Planet of the Dino-whores Ch. 01

Zara's knuckles turned white as she clenched the controls, easing the spacecraft closer to the swerving enemy ahead of it. Her glittering hazel-yellow eyes focused on the bleeping screen in front of them. Her mind was blank, nothing but a perfectly trained muscle sending the appropriate signals to her hands and feet.

"A little bit more," Henrik said behind her. His voice was shaky with anticipation.

Their ship shuddered as the planet's gravity strengthened its hold; the planet, itself, grew larger and larger in frame. The enemy craft buzzed back and forth like an angry wasp.

"Get a shot and take it," Zara said. There was no shakiness to her voice. Perhaps this was why she was the pilot and Henrik the gunner. Gunners were notoriously anxious.

"Anti-measures!" Henrik cried. Zara looked up from the controls. The wasp seemed to be vomiting glowing blue balls out its ass. This was trouble.

"Hold on," she said. Zara took evasive action, thrusting the controls right. The ship shuddered as a mine erupted to their left. She pushed the controls down, and another mine turned their vision white as it burst with a sharp crack.

Zara's nerves tingled. They'd left the vaccum of deep space and were enough into the planet's atmosphere to hear sound. This was bad. In space, there was no sound. It was one of things that Zara found so peaceful about it. But she did not like getting too close to uncharted planets, certainly not close enough to hear outside sound; anything could be down there.

She swept the ship past the mines, electric blue energy exploding around them.

"Take him out," Zara said through gritted teeth.

"Got him," Henrik replied, and he mashed the trigger. Nothing.

"What's the problem?"

"I've... I've got no response. Guns're out!" Henrik cried. The ship began to shudder. Zara felt an iciness grow in the pit of her gut. She tried to pull the ship up, but the ship didn't respond. She felt her composed resolve begin to evaporate.

"No response from the controls. The planet... must have some kind of magnetic field jamming us," Zara said in a dead voice. She kept her hands on the controls, hoping that perhaps if she could keep the rudders steady they might have a chance at not being obliterated when they hit the surface. It was a small hope. This was exactly why she didn't get close to uncharted planets.

Then the windshield filled up with green, quickly approaching land, and the world exploded around them.

***

Zara's eyes fluttered open. Her mouth tasted of smoke and blood. The cockpit reeked of sour vomit. She twisted in her seat, checked on Henrik behind her. The front of his shirt was splattered with orange slop- that explained the vomit smell, at least.

"Henrik," she said. His eyelids twitched. His lips puttered.

"Z... Zara?" he said in a weak voice. "We're not dead?"

A sound, a rustle of jungle foliage, caught Zara's attention. Her mind reeled. She thought about ship they had been following and its cargo: Karh Blade, the most sought bounty this side of the Asimov quadrant. Her eyes went to the blaster strapped in her shoulder holster.

"Not yet," she said. She unbuckled herself out of the pilot's chair and helped Henrik out of his own; she noticed the back of her seat had been coated with a healthy helping of Henrik's breakfast.

"None of that shit better be in my hair," she said, nodding towards the vomit. She kicked open the hatch.

"Why do you think we wear helmets?" Henrik responded. Zara looped an arm under his armpit and pulled him out of the wreckage.

She took a moment to take in their surroundings as Henrik struggled to find his balance. Thick, dark jungle loomed in lush greens and browns. Zara was reminded of the long extinct rainforests of Earth that she had studied as a girl. She thought of the sound she had heard, a sound like someone or something moving through the jungle.

And then Karh Blade appeared from the shadows of a large, yellowish fern, and his blaster erupted with a fiery red laser.

"Down!" Zara cried and pushed Henrik to the ground while simultaneously unholstering her weapon. They disappeared over the side of the wreckage. Blade's shot burned a scorching scar into the metal carcass of the ship at their backs. It was just her luck that that starshitter, Blade, would have survived.

"I didn't see Terk," Henrik said. His eyes were wide and red. He looked scared out of his wits, all confidence gone now that he was not behind a set of mega-blasters. But he had a point. No doubt, Terk, Blade's infernal side kick, was flanking them while Blade caused a distraction from the front.

"That's because I'm right here," as if reading Zara's thoughts, a throaty, shrill voice said to her right. A hand with a blaster extended from behind a gnarled tree. Zara cursed her luck. If only Henrik had made his observation a half second earlier, she might have had time to think of something.

"Throw it down," Terk said, taking a step from behind the trunk of the tree. His beady eyes gleamed with delight. His lips were stretched back, revealing a set of crooked teeth in a wide, twisted grin. Zara sighed and dropped her blaster. To think it all would end like this, at the hands of a bounty and his flabby, fish-faced flunky.

"It seems the hunters have become the hu-," Terk was saying, and then suddenly he wasn't. As if one of the gods had grown tired of the cliché Terk was about to utter and wanted to nip it in the bud, his words turned into a high-pitched shriek, and it took Zara's mind a moment to catch up to what her eyes were seeing.

A roar and an explosion of foliage, and then Terk was flailing within a set of giant, razor teeth. He was torn from the ground, his feet kicking, and blood spurted from the mouth of the creature that had clamped him in its jaws. It was a tall, monstrous lizard, black eyes mounted on the side of a long scaly head. Dark, wet liquid dripped from nose holes at the end of a curving snout. The lizard shook its head, and Zara heard the distinct sound of bones cracking and snapping. Shreds of meat clung to the monster's teeth. Something dropped from its mouth and rolled between Zara's scuffed boots: Terk's head, his mouth gaping open in a horrible, silent scream.

Zara grabbed her blaster and pulled Henrik and yelled, "Run!"

They took off through the jungle as hard and as fast as they could. Karh Blade was so confused to see them that he hesitated in firing his blaster, and his expression turned to dismay when the creature appeared hot on their heels, bellowing a roar of disapproval, bits of Terk still clinging to its incisors.

"What is that thing?" Blade yelled, racing with them, keeping pace at Zara's side. It seemed that an escape from a giant, monster lizard superseded any bad blood between Zara and her potential bounty.

"I don't know, but it's hungry and pissed off!" Zara replied. As if in response, the monster roared and thundered behind them like an angry god.

Then the ground gave away under them, and Zara, Henrik, and Blade fell careening into the black darkness below the surface.

***

Zara coughed to life, her body awakening to a sore ache that stretched from her toes to her scalp. Two concussions in one day? She didn't think she was living a particularly healthy lifestyle. She tried moving her hands and came to the dim realization that her wrists were bound. This could not be good.

She tried to put things into perspective. Everything had happened so fast: the chase after Blade's ship, the crash to the surface, the appearance of the giant lizard, the fall into a black void, and subsequent unconsciousness. When she thought about it, it seemed like a more than full day, and apparently, it wasn't over.

"Awake?" an unfamiliar voice spoke from the darkness. Zara squinted, but she couldn't make out anything. Her temples throbbed.

"Who are you? Where am I? What is going on?" Zara said. She struggled against her bonds. They held fast. Her questions burned almost as much as the flesh around her wrists.

"Relax," the voice said. It was soft, soothing.

"Who are you?" Zara repeated. An icy chill shivered down her spine. She could now understand why so many people had a fear of the dark.

"A friend," the voice said. "Quiet now. They're coming." The voice drifted, becoming faint.

Orange light flickered behind a barred window, illuminating Zara's cell. She was alone. Rocky walls surrounded her, dripping with black ichors. She looked at her wrists; they were shackled and chained to the floor. With a gritty screech, the door to her cell opened. A flaming torch proved to be the source of the orange light. The torch was held in the hand of an imposing, muscular woman.

"So you're awake," the woman said and stepped into the cell.

***

Unchained and unshackled, Zara was led down a wide tunnel and up a broad set of stone stairs. Her throat felt dry, and her heart was like a nervous rabbit in her chest. She kept her eyes on the sloping back of the figure in front of her, trying to keep her thoughts under control. Lined up on either side of the corridors were throngs of women. They were dressed in white robes; Zara remembered seeing similar garb when studying Earth history. The robes reminded of her the clothing of the ancient Greeks. But the ancient Greeks weren't all women.

This just didn't make any sane sense. She kept waiting to spot a male amongst the crowd, but there were none to be seen. She assumed the men must be off somewhere else, perhaps another part of the... palace? Temple? Castle? Whatever this building was.

She walked through a set of two-story high wooden doors and into a kind of throne room. Tall, vaunted ceilings triangled upwards, and Zara felt a little dizzy gazing up at them. Windows spread high and wide along the walls. Then she saw Henrik and Karh standing at the foot of some pedestal, a gold throne gleaming above them. Her guard led her towards the same area. Henrik greeted her with a grim smile, and Karh gave her a curt nod.

"Any ideas?" Henrik said as Zara took her place at his side. Her guard prodded her into position and then sauntered off. Zara shook her head, feeling vulnerable in nothing but her dark blue flight suit, her blaster apparently confiscated by her captors.

"Wait and watch," Zara said. Karh Blade grunted in response on the other side of Henrik, but Zara ignored him. Karh was not a man known for his patience or his caution, and that was why Zara would have caught him- if it hadn't been for this godforsaken planet.

A loud, booming voice called, "The Queen approaches!"

The women in robes that lined the walls of the throne room fell to their knees, bowing low. Zara's guard speared the back of her knees with a pointy-ended weapon, and Zara buckled, her hands coming up to keep her face from smacking into the stone floor. Karh and Henrik were suddenly down next to her, having received the same treatment from their own guards.

"What the hell is this place?" Blade growled in a low voice. Zara shook her head. She had no idea how the answer that question. Too much had happened too fast, and she was having trouble keeping her own thoughts and emotions at bay. Her nerves felt on the verge of a complete breakdown.

Then, above them, from a corridor somewhere behind the throne, the Queen appeared. Zara felt her breath catch in her throat, and she heard Henrik utter a moan next to her. The Queen was like nothing and no one Zara had ever seen before. A strong, hard face was framed by a swirl of long, blonde hair flowing down her shoulders and her back like a golden mane. Beneath a gown of silver mesh, a set of graceful curves outlined an athletic body held upon a set of long, muscular legs. The Queen might have been beautiful except for the green shiny scales that covered her body and the flicking tail protruding from the back of her dress.

"What in the name of Jupiter's flaming balls?" Henrik said in an awed voice.

As if in response, the Queen pointed a long finger, ending in a red-painted nail like a talon, directly at Henrik. The Queen's lips peeled back over a set of sharpened teeth.

"That one," she hissed. A forked tongue flickered out of her mouth.

"What? I... No! No!" Henrik cried as he was hauled to his feet by a set of Amazonian guards and pulled out of sight. His cries were cut off by the clanking slam of a metal door.

The Queen's snake-like eyes turned their attention towards Karh Blade. Her tongue flicked around her mouth for a moment as the Queen waited, seemingly in deep thought. Zara gave credit to Blade. He met the Queen's steely gaze with one of his own. Blade was not a man who was easily intimidated, and if he was the least bit dismayed by the situation, he had done nothing to show it. If Zara hadn't known what a zogsucking starshitter Blade was, she might have admired him.

"Take that one to my daughter," she commanded.

The guards grabbed Blade's arms and yanked him to his feet. Zara saw a flash in his eyes, read his mind, and whispered, "Play it cool, Blade. Don't get yourself killed... yet."

Something passed over Blade's face, and he gave her a nod as the guards pulled him away, apparently towards the quarters of the Queen's daughter, the princess.

Now Zara was alone, and she could feel the Queen's eyes on her like slimy tentacles sweeping over her body, copping an invasive, knowing feel. Zara brought her eyes into the Queen's gaze, and she felt her blood freeze in her veins. She wanted to be strong like Blade, but the predatory scan of the Queen's snake-eyes made the hairs on the back of Zara's neck stand on their ends. Her nipples hardened to pained nubs poking the fabric of her flight suit.

"This one," the Queen began, "Tomorrow, we will feed this one to Vanitoth."

When the crowd of women around the room leapt to their feet in a loud chorus of cheers, Zara knew that by this time tomorrow, she would be dead.

***

With his index finger, Karh Blade traced the thin white line of scar tissue lining the underside of his jaw, stretching from just under his right ear to the center of his chin. It was a habit he had picked up some time ago while deep in thought. His current deep thoughts? He was going to escape. This was understood. It was what Karh Blade did. If he hadn't made a living of plucking himself out of the dragon's mouth time and time again, he would have been swallowed alive long ago.

The guards had forced Karh through a set of doors and had slammed and locked them behind him. He took a measure of his surroundings. The room was vast and elegantly furnished, considering the rest of what he'd seen of the place. A rudimentary sleeping receptacle hunkered in the middle of the floor, covered by a thin veil of purple cloth hanging from four elaborately carved posts. Karh sneered in disgust. Barbaric. He took his hand away from his face and picked up what looked like a broken piece of... an egg (?) off a small end table.

"Do you like it?" a soft voice asked over his shoulder. Karh swung around. He froze.

The princess was nothing short of breathtaking. And unlike her mother, she was breathtaking only in good ways. Purple cloth, the same material as was hanging from the bedposts, draped the princess. It was thin enough to be transparent, and the girl's full, firm breasts prodded it with small, circular nipples. The same golden blonde hair as the Queen's swept from the princess' head and shimmered around her neck and shoulders. Her face was neither too round nor too sharp, and her lips were just thick enough as to not be too childishly pouting. Her eyes were blue, glowing, and intelligent. She was thin, toned, and mouthwatering.

Karh's mouth felt dry, and he struggled to find words as he said, "I... I... yes, it's very... interesting."

"I'm probably too sentimental," the princess said, taking the piece of broken egg from Karh's grasp. "But one should remember her humble beginnings."

Karh didn't follow her train of thought. He watched blankly as she placed the shard of egg back onto its placeholder. Every move of the princess was graceful, elegant. The purple cloth shivered around her, her body silhouetted beneath it. Karh fought a rising desire to tear it away from her and take the princess forcefully on the floor. It wasn't like his situation could get any worse, but he quelled the impulse.

"Lay down on the bed," the princess said, turning towards him. Her eyes were sharp, and her voice spoke the words as if they were a command and not merely a suggestion.

"The what?" Karh said, confused. Since the girl had walked into the room, Karh had felt a stupefying idiocy wash over him, and he hated it. Karh was used to being in complete control. The princess motioned towards the box-like sleeping receptacle in the center of the room.

"The bed, lay down."

Karh did as he was told, momentarily pushing thoughts of escape to the side. The princess followed him, and he felt the bounce of the sleeping receptacle (the "bed," she had called it) as she sat. Then her hands began to explore him, and Karh felt a lump rise in his throat. What the hell? Was this beautiful piece of royal ass feeling him up?

"Where is it? Do you have one?" the princess asked, her voice high and tight. Her fingers trembled excitedly on Karh's chest. Karh's eyes narrowed.

"One what?" he asked. The princess' eyes shifted from side to side in a nervous gesture. A small pink blush bloomed in her cheeks. Her tongue darted out, licked her lips.

"A... pleasure stick," she said, and her cheeks grew redder.

"Pleasure stick?"

It took a moment for Karh Blade to figure out what the hell she was talking about. Then recognition hit him. With a sly smile, he led the princess' slender fingers to his crotch.

"Oh!" she gasped, "It's already hard!"

***

The guards had chained Henrik to the posts of the bed, stretching his arms and legs taut in four directions. They tore off his clothes with their spears, ripping his flight suit to shreds and leaving him naked, sweaty, and vulnerable. Then just when Henrik was sure the guards were going to turn and thrust their spears into the soft meat of his torso, they disappeared out of the room.

Henrik struggled feebly against his bonds, his muscles stretched and sore, his face dripping with a frothy sheen of sweat. He heard the creak of a door swing open and footsteps approach. His heart hammered in his chest.

The Queen appeared at the foot of the bed, her hands on her hips, a smile on her scaly face. The silver mesh of her gown gleamed in the flickering candlelight of chamber. Henrik froze, his blood suddenly ice. He was certain that the end had come.

"Have you readied yourself for me, man?" the Queen said.

Henrik blinked. He said nothing. He held his jaw clenched. She was going to eat him, he knew it. She'd tear open his stomach with her claws and slurp his entrails like spaghetti. The Queen spoke, breaking off Henrik's mental visualization of his death-buffet.

"I haven't felt the flesh of man inside of me for some time. You should feel honored. You are to pleasure a queen," she said. She slid the straps of her mesh gown over her shoulders, and with a jingle of metal tinkling to the floor, the Queen stood nude, muscles rippling. Her tail gave the floor a light thwap.

Henrik felt lightheaded. His head swooned. No, no, this was worse than being eaten alive! He struggled vainly against the chains; they bit his wrists and held. The Queen took a step towards him. Her scales gleamed in the orange light. Shadows danced across the ceiling. Dim horror swept over Henrik's conscious mind.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Henrik managed in a weak voice. "I hate to break it to ya, but I promised myself long ago that I'd never fuck anything with a tail."

With a hungry snarl, the Queen leapt upon him.