Chapter 31

"That's the greatest comeback since Lazarus."

~ Sid Waddell

“All ahead, flank!” someone shouted deep into the blackness. ‘Where am I?’

“Get us out of here!!!” Screams of desperation all around him.

“Medic!!” A woman shouted from a distance.

Primal fight for survival was evident.

Explosions rocked all around him.

Support beams fell on top of him, cutting off the lower half of his body.

Sudden, sharp pain, then nothing.

A strange ship exploding seen through the viewport.

“Five more ships lost to Alliance cruisers,” an unknown voice shouted out.

“Hyperdrive offline, sir, Main fusion reactors down!”

“We have no choice, power up the Wormhole Drive!”

‘Wormhole drive?’

He knows what this is, but he doesn’t. It feels familiar, burned in his brain just as ordinary as a Ford Mustang Speeder would be, but he has no idea what it is?

Strange lights appear in space to form what looks like a singularity.

A vast explosion rocked the floor where he lay, dying.

“Main power offline! We are losing life support!!” a man shouted with terror.

“Open Communications, All Channels, All Frequencies”

“Line Open”

“We surrender! This is Admiral Anatolie of the Imperial Battleship, Salvation! We surrender! Have mercy on our souls!!”

“Where was mercy on Almora?” A familiar voice heard over the speakers

“ I repeat, we surr…..”

Massive Explosion in the bridge, flurry of yellow, orange and red flames, then blackness.

John jumped up from his nightmare, panting, sweating, screaming. ‘This is the fifth nightmare like this in the last few months,’ he thought to himself as he attempted to gather his bearings.

“Sir! Are you ok?” Robert ran up to him as John lurched out of his cot.

“I…I’m…. I’m alright, lieutenant,” he barely mustered while looking around. He noticed right away he was not on board a Federation Starship, and Robert was out of uniform. So was he, and all the other crew members that were in this apparent brig with him. Everyone, including the female crewmembers and Enki, was wearing plain white cotton T-shirts, and thigh-high white cotton shorts. Nothing else covered their bodies.

“You are all out of uniform! I’m going to have to write you up for this!” John joked as he looked around the room. Everyone laughed and the mood lifted for a slight moment. It was a good, minor but temporary, morale booster, which John knew was needed.

The crew of the WarpStar was trapped in a strange ship; brown and green organic structures lined the walls. Biological ‘Veins’ lining the ceiling appeared to function as electrical conduits and fluid transfers, and the atmosphere was humid and warm. The crew was divided in multiple cages in a vast room caged by a metal or bone structure seemingly harder than steel.

“Chief of the Boat!” John called for the COB since he could not seem to find his Ex-O.

“Sir!” a young junior enlisted officer came up and saluted.

“Sergeant, I need a complete headcount of the entire crew.”

Before the young officer could reply, two large Minmoran guards accompanied by what appeared to be a giant walking reptilian opened the cell John was in and tossed in a badly bruised and bloodied Charles O’Connell.

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“You!!!” the officer hissed at John while pointing his long scaly finger at him. “Follow!” he finally commanded.

“Cob, get me that count!” John whispered in the chief's ear as he got up to follow the officer. The junior officer gave a slight nod as his captain walked away.

It only took a few minutes to get where the reptilian guard wanted him. John got used to the strange texture of the ship's floor under his bare feet, but it was the smell that he couldn’t take. His human nose could smell several odors, what he assumed was a mixture of vomit and death. His brain was fighting with him at each step, hoping the goo he was stepping through was not the source of the rancid smell. The corridors of the strange ship were lined with what appeared to be bone, which logically served as structural reinforcement. The walls between the bone were a mix of bright red and brown colors, with cartilage and goo flowing between the giant bone beams.

“SSssssssiiit,” the reptilian commanded as one of the giant Minmoran shoved him to a chair that seemed to be made of cartilage.

“What do you want with us?” John demanded, scanning the room, analyzing his options.

The lizard replied by sending a well-powered punch to John's gut, knocking the wind out of him and throwing him off the chair. The Minmoran guards shoved John back on the chair while being as rough as possible. John didn’t say anything as he watched the guards walk to the door and do what they do best. Guard it.

It seemed like hours to John. He was sitting there observing these aliens just standing there, sitting in an alien ship that appeared to be an alien lifeform itself. John seemed to have plenty of time to contemplate all he had seen. Just days ago, he assumed humans were the only life in the universe. Now he’d seen at least three different prominent species of extra-terrestrial life. Four, if you want to count the ship that appears to be alive. The odd part to John was they were not really ‘new’ to him. Lizard aliens have been reported throughout Earth’s history, but were classified as conspiracy theorists and crazy people’s dreams. The Minmoran beasts were described in ancient Greek mythology as Minotaurs. The elongated skulls of the Sumerians were well documented in Earth's ancient past and were thought a human ritual to mock the Gods. Still, it’s now apparent the Sumerians themselves were either present on Earth or were the Gods that were being mocked. Ancient Earth culture reports of a city in southern Mesopotamia, known as the earliest civilized city.

What seemed like hours was only ten minutes for John. Ten minutes and everything changed. A fifth alien pranced into the room as the guards bowed to her. This alien was on a whole new level. This creature was something never before reported or seen in Earth’s history. Not as lore, a fairy tale, a God, or in the dreams of the insane.

‘She,’ as John thought to describe the creature, stood at five feet tall. Her skin was a light blue that seemed to change colors right in front of his eyes. It didn’t take John long to figure out what her colors were telling him. Her colors would range from red for angry, to a bright blue when happy and everything in between. She had no hair, but her head was decorated with four to five dozen thick hair-like tentacles that were part of her skull, covered in her normal skin. The tentacles seemed flexible enough to be able to style like you would with human hair.

“So. You survived,” she said in perfect English as she walked up to John, her skin turning a shade of light red, indicating slight anger.

“I am just as surprised as you are, who are you?” John’s curiosity took over his military training. “I am Captain John Henderson, of the United Federation of Nations. You have committed an act of war by attacking one of our systems.”

“Is that what you are calling yourselves now? The ‘United Federation of Nations’?” she said, mockingly alternating between orange and purple skin tones. “You may call me Queen Lithanul. First Liege of the Alliance, Galactic Protector, Imperial vanquisher, Goddess of Life.” Her skin turned as black as deep space. Strong emotions of royalty and evil bled to the surface of her skin. “But I would not expect you, filthy pests, to know who I am, with your short and pathetic lifespans!” A mix of purple and brown showed her disgust. “How the hell did you survive?” Fiery red this time. Redder than John has seen so far.

John thought, how could a species like this survive diplomacy if they could be read so easily? “You tell me,” John asked, truly ignorant to how he had survived.

The Queen leaned down close, her face intimately close to John’s. She stared into his eyes for a moment before closing hers, and slowly sniffed John’s stench.

“f.f.f. f.f.f.f. f.f f.f f.f f ff” She made quick inhale noise with her mouth. “Fear!!! I can smell it in you, Captain John Henderson! It's soooo…intoxicating!!” Her skin was a bright green then turned back to blue as she opened her eyes to stare deeply into John. “Don’t make me ask a third time. How. Did. You. Survive?!”

John straightened his back as much as he could and stared back into her eyes. Playing her game, he did not want to show any emotion other than confidence. He may be able to see her emotions, but she could smell his. He would not show it, but he was terrified.

“My ship was set for self-destruct. I do not know how I survived,” John said in the most calm, neutral voice he could, hoping he didn’t “stink” of fright anymore.

The Queen smiled and tilted her head. “Mmmmmm,” she managed to mutter as she started to lick her lips. John did not move or display any form of emotion. “Your stench is getting stronger!” she said as she started to lick John's face. “Mmmm! Terran sweat always was delicious! Oh, how I missed your sweet nectar! I hope the rest of you didn’t spoil after all these years!” she said as she stood up.

‘What the fuck?’ is all John could think. Was he just molested, or worse? The Queen quickly turned to the reptilian officer. “Tap him!” She gave the order and leaned on the wall with a giant grin on her face, licking her lips with her skin bright red with excitement!

The Minmoran guards held John down. He knew this was not going to be pleasant. The reptilian man grabbed something off a table behind John, but when the reptilian walked in front, John didn’t need to know what he was feeling. Watching the Queen close her eyes and stick her nose up in pure ecstasy, he knew. Everyone knew he was terrified.

This was no ordinary needle. It was big and thick, with spiral edges around it like a drill bit from the 20th century. In fact, it was a small drill. The reptilian man started “digging” inside John’s skin. His screams of pain could be heard all the way to the prison cells. A small hole formed where they were digging, which caused extreme pain for something that John thought shouldn’t have. But it wasn’t the pain that scared John, it was The Queen. Smiling all the way to John, she shoved her finger in the new hole, dug around, and tasted John’s blood. “Hmmm, a bit different. What have you guys done?” she said as she turned yellow with curiosity.

“How did you survive!!!!” the Queen kept yelling. She kept turning more and more crimson each time, getting angrier and angrier. Each time she asked, they inflicted blunter trauma to his chest, head, and abdomen areas. More drill holes in his arms, legs, hands, and feet. Three hours of torture was too much for the strong captain. Pain and agony had taken its toll. John was dragged back to his cell, drooling.