“Imperator.” Bass nodded a greeting.
“What’s our status, Captain?” She asked as she settled into the chair.
“We’re currently a day’s flight from Tatendi station. Based on the ion trails of the fugitive’s ship, we’ve determined it to be their most likely destination after escape.”
“They won’t be there anymore.” Rixie observed. “But it’s a good starting point. Hopefully we’ll be able to sniff out their trail from that point.”
Bass nodded. “Helm, increase our speed to factor three.”
“Aye sir.”
*.*.*.*.*.*.*
For the second time, Alex climbed out of Rixie’s bag and jumped down to the floor below. The young man brushed off his clothing and looked around tentatively. Fortunately, knowing he might likely be stuck in her bag for days, he’d packed a stash of food and water as well as several changes of clothes. Granted, he’d had to make his way back to said stash after being unceremoniously dumped in Rixie’s bag along with her laundry, but that hadn’t been too much of a problem.
Once again he found himself in what was basically an enormous bedroom. Actually, perhaps it was due to his size relative to the rest of the room, but to Alex it looked a lot like her cabin aboard the transport ship.
Alex’s thoughts were interrupted by a loud thump. He whirled towards the sound and found himself facing a grate. In fact, if Alex didn’t know better, he could swear he heard a voice coming from the vent.
Alex began cautiously sneaking towards the disturbance, never taking his eyes off the vent grate. He only got about halfway there when it suddenly popped loose from the wall. A figured tumbled out of the gap.
Alex’s eyes widened in surprise as a human woman kicked the grate closed then dusted herself off, before turning around.
Alex and the woman stared at each other in surprise.
“Who the hell are you?” The woman yelped in perfect English.
“My name’s Alex. Who are you?”
The woman didn’t answer. Instead, she eyed Alex curiously and crossed the distance between them until she was standing right in front of him. Hesitatingly she reached a hand out and touched Alex on the chest.
“You’re human…” she whispered softly.
“Yeah, I am. Now, who are-” Suddenly the woman gripped both sides of his head and pulled him down into a kiss.
Alex’s eyes widened in surprise as her lips pressed against his. Her grip was surprisingly strong and it took a bit longer than he expected to break contact.
“Lady, what are you doing?”
The woman shook her head, as if coming out of a daze. “Sorry. It’s been a while since I seen another human. You said your name was Alex?”
“Yeah.”
“My name’s Corporal Izzy Ibanez. You from Earth?”
“Well, originally.”
Izzy crossed her arms over her chest and smirked up at him. “You some kinda pet, then?”
Alex blinked. “No!”
“Aw c’mon. I know the score around here with humans. Which of them Imperators do you belong to? The tall lady or the guy?”
“That ‘tall lady’ has a name, y’know.” Alex snapped. “And I’m not her pet!”
Izzy snorted. “Whatever you say.”
Alex scowled at her. “Well, who owns YOU then?”
Izzy grinned. “Nobody owns me, Skippy. I practically run this place.”
“Yeah sure.” Alex responded. “That’s why you were crawling around in the vents.”
“Well… some people around here are in denial of the pecking order, is all.” Izzy shrugged indifferently “C’mon, I’ll show you around.”
“Wh- Hey!” Before Alex could respond, Izzy had grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him back towards the vent that she’d entered from.
“Izzy, I’m not sure this is a good idea…”
“Aw, you afraid your owner will be upset?” Izzy taunted.
“She’s not my owner!” Alex growled tearing his arm free. “Fine then. Lead the way.”
Alex ducked into the ventilation shaft and followed Izzy as she climbed up the side using bolts and minor imperfections in the metal as hand-and-footholds. Alex was able to keep up with her fairly easily, having become something of an expert climber over the past several months due to the fact that seeing him climb her body amused Rixie to no end.
Alex was rather fond of it too, if he was completely honest with himself.
“So where are we going?” He said as thy reached the top of the shaft and crawled up into a horizontal vent that ran along the ceiling.
“Dunno. What do you think? You want a tour?”
“How long will it take?” Alex asked pensively.
“S’matter, afraid your owner lady’s gonna walk off without you?” Izzy asked smirking. “Don’t worry, we got some time before the ship reaches our destination.”
“I keep telling you she’s not… ah screw it.”
They traveled down the dust filled vent for what felt like miles but was probably only a few hundred meters, before reaching a junction. Without even missing a beat, Izzy turned left and headed down that path, Alex struggling to keep up with her through the ankle-deep layer of dust.
“Where are we going?” He asked, trying to avoid inhaling as much of the dirt as possible.
“I figured we’d stop by the engine room first. Plenty of ways to get into trouble down there!”
Despite himself, Alex couldn’t help but grin. “Well, I’m always up for getting into trouble.”
The pair of them continued walking through the duct, their steps muffled by the dust.
“So where you from anyhow? I mean, back on Earth.” Izzy asked in a conversational tone.
“Wisconsin.” Alex replied, waving dust particles away from his face. “You?”
“Michigan.”
“Upper or lower peninsula?”
“Upper.”
“Ah.”
They walked in silence for a moment, before Alex spoke again.
“Lions suck, by the way.”
“Shut up, Cheesehead!”
The young man shrugged. “I’m just saying, their record hasn’t been great in oh…”
“Shh… shut up a second.” Izzy hissed. She stopped and knelt by another vent. Hesitatingly, Alex joined her.
As they watched, a Titaness with long reddish hair passed underneath them, her long strides quickly carrying her out of sight down the corridor.
“Who was that?” Alex whispered once the giant woman was out of sight.
“Commander Lemm.” Izzy replied. “She’s the first officer. We should stop by her quarters. She has a stash of adlela.”
“What’s that?”
“Archavian beer.” Izzy stood back up and dusted herself off before resuming walking down the vent, Alex quickly following after. “You’ll appreciate that I’m sure, being from Wisconsin.”
Alex scowled. “That’s a stereotype.”
“Oh… So you don’t want any?”
“I didn’t say that.”
Izzy grinned in the dim light. “Come on, Engineering is just past this turn up ahead.”
The two of them travelled a bit further down the path until the found themselves at another grate that was already slightly ajar.
“I use this one a lot.” Izzy explained as she nudged it open with the toe of her boot. She climbed out through the opening and disappeared.
“Izzy?” Alex stuck his head through and found the woman in question standing on a shelf covered in gigantic tools. “Wow…”
“Neat huh?” Izzy said with a grin. The room itself was enormous, almost as big as Pryvani’s bedroom. Along every wall was a bank of computer terminals and a dizzying array of pipes and conduits lining the tops of the walls and ceilings. In the center of the controlled chaos sat a large pillar of pulsating green and blue light.
“That’s a model Zeta-Rho fifty-seven.” Alex exclaimed. “I thought those were still in the experimental phase.”
Izzy shook her head, impressed despite herself. “Nah. It’s brand new, just installed a few days ago.” She began walking along the top of the shelf, looking down at the Titan engineers below. “How do you know about that?”
Alex shrugged. “How could I not? It’s freaking spaceships! Besides, I have a lot of time on my hands.”
“Yeah.” Izzy sniggered. “Being a pet will do that.”
Alex glowered at her, but didn’t respond.
“C’mon… let’s get a closer look.” She led the way and climbed down the shelf until she reached the work top surface that ran along the entire wall of the engine room.
“Oh hey look, it’s Fuzzball.” Alex looked where Izzy was pointing and saw… well, it looked like a forty-something foot tall lemur with four arms and striped grey and white fur.
The creature’s head turned at the sound of her voice and Alex saw it was wearing what looked like a pair of black welder’s goggles and a tool belt.
The lemur creature cocked its head to the side quizzically. The long prehensile tail arched over its head and flicked to the side. Suddenly, it began to gesticulate with its lower pair of arms, which Alex now saw were wearing a pair of metal gauntlets.
“What are you doing here, Human-Female?” The voice wasn’t coming from the creature’s mouth, which didn’t move, but rather from a small black device clipped to the tool belt. The voice was flat and mechanical, although vaguely feminine sounding. It reminded Alex of the computer from Star Trek.
“C’mere Fuzz, I wanna introduce you.” Izzy called over.
Another quizzical head movement, and the giant four armed lemur dropped to all six paws and bounded over to where they were waiting, before standing erect again.
“Alex, this is Fuzzball, she’s the head engineer.”
The alien turned towards Izzy. If Alex didn’t know better it looked like there was a disapproving frown on her face.
“Designation Engine-Fixer. Not ‘Fuzzball,’ Human-Female.” The engineer’s hands and tail moved wildly.
“Yeah well, you keep calling me ‘Human-Female.’” Izzy shot back.
“Engine-Fixer suggested designation Troublemaker. Human-Female did not approve.” Engine-Fixer’s tail wavered in what Alex took to be a shrug. “Will designate as Human-Female until another fitting designation becomes apparent.”
Izzy rolled her eyes. “Of course you will.”
“So you speak through sign language.” Alex observed. “And that translates it to speech for you.”
“You are correct, Human-Male.”
“Not just that, but Fuzz… I mean Engine-Fixer’s goggles translate our speech to pictographic representations of her language and project them onto the lenses in front of her eyes.”
“Are you able to hear?” Alex asked.
“The People can hear. Not able to understand sound-languages.”
“Why not?”
“They just aren’t wired that way. It would be like us trying to understand a language of smells.” Izzy explained.
“Why did you say ‘The People’?”
“Because we are designated as the People.” Engine-Fixer seemed confused by the question.
“I guess that’s what they call themselves.” Izzy explained. “The Titans call them the Avartle, but their language doesn’t do personal names very well, so they have Designations- which are kinda like nicknames- for everybody. And so they just call themselves whatever their sign for People is.”
“Nicknames, huh?”
“Yeah… it’s like working for Darren again, really…” Izzy muttered.
“Who?”
“Never mind.” Izzy sighed and shook her head. “C’mon Human-Male. We can go have a look-see about that beer the Commander has stashed away. We’ll see you later Engine-Fixer.”
“Goodbye Humans.”
Alex followed Izzy into another set of vents and down another branch of ducts. They walked for what seemed like miles until Izzy suddenly stopped.
“Here we are.”
“How do you know where you’re going?” Alex asked, brushing dust from his shoulders.
“I haven’t had a lot to do since I was taken from Earth, so I had a lot of time to explore this ship.”
“Yeah, being a pet will do that.” Alex muttered sarcastically.
Alex watched as Izzy poked her head through the vent. “Come on. Doesn’t look like she’s around.” She stepped out into the vast room and looked around.
The room was Spartan in its decoration, and everything was neat and orderly. The carpet was a muted stone grey, and off in the distance was a large bed-perfectly made and covered in a dark blue comforter. On the far wall was a large closet, clothes hanging neatly on a bar and boots and shoes paired off and lined up like soldiers at parade rest.
Alex cautiously followed after Izzy. “Are you sure we should be doing this? That Commander Lemm doesn’t look like she’s someone we want to cross.”
“Ah c’mon. Quit being such a pet.” Izzy teased. “Were you always this much of a mouse or did it take living with giants to bring it out?”
“Mouse?!” Alex snapped. “I once had a Titan bent on killing me and I knocked her out cold.”
“Sure you did.” Izzy snorted. “C’mon, beer’s over here.”
“Mouse… show you mouse…” Alex muttered darkly as he followed after.
Izzy led him across the vast plain of the carpeted floor towards what looked like a mini-fridge. They’d made it to roughly the center of the floor when a door on the other side of the room slid open. The two humans watched in horror as an enormous red haired woman stepped into the room. She was naked except for a towel wrapped around her torso, and her long hair was dripping wet.
Commander Lemm, fresh from her shower.
“Uh oh.” Izzy whispered.
The watched as Lemm shook out her long mane of hair, sending a small hurricane’s worth of water across the room.
“What do we do?” Alex whispered.
“Okay…” Izzy replied, just as quietly. “Very slowly make your way back towards the vent… maybe she won’t notice…”
“Too late. I already noticed.”
“Shit. RUN!” Izzy grabbed Alex’s hand and they pelted towards the open ventilation shaft. Alex glanced over his shoulder at the pair of soaking wet columns made from shapely muscular flesh that were currently thundering in their direction.
They were about half way back to the vent when a shadow passed overhead. A second later a bare foot with purple painted toenails slammed down in front of them, cutting off their escape. Izzy and Alex skidded to a stop before darting to the left; narrowly avoiding the commander’s reaching hand.
“Now where do we go?” Alex yelled as they ran.
“Away from the giant naked woman!”
“Well, it goes against my every instinct, but…”
The ground shook underneath them as Lemm stomped towards them again. “Izzy, I swear when I catch you I’m going make you clean the entire mess hall floor with a toothbrush!” Lemm growled. In her haste to catch up to the humans, the towel slipped from her grip and fell to the floor.
Alex spared a glance back and saw a very angry and very naked giantess coming towards them.
With an annoyed grunt, Lemm fell to her knees and reached for the fleeing humans. Izzy and Alex tried to get away, but soon felt long slender fingers wrapping around their bodies and lifting them into the air.
“Izzy!” Lemm snarled, lifting the tiny woman to her eyes. “The captain’s going to hear about this.”
“Aw, c’mon Commander. There’s no reason to involve Bass.”
“Just be glad I don’t chuck you out an airlock.” Lemm growled. “I can’t believe you invaded my quarters!”
Then she glanced down at Alex ensconced in her other hand. “And I don’t know where you came from, but if you’re not careful I’ll throw you out an airlock too!”
“Where have I heard that one before?” Alex muttered.
Lemm crossed the room to her bed, where she set the two humans down on her bedside table and trapped them under an upended water glass.
“There. Once I get dressed, the two of you are going straight to Bass.”
“Great plan Izzy.” Alex muttered.
The two of them spent the next few minutes crammed under the glass until Commander Lemm returned wearing her uniform.
“Come on, you two.” She growled removing their glass prison and picking the two of them up. “Let’s go have a chat with the Captain.
With that, she left her quarters and stepped out into the corridor.
Lemm stormed towards the Captain’s office, the two humans clutched tightly, but carefully, in her fist. She reached the door to Bass’s office which obediently opened in front of her.
“Captain, this really is the last straw! I-” She drew up short as she realized she had just barged in on a meeting between the Captain and their Imperator passengers.
“Commander, you’re really making me regret my ‘open door’ policy.” Bass muttered mildly. Rixie was struggling not to look amused, and Vanser was sitting in his chair, relaxed.
“Sir!” Lemm drew up straight. “Apologies, sir.”
“Well…” Bass leaned back in his chair. “As long as you’re here… what’s so important?”
Lemm sighed and held out her hand, revealing the two humans. “I caught one troublemaker poking around where she didn’t belong, and one stowaway.”
Rixie’s eyes widened and she shot to her feet suddenly. “Captain! This is unconscionable! I was willing to overlook one human, but two? And him a male! What if they breed?”
“Me breed with him? You’re nuts lady!”
“Now Imperator, I can assure you, I have no idea where-”
“No.” Rixie shook her head and stomped over to where Lemm was standing. “This has to end right now!” Before anybody could stop her, she snatched Alex from Lemm’s hand and set him on the floor.
“Here. I’ll dispose of him for you!”
“WHAT?!” Bass bellowed and leaped to his feet, at the same time Lemm and Izzy both began shouting incoherently over one another.
Alex stood on the floor, gazing up at Rixie with a wry smirk on his face as she raised her booted foot above him. He wasn’t worried, obviously, but he was rather interested in seeing how far Rixie was willing to go before flinching.
“Oh don’t worry Captain.” Rixie spoke nonchalantly. “It’s not a big deal, it really doesn’t take much.” Then, just as Bass made it around his desk to try and stop her, she slammed her foot on the ground.
…Right next to Alex, who was still gazing up at her nonchalantly.
“Wait!” Bass shouted, right before he realized that the human was still there, on the floor, completely unhurt.
“Imperator…?” He asked, confused.
Rixie smiled at Bass. “I’m sorry Captain, I have a confession to make… This human actually belongs to me.”
She quickly bent down and scooped Alex into her hand, dusting him off gently as she raised herself back to her full height.
Bass was left gaping at her for a moment. “…What?” He finally managed to spit out.
“This is Alex.” Rixie explained. “He’s mine.”
Bass blinked at her before things finally clicked into place. He sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Imperator Tam, With all due respect… Are you insane?”
Rixie smiled and sat back down in her chair. “Maybe a little. But it was pretty funny.”
“Funny nothing!” Izzy yelled from Lemm’s palm. “You about gave me a heart attack!”
“Sorry about that Izzy.” Rixie smiled impishly at the small woman, and then turned her gaze to the man in her palm. “You okay Alex?”
“Of course I am.” Alex laughed, sitting in her hand. “I wasn’t worried. I knew you weren’t going to actually do anything; I just wanted to see how far you’d take it. I do admire your dedication to the gag, however.”
“Of course.” She smiled, and then turned to Izzy who was still in Lemm’s hand. “Hello. We haven’t really been introduced. My name’s Rixie. I wanted to apologize for even suggesting you might be a pet, even as a joke.”
“Oh, well, that’s okay.” Izzy muttered, still somewhat confused. “No real harm, I guess.”
“Well, now that that’s all cleared up…” Bass sighed and fell back in his chair. He reached over and pressed a button on his desk. “Have Crewmate Gwenn report to my office, please.”
“Oh no…” Izzy muttered. “Aw c’mon Captain… do we really have to involve her?”
“Yes. I’m afraid we do. Imperators, this should only take a moment.” Bass sighed as the door chimed, and opened with a hiss, allowing Lauryna Gwenn to enter.
“You wanted to see me Capt-? …oh no… Izzy…”
“Okay Commander Tam…” Captain Bass turned back to his XO. “Tell us what happened.”
Lemm shifted for a moment. “I… found them in… a restricted area.”
Bass nodded. “Okay. Izzy, you’re confined to quarters for five days. And just to make sure you actually stay there, Gwenn is to be held responsible for your behavior. Any infractions will go on her record.”
“But… Captain, don’t punish the kid for what I did.” Izzy pleaded miserably.
“I haven’t. Yet.” Bass replied calmly. “Whether that stays that way or not is entirely up to you. Understand?”
Izzy swallowed and stood straight in Lemm’s hand. “Aye sir.”
“Good. You and Gwenn are dismissed then.”
Looking miserable, Gwenn took Izzy into her hand and shuffled out.
“So where were they really?” Bass asked when the door had shut behind them.
“In my quarters.” Lemm replied. “I didn’t think three weeks of confinement was particularly fair though.”
Bass nodded in agreement. “No, that’s a long time for a human.” Suddenly his gaze lowered to the man in Rixie’s palm.
“And what am I to do with you?” He asked wryly.
“Oh… Don’t worry about him, Captain.” Rixie purred with an evil smirk on her face. “I’ve got him covered.”