My Prize

by Sahara Kelly

  Ungodly screams were coming from whatever it was that was attempting to smother him. Several legs and tails stood away from his body, and the thing seemed to be attached to his chest somehow.

  One tube was snaking up his body and into his mouth. It was surely killing him, sucking the life-giving oxygen from his lungs.

  Her mind ran through an assortment of violent species that met the description as she watched, stunned, while Rory's muscles worked and he struggled with this beast. But to no avail—she had no clue what this terrible thing was, just that it was viciously attacking her man.

  Boralle reached for her small sidearm, only to grasp a handful of naked thigh. To her horror, she remembered where she was—in some sort of virtual dreamworld, where the air was soft and the landscape incredibly beautiful.

  And she was unarmed.

  Leaping from her makeshift bed, Boralle grasped the only weapon she could find—Rory's broadsword.

  It was heavy, but she could just lift it.

  Enough, she hoped, to pry this terrible creature away from Rory before it was too late.

  The screaming continued, like the harsh mating sounds of Atraxian wildbeasts as they fucked themselves into oblivion. The sound was so terrible that the Atraxians had developed an additional flap within their inner ears, which they could close at will to block the aural onslaught. With their hearing protected, they had been able to develop the galaxy's most powerful boom box speakers and install them into the smallest space while simultaneously perfecting the best painkillers since ibuprofen had been discovered on old Earth.

  Boralle carefully circled Rory as he stood still, obviously trying to pry this savage attacker away from his body.

  "Rory, don't move..." She said quietly. It would be a bad idea to startle him and enrage the creature any further.

  He jumped, and she took advantage of his sudden move to thrust the broadsword between him and the long thing that was even now falling away from his mouth.

  It took a swift, double-handed swipe, but Boralle dislodged the creature and saw it fall in a tumble of legs and guts onto the ground at Rory's feet.

  "Yesss..." She shouted into the now silent air.

  Raising the sword, she plunged it into the beast, listening as a low whine signaled its death throes.

  "Awww, lass, you've killed my bagpipes."

  Boralle blinked. "Your what?"

  "My bagpipes."

  "It was attacking you."

  "Nay, lass. That's a musical instrument. I was going to wake you to the sound of Scottish pipes playing a love song."

  Boralle shook her head slightly. "That was a musical instrument? That was a love song?"

  Rory had the grace to blush slightly. "Well, I've been told I need a wee bit of practice."

  She gazed down at the muddled mess of dead bagpipes at their feet, pierced through with his broadsword.

  Many responses trembled on her lips. The noise that had awakened her bore more resemblance to the sound of a mis-mated cargo receptacle spewing out its contents than it did to a love song. Perhaps somewhere there were Atraxian wildbeasts who'd be driven mad with lust by it, but she wasn't an Atraxian female wildbeast.

  "Your people must be very strong, Rory," she compromised. After all, that's what loving someone was all about. Compromise.

  Then she realized what she had just thought.

  Love.

  The wind blew gently against her nakedness and reminded her that she was standing next to a Scottish loch, stark naked, with the most beautiful man in creation beside her.

  He'd loved her into madness, taken her places where she'd never gone before, and then cuddled her as she fell contentedly asleep.

  Awareness of him flooded her like a warm tide.

  And he was watching her. Staring into her eyes as if he could read her heart.

  "Are ye well, then, lass?"

  His soft burr caressed her brain cells like his hands had caressed her body. This man could seduce her with his voice alone.

  "I'm well, Rory McAllen." Her answer was brief, and yet she knew her eyes were telling him her secrets. His cock was stirring now, hardening, growing as he watched her.

  He didn't move, just stood there, letting the winds touch them both.

  She shivered as his eyes flickered down over her body and back to her face. "Are you well, Laird?" she asked, tossing his question back at him.

  His eyes changed, heating with desire and he stepped forward, tugging her against his body.

  "Never better, Boralle. Never better than this moment," he answered, wrapping his arms around her and enfolding her in his warmth.

  She felt his cock against her as her nipples brushed the firm planes of his chest.

  Her heart turned over and she knew, with certainty, that she loved this man. Whatever he was, whoever he was, he'd stolen something she never knew she had. Her love.

  His lips dropped slight kisses on the top of her head. "I could stay here forever with you, Boralle," he said. The intensity of his voice surprised her.

  She looked up at him, and suddenly reality intruded back into her brain with a resounding thud. "But we don't have forever, do we?"

  Rory looked away. "I dinna know, sweetheart." He rested his chin on her head. "I know I have a job to do, as do you. We have to take care of this Frallien game business. We have to correct the timeline, get it back on track."

  He looked back into her eyes. "Then—what happens then, I don't know. But I'll make you one promise, Boralle North..."

  She placed her hand over his heart, taking comfort from the strong beat she felt through her palm. "What promise is that, Rory McAllen?"

  He put his hand on top of hers and pressed it firmly against himself.

  "I promise that we'll have time to find out what lies between us. Time to bathe in that loch over there. Time to love each other under blue skies and starry nights. Will you spend time with me, Boralle, when our task is completed?"

  Boralle swallowed. She had no idea if such a thing was even possible. After all, he was an interdimensional creature who apparently had, no corporeal substance outside her own imagination.

  Her brain argued against the likelihood of such an event ever happening. Her heart told her there could be no other answer.

  "I will."

  *~*~*~*

  "Attention all personnel. Attention all personnel."

  The metallic voice rolled around the hillside incongruously, bringing Boralle back into reality with a nasty thump.

  "Landing team Alpha to assemble at Dock four. Pre-Olympiad crew to conference room fourteen oh two for final briefing. Major Boralle North to General Morrone's office."

  The message repeated itself as Boralle and Rory stared at each other.

  "It's time, Rory." She pulled away from his heat with a tug of regret. "Can you terminate this program?"

  Rory smiled a little and waved his hand negligently. In a blink, they were back in her quarters.

  "Er...wait. Weren't we in the holo-vid center?"

  "No."

  "But...I...we..."

  "Major Boralle North. Please acknowledge."

  "Oh, rass." Irritation overcame curiosity, and Boralle reached for the intercom. "This is North. Message acknowledged."

  She glanced at Rory. "I have to go. Damn, and I need a quick shower sweep...here, let me show you and you can use it if you want."

  She moved to a small closet in one wall of her quarters and touched a panel. The door swung open revealing a tall depression into which she stepped. As soon as she was inside, a mechanism released itself from the ceiling and dropped down over her, completely encasing her for a few seconds. Then it whisked back up into the ceiling, and she stepped out.

  "What the devil was that?" asked Rory, blinking.

  "A cleaning unit. It sweeps the body with calibrated rays of light, and vaporizes anything that shouldn't be there. It's called a hygiene sweeper."

  Rory's brow quirked. "A shower. I get it." He snorted. "Not much fun thoug
h, I'll warrant. Now a bath in the loch with me—"

  "Would be wonderful, I'm sure. But now I have to go." She was slathering clothing liquid all over herself as she spoke, and within seconds was dressed in her customary—and unattractive—uniform.

  "I prefer you in my plaid, lass," grinned Rory, eyeing her up and down.

  Boralle returned his grin, obeying some wicked little prompting inside her. "And I prefer you out of yours," she giggled.

  His gaze deepened to pure seduction.

  "But I have to go. Will you be here when I get back?"

  "Of course."

  Taking a deep breath, Boralle left her cabin, feeling, for the first time in her life, very much alone. She'd never known how it was to be part of a couple. Never felt that someone had cared about her before themselves. And now that Rory had shown her just how wonderful that sensation could be, she missed it.

  Missed it terribly.

  She had no idea if Rory was real, in the sense of existing in her portion of the space-time continuum.

  She had no idea if any kind of interaction would be possible between them after the Frallien Olympiad.

  She also confessed to herself that she might just be going completely insane, and Rory was just a facet of that descent into mental instability.

  She didn't care. She loved him. And that, as the existential writers of Phrygia were wont to say, was that.

  Chapter 12

  A brief look at the existential writers of Phrygia...

  Seeing as Rory McAllen is now snoring peacefully in Boralle North's quarters, and Boralle herself is on her way to another dull, repetitive and useless meeting with her Chief, now might be a good time to touch upon the aforementioned inhabitants of Phrygia.

  The planet requested admission into the Galactic Union shortly after the discovery of the wormhole routes. Once wormholes had been satisfactorily mapped, and the debris left by the mangled ships and bodies of previous unfortunate explorers had been cleaned out, they provided an excellent method of rapid transit throughout the galaxy.

  Situated in the outer reaches of the Rhumpe Nebula, Phrygia became accessible, requiring only a short afternoon's run down wormhole number sixty-six, with possibly a stop for a nice cup of Sauran Island coffee along the way.

  The Phrygians themselves welcomed visitors and joined the Galactic Union with enthusiasm.

  Unfortunately, Phrygia was a massive planet. With massive gravity. And massive inhabitants. Which caused problems for the Phyrgians when they visited other worlds.

  After the fourth case of accidental death-by-Phrygian-buttock-squishing, it was ruled that Phrygians, while an admirable species in their own right, would be restricted to planets with a mass of at least twelve times greater than Jupiter. This was somewhat depressing to the Phrygians, who realized that they could now only travel to a few select locations within the galaxy. Planets having a mass greater than about thirteen times that of Jupiter would, of course, begin to give off heat and thus singe their squishing buttocks.

  And so the Phrygians found themselves willing members of a galaxy that could barely accept their physicality. And that, as they thought to themselves, was that.

  Sex with any other species was pretty much out of the question since it had resulted in a couple of unfortunate cases of death by Phrygian orgasm. It was noted that the victims were all, without exception, smiling at the moment of their demise, but in spite of the "what a way to go" jokes that were inevitably bandied around by the authorities, the end result was still death.

  The saddened planet thus resolved to keep its sexuality to itself.

  Until they met up with the airborne Florga of Minot Three.

  The Florga, possessed of mammoth wings, were able to hover above the Phrygians, in an apparent gravity-defying display of aerodynamics. Florgan females were inexhaustible in their hunger for Phrygian cock, and found Phrygian ejaculate to be nourishing, chocolate-flavored and low in calories.

  Phrygian males welcomed Florgan females with open arms and unzipped trousers.

  The Phrygian females, not to be outdone, were delighted to learn that Florgan males could hover for hours over their prone bodies, at no time pounding said bodies into the ground. Florgan tongues were held to be the most versatile in several parsecs, and Phrygian clitori were ecstatic with the discovery.

  Sales of Atraxian painkillers dropped off the charts, since headaches were now few and far between.

  The sexual needs of both Florgans and Phrygians were being met, and in spite of the dire predictions of geneticists, no one gave birth to anything resembling a jumbo jet.

  The level of contentment was such that within a generation, both Phrygians and Florgans were searching for ways to describe their joy.

  Phrygian artists and sculptors tried to express the wonder of being fucked by a Florgan. Plays were performed, operas written, and rock songs pounded out to honor the pleasure of Phrygian foreplay.

  Nothing was as successful as the writings of the Phrygians, however. The soft cadences of their words, the romantic tones of their essays, all were held to be of unsurpassable beauty.

  So successful were they that a simple reading of some of their works had consistently produced orgasms in four separate species. Two star systems had banned them.

  Now they were accepted as the galactic standard of passionate prose. Their musings on life, sex, fucking and sucking were a mandatory part of any modern planet's library, and their existential offerings on the nature of intercourse pretty much defined sex in several small solar systems.

  The Florgans were content to bask in the reflected glory of the Phrygian reputation, knowing that they were largely responsible for its creation. Had they not discovered the joys of fucking Phrygians, then this entire genre of literature might never have seen the light of day.

  The Florgan females were now quite svelte, having spent generations converting to a low-fat diet. Phrygian males were quite proud of this accomplishment.

  Florgan males had continued to develop their tonguesmanship, for which both Florgan and Phrygian females were grateful.

  In fact, as so seldom happens, both races were content to co-exist in a state of sexually-induced pleasure, writing of their joy and taking a few moments now and again for the mutual benefits of oral sex. Thus demonstrating that not every bang has to be the big one and that sex sometimes solves more problems than it creates.

  Of course, that is not always the case.

  As the Commander of the heavy cruiser Bratlnarf is about to find out...

  Chapter 13

  Rory McAllen's nap was interrupted by a light touch on his shoulder.

  He jumped, reaching automatically for the sword that never left his side. Until recently.

  "Easy, Laird McAllen. No harm intended."

  The voice of the Guardian soothed him, and Rory blinked at the tall man whose turquoise eyes were staring at him so intently.

  "Wha...what..." Stuttered Rory.

  "We have to talk," said the Guardian.

  "Is there a problem? Boralle? Is she all right?" Rory readied himself to leap off the bed.

  "Major North is just fine, Rory. Sit and listen." The Guardian's firm hand pushed Rory back, and he sucked in a breath while he waited for his heart to stop pounding its way out through his rib cage.

  "You've done very well indeed, lad. Under your instruction, Boralle North will now be entering the Olympiad on equal footing with all the other contestants."

  Rory narrowed his eyes. "So what's the problem?"

  The Guardian pursed his lips and blew out a long breath. "Treachery. Plain and simple treachery."

  Rory frowned.

  "The damned Magans." The Guardian slipped a hand through his hair in frustration. "We knew that there was more to this problem than just Boralle and her limited sexual capabilities. But to be very honest," he looked a little uncomfortable, "our intelligence-gathering capabilities get a bit limited with large astronomical distances."

  Silently, Rory continued
to frown at him.

  "I know, I know. With our interdimensional capacity and state of the art monitoring equipment, you'd think this wouldn't happen. But it does. The right combination of electromagnetic activity, the wrong sub-space interference, and there you are. Two of our continuum servers go down at the worst moment." The Guardian sighed.

  "And this affects the Magans how?"

  "It's not the Magans that are affected. They're doing the affecting. They're trying to cheat their way into winning the Olympiad."

  "Cheat? How the devil can they cheat? It's all about orgasms, right? You canna cheat on orgasms..." Rory huffed his outrage.

  The Guardian paced up and down the small cabin. "They're going to try it, nevertheless." He nodded at Boralle's TUNG booth. "The competition involves these...these...things..." he seemed to find them as distasteful as Rory did. "What they're doing is creating their own booths, which will malfunction at a certain level, almost certainly killing the competitor unfortunate enough to be inside at that moment."

  "But—that makes no sense," said Rory, frowning. "You canna kill off all the competitors without someone getting suspicious?"

  "That's where they've been quite clever. They don't intend to kill off all the competitors. Just the ones who score in the mid to upper range. The low range scorers will be fine, along with the ones who can score highly. The rest will be 'unfortunate'victims of a malfunctioning piece of hardware. Which they have managed to place into competition, since they've sabotaged a good number of the Frallien's existing TUNG booths."

  Rory was silent, absorbing this information, processing it and turning it over in his mind.

  "So they've practically guaranteed themselves a shot at first place by eliminating the rest of those competitors whose scores might come near."

  The Guardian nodded. "We're only talking less than a dozen competitors, too. A few Fralliens, two Magans..."

  "...And Boralle." Rory's voice was urgent.

  "And Boralle North," agreed the Guardian. "With your help, she'll score highly now, but we don't quite know how high. There's a risk, Rory..."

  The Scot leaped off the bed. "Nay. Not to my woman. There'll be no risk to Boralle if I have any say about it."