Kate and the Kraken by Honey Phillips
Chapter One
The escape pod smashed into the ocean with a shock that reverberated through Kate’s body, despite the restraints holding her in place. Through the small porthole, she could see a cloud of steam and a giant plume of water, rapidly replaced by bubbles jetting up through a deep jade-colored sea as the pod plunged down into the water. Oh, God, no. The thought of being entombed at the bottom of an alien ocean terrified her. But then the direction of the bubbles changed and a little later, the pod popped back up on the surface.
The aqua-colored sky swung past in dizzying circles until the pod finally settled into the same rhythm as the surrounding waves. Her stomach rolled just as erratically before finally calming enough that she could take stock of her situation.
The padding behind her was thin and worn, but although her back felt bruised and sore, she hadn’t suffered any major injuries. The restraints across her head, waist, thighs, and ankles had prevented her from being flung around the small space and undoubtedly breaking her neck. Not that she had appreciated them when they had been strapped around her.
Eshak, one of the aliens who had abducted her, had shoved her into the pod without any explanation. When she’d tried to demand an answer, he simply leered at her and grabbed her breasts, squeezing them painfully. Her arms were unrestrained and she responded instinctively, slapping his face.
He growled and raised his own hand, but before he could return the blow, Yakshi appeared. Another one of the guards, he was usually less brutal than Eshak.
“What the hell are you doing? We need to get these females off the ship before that Royal Fleet ship catches up with us.”
Eshak scowled. “I still think the captain is panicking. We don’t know that they’re coming after us.”
“Do you want to take the chance and spend the rest of your life on one of the Emperor’s prison planets? Now get moving.”
“But she slapped me.” Eshak’s scowl turned lecherous. “That means I get to punish her.”
“It will have to wait until we pick them up. Now go.”
Yakshi shoved Eshak, and he grumbled but moved away. Was he going after one of her friends now? Before she could ask, Yakshi slammed the door to the pod closed with a loud clang. The capsule lurched, then the acceleration forced her back against the thin padding as it launched itself into space.
As the pod plummeted towards a strange planet, she’d caught a brief glimpse of wide green seas and small scattered islands, but she had been distracted by the increasing heat in the small space. Although the temperature became painfully hot, the shielding had prevented the pod from burning up as it entered the atmosphere, and the air cooled rapidly once the pod hit the water.
Now that her heaving stomach had settled, she could evaluate the situation logically. Although being abandoned on a strange planet wouldn’t have been her first choice, maybe it represented a chance to finally escape from her captors. There had been little she could do while caged on an alien spaceship, but now that she was on land—or at least the surface of the planet—there should be more possibilities.
Aliens.She still couldn’t believe she had been kidnapped by aliens. She had been working late in her lab, as usual, when she realized that she had missed the daily walk that was her minimal concession to the need for exercise. The beautifully landscaped grounds surrounding the lab complex offered a number of walking trails, and she had followed her favorite one around the small lake, knowing that she would be back at her desk in thirteen minutes.
Although it was close to midnight, the trail was well lit and she had never considered the possibility of danger in the gated grounds. But as she took the picturesque bridge over the artificial waterfall, she caught a whiff of something unpleasant, followed by a stinging pain in her neck. She’d had just enough time to wonder why on earth somebody would want to drug her before darkness took her.
The next thing she knew, she woke up in a cage. A small, plump blonde smiled at her sympathetically from an adjoining cage.
“Does your head hurt? I had a terrible headache when I woke up, but it didn’t last very long. You’ll be fine in a few minutes.”
The other woman gave her a sunny smile as Kate stared at her in disbelief.
“Fine? You’ve got to be kidding. Where are we?”
The woman’s smile faltered. “I know this is going to sound crazy, but we’ve been kidnapped by aliens.”
“Aliens? Don’t be ridiculous,” Kate snapped. The woman in the other cage was wearing a much too brief white outfit that barely covered her generous curves, and her curly blonde hair was in pigtails, of all things. How could Kate take her seriously?
But then she realized that her own practical khakis and button-down shirt had been replaced with an identical outfit—a white shift dress that only fastened at her shoulders and her waist. Since she was nowhere near as well-endowed, it covered more, but it was still far more revealing than anything she had ever worn before.
Her fingers clenched in the silky fabric as she looked around. Cages lined both sides of a curved corridor, filled with an astonishing array of animals—animals that could not have come from Earth. Zoology had never been one of her main interests, but she was quite sure no Earth animal had three legs like the pink-furred one in the cage directly across from her.
“Aliens?” she asked the other woman again, but this time it really wasn’t a question.
“Mmhmm.” The woman nodded emphatically, her pigtails bouncing. “Can you believe it? I always thought that UFOs existed, but I never thought one would come and get me! I’m Mary, by the way.”
“I’m Dr. Kate Richards,” she said automatically, then winced. “I mean, call me Kate. Have you been here long?”
“I’m not really sure.” Mary’s face wrinkled into a cute little frown. “A guard came by and gave me some food a couple of times.”
Mary gestured to the front of her cage where two bowls were attached to the bars, one filled with water and the other with a greenish-colored mush. The sight horrified Kate. It wasn’t so much the food—she was so frequently distracted by work that she lived on cereal and fast food—but the clear indication that whoever had taken them regarded them as little more than animals. Her own work didn’t involve upper-level organisms, but she had seen enough of her colleagues’ labs that the resemblance to the housing of lab animals was indisputable. Was this some kind of experiment? And who was doing the experimenting?
“Are the guards aliens?” she asked.
“I think they have to be, don’t you? Although they do look kind of human, not green or anything. They’re not too bad.” A shadow crossed Mary’s face. “Not most of them, anyway.”
“Did they tell you anything? Can you even understand them?”
The pigtails bounced again as Mary nodded. “They put something in our ears. I saw them do it to you when they put you in the cage.”
Kate immediately probed her ear, recoiling when she felt something warm in her ear canal that pulsed slightly at her touch. It felt biological, but if it truly acted as a translator, there must have been more involved. Perhaps biomechanical? Her mind started to follow that trail, but then Mary suddenly stiffened. Her smile looked a little more forced as she glanced over at Kate.
“That’s the not-so-nice one. It’s better just to keep quiet.”
Kate followed her gaze to the approaching male. Dressed in a sloppy black uniform, he definitely could have passed as human, albeit an unusually short, hairy one. His heavily ridged brow reminded her of the pictures of Neanderthal man in her anthropology textbook. Perhaps there’s some common ancestry, she thought, fascinated despite her horror. The guard came to a halt in front of her cage.
“You don’t look like you’ll fetch many credits at auction,” he sneered, running his eyes over her. As Mary had said, Kate could understand him perfectly.
“Then perhaps you shouldn’t have taken me,” she said tartly. “Why don’t you take me—us—back?”
He laughed, revealing sharp yellow teeth. “Not much is better than nothing. I wouldn’t have picked you myself. But if you can convince me you’re worth it, I can make your life a lot more pleasant.” He grabbed his crotch, his meaning all too clear, and she recoiled in disgust. She had always found the thought of intimate relations with another human vaguely disgusting, and she certainly had no desire to change her mind with this primitive specimen.
He scowled at her obvious horror and leaned close to the bars. An offensive odor, the same one she had detected just before she was taken, washed over her.
“Then you’d better keep your mouth shut. Otherwise, I get to punish you. And then you’ll be too busy screaming to talk,” he snarled and walked away.
To Kate’s surprise, her hands were actually shaking. She’d been insulted many times before, but no one had ever so overtly threatened her with violence. When she looked over at Mary, her face was pale, but she managed to smile.
“See what I mean? Not very nice. But they’re not all like that.”
Kate turned her head away before she snapped at Mary’s unfounded optimism. Didn’t the other woman realize that their situation was only going to get worse? Auctioned off by alien slavers? She shuddered as her imagination conjured up their probable fate. She had always relied on research and intelligence to make her way through life, but for the first time, she didn’t think they would help. She buried her face in her knees and gave in to despair.
