From the same motion picture studio that brought you JASMINE STARR AND THE MAN WITH AN IRON HEART and JASMINE STAR IN THE CENTER OF THE EARTH comes a new serial starring America's most spectacular heroine in...
JASMINE STARR AGAINST THE EMPEROR OF SPACE!
THRILL to rocket battles so real you swear you are in the clammy depths of space!
SWOON to love both forbidden and desperate, burning bright against the evil of the EMPIRE OF SPACE!
DELIGHT as American values are pitted against the evil of AYTAN ZAROD...THE EMPEROR OF SPACE!
New picture every week at the Sufficient Velocity Cinoplex
(Brought to you by Blue Coal, the cleanest burning coal in America. Buy Blue Coal!)
Mark Styles stepped from his beat up model-T and whistled slowly as he took in the front entrance of the Starr Estate. Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright back in the thirties, it looked like a house of the future, even now. The front gates were elegant art deco affairs that hadn't cared for the changing of the seasons and the shifting of style. Heroic figures held aloft the sides of the doors, statues with stark features and bold proportions. Along the top of the gate read the Latin inscription of the Starr family.
"Ad Astra? The heck does that mean?" Jimmy Katz asked, leaning his head from the side of the car. Mark chuckled.
"Kid, I pay you to take pictures, take pictures," he said and Jimmy hurried from the car to set up his camera. He snapped a shot quickly, then another – and the front gate slowly opened as Mark himself took in the rest of the mansion beyond. Two wings, three stories, statuary in a tasteful style that spoke of great wealth and greater restraint...but there were odder things too. The greenhouse dome on the left side. The large garage. What looked to be a target shooting range, with rifles of various kinds propped up under an awning, where they could be snatched up at a moment's notice.
But what he noticed most was the overgrown nature of the garden.
"This Starr bird doesn't have many guests, does she?" he muttered, his unlit cigarette dancing at the corner of his mouth.
"Sure doesn't, Mr. Styles!"
"I was talking to myself, kid," Mark said, looking at Jimmy. Jimmy flushed, then held up his camera. Then his jaw hit the floor – and the camera flashed at the same time. Mark turned away to see what it was he had snapped and…
"Fhew," Mark whistled to himself as the gate started to slide open and he caught his first sign of anyone alive on the Starr estate. The fact she was the prettiest looking girl he'd ever seen since '45 in a little townhouse two miles east of the Seine just made the little black and white uniform she was all dolled up in kick even harder. French maid outfits were really their own reward. She had opened the gate with some kind of electric device in her hands, and she smiled brightly at him and Mark.
"Mademoiselle," Mark said, immediately slipping back into the passable French he picked up over there. "Enchantée!"
"Oh, hah, tarnation, I don't speak German," she said, with a thick Tennessee accent. She did curtsy. "My name's Claudette! Why don't ya'll come in. The Missus is waiting fer ya in the observatory! Oh, none of ya'll are interested in drinkin', right?"
"Uh, I don't mind a snort or two, why?" Mark asked as Claudette fished a small box from one of the many folds of her frilly uniform. She beamed and bent forward to hold out the box – which gave a remarkable view of her...ah…photogenic side. Jimmy, who had been a short-pint back when Mark had been killing Nazis, looked as if he was about to faint, his eyes going completely crossed as he tried to look right down Claudette's dress. Mark, from his lofty and mature age of twenty six, was considerably better at hiding his glance and elbowed him.
"Well, uh, the Missus says y'all wanna skip any kind of whiskey or spirits after taking these," she said.
"What are they?" Mark asked, taking one of the pills from the case curiously. They were tiny white oval shaped pills, looking a bit like Tylenol or aspirin. He looked from the pill to Claudette who smiled at him.
"Potassium Eye Oh Die!" she said, bringing out the elemental name with a flair only someone from the south could. "Missus says it'll keep yer guts safe as houses. Just in case."
Mark's eyebrows shot right up. "Your missus is a doctor now?"
"Doctor, yeah!" Claudette said, turning – her skirts swishing. "She got her first doctorate when she was ten years old, mister! She became a medical doctor during the war, and won the Olympic gold medal-"
"Twice, yeah," Mark said, nodding as they walked together through the front door. The lobby of the Starr estate had a huge portrait of a forbearing looking older man that Mark was fairly sure was Jasmine Starr's eccentric grandfather, who had raised her ever since her parents had died on the Lusitania. Jacob Starr had been an oil baron, then a telephone innovator, then a reclusive coot after his claims of receiving messages from space aliens had been debunked by the scientific community. He had died in obscurity and left his vast fortune to Jasmine. According to the research Mark had done, she had doubled it with clever investments...then lost almost all of it in a string of economic decisions that could only be considered 'utterly baffling.'
"In fencing," Claudette said, taking the stairs ahead of her with a cheerful humming. Mark dry swallowed his pill. Jimmy, trying to ape him, started to choke. But that might have been because the stairs leading from the lobby to the second story of the estate were remarkably steep and the view was…
"The observatory is right this way, gentlemen," Claudette said, cheerfully as she stepped off the stairs and turned to the right, her hips and her high heels working together to get Jimmy to trip over his own feet. Mark stepped up hurriedly and followed after Claudette, leaning in to speak quietly to her.
"Fencer, doctor, tinkerer, entrepreneur," he said, ticking the things off on his fingers. "Private investigator."
"Private investigator?" Claudette chuckled, shaking her head. "Shucks no, the Missus doesn't do...how you say it, gumshoe work?"
"She led to the arrest of Fatts Ricci," Mark said, dryly.
"Oh, that was just a side thing," Claudette said, brushing off the event that had rocked New York City to its roots for a solid three weeks and implicated several senators in the criminal underground – and had made Jasmine Starr a household name...again.
The maid opened the door leading to the observatory and Mark stepped inside and realized that the breadth of his interview may have gone further than he expected. The observatory was not, as he had guessed, a telescope or something. It wasn't a place to gaze at stars. It was, in fact, a gantry bay that looked down upon the insides of a workshop that looked like it should have been turning out tanks or B-52s, not sitting in the hands of some weird bachelorette in upper New York State. The machine tools were sophisticated, sturdy, and well used and the fruits of their work sat in the center of the garage, easily viewed from the observatory.
"Is that a…" Mark bit back the stronger word. "Is that a rocket?"
"You are quite correct, Mr. Styles! That is none other than my very own rocket – I call her...Atomo!"
The arrival of Jasmine Starr was almost as arresting as the arrival of her maid. She was less conventionally attractive – skinnier, taller, more mannish in her dress and mannerisms – but that didn't stop her from being one of the prettiest girls that Mark had ever seen. Her hair was short and frizzy, clinging tight to her head like she was a kind of pixie, and her face was all sleek angles and hard edges, with bright blue eyes that seemed to take in everything at once. She was dressed in simple coveralls that were stained with grease, and had a clipboard in her hand, covered with neat, even handwriting. She beamed at him as she held out her hand – work roughened and strong in his grip – and shook.
"Please, call me Mark," Mark said.
"Then you can call me Jaz. My favorite kind of music, you know," she said, nodding. "Pioneered by remarkable people and appreciated round the world, Jazz…" She looked down at the rocket, then looked back at Mark, beaming at him. "I see you're impressed."
Jimmy snapped a picture.
"Impressed? Hell, I…" Mark whistled. "It looks like someone took one of those big V2 things and blew it up three times as big!"
"Ah, the work of Herr Von Braun, yes," Jaz said, shaking her head with a little thin frown. "I have differences with the man – but that's not what you're here about. You want to know what the Mad Spinster of New York is all about."
"Well-"
"Come!" Jaz turned and then headed to the side of the observatory, where a metal pole was set against the ceiling, running down to the next level – like a firehouse. She casually swung onto it and gripped to it, sliding down with a squeak. Jimmy gulped and Mark, remembering the kid was scared of everything, put his hand on his shoulder.
"Stay here, Kid. Snap shots of the rocket, get lots of pictures. This is going to be a big story," he said, nodding, then turned to the pole.
He stepped away from it a moment later, his heart racing despite himself – and then he heard a squeak and a thump behind him. Turning, he saw Claudette untangling herself from the pole as if she slid down it every day. Mark changed his mental evaluation of the curvaceous maid a bit, anyone who could take a pole like that in a dress like hers was someone not to underestimate.
Jas gestured him forward, pointing. "Do you know how rockets operate?"
"Not really, Jas, no," Mark said.
"Ah, yes, well!" Jas's finger stabbed out. "A rocket requires power and reaction mass. In Von Braun's clumsy devices, the power and reaction mass are one in the same! Rocket fuel can use, for instance, hydrogen and oxygen mixed together and ignited, much as we use gasoline in our automobiles. However, this is rather wasteful and hard to control. There is a far more effective and small source of power that can be utilized for rockets – separate from the reaction mass, so that one may 'refuel' the rocket with nothing more complex than water!"
Mark took his cigarette from his lips, holding it nervously, thinking of how explosive hydrogen gas was. Then he furrowed his brow. "What kind of power can that be, Jas?" He smirked. "I'm guessing it isn't clean burning Blue Coal."
"Ah, no. While Blue Coal might be more than enough to warm the homes and cook the meals of millions of hard working Americans – cleanly, safely, and cheaper than the next leading brand, I must add – my rocket requires a significantly more potent source of energy. No, Mark...I turned to the might of the atom."
Mark's eyebrows shot straight to the underside of his bangs. He looked back at the rocket, then back to Jas, who had placed her hands confidently on her hips.
"This rocket is powered by A-bombs?" he asked.
"No, Mark, it is powered by an atomic reactor! With a slug of Uranium-235 a fraction the size of the fuel in one of Von Braun's clankers, we will have power enough to travel to Pluto and back again! The engine works by heating and thrusting the reaction mass out of the rocket's nozzle, here. The nozzle, as you can see, is built upon gimbals that allow for it to be canted at various angles, allowing for steering. But for when the full strength of the engine is not required, my rocket is covered with small thrusters that use nothing more complex than compressed gasses to push the nose, adjust the spin, and any number of maneuvers that will serve of great use in orbit."
"Orbit?" Mark asked, his head spinning. "You...you're telling me you plan to go into orbit?"
Jas beamed at him, her blue eyes flashing. "Me? No, Mark. I do not plan to go into orbit alone. Why do you think I asked for you specifically-" Mark blinked, having not known that she had asked for him specifically at all! "-you served two years in the War and so I know you are brave. You reported on seven of the fifteen most important news stories of the past year, and most importantly...you're a looker." She winked at him and Mark snorted.
"You expect me to climb into that a-bomb powered rocket machine and fly with you into space? So I can report on it?" Mark asked.
"Of course!" Jas said.
"All cause you said I'm a looker?" Mark asked. "Lady, I'm flattered, but my mom didn't raise a fool."
Jas' eyes glittered. "Did she raise a coward, then?"
Mark paused.
He clicked his teeth.
"Do you really want to let the Reds beat us into space?" Jas whispered, quietly.
Mark groaned. "Ah. Hell. You only live once."
Jas beamed, then kissed his cheek – one quick peck that caused Mark to blush and grumble.
***
"Hey, Jas, why do we gotta wear these fruity get ups?" Mark asked as he eyed the foil suit that he had been handed while in the locker rooms that adjoined the rocket bay. The foil glittered and shone before his eyes.
"They're not fruity!" Jas called through the door. "You must be nude beneath them – they only will operate properly if they can press to your skin directly. Vacuum is a harsh mistress. There are two means to protect one's flesh from the dangers of near-zero pressure: The first is to fill a balloon with air, but this is awkward and clumsy and heavy. The second is to have the skin of the suit cling tightly to your skin, providing direct kinetic reinforcement to your body." She chuckled. "Hence why I designed these, my kinetic pressure star suits!"
"Do they all come in silver?" Mark muttered as he began to strip his shirt off, wincing at the tug against his old bullet wounds.
"Of course not!" Jas chuckled.
"D-Do...I have ta wear 'em too, Missus?"
Mark's head snapped up at the faint southern drawl.
"Yes, my dear Claudette, there's no way I'm taking that rocket up without you."
Mark began to tug his suit on as quickly as he could, the idea of seeing Claudette in one nearly making him hyperventilate. He zipped and found that the kinetic pressure star suit was remarkable comfortable and, once it was no longer a bunch of crinkly, reflective foil, quite attractive looking. He eyed himself in the mirror in his changing room: Lantern jaw, swarthy skin, a furrowed scar along his chin from a very near miss, and dark gray eyes, all framed in a silver suit that showed off his rangy, muscular body. He had to admit, it looked good.
Not quite as good as his old GI uniform, but good.
He stepped from the locker to find that his expectations had been right. Claudette was devastating in a French maid outfit that just barely managed to contain her modesty. In a bright gold suit that looked as if it had been painted onto her body, it was nearly impossible for his brain to function. The suit also provided...ah...support. Which made his cheeks flush and his hand go down to adjust the suit, trying to get a certain part of his anatomy to be a tiny bit less obvious. Fortunately, Claudette had no eyes for him – or anyone else. Her hands were over her face, covering her eyes and cheeks as she groaned.
"T-Tarnation, missus! This ain't a proper getup for a lady!"
"Nonsense," Jas said, stepping from her locker, where she had her bright red suit on, a bubble shaped objects tucked under both arms. She shifted her grip on them, then held them out, revealing that they had rings that would socket right onto the neck holes of the suits. "Here, put on your vacuum air helmets. They'll keep you from suffocating in space."
"Well ain't that just lovely…" Claudette moaned, putting the helmet on and latching it into place with a twist, wincing as she did so. Mark did likewise.
"Well, it's more comfortable than my old shrapnel stopper, that's for sure," he said, nodding.
"The suits have radio-phones built into them, so we should be able to communicate while within range. Once we leave the Earth's atmosphere, we will have to be in line of sight – no ionosphere once we're beyond it, ha ha!" She beamed.
"How far do you plan to go?"
"Oh, not far, not far," Jas said, confidently. Mark frowned, then followed after her as she strode from the locker. He lifted his gaze to the observatory, where Jimmy was snapping pictures still. He raised his hand to him – hoped that he'd be back in time to write some copy – and then climbed onto the rocket after Jas. The ladder in question jutted from the bottom of the rocket and led to a circular room that had another ladder that ran along the spine the ship. Jas gestured around herself, smiling cheerfully. "This is the engineering deck. Below us is the radiation shroud, which keeps us safe from the uranium that powers the ship. There, there, and there, are the reaction mass tanks that contain the water for the flight. We have nearly twenty kilometers per second of delta-V in those tanks and, good thing too, they take up seventy five percent of the ship!"
Jas then smiled. "But that? That is the most important part."
She nodded to a large red button that was situated next to a hatch in the floor. Mark frowned, walking to it, reading the stenciled letter on it: SCRAM.
"What does scram mean?" Mark asked.
Jas smiled. Her expression was...enigmatic. "Lets hope we don't ever find out. Now! As I was saying, this rocket has loads of Delta-V!"
"And what is that?" Mark asked, climbing up after Jas as she swung herself up the ladder. He...rather wished he had been beneath Claudette, but as it was…
This view had advantages.
"Change in velocity, Mark! In space, you cannot simply fly by flapping your wings. Every bit of reaction mass we use, we can never get back without refueling. And so, we measure our legs in how much we can change our velocity – our direction and our motion relative to whatever it is we're blasting away from. The Earth has an escape velocity of about ten kilometers per second of Delta-V, thus, we need to only burn through half of our water to get into a stable orbit."
"That doesn't seem too great," Mark said. "One of my buddies, Chip? He was a flyboy…" He paused as they came to the top of the rocket, where a cluttered, three man cockpit was waiting. The whole room looked like the middle point between a B-52 super fortress bomber, a submarine, and some madman's idea of what a radio station would look like – and then, once all that had been flung together, the madman had gone and put it all on its side, so the backs of the chairs faced the ladder, rather than forward like they should.
Mark shook his head. "If Chip burned up more than half his fuel in a sortie – if he had to use most of that just getting from England to France, he'd have been in trouble."
"Come on, Mark!" Jas said, swinging herself into the highest perch. "You forget two things." She began to strap herself in. "Firstly, we aren't going into orbit to fight the Nazis. Those sorry fools aren't going to menace the world again, not in our lifetime." She flicked a few switches and the whole rocket began to hum softly, as if it was beginning to awaken a great beast indie of itself. Distant clanks and burring noises filled the air.
Mark swung into the seat to Jas' lower left, strapping himself in as well. As the buckles clicked home, he frowned. "And the second thing I forgot?"
"Once you are in orbit, Mark, you're halfway to anywhere," Jas said, cheerfully. "That's the hardest part, after all. Now, before you, you will see my very own radio telescope and electromagnetic ray distance analyzer. They should be relatively simple to use – they'll alert us if anything attempts to approach us in space. Claudette, my dear, you are on the weapons console."
"W-Weapons!?" Claudette squeaked. "Missus, you said you weren't gonna arm this dang thing!"
"Well, Claudette, I may have stretched the line between truth and falsehood a smidge," Jas said, lifting her right hand and indicating the amount of stretching with her finger and thumb – the distance was needle thin. She beamed. "It's merely for self defense. Just in case my old grandfather was right about those signals…"
Mark frowned. "Why is she on the weapons and not me?"
"The weapons are slaved to my magneto-computational device," Jas said, cheerfully. "All Claudette has to do is authorize it. Your tools require a smidgen more finesse. Besides, Claudette is the most level headed of all of us and least likely to open fire on peaceful people, right?"
Claudette mewed softly, like a soaked kitten.
"What kind of guns do you put on a rocket? Death rays?" Mark asked.
"Preposterous! The energy requirement on a death ray is prohibitive and absurd, compared to the relative efficiency of gunpowder," Jas' eyes sparkled and she beamed at him. "The nose cannon has a magneto-catapult loaded with iron dust, to swat anything lightly armored out of space, while the sides have a pair of ball turret mounted nuclear pellet coilguns. I found that once uranium is used up as a power source, the slugs are remarkably effective at piercing armor. When jacketed in ferrous metals – say, iron bands – it can be accelerated by magnetic fields to incredible speeds!"
Mark whistled. "I wish we had you around back when we were dusting it up with Jerry."
Jas chuckled again, then settled into her seat. "Oh, the OSS was quite happy to have a seventeen year old with my mental flexibility, I'll have you know." She chuckled. "And...other kinds of flexibility too."
Mark blanched.
Then he learned that Jasmine Starr, for all of her qualities, did have one fault.
She didn't believe in anything as pedestrian as 'counting down.'
***
In darkness, the only light came from the cathode ray projectors, shining on scales and glittering nictitating membranes. A claw tip came down, pointing at the bright white smear that appeared every rotation of the radar-scopes.
Sibilant voices hissed.
"Commander Vile...a ssssship hasssss launched…"
The chuckle that came from the rear of the bridge was as vicious as its namesake.
"Well, then, Signalzard Greenscale. It seems that the hostages are about to have a...terrible wedding."
"No, sssssssssir." The claw tapped again. "The launch...came from...Earth…"
Silver gauntlets crashed down on black armrests. Glowing red eyes flared as a shape moved in the shadowed bridge – standing. Then a gleaming silver finger pointed towards the astrogation globe that swirled in the center of the cruiser's bridge.
"Set our course to intercept! Prepare the Robot Death Rockets for immediate launch!"
"Yesssss ssssssssssir!" A scaled tail thumped the deck plating and claws clacked as they operated toggles and dials.
And on the glimmering green screen, the white dot began to draw closer…
And closer…
And closer still.
***
Claudette did not enjoy being in space.
But this was not the first time she had been dragged along despite her best wishes on the Missus' madcap schemes. There had been the underground civilization that she had explored when she was fourteen, and the thawed out primeval dinosaur that they had had to flee from when they had both been both going to college. And the less said about Count Von Jager, the better!
This, though?
This?
This was just too much. Her arms crossed over her chest as she tried to keep some kind of modesty when she was dressed in nothing more than a thin layer of gold paint – or so it felt – while her stomach tried to do loop dee loops in her belly. The reporter, Mark (Gosh, he's handsome, a tiny part of her brain was thinking) looked as if he was just barely keeping his stomach down as the rocket felt as if it had begun to fall...but rather than the fall terminating in their immediate death, it just went on and on forever.
The Missus laughed, softly, then tapped at her controls. "We're out! We've attained orbit!"
"Amazing," Mark said, his voice tight. "Why aren't there any windows?"
"Windows?" The Missus sounded confused. "Oh! Uh, the wheel, there."
Mark reached out and started to crank a wheel. With a slow clattering noise, the shutters that covered the windows began to retract, folding up on themselves…
Claudette forget her modesty entirely.
The Earth hung above them – a glittering orb of white clouds and blue, blue oceans. It looked as vast as she could imagine...and yet, so, incredibly small. She shook her head, faintly, while the Missus chuckled, her voice soft. "That is where every king and emperor, every mad handed dictator, every Joseph Stalin and Adolph Hitler, every President and celebrity that has ever lived has been – a tiny blue dot in a sea of night…" She shook her head, slowly. "Not so tiny here, but we're but in the shallows of the cosmic ocean!"
"G-Gee, Missus," Claudette said, her voice soft. "I never thought it'd be so...pretty."
Mark nodded. He blew a little kiss at the window.
"I bet yer friend Chip is going to be so ding dang jealous when you get to tell him about this!" Claudette said, trying to relax into her seat – it was hard without the press of gravity, or without arms to brace with. As it was, she was not unlocking her arms from over her chest until she was in proper clothes.
Mark opened his mouth, then nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I bet he will." He looked back out the window again. Then he frowned. "Well, I'll be a son of a…" He bit himself off, then leaned forward. "There are five, I repeat, five bogies on this scope – they look like they're coming towards us faster than a damn bullet!"
"Retrograde or prograde?" The Missus asked, her voice dipping into the confident attitude she always had when things were about to go very, very, very, very wrong.
"...the...indicator says RG, so, retrograde."
"Racing Rockets, who launched their birds retrograde?" The Missus muttered under her breath. "I didn't think the Reds would be so wasteful. And five? Their Sputnik program is still on the drawing board stages!"
"Missus, I got a bad feelin' about this!" Claudette said.
"Do we have them on the scopes?" The Missus asked, smiling over her shoulder at Mark.
"We do...damn they're fast! I can't get more than a blur outta this thing."
"Their orbits are very high...they look kind of small, their radar signal bounce is half our size – who in damnation launched these things?" The Missus' brow knitted. Then she reached over and pulled down her intercom, speaking into it. "Unknown space rockets, this is Jasmine Starr of the Atomo. You are cutting your orbits very close to mine – please respond."
Silence.
Claudette started to chew on her knuckle, whimpering.
"I repeat, this is Jasmine Starr of the Atomo, please respond or we shall be forced to assume you are hostile!"
"Shit!" Mark exclaimed. "They're opening fire on us! Death rays or something!"
Claudette moaned in terror – while she saw the scope-screen flashing up on the forward view of the rocket. It showed the five glints that were the approaching rockets, and the glittering streams of green light rushing towards them.
The Missus chuckled. "No, you are quite mistaken – those aren't beams or rays of any kind! Those appear to be pyrotechnic tracers, attached to their bullets, to aid in their targeting."
"Just like on Normandy…" Mark said through gritted teeth.
"Quite! But it seems they fired too soon!" The Missus touched the controls and the rocket rumbled and hissed. Pressure shoved Claudette back into her seat – and through the window, she could see streamers of glittering green whip past the rocket, almost like sinuous bands of liquid. "Claudette, be a dear and activate...the magneto-catapult."
Claudette looked down at her console and forced her shaking hands to move. She triggered flicked on the electro-catapult and waited for the magneto-calculator that the Missus had mentioned to take over. Instead, a bulky circular screen popped out of the console, showing her a grainy televisual feed of the view outside of the rocket. A moment later, a metal grating swung down, layering a circular cross-hair on the center of the screen, with a grid providing rangefinding context for the five streams of glittering green smearing across the view.
A pair of handles swung free and pressed against her forearms. Claudette meeped.
"Missus! You said-"
"The magneto-calculator does most of the work, don't fear! Just keep the circle on the center of their formation and when it chimes, pull the trigger!" the Missus said, and the entire rocket shuddered again as they maneuvered to dodge another streamer of whipping tracers. This time, the Atomo was not quite fast enough, and the whole hull rattled and clanked and groaned as the Missus frowned, her eyes intent as she glared ahead of her.
Claudette whimpered as she swung the crosshairs...they locked and she felt the handles ticking loudly – the upper right corner of the cross-hair had a small mechanical indicator that clicked up moment by moment, towards completion as the magneto-calculator did its best to target…
The handles chimed through her gloves.
Claudette closed her eyes and thumbed down the triggers.
The pressure pushing her back into her seat lessened, then cut off entirely.
She opened one eye. "A-Are we all right, Missus?"
"They've gone over the horizon, you got a great shot!" The Missus said.
"You got three of them," Mark said, nodding.
"They'll be back around again," The Missus said, her voice set and determined. "We should flack up – those hits were all in the midsection, but we could have been a lot less lucky…"
"Flack up?" Mark asked – but the Missus was already unstrapping herself. Without the engine on, there was no pressure keeping them in their seats. She pushed through the air, moving like she had been born to fly, and came to a heavy locker set against what seemed, to Claudette, to be the ceiling. She swung it open, revealing what appeared to be heavy orange jackets, which she snatched and handed out. Mark swung his on, shaking his head. "What on Earth are these made of?"
"Ballistic nylon, just like what the bombermen in your army air corps wore," the Missus said, cheerfully.
"And it didn't help them much," Mark muttered as he swung his armor on. Claudette clasped her on, trying to keep herself from crying. She had just latched the last part on when Mark swore, loudly – using a word she had never heard from a man in the company of two ladies before. Her eyes widened, almost more horrified by that then what he said.
Almost.
"There's another bogie! It's in a prograde orbit, higher than ours, but slowing down! They're getting closer! It's...it's huge!"
The scopes whirred as he used one of the controls – and the forward view-screens showed the image of the other rocket…
"I-I don't think the Reds built that, M-Missus," Claudette whimpered.
The other rocket wasn't just huge.
It was gigantic.
It was nearly five times the size of the Atomo, and pure midnight black, with gold trim along the nose cone and with a bright red triangular logo painted upon the side, with alien letters emblazoned below it. A string of white, blue and green circles were daubed along the side of the name – in a strange, confusing pattern of five white, two blue, three green, two white, one green…and blistering from each side of the ship were what were unmistakably weapons.
Claudette had, in her time, seen far too many weapons aimed at her head to make the mistake that they were anything but.
The most striking detail, though, was the fins. The back of the ship had a quartet of what appeared to be glowing, bright red fins that thrust from the edges of the engine, as if the whole ship was trying to pretend to be a shark...
"By the Rings of Saturn!" The Missus exclaimed. "No human hands laid one finger on that rocket, or I'm a monkey's uncle!"
"W-What are those dots?" Claudette stammered.
"Why, they could be anything," The Missus said, rubbing her chin with her finger, frowning slightly as she did so. "This is an alien culture, after all, but-"
"They're kill markers," Mark said, his voice grim. "Chip had a bunch just like em."
The radio crackled and buzzed...and a voice speaking English filled the cabin – but it spoke English in a way no human ever would. "Ssssservilessssss aboard the unregissssstered atomic rocket identifying itssssssssself assss the Atomo…ssssssurrender immediately or be dessssssssstroyed."
Mark gaped. "How in the fuck-" Claudette winced at his language. "-do the little green men from Mars speak English?"
"They must have been observing our planet...long enough to learn our most commonly broadcast language. We've been sending radio waves out into space for a dog's age, long enough to learn the King's English at the very least," the Missus said, quietly. "But this rocket has more bark than bite, I think. They are too well armored for the Magneto-Catapult, but the great beast of a thing cannot maneuver enough to be proof...against the nuclear pellet coilguns!"
Claudette was already tapping switches. The targeting reticule clacked as the mechanical indicator for the magneto-catapult swapped out for smaller ones that indicated the coilguns. The view jumped as the screen shifted from camera to camera.
"Target the weapon blisters that have their smaller weapons – they'll be faster on the draw," the Missus said, confidently.
Claudette gulped.
The reticule dinged.
She pulled back on the triggers, her eyes open this time. The whole rocket shuddered as the two ball turret mounted guns rumbled, their magnetic launchers flinging the pellets of depleted nuclear fuel at the enemy rocket. One blister, then another, then another burst apart in a spray of sparks and spraying atmosphere, as if the rocket itself was bleeding. Claudette laughed. "We got s-some good hits, missus!"
"Don't get-"
Whatever Mark had been about to say was drowned out when the Atomo began to scream. The screens flashed and then filled with static as the hull groaned and creaked. Sparks flew from the consoles – and then the entire bridge shuddered as Claudette threw up her hands to protect her helmet as her console sprayed with sparks as the cathode ray tubes in her screen fractured under a sudden strain.
"What's happening!?" Mark cried out over the radio.
"That, Mark...appears to be the death rays!"
The Missus sounded remarkably calm. Of course, she always did.
Even when things were going so very terribly wrong.
Wrong enough that the whole world seemed to reach out and smash into Claudette's head. Her vision filled with white…
Then went dark.
And then she knew nothing at all.
***
Jasmine Starr had awoken in prison, restraints, and dangerous situations many, many, many times in her life.
This one still took the cake.
When she opened her eyes and groaned, she found that she was restrained not merely by chains...but by nothing at all. Her wrists were held above her head by thick steel bands that wrapped around her wrists, and by others that wrapped around her ankles, and another that looped around her belly. All of them were held a few inches away from a sleek, gray slab of metal that was planted in the center of a dark room, illuminated only by dim red lights that were set in the ceiling. There was a sensation of down, meaning she was either on a planet, in a spinning station...or accelerating. From the faint rumbling noise, she was willing to bet…
The latter.
She hawked, then spat. The spit flew away from her mouth, then dropped onto the ground with a faint splat. She did some quick mental math, frowning. She was able to figure some basic things in her head – at the very least, guessing at the outline of the truth, if not getting the exact number.
"A third of a gravity," she murmured, softly. "Interesting."
The doors to the chamber opened with a hiss and a click and Jasmine saw her first alien.
Her first two aliens.
The first was almost distressingly human. His skin was more golden brown than even the most tanned Asian – and the gold was more literal than figurative – and his facial features had an ethnic cast that was entirely different from even the strangest tribes of Africa or the most obscure civilizations of the Amazon. He was...if someone had taken a human being from the plains of Africa, a hundred thousand years before, and placed them on an alien world, then allowed them those millennia of breeding to undergo without any attempt to bring them back into any human fold. The differences were both subtle and utterly impossible to deny. His head was bald, but she had no idea if it was congenital or the result of shaving, and he had a triangular tattoo on his forehead.
He was clad in a silvery suit of armor with a black under-suit – as if someone had taken one of her kinetic pressure star suits and added armor to it, all of the armor bright and shiny, making her think that there were things other than camouflage to worry about in the battlefields of space. He had a long, flowing red cape that hung behind him and rippled ominously in the light pull of the thrust gravity, and hanging from his belt were a pair of weapons – a holstered pistol of some alien make, and what appeared to be a bladeless hilt of a sword...a thrusting sword, if she had any guesses based on the shape of the hilt. Something in the fencing class.
The other alien was more in keeping with what one might expect from the term. He was tall and broad shouldered and completely shirtless, something that Jasmine appreciated immensely, considering the slabs of heavy, male muscle that strained against his scale covered skin. His face and head were crocodilian and his eyes were bright gold, almost glowing in the darkness. His belly was flat and sleek, and he had a long thick tail that burst from above his buttocks – his groin covered only in a pale white loincloth that clung to an impressive bulge. Despite his primitive looking clothing, he had a baldric that swept along one broad shoulder and cross his heavy chest and hanging from said baldric was several tools: A tucked in dagger that was nearly a short sword, a series of rectangular pockets that could have held anything, and his very own pistol, and finally, at the very edge of his shoulder, there was a conical mask that looked as if it could fit right onto his snout.
"Ah!" Jasmine exclaimed. "Your scales mean you don't need to fear much in the way of vacuum – and the hull protects from radiation well enough. Or are you resistant to radiation as well?"
"Silence!" The bald man snapped, then cracked his gauntleted hand against her face, the knuckles scraping along her cheek and snapping her head to the side. Jasmine did help with the effect by tossing her head and body with the blow. She sagged, concealing how little the slap had hurt thanks to her quick actions by panting and whimpering softly. The bald man sneered. "You stand in the presence of Commander Vile and his second, Lieutenant Tailscorn."
The Lieutenant inclined his head.
"How did you sneak onto Earth, clone?" Commander Vile growled. "How did you get this war-rocket there? Have you warned the humans? Have you warned the United States or their Soviet Union of our presence? Well? Have you?"
Jasmine frowned, slowly, then lifted her head. "Curious…" She murmured. Then it sparked in her mind. "Two years ago, the reds...detonated their first atom bomb." Her eyes narrowed. "And we just got out of nine years of total war – you...you know you cannot invade us without incredible losses, eh?" She grinned. "So, you're waiting and scheming up here in orbit, is that it?"
The bald man's eyes were widening. His face set and he snarled. "She's human."
"That ssssssshe ssssssssseemsssssss to be…" the burly lizardman growled.
Jasmine chuckled. "Sorry to burst your bubble, gentlemen, but yes. Born and raised in the United States of America," she said, lifting her chin as she did so. "These restraints? Magnetic fields?"
Commander Vile swung to face Tailscorn. "Prepare the pain-scourge. I want her broken. I will be sending a ray communication to the Plutonian Fortress. The Emperor must know of this!"
He stalked from the room.
"Pain-scourge, eh?" Jasmine asked, arching an eyebrow.
Lieutenant Tailscorn shrugged his broad shoulders. The way his muscles shifted and flowed underneath his glittering green and gold scales made Jasmine's heart race just a bit faster, her stomach tightening and the spot between her thighs growing tingling and eager. She bit her lower lip, her eyes growing smoky and eager as she looked him in the eyes. "What got such a nice crocodile like you in this line of work?"
"When your Kingdom is conquered, you make do," he said, shrugging those shoulders again as he pulled from his baldric a kind of black scarab – as he held it, the limbs extended, revealing a kind of curved grille built into the belly. She didn't want to know how it worked, not in the slightest. "For what it's worth, I am sorry."
"Wait," Jasmine said, quietly, biting her lip. "He said Pluto. That's a five hour light delay. Ten hours, in total, for your Emperor to respond. There's...time enough to...talk. Before I'm broken." She bit her lip, and subtly arched her back, pressing herself against the slab as best as she could. Her nipples hardened – part of it fear...part of it excitement at his exotic, alien body and his intensely masculine frame. Her tongue flicked along her lips, slowly. "Or...maybe there's another way to...break me?"
The lizardman looked at her, his eyes narrowing, his nictatting membranes flicking shut and opened again as he turned to face her full on.
"What are you talking about?"
"Come now, this isn't my first time in prison, Tailscorn. IS that your surname?"
"...yes…" He said, slowly, his tongue darting out.
"What's your...proper name?" Jasmine murmured, quietly. His eyes were sliding down to her chest. She arched her spine a bit more.
"Skar," he growled.
"And...there are better ways to break me than pain…"
Skar considered. Then he chuckled. "If you think you can escape this way, you are mistaken."
"I'd rather have fun being mistaken than just lie back," Jasmine said, then laughed. "So to speak."
Jasmine Starr, using her cunning mind, tricks the vile interrogator, Skar Tailscorn, into making love to her body - believing her to be mind broken by his alien prowess, he is unaware that he has played...right into her hands!
Skar chuckled. "I'm not gentle with my toys, you know?" he asked. Jasmine snorted – and then blinked as his clawed finger hooked on the collar of her suit – then ripped forward. He was brutally strong, strong enough that his claws were able to slit her suit from her collar to her crotch, pausing right above the small tuft of black pubic hair that she had right above her delicate slit. Jasmine grinned, wickedly, then gasped as Skar shoved his palm between her legs and thrust a single finger that was thicker than some men she had had into her sopping wet cunt. Her eyes half closed as tingling pleasure shot along her spine, and her back twitched a bit as she closed her eyes completely as he thrust up to the knuckle, his palm cradling her crotch, his other fingers holding her ass.
"Heh," he rumbled. "For such a little twig, you're stronger than you look. And take me better than I expected." His finger began to thrust into her with brutal strength – his finger-fucking was louder and more lewd sounding than some men she had been with going at it with their whole bodies. Her hips jiggled and her body rocked as he finger-fucked her. His thumb reached up and the blunt bottom of his thumb ground against her clit, his claw teasing her pubic hair. She groaned, her eyes closing tighter still as she focused on the pleasure of it.
"Only complaint I have is the body hair," he said, quietly. "I prefer my mammals smooth."
"Sorry...ah! Fuck!" Jasmine gasped, then shuddered, cumming hard on his finger, her whole body tensing up as the warm pleasure of it rushed through her body. Her juices soaked his palm and she laughed, raggedly. "I do shave...ah...but-" when she opened her eyes, she saw he had pulled a wand from his baldric and was adjusting it with his clawed finger – on his left hand alone. His left hand was still sliding away from her thighs, dripping with her juices.
Jasmine blinked.
Then the wand aimed at her sex and she felt a strange buzz as the wand swept up and down and then her hair simply fell off, leaving her skin gleaming and faintly pinkish. He grinned, showing his very, very sharp teeth, and then slid his wand away. As he tucked it away, Jasmine crooned. "Undo my legs...and flip me around. Then just...fucking destroy me, Skar."
He chuckled. "You won't escape. And then, after I'm done dumping a load of cum in your human womb, and filling you up with some half scaled babies, they're going to break you with the pain-scrouge. Then…" His hands reached down and, clenching his teeth, he pulled her legs up and away by the restraints, his claws hooking on the edges of the metal. She watched as he pulled and pulled...and the magnetic-restraints popped away from where they floated. Her wrists skimmed a bit as the fields adjusted to keep her from dislocating her arms – polite of them – and then he twisted and her whole body flipped around and then her legs snapped back down.
In the moments before her wrist braces snapped back to being utterly secure, she shifted her arms – and then she was locked in place so that her thighs were spread and her arms were braced before her chest. It was a great position to get fucked in.
It'd also mean that he'd be able to exert his full strength against her and she wouldn't break a wrist as she was bounced against her straps.
She craned her head back over her shoulder, grinning eagerly.
"Then what are you gonna do?"
"I'm gonna rape your addled body until your spine is fucking broken!" He growled, and then slammed into her. Hard. His cock thrust deep into her cunt and Jasmine groaned, her eyes closing as her whole body rocked with the impact of his body. His balls clapped her thighs and his scaled palms gripped her hips, holding her casually as he bucked his whole body, driving into her again and again and again and again – not caring if she came, not caring for her pleasure, not caring for her pain.
Jasmine, though, had been blessed with a body that reacted well to a bit of pain.
It was all in the head, after all.
And so, she groaned and gasped and moaned out. "Rape me! Rape my human cunt! Ah! Harder! Harder!" She coaxed him on – and so, Skar fucked her harder, slamming into her faster and faster. His hips drove against hers...and each thrust caused her body to rock...and for her wrist braces to shift.
Magnetic fields, like many fields on the spectrum of electromagnetic energy, suffered intensely from the inverse square scaling law. The strength he used to thrust into her was transmitted through her braced body against her wrist bindings – the posture she had taken allowing her to add her own not inconsiderable upper body strength to his thrusting. This caused her wrist restraints to slip a tiny bit away from where they were held...just a bit further each time, adding more and more pressure to it. Her shoulders strained. Her hips ached. Her pussy hurt.
But she used it.
She clenched her teeth, sobbed out. "Please! Stop!"
And she knew that the desperation in her voice would be just enough to get him over the edge. Skar thrust once more – harder than any other time, and groaned in pure bliss as he came and he came hard. His alien seed spilled into her and she shoved hard – and one of her wrist braces manages to get just far enough away from the magnetic field that the strength went from impossible to nothing. Her arm swung free and she swept her hand back – and got the magnetic restraint back near the baldric.
Then, snarling, Skar grabbed her arm and shoved it back above her head, pinning her awkwardly to the restraint. She clenched her hands, gasping heavily, as Skar slid from her, snarling loudly as he did so.
"You human cunt!" he growled, loudly, his eyes flashing. "You tried to escape!"
"N-No...no…" She panted. "Y-You just...fucked me...so hard…"
Skar panted, then growled. "Heh."
The room's PA crackled and a voice hissed over it.
"Lieutenant Tailsssssssssssscorn, the Commander hasssssss requesssssssssts for you. Please come to the bridge."
Skar snorted, smacked her ass with his palm. It hurt, but she grunted and bore it. "Lucky you. Maybe you won't get the pain scourge, huh?"
He turned and stalked off.
Jasmine panted...and then opened her higher palm on her right hand – the hand that had darted near his baldric. The black wand Lieutenant Tailscorn had carried dropped from her right hand to her left, which was near enough to her head that she could crane her head down and examine it – all while her sweat streaked, cum dripping body concealed the wand from the cameras in the room. She grinned, slowly, to herself.
"Just like Italy," she murmured.
Her finger twitched one of the controls on the wand. She angled the tip so it didn't aim towards any part of her body, then pressed down on the switch. A hiss and spray of molten metal came from the wall of the prison cell.
Jasmine grinned, then angled it. The first magnetic restraint exploded off her wrist, and she caught it with her other hand and the second, then third, then fourth sprang free. She slid down to her feet, her knees wobbling as she laughed quietly. Her butt rested against the restraints as she knew, even now, someone was going to be getting on the radio to signal the bridge. She was going to have to ask fast. The first thing she did was snatch up the tatters of her red uniform – and tugged the straps from it. It was a matter of a few seconds to quickly draw the band across her breasts and around her hips and she had a kind of two piece, bright red bikini.
"This will do until I get real clothes," she muttered under her breath. "Won't take long, I'm sure."
She stepped to the door and then examined the door controls.
The door opened and she found herself facing a pair of men – human looking men -wearing similar armor to Commander Vile, but significantly less ornate, and with face concealing helmets. She aimed her wand at one of them and pressed the trigger. The beam was invisible, but the effect was not: The silvery armor at his chest hissed and sputtered, but the man himself was unharmed.
"Ray proof armor!" she exclaimed – then sprang backwards as the man snarled and drew his weapon.
Unlike his commander, the hilt at his hip ended in three feet of glittering, blue-white metal that was sharpened at both ends and came to a triangular tip. The edge of his sword slashed through her wand, which flew in half, sparking.
Jasmine, fortunately, had learned at the feet of Ueshiba Morihei during her counter-Imperial espionage activities during late 1944, and was able to grab, twist, and throw in the same movement. The Imperial soldier flew over her shoulder, smashed into the ground back first with enough force to drive the air from his lungs despite the gentle third of a G, and then groaned as she snatched his blade up and kicked him in the head with the same fluid motion.
His comrade gaped at her, then snarled. "That trick won't work on me, human!"
He shifted his stance, drawing his sword...and his pistol.
The pistol was a curious looking weapon with a very wide barrel and a thick, boxy magazine that emerged from the top of it, curving it a faintly curved silhouette. The barrel pointed to her as she started to dodge – and then she heard it. A fssssh-ROAR! The barrel flared with smoke and a tracery of fire and blackness drew the line between the weapon and the wall. The clanging sound of impact was a bit like a gong and Jasmine half expected air to begin to rush from the room...but no!
Instead, she could see the projectile rebounding lazily from the wall: It was a broad headed arrow-like weapon attached to a smoking motor...a mini-rocket gun, firing blades!
She realized, in a flash, the utility of the weapon in a spaceship. The blade could cut flesh, but would not pierce through walls, and the rocket acceleration meant that the weapon had no recoil that could send a user flying off in a random direction in free fall!
"Outstanding!" she exclaimed, to his confusion.
"I won't miss twice, human! Now, unless you wish to die to my bolt-rocket pistol...you will drop the sword and surrender," the guard said, snarling as he aimed his pistol at her. Jasmine chuckled, quietly.
"There is a flaw in your weapon and strategy, my ray-proof fellow," she said. "But if I told you, you wouldn't believe me."
"And what flaw is that, human?" he growled.
"I'm Jasmine Starr," she said, lifting her chin, the ache between her legs and the buzz of her orgasm filling her with confidence. "And I'm a twice over gold medalist in fencing." She lifted her sword, then smirked. "En guard, Imperial scum."
The Imperial snarled, then thrust his pistol out.
He fired.
Jasmine was already moving.
By the time the rocket had kicked on, she had cleared a step, two...and her sword had come up.
The bladed edge of his bolt-rocket struck the flat of her sword.
It reflected away, the hissing trail of smoke shooting past her cheek.
She thrust and the tip of her sword pierced through his laser-proof breastplate, then emerged the other end. Red blood burst from between his lips as he gaped at her. "W...What…" he choked out. "...how!?"
Jasmine drew her sword free, clicking her tongue as she did so. He sagged slowly backwards and she snatched his bolt-rocket pistol from his nerveless fingers, then stepped to the door. The sound of shrilling alert siren filled the air and she started forward into the corridor, pistol in one hand, sword in the other.
The corridor was curved, banding around the circular hull of the rocket, and she found that the doors she walked beside were clearly cell doors. She spotted Claudette after two doors – the girl was still clothed, restrained, and looking miserable. Jasmine tapped at the door and found that it opened quickly – they clearly had not expected an escape to be so quick and efficient. Claudette tensed as the door opened...and then sagged in relief. "Oh Missus!" she exclaimed.
"Never fear, Claudette," Jasmine said, then found the controls to the magnetic restraints – which switched off with a series of loud clunks. The restraints popped open and Claudette almost swooned against Jasmine. Jasmine swung her arm around her after holstering her pistol. "Come on – we must find our reporter friend." She stepped out…
And froze.
For standing in the corridor was five of the guards. Each held in their hands large, boxy looking rifles.
"Ah, yes, well!" Jas's finger stabbed out. "A rocket requires power and reaction mass. In Von Braun's clumsy devices, the power and reaction mass are one in the same! Rocket fuel can use, for instance, hydrogen and oxygen mixed together and ignited, much as we use gasoline in our automobiles. However, this is rather wasteful and hard to control. There is a far more effective and small source of power that can be utilized for rockets – separate from the reaction mass, so that one may 'refuel' the rocket with nothing more complex than water!"
Funnily enough, the V2 actually had seperate reaction mass,intermixed with the fuel. If it had ran on 100% ethanol + liquid oxygen, the rocket engine would have melted. So it was a mixture of alcohol and water, to cool the engine and provide additional thrust.
This remarkable serial brought to you by Blue Coal, the cleanest burning coal on the east coast of the United States of America. Nine out of Ten housewives prefer Blue Coal to the next leading brand! Stock up on Blue Coal today and be warm tomorrow!
JASMINE STARR AGAINST THE EMPEROR OF SPACE
EPISODE TWO
The Race of the Rockets
The amazing adventurer JASMINE STARR, inventor of the atomic rocket,
has blasted off into space, in the company of her ever suffering maid
CLAUDETTE T. S. GRANT and ace reporter MARK STYLES.
To their shock, the trio have found that space is not the final frontier
but rather the boarder between EARTH and the EMPIRE OF SPACE,
ruled by the merciless tyrant AYTAN ZARDO, the EMPEROR OF SPACE.
Now, our heroes are trapped aboard one of ZARDO'S many IMPERIAL WAR ROCKETS,
racing towards his foreboding PLUTONIAN ICE CASTLE...
Jasmine tapped at the door and found that it opened quickly – they clearly had not expected an escape to be so quick and efficient. Claudette tensed as the door opened...and then sagged in relief. "Oh Missus!" she exclaimed.
"Never fear, Claudette," Jasmine said, then found the controls to the magnetic restraints – which switched off with a series of loud clunks. The restraints popped open and Claudette almost swooned against Jasmine. Jasmine swung her arm around her after holstering her pistol. "Come on – we must find our reporter friend." She stepped out…
And froze.
For standing in the corridor was five of the guards. Each held in their hands large, boxy looking rifles.
Skar stood behind them.
"Open fire."
The rifles roared with flames and smoke!
And the two women fell, studded with sleep darts, still alive - but captured by the evil Empire of Space.
***
Commander Vile watched through the forward view-screen as the raylight tugs began to lock into position. His finger rubbed along his chin as his mind thought to the orders he had been given by his lord and master, the Emperor of Space.
Bring them to me. Keep the male in ultra-sleep. He is the most dangerous one.
The raylight tug was a majestic sight indeed. Nearly a hundred thousand tons of intricately interconnected wires and cables all for the sole purpose of spreading tens of thousands of kilometers of reflective material that could catch and reflect away starlight – in the inner system – and travel-rays in the outer system. The sails themselves provided a mere fraction of the thrust as his war rocket's nuclear engine – but while that war rocket could only spew forth its might for a short time, the raylight tug was capable of pushing continually at a steady rate for as long as travel-rays were fired at them or the light of the sun would shine upon them.
If he was forced to rely merely upon the water in his war rocket's tanks, he'd have arrived at Pluto only with the help of an ultra-sleep injection...and even with the effects of ultra-sleep, he would be a withered old clone, able to but breathe his last words to his mighty Emperor. Such a fate would be one that Commander Vile would gladly accept, for his loyalty to the Emperor of Space could not be questioned...but it seemed like a waste to him, when he would far more gladly give his life for the Empire of Space in the field of battle.
As it was, the raylight tug would turn a voyage of years into a voyage of a mere forty Space Days, which were approximately the same length as the foolish Earth Days used by the petty humans.
The faint reverberations and clunks of the attachment systems rang through the hull and Vile smiled to himself. The idea of a mere forty days being all that was between him and his waiting love-slave harem of beautiful lizard-women was enough to warm even his cold, dark heart...but then came the alert trill of his communication wand. He snatched it from his hip, aiming the wand at his lips. "Report!"
"This is Lieutenant Tailscorn," the low rumble of his second in command, the ever dependable Skar Tailscorn. "The females attempted an escape. One of your clone marines has been slain."
Commander Vile scowled. "By the mount of Mars!" He wished he was under thrust, so he could stand from his command throne. As it was, he tore the straps keeping him to the chair from his body and thrust himself towards the deck hatch. "Are they restrained?"
"Yes, they are, Commander Vile."
When Vile had reached his prison cells, he saw that the two females had been restrained, back to back, against a magnetic shackle, their arms bound behind their backs. The curvier one looked terrified, while the slender one looked defiantly smug. Vile realized now his mistake – he had taken her expression for guarded nerves...but he could see now the intellect flashing behind those piercing eyes. He considered...the pain-scourge could, via the use of induced microwave beams, break even a will such as that with prolonged exposure and when combined with other instruments of torment.
"I am quite ready to begin the torment, my Commander," Skar growled – his eyes flashing with ire. Clearly, he had a bone to pick with this feisty female. Commander Vile considered ordering him to leap to it – but something held him back…
Commander Vile knew that the Emperor had been seeking one thing above all else – the way to at last, finally, conquer Earth and the earthlings that knew not his magnificence. But there was another emptiness in the Emperor's life, one that even fifteen long years of domination over the rest of the solar system had not yet salved. He smirked, slowly, then reached out, taking hold of the skinny female's chin, lifting her head upwards.
"Are you, perchance, any form of royalty?"
She spat in his face – the glob of spittle having just enough momentum to splash against him, even in the freefall of the prison chamber. He groaned and recoiled, clutching to ceiling strap with one hand, his other pressing to his befouled cheek. "You wench!" He snarled, and Skar, leaping to the unspoken command, held out his pain-scourge. The impudent female clenched her jaw, trembling as the induced microwaves blazed through her flesh, cooking her from within!
Skar drew the pain-scourge backwards and she shuddered, then hissed out through her teeth, as globes of spittle merged and split within the air. The entire ship shuddered and the globes began to drift to the floor – they were under acceleration. Commander Vile shook his head, slowly, then snapped his gaze to the curvaceous woman. "And you?"
"T-Take yer eyes off me!" she snapped. "I'm a gentlewoman!"
Vile huffed, then took hold of Skar's shoulder, drawing him close. "Do not harm them overmuch. I wish to...check something with the Emperor."
Skar growled. "Can I at least take my vengeance on Starr?"
"No," Vile said, knowing what said vengeance might entail. Considering the virility of the lizardfolk, that was the last thing he needed, if his suspicions were true. Seeing the flash of emotion on his second's face, he sighed, then said: "Not a second time. And pray your seed did not take, my scaled subordinate, or else you may end up facing the lava mines of Io!"
He turned, then stalked from the room in the sliver of gravity provided by the unfurled beamtug sails.
***
Within the vast corridors of the foreboding Plutonian Ice Castle, Aytan Zardo, the Emperor of Space, Lord from Beyond, Protector Regent of the Solar System, and High Dominion of Earth regarded the astro-map of his star domain that hung above his viewing pool, and considered a million variables as the stars slowly swung beneath his gaze.
His pointed eyebrows were turned into a narrow V, while his bald pate gleamed from the torches that flickered within his room. In the privacy of his chamber, Zardo allowed himself the comfort of a bright red jumpsuit, clinging to his lean and limber body, with a golden cape that draped about his shoulders. A flute glass filled with shimmering green liquid from a distant solar system that could only be fabricated in his Nuclear Alchemy Engine was clutched between his fingers.
Zardo shook his head, then downed a gulp, feeling the warm burn of the immortality wine as it slid through his throat and struck his belly like the warm glow of a distant star. With the growing energy of his monthly imbibing of the immortality wine flowing through his mind, plans and schemes began to slot into place within the mazelike mind of the man who would be the ruler of all the solar system.
"If we can but keep the Hawkmen and the Faemen at one another's throats…" He growled under his breath. "And secure those Jovian moons and their Trojans...then the Sword of Heaven will have no allies at all. Yes." He stroked his chin beard. "Yes, it is all coming into-"
"Father!"
The door to his contemplation chamber opened and the only being in the whole of the solar system who could dare disturb the contemplation of the Emperor of Space entered – trailed by her handmaidens. If Pluto had been as Zardo had found it, centuries before, the way that his daughter, the Space Princess Zella, entered into the chamber would have launched her into the very ceiling. But Zardo, aware of his preferences and future dominion, had spent many centuries transfigurating a large portion of Pluto's surface into a vast Plutonian Ice Castle, constructed at an angle and spun within equally titanic gyroscopic gravimetric rotator engines, so that gravity could be provided via the power of Aytan Zardo's will rather than the trifling mass of the obscure orb.
Such was the might of the Emperor of Space!
"Father!" Star Princess Zella said, her long, flowing red dress being held in train by her handmaidens – both hawkgirls from distant Venus – as she strode towards him. "How could you have atomated him!?"
"I consign a great many fools to the Deatomizer, my dearest daughter," Zardo said, his voice wry. "You may have to be more specific."
His daughter gasped in shock, then threw herself, dramatically, upon one of the couches normally reserved for one of Zardo's many love-slaves. She sprawled there, throwing an arm above her face, covering her striking purple eyes. "Lieutenant Commander Than Thanagan! He was the most handsome of your entire clone legion!"
Zardo sniffed. "Than Thanagan was a traitor," he said, frowning. "A clone...who had joined the Underground of Free Peoples." His lip curled as he glared back at the astro-map, imagining the many festering spores of that most accursed Underground. "Free People...free to what? To toil in ignorance and deprivation of the mighty mind of Zardo?" He shook his head. "They are as deluded, as mistaken in their intentions as you were of Than Thanagan's treason. Put him from your mind, my daughter."
Zella pouted, then blinked as the ray-communicator chirruped, signaling that an important communication ray was arriving. Zardo reached forward and flicked the toggle, frowning imperiously at the face of Commander Vile that projected onto one of his many screens.
"My lord," Commander Vile's recording spoke, his tone serious. "We have engaged the tug and have begun our transfer. With a gravity assist around the star-center, we shall be arriving in forty one point seven Space Days. Behold!" He gestured and the view-screen displayed an image of the first human that they had captured. In the depths of ultra-sleep, the human male looked significantly less dangerous than he had in the initial securo-picts. Zardo rubbed his chin-beard gently as he took in the male's body...he was clearly a man who had seen war.
"Oh my!" Zella exclaimed, her eyes shining brightly like glittering amethysts. "What a dreamboat!"
Zardo chuckled. "This male was captured in the orbit of that bedeviling orb, Earth. Does he please you, my dear?"
"Oh my yes!" Zella said, rubbing her palms together, her sadness over Than Thanagan forgotten in a flash. "And a human? I've never met any other humans before!"
"Indeed," Zardo said, amused at his daughter's ignorance. Not that she could be expected to recognize one of her most common companions as originally being human. The irony of his human daughter wishing to meet another human, while being around a human almost every day of her life? It pleased Zardo's deep sense of whimsy. As he reflected on this, the screen flicked to another securo-pict, this one of…
Zardo sat up, his eyes widening. "By the ice-hells of Europa!" He thrust his finger at the face on the screen. "Do you recognize that face, my dear?"
Zella shook her head.
"That is the striking image of my 'old' friend…" Zardo turned to look upon his daughter. "Of Jacob Starr!"
Zella pouted. "Who?"
He picked up his communication wand and dictated into it. "Begin communication ray transmission to Commander Vile." He paused, waiting for the affirming click from his communication wand, which was even now transcribing his words to the com-ray station.
Once he had heard it, he spoke. "You are to bring this Jasmine to me without harming a single hair upon her head. Stop. Any harm done unto her will be preformed upon you ten thousand fold! Stop! Thus Speaks Emperor Zardo! Out!" When the communication wand had chirruped to indicate the ray communication had been transcribed, he nodded again. "Send communication!"
Zella nodded. "How long must we wait?"
"A mere forty one Space Days, my dear," Zardo purred, leaning back in his seat, steepling his fingers.
"Only forty one days?" Zella sprang to her feet. "I must prepare myself to impress him!"
Zardo, already half ignoring her as she swept from the room, nodded as he looked at the defiant face of Jasmine Starr. Quietly, he whispered. "Soon, I shall have what I have needed for five hundred years…" He caressed his chin beard. "A Queen worthy of my glory. An Empress to rule the worlds and moons...at my side and my side alone!"
He reclined back into his chair and began to chuckle, then chortle, then laugh - the laugh resounding throughout the vast and terrible fortress that was the center of his Empire...of Evil!
***
"Well, Missus, this looks like it is the end of us!"
Claudette groaned as she leaned against Jasmine – and Jasmine had to admit, she had never been quite in a pickle quite so picklish as this. In the mere five days since they had been snatched from the Atomo, they had traveled countless miles away from the Earth – further than any Earthman or Earthwoman had ever been from their blue orb...and Commander Vile had decided that he would not make the same mistake twice. The two of them had been confined to their cell and the guard had been doubled, then quadrupled after a short time. Now, sixteen men stood at the corridor beyond their cell at every time, rocket-bolt pistols at their hips and swords naked in their hands.
"Never fear, Claudette," Jasmine said, quietly. "I have been considering the situation. And this brig is not so impregnable. We simply need to find the right time for a distraction."
Claudette looked over her shoulder, her eyes widening as she whispered, under her breath. "W-What's yer plan, Missus?"
"Simplicity itself," Jasmine whispered back. "This war rocket can never land upon the surface of a planet, even the smaller orbs beyond the Earth. Mars would prove far too rigorous a gravitational field than this rocket could handle." She nodded. "Thus, the vehicle must have a secondary vessel that we can steal and escape upon."
"W-What about Mr. Styles?"
"I have no idea where he is, sadly," Jasmine murmured, softly. "But I'm sure we can find him somewhere within these awful brigs." She sighed, quietly. "So keep your chin up, Claudette. We shall be out of here in a trice."
"I...I'm afraid, Missus…"
Jasmine comforts her terrified maid - despite Claudette's emphatic insistence that she is no femme lover, no scissoring starlet, no lesbian - and the two bring one another great pleasure...and Jasmine notes, also, distract the guards quite heaving, inculcating within the spectacular Starr a scheme to stealthily slip from this sinister starship!
Claudette turned. Her breasts pressed, gently, against Jasmine's back. Her hands pressed to her shoulders and the warmth of her breath tickled against Jasmine's neck. Jasmine leaned back into her, her eyes closing slightly as she let herself enjoy the warmth of her. She turned, then, so that her more slight figure pressed to Claudette's, a familiar pressure that the two had long shared across many adventures. Jasmine, her voice a quiet croon, whispered to her. "You never need to fear with me, Claudette…" Her hands reached down, clasping the other woman's pert rump. She squeezed her through her golden star suit, her fingers dimpling the skintight fabric. Claudette gasped, sounding faintly shocked...as she did every time.
"M-Missus, we can't!"
"Oh, we're beyond the bounds of Earthly law. What's some dyking beyond the Van Allen Belt between some old friends, eh?" She grinned, then leaned forward and captured Claudette's mouth. Just like back on Antarctica, and in France, and in Algeria, and in Australia, Claudette stiffened, as if she was worried some authorities were going to burst down the door and drag them away...then leaned into it, moaning as she thrust her tongue desperately into Jasmine's mouth. Jasmine pushed gently, and under the gentle twentieth of a gravity that the war rocket currently thrust under, she laid Claudette upon her back within the cell.
Her hands undid the clasps around Claudette's throat and her maid gasped as her bountiful breasts were freed – jiggling in delicious slow motion within the minute gravity of the cell. Her nipples were rosy red exclamation points that simply begged to be sucked, and Jasmine never let down a comrade. She closed her mouth around Claudette's nipple, sucking on her with just enough edge of teeth and pressure to wring a soft moan from her southern belle. "Oh heavens!" Claudette moaned, her thighs spreading as Jasmine's hand inched along her belly, peeling her star suit from her body. Claudette, despite her pretending to be shocked that they were having lesbian sex yet again, kicked and wriggled her body so that her star suit was left on the floor like a shed snake skin and her wild bush of bright blond pubic hair. The folds of her cunt were sopping wet, the beads of her arousal forming and then slowly, slowly dripping away from her.
"Oh you are a dish, my dear Claudette…" Jasmine crooned.
"M-Missus…" Claudette whispered, her hand covering her face, blushing hard. "Y-You know how badly it flusters me...ta have you lookin' at me there, like that. Like I'm- EEP!" She squeaked as Jasmine grabbed her rump, lifting her with ease. Normally, Jasmine would need to bend her head down to feast – but in the ultralight gravity of the war rocket, she was able to lift her lover up so that her hips were clear in the air, her legs hooking over her shoulders. Jasmine leaned down and kissed her cunt, thrusting her tongue home.
"Ohh Jasmine!" Claudette gasped out, finally using her Christian name – a delicious contrast, considering the lewd, un-Christian nature of their sapphic act. If any had seen them doing this on Earth, it would have been an immediate sentence to a psychiatric ward – but such laws were of no consequence to the daring adventurer, and she had a great deal of practice in bringing Claudette to orgasm – her tongue honed in the pussies of Egyptian queens, ice cold Soviet snipers sent to slay her, and once, between the legs of a woman crafted by none other than Dr. Mundo the Mad Physician as part of his deranged goal of global domination.
Thus, it was no shock when, after a few short moments of licking, kissing, nibbling, Claudette was crying out: "Jasmine! Jasmine! OH JASMINE!" Her body trembled and her thighs tightened and a thin spurt of her pleasure filled Jasmine's mouth as the confident conqueror of space closed her mouth around Claudette's pussy.
Jasmine pushed her down, and then swung her legs around. Her own sex was revealed by the simple expedient of tugging aside the thin red strip of material that snaked between her thighs. Exposing her sex allowed her to slot her legs and then buck her hips so that their pussies ground together, the pleasure of the friction drawing a soft, short hiss from Jasmine, between her teeth. Her eyes half closed as she watched the way that her maid's body trembled and jiggled as she moaned, her mouth opening, then closing as she tried to keep her moans in check…
Tried…
And failed.
"Jasmine! Ah! Jasmine! Yes!"
The door to the chambers hissed open and Jasmine turned her defiant gaze to the two of Zardo's clone troopers who stood at the entry way. One thrust his finger at them. "What are you doing?" He asked, his lips curled in a frown.
"We are making love, if you want to join," Jasmine said, her voice fierce and defiant. Her hands reached down, dragging Claudette closer. The two clones flushed, their eyes exchanging a glance as the fronts of their armor seemed to grow a bit tighter.
"W-We did not know females could engage in this activity…" one of the clones said, but the other grabbed his arm and yanked him back. The cell door closed and once more plunged the two women into darkness, leaving only a pale illumination to heighten the gleams of sweat along Claudette's flesh. Jasmine grinned, then let the pleasure flow over her as she gasped out and moaned, her sex twitching against Claudette as Claudette bit down on her knuckles to keep herself from moaning too loudly.
"I believe...ah...we have an opening," Jasmine purred.
"H-How...how do you mean?" Claudette asked, her voice dazed.
"Those clones engage in their own intercourse…" Jasmine swung her legs free, laying back, sighing as she did so. "Male in form – so they have to, to borrow a bit of French, frotter."
"F...Frot-wuh?" Claudette asked, her eyes wide as saucers. She put her hands over her breasts, crossing her legs, trying to attain some measure of modesty before the woman who had just fucked her silly.
"To rub, my dear Claudette," Jasmine said, smiling as she stood. "Those two clones are without a doubt, at this very moment, drawing themselves aside, sliding down their loincloths, and taking out their throbbing, aching erections…" She shook her head slightly – while behind her, Claudette blushed and rubbed her thighs together, squirming. "Then they will take those heavy cocks and grind them together – base to base, their glans gently bumping against one another, while their masculine chests press together. Pec to pec. Nipple to nipple. Their mouths, close enough to kiss. A forbidden intimacy, I'm sure, but one they will savor as the most dominant of the pair will take hold of the other's hips…"
"A-And?" Claudette whimpered. Her hand had dropped between her legs, despite herself, and her middle finger rubbed the very cleft of her aching clitty.
"And?" Jasmine shook her head, still looking at the door that would lead out to freedom, her mind whirling as she planned. "Why, then, they would thrust against one another. Kiss. Bite. Maybe even lick at one another's necks, two masculine creatures, trembling with intense, homoerotic energy, their cocks surging with pleasure, their balls gently pressing to one another with the force of their grinding."
"Y-Yes...yes…" Claudette whimpered, fingering herself faster and faster.
"And then, once their pleasure has reached its peak...we shall strike," Jasmine said.
"Yessssssssss!" Claudette wailed.
"I'm glad to hear you're so gung ho about this, Claudette!" Jasmine turned, to see Claudette's head wobbling from side to side, her expression looking positively silly, her smile broad.
"Yessiree, Missus…" Claudette mumbled, then laid onto her back.
***
For the next two days, Claudette and Jasmine made love again and again and again – such that Claudette almost lost her shame for it and Jasmine almost lost her pleasure in it. But each time, they exposed themselves to their guards, and each time, they aroused the guards – until the entire clone legion compliment aboard the war rocket had been inculcated with the sensual arousal of what they had witnessed.
But Jasmine had not been idle in her lovemaking.
A war-rocket, even a war-rocket such as the one designed by the Emperor of Space and his astro-engineers, had to follow along certain design specifications as implied by the laws of physics and engineering. The engine that Jasmine had seen during their brief battle had been quite similar to hers – if on a larger scale – meaning that the reactor was made of several stages of interacting systems. The uranium within the reactor heated water, which was shunted through a turbine – this turbine was spun to create the electrical energy used by the ship's various death rays and other high energy gadgets. But the reactor produced immense amounts of heat...heat that needed to be gotten rid of, lest the whole reactor melt down.
By examining the wall panels, Jasmine had found the maintenance hatch that opened into a pair of steam pipes. One would have thought that it should have been sealed, but the space above and below the steam pipes entrance into the room were sealed with heavy insulation, and the pipes themselves were barely as wide as a human female's shoulders. It would be tight as a bolthole for her, and instantly lethal beside...for one of the steam pipes drew superheated steam from the reactor to the radiators that ran along the sides of the rocket, while the other took the cooled steam back from the radiators back down to the reactor – so that the whole cycle could continue.
Jasmine nodded to herself.
By the fifth day, the final part of the plan had come into focus.
The door opened as Jasmine had Claudette's head buried between her thighs and the other girl was lapping at her sex like a starving woman. Jeanette moaned hungrily – and ignored the thumping sounds of Lieutenant Skar entering the chamber, his face a mask of fury.
"What are you up to, Starr?" He growled. "Half of my clone legionaries are too distracted with your newfangled Earthling ways to do their duties!"
Jasmine gently pushed Claudette away, panting softly. "Merely passing the time, Lieutenant. And my Claudette, she is too...focused on my beauty to resist. I cannot stop her. She's insatiable."
"Missus!" Claudette exclaimed, horrified.
"Too beautiful, eh?" Skar growled. He withdrew a new ray wand from his bandoleer, fiddling with it. Jasmine tried to tense without seeming too. But then Skar, to her consternation, shook his head and slid it back into his bandoleer. "As much fun as it would be to scour your pretty human face with my ray wand, I have my orders. The great Zardo himself desires you to be his bride." He chuckled. "You will fit in quite well with his love harem, I can see…but I must separate you two, if you are going to be this distracting to the crew."
Jasmine realized she would have to change tracks. She snorted, then shook her head, starting to stand. "Separate me? So, you wish to let me tell the Emperor of Space himself that you could not keep discipline aboard his imperial war rocket without separating me from my concubine?"
Skar's eyes narrowed. His teeth bared. "As if the Emperor would-"
"Listen to his new wife?" Jasmine chuckled. "You will find I am quite persuasive, after I have shown him my skill at the...wifely duties." Her tongue flicked along her lips, suggestively. "If you were impressed with my skill while bound and held down, imagine me liberated."
Skar's eyes widened fractionally. His teeth shone even more brightly as he stepped forward, thumping despite the minute gravity. "You wouldn't dare!"
"I believe I would, Lieutenant. As the Queen of Space, you would find there is very little that I would forget. Now, take my Claudette from me if you dare. Or are you a coward, you scaled-"
Skar growled, drawing his ray wand with a quick jerk of his hand. He aimed it at Jasmine's face.
"Think well on your next words, Earth woman, or else the Emperor will hear of how you were tragically burned in steam pipe breach!" He snarled, glaring at her.
She snorted. "Threaten and bluster, that's all you can manage, lizard!"
She saw his thumb claw depress the firing switch – and started to move before he had completed the motion. The death ray from his ray wand was invisible, but the point of pure, blinding white it sparked up on the steam pipe behind her was not. The metal weakened, then the steam pressure forced the hole open and a streamer of brilliant, face-melting hot steam geysered out and struck Skar directly in his face. He shrieked and threw his hands up, the ray wand flipping through the air as he stumbled backwards. He fell to his knees, screaming as his hands cupped his face, thick globs of black blood forming between his fingers.
"Dammmmnnnn youuuuuu Sssssssssstarrrrr!" He shirked, his species sibilants slipping back into his voice under the duress of pain. "Dammmmn youuuuuu!"
Jasmine, though, had already snatch the ray wand from the air and aimed it. The other steam pipe burst and a huge gout of much cooler steam exploded into the air, turning the whole chamber into a thundering cloud. A shoulder drove against Skar and he fell, hearing the clattering and banging of movement past him. He forced down the agony, whipped out his communication wand, and bellowed into it.
"Sssssssssssssstarr hasssssssss essssssssscaped! Lock down all hatchesssssssssss! Ssssssssssstarr hassssssssssss esssssssssssscaped!"
***
Commander Vile was in the midst of his daily astrogation observations when the alert came. The Domination had just about reached the orbit of Venus during its steady falling towards the sun on its course towards Pluto, and he was eyeing the suspicious radar returns on his scopes – unsure if he should send a communication ray towards it or not. At their current trajectory and steadily increasing velocity, the Domination could not have been caught by the radar return...but there were several robot rockets in the vicinity that could be plucked by pirates.
He had just settled in sending the communication rays to Prince S'kye of the Hawkmen when the alert came up. He swept over to the internal security station, where the master at arms was hastily working his controls, bringing up the picture-screens that showed the internal systems of the rocket.
"How?" Vile snapped.
"S-Sir?"
"How did she escape?" Vile asked.
"How did-"
"There would be no other call for this alert, damn it!" Vile snapped. The master at arms ducked his head forward, hunching as he did so.
"She baited Lieutenant Tailscorn into firing his ray wand at her – then dodged…" He shook his head. "Steam pipe 4A was behind her, it burst and then flooded the room with steam."
"They all should have been dead then, Steam 4A leads from the reactor, the steam has to be seventeen hundred space degrees!" Vile snapped. He thrust his finger out, prodding the cathode ray screen. "Why here, it says Steam 4B also sprung a leak – that's a mere two hundred space degrees! That is survivable to humans for a short time!"
"B-But, sir, the pipes are-"
"Smaller than we – but those are Earth females, you fool!" Vile snapped. "Where do those pipes lead?"
"A-Along the whole ship, sir!" The master at arms stammered, then started to tap switches. "By the Mount of Mars! Sir! We're missing almost fifty tons of our reaction water!"
"Where has it gone?" Vile snapped.
"The wing rocket, sir! It's been topped off!"
"Send clone soldiers to rocket bay B!" Vile shouted. "Now! Have them close the latches, tell the ship's magneto-calculator to engage-"
The rocket shuddered, faintly, under his feet. The Master of Arms whimpered, softly.
"M...My lord Vile...the wing rocket has launched," he said. "It...is burning away at one point five gravities – heading towards Venus. By...my estimation, it will arrive at Venus in sixty Space Days."
Vile drew in a slow, hissing breath. "Can we watch them, Armszard Eggshell?"
The master of arms gulped. "I, I-"
"Astrogator!" Vile turned to face his astrogator, who was one of the clone officers. "Tell me. Can we catch them?"
"No, my lord," the astrogator said, shaking his head. "The position of the travel-beam stations is wrong to provide directional thrust, as is the position of the sun. We cannot tack and we cannot be pushed there in time. And...with the fifty tons of missing reaction mass, our own ability to change velocity has been reduced, in addition to what we have already spent." He shook his head again. "Their ship is smaller than ours, meaning that fifty tons of water carries them further and faster than fifty tons would for us. It's clear that they plan to use the wings on the rocket to handle much of the deceleration once they arrive at Venus – a risky gambit, but if it pays off…"
Vile growled, slowly. "Can our robot rockets catch up with them?"
"D-Did not...did not the Emperor ask that we bring the female to be his wife?" the Master of Arms asked, quietly.
Vile clenched his fists. Through gritted teeth, he snarled. "Armszard Telak Eggshell...report to the brig. When we arrive at Pluto...you will be sentenced to death by deatomizer for your failures."
"No! Sire! Please!" The hapless crewlizard exclaimed as two clone legionaries on the bridge strode forward, grabbing him and dragging him towards the hatch. "Not the deatomizer!"
Vile ignored him, turning to his other officers. He glared and bit off each word through his clenched teeth. "Can. Our. Robot. Rockets. Catch. Up. With. Them?"
"Yes, my lord," the astrogator said, giving him a formal bow.
Vile lifted his gloved hand, thrusting a black clad finger at the astrogation globe, where a tiny spark of red light indicated the bearing and distance of the escaping wing rocket. His voice rose into a shriek that echoed across the bridge.
"I want that wing rocket turned into smoldering scrap within the week!"
***
The robot rockets that were carried by the Domination were designed to be used and lost – like the dreaded Vengeance weapons that darkened the skies of London and England during the fires of the Second World War. However, unlike those crude weapons used by the loathsome regime of Hitler and his fascist fanatics, the robot rockets of the Empire of Space were elegant devices of extraordinary complexity. With the most advanced gyro-navigation systems and cold gas thrusters to control their pitch, yaw, and roll, and their (relatively) immense weight of reaction mass, they could accelerate to nearly thirty two kilometers per second in a single, furious burn.
While the winged rocket that Jasmine Starr had stolen was sweeping towards Venus at incredible speeds, the robot rockets were approaching her even faster – creeping towards her and Claudette, kilometer by kilometer, closing the distance...but as both the winged rocket and the robot rockets had nearly tapped out their reaction mass, neither could change their course or speed. It was a deadly conclusion, one that was held in the whims of chance and magneto-calculators and the targeting systems for the robot rockets themselves.
At the speeds they were going, the robot rockets (all three of them, as the Domination's class of war rocket only carried eight robot rockets) would be in range of the winged rocket that Jasmine and Claudette sheltered on for a total of one and a half minutes. In that time, the two forces would sweep past one another and each of the three rockets would be able to unleash their nose mounted weapons: Terrifying rapid fire water cooled machine guns, loaded with pyrotechnic tracers and armor piercing rounds measuring two point five centimeters – roughly on par with smallish artillery shells used by the heroic Allies in Earth's last climatic conflict.
Every second, they would fire five rounds – and in the time that they would be in range, they would fire nearly three hundred each.
Four hundred and fifty rounds from three rockets, each.
More than a thousand each.
And there was not a damn thing that Jasmine Starr could do about a single one of them – for as the robot rockets shot towards her in their silent, killing orbits…
Jasmine Starr was fast asleep.
***
"Must we, Missus?" Claudette whimpered as she floated in her restraints. The winged rocket was painfully cramped, with only space for the cargo (which was sealed and hadn't been opened since they had arrived) and the reaction mass. The little sliver that was left for the two person crew amounted to a pair of small bubbles that were, themselves, self contained and isolated from the other, connected only through some communication devices.
Jasmine sighed, softly. "I know, I don't want to do it either. But we are facing more than a month's trip to Voyager. We cannot stay within these capsules the whole way – this vehicle was meant for short ranged travel...but in a pinch, it can serve. So long as we utilize these." She held up the small golden syringe that she had found in her 'glove compartment.'
"But...what about Mark?"
Jeanette craned her head back, to look sadly at her maid. The escape from the Dominion had been touch and go – being able to fuel and launch the winged rocket was a miracle in and of itself. And it was not the first time Jasmine had seen good friends and comrades have to be left behind...but each time, it rankled. She shook her head, slowly. "Do not fear, Claudette. We shall get him back. This I promise." Claudette seemed to relax at that, sighing softly. She lifted the golden syringe, pressing it to her throat, before pausing.
"What if…" she stopped.
Jasmine could see the fear on her features. She smiled, gently, wishing that there was not thick star glass between the two of them. She tried to make her voice gentle over the communicator. "If you waken and we are separated, then remember, Claudette, you are a brave and bold woman. You have strength you do not know, and will face anything out there. Just remember: When in doubt, do what I would do."
"Well!" Claudette said, huffing. "I won't be doing all of what you do."
"You say that until you meet a handsome prince," Jasmine said, then waited.
The faint hiss of the ultra-sleep injector was audible over the communication systems. When she looked back, she saw that Claudette was drifting in her straps, her eyes closed, the syringe folding itself up and wrapping around her palm, to keep itself from drifting about dangerously. The ultra-sleep drugs had already worked to put Claudette into a long term, safe coma that would mean she used less air, less water, less food, all by slowing the biological processes of her body to a crawl. It would even slow her aging! The final part of the injection was a load of nutrients and vitamins that would assist the body in surviving in case the ultra-sleep went past the time it was safe for.
All of this had been explained to Jasmine thanks to a small booklet stored with the injectors, which was why Jasmine was fairly confident that...well, they would work.
She sighed, quietly, and sat silently for a bit as Claudette slept. She looked down at the controls of the winged rocket – wishing it had better observation systems than a short ranged radio scope and a forward mounted telescope. All she could do was hope that the Dominion had no way of keeping up with them.
"See you on the other side, Claudette," she whispered.
The needle plunged into her throat.
***
"How are you doing up there, Chip?"
"Doing just fine, Styles, and don't you worry about me. Worry about the Jerry's."
Mark shifted, the echoing memory playing within his mind.
"...well, I'll be." The faint crackling buzz of Chip's voice sounded the closest that Mark had ever gotten to hearing his British friend sounding even faintly concerned. "That's a mite odd."
"We're not picking up anyone down here at the radar station," Mark said, looking over at the radar operators. The man who was monitoring the glowing screen frowned.
"Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle!" the radio operator exclaimed. "Take a look here at this. That sure beats the biscuit, doesn't it?"
"That it does, old chum," the other radio operator said. Mark stepped over, his uniform feeling scratchy and new, his cast up arm still clutched tight to his chest. He watched the screen – it showed the dot he knew was Chip's fancy Spitfire – the one that been modified to go after German high altitude bombers. But there was a faint, grainy indication of another dot...for just a moment.
"Chip?" Mark asked.
"There's...well...I ca...the...n...Jerry…"
The blip indicating Chip's plane...fuzzed away.
"Chip?" Mark grabbed the radio from the operator, who gaped at him. He held it to his mouth and paused, looking at the screen, hearing the howling static – and then the spreading returns that meant…
That meant Chip's fighter had broken to pieces.
"Chip?" Mark's voice was desperate. Tight. "Chip!? CHIIIIIIIIIIIIP!"
Mark snapped awake, gasping and sitting up, clutching his hand to his chest. He looked about himself – and thought, for a moment, that he was once more back on Earth. The gravity felt normal, and he felt as if he was wakening from a deep, blissful dream. But then the realization came, clear as crystal, that he was not on Earth. There was no way on Earth that he would awaken in a chamber that looked as if it had been carved from glittering ice, and was lit by the warm glow of a large, iron fireplace. The floor had a broad green furred tiger pelt. And, finally, he was completely naked save for a golden collar around his throat. His finger went to the collar – but he found he couldn't get his finger between it and his flesh.
"Well, this is just peachy," he muttered. His eyes slid back to the fireplace and he shivered. "They're definitely not using Blue Coal for that fire." He looked away from the fire, shaking his head. "I can tell – this room feels closer to freezing the warm. If they were using Blue Coal, then even this hellish place would be as balmy and warm as a summer's day. And, more, they'd only need to replace the fireplace's coal once every other day, thanks to Blue Coal's long burn time."
He shook his head, slowly.
"Ah, you're awake!"
The door to the chamber – nearly invisible against the wall, being nothing but a set of fine lines and pale white metal that was blended in with the ice. The corridor beyond had two humanoid figures standing in it, Mark didn't need to be a genius to recognize them as guards, but...for the moment, his brain had very little blood to think with because he was looking at the woman that was standing in the doorway.
She was dressed, if one could call it that, in a pair of small red pasties that covered the tips of her modest breasts, and a thin triangle of fabric that covered her unmentionables and...well, she had to be hairless along her legs and pelvis and more, or else she'd have been showing off every bit of that hair right now. Her shoulders had a flowing golden cape that was draped around her, with a high collar, and she wore a gem encrusted tiara. Her left hand was clad in a golden and silver metal gauntlet, tipped with long razor sharp fingers and studded with tiny gemstones on the knuckles and wrist, while her right hand was entirely uncovered.
Her skin was milk pale, her hair was dark red, and her eyes were gleaming purple.
She licked her blood red lips as she stepped forward towards Mark, who tried to cover his crotch.
"Oh, please, don't," she purred, reaching over and adjusting the knuckle-gemstone on her gauntlet. The gemstone glowed and the collar around Mark's throat glowed. He felt his muscles tense as if electrical energies were exploding through them, and his hand jerked free as his cock went from soft to immediately achingly hard. He gasped and panted, his body burning with the aftereffects of the sensation...electrocution, but without the pain or the agony. Instead, he felt as if his skin was tingling and his body was blazing with arousal.
Part of that might have been the beautiful stranger.
Mark Styles, ace reporter, finds himself in the thrall of Zella, Princess of Space - with but a single push of her control gauntlet, she can fill him with immense arousal! Stalwart as a G.I in the battle of the bulge, Mark Styles clings to his freedom - impressing the svelte star sovereign!
Though, his ardor was somewhat tempered by the collar and the strange gauntlet. The woman chuckled as she stepped over to the bed, her eyes shining – and then she froze, her mouth opening in a pert O of complete shock. Mark blinked, then looked down at his member. His cheeks heated slightly. "You know, it isn't polite to-"
"Have you been modified?" she whispered.
"I wasn't circumcised if what's what you mean, no," Mark said, then gasped. The woman, without even asking for a by your leave, had closed her right hand around his cock. Her fingers didn't quite close against her palm as she grinned slowly, then leaned forward. Her nose flared and she breathed him in.
"Oh my, your cock is quite...spectacular. I'd say it is close to twelve space inches," she whispered, then slid up onto the bed. Her palm glided up and down his member and Mark's fingers clenched on the bed, his head ducking forward slightly. His teeth clenched and he panted as the woman stroked him slowly – languidly, almost, as if she was enjoying watching him squirm. "And you say you have this naturally? Remarkable. I've never known humans were so gifted."
"I...am rather special," Mark admitted, his eyes half closed. "Who are you?"
"Oh! Yes, of course…" She paused, then leaned over and...lewdly, a droplet of spittle came from between her lips. It slapped against his glans and when her hand swept up and down, his entire member glistened, her spit being used to make the caress of her palm even more slippery and even more decadent. His eyes half closed and he shuddered a she clenched her fingers tighter, then squeezed the base of his cock. "I am Star Princess Zella. You may refer to me as your highness."
"Excuse me, Zella-"
She huffed, lifting her head, her hand still sweeping along his cock, stroking him as if she was one of the pretty french girls who had been eager to lay with any American they met, during the heady final days of the War. The combination of the oddly subservient act with her own haughty confidence left Mark feeling as if he was being twisted left and right at random. His eyes closed to slits as she spoke: "I said you may refer to me as your highness, slave."
"W-Well, I...ah…" Mark trembled.
His cock throbbed.
Zella's hand moved faster and faster.
"I…" Mark gasped out. "I...fuck!"
His balls tightened as his eyes flashed white, his whole body locking up as he quivered – and then his cum spurted out, splashing against Zella's cheek and chest, painting the inside of her arm, flicking against his belly, sliding over her knuckles. His member kept spurting again and again, making an absolute mess, aided by the way her hand kept pumping him. Zella sat in shock, her mouth opened, clearly stunned to be painted by his seed.
"F-Fuck…" Mark panted.
"Y-You...you came without warning!" Zella exclaimed.
"Well, excuse me Princess," Mark said, panting. His cock was still achingly hard, despite himself. "I haven't exactly been plowing a lot of fields, my endurance is on a bit of a hair trigger."
Zella stood, shaking her head, scowling down at herself. "I will have to have the Cybrid clean me off. Her tongue is most efficacious. While I do, you must learn control. I believe…" She reached over to her gauntlet. "My neuro-collar shall induce fractional pleasure for the next three space hours. If you do not touch yourself, I shall reward you with the pleasure of my sitting upon your face. If you do, then...well, it shall be the Cybrid you please." She nodded. "I believe that is enough enticement, yes?"
"Neuro-what?" Mark asked.
Zella touched another one of her gauntlets.
His collar glowed.
Mark, who hadn't even been close to going soft, snapped to full aching hardness. His member throbbed and he trembled, his jaw clenching tightly as he tried to keep himself from moaning in desperate pleasure. He bucked his hips slightly – but Zella was already drawing away.
"Good luck, my newest pet. We shall see how you do." She turned back. "As a warning...the Cybrid's tongue is coated in a deadly poison. I am immune, thanks to long exposure. So do think on that while imagining having her sit upon your face...think on that well, human stud, and maybe you will survive to be one of my love slaves."
She turned and swept out, chortling to herself.
Mark panted, clenching his hands. The collar strobed as pleasure burned through him. His balls wanted to tighten and he wanted to cum so badly...but he closed his eyes and forced the sensation back through sheer force of will. He opened his eyes and looked for a window – and saw none. Only a large portrait of what appeared to be a tall, lean, bald man dressed in an ornate robe and bearing a scepter in one hand, a sword in the other. Those domineering eyes glared down at him, as if watching his every movement.
Mark tried to imagine the universe beyond that painting – the stars outside – and thought…
Well, then, Jas. Looks like I'm on my own. But I'll find you out there…
He clenched his jaw. He nearly came at the thought of Jas and Claudette's breasts. His mind hazed and he trembled – the mental image of Claudette taking hold of her top and teasing it slowly down, to let her-
"No!" He hissed.
Then laid back.
"It's gonna be worse than the Bulge, isn't it?" he grumbled under his breath.
***
As Mark Styles tried, desperately, to control his own pleasure, millions of kilometers away, after days of silent chase...the climax of Jasmine Starr's adventure was about to come.
While one might imagine a vehicle traveling in a straight line would be easily struck by thousands upon thousands of rounds of gunfire, one must think twice! The field of space is unlike any other field of battle. The heroic troops of the Allies fought in a realm of gravity and air, where an enemy might be miles away at most – but the ravening robot rockets of Aytan Zardo's malevolent Empire would begin firing their weapons the moment their nose-mounted telescopes picked up the reflected light and their radar scopes received a return of the winged rockets form...and using the relatively short ranged weapons they carried, their maximum range was still three dozen of kilometers!
Imagine it! Weapons normally used to fire at a tank visible across a field, but shot at a target of approximately the same sized, but so far away that had it been on Earth, it would be far over the horizon, impossible for any scope or weapon to strike save for the most mighty artillery pieces!
The robot rockets followed their simple mechanical programming – sighting their weapons along the vector predicted by their magneto-calculators – and then began to fire. Streams of glittering green pyrotechnics shot towards the winged rocket…
The past!
They snaked by, silent and beautiful in the deadly depths of space!
Were our heroines saved? No...such inaccuracies were not unexpected by the imperial engineers that crafted the fiendish fast attack vehicles. Their camera systems reported the streams of greenish light and, using complex magneto-calculations far beyond Earth science, they adjusted the trajectory of their weapons, gears and pullies ticking and adjusting the angle of the guns and, so, changing the arc of the sinuous lines of pyrotechnic tracers.
Each tracer was a shell, and each shell spelled death for Jasmine Starr and Claudette T.S. Grant!
The robot rockets whipped past the winged rocket – their reaction mass tanks emptied, their bodies consigned eternally to drift in the vastness of space, lost like sailors sent to their deaths by their cruel captain. But their projectiles continued to whip towards the winged rocket – and yet, still, they missed, again and again…
Until, at last, the final whip-like undulation of two of the robot rocket's sneak attack intersected with the tiny glint on the Dominion's radar-scopes that represented the absconded winged rocket!
The glint…
Went out.
Vile smirked slowly.
"What shall we tell the Emperor, my lord?" Lieutenant Skar whispered to Vile on the bridge.
"We shall say that the would be queen tragically lost her life when she cut into a steam tank...foolishly…" Vile said, nodding, shaking her head. "It is even the truth. After a fashion."
He turned from the screen and strode away, towards his command throne.
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JASMINE STARR AGAINST THE EMPEROR OF SPACE
EPISODE THREE
Haven of the Hawkmen
Disaster! The incomparable, intrepid JASMINE STARR and her longtime companion CLAUDETTE T.S GRANT
have escaped from the imperial war rocket DOMINATION – only to find their only hope at escape shot down
by the terrible ROBOT ROCKETS of THE EMPIRE OF SPACE!
Tens of millions of kilometers away, grizzled G.I MARK STYLES has found himself awakening from his ULTRA-SLEEP
in the PLUTONIAN ICE CASTLE of AYTAN ZARDO – but the evil emperor has given Mark to his daughter,
STAR PRINCESS ZELLA, as a prize LOVE SLAVE. What will be his fate?
Meanwhile, JASMINE STARR tumbles towards the acid clouds of VENUS,
trapped within a doomed rocket…
BEEP.
BEEP.
BEEP.
Jasmine Starr groaned, her eyes opening to cracks. Bleariness filled her – a strange grogginess far, far, far worse than any sleep she had slept before. She shifted in her seat, feeling a deep and abiding chill sinking into her bones. She mumbled to herself. "Claudette, put some more Blue Coal on the fire…" She shifted, then blinked, awareness that she was strapped into a heavy chair crashing into her. She swept her gaze around the cockpit and memory returned in a flash.
She was in a winged rocket, the very one she had stolen from the Domination days before – but something terrible had happened between her injecting herself with the ultra-sleep syringe and now.
For one thing…
The entire back half of the rocket was gone.
Jasmine gaped, momentarily dumbfounded, by the sight of her vehicle flying through space, without half its wings and without the main rocket engine on the back. There was just her sealed cockpit, the forward wings, the nose cone, the bristle of radar-scopes and communication ray emitters, and the vastness of space...nothing more remained.
"Racing rockets, what happened?" she asked, but there was no one to answer...she was alone…
Jasmine shook her head, clenching her jaw.
"There are two possibilities, Jas," she said, quietly. "Either the ship was sheered in half – possibly by Vile and some of his weapons – in which case Claudette has been flung into her own orbit...or…" She choked. The idea of her dear Claudette being blasted into atoms by the weaponry of the Empire of Space was too much, even for one as willful and ready to face danger as Jasmine Starr. And so, she choked back tears, forced herself to focus, and looked into the radio scope and the forward view panes.
Fortunately, whatever had struck the winged rocket had not imparted enough change in velocity to adjust her course towards Venus. And, in fact, her calculations had been dead on: The yellowish orb was already vast before her, growing larger every moment. Of course, she had been planning to decelerate using the atmosphere of the planet and her wings...as it was, she had no such control, no way to adjust her entry angle.
"It seems I'm in a bit of a pickle…" Jasmine whispered to herself – but then her eyes fell upon the radar scope and realized the source of the beeping.
"I'm being radar scanned!" she exclaimed, adjusting the knobs and dials. Several radar beams were sweeping along her hull, as if distant vehicles were attempting to determine what and who she was. She adjusted her own radar scopes, following the beams back, and received the return signals of three rockets. Two were in formation with one another, in an equatorial orbit, and the other was by itself, and in a higher orbit – meaning that every time it orbited Venus once, the lower ships would have orbited it twice.
Jasmine frowned. "Well, now, let us see if I can still bluff...just like back in Italy…" she picked up the communication wand that was attached to the forward control panel, then flicked it on. She put an imperious tone to her voice. "All ships, this is Jasmine Starr, consort-in-waiting to Emperor Aytan Zardo. I request immediate assistance – any who allow me to come to harm shall face the wrath of Zardo. Over."
There was a short pause – short enough she was sure she was terribly close to Venus indeed for there was no delay for light lag communication. Fear prickled at the back of her neck...was she too close to be intercepted and rescued? Then…
"This is Prince S'kye of the Hawkmen. Hold tight, Consort Starr. We are adjusting out orbit."
Then-
"Aha! Fool!" This was coming from one of the pair of ships, Jasmine saw. "We would not risk confronting any feathered fool in a patrol rocket...but the price upon your head, Prince Scoundrel, is worth our weight in Venusian diamonds!"
"Trust a faeman to look for profit at a time like this. Come at me, then!" Prince S'kye's voice, even over the communicator, was a bassy, confident, male one – a deep contrast to the sneering whine of the 'faemen', whatever they were.
"Bold words for one about to become atomized vapor!"
The communicator cut off and Jasmine watched on the scopes as all three blips began to maneuver. At once, she saw that S'kye was a gallant fellow. He was angling his ship away from the two other bogies, despite the fact it was sure to make it harder for his weaponry to come to bear on them. The two faemen had just reached perigee – where they were closest in their orbit to Venus. Perigee and apogee (the opposite position in an orbit) were the most energy efficient times to adjust an orbit. But rather than changing their orbits, the two bogies kept moving...but then…
Split.
Now there were five bogies.
"Racing rockets, they launched something…" Jasmine whispered.
On the communicator, she heard S'kye's chuckle.
"You think we can't knock those slow A-bomb rockets out of the sky with our heat rays, faemen?"
"Oh, you can knock down one or two of our A-bombs, yes…" the faeman captain chuckled. "But, my dear prince, can you also protect Zardo's pet whore at the same time? Heh...now you must choose. Let the woman die, or allow your ship to be A-bombed into glowing slag! Ahaha!"
"Bilewind!" S'kye snarled – then a strange clack came over the communicator, as if he had gnashed his teeth. "You're mad! Zardo will destroy all of Venus if-"
"He can destroy your fragile floating cities, Hawkman! Our tunnel cities have survived five hundred years of Venus. They can survive Zardo! All hail the dark!"
The communication stopped as Jasmine frowned, then touched her communication ray device – angling it so that the line of the ray would only land upon Prince S'kye's rocket. "Prince, how many of their A-bombs do you think are on my trajectory?"
"Only one...but one is more than enough. Your vessel is clearly disabled and unarmed."
"Oh, is it now?" Jasmine murmured, to herself, her communication wand turned off so as to not confuse Prince S'kye. She flicked it on again. "Ignore the rocket focused upon me. Turn your death rays on the rockets aimed at you – I'll handle this A-bomb."
There was a long pause, then a low rumbling chuckle.
"I see, for all his personal faults, the Emperor has a fine taste in women!"
"Better than you can know, Prince of the Hawkmen." Jasmine turned off her wand. She had work to do. She looked and found a latch that would open her own personal canopy of glass. She quickly donned the emergency star suit that was loaded into the compartment beside her, wriggling and squirming to get it onto her body in the confined spaces. Once she had done so...she popped open the bubble. Air puffed out, rushing into space – but far less than she had expected. Jasmine supposed that the winged rocket used less than a full atmosphere of pressure...reasonable, it would make it less likely to spring leaks and to be more easily filled with breathable air.
As it was, she was able to clamber out onto her remaining rocket. The boots of the star suit were automagnetic, allowing her to clamp onto the hull with ease, and that meant she could focus entirely upon what she wished to view most...the communication ray emitter!
Jasmine had studied a great many things, and one of them included the theories of death rays as advanced by the scientific community. The idea was simple – somehow cause light itself to cohere and behave in a more rational, directed pattern than normal illumination would. This would create a beam of light, a ray of killing power that could be used to strike the enemies of whoever invented it first. Well, the Empire of Space had crafted these death rays...such weapons had been used on her Atomo when she had faced off against the Dominion.
But did a death ray have to be the only use for such coherent light?
No!
This communication ray was nothing more than a death ray that had been put to the purposes of communication – like turning a machine gun into a semaphore station, but infinitely more elegant. Jasmine found a loose piece of metal at the edge of the tear between her cockpit and where the rest of the ship had been. Wrenching it free, she held it before the ray emitter, then activated it by the simple expedient of reaching back into the cockpit and flipping a toggle.
The metal flared and glowed at a single point and ripped from her hand. Jasmine yelped. "Racing Rockets! The beam melted the metal – turning the hull material itself into a kind of rocket, yanking it right from my very hand!" She switched the ray off – it was invisible in space, after all, and she didn't want to forget and get hit herself.
"At a close range, even a simple communication ray can kill!" she said, rubbing her own helmet in thought. "But I need more range – an A-bomb, even in space, without atmosphere to transmit the blast wave, can kill, as easily with heat and radiation as it could with a blast and shrapnel. Think, Jasmine, think." She turned to the communication ray itself, examining it.
The device itself seemed quite simple – once she had removed the cowling and looked at the pieces within…
The core contained a large glittering crystal tube that sat in the center of what appeared to be a collection of mirrors and lenses. But what was at the back was nothing more complex than a wire that led back into a heavy battery – even Jasmine could recognize the shape and design of a power conduit. She chuckled. "Ahh, I see! This crystal must focus the light...transforming it from standard light into a ray!" She nodded. "I think I will only have but one shot for this."
On the radar scope, she saw that the three rockets that had been launched were now curving upwards as they swung around Venus at inedible speeds. Two were arcing towards Prince S'kye's rocket...and one was accelerating straight towards her!
She first tapped at the controls – and the simple systems of the winged rocket responded.
COMMUNICATION ERROR! Flashed up on the screen as she attempted to tell the communication ray to send a message towards the A-bomb rocket that was racing towards her. Jasmine ignored it. She then started to rip apart the panel, assisted by the simple tool kit that was contained next to where the ultra-sleep injectors had been. She found every power cable she could, pulling them free, checking to ensure the magneto-calculator was still working...and then dragged them out, tugging them loose from their housings.
Soon, she had a whole mess of cables that she used a knife on – parring their insulation down carefully, to expose the wires themselves. She got the wires very close to the communication ray...and she noticed the ray was actually shifting in its gimbal'd mount.
It was angling towards the A-bomb rocket!
"This might just work!" Jasmine whispered.
She looked up…
And she realized she could actually see the A-bomb rocket's fumes as it accelerated towards her. It was a cone of nearly invisible reddish mist, sweeping out in every direction away from the rocket's nozzle – not the bright flare of a rocket on the planet Earth, but something considerably dimmer and more deadly.
Jasmine jammed her collected, frayed power cables into the power cable of the communication ray.
The ray exploded with a spray of sparks.
And in a distance, the A-bomb rocket's plume went dead.
Jasmine tensed…
The A-bomb rocket whipped past overhead, nearly invisible save for a bright glowing scar along the side, streaking by her head like a close passing comet!
Then it was gone.
Jasmine breathed a slow sigh of relief.
The distant star-battle was hard to watch, considering her console had been entirely burned out by the enlarged electrical load that her eager engineering had brought through the vacuum tubes and wires within – several had melted, the cabling still glowing brightly through the dimmness of space. And so, Jasmine tried to judge what she could by watching the tiny flashes and streaks of light...until she realized that a disk of Venus' orange-yellow atmosphere was being occluded by a shape that was approaching her vehicle.
Lights sprang to life across it and Jasmine whistled to herself.
"Well, I'll be," she said, quietly.
If she had had any doubts about whether it was the Faemen or the Hawkmen who had come to her drifting rocket, the shape of the vessel before her was completely clear: It looked, for all the world, like two vast wings that spread away from a central spoke – each wing was carved and shaped to look precisely like the feathered wings of a hawk, and each wing glowed brilliantly with ruby red light as waste heat from the reactor was pumped through them. The central spoke itself reached forward and split into a pair of bands, which locked down onto the 'hubs' of a turned wheel, so that it looked as if the wings fanned around a discus, like the tire flaps on a model-T, only far more elegant and beautiful than that made it sound.
The wheel itself seemed to be made of segmented sections – eight sections, each one consuming forty five degrees of the three hundred and sixty degrees of disk shape. The sections themselves were all separated by a very thin gap, and each one was decorated with bird eye motiefs along the edges, so that it seemed as if a wheel of eyes, like an angel from the Good Book, was floating in space before her. The entire wheel spun at a steady rate...and Jasmine snapped her finger.
"Of course! Centrifugal force!" she exclaimed. "What other way could there be to provide gravity within a rocket – other than acceleration...ah! This ship must be either short ranged, a patrol boat never meant to leave orbit, and thus not likely to accelerate...or it must be long ranged, designed to drift for many months between planets. Hah!"
Then she noticed the hubcaps of the wheel, both upper and lower, had turrets. Looking for all the world like the ball turrets on the super-fortresses that had leveled Hitler's and Hirohito's mad empires before they could complete their sinister schemes for total global domination, these turrets were different from the plucky American design in two ways: The first being the gold foil that was plated along the interior of the glass domes that served as viewing ports, likely to keep glare from the steely gaze of their astro-gunners...the second being that rather than the dependable M2 Browning .50 caliber machine guns, these turrets projected the narrow emitters of the dreaded death rays that seemed common among most space fairing species in the solar system.
Those turrets, fortunately, were not aimed at her. Jasmine breathed a sigh of relief as her star suit radio crackled and the warm, confident voice of Prince S'kye reached her.
"Need a lift, honored consort?"
Jasmine chuckled. "I hope you didn't have too hard a time of it, Prince of the Hawkmen…" She pursed her lips as the rotation of the wheel brought to bear a faintly glowing scar along the outer hull – slashing one of the eyes in half.
"Just a few ray kisses," S'kye said, as casual as if he faced it every day. "Nothing we can't fix in astro."
An airlock, mounted just ahead of the upper turret opened and two figures emerged, giving her a sense of scale – and Jasmine's eyes widened as she realized the wheel had to be at least five hundred meters wide along the diameter. The ship was almost the same size as the imperial war rocket that had plucked her from Earth orbit – and the people who flew it were nearly her size. However, she had never seen star suits so obviously flamboyant. Like the winged hussars of Poland's imperial past, these Hawkmen took their hawk aesthetic to entirely new heights: Their suits had large articulated wings that swept from their backs, and…
"Ah, they have reaction control thrusters built onto those wings," Jasmine said, standing – or at least, assuming the position of someone who was standing, considering there was no gravity for her to stand again – and waving at the Hawkmen as their reaction jets hissed and puffed silently in the vacuum, using their spurts of cold gasses to accelerate them towards her. Both helmets had conical faceplates (an odd shape, but she put it from her mind) that were entirely opaque. However, brusque, authoritative voices she recognized from soldiers throughout Earth came onto her radio.
"Your arms, madame Consort, if you'd be so kind."
"Such gentlemen!" Jasmine said, lifting her arms.
The two Hawkmen took her arms and their wings hissed and spurted more of their cold gas – and they were swept away into space, then down upon the central axis of the Hawkman ship. The airlock hatch was open wide and Jasmine swung herself in, feet first, the two men following afterwards. The hatch shut and the atmosphere within the airlock hissed inside. The instant the telltale above the door – a bright red light – flicked to green, Jasmine took hold of her helmet, twisted, then slid it off, sighing loudly.
"Ah it is a relief to be out of that space blasted helmet," she said as the airlock doors before her – really, blow her, as she was currently angled with her feet towards them – opened. "I...thank…" She trailed off, her eyes widening as she pushed against the ceiling to right herself.
Prince S'kye of Venus floated in the bubble-room that made up the central point of the Hawkman warship, the nexus that the whole wheel spun silently around.
He was…
Jasmine blinked a few times.
Beginning at the feet – which were bright gold and scaled, with thick claws that tipped three flexible looking, gripping 'toes' that seemed more at home with a bird of pray than a humanoid male – and sweeping up the muscular thighs – furred and dark black-blue, with the glossy coloration of a raven or corvid – up to the sleek white toga that was expertly swept around a chest so broad and muscular that she was sure she could have used his entire body as a bed, but while it was muscled, it was still furred and feathered, the tufted feathers at the shoulders giving him the build of someone in a cloak without needing to wear a cloak at all...and his fur and flesh were the same blue-black as his thighs. His arms, long and powerfully built, shifted smoothly from dark blue-black to bright gold scaling, to his fingers, which were all tipped with sharp claws. His neck was sleek and elegant and ended with the head of a bird of prey – right down to the bright golden hued eyes, the wickedly curved beak, and the feathered hair that swept out and down along his back.
He clicked his beak and his eyes showed he was smiling better than lips ever could.
"Welcome aboard the Bird of Prey, honorable Consort," he said, then executed an elegant microgravity bow – one that showed off the sleek grace of his powerful body, and the fact that the 'cloak' he wore was actually a pair of powerful wings. To her left and right, Jasmine heard hisses and clicks – glancing, she saw the two astros who had emerged to escort her in were revealing that, beneath their star-suits, they were the same fusion of human and hawk, and that the decorative wings of their suits were actually pressurized protections of their very own wings.
Prince S'kye lifted his head and chuckled. "I am Prince S'kye, of Venus. As I believe you know. That was a nice trick with the communication ray – but I suppose Emperor Zardo is well known for his exceptional taste in all things…"
Jasmine chuckled, huskily. "Oh yes. Yes he is."
Prince S'kye offered his arm – and Jasmine took it, but her concerns for Claudette came roaring back to her. She bit back her first question, and instead let Prince S'kye lead her towards the hatchways that lined the equator of this orb. He opened one, revealing a smoothly moving surface, until the a yellow line appeared. "That line is painted to indicate that there will be an opening soon," he explained. "The ring section spins once every minute – slowly, but it has more than eleven million space pounds of force behind it. If you are caught in the gap, you are in trouble."
"That's rather dangerous, isn't it?" Jasmine asked.
"It is. Hear that faint scraping noise? That is because we have engaged the breaks. When there is little time, or we only have trained astros aboard, we prefer to keep it spun up...but no sense taking risks with you, no?"
The yellow line turned green, the paint shifting as the outer ring spun, and then a doorway came into view and the whole ship let out a quiet groan as the wheel locked home. S'kye showed her how to swing in, and soon, she was sliding along a ladder that ran 'down' from the central orb. When she emerged from it, she found herself standing in what appeared, to her perspective, to be great curved hamster wheel. She floated there, but she could already hear the low groaning of the ships internal systems...and slowly, the sensation of gravity returned, her feet pressing into the floor.
S'kye stepped from the ladder, his claws clacking softly on the metal floor, and he clicked his beak with approval. "More comfortable than that little winged rocket you were. We detected you on our telescopes almost two weeks ago – no one was sure what you were, but both the Faemen and Hawkmen wanted to see what you were, exactly."
Jasmine nodded. She couldn't wait any longer: "My ship, it was intact when I went into ultra-sleep…"
"We guessed that was what was going on," S'kye said, sighing. He led her along the corridor. There were doorways every few meters, leading into rooms where other Hawkmen worked complex consoles and devices. In the age old tradition of all sailors, be they astro-sailors or sea-sailors, the sight of a woman, even a woman still clad in a shapeless emergency star suit, caused them to crane their heads away from what they were doing to watch her walk by. Jasmine rolled her hips a bit, enjoying herself as she walked. "But we admit, we were at a loss as to why Imperial robot rockets would attack their own-"
"It was...that's what happened?" Jasmine asked, a cold stone growing in her stomach.
S'kye nodded.
They came to the bridge of the Bird of Prey. It was a circular chamber, with curved edges to the walls. The center of the bridge was dominated by a large sphere that contained a kind of sophisticated multi-lensed projector, which projected glowing images on the inner edge of the sphere, creating an illusion of the space beyond. The sphere itself was marked with dozens of inky lines, drawn on by rulers and notations, indicating information about the surrounding area of space that the hawkmen crew had thought important. Right now, it displayed Venus, and the drawn lines on it indicated the orbits of what had to be dozens of different ships, as well as black dots on the surface that were each labeled with…
English letters?
Jasmine wondered at that, even as she saw dots labeled Sky City and Tunnel Town.
S'kye, though, led her to another one of the consoles, where a sleek Hawkwoman was sitting. Unlike the men, she had no beak. Her face was entirely humanoid, and her hair was long and bright red. The only indication she was of the same species at all was that she had brown feathered wings, and some light feathering around her wrists, and black claws instead of fingernails. She lifted her head up.
"Scannerwoman S'hira," S'kye said, pointing with his claw. "Bring up our radar scan of the winged rocket over the past forty days."
"Yes, my prince," S'hira said, tapping her fingers on the controls. The screen showed various options on her magneto-computer, and she punched in the right one to cause a chattering sound to emerge from the console. She pulled out a series of freshly printed punch cards, stood, then slotted them into the side of the projection globe in the center of the room. Mechanical arms swept out, wiping away the ink writing as the projection globe flared black. New mechanical arms swept out – hemispheres of thin metal, with pen-tips on tracks, which could be controlled by the mechanical arms to draw elaborate notations, far better than any human hand could – and then drew out a series of courses in white.
S'kye pointed with his claw. "This is where we detected you, with three robot rockets in pursuit."
Jasmine felt a lump in her throat. She had had no idea…
It looked as if they had reached her halfway through their flight.
"A-And...the rest of the ship?" she whispered.
S'kye's eyes narrowed and his feathers dipped in what she intuited as a frown. "It...was destroyed by the robot rockets. Why?"
Jasmine's hands clenched. "C-...Could there have been any survivors?" she whispered.
S'kye turned to S'hira. The sensors operator shook her head, quietly saying: "Those robot rockets carry two point five centimeters cannons, firing contact fused flak shells. Honestly, you're lucky they merely took out your aft. There...there is no chance your passenger survived. I'm sorry."
S'kye looked to Jasmine. Jasmine trembled, and her hands tightened. She slammed her fists into the projection globe, despite herself, then looked to the heavens. It came, roaring up her throat, without her being able to stop it.
"ZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
***
Mark had to admit.
As a reward for retaining his control in the face of Star Princess Zella's idea of fun, a state function was not exactly what he had been expecting. When the Princess had returned to her chambers, to find him gnawing on a pillowing and trying his best to not dry-hump the blankets, she had had an unexpectedly serious expression on her face and had immediately manipulated the silver gauntlet that she wore. The intense lustful pleasure that her collar had been burning into his nerves since she had left cut off, and before Mark could ask a single question, she had said: "Get dressed. My father has called...for an execution."
Mark had felt his blood go cold.
It had gotten a bit warmer when he had seen what the Princess had thought had been a reasonable state of dress for him.
Now, he stood behind her, trying to not hunch over, as he looked out at the dignitaries and masters of Zardo's vast interstellar dominion. The fact most of them wore almost as little as he did did not exactly fill him with excitement – as he was currently wearing just barely enough fabric to stretch over his groin, a golden belt, and a leash that ran from his collar, to the Princess' hands. They were in a large chamber of preposterous imperial splendor. The walls were plated in shimmering gold, the ceiling was studded with glowing lamps of some sophisticated electrical bulbs, and the floor itself had a large rectangular window cut into it, showing the shimmering stars of space that swept by beneath the world – as if they were in the bottom of a large, spinning boat.
The far end of the room contained Zardo's throne, where the bald, mustachioed master of malevolence himself was seated, listening quietly to one of his advisors. The rest of the chamber was dominated by a dizzying array of...well…
"And I thought that Normandy had a lot of weirdoes," Mark muttered as he watched a man that was one part hawk, one part man, walk by while chatting to a curved, sinuous snakeman, a cobra's hood flaring to either side of their triangular, pointed head, with glittering golden eyes pausing for only a moment to glance his way.
"Shush, pet," the Princess said, biting her lip as she fidgeted.
"Why so nervous?" Mark asked. "You're not the one who's getting the chop, are you?"
"Hm?" the Princess looked him. "No! Of course not, do not be absurd, pet. It's just…"
"What?"
A loud clang sound rang out – and everyone who had gathered quieted down as Emperor Zardo stood from his throne. His throne was situated a good distance higher than the rest of the room, and allowed him to sneer down at the guests and dignitaries that had come. The evil emperor of the solar system was dressed in a set of red robes that stretched down to his feet, with a high collar that swept to either side of his head, and a golden circlet around his bald head, with a red gemstone set above the middle of his brow, like an imperial diadem back on Earth. His hands were clad in leather gloves, and when he lifted his arms and spread them to draw even more attention, his robes parted to reveal his whipcord lean body beneath: Clad in a kind of military uniform, complete with medals and honors, and what appeared to be a sword hilt (sans sword, of course) hanging from his belt.
"Subjects...vassals...welcome," he said, his voice cutting and powerful. "Today, you are brought into the presence of your beloved Emperor, to see justice done. The only true crime is to fail in one's duty. One's duty to the state. One's duty to family. One's duty to me." He frowned, then gestured. His advisor – a robed fellow of indeterminate species – touched a control on his wrist and the wall at the left side of the room opened, revealing a glass rectangle that contained a man…
A man that Mark recognized.
"Vile," he whispered.
"You know him, Pet?" the Princess asked.
"Yes…" Mark said as he looked at the much reduced station of Commander Vile. The clone commander of the imperial war rocket that had captured him, Jasmine and Claudette had been stripped of his uniform, left in nothing but his tattered underclothes. "He was the man who captured me and Jasmine."
"This clone…" Zardo said, his voice still ringing with condemnation. "This clone allowed the death of my prize would be consort, Jasmine Starr. Worse, he sought to conceal this crime by laying it at the feet of his second in command."
"My lord, I-" Vile shouted through the glass.
"It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools, Commander Vile," Zardo said, his eyes flashing as, before him, the floor opened and a metal pole rose from the ground. Upon it was a large knob. Mark craned his head and saw that the knob had three settings – the large pointer of the knob was set to OFF. "And thus, I sentence you...to the Deatomizer!"
"No! Not the Deatomizer!" Vile screamed, slapping his palms against the glass. "Please! Please! Anything but the Deatomi-"
Zardo clicked the knob up one tick – from OFF to DEATH.
There was less noise than he expected – just a faint humming sound. There was no glow or flash. Instead, Vile wobbled within the glass. The Princess took a step back, biting her lip. Vile coughed...then choked. He vomited, suddenly, the bile splattering against the glass as he sagged against it. He looked up and Mark felt his stomach tightening in revulsion as he saw the man's skin was beginning to sag from his cheeks, as if he had aged years in a day. Blood seeped around his eyes. It dropped from his nose. It...slid along his legs, as if he was bleeding from...well, from every open hole he had on his body. He groaned, then laid his head against the glass, panting. As he leaned against the glass, hair dragged from his scalp – leaving weeping sores behind as the faint humming sound got louder.
"Please…" Vile choked out. His hands were trembling. His head was shaking, as if his whole body was being wracked with tremors – tremors so violent that he was barely able to stand. "K...Kill me…"
He vomited again.
The Princess cried out in horror as more blood streamed from Vile's eyes. It was as if the man was...melting from the inside. She turned and Mark, reacting instinctively, swept his arms around the finely dressed daughter of Zardo, holding her close to him. He whispered, softly. "Don't look, Zella. Don't look." His eyes swept from the poor Vile to Zardo, who was beaming with undisguised delight as Vile suffered.
"It's so horrible!" Zella whispered against his chest, while Zardo...at last...turned the knob from DEATH...to DEATOMIZATION.
The humming sound became a low whine – then a roaring sound as Vile screamed one last time – his body seeming to glow figuratively...then literally as his remaining hair burst into flames, the flames sweeping along his whole body. The last thing to combust was his bones, which flared to life as his entire form was turned to ash and shimmering dust. The heat grew brighter and brighter, the glass itself throbbing with a blueish illumination. The Princess, her eyes screwed shut, her hands over her ears, buried her face against Mark as he held her and tried to comfort her – even as he felt the horror of it fill him.
At last, it was over, Zardo ticking the device back down. The pole retracted and the glass cube was sealed away by a smoothly moving wall.
"Thus...to all who fail the mighty Zardo," the Emperor of Space said, to the nearly silent auditorium.
"T-Take me away from here, Pet," the Princess said, quietly.
Mark had remembered the way that they had taken to get here, and was able to trace it back. He took in the corridors of massive palace – the bass reliefs of rocket ships and the cowering peoples of the solar system. If he had been Jas, he might have been able to pick out the specifics of planets and places...but to him, it all looked an awful lot like the thirties, repeated again, but with different folks forced to bow before a new jackboot.
They came to the Princesses chambers. There, she cried against his chest, her eyes screwed up tight, her shoulders shaking. Mark shook his head slowly. "I guess pops never showed you that Deatomizer before, huh?"
She sniffled, shaking her head. "N-No...I was too young when he used it last…"
"I...wish I had my clothes, I…" Mark snapped his fingers. "Ah! There they are."
He stood, and the Princess watched him, sniffing and wiping at her nose with a small golden hankie. Someone had collected whatever had been in his pockets and laid them out in a small dish – which meant he was able to pluck up his box of Winstons and a box of matches. He walked over to the Princess. "Here, kid, this'll calm your nerves down." He said, taking one of the cigarettes from the box, placing it gently on her lips. She blinked, looking shocked and confused.
"What is this?" she asked.
"It's a kind of fun we have on Earth – we call 'em smokes. Settles your nerves," Mark said. He lit the match and then lit his own cigarette – but the match went out. "Drat. Hold still, kid."
He leaned close, pressing his cigarette to hers – the tips touching and catching. Her bright purple eyes met his, looking soft in the warm glow of the gentle lamps within the room. Mark drew back, his voice husky. "Just breathe in a little...yeah, like that…"
Zella rolled her head back and let out a slow, relaxing sigh as the smoke puffed into the air, streaming outwards and fading around her. She coughed, her eyes sparkling with unshed tears. "It's...strange," she said. "But I like it…"
"Winstons taste good like a cigarette should," Mark said, puffing on his.
"Stop calling me kid," Zella said, looking haughty and huffy. "I am twenty one space years old. No older than you, Pet."
Mark chuckled. "We may be close to the same age, kid, but I've done a lot more than you have." He said, casually, then paused, watching the thin tendril of smoke rising from his cigarette. "So, I gotta ask. What's up with the Empire of Space? I never thought there'd be any little green men out here – but it looks like our whole universe is lousy with ya. What's the scoop?"
"Scoop?" Zella sniffed. "Absurd Earthican idiom. And no, this solar system has no little green men, the Tuskmen are quite large." She paused. "But it is true, we weren't here until one thousand space years ago." She smiled, as if she was reciting stuff she had learned from school – or, knowing her being a space princess and all, from her tutors. "We came from a star so distant and far from your world that your most powerful telescopes cannot even hope to witness it."
"How far?" Mark asked.
"Forty of your light years," she said, shrugging – causing her very filmy golden dress to nearly slip from her narrow shoulders. She let the cigarette dangle between her fingers, carelessly. "Our home star was much cooler than your own – it is slightly larger than your largest gas giant, Jupiter. It formed three billion years before your pitiful star, with four planets that are capable of supporting life. Upon these worlds came the first of our many peoples, and they were blasting off into space while your ancestors were still avoiding your so called dinosaur-beasts." She smirked, arrogantly. "Our colony rocket set forth to settle this world, but arrived to learn that a war had broken out between the homeworlds. We were all that was left."
"Well...I'm sorry about that," Mark said, but Zella brushed it off. She turned to look away from him, taking another drag on her cigarette.
"It was before I was even born, Pet. No matter. The colony rocket arrived...and there was a rebellion in the crew. My father, the captain of the ship, wished to make a new homeworld, but the treacherous underlings of his rocket plotted against him. He was forced to fight back, but they left him here on Pluto to die, then settled across the solar system, making their own bandit kingdoms. And so, my father bided his time-"
"Wait, wait, hold up!" Mark said. "Your father is a thousand years old?"
"Yes, why?" Zella asked, blinking her bright purple eyes at him. "How old did you think he was?" She laughed. "Forty? No. My father is Aytan Zardo! The Emperor of Space, he is immeasurably older than anyone else in this entire benighted system." She smirked and lifted her chin. "That is why he was able to conquer it all when I was a little girl."
"Damn, that was, what, ten years ago?" He asked, frowning. "That'd be around 41…"
Zella huffed. "Using your pathetic Earthman units." She said, then put the cigarette back into her lips. "But yes, by your calendar, the invasion began in June 22nd, nineteen hundred and forty one." She dragged in, the cigarette smoldering. She breathed out, slowly. "I…" She paused, looking as if she was about to say something. Instead, she stood her head. "No, nevermind. No sense dwelling upon the past. We must focus upon the future."
"I mean-"
Mark cut off as Zella stood. Her dress skimmed along her shoulders, puddling around her ankles, and he found himself gaping at her toned, taut, perfectly sculpted rump as she stood before him, nude save for her gloves and her boots. She looked over her shoulder at him, flicking the cigarette into a small circular trash can in the corner of the room.
"You will make love to me," she said, her voice soft. "And if I am not pleased, you will be consigned to the arena, pet."
Mark gulped.
"Well," he said, quietly, then stubbed his cigarette out on the nearest hard surface, wishing there was a damn ashtray. "I've heard orders I've liked a hell of a lot less, kid."
Mark makes love to the space princess...but only as an Earthman can. She immediately falls in love with him.
"Stop calling-" Zella swung around, revealing her perky breasts, her rosy nipples, her elegant neck – but before she could finish, Mark had stood, caught the hand that had been about to slap his face, then pinned it above her head as he pressed her to the wall and kissed her upon the mouth. Her mouth opened and a muffled 'mmph!' of shock escaped her lips, barely audible around his own. Her tongue pressed to his, gently at first, then with more eagerness as her arm struggled against his hand – then went slack as she moaned into his mouth, a soft mewl that drove him harder. He pressed her back against the wall, his cock aching against the strip of cloth that barely contained him. His heat pressed to her thighs and he felt the tiny bump of something metal, right at the upper edge of her own pussy. Mark broke the kiss, to breathe in some air, and Zella hissed in a sucking gasp, then snarled. "H-How dare! How dare you!"
"Oh, you don't like a kiss, Princess?" Mark asked.
Then he kissed her again, catching her other hand – she had been about to slap him. Now, both of her hands were pinned above her head. She writhed, her belly grinding against his, her achingly hard nipples pressed to his chest. When Mark drew his mouth back, she was gasping, her amethyst eyes flaring with anger...and lust…
"M-My father would have you flogged for this...this...uncouth behavior! W-What are you doing with your mouth?" She asked, biting her lower lip.
"It's an Earth custom, called kissing. People about to make love kiss, Princess." He leaned down. This time, his kiss was gentle. She moaned into his mouth, her hands relaxing in his grip, her fingers slipping down to intertwine with his. When he drew back, her eyes were half closed.
"S...Show me more of this...Earth custom…" she whispered.
Mark leaned forward and kissed her – but not on the lips. His mouth found her throat and the Star Princess Zella rolled her head back, moaning hungrily. His lips traced down to her breasts, sucking first on one nipple, then the other. He found that her body was as silky smooth as she had looked, and when his hands slid along her shoulders to her breasts, he rolled her nipples between his fingers – wringing soft moans and confused gasps from the princess. "I...Cy...Cybrid never does this!" she panted, softly.
"Hmm?"
"C-Cybrid, my...usual love slave…" Zella whispered. "She never touches me like- Oh by the Mount of Mars!" Her eyes widened – because one of Mark's questing hands had dipped between her thighs and found the soft folds of her cunny. His thumb rubbed against her clit and found that that had been the source of the odd metal bump he had felt before. Looking down, he saw a small glittering green gemstone had been set into her clit, with a little barbel to mount it. His eyes widened as he rubbed it, and provoked a mewling moan from Zella. "Ah! S-Stop! I...I am so close to...I am going to...I…" Her eyes widened and she arched her back, wailing as her sex twitched and juices frothed along his fingers and palm as she squirted against him – orgasmic sensation sliding through the sensual star sultana.
As he looked down, Mark saw that her little gemstone had gone from green to red. His finger caressed it once more – and it was green again.
"What a curious little thing," he whispered.
"Ah...ah...what?" Zella sounded dazed. "I…" She looked down, then bit her lip, hard. "I-It...it is my Conception Ring. When it is green, I am...fertile. Ready to be sired with the next heir in the glorious line of Zardo. When it is red, then I am safe to enjoy my many love slaves. When it lacks a golden hue around the edges, it's unlocked-" She shivered, then gasped as Mark gently twisted it to the side – the red edge gained a golden hue around it, locking it firmly into place. "M-Mark!"
"It brings you pleasure too?" he purred.
"W-Well, if it was on my finger, it'd fall off!" she exclaimed, then gasped as Mark grabbed onto her and swung her around. Her body bounced as she landed on the bed, her thighs snapping open. "Mark, what are you do-OOOOHING!"
Her back arched and her thighs twitched wider, one of her legs kicking spasmodically – for Mark had leaned forward and was leading an assault upon her sex, as if he was parachuting into Normandy again, with the same coordination and skillfulness he had shown in those darkest of days. But rather than bringing death, his touch and caresses and licks brought nothing but pleasure to the nubile nebular royalty. His mouth closed around the Conception Ring and tugged gently upon it, teasing her clit, while his two fingers plunged into her pussy, finding her center of pleasure. Zella bit her knuckle, looking to the side, unwilling to watch as Mark ate her out...and the spoiled princess of the stars felt a growing, burgeoning wave of...something she had no word for.
For out on the fringes of Zardo's mad empire, there was not a place for gentleness. No room for kindness or camaraderie. The honest affection of a Christian man and his wife had no call to be seen within the icy halls of Aytan Zardo's castle – and so it blooming here, as a grizzled G.I used what skills he had to bring joy and pleasure to his partner, his lover, would have been more shocking and unsettling to the despotic tyrant than an entire plot of the Underground of Free People's. Did the Star Princess Zella Zardo know such a momentous event was occurring within her bedroom?
Or was she merely lost in the bliss and pleasure of Mark's confident, manly figure?
It was impossible to tell – for all conscious thought was obliterated by the addition of his thumb rubbing on her clit as he looked up along the sleek planes of her body, watching her face. Those strong, confident eyes that had seen the hedge rows of Normandy, all the way to the blackened back alleys of Berlin, looked into hers and had but one order.
Cum for me.
"MAAAAAAAAAAAAAARK!" Zella screamed, her back arching as she came for her Earthman. Her fingers clenched on his hair, holding so tight she nearly ripped them out by the roots. "Oh MARK! By the Rings of Saturn! Yes! By...by the Moons of Jupiter! Ah! Yes! YES!" Her body trembled and her breath became ragged, gasping…
And then Mark slid from her grip. His hands pinned her hands to the bed. His mouth went to hers. His tongue invaded her mouth and, oh, oh how her father would have gnashed his teeth, had he known how eagerly she surrendered to the heroic human that was, even now, preparing to take her virginity...not her paltry physical virginity, but the virginity of her heart, the virginity of her very soul. His member prodded, gently, against her sopping wet cunt – and then, with a gentleness that shocked Zella to her core, Mark took her. His hips and hers met, and his balls gently clapped against her ass as the kiss broke, so that he could groan huskily against her ear.
His voice – so strong, and yet, so gentle and loving – filled her ear as a warm burr. "How is that?"
"Mark...ah...yes...by the Mount of Mars, it feels so good!" Her thighs closed, her ankles hooked – now, Mark couldn't withdraw, even if he wanted to. But oh...oh Mark Styles did not want to. He leaned into her, his hands sliding off her palms to the pillows, to brace himself – and to free her hands. Her fingernails dug into his back, into his shoulders, as she clung to him and Mark took the star princess as a man should. "Ah! Yes! Yes! Mark! Ah! Make love to me! Take me! Claim me! Ah! Stars! Yes!"
Mark glanced down.
Red glittered between her legs.
He thrust faster and faster, trying to think badly of America's best and most favored passtime…
Baseball!
"Cum in me! Cum in me! Cum in me!" Zella cried out.
Baseball, despite being the most loved of American sports and its enduring positive additions to culture and history, proved unable to the task of resisting the Star Princess' pussy. Mark bit back a curse, leaned forward and kissed Zella as he trembled and came within her. His mouth and hers met and she moaned into him – her body trembling as he emptied himself inside of her. His mouth broke the kiss – but purely to gasp, to pant, to moan softly. "Ah...yes...yes, Zella…"
She turned her head aside, her eyes half closed as she trembled, tiny beads of sweat gleaming on her body.
Then, suddenly, it was as if a great many doors slammed across her body – the language of her posture and expression shifting from loving...to cold.
"That was...well enough, Pet." She pushed at his chest and Mark slid backwards, blinking.
"Zella-"
"I am your Princess," she said, sharply, then thrust her finger at the door. "You may leave. Now."
Mark stepped back, grabbing his discarded loincloth. As he held it, he looked at her – and saw nothing but icy ire, the haughty disdain of a princess who had been caressed and touched more than she wished. He slid the loincloth onto his body, then turned and stalked from the room, the door closing behind him. He paused at the door, then turned his head back.
Within her room, Zella curled up, trembling slightly.
"W...What in the stars had t-that been?" she whispered, trying to understand – not having the word for it...for it was an Earth word, not a word of Zardo.
Love.
***
The clink of wine glasses and the glitter of ruby red star wine drew Jasmine Starr's gaze from the slowly spinning starfield through the window. Prince S'Kye stepped towards her within the guest bedroom that she had been given aboard the Bird of Prey and held one of the wine glasses to her. "Ten years ago, the Star Kingdoms lived in harmony...but then the Empire of Space attacked." He sat in one of the stools that the Hawkmen preferred. Jasmine herself was seated against the wall, so she could support her back.
"But you say that his mad plans for domination started the instant the...Colony Rocket arrived in this system," she said. She had been listening to S'kye telling her the history of the solar system with an intense focus – one that had been born entirely from the rage she felt over the death of Claudette. "A thousand years before?"
"At the time, Aytan Zardo was nothing more than the chief of security for the Arc, serving under the Last Captain. The colony rocket knew that it had left a solar system that was dying – war had consumed the worlds again and again, thousands of times over millions of years."
"Did these wars involve...A-bombs?"
"Yes, and worse," S'kye said, his voice grim. "Super-Fuse bombs, asteroid attacks, even chemical weapons and war-plagues...they left each of the worlds in such ruins that only a small fraction of our ancestors could even get upon the Arc and blast towards this solar system. They had been brought about by men like Zardo." He shook his head. "But when we arrived, our ancestors quickly realized that your world had people on it. They had taken an oath, stronger than the stars, to never again allow conquest and empire to rule their decision-making. And so, it was agreed that we would leave Earth alone – instead, we would make the other worlds our homes. It would be harder, but…" He shrugged.
"And Zardo disagreed?"
"He and his comrades did, yes," S'kye said, sipping from his wine. How he managed with a beak was a mystery to Jasmine. However, she was enjoying the way his muscles played under his fur and feathers, so she didn't complain, precisely. "The battle was terrible – it shattered the Arc in half. The engine was secured by the loyalists, while Zardo and his rebels were abandoned on Pluto, thought to be left for dead. We have no idea how he survived, nor how, over a thousand years, he bred his clone legions and created his war rockets."
"Are there any theories?" Jasmine asked.
"There...is but one," S'kye said, quietly. "The legends of the Arc are that it brought with it a device that had been intended to start our civilization again – a device known as the Nuclear Alchemy Engine."
Jasmine's eyes widened. "Remarkable! A device...that...that can turn energy directly into matter? Is that what it does?"
S'kye laughed. "I should not be shocked you can guess as much. You really are quite a...fascinating woman, Miss Starr."
"Please. Call me Jas," Jasmine said, smiling dryly at him. "So...with this Nuclear Alchemy Engine and a thousand years, Zardo had time enough to build himself a conquering army, his very own Wehrmacht, to unleash his very own interstellar Blitzkrieg."
"His attack caught the Star Kingdoms completely unprepared. Before we even knew we were being attacked, his flag flew over every city in the solar system. Some kingdoms...bowed to him." he looked aside. "Some such as mine." He stood, then snarled. "I…" His snarl became a sigh. "Forgive me."
"No, it's all right," Jasmine said, biting her lip as she watched the beautiful bird prince stalk about the room. "It seems to be a sore spot for you?"
"My father, King F'eath Arr, he was too afraid of Zardo's war rockets. From orbit, their nuclear coilguns can shatter our cities, kill us all. And so, he follows every one of Zardo's whims, so much so that he sent my sisters, my younger sisters, to be handmaidens to that spoiled brat, Zella Zardo!" He shook his head. "I can't imagine what horrors they have to put up with in that damned Ice Castle of his…"
***
W'ing and B'eak cooed softly, their eyes wide as they peeked through the very thin crack they had opened for the door leading into the slave's quarters. They watched as Mark Styles let the water cascade along his body, his hand holding the metal bar of the soap-cleaner to his chest, forthing suds sliding along his pectoral muscles, along his abdomen, dripping and beading off his impressive cock and balls.
"Feathers…" W'ing whispered. "Look at the...size of that…"
"I wish my bones weren't hollow," B'eak breathed, quietly. "But I'd risk my hips for that. Yum."
"Do you think all Earthmen are…" W'ing's voice trailed off as Mark, unaware of their gleaming eyes, stretched his arms above his head, showing off the rippling expanse of his shoulders and back muscles.
The two hostage handmaidens whimpered and grew silent.
***
"Well, we can say for sure Zardo is a traditionalist – holding families hostage is how a great many despots on Earth kept their control…" Jasmine said, quietly. Her hawkish host sighed, nodded, then tipped his head back, opening his beak to drain the rest of his star wine in a single quick gulp.
"Still, I can at least protect you. I have ordered my crew to remove your communication ray records from the ship's card-storage bin. You are, as of now, sister to my sensorwoman S'hira." He chuckled, quietly. "Yeoman S'tarr has a bit of a ring to it, does it not?"
"Excellent," Jasmine said.
"But such a deception cannot last," S'kye said. "People will notice you don't have wings."
Jasmine frowned. "What will happen if your father finds out?"
"Well...if Aytan Zardo wishes you to be his wife...then he will attempt to send you to Pluto, to become Zardo's wife. But…" He shook his head. "Zardo wants more than a wife. He wants Earth."
"Which does lead to another question of mine," Jasmine said, frowning. "If he wants Earth, why hasn't he taken it? We may have A-bombs and millions of brave men and women willing to fight him...but Zardo has the entire solar system. We have but one planet."
"Ah. That is thanks to the Sword of the Stars," S'kye said. He picked up his communication wand. "Yeoman D'ive, I wish to see the historo-picts of the Sword of the Stars. Over."
"Yes, my lord," a cheerful voice chirruped from the communication wand. Over."
The screen of the chamber flickered, then flashed up a glowing image of what appeared to be an elegant rocket engine – one vaster and more complex than any that Jasmine had ever seen before in her life. The scale indicator on it showed that it was…
"Racing Rockets!" she exclaimed. "That engine! That engine alone is almost-"
"A space kilometer long? Yes," S'kye said, his voice grim. "It uses technologies we cannot even begin to understand anymore to thrust twenty four space grams per second to a speed of approximately two hundred million space meters every second. It was used to push the Arc, which weighed five million space tons."
Jasmine's eyes widened and the wine glass fell from her fingers, shattering against the floor with a crash. She ignored it.
"I...that…" She did math, tearingly fast. "That...that...that's like...that's like firing a thousand A-bombs every second!"
S'kye inclined his head. "That was the tool we put to the purpose of defending Earth. We placed the Sword upon your moon, to use it as a weapon to keep any from trying to claim the world, just in case some forgot their old habits. So destructive was the Sword of Stars that war itself became unthinkable. The Order of the Sword are the only independent kingdom left – but they are constrained, for if they attack Zardo, Zardo will execute the cities of the other Star Kingdoms, and the Order's members don't want that blood on their hand."
"And thus, the solar system is in a stalemate," Jasmine murmured, still stunned. "A thousand a-bombs...every second…"
"And still, not powerful enough to strike at Zardo," S'kye said, as a tiny slot on the floor opened and a disk shaped robot emerged. It began to sweep up the shattered glass. "Even the might of the Sword fades to nothing at eight billion space kilometers."
Jasmine frowned and nodded.
And…
She began to smile.
"I have a plan," she said, quietly. "You say, your father is afraid of your cities being destroyed from orbit. But there is a way to save those cities, to safeguard your people."
"Really?" S'kye asked.
"I heard it on the radio," Jasemine said. "The cities of the faemen are buried deep on the surface – immune to the wrath of Zardo. We simply need to make an alliance between your people and the Faemen. We must end the war between the Hawkemen and the Faemen. Simple."
S'kye gaped at her and the wine glass slipped from his fingers and shattered upon the cabin's space aluminum floor.
***
Claudette T.S Grant groaned, softly. Her eyes opened and she stretched, wriggled, then settled.
"Well, well, looks like she's alive.
Then her eyes snapped open.
Looming around her, looking down at her curvaceous body, was a motley collection of monsters. There was a man with hooves and heavily muscled thighs and a broad pair of shoulders that were covered with short, coarse fur. His head, though, was that of a skull – a large set of bone white plates that covered any flesh at all, his eyes a pair of glowing red dots within the horse-skull shape of his head. There was a woman with sleek scales and gills, her hair a bright pink frizz around her blue cheeks, her body clad in a ragged top and tight pants, a pair of swords hanging at her hips. There was a very chubby looking wolfman, with a thick loincloth wrapped around his hips, the rest of his body on full display. There was a man who's arms were made of writhing tentacles. There was a snake the size of a man, with muscular arms and...impressive bosems, a female snake, grinning down at her, gleaming venom dripping from her exposed fangs.
Claudette whimpered, and screamed, scrambling backwards on her palms. She was skittering along metal as the monsters laughed and jeered at her, some stepping close, reaching for her.
"Pretty girlie!"
"Don't scream little girlie!"
"Oh ho ho!"
Her shoulder blades crashed into metal poles – and then a hand grabbed onto her collar and hauled her to her feet. She felt warm breasts pressing to her back and a warm palm cup her belly as a silky voice crooned in her ear. "Wakey wakey, Goldilocks."
Claudette screamed and ripped herself free, spinning backwards. She bumped into a wall and looked around – seeing the monsters...flanking the woman that had grabbed her. She was a tall figure, with muscular shoulders and breasts the size of her head. Her skin was bright red and she had a pair of thick, goat-like horns that thrust from her forehead. Her right horn was sheered off. Her opposing eye, the left one, was covered with a gleaming metal chunk that looked riveted to her head, like a permanent eye patch. Her right arm ended at the elbow – except it didn't. The hand that had hauled Claudette to her feet was there: Glittering steel, articulated and fiendishly complex.
The woman wore a leather jacket with a seal for a space helmet, and a brace of pistols that hung from a pair of crossed bandoleers. A sword was strapped to her hip, slapping against her thigh as she sauntered forward, her fellow monsters leering at Claudette.
"I-I...I have to be dreaming!" Claudette whimpered.
"Dreaming?" The woman asked, her voice a dangerous purr. "Oh no, Goldilocks. Yer not dreaming."
Claudette gulped. She trembled from her head to her toes. "T...Tarnation...am...am I…" She pointed slowly, shyly down.
"Hell?" the half metal woman, the devil, asked. She cocked her head – and the lights dimmed, so that gleaming eyes were all Claudette could see of the others. A single beam of light shone down on the woman – who she realized was wearing a curved, tricorn hat. "Oh no, lassie. You wish you was in Hell…" She started to prowl forward. Her metal finger took hold of Claudette's chin, lifting her head...and the lights dimmed to nothingness.
Then…
Light flared as the woman's eyepatch opened, revealing a glowing red camera lens, which focused on Claudette, lightning both of their faces in a pale ruby red light.
"You...are on Ceres Station," the woman purred. "And Hell would be quite the improvement."
Claudette swooned – to the sounds of jeering laughter and sabers rasping against sheathes.
I would bet like 30 cents that there are still humans avoiding dinosaur-beasts in the Hollow Earth or in great caverns in the Moon or something. It just feels like that kind of setting.
This remarkable serial brought to you by Blue Coal, the cleanest burning coal on the east coast of the United States of America. Nine out of Ten housewives prefer Blue Coal to the next leading brand! Stock up on Blue Coal today and be warm tomorrow!
JASMINE STARR AGAINST THE EMPEROR OF SPACE
EPISODE FOUR
The Corsairs of Ceres
CERES! The pirate haven of the solar system, home to the many clans of BELTER SCOUNDRELS, dwelling in and among
the dreaded DEATH JUNGLE. It is here that the dread PIRATE QUEEN ALTAIR POLARIS has taken the plucky CLAUDETTE T.S GRANT –
but will she serve as a prize, a prisoner or plaything?
Meanwhile, within the depths of EMPEROR ZARDO'S Plutonian Ice Castle,
MARK STYLES has found himself entangled in the deadly games of politics with the STAR PRINCESS ZELLA –
can our strapping hero navigate the intricate imperial intrigues imparted upon this icy planetoid?
And the final, most vexing question…
Whatever will become of JASMINE STARR as she is taken before KING F'EATH ARR of the HAWKMEN?
Claudette gasped as she stepped from the airlock of the dread pirate rocketship Salty Sirius and looked out, for the first time, upon Ceres. The asteroid itself, discovered one hundred and fifty years ago, had long been known to be among the largest in the entire asteroid belt. But what the famed astronomer and mathematician, Giuseppe Piazzi, could never have imagined that balmy evening when he first spied the glint of light that was Ceres was that, by then, Ceres had been lived in for eight centuries – and in those centuries, it had been hollowed out, reinforced via immense outlays of highly advanced space metals, such as super space aluminum and enhanced space steel...and set to spinning!
And so, Claudette found herself gaping upwards not at sky, but at a distant, glittering green expanse of lakes and forests, sprawling outwards in every direction. The sun that sat in the center of Ceres was, itself, a mimicry created by angled mirrors that were situated at the polar regions of world, where gravity itself seemed to be nearly nothing at all. Those vast mirrors gathered sunlight from beyond the curve of the world, then angled it inwards and struck a large reflector, which shone it out against the rest of Ceres – illuminating the world within. Currently, the hue of the sun was a dull red, casting the sunlight colors of late afternoon about her.
The area around Claudette herself was almost not worth noticing – being that it was nothing more than a sprawling collection of wooden shacks and metal lean-tos. The tallest building was three stories, and around the buildings were dirt tracks and muddy alleyways. People shambled too and fro between the buildings – not in despair...but in revelry. Claudette's eyes widened as she saw a pair of bearded men of unknown species, swaggering together as they sang, arm in arm. She saw a man teetering on a barrel as he drank from a bottle, and a woman with her breasts out for the whole world to see, leaning from the second story window of one of the larger buildings, waving her handkerchief down to astros striding past with their suits on and their helmets tucked under their arms.
"Well!" Claudette whispered. "I never. This is almost as bad as New Orleans!"
An arm snaked around her – steel strong and steel in truth – and the dreaded Pirate Queen Altair Polaris drew her in close, her breath warm against her ear. "Oh, you haven't seen the worst of Ceres yet!" She laughed, as Claudette pushed weakly at her, trying to get free – but Alta took that as an excuse to swing Claudette up onto her shoulders with a braying laugh – her crew laughing as well. Claudette kicked her legs.
"Put me down you! You! You! Heathen! You cad! God bless your heart!"
Alta ignored her, instead breezing straight into one of the taverns, throwing the door open.
"Alta, you old space dog!" A cheerful looking be-tusked, green skinned man with a huge scraggly beard spread his arms as he stood from his table, his crew lifting their mugs. "Why I heard you got atomized out by Venus just a few months ago!"
"Nah, that was some poor fool's attempt at escaping Old Zee," Alta said, cheerfully. "Anyone got eaten while I was out?"
"Some drunkards by the spinward edge of camp. Nothing to be done about it," the bearded man said, shaking his head as Alta came to the stairs that led up to the second level of the rickety bar. Claudette blushed, her hand reaching back to try and keep her skirts from flaring up around her hips – of course the pirates had forced her out of her star suit and into the maid outfit she had kept beneath it, meaning that now, her nethers were on full display to anyone sitting in the right place in the bar – but then her head snapped up.
"Did he say eaten?" she asked, shocked – while Alta came to the second story.
"Price of living free, girlie," Alta said, cheerfully. She opened a door, then swung Claudette around. Claudette squeaked as she hit the bed – the springs complaining underneath her. She panted, sitting up, glaring at the Pirate Queen through her bedraggled blond hair, which hung down her face in a cascading tangle.
"Living free!? Then what am I, you...you...you pirate?"
Alta grinned, her eyepatch gleaming as she slid her jacket off her shoulders, revealing that her arm that remained faithful flesh had been festooned with fierce tattoos, winding and curling along the curves of her muscles, muscles that were repeated in synthetic steel and bulging cables that corded along her metallic arm. She held the jacket between silvery fingers and rotated her hand a hundred and eighty degrees to flip said jacket over her shoulder as she looked Claudette over – her tricorn hat cocked at an equally arrogant angle.
"I said it's the price of us living free, not you. You don't want to risk your pretty little head out in the wilderness," she said, casually striding around the bed, to a small rectangle that looked for all the world like a refrigerator – but rather than opening to reveal bottles of beer, Alta instead simply began to punch in commands on the small keyboard mounted on the top. As the box hummed quietly, she continued: "Ceres used to be the jewel of the Devilmen Kingdom. But...Zardo…" She shook her head, and for a moment, her jocular grin faded. "The wrath of Zardo turned the paradise out there into the Death Jungle of Ceres. Now, the only folk that live here are too stubborn to know any better."
"Like you, hmm?" Claudette asked.
The box chimed and Alta laughed. "I don't live here, Girlie! This is a place for getting some reaction mass, getting some vittles, restocking the shot and powder and…" She turned as her fleshy hand pushed the box open, revealing it had a pair of bottles in it. She pulled both free by hooking her fingers around them and let them clank and dangled from her hands. "...spending some time with a willing woman."
Claudette's cheeks flushed. "W-Well I ain't your willing woman, you...scallywag! You scoundrel!"
"Is that so?" Alta murmured, prowling towards the bed. Claudette's cheeks flushed and her heart hammered, her fingers tightening as the pirate queen leaned forward. The faintly spicy sent of her tingled in Claudette's nose and her head spin as that one purple eye of Alta's met hers and seemed to flash with its own demonic light. "Then why ain't you saying no, Goldilocks?"
Claudette's plush lips opened to speak – and she did not yet know what would have escaped her lips...and she would never know, for the sensual scoundrel of Ceres leaned forward and planted her mouth against hers. Claudette whimpered, her eyes widening. She reached up to slap her face away, but Alta caught her wrist effortlessly and shoved her arm down. Her tongue was long and forked – and it caressed gently against the beautiful Southern belle's for long enough that Claudette felt as if she was going faint. Alta drew back, chuckling huskily.
"Mmm, you do kiss well," she purred.
Claudette finds herself ravaged by the dashing pirate queen! Despite her crudity and disregard for convention, Claudette finds there is something irresistibly compelling about the space born scoundrel!
"Y-You fiend!" Claudette breathed, then squeaked as her top was tugged open by a single grasp and yank of Alta's powerful hands. Her full breasts spilled free into the warm night air of Ceres, free for the red and silver hands of the Pirate Queen to cup and squeeze them, to roll her nipples gently. Claudette moaned despite herself, then rolled her head back. "I...s-stop at once…" she lied, softly, while Alta leaned forward, sucking on one of her nipples with a wanton eagerness. Claudette bit her knuckle, hard, while the red skinned piratess started to strip her nude – carelessly tearing away at her maid outfit until she was wearing tatters, the thick puff of her golden pubes doing nothing at all to hide the eager wetness between her thighs.
"What a nice compliment you pay me, Goldilocks…" Alta crooned, grabbing onto her thighs, lifting and spreading her as she knelt down. "And what a feast you offer this hungry lass…" She grinned, wickedly. "Do you want me to eat your delicious little human cunny?"
"I...y-you're so crude!" Claudette panted. "A-And...and I…" She grabbed onto the sheets, looking down her belly at Alta as the horned woman leaned forward, her breath warm against Claudette's sex. She kissed her clit, then sucked on her, and Claudette found herself moaning despite her every instinct. She rolled her head back. "Ah...no, stop…" She whispered, desperately wishing her to continue – her body betraying her as Alta kissed from her clit to her sex, thrusting her long, flexible tongue within her. Claudette's toes curled and she moaned. "No! Ah! Yes! Ah! YES!" She trembled as that flexible tongue pressed against her secret centers of pleasure – grinding into her G-spot, sending cascading waves of orgasmic pleasure echoing through her body.
Her skin felt too tight. Her nips felt too hard. Her cunt felt too hot. And that gleaming purple eye, mocking and confident, refused to stop looking up at her, triumphant and arrogant. Claudette reached down, gripping the one horn of Altair Polaris that remained, and ground her face against her, using the Devilman woman's nose to grind against her clit as she screamed. "AHHHH!" She threw her head back, closed her eyes, and allowed herself to cum, her juices spurting into the open lips of the lascivious looter!
Alta drank from her, more and more eagerly, and then drew her lips back, smacking. "Ah! Delicious!"
"Y-You...you...blackguard!" Claudette gasped out as her breasts heaved. The other woman slid her top off, casually revealing her tattoos wound around her belly – as did her scars – and that her nipples were pierced, as if...as if she was some kind of earth born sailor! Not that Claudette knew anything about such things! She watched with wide eyes at the way that the star pirate's barbel piercings caught the flickering lantern light of the room and glittered like tiny gemstones. She watched as the other woman hooked her thumbs on her hips and thrust her pants down – revealing a thick, eager cock thrusting from between her thighs, with a line of glittering piercings along the bottom and a bright golden ring that clung to the red tip.
Claudette gaped. "What?" she whispered.
"Yeah, I stole my whole damn gender too," Alta purred, turning to face her, crawling onto the bed. "Pinched an entire load of drugchems from Old Man Zee's robot rockets – found a cache of prize exohormones." She chuckled. "Why? Never seen a girldick before?"
Claudette's cheeks flushed and she scowled. "Tarnation, I've done met ex-men before! Why, my Missus...my Missus had one visit to talk after she got interviewed by the New York Times!" She looked aside. "I just...never done seen a...a...a member what...so gussied up."
Alta put her hand on Claudette's cheek, turning her to look back into her eye. She grinned and then leaned forward. "My my, you're no backwater after all, Goldilocks."
"My name is Claudette- MMPHH!" Claudette moaned as Alta kissed her, fiercely. Then she drew back, and Claudette panted softly. "A-and you'd do well to remember it you-MMMHhmmm…" She moaned into the kiss, her eyes half closed and hazy. "Y...You...horny...hounddog low down...mmm…" She moaned softly into the third kiss as she laid back, her thighs spreading eagerly. "Space...scoundrel…" She whispered.
"Shh, little Coco...let me fix all that…" Alta purred, her voice strong, confident.
Claudette mewled, softly, as she felt the blazing heat of her girldick and the hard curve of the ring against her. "B-Be gentle," she whispered.
"Every time, Coco…" Alta murmured.
She thrust and Claudette cried out, her fingernails digging into Alta's shoulderblades as the pirate queen leaned down, kissing and sucking on Claudette's sensitive neck. Her hips drove in deep – but she moved with a gentle slowness...and every inch of her that moved within Claudette rubbed against Claudette's most sensitive places – the little hard beads of her piercings adding to the pleasure of it. Claudette moaned, and her voice was high pitched, desperate. "Alta...ah...you...you feel so good...ah…" She clung to her, her legs scissoring around behind Alta's back, preventing the pirate queen from even trying to draw back. "So warm!"
"Mmm, your human pussy feels so fucking good, Little Coco…" Alta purred in her ear, and Claudette threw her head back, her spine arching as she tightened around the girldick inside of her – cumming hard enough she saw glittering white spots before her eyes. Alta kissed her neck, then took advantage of the way Claudette was arching her back to kiss down to her breasts. As she sucked on her nipples, she thrust into Claudette, and Claudette was lost in the shimmering waves of pleasure.
Claudette heard the low groan of the other girl – shuddering...and then felt the blazing heat of her cum. Filling her. Warming her. She shuddered, then slowly went limp, while Alta relaxed, her arms keeping her weight from her. Their breasts pressed together, and Claduette hissed softly at how sensitive she felt. Alta's eyes were closed – her glittering eyepatch right close enough...to...
Claudette reached up and gingerly, her finger caressed the edge of that bolted on cybernetic covering, and she whispered. "Alta…"
Alta slid from her – the bump of her piercings drawing a mewl from Claudette. She stood and stretched, snatching up one of the two bottles with one hand, casually.
"Ah, that was a good lay," she said, grinning. "Thanks, Goldilocks!" She said, while she tugged her leggings up around her hips, turning to walk towards the door. She had just grabbed her jacket when the other bottle shattered beside her head, spraying glass and frothy beer everywhere. Alta jerked, then spun around to face a furious Claudette, who was holding the blanket of the bed to her heaving breasts, preserving some modesty – no matter how late it was for such things!
"You! You! You don't leave a gentlewoman IMMEDIATELY after makin' love to her!"
"Hey! That was expensive Proxian brandy! Do you know how much-"
"I got more things to throw at you, you knuckledragging boozehound!" Claudette flared. "I ain't no easy lay you can just dump once you're done with!"
Alta looked completely shocked. "I gotta talk to folks! I can't just fuck all day!"
Claudette sprang to her feet, wobbled, then stood more firmly, drawing the blankets around her, glaring at her with fiery disdain. "Well I tain't just a toy you can toss aside! I am Claudette Tecumseh Sherman Grant, and I deserve your respect, Alta."
The Pirate Queen huffed. "Well, fine! You can come with."
"Fine!" Claudette shot back.
Alta tugged her shirt on. "Fine."
"Fine..." Claudette stuck her nose into the air.
Alta yanked her jacket on, then stepped out the room. She paused, then smirked. "You coming?"
Claudette looked down at herself, then flushed. She wriggled, squirmed, tugged, and...got herself in a passable toga. "When in Rome, I s'ppose…" She muttered to herself, before she stalked out to stand beside the transstellar transsexual terror of Emperor Zardo's traffic and transport.
Walking down the stairs, Alta looked smug and Claudette looked flushed, and the pirates laughed, cheered and jeered as they came down. Alta slid her arm around Claudette's back and Claudette, despite being no Catman woman with ears and tail, fluffed up so haughtily that Alta released her as if she was red hot. "Come on," Alta said, her voice gruff as they walked from the bar and into the moonlight of Ceres – the sunlight overhead having shifted to a silvery color to mimic nighttime colors. With the shadows of the pirate city seeming thicker than ever, Claudette remained close to Alta, her feet stepping into the thick, warm mud of Ceres with mild squelching sounds.
They came to a large, rectangular chamber, and as they walked towards it, Claudette noticed several shadowy shapes following after – a few blocks backwards. She tugged on Alta's arm. "Alta," she said.
"One second," Alta said, before lifting a hooved leg and kicking hard at the door before her – the lock splintering and the wood flying inwards. Light spilled out and within, Claudette could see vast crates of steel, many of them closed, several open to reveal narrow dart-like projectiles in carefully swabbed racks. Two men were looking it over: A quite young looking red skinned imp of a lad who immediately began to oggle Claudette, and an older, rounder bellied purple skinned man with curved horns like Alta's.
"Polaarrrrissss!" The plump Devilamn exclaimed. "That lock isn't as cheap as it looks!"
"You surely have enough to buy a new one after you skimped me on those ten cent flack rounds you sot!" Alta said, swaggering towards the Devilman. He glared at her...then burst out laughing, slapping her shoulder.
"Good to see you again, Polaris."
"And you, Shellington," Alta said, as the two of them gripped hands – Alta's cybernetic one squeezing tight around his fleshy one. They both shook, while Shellington turned his gaze on Claudette.
"And who is this?" Shellington asked, stepping over to eye Claudette curiously.
"Oh, a pretty poppy we picked up, flying on a real mean ecliptic around the Sun. Apogee right beyond Venus, Perigee close enough that she and the fragments of her rocket would have crisped." Alta said, shaking her head. "She was in ultra-sleep, too."
"Lucky girl," Shellington said, while Claudette scowled at him.
"And you're here to buy ammo for guns to do more piracy?" she asked. "Of course."
"A little moralist we got here," Shellington said, while Claudette stepped over to the crates. Alta shook her head, grinning.
"She's amazing in the rack-"
"Alta!" Claudette snapped.
"-anyway. I need more flack and solid shot for our port and broadside cannons, and enough powder for the prow mounted casters." Alta said. "I want that fine grained stuff, not little chunks."
"The chunks do better at penetrating…" Shellington muttered.
"And if I wanted to hole a ship, I'd have gotten a Letter of Marque from Old Man Zee!" Alta snapped. "Give me the fine grained powder!"
"Well, we have a full crate of ten centimeter shells, flack and solid, right here," Shellington said, walking over and opening one of the crates. Alta glanced it over, nodded, then slapped his shoulder. "And the powder, yes, the powder…" He muttered, as they started off. Claudette stepped over, frowning as she examined the shells. They were dart-like in their shape, clearly meant to be fired from some kind of a cannon. Half of them had red tips and half had black. She picked up one of the shells, narrowing her eyes at it.
Alta eyed the powder shot that she was being handed. She hefted it, shaking her head. "Why is this stuff so expensive?"
"It's mostly the container," Shellington said. "Your casters, if you just dumped sand into them, they'd get all gummed up. This container also times the release of the dust, so that the spread can be fine grained – you want the particles to begin to spread out once they're only a few kilometers from the target, so that most of them all hit in one area. For that, you want a container like this." He slapped the side. "It has a little communication ray on the back, which lets your ship send messages for when it will-"
"Ahem."
"-keep-"
"AHEM!"
The two pirates turned to face Claudette. Her glare was fierce – and aimed directly at Shellington. She held in her hands two halves of one of the 10cm flack warheads that would have been bought by Alta at no small price. She hefted the warhead cap, then tossed it to Shellington.
"Goldilocks, don't insult my best supplier," Alta said, sounding irritated.
"Bless your heart and do me a favor, dear, check the shell yourself," Claudette said, scowling. "I've checked three – two are duds. That's completely unacceptable." As she spoke, Alta examined the round, then frowned slowly as she did so. She turned her glare on Shellington, who held up his hands, stammering.
"H-Hey, we get what we can find, Polaris!"
Alta grabbed his collar, lifting him up with her cybernetic arm. As she did so, her wrist opened and a dagger thrust from the base of her palm, the tip pressing to his throat. Shellington's eyes widened and his legs kicked.
"Please! Polaris! T-Take two! Take two crates! T-Throw out any duds you find!"
Alta glared at him – but it was Claudette who spoke.
"Three, I think is fair," she said, her voice the sugary sweet that only a Southern Belle can muster up when serious snide sarcasm is simply required. "After all, ya'll want us to keep on telling everyone what a good quartermaster you are?"
Shellington nodded, his eyes widened. "Three! Take three!"
Alta dropped him and smirked down at him. "Well. I suppose that works just fine...friend."
As the crates were packed up by the imp boy, who was loading them onto a wheeled cart that looked as if it had a small engine attached for mobility purposes, Alta took Claudette's arm, drawing her aside. She murmured to her.
"How by the Mount of Mars did you ever know how to find dud ammo like that?" she whispered.
"You get dragged all the way through the Italy campaign with your Missus, you learn to check artillery shells!" Claudette said, sticking her nose into the air.
Alta gave her an odd look – one that was hard to read. "Well, Goldilocks, you...have hidden depths."
The two stepped from the shop, the crates trundling behind them…
And from the shadows stepped figures in robes, with swords in their hands, gleaming under the moonlight of Ceres. Alta grabbed Claudette, shoving her back. The figures formed a half circle around the two, their blades glittering – and from beneath their hooded robes, red eyes glowed like ruby gemstones.
"Stay behind me!" Alta growled, drawing her own saber with her organic hand. "...these are the none other...than the Death Commandos of Mars!"
***
Mark Styles was, at heart, a reporter. He had wanted to be one before Uncle Sam had needed his help on the beaches of Normandy – the only reason why he hadn't been a war reporter had been that he had been seventeen years old when he'd lied on his draft papers, eighteen by the time he was in Europe, and while he had tried to get a place working one of the local newspapers as a kid, he hadn't quite had enough hustle at the time. It was only after he had been bloodied in the fields of Europe that he had learned exactly what it took to throw oneself into a job – be it flushing out some Kraut machine gunners or...finding the truth of a story.
And the Star Princess Zella's little story about the conquest of the solar system seemed to strike Mark as being only one half of the story – at best. No one conquered anywhere, not without leaving behind the detritus of an invasion scattered here, there, and everywhere: Rebellions, saboteurs, and resistance fighters. There had to be some kind of organized resistance.
He just had no idea how he was supposed to contact them while trapped within the Plutonian Ice Castle of the Emperor himself.
His chambers, at least, were comfortable. When Zella wasn't enjoying his company, he was kept in a smallish chamber that adjoined a central corridor that was used by a great many servants and other pleasure slaves. He had done a quick exploration of the surrounding area – learning precisely where the kitchens, the baths, and the storage rooms were located, as well as meeting the rest of the staff. The majority of them were from the subjugated kingdoms of the solar system: Hawkmen and Faemen from Venus, Catmen and Wolfmen from Mars, Tuskmen from Titan, and more.
All of them treated him with a brusque disinterest – as if he was more of a curio that was going to be abandoned soon, and thus, not worth taking any interest in.
Mark sighed as he tapped his finger against the bottom of his matches box, the single match he had left within rattling around inside of the cardboard thing. Other than it and a few smokes, he had nothing left of his belongings. "What I wouldn't do for a 1911…" he muttered under his breath. "Okay, Styles. You're a journalist. Get to talking to folks." He rolled to the side, standing up in his bedroom. He stepped to the door and opened it – half expecting guards. But no, there were still no guards at his door. He supposed, with the collar on his neck that could control his very nervous system if the Princess wished it, there wasn't much need for guards.
He stepped into the broad corridor and saw that several burly hawkmen in collars were working to carry a large silver cylinder through the corridor. He watched them as they brought it to the rear of the corridor, where they set it down. One of them began to work at the wall, opening it and revealing a similar silvery cylinder.
"What are you fellas working on?" Mark asked.
The first of the hawkmen turned. Mark was still getting used to the difference between a Hawkman and a Hawkwoman – it remained odd as hell to him that the male of a species would have a beak, but the female wouldn't. Still, he could read the red feathered man's expression easily enough: Irritation at being interrupted on.
"Replacing the air filters," the red feathered hawkman said, jerking his thumb at the silvery container. "These filters take carbon dioxide out of the air – we breathe it out, and if we get too much we're all in trouble. They're chemical filters, so they get used up and have to be replaced."
"Why not use plants?" Mark asked. "I may be some dumb human compared to you aliens, but on Earth, we have these things called 'trees' and plants and such, and don't they take up all that carbon dioxide and spit out oxygen for us to breathe?"
The hawkman regarded him, then laughed. "I guess you're not all dumb. No." He shook his head. "But the answer is simple: Space and energy. Pluto's equator is seven thousand space kilometers, roughly. Since the Emperor has built his castle here, there's only proper gravity along that equator. This means we only have a limited amount of space that has gravity for growing – a lot of the best plants for this can only grow with gravity. While Pluto has its own gravitational field, it's working against the centrifugal spin." The Hawkman crossed his arms over his barrel chest. "And a lot of that space is being taken up by the reactors – this planet is stuffed with nuclear piles, producing vast amounts of energy every second."
"Wait, you said one of the problems was energy – we got loads of energy, huh?" Mark asked.
"Yeah, the sunlight that plants need can be recreated with the reactors, true," the hawkman said. "But the Emperor has put as much energy as he could to the Nuclear Alchemy Engine. Every joule we have not running into the Engine is a joule wasted, by the Emperor's estimation."
Mark whistled. "So, instead of having plants, you have…"
"The filters," the Hawkman said.
"Sounds to me like the Emperor is making you all work harder so that he can get richer," Mark said, dryly.
Both Hawkmen laughed. "You have that right human!" He slapped the side of the filter he had to remove. "Here, if you want to help the wheels of Empire spin just a bit smoother, come here and help us with this."
Mark rolled is shoulders. "I may be scrawny compared to you Hawkmen, but I've put in more than my fair share of elbow grease."
"Hah! Scrawny!" The red feathered Hawkman said. "This human doesn't know our bones are hollow!"
The black feathered Hawkman snorted.
The air filters, as it turned out, had large handles on them that Mark was able to grip and yank against, pulling the silvery cylinder free. The two Hawkmen slotted in the new one, adjusted the connection, then swung the wall panel shut. "So, hollow bones, huh?" Mark asked. "Does that mean you can fly?"
"Oh, we could fly," the red feathered Hawkman said, his wing flaring behind him – showing that his feathers had been clipped. "But we were captured by the Emperor, fighting against him. We were...lucky...enough to be enslaved, rather than deatomized."
Mark shook his head. "A horrible way to go," he said, quietly. "What in the hell is that thing, anyway?"
"The Deatomizer?" the red feathered Hawkman asked while his fellow collected his tools. "It's a terrible thing indeed. The Nuclear Alchemy Engine works, in some part, by transforming energy straight into matter. When calibrated properly, it can make any element on the periodic table – but when set to simply create randomly, it spews out hydrogen atoms at an incredible speed." He shook his head slowly his feathered crest flattening out. "Just as a sun does, but with the ability to be tuned and focused like a death ray. The Deatomizer is nothing more than deadly radiation like the kind your people witnessed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but multiplied by a million times, a billion times if Zardo wills it."
"You've heard of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?" Mark asked, genuinely shocked.
The two Hawkman chuckled. "Of course! Humans are spraying their radio waves into space as if they were alone in the universe," the red feathered Hawkman said. "Why, I even have a favorite team of your Earth sport known as baseball."
The black feathered Hawkman nodded. "The...how you call them...the New York Yankees?"
"Well I'll be a son of a bitch," Mark said, quietly. "You're a Yankees man?"
The red feathered Hawkman laughed. "I have won many a space dollar betting on Yogi Berra."
Mark shook his head. "Well, if you two ever want to listen to any Earth radio, I'm always down to listen too. You get TV up here too?"
"Sometimes, yeah, but we don't have many sets," the red feathered Hawkman said. "But I would enjoy that. I am C'law and this is my bond-brother, W'ind." He gestured to the black feathered Hawkman, who inclined his head. "Take care of yourself, Mark Styles."
The two Hawkmen started off and Mark rubbed his chin, thinking-
Then pain.
Pain screamed through his body and he fell to his knees, clutching at the collar, gasping heavily.
A sneering voice spoke above him – a deep, rumbling, male voice.
"I see your pain inducers are working better than your human eyeballs," Skar Tailscorn said, striding forward to loom above Mark as he clutched at his neck. His ever nerve felt as if it was burning. He fell to his side, gasping and looking up at the burly lizardman, trying to speak – but he couldn't. The massive mountain of scaled spacer allowed him a few more moments of agony, before he adjusted his own control gauntlet and the pain ceased. Once he was no longer burning from within, Mark saw that the control gauntlet that Skar wore was considerably smaller than the Star Princess Zella.
"What...do you want?" Mark gasped out.
"The Emperor has called for your presence in his chambers. You were not within your rooms, and so, I have come to get you myself." Skar's lips curled. "And then I saw you fraternizing with the slaves. Interested in some homolove, Mark?"
"No…" Mark coughed. "I prefer my men in better dresses and less-"
Pain screamed through him again as Skar adjusted his control gauntlet again. "You give me cheek, human!?" He snarled. "Everyone knows humans are too primitive to understand our advanced forms of space lovemaking!" He adjusted the gauntlet again as Mark wheezed. "Now, stand and march before me – we have an Emperor to meet."
Mark rolled onto his belly, raggedly, then pushed himself to his feet, stumbling forward as Skar prowled behind him.
Once again, Mark found himself in the Imperial Throne room – but this time, he knew about the horrifying Deatomizer that waited, concealed behind one of the walls of the chamber. He tried to not think of it, even as he was marched forward along the glass floor of the room. He tried to not look down at the slowly swirling stars below him – trying to not think about what it would be like if he was flung out of the room, sent tumbling into the blackness.
Emperor Zardo stood beside his throne, regarding the chair itself. He was dressed in only his military uniform, rather than in his robes. His advisor, the same one that Mark had seen at Commander Vile's execution, was lurking in the shadows nearby, waiting. Watching. Mark stepped forward – and then Skar slapped his legs with his tail, knocking him to one knee. Mark planted his palms on the glass, feeling the cool chill of it through his skin, while Skar snarled.
"You will kneel before the might Zardo!"
"We don't have Emperors where I come from," Mark snapped, before he could think about it.
"Why you-" Skar lifted his arm, reached for his control gauntlet.
"Commander," Zardo's voice cut him off. Skar stood at attention. "Leave us."
Skar inclined his head. "Yes, my Emperor."
He turned and he walked out.
Mark panted, softly, then sat back on his heels, so that he was at least upright now. He didn't trust his legs to stand at this moment – and Zardo didn't seem to mind him sitting back like this. He regarded the Emperor, not sure how exactly to bring up their current relationship...which involved the fact that, just twenty four hours earlier, Mark had been balls deep inside of this man's daughter.
"Has my daughter been pleased by your sexual prowess?" Zardo asked, turning to look down his nose at Mark.
"On Earth, we don't kiss and tell," Mark said.
"You are not on Earth," Zardo said, his voice tinged with amusement.
Mark's cheeks flushed. "...she did. I think."
"Good," Zardo said, his lips curling as he walked around the throne, then took his seat upon it. "I wished to speak to one who waged war against your Earth Nazis. I have long admired the Nazis and their conquests – pitiful as they are when compared to the majesty of Zardo and the breadth of my dominion. Your Adolph Hitler, despite being an Earthman, would have made an excellent lieutenant of my Empire. Had he not disgraced himself with failure, he would ere now be governor of Earth under my dominion."
Mark tried to keep the raw hate and rage he felt burning within his breast, as it would burn within the heart of any red blooded American man at the idea of the foul ideology of the Nazis once more returning to haunt the world that had fought so long and hard to see it put forever to death. But from Zardo's sardonic smirk, he knew that at least some of his ire had shown – and so, he let a soft, rough chuckle come from him.
"Ya know, I never would have guessed it. You're so much more restrained than those jackbooted jackasses."
Zardo's smirk faded and he pursed his lips. "What I find inexplicable, what I wish to understand...what compelled you and the millions of your allies to fight with such ferocity against the Nazis? Why did you battle, from the depths of the Russian steppe, to Africa, to the bottoms of your Earth Oceans themselves, against an obviously superior foe?" He stroked his beard, slowly. "Was it for glory? For the reward? Was there prize money involved?"
"You really don't understand us Earthlings, do you?" Mark asked, shaking his head slowly. "In America, we got a little thing called democracy. Freedom. Rule of Law. Those are all worth dying for."
Zardo shook his head slowly. "Then you are fools."
"And you, I think, underestimate your own subjects," Mark said. "Among us Earthlings, there's a saying...killing a Nazi is its own reward. I'm sure that more than a few people up here who might think the very same thing."
Zardo stroked his chin beard. "Hmm…yes...I think you are right."
He clapped his hands twice. His advisor stepped forward.
"Take the Earthman to the arena," Zardo said, turning to look at the advisor. "Have him face...the Cybrid."
"Yes, your majesty," the advisor said, his voice low and almost monotone.
Mark's eyes widened – but then guards were rushing into the room. Clone soldiers grabbed him and dragged him along the glass, while Zardo watched him go, his eyes enigmatic and unreadable. Mark clenched his hands and shouted.
"And what will your daughter think?"
"She'll get a new toy. She has before." Zardo said, his voice brimming with amusement.
The doors slammed shut between the Emperor and the G.I.
***
The Bird of Prey lacked any way to descend from orbit – it had been designed to defend the Kingdom of Hawkmen from threats in orbit, not for landing. Fortunately, like many rockets produced by the many people that dwelt in space, the Bird of Prey contained their very own winged rockets. Since they were short ranged and built for a prince, they were considerably more comfortable. Jasmine was able to enjoy this fact as she watched the smear of orange light flicking along the hull of the rocket. S'hira had been tasked for flying the rocket, leaving her and Prince S'kye in the living quarters of the winged rocket, which reminded her of her very own private planes. The seats were comfortable and the whiskey was…
Quite good.
S'kye himself was sitting in one such chair – and as Jasmine watched the glowing light of the reentry burn flickering along the hull, she could feel the burly Prince's eyes upon her. She bent forward, casually, letting the red band of her underclothes tug tighter against the cleft of her ass and the smooth, hairless folds of her sex. She could hear him shift in his chair, thanks to the excellent soundproofing of the room.
"Are you sure you don't want to strap in?" he asked.
"We're coming down slowly enough," Jasmine said, chuckling. "This winged rocket design is quite ingenious, you know."
She looked back and was pleased at how he had quite obviously tucked one leg over the other, to conceal any excitement from her.
"What is the Sky City like?"
"You'll see it soon enough," S'kye said. "I...remain unconvinced by your ideas. The Faemen and the Hawkmen have been at war for centuries – ever since the Treaty of Venus was broken." He shook his head. "We had agreed on a way to begin to terraform the world – to make it livable to us. To ensure the Hawkmen were able to continue our life as we know it, the plan was to seed the upper atmosphere with life, to make it so that one could breathe with ease at the levels our cities float at. The Faemen, though, betrayed us by trying to reduce the atmospheric pressure instead."
Jasmine cocked her head. "Your cities float...but why would that be an issue?"
"They do not float through rocket engines or hydrogen balloons, Jas!" S'kye said, shaking his head.
"The atmosphere pressure!" Jasmine exclaimed. "Venus' air is thicker than Earth air – thus, a city filled with Earth air floats."
"Precisely," S'kye said. "The Faemen plan would have destroyed Sky City – all so that they could live more comfortably in their burrowing warren cities." He shook his head.
Jasmine pursed her lips, considering...but not making any comment on that.
All thoughts on anything but what she was seeing were wiped away as they broke through the upper atmosphere and swept down towards the bright yellow-white clouds of Venus, which were sculpted into staggering beauty by wind and drifting pressure. Craiglike protrusions of cloud swept up and down, and formed valleys and dipping canyons, all formed from nothing more than foggy particulates. But there, drifting above it all, was the Sky City itself. It looked like a vast glittering mushroom, with a narrowed tapering point that dangled down towards the clouds – the bulbous tip of that point looking like a counterweight...yes, Jasmine could see why: The heavy weight would keep the flat surface of the upper levels of the city from bucking about during stormy weather.
The top of the city was covered in transparent domes – all protecting a bucolic splendor that was visible, even from a distance: Trees and gardens, small homes and what appeared to be beautiful farmlands and carefully tended wilderness preserves. The edged of the city swept out with immense, rectangular plates of metal, angled up towards the heavens, catching sunlight and reflecting it back. Jasmine pointed at them. "Racing rockets...what are those?"
"Those are devices unknown upon your Earth – but we Hawkmen call them Photoelectronic Collection Plates. They are made of a chemical that reacts to sunlight by producing electrical energy, which can be used to power our various tools," S'kye said.
Jasmine nodded. "Ah, of course. Without the vast primeval jungles of ancient epochs to quarry for coal and oil, you would need to rely on this less efficient, more expensive method."
"Yes, your Earth's famous Blue Coal could provide this power for a fraction of the price – if but we could have access to your markets, to buy it at a low low price. Even with Zardo's ruinous taxes, we could afford to keep our entire city warm for years at a fraction of the price for these devices." He shook his head and sighed slowly, while Jasmine bowed her head, solemnly.
"Yet another crime to lay at the feed of Aytan Zardo," she said, quietly.
The winged rocket swept towards an opened landing bay along the side of Sky City. For a moment, Jasmine could see their wings and their belly, reflected back at her along the Photoelectronic Collection Plates...and then they were landed, the wheels catching on the landing wires and guidelines as if they had touched down on one of America's aircraft carriers. S'hira's voice came over the announcement speaker within the living quarters. "We have arrived, m'lord."
"Are you ready to meet my father?" S'kye asked.
"After a fashion," Jasmine said. "Remember – I'm the Consort to Emperor Zardo, traveling incognito to avoid drawing any attention from rebels." She nodded. "We must have free run of the castle without any interference, lest our plan fail before it begin."
S'kye nodded.
The airlock door opened and the two of them came down the gangplank, where several Hawkmen waited for them. At their front was a pale white feathered Hawkman, old and stooped with age, his feathers drooping and his eyes having gone milky and rheumy. He still saw well enough to look at S'kye and wheeze. "Ah, my son. You have returned victorious once again. And this...this is…" He looked at Jasmine – and Jasmine attempted to look as haughty and arrogant as a consort to the Emperor would look.
"This is Jasmine Starr, the consort to the Emperor," S'kye said, gesturing to her. "I rescued her from a damaged winged rocket – just in time too."
"Very good," King F'eath Arr said, quietly, looking Jasmine up and down.
"Sire, I will send the communication beam to Pluto," S'hira said, quietly.
"Very good, S'hira," S'kye said – looking to her with a subtle nod. S'hira was, like the rest of the crew of the Bird of Prey, in on their scheme. The communication ray she would send to Pluto would have no such communication in it, beyond sparse reporting about the retrieval of an empty winged rocket. As the gorgeous sensorswoman strode off, S'kye took his father's arm. "Come, my father, we have much to discuss. The Consort will need her own rocket to arrive – we cannot wait for an Imperial rocket."
"Hmm...yes, she will…" F'eath Arr said.
They walked through the gleaming palace of the Hawkmen, F'eath listening to his son's urgent words with clear attentiveness – he might have been aged and nearly blind, but he clearly knew his way about politics. Jasmine took her time looking left and right, drinking in the alien architecture...and then she blinked, startled to notice that a quartet of bright golden eyes were peering down at them from the brightly illuminated buttresses of the ceiling. She lifted her hand, to wave at them – and the two hawkchildren laughed, flying down on wings that caught the air and allowed them to glide above the party.
"Uncle S'kye!" they said, at the same time, slamming directly into their burly uncle. He caught them both – and it was remarkable to see that, as youths, Hawkchildren were more balls of fluff with wings that anything recognizable as a humanoid shape. He laughed, then mimed falling backwards.
"Ack! I have been slain by...two terrible Cloudbeasts!"
"Uncle S'kye!" the two children laughed, squirming in his grasp. "We're not Cloudbeasts!"
"I am," one said, cheerfully.
"Viscount G'old and S'ilver!" King F'eath Arr said, mock serious. "You two should be with your tutors."
"And miss on Uncle S'kye coming home?" G'old asked.
"Never!" S'ilver added.
S'kye set the two Hawkchildren down, ruffling their feathered heads. "Run along, children," he said, his eyes soft and warm. "We have boring adult things to talk about – I'll play with you later." The two hawkchildren made mewing noises – but started to trundle off. They managed to act sad and distraught for approximately five seconds before they were shoving one another, then scampering away with much childish delight.
"I didn't know you had nephews," Jasmine murmured.
"Both my sisters had one son before they were captured by Zardo, their husbands were killed in the war," S'kye said, quietly. "And...as I have no eligble hand for my marriage, those two will one day inherit the Kingdom of Venus. I love them dearly...but…" he sighed. "I...did one day wish to sire my own children…" He shook his head, wistfully. "Alas."
They came to the throne room, where King F'eath Arr took his seat upon a throne of golden, curling feathers and stern looking eagle-heads that glared outwards from the armrests. As sunlight shone along his feathers and his old body, he spoke with tones of authority. "As of this moment, I will earmark an entire one of our slipways towards the construction of a multi-purpose atomic rocket that shall be given, without recompense, to Jasmine Starr, so that she might travel to Pluto and be taken into the embrace of Emperor Zardo." He nodded, then picked up a large golden sphere that rested beside his armrest, contained in a cup that jutted from the floor. He brought the sphere crashing down on the armrest – where it flashed and let loose a roar of thunder. "Thus it is ordered!"
"Thus it shall be done!" The Hawkmen court echoed back at him – and then quite a few of them hurried off.
"May I ask, how long it will take for this rocket to be constructed?" Jasmine asked – she had to force herself to sound demanding and sneering – but it was hard. She wanted so badly to show gratitude to this kindly old King, even if she knew that his own age had blinded him to the need to stand against Zardo. But King Arr shook his head, waving a single clawed hand gently.
"You need not worry – no more than two or three space weeks," King Arr said. "It will be a long journey, though – faster if you take many stops, to remass at various sites. We do not have the technology to take advantage of the travel ray stations – it will be purely through thrust alone." He rubbed his hand along his beak. "It will be armed, though...and we will...need a crew. But we have weeks to decide."
"Well enough," Jasmine said.
"I will now take the consort to her chambers," Prince S'kye said, putting his clawed hand on her shoulder. A shiver of excitement brushed through Jasmine's body, her skin rising in goosebumps at the contact.
"Very good, my son," King Arr said.
***
The chambers of a consort of Emperor Zardo, as offered by the Hawkmen of Venus, was fanciful and beautiful indeed. The windows that looked out over the vastness of the clouds of Venus were only half the splendor – the other half was the statuary of beautiful hawkwomen that stood in the corners, holding up globes of light, the huge bed that sprawled in the center of the chamber, the adjoining rooms full of delights – comfortable seats to lounge in, a bath to wallow in, and more. All of this filled Jasmine's eyes as she stepped into the room.
"And here you are," S'kye said, gesturing. "You will have everything you need brought to you at once."
Jasmine nodded. "Good," she said, softly. "I...do have some things I want, before the rocket is finished. Those hilt-less swords that I've seen on some officials, for instance."
"A mag-rapier?" S'kye asked, nodding, his beak catching the light and glinting slightly in the corner of her eyes. "We have some, yes, though the preferred weapon of the Hawkmen is the twin bladed saber-staff and the sonic impeller gun." He chuckled. "But I think a mag-rapier would suit you better, Jas."
She smiled, looking out to the window.
"What else do you need?" S'kye asked. "Before I go to arrange this."
"What else I need requires the exact opposite," Jasmine said, turning around, her voice a low purr. She put her hands on her hips, cocking them slightly – taking advantage of the fact she was clad in her thin red strip of suit cloth for a top and an equally thin red strip of suit cloth for her bottom. Her eyes glittered and she flashed a playful grin at the heavily built hawkman prince. His golden eyes widened as he looked at her.
"I, ah…" He chuckled. "Are all Earth Women as forward as you are, Jas?"
"Not even slightly," Jasmine purred as she walked forward.
Jasmine seduces the fearless, faithful and feathered Prince of the Hawkmen!
"But I will be honest and blunt, S'kye. I have been bouncing around this solar system, in ultra-sleep, for almost a month and have not been vigorously fucked in that entire time. While most women on Earth may be unwilling to say as much, I have never been one to follow the pack...and so…" She reached down, cupping his bulge openly through his loincloth. The way the silky fabric began to move against her hand made it clear that his member was hardening...and she grinned. "I want you to fuck my brains out. I want you to stuff me with so much thick hawkmen cum that I can barely move. I want you to show me how Hawkmen do it...and I want it now."
S'kye chuckled. It was a low rumble, which she could feel vibrating through her.
"Well, then," He said, then grabbed onto her shoulders. "Sit back."
His hands pushed her back and she landed on the bed, her rump skidding slightly against the silken fabrics. Venus had a gravity nearly the same as Earth's and so she was able to really enjoy the pressure of the bed – even as she enjoyed the view of S'kye reaching down and tugging his loincloth off with a single jerk of his taloned fingers. Her eyes widened as she realized that her assumptions about some parts of alien anatomy had to be astronomically reevaluated – for rather than a humanoid cock, as she might have expected...she instead found herself viewing a cock that ended with a thick, heavy, fist sized knot that swelled above a furred sheath. His cocktip flared exotically, and a single droplet of beading pre-cum that splashed onto the marble floor, leaving a warm print on the ground that, had Jasmine been a somewhat different woman, she might have eagerly licked from in supplication.
For not only was S'kye exotic in his shape, he was shocking in his size...to call him hung like a horse would have been an insult to the fierce falcon fiefholder. His member looked as if it would utterly eclipse the size of nearly any human she had ever been with, and Jasmine felt her knees going weak at the thought – doubly so when backed by the mighty muscles of his rippling body.
S'kye chuckled softly. "What do you think?" He asked, his beak clicking.
"I think it is a crime such a weapon has not been used many times before…" Jasmine purred, laying back – but then S'kye took hold of her hips, twirling her around. His mighty strength got her onto her hands and knees – and then his clawed fingers gripped her hair, yanking her head backwards. The sharp edge of his beak scraped gently along the side of her neck and his voice purred in her ear – warm and hot.
"And what makes you think I've never sheathed my sword in S'hira?" He laughed, then thrust.
Jasmine gasped as her cunt was spread by his mighty member – her sex tightening on him almost immediately as his powerful hips drove into her with a brutal eagerness that she exactly needed. Jasmine had trained in the forbidden arts of the Karma Sutra as part of her duties as an operative in the OSS – she had worked, in part and in full, as a Mata Hari, a spy that used sensuality and sex just as much as they used ciphers and codes. And so, she had been trained to draw pleasure from unlikely sources, to accept amazing girths, and to use her body as a source of pleasure even when her mind whirled at a million miles an hour…
This alone was why she was able to fuck back as S'kye groaned and began to rut his massive hawkman cock into her sex. His hands grabbed her hips and her fingers balled up on the silk as she cried out with animalistic grunts, orgasm ripping through her body almost immediately...if she had been any other woman, she would have simply become S'kye's little fuckpet at that point. But her training held...and Jasmine tightened herself skillfully around his cock, her hips moving with his as she rocked her head forward.
"Yes! Yes! Yes! Ah! Fuck! This is the virility of the Hawkmen I've heard so much about?" She moaned.
The Prince of the Hawkmen clicked his beak, hard enough to ring throughout the room. "No, Jasmine Starr. This is the virility of Prince S'kye Arr!" He growled, then leaned forward. His furred chest pressed to her body, his wings flaring wide as he mounted her as if he was an animal. His hand grabbed her shoulder, his claws lightly pricking her skin as he fucked her harder and faster, the wet slapping sound of his heavy, blue-black balls bouncing against her pale thighs filling the air. He grunted in her ear as his knot slapped against her sex, pushing her wider and wider by every moment.
Jasmine groaned and shoved back, and her voice hitched. "Ah! Yes! S'kye! Yes! Knot me! Knot me! Knot my slutty human pussy! Show my Earth cunt what a Venusian dick can do! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" She screamed as she came – and, as she came, his knot pushed into her.
Jasmine's arms gave way. Her breasts mashed against the bed, her cheek turned aside to rub against the silken sheets. Her eyes were dizzy. Unfocused. She whimpered, feeling her hips being held up by the connection between her body and S'kye's alone...and that pressure, that tugging, drew from her an animalistic groaning noise as she twitched and tried to cum around him – her girl juices just barely escaping, squirting and splashing against his belly as he slid his hands along her back to her shoulders, holding her down…
And now?
Now his thrusts were truly animalistic. His knot forced him to remain mostly within, and so rather than full, heavy thrusts, his body moved with jerky, short motions – just enough to rut within her. Each thrust seemed to bring a new wave of pleasure through her.
Jasmine screamed.
And then S'kye's wings spread…
And he snarled…
And she felt his balls clenching.
"YES!" Jasmine screamed, her voice raw. "Yes! Oh my Prince!"
She shuddered as cum began to paint the inside of her womb – splash after splash after splash of it, her belly swelling as if she had already been knocked up with his illegitimate heirs. Jasmine's head felt as if it was spinning, the whole room knocked from its axis by the power of her orgasms...and she was still being stuffed as S'kye snarled and clenched and ground his beak as he pumped his spunk into her, spurting and spurting and spurting.
Jasmine panted.
And opened one eye…
And saw a hawkwoman server, holding a tray covered with treats and snacks and wine glasses, standing in the doorway to the chamber, her eyes wide as saucers.
The tray fell from her hands...and the glass shattered upon the floor!
***
Mark awakens to find himself being orally pleased by a pair of hawkwomen! Shocking!
Mark squirmed in his cell – then gasped and sat up, pleasure exploding through his body unexpectedly. His hand, flailing instinctively, grabbed onto dark blue-black hair and clenched, squeezing, as his balls tightened and seed spurted down the throat of an eager, young looking hawkwoman, who was looking up at him with wide eyes, her mouth halfway down his throbbing, massive human cock. Another hawkwoman was standing in the cell of the arena that Mark was waiting in – waiting for his chance to die...and both hawkwomen were blushing hard.
Mark released the hawkwoman's hair, confusion filling his brain and his face alike as she drew back, coughing softly, her lips covered with his pale white seed. She licked her lips subtly and stood. "S-Sorry!" she said.
"W-What the...the…" Mark stammered. "I was asleep!"
"It looked so yummy!" the Hawkwoman who had been sucking his cock said, while her...twin sister, from the looks of her, blushed and put her hands over her face. Both of their wing-sets rustled as they stepped backwards. Mark swung his legs around, grabbing the pillow on the simple cot that was his only place to sleep in this cell, and then put it over his crotch. His cheeks burned as he glared between the two of them.
"It looked yummy?" he asked. "Who the hell are...y…" He trailed off. "Wait a second. You two are...you're the Princess' handmaidens?" He looked between the two lovely nubile hawkwomen, who were both dressed in simple shifts that did nothing at all to hide their hard, eager nipples, jutting out against the white fabric that they wore.
"My name is W'ing," the girl who had been sucking Mark off said. "This is my sister, B'eak."
B'eak bowed.
"We were sent by our mistress," W'ing said.
"Did she get me out of this bullshirt?" Mark asked, quietly.
"...no," W'ing said, shaking her head, while B'eak looked aside, biting her lower lip – her wings mantling.
"S-She cannot overrule her father in this. But…" B'eak reached into her shift, then drew out a small, sleek looking blade, attached to a curved strap that was nearly the same hue as Mark's skin. She held it out on her palm and Mark realized small was an understatement. The blade was barely bigger than her fingernail. He held it up, frowning.
"What is this?"
"It's a tox-venom blade," B'eak said.
"They're made to be undetectable," W'ing added. "You put it on your finger, then you can tighten your finger and the blade extends past your knuckle." She mimed thrusting. "A single cut is instantly lethal – so long as you draw blood. The venom will stop the heart of anyone in the solar system."
B'eak nodded. "The blade is entirely safe until it is keyed to a body. So, once you put it on, you will be able to kill one man."
"Only one. The blade only has enough tox-venom for one man," W'ing said.
Mark looked down at the blade, feeling a cold chill running through him.
"The Princess...wants you to have good luck," B'eak said.
Then both hawkwomen slipped from the cell, the doors shutting behind them with a hiss.
Mark slid the blade into his left hand's pointer finger. The instant the strap was attached, the blade shifted to suit his skin color, so that it was concealed behind the second joint of his finger. He could see how if he made a fist...the blade would come out and he could simply punch a single life out, snuffing it away as if he was dealing with a candle. He stood as a low drone filled the air...and the doors opened
Mark walked through the warren like prison complex of the Plutonian Ice Castle – hearing the sound of distant cheering, flanked by two guards, which made sure he didn't get lost.
The door ahead of him opened and he stepped out into an arena, with bright sunlight shining from overhead, an artificial sky painted on the walls and ceiling. People sat in the seats, three meters above the surface of the sandy arena, eating snacks and treats, watching the bloody sport that was soon to fill their sight…the arena's floor was covered with discarded weapons, as if inviting any would be gladiator to choose the means of his death and defense.
The front of the arena held two thrones – one higher, the other low. Zella sat in one, looking bored.
Aytan Zardo sat in the other. Smirking down at him.
"Bring forth...the Cybrid," he proclaimed.
The door on the far side of the arena opened – as a fanfare began to play…
And a nine foot tall shape began to stomp forward, shilouetted by the red light behind it. Towering. Brutal.
And with four arms.
Mark rolled his shoulders, shifted his grip, and snatched a discarded broadsword from the ground...as he faced…
