Being Chief of Security for a Heavy Freighter StarShip like the Orion is actually a rather cushy job. Becoming Chief Sec is a bitch. It took many years walking the corridors of starships as a United Space Command StarShip Police officer, and way too many years breaking up fights in spaceport bars all over the galaxy. But those years are behind me now. Now I am the one who leans against the wall and nods to one of my subordinate officers or points to them and then to the troublemaker. I very seldom have to actually get into the messy parts of the job.
That doesn’t mean that I don’t make myself seen and available. When crew members are on planet, I am on planet. A heavy freighter never lands anywhere. Instead, cargo is ferried up or down while we are in wide orbit. Same way with the crew. Those who have planet leave are shuttled down to the planet surface. For recreational shore leave, I maintain a one-to-seven ratio. For every seven crewmen in a shuttle, there is one security officer. That sounds like we have a huge security force on board the Orion, but most of my officers are dual-stationed. They have other duties while we are in flight, but become full security officers when it is time for planet leave.
Officer Shelly O’Donald is one of my best. She is a star navigator when we are between systems. But right now she is wearing the full uniform of an authorized StarShip Police Officer. The crew calls her “The Lizard” behind her back because she isn’t fully human. She looks like a standard Earther woman unless you have seen her naked. The skin on her abdomen and back has a slight pattern to it that, if she gets overheated or sexually aroused, looks exactly like the scales of a Horton lizard. I’ve seen her both. And I’ve seen some naked Horton lizards with which to compare her. Except for the face and feet, Horton’s look amazingly human-like. And, to put it delicately, our equipment is mutually compatible.
Shelly refuses to say whether her grandmother or grandfather was a Horton, but she has inherited their strength... and sexual stamina. She only stands about a meter and a half tall, but I’ve seen her cold cock a three-meter tall drunken Franpian giant with just one punch. I’ve also shared her bed on more than one occasion. I would never do that with a true Earther crewwoman since I would technically be their superior officer. But there is no way that anyone can ever say that I coerced Shelly into anything. Hell, Cargo Sergeant Timothy Carne slipped her some Bukarian mindbend once and she still didn’t want anything to do with him. In fact, when she realized what he had done, she pinned him to a wall and wouldn’t release him until I arrived.
At first, he wasn’t going to tell me how he managed to smuggle a level AA banned substance past the security scanners. Then I told him if he didn’t tell me, I would give him back to Shelly. I got a commendation for discovering a flaw in our security system. This flaw would only apply to Heavy Freighter Starships, but it was still important. In space, weight doesn’t mean much, but volume is important. So bulky, extremely heavy stuff like metal ores are run through a spacial compressor. I have no idea how they work, but they compress the space between the atoms or electrons or whatever and reduce the physical size of a container of ore down to about one-hundredth of what it originally was. Then that super heavy hunk of metal is put on a long rail accelerator and fired out into space where we catch it at the top of its arc. Usually, they are taken to orbiting spacecraft manufacturing facilities, but sometimes they are sent down to a planet. Then the comp slugs are fired down into a decaying orbit where they are guided into a specific crash-down area by remote drones. Some of the material burns off and they make one hell of a bang when they hit, but the cost of obtaining very critical metals is greatly reduced. Just run the molten blob through a decompressor and you have instant high-grade metal ore.
What Sergeant Carne had done was to conceal his contraband in the middle of an ore container before it was compressed. The metal around it became so dense that the scanners couldn’t detect anything. On board, he decompressed that one container, removed his contraband, and recompressed it. He could have spent a lifetime at hard labor for what he pulled, but he and I... and Officer Shelly... came up with an alternative punishment. He was effectively put on parole with Shelly as his parole officer. My orders to him were simple, “If you screw up, you’re all hers.” He has been playing it pretty much straight and narrow ever since. He even tips me off if something is going past what I will allow down in the crew decks.
I run a tight ship by running a loose ship. It took years working under various Chief Secs to understand that was the best way to keep control of something like a heavy freighter with almost a thousand beings in the crew. I let the men... or women... or whatever... get away with a little... like bringing some authentic Amboria Ale aboard. But that gives them something to lose if they go over the line. A casual comment from me like, “Do you really want me to do a full sweep of the crew bunk areas?” and suddenly the gold pieces that went missing from a shipment are miraculously found under a pallet.
We were on planet leave at Dexter-Barlow Eleven on our way back to home planet for retrofit and crew rotation. DB 11 is a large planetoid that was discovered only a few years back. It has no natural value other than the fact that it is near the main transit lanes for ships such as the Orion coming back from far galaxy voyages and it has everything spacers on planet leave would want. That makes it the obvious place for a final planet leave before the last leg of the journey to the home world.
That final planet leave is a necessary, but always very dangerous, time because the crew has been in space for a long time and are looking to blow off some steam before returning to home and family. The full security force was on duty. About eighty percent of us were planet side to keep order among the one-third of the crew that was allowed planet leave at any one time. I was at McBrewski’s Pleasure Palace with about half of the crew that was on-planet. McBrewski’s was exactly what its name implied. If it was pleasure, it could be bought there. I was leaning up against the wall of the main hall where I could see the whole room. It had what was supposed to be an old Earther wild west motif. I don’t think they had that much stainless steel and transparent aluminum back in the Old West on Earth, but very few of these men, women, and other beings, have ever been on Old Earth. Besides, everyone was watching the floorshow, not the wall coverings and furniture.
When I first arrived there were some holographic girls dressed in old Earther cowboy hats and chaps– and nothing else– standing in the middle of the stage singing what was supposed to be old Earther west songs. They looked very realistic, and their bodies were fantastic, but their singing was off in some way. It surprised me that the technology capable of projecting such a life-like solid-looking image couldn’t also provide an equally realistic soundtrack.
Before I could make up my mind as to what was wrong with the singing, the holograms faded away and the live show began. There was a lot more to watch in the live show. The show was two Alurian females having a fucking contest. They were lying on their backs... or fronts... or on hands and knees or whatever as they took on one volunteer after another. The line for each of them stretched off the stage and down the side steps where the staff were taking bets.
A big man dressed in a sparkling black outfit with the McBrewski’s emblem on the back of it explained that you had to place a bet to get in line, and the minimum bet was fifteen credits. That’s not an insignificant amount, but how many men can brag that they fucked an Alurian.
For 100 credits, you could place a group bet with three other men. That allowed for a full five-some with one man getting her cunt, one her ass, one her mouth, and one her pouch. The pouch wasn’t exactly a cunt, but it felt like one– and then some. It was located on her back just below the shoulder blades. It has nothing to do with reproduction. It’s there just to pleasure a male.
I’ve seen the old-fashioned king’s crown with an Earther woman taking a man in her cunt and ass and mouth all at the same time. But very few people have seen an Alurian horse, which is what they call it when four males take an Alurian female all at the same time.
Both females on stage were now getting ready to do the horse. One of McBrewski’s staff people was standing in the middle of the stage saying, “Wait. Start on my command.”
He held one hand up in the air as the four men got into position with each female. Then he loudly shouted, “Go!” and all four men started thrusting. The man on the back of each Alurian quickly started crying out and their eyes got very big. It was obvious they were totally unprepared for the milking action of the pouch. I’ve never tried it myself, but I’ve been told it is like having everything in your balls sucked out.
Soon the other men were moaning and grunting. I don’t know if it was faked or real, but the female on the left suddenly began keening louder and louder and more and more shrill. Suddenly she thrashed violently and all four men yelled in pain. Alurian females have very strong muscles in their openings and if you are fortunate– or unfortunate– enough to be inside her when she orgasms, it is as if your prick were caught in a matter compressor.
“Angelina is our winner,” the big man in the center of the stage called out, pointing to the female on the right. “And that means,” he said pointing to the female still thrashing in orgasm, “that Wulvia is our loser.”
He sort of laughed and then said, “For those of you who didn’t read your betting slips, that means that Angelina gets one-fourth of the betting pool, the house gets one-fourth, and the remaining half is divided among the winning bettors.” I also laughed because I quickly did the math on that in my head. It means that the winners basically get their money back, which isn’t much of a win. But on the other hand, they got to fuck an Alurian for free.
“Our loser, Wulvia,” the big man continued, “will pay the price for losing.”
Several men dressed in black pants and black McBrewski’s t-shirts ran out onto the stage dragging a large, square metal frame. Wulvia stood up and let them lead her over into the center of the frame. She put her arms into the air and let them tie her to the upper corners of the frame. Then she spread her feet as they started to tie her ankles to the lower corners. Evidently, she didn’t spread her legs far enough because two of the men pulled hard on the rope holding her left leg and moved it over so that it was almost touching the frame. When two other men did the same with the right leg, her body dropped slightly and she was suddenly tied in a very tight, naked X in the center of the frame.
The big MC looked out at the audience and said loudly, “For those of you who paid the extra credits to be part of the punishment drawing, check your ticket stubs because we are going to draw the lucky five right now.”
A petite, naked Earther girl ran out onto the stage carrying a clear spacer helmet filled with torn pieces of thin, purple cardboard. I noticed that several of the men at a nearby table were holding similar pieces. These were evidently their ticket stubs.
The MC pulled a ticket out of the helmet and read off the number. A yelp from a distant table indicated the winning stub. He did that three more times and then there was a drum roll through the speakers of the sound system.
“And our grand prize winner in the punishment drawing,” the MC intoned, “the one who gets to do the final strikes, is.... 117283.”
A man at the table directly in front of me jumped to his feet yelling, “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.”
All five men were now up on stage with the MC. The petite little Earther woman ran out and retrieved the helmet. Then one of the men with the black t-shirts walked onto the stage with a large, black bullwhip. The MC took the whip from the man and lashed the whip out over the crowd several times, causing it to snap loudly each time.
“This looks like a bullwhip from the old Earther west,” he said with a sneering smile, “but it is actually an Alurian pain whip. It releases a charge of energy whenever it strikes the skin. An Alurian female craves this energy after she has orgasmed. That’s why they normally don’t let themselves go. But the price of the energy is the pain. ... And tonight you will see why Wulvia willingly got into the punishment frame.”
He handed the whip to the man whose ticket was drawn first. “You have five strikes across the back and ass,” the MC said as he stepped out of the way.
The man looked unsure of how to use the whip, but drew back and lashed it out at the tautly-stretched Wulvia. The strike was rather soft, but as the whip wrapped around Wulvia’s back and onto her breasts, it suddenly glowed blue-white and cracked with a loud “Snap!”
After her screams died down, the MC said sarcastically, “I thought someone from the Orion could do better than that.”
In response, the crewman pulled back the whip and again lashed it at Wulvia. This time he moved his arm and wrist properly and the whip curled, then straightened out and landed across her ass with a loud “Thwack!’ followed by the “Snap!” and then her screams. He rapidly lashed out three more times.
The next man knew how to use the whip. His lashings curled to gain speed and then uncurled to land with the tip exactly on the center of Wulvia’s left or right asscheek. When the whip glowed this time the sound was more of a sizzle than a crack and she continued to writhe and scream between the five strokes.
“Back or front, your choice,” the MC said as he handed the whip to the third man. He chose front and lashed out at Wulvia’s tits. He was totally inept with the whip, however, and three of his five lashes curled around her abdomen. None of them hit with any force. Even the crack of the energy transfer seemed less intense.
The fourth man also chose to lash out at her tits. He was a little better with the whip itself and was at least able to land each stroke across her breasts. There wasn’t much force to the blows, however, and the “Snap!” of the energy transfer was louder than the sound of the whip actually striking her skin.
Then it was time for the fifth man. He was smiling broadly as the MC handed him the whip. He turned and lashed it out over the crowd like the MC had done. The crack of the whip as he snapped it in the air was, if anything, louder than when the MC had done it.
“Anywhere on the body,” the MC said, almost laughing, “and from any angle.”
The man stood behind Wulvia and with his hand held low began moving the whip so that it almost looked like a serpent moving through the air. Then after the crowd became almost silent, he suddenly flipped his wrist so the whip swung forward and up between Wulvia’s legs. The tip of the whip slammed against her skin directly between her breasts while the rest of the top half of the whip lodged tightly against the skin of her abdomen as well as forcing itself into the opening of her cunt.
Her screams were shrill and frantic as the energy transferred to her skin.
He again made the whip move like a serpent and again swung it up through her tightly-stretched legs.
Her screams were even more shrill and more frantic both from the strike of the whip and the discharge of the energy.
Twice more he did that, then he stood for a long time snaking the whip in the air. Finally, he pulled his arm back well behind himself and flipped the whip forward. This time it stayed well behind the Alurian woman. Only the very tip of the whip went between her legs and that tip curled upward and struck her right at the top of her cunt, directly on her clit.
This time she didn’t scream. Instead, she groaned deeply as her entire body suddenly glowed with the energy that had been imparted by the whip. She thrashed in her bonds for several seconds and then hung unconscious in the frame.
“That is a true Alurian orgasm,” the MC said smiling. “Had she been fucked by a male Alurian, she would be pregnant right now.” He shrugged his shoulders and said, “Who knows? Maybe she is anyway.”
He looked around and said, “Our live shows will return in just a little while. In the meantime, our Cowgirl Chorus will entertain you with a little old earth western music. And your shipmates up on the Orion and the Mict Dao will also be getting the same projected concert.” He laughed and said, “But of course, they will have to wait until they come down to McBrewski’s to see any of the live show.” He paused and said in a very even voice just before the spotlight went out, “Time to refill your drinks and order food. We will be back with the next show in a little while.”
As the waitresses scurried among the tables I took a moment to evaluate the situation. Maybe it was because the floor show was so captivating, but things were going pretty well. There had been a couple of loud arguments which quickly settled down when one of my officers asked, “Is there a problem here?” Security officers from our small contingent of non-Earther crew would ask a similar question in languages I have no way of understanding, but the transcorder built into my artificial ears gave me the general gist of what they said.
My implanted artificial ears were the result of a design flaw in an older version of the USC Sec Suit combined with my own stupidity early in my career. When patrolling known dangerous areas, security teams wear security suits that offer protection against most known weapons and provide an appropriate internal atmosphere if you have to go into environments not designed for an Earther or whatever species the suit was adjusted to. The design error was a flexible membrane over the ear area which was supposed to allow the sec officer to hear some of the “natural sounds” in addition to what the sound system provided. My mistake was trying to physically detain a drunk Iomonian.
I must have missed– or forgotten– the section on Iomonians from my sec training. Iomonians are an extreme warrior race that live by the creed of death before capture. After millennia of that creed, they developed the ability to self-destruct. They are more civilized now, but civilization is often one of the first casualties of being drunk on whatever your species craves. I should have immediately used an immobilization blaster on him, but I know from experience that those things hurt like hell and I was trying to be merciful. So I tackled him from behind and started putting on the restraint cuffs. I had secured two of his arms and was reaching for the third when he detonated. My sec suit protected me from the blast... except for the area around my ears. The thin membrane didn’t have a chance and what the force of the blast didn’t destroy, the heat of the vaporizing Iomonian flesh did. I ended up with some mandatory retraining and a set of artificial ears.
That was a long time ago, so no one here knows that I have a set of ears that can translate most languages and hear soft conversations from across a noisy room. Despite the din, I very clearly heard Sec Officer Shelly ask politely, “Is there a problem here?”
The correct, immediate answer to that question is “No, sir,” or “No, ma’am.”
That’s what the whole table said in unison and Officer Shelly replied, “Good,” with a smile and then walked away.
I was starting to think that this might be an uneventful stop when I heard someone at the table closest to me almost yell, “That man is lying!” Then he stood up and pointed across the table at a crewman from the Orion.
If you want to start a fight in a spacer bar, call someone a liar. Nothing else short of vilifying his mother will so certainly start a fight.
I immediately stepped over to the table. “Is there a problem here?” I asked softly.
“That man is lying,” the man repeated. Then he continued in his agitated and slightly inebriated speech, “He says he’s been to Omicron Delta Alpha Nine and that’s not possible.”
“I know,” I said. “ODA Nine has been quarantined for over a hundred years. Some sort of plague broke out there.”
“That’s a lie, too,” the man said much more softly. He laughed slightly before continuing, “But it’s a lie that Space Command came up with, so that makes it the same as truth.” Then he looked up at me and said bitterly, “Doesn’t it?”
Several of my sec officers had come over to the table, but there was something about this man’s eyes. I signaled them to hold back, sat in the empty seat next to the man, and said, “Tell me more.”
“After the floorshow,” he said softly, pointing toward the stage where the MC in the spangly suit was once more in the spotlight on center stage.
“Are you ready for some wrestling?” the MC yelled out to the crowd. A loud “Yes!” reverberated through the room.
A large, six-sided wrestling ring was rolled out onto the stage. Walking alongside it were six very muscular women. They were all naked and devoid of hair below the neck. Three of them were bald. Two had hair that was cut very short. The sixth had long blond hair that was braided into a long rope that hung down her back well past the round of her ass. They each had a number painted on their abdomen which was repeated on their backs. There must have been some special lights above the stage because the numbers glowed brightly on their skins. The special lights also caused their well-oiled skin to glow slightly.
“Our betting rules,” the MC began, “are very simple. If you pick the winner, you double your bet. If you pick the top two in the correct order, you quadruple your bet. And... if you pick the entire sequence of losers and winners in the correct order, you get back one hundred times your original bet. While the ladies are warming up, the waitresses will circulate between the tables so you can get those bets placed.”
The six naked women climbed up into the ring. They were doing some rudimentary stretching exercises, but mainly they were bending over so that their cunts and asses were displayed to the crowd. After a little while, they each picked up a large sponge out of a bucket and began rubbing a clear, glistening oil all over their bodies. The blonde with the long braided rope knelt down and nearly plunged her head into the bucket so that her hair was totally saturated with the oil.
When the MC came back into his spotlight, the ladies all went to their “corners” or whatever you would call the post in the hexagonal ring with their number on it. “This is a spike match,” the MC said loudly as his petite, naked assistant ran out to him with a box containing six anal plugs with long handles on them. “You don’t pin your opponent. You shove this...” He picked up one of the strange-looking ass plugs out of the box. “... up your opponent’s ass.”
He held it high above his head and said, “It has sensors on the small ring at the base of the plug that will detect when it is fully inserted. Then it will... oh, you will see what it does. The winner is the last one standing.”
He put the anal spike back in the box and his assistant ducked under the ropes to enter the ring and distribute one spike to each of the wrestlers. Then she quickly scurried out of the rink. The six naked women stood against their number post with their muscles tight and quivering.
A loud drum roll came over the sound system as the MC held one hand high in the air. The drum roll stopped. He dropped his hand to his waist and shouted, “Wrestle!”
Woman number six rushed over at woman number three who was across the ring from her. But rather than grappling, they both turned and faced outward. Woman number five, the muscular blond with the long hair, moved to her right to stand with woman number four. Evidently, there was no rule against working together early in the fight. That left one and two.
I expected them to also work together, but instead, they moved out into the center of the ring separately. Evidently, they had not wrestled in this ring before because that was a very unwise thing to do. The three-six pair went after woman one. The four-five pair engaged woman number two.
Woman number two was a very large and very muscular woman and perhaps thought that she had an advantage. She would have... against one other woman, but she was fighting a pair. Woman number four came at her from the front and ducked under her arms to grab her around the middle. Four was practically being smothered by two’s large breasts and the fact that two was hugging her very tightly against herself. Four went slightly limp as though she were passing out and two bent over slightly to hold onto her. One thing you absolutely do not want to do in a spike match is bend over, even slightly. Number five, the braided blonde, rammed her spike into number two’s ass. Number two screamed loudly and came back straight upright. Then she shuddered slightly, lost control of her bladder, and dropped to the floor of the ring shuddering and quivering. Number Five quickly picked up number two’s dropped spike and stood back to back with number four.
Four McBrewski’s staff quickly dragged number two out of the ring and lifted her up more or less onto her feet. They frog-walked her over to the back of the stage to a strange-looking pole that looked like it had a small mushroom on the top of it. They lifted her up and set the handle of the spike, which was sticking out of her ass, into a hole in the center of the mushroom. Then they quickly tied her ankles to short lengths of chain that were attached to the floor. The pole rose up into the air until her legs were stretched tight. I noticed that there were four more mushroom poles across the back of the stage.
There was a scream and I looked back to the ring itself. Number one was on the ground shaking and quivering. I knew where she was going to end up, so I ignored the four McBrewski’s dragging her out of the ring and instead concentrated on the two pairs who were now facing off in the center of the ring. Not surprisingly, number six, who was the larger of that pair, and number five, the larger of that pair, were grappling in the center of the ring while their partners stayed close behind protecting their ass. It almost looked like a dance of some sort as they bounced here and there around the ring. But it wasn’t very entertaining and the crowd started making their displeasure known.
Perhaps in response to that, number four moved around and challenged number three. More specifically, she jumped quickly around the two who were locked together and made a lunge at number three’s ass. Maybe number three forgot that the braided blonde was left-handed. Maybe she hadn’t considered that number four’s actions were part of a plan. In any case, she jumped into a defensive position against number four that put her right alongside her partner with her back toward number five.
Number five, the braided blonde, grunted loudly as she rammed her spike into number three’s ass. Number three screamed and began thrashing as the now embedded ass plug began discharging strong electrical charges into her body. Number six made the extreme mistake of looking down at her fallen partner. She joined her screams almost immediately as number four’s spike slid into her ass.
Number four and number five picked up the spikes that had been dropped and walked to the opposites sides of the ring while McBrewski’s staff dragged the two fallen wrestlers out of the ring and mounted them on top of the mushroom poles. There was now only one pole left.
Both women were breathing hard and perspiring heavily. In a few moments, one of them was going to be atop the final mushroom pole with the rest of the losers. The MC hadn’t said what the winner got. The women began slowly circling the ring drawing ever closer to each other. They seemed to be very evenly matched. Twice they lunged at each other and ended up down on the canvas, but neither could gain the upper hand. If they were just trying to pin each other, it would have been different, but they needed to get their opponent face down on the canvas or catch them somehow from behind.
A loud roar went up from the crowd when number four suddenly got her hand firmly wrapped into number five’s blonde braid. She pulled her forward and almost was able to strike as she pulled her past. Number five stumbled slightly as they approached the edge of the ring and it looked like four might triumph. Then number five did a somersaulting dive toward one of the posts and pushed off from the post with her feet.
The move caught number four completely by surprise as number five rocketed back between her feet. Number four’s hand was wrapped into number five’s braid so she was pulled forward as number five slid between her legs. Number four fell forward toward the canvas, but number five’s spike was firmly embedded in her ass before she hit. The shocks from those anal plugs must be really strong because number five twitched slightly as she unwound her hair from number four’s fingers.
The MC grabbed number five’s hand and lifted it up into the air. “We have a winner!” he exclaimed loudly. “And for winning,” he continued, “she gets a month’s leave from all duties here on Dexter-Barlow Eleven.”
As number five walked slowly off stage I couldn’t get the nagging feeling out of my mind that I had met her somewhere before. After she had walked into the darkness, the MC said, “We will give you time to collect your bets, order more food and drinks, and take care of any necessary bio-breaks before our next act.”
The ring was pushed off-stage, but the five women were left on the poles almost as if they had been impaled. The mushroom top acted as a safety to prevent the poles from entering them, but it still had to be very uncomfortable. The Cowgirl Chorus appeared at the front of the stage singing their strange songs.
I turned back to the man sitting next to me. “You were telling me about all of the lies,” I said softly.
He looked around the room like he was slightly afraid, then he said flatly, “Another lie is that the StarExplorer Neil Armstrong was lost with all hands when it was struck by a rogue asteroid while conducting surveying studies of Baxter Delta Seven.”
He blew out his breath in a long soulful sigh and said, “I am... or was... Franklin Prescott, commander of the StarExplorer Neil Armstrong. We landed on Omicron Delta Alpha Nine one hundred and nine years ago.”
He smiled at me and said, “They would have prevented me from telling you that, except it doesn’t make any difference now. You have heard them singing.”
“What do you mean?” I asked curtly.
“If Space Command had told the truth,” he continued, “you would know that Omicron Delta Alpha Nine isn’t a planetoid. It is a colony ship that went rogue.”
He shook his head and said flatly, “ There was a minimal crew with the colony itself in stasis before something went wrong. Perhaps it was an ion storm, maybe it got too close to a neutron star... whatever. The stasis failed and almost all of the colony died. The AI controller for the ship was programmed with a prime directive. The colony must survive. Maybe it was damaged by the same whatever that killed everybody, but it forgot it was a colony ship. I think it became sentient and transferred that order for survival to itself.”
He shook his head again and repeated, “Whatever. It decided that it needed a crew to maintain it, but its crew was dying off. It had been given the ability to stimulate earther, or near-Earther brains so that the people in stasis wouldn’t go insane from lack of input. It studied the historical records that the colony had brought with them and learned of the sirens of ancient Greece on old earth. It realized that it could duplicate that. All it had to do was to lure an Earther ship near enough for its sirens to work and then enslave its crew.”
He downed what was left of his drink and said bitterly, “That’s what happened to StarExplorer Neil Armstrong... and a dozen other ships.”
“If all that’s true,” I said evenly, “How did you escape from Omicron Delta Alpha Nine?”
“Your round,” he answered holding up his empty glass. “I’ll tell you the rest after the next show.”
He pointed to the stage where the MC was stepping into his spotlight. “And now a little something for the ladies among us,” he said firmly. Then he held his hand up flat with the palm facing the ground and wobbled it slightly and added, “... and for some of the men who like what men and women have in common.”
Strange music with lots of bells and rather shrill-sounding musical whistles began playing through the sound system as a strange rotating frame was pushed on stage. It was about the size of a small cargo pod and was about the same diameter. Six men were strapped onto the six sides of the frame. They appeared to be sitting on something small that looked a lot like the mushroom tops from the impalement poles the women had been left on after the previous show. Their faces were painted with the heavy colors of a Thandalan prostitute with very bright red lips, blue around the eyes, and pink on the cheekbones. Their hands were pulled up tight above them, sloping in toward the central axle of the device. The mushroom seats were moving up and down in a synchronized rhythmic fashion so that the man that was raised highest and the man that was lowest were on opposite sides of the rotating frame. There was some sort of shiny cup over both of each man’s nipples. A small tube and several wires led down from the shiny cups to somewhere beneath the mushroom seats where they connected to a large black box with a white number on it.
The MC let the device rotate several times and then said, “We are going to give these men... if you can call them that... a chance to prove that they are actually men. The anal pleasure seat has a soft metal prick that sticks up each man’s ass. It vibrates and wiggles and extends slightly in and out as the seats rotate.” He held up a silver cup that looked like what was on the men’s nipples and said, “Meanwhile, this nipple pleasure device will stimulate his nipples almost exactly like someone sucking and licking.” He turned the cup so that everyone could see what looked like a small tongue in the center of it.
“A real man,” he continues, “would be able to withstand this for a long time. A sissyboi, on the other hand, will succumb very rapidly to these pleasures.” He waved his hand slowly over the crowd and asked, “Can you tell a real man from a sissyboi? Here’s your chance to prove it. The bets are simple. Correctly pick the true man... or the worst sissyboi... and win double your bet. Pick both the man and the sissy and quadruple your bet. The waitresses will pass among you to collect your bets. But be quick about it. One of these sissybois may have a hair trigger and everything will be over before you have a chance to bet.
A bevy of naked waitresses hurried from table to table recording bets and collecting credits on their wrist accumulators. When it looked like all of the bets had been placed, the MC said, “Time to get serious,” and a soft humming filled the room as the anal and nipple stimulators became active. All of the men’s cleanly-shaven pricks came to attention.
Several of the men moaned softly. One grunted as if trying to block out the sensations. The device had made only four or five rotations before one man groaned loudly and spurted out onto the floor of the stage. Bright lights suddenly flashed around him and he screamed loudly and thrashed against the restraints which held his wrists and ankles tight to the frame.
“Oh,” the MC said with a laugh, “did I mention that the first sissyboi to lose it also gets the full electrical punishment that this machine can deliver?”
That punishment was evidently part of what was encouraging the others to hold back because within the next rotation three more men groaned softly and spurted onto the stage floor.
“Only two left,” the MC said softly. “Which one will it be? Is number three the sissyboi, or is it number five?”
Almost as soon as he finished saying that, number five groaned and spurted. A squad of men in McBrewski’s shirts ran onto the stage and began releasing the men from the device. They started with number three. He stood there with his prick still at full attention while he wiped the makeup from his face with a towel one of the staff had handed him.
Each of the losers was led to the front of the stage where they were each bent over a fucking bench. The padded platform of the bench was more or less at waist height. Across the front of the bench was a piece of metal with three padded holes in it. The center hole was big enough for the man’s neck. The two outer holes just fit his wrists. The piece of metal was actually in two halves which opened so the loser’s head and hands could be set in the holes. Once the sissy was bent over the pad and his head and hands secured, two of the staff secured his ankles and knees to the upright supports of the bench. Secured in this way, he could move slightly, but could not rise up or escape.
“Our winner needs some relief,” the MC said, “and there are five assholes just waiting to be fucked.”
The winner was led over to the first fucking bench where the first loser was strapped in place. Unlike the winner, who had wiped the sissy makeup from his face, the loser was still fully made up. In fact, one of the naked female assistants had just applied more makeup, turning the loser’s bright red lips into an exaggerated smile.
The same naked assistant that had redone the loser’s makeup quickly stepped behind him and squirted something– probably lube– between his asscheeks. Then the winner stepped forward and rammed his stiff prick into the sissy’s ass. He only thrust a couple of times before he shuddered slightly and bent over the sissy’s back.
“That leaves four assholes ready and waiting,” the MC yelled out with a smile. “And all of you had a chance to buy a lottery chip for a chance at one of them. If your lottery chip is now flashing red or green, you are one of the four winners!”
Three men and one woman yelled loudly and stood up. As they were walking toward the stage, the woman said loudly, “I’ve always wondered if fucking a man was the same as fucking a woman.” Then she lifted up a large cloth bag, laughed, and said, “And I brought along my strapon just in case I won.”
As she stepped on stage, the MC said softly to her, “We will save you for last, OK?” She nodded as she stepped into line with the three men.
“There is a number glowing in the center of your chip,” the MC said a little louder to the three men. “Number one gets first pick, then number two, and then number three.”
“I’ll probably never tell anyone about this,” the first man said, “but I’ve always wondered what it would be like to screw another man.”
“Well,” the MC said, “these aren’t quite men, but I think you will find out what you wanted to know.”
The sissy picked screamed as the man’s stiff prick began reaming out his ass. The first man, who wanted to know what it felt like to screw a man, evidently was very excited by the prospect because he quickly groaned and popped.
The second man chose his sissy and silently lined up behind him. He pushed in slowly and then paused for a moment to let the sissy’s asshole further relax. Then he started thrusting slowly. He went on for several minutes until the sissy started moaning and bucking back against him. Then he sped up and about a minute later both he and the sissy groaned softly. His orgasm was obvious by his shuddering and lying over the top of the sissy. The sissy’s was obvious by the cum which spurted out onto the floor.
“You’ve done this before,” the MC said with a chuckle.
As the man pulled out he replied, “Nothing like a really tight asshole once in a while,” and smiled back at the MC.
“We have intentionally left our female winner for last,” the MC said, almost laughing. “I think women are a little more patient than men.” Then he turned to the woman who had removed her dress to reveal a skin-tight black artificial leather swimsuit and asked, “Why did you enter the drawing? It’s kind of expensive for an ordinary crewperson?”
She replied, “I’m not ordinary, and my sub got transferred to a different ship, so I haven’t had the chance to get off screwing a sissy for quite a while.”
“So,” the MC continued, “what gives you your pleasure in this? Is it just dominating a man?”
“That’s part of it,” the woman replied, “but this...” She took a large strap-on out of her bag and connected it to the front of her suit. “... this is slightly double-ended. It rubs me in all the right places while I ream his ass.”
“Well, don’t let me stand in your way,” the MC said. Then he added with a laugh, “It looks like that might be dangerous anyway.”
The woman stepped forward and squirted a large amount of lube between the whimpering sissy’s asscheeks and then squirted some onto her artificial dong, causing its plasti-foam to glisten black. Then she slowly pushed the dildo into the sissy’s ass.
The sissy was groaning, “No, no, no, no, no,” all the while she was pushing into him. Once she was bottomed out, she began to slowly pull back and then push forward. She sped up slightly and after a little while the sissy’s cries of “no” morphed into a more guttural, “oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.”
The woman’s face was starting to glisten with perspiration. It was probably hot in the tight faux leather swimsuit, especially under the stage lighting. Then, a little while later, she began keening softly as she thrust in and out of the sissy’s ass.
Her keening got more and more shrill and then began to get louder and louder. Suddenly she began quivering and thrashing while making very small thrusts in and out. The sissy let out a deep groan and spurted down onto the stage floor. In response, she screamed and bowed her back so that all that was touching the sissy was the dildo itself.
She stood in that bow breathing heavily for a moment or two and then straightened herself and pulled the fake prick out of the sissy’s ass. She reached forward and patted his ass and said loudly to the MC, “Never let it be said that I can’t show a man a good time.” Then she walked off the stage.
The MC faced the crowd and said, “Obviously we have to clean up the stage a little bit and reset for the next act. In the meantime, once again you have our Cowgirl Chorus.”
After the slightly ghostly-looking chorus of nearly naked cowgirls began singing, I turned back to the man who claimed to be Franklin Prescott. “So how did you escape?” I asked as firmly as I dared.
In response, he laughed and then said, “Who says I escaped?” Then his face went totally blank as he continued, “Omicron Delta Alpha Nine no longer exists. There is nothing inside the quarantine beacons except empty space. It needed a new crew, so it moved.”
“Where did it go?” I asked calmly.
“Where did Dexter-Barlow Eleven come from?” he replied and flashed me a big smile.
There is a special code that only a Chief Sec or the ship’s Captain can send out. It has to be sent three times followed, if possible by the Chief Sec’s voice command. I reached down to my communicator which was on my belt under the table. I slid my fingers under the cover and pressed 7909 7909 7909. Then I keyed the microphone on my collar and said simply, “Verified.”
I had just declared a full United Space Command biological emergency. Dexter-Barlow Eleven was now under strict quarantine. That change of status was broadcast from the Orion’s main transmitter and should have come through every crewperson’s comlink, but no one in McBrewski’s seemed to even notice.
“I told you it was too late,” Commander Prescott said with a smile that was somehow also a frown. “You’ve all heard the sirens and now that damn computer is inside your head... forever.”
I looked around the room. Officer Shelly O’Donald was hurrying toward me. “What the hell is going on?” she said softly. “Someone just declared a bio-emergency and no one seems to give a shit.”
“Why aren’t the sirens affecting you?” I asked quickly.
“You mean that telepathic control wave mixed in with the Cowgirls’ songs?” she replied. “That shit doesn’t affect Hortons. We just filter it out.”
“Filter it out,” I said softly. My artificial ears were filtering it out and protecting me. “We have to get back up to the Orion, I said as I signaled her to follow me.
When we got to the shuttle docks, there was a large crew unloading supplies. “What is going on?” I asked brusquely.
One of the crewmen looked at me with blank eyes and said rather flatly, “We have to bring down all the supplies before the Orion is sent away.”
I was about to order them to stop when Officer O’Donald held up her hand signaling me to be quiet. “We need to go back up to the ship to help coordinate the transfer of supplies,” she said softly. “Is it OK if we ride back up on this shuttle?”
“Of course,” the man replied. “As long as it is what the girls want.”
As we entered the shuttle, Shelly leaned in close to me and said, “I have a plan.” I didn’t so I just took a seat next to her and waited.
When we got back on the Orion, she signaled me to follow her and we wound our way down to the cargo decks and then two more decks down to heavy storage. Cargo sergeant Timothy Carne was at his post, sleeping. There wasn’t much else to do down in heavy storage, but the regs said that someone had to monitor the heavy cargo discharge rails at all times.
“So,” Shelly said brightly, “what did you think of the Cowgirl Chorus?”
“The what?” he replied. “What in the hell are you talking about?”
“Quick summary,” I said rapidly, “Dexter-Barlow Eleven is actually an ancient rogue colony ship that lured us here to enslave the crew using mind control transmitted along with a holographic chorus of semi-naked cowgirls.”
“Sheee-it!” was his only answer. Then he waved his hand around and said, “It couldn’t get down here because of all this compressed ore.”
“Right,” Shelly said. “And the rest of the crew is under the control of that rogue computer so there isn’t much we can do.” Then she smiled. It was that smile of hers that caused the Horton spots to show on her face. Still smiling, she added, “... except unload cargo and supplies.”
Tim looked at her totally confused for almost a minute and then his face brightened as he said suddenly, “OH! You want me to unload all the compressed ore.”
“How accurate can you send it?” Shelly asked.
“For something that small,” he answered, “I can send it straight in and keep the whole load within a very small area.”
“Bring it up on your transmit screen,” I said softly. Once the screen was stabilized, I tapped a large dark circle on the surface of the planetoid. “That,” I said, “is a solar collection grid. It picks up solar energy even in interstellar space and creates additional power for a colony ship. The main power system would be directly beneath that... and hopefully the main computer.”
The Orion can hold over five thousand compressed heavy containers. He began setting up the rails for rapid delivery. “Even if they try to stop us,” he said grimly, “this will deliver at least a hundred units before they can kill the power.”
His prediction was correct. The power went out just as the one hundred and twenty-first container left the rails. But no power is needed once a projectile is in space. It keeps going until it hits something. And Cargo sergeant Timothy Carne’s aim was very good. Later inspection would show that all but one of the containers landed within the circle of the solar collector.
“Hopefully, we’ve stopped them,” I said.
“Even if we don’t survive,” Shelly said.
Suddenly the lights came back on, along with the flashing red lights and screaming klaxon of a maximum alert.
“All stations report!” the comlink screamed. “It was the voice of the captain. The Cowgirls were no longer in control.”
With the loss of all power on the colony ship, life support was failing fast. All survivors were shuttled to the Orion. I... and the captain... sent out an emergency distress signal explaining what had happened. Rescue ships, including seven heavily-armed USC security ships, arrived fairly soon, but they stayed at a distance because of the quarantine. United Space Command security and medical personnel had to ascertain the nature of the bio-hazard and declare us safe before anyone else could come close. They were somewhat surprised to find that it was an electronic rather than biological hazard that had caused me to declare the quarantine so they had to bring in electronics experts to examine the planetoid/colony ship.
When I met with the electronic experts and showed them around the vast ship, one of them exclaimed, “My God! It’s the Bounty.” He then went on to explain that a total of twelve colony ships were sent from old Earth centuries ago. Eleven of those colonies were successful, but one ship, the Bounty, was considered lost.
“It’s a shame you had to destroy the computer,” he said. “We could have learned so much from it.”
“We already learned a lot,” I answered.
He looked at me with a quizzical expression on his face and I said curtly, “Never let a computer become sentient.”
He shrugged and reported that the electronic threat had been neutralized. That allowed the full rescue effort to begin. After making sure that all survivors had been recovered from the now derelict colony ship, the seven security ships blasted the Bounty with sufficient firepower to vaporize it. They were a little surprised that one segment of the ship seemed to withstand their attack until I explained to them that we had driven120 containers of super-compressed metal ore into the heart of the giant ship.
A voice behind me said, “I saw you in McBrewski’s while I was under the siren’s control. I knew you would find a way to defeat them.”
I turned around to see a tall woman dressed in the uniform of a Chief Security Officer. Her long blond hair hung in a rope braid down to her waist.
“Chief Sec Amanda Zorst,” she said with a smile. “I was stationed on the Hercules before it was lured to McBrewski’s three years ago.” She blushed slightly, “I was strong enough to know what was going on, but I couldn’t completely resist the sirens. How did you do it?”
“I missed the course on Iomonians,” I replied. When she responded with a confused, “What?” I suggested that we discuss it over dinner. She was, after all, of equal rank and who knows, she might want to engage in some therapeutic normal lovemaking.
