Beast Planet 1: Captive Surrender

BEAST PLANET PART 1

CAPTIVE SURRENDER

Published by

Angela Castle

www.angelacastle.net

[email protected]

Copyright

2012 by
Angela Castle

Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 (five) years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Angela Castle.

Credits

Cover Artist: Gemini Judson - Wi
l
lsin Rowe

Editors: Serena Tatti - Dennis Hays

D
edication

A big
thank you
to Nancy for making sure this story came out right.

And to my husband for encouraging me to take the chance in the self publishing world
.

T
o
my fan’s
,
who love my sci-fi stories,
thank you!

I hope you enjoy this one too.

Chapter One

Don’t panic! Don’t panic! This has to be some sort of horrific nightmare
. The hovering, silver, mechanical tentacle, with three black
,
metal clamps, shoved me into a white tube. I stiffened
when
the green light illuminated my body. The beam ran from head to toe
and
then back again.

Keep stock-still. Don’t fight them; you’ve seen what happens if you fight them.
Every muscle in my body ached, from staving off the panic and completely freaking out.

Women around me screamed in agonizing pain. They spasm helplessly as the tentacle creatures snapped some sort of high voltage, making them jerk and flop like newly landed fish on dry land. I let my mind wander trying not to think I could be the next to die.

How
did
this
happened
? One moment I was having a quiet night in with my friend and flatmate Sandy, the next our second-
story
window exploded. We shrieked, frozen in terror at the sight of two, tentacle
machines zooming towards us. They must have hit us with some kind of tranquilizer, because the next thing I knew, I woke up naked on a cold metal floor along with bunch of other women.

One by one, I watched the captured women sorted, scanned, and for god-knows-what reason, some were simply placed into a transparent tube. I jumped, staring open-mouthed in horror.
The
ir screams abruptly ended as their bodies disintegrated into nothing but grey ash.
Only silence and the palpable tension of the other women remained. Cold fear ran through my veins, knowing I, too, could be shoved into ‘that’ tube.

Scanning down the line of remaining women, I searched frantically for Sandy. Where was she?

Did
they take
her, or
have
they already put her through the strange, alien, scanner thing? Dread hit my stomach, making it roll. Oh
,
god, what if they… no, no, I couldn’t bear to think about it.

The machine beeped, yanking my attention back to the present,
the three, little lights above me glowed green, and I knew
I was
given the all clear, as
I saw
with the women who were put through
before me. Knowing I wouldn’t die, yet, my tense
shoulder muscles relaxed for a moment.

The clear panel slid open and a tentacle machine grabbed me by the throat. Desperately, I clawed the cold metal gripping my neck. I gasped for breath, as it yanked me out and dragged me down a long, grey and green, reflective hallway.

Forced passed sobbing women to the end of the line of cages, I searched frantically for Sandy. She wasn’t among the women. My heart clenched in my chest, confirming my worst fear. She was dead, murdered by our alien abductors.

The machine shoved me into a small cage,
three feet
smaller than my five foot
nine height
. I crouched down, wrapping my arms around my knees. My long, light brown hair curtained around my face and back, providing the only blanket of warmth in the room. I clenched my teeth to stop them from chattering and watched the machine retreat.

“Who are they? Why the hell have they taken us?” the girl in the cage beside me whispered.

I tore my gaze away from the retreatin
g machine, shifting my cold ass
closer
to the
other woman, sliding my arm through the bar and wrapping it around the smaller, blonde girl. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen.

“I don’t know.” I found my voice at last, rasping sounds coming from my dry throat. I licked my lips, trying to find some moisture.

“I was out at a party when they came. T… the machine killed Jeff. He tried to fight it, tried to save me.” She started sobbing into her hands.

“Your boyfriend?”

She nodded.

“I’m
sorry,
I’ve lost my friend too. I’m Anna.”

“Tammy.” She sniffed.

“If anything, we’ve got to be strong
,
Tammy. Whoever they are and whatever they want, we need to be strong to survive.” I tried to sound brave.

“I don’t think I can; I’m so scared.”

“Everyone is scared. But don’t fight them; I think it’s our best chance of survival… You’ve seen how they use some kind of electric shock to subdue us, and you don’t want that.”

She shook her head. I sighe
d, the unspoken question
hanging
heavy in the
air. How long would we survive? No one knew.

The other women’s hushed whispers stopped when more women were dragged in and shoved into the remaining cages. Two more women, out of the five, were brought in and caged. My heart grieved for those they heartlessly murdered. I counted the line of cages—twenty of us remained.
From how many?
I had no idea.

“Well, at least we’ve answered one question the human race has always wanted to know.”

Tammy stared at me wide-eyed. “What’s that?”

“Humans are not alone in the universe.”

A hiss made me glance
up
. Tammy, too,
looked franticly around.
A smoky gas started to filter into the chamber
and h
ysterical cries filled the room.

“Oh god, they’re going to kill us,” Tammy wailed.

“No,” I shook her shoulder, “they wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble to capture us just to gas us to death.”

I couldn’t stop breathing in the
gas,
my vision grew dim before I blacked out.

* * * *

God, my head ached, my mouth and throat were dry. I coughed and rolled over on the cold, metal floor. Just how much did I have to drink last night?

It took a moment for the memories to re-surface. Shit, the aliens, the metal octopus robots, the abductions and murders. I groaned, wishing for nothing more than a heavy hangover, the reality slowly sank in. I was being held captive by cruel aliens. I blinked a couple of times, but the cages were still there when I opened my eyes. The same, damn cages they put us in and Tammy lay curled by the bars near me. Slowly, I pushed myself up, shifting closer to her, trying to share my body heat. I shivered, my teeth chattering in the cold. The metal floor vibrated ever so slightly under my frozen ass.

My heart and mind were numb. Losing Sandy left a bitter, angry taste in my mouth. Sniffing, I struggled to hold back the tears, trying to focus. A helpless captive, yes, but growing up with three, rough, older brothers, I learned to be tough a long time ago. Still, nothing prepared me for aliens and being held naked in a cage.

I don’t know how long I lay there, staring into nothing. I glanced around, some of the other women stirred slightly.

Not that I was a seasoned space traveller, but no doubt we were on some kind of space craft. An octopus drone passed slowly by, before a chirpy kind of warbled chatter caught my attention. Behind the octopus drone, I caught my first sight of our captors.

I stared in disbelief, as the three foot, rounded aliens waddled down the aisle between the caged women. Beetle shaped bodies, short legs, with three tripod-like hoofs. Their arms were as long as their bodies, but had four thick fingers. A long mouth cut across the centre of their round, scaly, green heads. Gecko-like eyes bulged on top. Over their bug eyes sat a single, dark scaled, uni-eyebrow. Centred in the middle of their faces, were small almond slits I could only guess were their noses.
A shiny
, black and green, metallic armour covered the bulk of their bodies, with many different flashing gadgets attached to it.

One of them held a shiny object, which appeared like a
tablet type
of
computer from earth
. They stopped in front of my cage. I swallowed convulsively, choking
down my fear. These strange, small, alien creatures held my life and those of all the women with me, in the palm, or rather scales of their hands.

It hit me
when
they pointed and tapped at their gadget, it wasn’t size that mattered, but the power of one
'
s toys, spaceships and even robots. I doubt they lifted a finger, but to make their advanced gadgets.

My heart pounded in an erratic tattoo. Brave, I had to be brave. Ignoring my nakedness, I crawled forward towards the aliens. They shuffled around to stare at me. Their strange faces lacked expression, impossible to gauge their next movement. I could only hope and pray.

“Do you understand me?”

The first alien tapped its data pad. “
We assimilated earth language before collection of the female species.”
The device spoke in a droned voice.

“Who are you?”