by Lisa Lace
“You’re sick.”
“The Bonaan are already doing it. I don’t see how it would be much different, anyway. If the parts are compatible, then what’s wrong with that?” Arkhan looked thoughtful. “Besides, you know the women at home aren’t much fun. The Earth girls must be interested in mating if they’re willing to leave their planet to do it.” He looked at the limp form on the floor again. “Let me propose something. I’ll take her to my cabin when she wakes up, and I’ll see exactly how compatible we are. You can have her back when we reach headquarters.”
“Like hell you will!” Troxeo was up and out of his seat in an instant, indignant at the thought of his cousin fucking the human.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Arkhan held his hands out to stave off Troxeo, but he couldn’t wipe the smug grin from his face. “Why do you care?”
Troxeo struggled to find the right words. “She’s under my protection.” It was a logical statement, but it wasn’t exactly accurate. Commander Reck had been rather vague in his commands. He wanted an average human, and that was all he said. Reck specified nothing about the human’s treatment on the way back to Oretoz. If someone decided they wanted to have a little fun, it wouldn’t be the first time soldiers took advantage of the spoils of war.
But the idea of someone else mating with this human started to make Troxeo feel uncomfortable. She was his prize.
Arkhan had always been good at getting under Troxeo’s skin. He turned back to the controls of the ship. “Okay, if that’s the way you feel about it. But keep in mind that if we invade Earth the way Commander Reck intends, it’s going to be open season on humans. There will probably be orgies all over the place.”
Troxeo couldn’t argue with his co-pilot. Males from their planet were soldiers, and they had dedicated their lives to conquest. It didn’t matter what form victory took. In private, no one would care about the public opinion of humans. He sank in his chair and ran a hand over his forehead. “Let’s get this over with.”
Chapter Eight
Troxeo closed his eyes and listened to the hum of his ship. It was the only thing that relaxed him, and he certainly needed to escape. It wasn’t the kind of thing he would normally care about. He was a soldier, after all. His life was meant to be spent on the battlefield, taking down the enemy either via force or intelligence. Sometimes both. The Oretoz soldiers weren’t challenged by much. They accepted their missions and carried them out with vigor.
When Commander Reck gave him the assignment of retrieving a human from Earth, he never imagined it would be a problem. It should have been a simple job. Go in, get out, and return to Oretoz with his prize. The hardest part of the operation was deciding on a plan, but even that wasn’t terribly difficult.
He wasn’t the type of person to go through the minimum required training and lay it aside, focusing on the battlefield by day and the easy life at night. No, Troxeo spent his extra hours honing his body and his mind, preparing for anything that dared come at him next.
The human still lay on the floor of the bridge behind him. He focused on the feel of the ship’s controls under his fingers, the beauty of the universe slowly slipping by the windows, and the promotion he was certain to get upon his return,. Anything to keep his mind off the figure on the floor, all soft curves and smooth lines.
The door to the bridge opened, and Chixo entered. Chixo, like Arkhan, had worked with him for a long time, but she wasn’t related to him by blood. She had attended the Academy alongside Troxeo, and he knew she was a valuable soldier. She was considered dainty for an Oretoz woman, barely coming up to his shoulder, but she made up for her size with a big mouth. Most of the time it didn’t matter. He had learned to ignore her.
Today things were different.
“Troxeo! What in doktan is this?” She stood over the human and studied her carefully. Chixo planted her feet on either side of Katie’s head, nearly stepping on her hair.
“You know perfectly well what it is, Chixo. They sent me to get a human.” Troxeo didn’t bother turning around to look at his cargo. He wasn’t ready to have unwanted thoughts race through his head again. He could see Chixo’s reflection in the window. She had her hands on her skinny hips, and her face looked indignant.
“So you just dumped her on the floor? She could be dangerous. Or hurt, from the look of it.”
“Should I care?” Troxeo shrugged. “For that matter, should you? She hurt herself. I didn’t do it, this time.” After he had spoken those words, he wished he could shove them back into his mouth. He wasn’t typically kind to his prisoners and never intended to be. He should take credit for the human losing consciousness, if for no other reason than his pride.
“Maybe not, but she has to be in good enough condition so Commander Reck can interrogate her. You know what he’s like. Even Oretoz have caved under his pressure.”
Troxeo nodded. He had cleaned up some of the aftermath himself when he served in the lower ranks of the army.
“Can I take it to sick bay?” Chixo demanded. She tilted her head to the side as she studied the creature on the floor. “I’d like a chance to examine it. I’d be the first Oretoz scientist to get hands-on with a human. It will be easier to perform the analysis if it’s unconscious.”
“Do whatever you like.” Troxeo leaned toward the console and pretended to look busy, checking their coordinates. “Whatever you do, make sure you keep it restrained. I don’t want it prowling around my ship or getting loose when we land.”
“All right, then. Help me pick it up.”
Troxeo swiveled to see Chixo bending down and lifting the human under its shoulders. The swell of the human’s breasts under the thin material of her shirt was mesmerizing. They rose and fell with her breathing, large orbs that made him want to rip off her clothes and see what they looked like without constraint. He would like to get hands-on with the human as well and perform some analysis himself.
He felt a stirring between his legs, one he shouldn’t be feeling for an Earthling. If he hadn’t ever had desires for Chixo, an Oretoz woman of high birth who outranked him in the army, then why should he care about a random creature like this one? Her hair looked shiny and soft where it lay on the floor. Troxeo wanted to grab handfuls of it and stroke it to see how she reacted. He wanted to probe his tongue between the pale petals of her lips. He wanted to hear her gasp with pleasure underneath him. He wanted to mount her properly, to make her his and never share her with anyone.
“I think you can handle it on your own,” he muttered as he turned back around. If thoughts like these overwhelmed his mind when he merely looked at her, there was no way he was going to risk picking her up again.
“Arkhan, come over here and help me,” Chixo demanded. “Troxeo’s too lazy to take care of his business.”
Up until this moment, Arkhan had been quietly listening to their conversation while feigning an interest in a set of digital maps. He silently acquiesced. Troxeo knew that either one of them could have lifted the human by themselves, but they each took a side of the body and carried her off into the sick bay, leaving Troxeo alone.
Once the other two had left the room, Troxeo frowned at the weakness he felt toward this new creature. Perhaps it had been too long since he had mated. He would have to make some arrangements when he got back to his planet. The rocklike women at home, with their minimal breasts and muscled bodies, wouldn’t be as appealing now that he had seen this human.
They wouldn’t let him caress their nipples with his tongue or waste valuable time on kisses and strokes. Those kinds of things were for the Bonaan or the humans, not the Oretoz. They would let him do his job, maybe even more than once, but that was it. With luck, they would get his mind off the human once and for all.
Chapter Nine
Katie didn’t want to open her eyes. Her head was throbbing, and it was a pulsing pain far worse than any hangover. She tried to roll over. She felt like going back to sleep, maybe even dozing through the pain until it went away. Her body didn’t want to
move.
A bright light shone in her face. She flinched, but it didn’t go away. There were strange noises around her. Katie heard a faint beeping, a deep hum, and finally the rustling of clothing as someone moved. Giving up, she opened her eyes.
A woman stood over her, consulting a small device. She had short brown hair with contrasting red streaks that stood out from her head in spikes. Her eyes were just as dark as her hair, and they made tiny flickers of movement as she studied the screen on the gadget in her hand. Her skin was so pale that it was nearly pearlescent, complemented by the woman’s tight black bodysuit.
“Where am I?” Katie whispered, glad to see that at least her mouth worked even if her body didn’t. Her tongue felt dry and thick. It stuck to the roof of her mouth as she spoke.
The dark eyes looked at her. “You’re in the sick bay.” The woman went back to her device.
“The sick bay? Of what?” She searched in her mind, trying to remember where she should be or what day it was. She remembered saying goodbye to her parents at the airport and her mother trying to wipe away tears before Katie saw them. She remembered boarding the plane with all the other women heading to Bonaan in a search for alien husbands and to start new lives. She remembered a big, frightening man, like something out of a nightmare, wrenching her out of her seat as if she were as light as a feather.
Katie tried to sit up on the examining table, but her muscles still wouldn’t move. They only made twitching movements and her body itched like hell. She couldn’t lift her head more than an inch off the table.
“Stop trying to get up,” the woman commanded, a surprising amount of authority coming out of her small frame. “The table has an electrical field to keep you steady until we finish all of the tests. If you keep moving around, I’ll have to start everything again.” The woman pushed some buttons on the device and kept her eyes on the screen. “I hope everything is still accurate. We don’t analyze a lot of humans in here.”
“But where am I?” Katie asked again.
“Oretoz mission ship number 2558, captained by Troxeo ar Trepniss.” She spoke with a clipped efficiency like she could recite this information in her sleep. She didn’t even bother to look at Katie.
Katie waited for her to say something else but when there wasn’t any further communication, she fired off another question. “And how did I get here?” She felt anger rising in her toward this woman. Shouldn’t she have a right to know where she was, not to mention what they were going to do to her?
“Troxeo brought you.”
Katie started to ask who Troxeo was, but memories were beginning to coalesce in her mind. A huge man had abducted her. That must have been how she ended up here with this woman. She used the same name when describing the captain. Katie had a piece of the puzzle in place, but it was too small to satisfy her.
“Why am I here?”
The woman didn’t bother looking at her. “You’ll have to ask Troxeo. As far as I know, it’s classified.”
Katie wanted to scream. Not the bat-shit crazy kind of cry like the woman on her spaceflight to Bonaan. She had freaked out and demanded someone take her back to Earth. Katie wanted to yell out in frustration and let this woman and anyone else on the ship know precisely how pissed she was getting.
“Can you at least tell me why I’m naked?” Although she couldn’t sit up, she could see the fleshy mounds of her breasts from her current position. Her nipples looked perky in the cold air of the room. There wasn’t a way to cover herself but the table was warm, at least.
The female’s dark eyes finally looked up at her again, one of her arched eyebrows rising a little. “How do you expect me to do a thorough medical exam if you’re wearing all your clothing?” She shook her spiked head. “Honestly, you humans have some weird ideas about life. But you’re certainly interesting to study. You’re similar to us, except more squishy, smaller, and weaker.”
Katie suddenly realized the implications of her words. She must have been too naïve to come to space. She didn’t even recognize an alien when she saw one. Oh God, now she was naked in front of an alien. Somehow it felt even more humiliating than before.
“I have to admit,” the alien woman continued, “I wasn’t sure what I would find when I cut your clothes off. Since you were on your way to Bonaan, I assumed you would be compatible with their body types. It appears that you’re similar to the Oretoz regarding functionality. Your skin is thin, but it is laid out like ours. You have the same number of limbs and familiar hair patterns. It looks like the interior organs are similar in form and function, if not completely identical...”
If she could have moved back, Katie would have recoiled in horror as the woman droned on. Someone was scientifically examining her and evaluating her body at the same time! She tried to push the old tales of alien abductions out of her mind. She’d been through enough without getting something stuck up her ass. But this woman wasn’t the typical gray her grandmother used to talk about, with a giant head and large, black eyes. Those rumors had been fairly well put to rest once humans contacted alien races.
“Now these are definitely different.” The alien grabbed hold of Katie’s breasts, taking one in each hand, and squeezed them gently. “They’re much bigger than I would have expected. Are you considered deformed on your planet? Or do you work out a lot?”
Katie gasped at the woman’s touch. “Of course not!” she replied, indignant. “They’re perfectly natural. And your hands are cold!”
The alien released her breasts but continued to stare at them. Katie was horrifically aware of how her boobs jiggled as they settled back into place. “If you say so. But there’s far more material than needed, don’t you think? It’s a waste. We should arrange to have them altered when we get to Oretoz.”
“No!”
The alien woman didn’t pay any attention to her protests, and Katie began to wonder if it was worth trying to communicate. “I have to say that your genitalia are interesting as well…comparable to what I’m familiar with, but I’d like to know more about its internal structure.” The woman moved down the table and reached between Katie’s legs.
“Don’t touch me!” Katie screamed. “I’m not a guinea pig!”
The woman stopped, her fingers suspended just above Katie’s thighs, and gave her a quizzical glance. “What’s a guinea pig?”
“Read a book and find out! Keep your dirty hands off me and get me off this stupid table. And give me back my clothes!” Katie wondered if there was anyone else on the ship who could hear her temper tantrum, then decided she didn’t care. Maybe someone would come to help her.
“Fine. If you’re going to be like that, have it your way. I’ve got quite a bit of data already. When Commander Reck finishes with you, I’m going to get you transferred to the research division.” She put her chin in her hand and stared up at the ceiling as she thought. “Maybe I could get some male specimens and start a captive breeding program. I’m sure Troxeo could find someone interested. It would bring Oretoz in from the outer reaches to see the show and be ideal for tourism at the same time.”
“You aren’t breeding me with anyone!” Katie screamed.
The woman scowled as she flicked a switch under the table. “Most animals don’t get to choose their destiny, and I don’t see why you think you’re any different. You’re our captive, and we will use you as we see fit per Oretoz protocol 22-R-14: Handling of Prisoners.”
Katie sat up and swung her legs off the edge of the table. It wasn’t worth arguing with this woman. “Where are my clothes?”
“In the incinerator. I took enough samples to study the material, then burned them so you couldn’t contaminate us.”
Katie ran her hands through her hair. “So now what? Am I supposed to walk around here naked?”
The woman shrugged. “If you want. It would make for an interesting movement study if you didn’t have any clothing. If you feel like you have to wear something, you can have this.”
She reached into a tall
cabinet and pulled out a bodysuit similar to the one she wore. It was dark blue and made from a soft, stretchy material that Katie had never seen before. It felt warm and slightly slippery between her fingers.
As she slid it over her body, she could feel it conforming to every inch of her skin, wrapping around her curves and supporting her breasts. It covered her from her neck to her wrists and down to her ankles. In any other circumstance, she would have asked for underwear, but it was clear that she didn’t need it. The outfit felt so good against her skin that she didn’t even want any. “Wow,” she murmured.
“Come with me. I’ll take you to your quarters. Consider this your official warning not to try anything stupid. If you attempt to get off this ship, you’ll only get hurt.”
Katie was inclined to believe it after seeing hard muscles rippling under the woman’s bodysuit. She followed her through a sliding door that opened when the alien pressed her finger against a small pad next to it.
They went down a short corridor. Blinking lights and thin metallic wires covered its walls. When Katie thought about the overbearing walls combined with the cramped space, it made her feel as though she was walking around inside a giant computer surrounded by circuit boards.
The woman stopped and pressed her finger next to another door, which slid open to reveal a room similar to the sick bay. It was small, not even as big as the room she had at her parents’ house. A bunk was recessed into a wall and had a thick blue blanket covering it. Instead of being made from electronics, a gray unidentifiable material covered the walls. A round window looked out into the vastness of space. Two chairs and a small table rested in front of the window.