Alien Caged (8 page)

A shadow fell over them.  Elisa gathered her breath, mustering all the strength she could find to scream.  “Run!  By the prophets...”

“...run!” she shrieked, her arms and legs flailing, getting tangled in the sheets that covered her sweating body.  “Get out, go, run before—”

The yells died as Elisa realized she was in her bed.  She gasped to see the dim environs of her quarters instead of the long-ago gymnasium on Earth.  Her heart pounded fit to escape her chest.

“Holy shit,” she whispered. 

She did not go back to sleep.

* * * *

Elisa hummed to herself as she primped in front of the big mirror in her quarters.  It wasn’t easy to apply makeup in the dim lighting, but she had it as bright as the latest power restrictions allowed.

Last night’s dream had left her with a feeling of foreboding.  She was doing everything in her power to shake it off, at least the way it had ended.  After all, the part where Zemos’ clan had ravished her had been wonderful.  If she could just grasp that delightful fantasy and hold onto it, everything would be hunky-dory.

A little lipstick gave her lips color, though Elisa blotted most of the dark wine shade back off.  It wouldn’t do to look like a painted whore ... especially if she should be so unlucky as to run into Commander Chase.  In the aftermath of the dream, it seemed dangerous to put any makeup on at all.

She didn’t try to fool herself about what she was doing.  She worked to make herself as attractive as possible for Clan Zemos.  Every smile, every kind word, every hint of approval she received from them was saved in her heart.  Even the Dramok’s clumsy compliments the day before were gold, as little as she believed them.

“Your pretty face could brighten the darkest night,” she gruffly informed her reflection in a terrible imitation of the handsome alien.  Elisa laughed and did her best coquette in response.  “Why, you smooth devil, Captain Zemos.  You still don’t get seconds on your meals.”

Elisa shook her head, noting the crow’s feet that appeared with her smile.  She acknowledged them with sad acceptance.  No, she was not pretty anymore, if she ever had been.  It was still nice to hear someone say she was, though.  Sometimes Elisa believed the falsehoods Clan Zemos spoke, simply because they offered them with such warmth.  The three men were always kind to her.  Was it any wonder she’d fallen for them?

Elisa liked all the Kalquorians that had been taken prisoner.  Even the ones in the general population brig had been unfailingly nice to her.  They bowed at her approach and thanked her for bringing their meals, as if it wasn’t a part of her duties.  Despite the fact the alien species was without many women, they never acted untoward with her.  There were no ugly comments, like the ones Remington made.  Sure, their gazes might contain a certain amount of heat, but Elisa thought that was to be expected.  Even with need in their expressions, the Kalquorians managed a measure of reverence at her presence.  She never got a sense of violation around them.

Elisa had entertained fantasies of the Kalquorians breaking free and escaping, of them taking her with them as an adored prisoner.  It was no surprise her dream had depicted Clan Zemos as being so demanding and forceful.  Her body always warmed to think of being held helpless by the aliens.

Her favorite fantasy involved being bound naked in a dungeon-like setting as man after man came to her, taking his pleasure with her body.  They would ignore her pleas for mercy, intuiting she wanted them every bit as much as they wanted her.  Those visions made her stomach churn with ticklish warmth and her sex grow wet.  She imagined the Kalquorians made her acknowledge her animal lusts before granting the ecstasy she’d only experienced with her own fingers.

Elisa was used to such feelings, as strange as they were.  Before the capture of the Kalquorians, she used to daydream about other men getting her alone, of them demanding her to surrender to their passions.  Those fantasy men had never had faces or been anyone she knew.  No one on the ship had interested her in that way, especially since she was afraid one of the men might end up raping her.

Elisa had long given up trying to understand why she fantasized about forceful encounters with the men.  She didn’t know why she found the idea alluring, particularly when it came to Zemos, Oret, and Miragin.  How could she imagine such things yet still despise the threat that came from men like Remington?  Was it because she sensed the underlying goodness of her objects of affection, rejecting those who looked only to their own desires with no thought for hers?

Elisa made no sense to herself, especially since realizing Clan Zemos had turned into more than a delicious and decadent fantasy to be served in her lonely virgin bed.  She was aware their seeming kindness could be a lie.  Yet it never felt like a falsehood.  Every time they asked after her welfare, it was with the sense that they truly cared to know she was happy and healthy. 

It was crazy that Elisa had fallen head over heels for the trio, yet she had.  She was convinced she was in love.

She combed back the forward part of her hair, fixing it in a pink bow barrette.  Her shoulder-length mahogany tresses flowed down her back.  That part looked pretty, but Elisa grimaced at her reflection.  The frilly bow made her look as if she was trying hard to look younger than she was.  The frown lines at the corners of her mouth elicited another sigh. 

“Old spinster,” Elisa muttered at herself, unfastening the bow and letting her hair tumble down.  The funny thing was, she didn’t feel like she thought a woman in her late forties should, especially not around Zemos, Miragin, and Oret.  Their smiles and warm gazes made her feel young and girlish, full of hope.  They were the reason she powdered to take the shine off her forehead and nose, why she brushed on mascara to make her chocolate brown eyes pop, and why she gave her full lips a dash of lipstick.  Before they’d come along, she’d given up such niceties.

She brushed her hair again, letting it assemble itself in loose waves.  The chronometer warned her it was time to get moving, to take her roundabout trek to the kitchen.  She tucked a small spray bottle of vinegar in the pocket of her smock.  If anyone wanted to attack her in the corridors, he’d get an eyeful.

Elisa gave herself one last look.  Her smock and skirt had become a couple of sizes too large since food rationing had become an issue.  It felt like she was always hungry nowadays, with an unpleasant hollowness yawning wide in her gut.  There was no help for it though; as the ship’s nutritionist she knew better than most how low the stores had gotten.

“I should have left the ship when I had the chance,” Elisa whispered to herself.  She still sometimes considered asking Captain Walker to let her off at the next opportunity.

But then what?  Earth was gone and Elisa had no funds to live anywhere else.  Not only that, but First Officer Chase and Lieutenant Commander Robards had begun naming those attempting to leave as traitors.  Some whispered that not all those who’d abandoned the cruiser had made it off the ship, at least not alive.  Rumor had it secret executions had begun without the captain’s knowledge.

Escaping also meant leaving behind Zemos’ clan.  The thought of not getting those few stolen seconds with the three Kalquorians was enough to bring tears to Elisa’s eyes.  At the very least, she needed to know their ultimate fate before she could contemplate running away.  She had to know they would be all right.

She sighed and turned her back on the unkind vanity area that reminded her how few options were left to a middle-aged woman with no home planet and nowhere safe to turn.  Her hand in her pocket, curled around the small bottle of vinegar, Elisa left her quarters.

She reached the battlecruiser’s kitchen unmolested.  The moment she got there, Elisa went straight to her station and began prepping the Kalquorian prisoners’ lunches. 

As a dietician, her main job before things had fallen apart had been quality control, regulating food safety, planning menus, and training other kitchen staff.  She knew quite a bit about actual cooking, but that duty had fallen to the others.  However, with so many leaving the ship after Armageddon, Elisa had picked up the slack.  There were only 250 or so people left in the crew.  However, with only ten manning in the kitchen, that meant everyone there pitched in. 

The one area most of the kitchen staff was unwilling to help with was preparing the Kalquorian prisoners’ meals.  The entirety of that responsibility now lay on Elisa’s shoulders.  She even made their breakfasts ahead of time, leaving it to the morning shift to warm the meals and deliver them.  The early day staff groused about even that small duty, but a visit from Captain Walker at Elisa’s request had kept them in line so far.

The one thing that still united the majority of the crew was their dislike of Kalquorians.  After Armageddon, they hated their enemy more than ever.  Many had decried keeping the prisoners alive, no matter what the Holy Leader wanted.

One of the few people not utterly devoted to wiping Kalquorians out had been the ship’s head doctor.  He’d approached Elisa soon after their capture with a list of the aliens’ dietary needs:  high iron and protein content, very few grains, and Earther levels of fruits and vegetables that were also high in carbohydrates.

“I’ve told Captain Walker the Kalquorians require a lot of meat,” Dr. Stroud had informed her.  “They can go longer than us without eating anything, but after two months without animal protein and iron, their bodies break down fast.  The captain’s orders are to not ration their diet at all.  Apparently where they’re going, they’ll need to be as healthy as we can keep them.”

“Where are we taking them?” Elisa had asked.

Dr. Stroud grimaced.  “I was told it was none of my business.  I get the feeling it’s not a good place, however.”

The head doctor had disappeared, along with a shuttle, two weeks later. 

Elisa’s station, as stringently clean as she’d left it, consisted of a cutting surface that never absorbed bacteria, a sink, a cooktop, and a flash roasting/baking oven.  For the food she would prepare, she had to go to the end of the busy kitchen.  The cavernous space, light on personnel, was still thunderous with a cacophony of clattering dishes and thuds of chopping.  Even with only ten people working there, they managed to be loud.

Elisa stopped by the cooling units and pantry on her way to the thawing bins, where she’d set in frozen ground sausage and beef the night before.  A raid on an Adraf trader had netted familiar Earther foods en route from Haven Colony to Dantovon seven months ago.  They’d come across no other ships carrying food of any kind since then. 

She traveled through the thick savory smells of lunch, her mouth watering.  The beef stew cooking for the ship’s crew would contain more broth than meat.  The scent still managed to be divine.

Elisa took her security key and clicked it to unlock the units where she kept the prisoners’ food and supplements.  It had become necessary to keep the items secure when the other cooks had begun dipping into the supplies behind her back.  Elisa’s rigorous protection of food Captain Walker had ordered set aside for the Kalquorians was not regarded well.  She hummed her nervousness as she went into the pantry, sure the rest of the kitchen staff was staring hatefully at her.  She didn’t dare look to make sure.

Elisa snagged a nearby cart and loaded it with the ingredients she needed.  Lunch’s menu was meatloaf, herbed mashed potatoes and cauliflower, and a fruit salad.  Miragin had offered lavish compliments for her meatloaf when she’d tried it out on the Kalquorians two weeks ago.  Zemos had a particular affinity for burritos, and Oret, while he kept his opinions to himself, always smiled at the sight of liver and onions.

Deciding that would do for dinner, Elisa put liver into the unit to thaw.

She took the lunch ingredients back to her station and set about making meatloaves.  Elisa wished she had fancier fare to offer the Kalquorians besides roast chicken, hamburgers, and the like.  Steaks would have been nice.  It had been a long time since Elisa had seen a steak on the battlecruiser.

Each Kalquorian got a full-sized meatloaf.  They were big men with huge appetites.  Elisa slid the first 25 into the flash oven, smiling to herself in expectation of Miragin’s delight.  The circumstances were awful, but it was nice to cook for people who appreciated it.

She turned back to her prep block and the smile fell off her face to see the kitchen manager Lester Sprague glowering from the other side of her area.  His gaze wasn’t directed at her but at the other 48 meatloaves and the rest of the food to be prepared for the prisoners.  Sprague was a hardliner like the first officer.  He despised the Kalquorians.

Taking a deep breath to calm her suddenly pounding heart, Elisa said, “Good morning, sir.  How are you today?”

The grim face rose to look at her.  Sprague wore cook’s whites, which were already splattered with the morning’s work.  His yellow-flecked blue eyes, nested in wrinkles that owed to as much squinting as age, were always bloodshot.  Elisa noted he hadn’t shaved this morning, the salt-and-pepper scruff patchy on his jaw.

He nodded to her.  “Miss Mackenzie.”

He managed to be polite to her even though anger drove the creases deep into his face.  Sprague always looked like that when he saw what the Kalquorians got to eat.

A familiar statement came from his thin, scowling lips.  “It sure seems a shame the Kalqs eat well when we’re on strict rations.”

As always, Elisa tried to distract him from raging at the aliens.  “Captain Walker says it’s imperative they’re kept healthy.  I wonder why?”