vessel, you have entered private territory, prepare to be boarded and seized," a male voice stated; his voice had a much more noticeable accent to it, than Nereis's voice had. I hadn't actually taken much notice of Nereis's accent until then, but quickly decided that if this was some sort of joke and Nereis and this man really were from Earth, then I had no idea what country their accents might have been from.

"Private territory in space? There is no such thing!" Nereis answered firmly, before moving her hand up to cover her mouth. After Turning to face me, she apologized in a low voice, "I'm sorry, Sir."

I gave her a questioning look as I had no idea what she was sorry for. I had already given her permission to talk freely.

"Identify yourself woman," a different, much more gruff, male voice commanded. Then suddenly an image of a bearded man appeared on the white panel. He looked quite a bit older than myself, possible in his 50's. His black unkempt hair matched his bird's nest like beard. While his large stomach looked as if it had given up its battle with gravity a long time ago and now just flopped below his waist line.

"Hi, I'm Christopher, and your name is?" I replied, deciding that I didn't like how he was talking to Nereis.

"Aww, it's Christopher everyone, isn't he polite," I heard another male voice, from somewhere in the background, say. "He even wants to know your name. Although I guess that I would also want to know the name of the man who was going to kill me."

A lot of laughter followed, before the man with the beard asked, "Well Christopher, are you going to continue to be polite and surrender and die nicely, or do we have to fight first?"

"You must know that if you attack us, that you will be tracked and hunted," Nereis replied back.

"Tracked and hunted? Here? Who by? I'm almost sorry that I have to kill you all. I haven't laughed this much in years."

"Captain, we have an identification on the ship, it's a Priene Mark IV prison ship," I heard the first male voice say.

"A prison ship! Well someone is a bit lost. So Christopher, you must be the ship's Guardian, not doing a very good job are you? Didn't they teach you how to navigate the ship?" the captain taunted, while more laughter could be heard in the background. "Why don't you just surrender now, I would hate to go to all the trouble of launching my pods and then just see you fly your one straight into the nearest asteroid."

"If you were a gentleman, then you would have the decency to challenge our Guardian to a fair duel," Nereis shouted angrily.

"A duel? Where do you think you are? This isn't the inner rings. And we certainly aren't gentlemen; as you will find out once we bring you back aboard our ship."

"You must know that we can't leave this ship. It will kill us if we leave this ship," Nereis replied, her voice full of fear.