Starr vs the Emperor of Space Pt. 11

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CHAPTER ELEVEN

The Space Cities of Saturn

SATURN! The ringed orb! The bejeweled crown of the solar system. While the evil Empire of Space maintains its control from Emperor Aytan Zardo's Plutonian Ice Castle, it is in Saturn that the majority of its true power resides. Without the killing radioactivity of JUPITER'S ZONE OF DEATH, Saturn is more easily navigable by the astro-spacers of this far off realm -- and so, its vast ICE RINGS have been colonized and filled with the mighty SPACE CITIES OF SATURN.

It is here that Emperor Aytan Zardo's yoke hangs the heaviest. It is here that MARK STYLES, ace reporter and former G.I in the United States Army, has come with his fellow would be revolutionaries to find the concealed force that stands against Zardo's tyranny: THE UNDERGROUND OF FREE PEOPLES. But can they find them before the evil SKAR TAILSCORN, sent by the Emperor himself, finds THEM!?

Meanwhile, on the dusty and dead world of MARS, JASMINE STARR'S long suffering maid CLAUDETTE T.S GRANT awakens from her long slumber...to find herself in a peril unimaginable by any earthly woman: Captive of the VAMPIRE QUEENS OF MARS!!!

The airlock door to the courier rocket opened with a sonorous squeal of semi-lubricated self-sealing stembolts, and from it emerged the distinct and unpalatable whiff of the long confined astro, the reek of bodies not quite cleaned enough by sponge and towel, and the harried tension that could only come from minds pushed to the utter brink by the onset of Space Madness. The two customs officials that stood before the doorway were of the most common stock of Saturnian -- Wolfmen, their ears perked up, their tails stilling as they gaped at the sight of Mark Styles emerging into the bustling spaceport that was their home.

Mark breathed in a slow, steady breath, dressed only in a castoff Imperial astro uniform, his hair bedraggled and his face covered with a thick bushy beard, and then breathed out the same sigh he had been holding in with the explosive force of a bolt-rocket pistol being discharged at range.

"Good. God. Almighty! That's...ohh, I thought Bastogne was hell and a half!" He turned back as, behind him, Robin Robinson, the Star Princess Zella, and C'law emerged onto the gangway.

"I don't want to see any of you again," Zella hissed.

"Bloody right!" Robin growled.

C'law clapped his hands down, hard, on Robin's shoulder and upon Zella's. "This is normal for astros who got crammed together that long," he said, clearly forcing the words out through his beak. "What we need to do is we need to take time away from one another."

"Right!" Zella hissed. She reached up, fiddling with her earrings. She tugged them free, then popped from each a single glittering gemstone, which she pressed into their palms. She leaned in, snarling. "Those are Plutonian Star Sapphires. They are worth fifty thousand space dollars each. Sell them. We'll meet here in a week."

"Agreed!" Robin, C'law and Mark all said, at the same time -- for at that moment, there was nothing that could disgust Mark more than the sight of each of their contemptible faces. Being trapped within the small confines of the ship -- even with the terrifying potency of the devil weed Marijuana -- had pressed Mark to strains that he had not thought possible. And so, he clutched the gemstone in his hand, then turned to face the two completely bemused wolfmen who were waiting for him to provide his docking information.

"...how long were you four in that thing?" the wolfman on the left asked -- and Mark tried to place his finger upon what was so very odd about the two of them. He ignored it, instead trying to laugh and wave his hand.

"Oh, uh...two...three months," he said.

"By the Mount of Mars!" one of the wolfmen exclaimed, dropping his stylus, while the other gaped.

"You're all alive!?" He asked. "And not completely mad!?"

"The weed helped," Mark said, shyly. "But, uh, yeah. We got pretty close to, uh...Space Madness there..." He shook his head. "I thought they were exaggerating."

The two wolfmen exchanged a glance -- and it was then that Mark realized what it was that was bothering him so much about the two aliens. He was used, by now, to the curious distinctions of the interstellar genders, the wars between the sexes as it were. Upon his home planet of Earth, there was a saying that men were from Mars and women were from Venus -- and yet, upon the Earth, the distinction between sexes was relatively slight compared to the radical divergences between the hawkmen, for instance, and their distaff counterparts. While C'law was tall and broad shouldered and a nigh perfect middle ground between man and hawk, with wings and feathers and fur and a beak...his species sisters were, by and large, nearly identical to human women save for a slightly more amazonian build, a tendency towards coppery hair, and the fact that they themselves also had wings that allowed them to fly through the air.

The same difference was mirrored across each example of alien that he had seen thusfar: Lizardmen were burly and broad shouldered and crocodillian in their exteriors with massive snouts and much sharp teeth, while their women were svelt human women with a few scales about the eyes, long whippy tails, stubby horns and otherwise normal female forms. Catmen were dangerous panthers and playful pumas and cheerful cheetahs, with muzzles and whiskers and the lot, while Catwomen had naught but ears and devilish dispositions. Devilmen were...well, there were no Devilmen women that he had seen in any of the photo-banks of the courier rocket's computer systems that he had spent months studying, but still!

Except here, that distinction was stood upon its head, for both wolfmen looked quite human, save for their fluffy ears and golden eyes and wagging tails.

"Well, I'm glad you survived without killing anyone," the one on the left said. "As it is, your ship will need to be registered and the fees paid...we have a money exchanger, if you require it!"

Mark sighed as he realized that his three long term co-prisoners aboard the courier rocket had just left him entirely alone to handle the onerous paperwork. "Take me to them," he said, gesturing and the two wolfmen led him away from the gangplank and through the warren like structure of the spaceport. The money changer was a little grumpy looking Ferretman, who measured out the space dollars that his single sapphire was worth, scowled at the exchange rate, then shook Mark's hand once he had made sure everything was on the level. With that complete, Mark simply had to fill out several space forms, to ensure that the courier rocket he was parking within the spaceport was all handled legally.

With that complete, he was escorted through the spaceport and out into the Space City known as Ringcity One.

Mark stepped out...

And took a moment simply to marvel at the sight before him.

He stood now within a cylinder of almost twenty kilometers in length, from end to end, and ten kilometers in width. The cylinder itself spun in a stately way, and that spinning itself provided the single Earth gravity that pinned him and the millions of other people who dwelled within to the floor of their artificial home, in the exact same method used by the Plutonian Ice Castle. However, where the Ice Castle had been vast and intimidating and austere, Ringcity One looked as if some fantasist had imagined a city of tomorrow -- and constructed it today. Gleaming white monorails smoothly wove between gently curved buildings, while glittering light projections took the place of more sedate Earthly billboards, advertising products and entertainments the likes of which he had never imagined -- all of it using the same English language he had been born and raised on, thanks to the Empire of Space listening to the broadcasts of Earth.

The adverts proclaimed the services and products that bedazzled his thoughts and imagination: Heart Pain? Buy a New Heart, Specially Designed by the Clone Vats of Skezzinar! Our Low Rates Cannot be Beat!!! warred with Atomic Rocket For Sale, Cheap! And competed against Skellian Verge stars in FOR ZARDO, FOR LIFE, the newest film in the Cinaplex Multidome!

Mark stepped from the port and into the thronging mass of people, his hand dipping to his pocket where his wallet rested -- and whistled slowly. "Talk about shore leave, Styles," he whispered to himself. He pulled his wallet from his pocket, opened it, counted the space dollars within, then nodded slowly.

The first thing to do was to find himself a place to stay. He walked through the thronging crowds of aliens, only to see the first sign that not all was sanguine within this city in space: Three of Emperor Aytan's deadly Clone Troopers stood at the corner of the street that ran beside the spaceport, their heavy rocket-bolt rifles hung from their shoulders as they looked around themselves, clearly here to intimidate the local population. Now that he had noticed them, the last poster he had seen reinforced itself within his mind -- and then was added by the scrolling news ticker that ran along one of the skyscrapers that thrust from the curved cylinder that he was walking upon. Running there was a steady procession of Zardonian Propaganda that would have made Goebbels blanch at it's bald faced patriotism.

TERROR PIRATES IN ASTEROID BELT SLAUGHTERED BY BRAVE IMPERIAL FORCES!!! FIRSTBORN OF RESCUED TRANSPORT PILOT TO BE NAMED IN HONOR OF OUR GLORIOUS EMPEROR! PRAISE BE TO ZARDO!!!

"Laying it on a bit thick, aren't we?" Mark muttered.

He came, then, to a monorail station. As he stepped within range of what seemed to be a kiosk, the floor opened and from the ground emerged an articulated steel and silver woman of outstanding beauty. The fact that she was made entirely of metal did not distract Mark from her expertly sculpted breasts, the prominent gray nubs of her rubbery nipples, the curves of her steel hips. The jointed, segmented nature of her body didn't, also, distract him from her cheerful smile and her bright copper-red hair, which was made entirely of fine wires and hung about her grayish cheeks, accentuating the artful decoration of tiny freckles that someone had painted upon her artificial features.

She had her hands clasped before her and she beamed at Mark. "Welcome to Monostation One, Mark Styles," she said. "I am GEN-E 5, the mechanical guide robot for all new visitors to Ring City One! How might I direct you?"

"Well, hah!" Mark said, rubbing the back of his neck. "I'm glad you introduced yourself so promptly -- I'd have to ask, ah, how you'd know my name before I knew yours." He kept his eyes fixed above the level of her chest, out of some old instinct carried over from his days upon the more prudish, less sexually advanced world of Earth. He was so flustered by the effort it took to not oggle her chest that he said: "How...do you know my name, Miss...Five?"

"Oh, please, you can call me GEN! Or Gennie! I'm not a miss," she said, giggling.

"Well, you don't quite look like a mister to me -- though, I hear some folks out here in space like being misters no matter what they look like," Mark said, grinning at her. "And if you are, might I add, you're the prettiest Mister I've met yet."

"Oh! You!" Gennie giggled, her cheeks blushing thanks to some dull red emission semiconducting diodes that flicked on just beneath her skin. "No, no, I'm not a Miss or a Mister because I'm...well, I'm property of the Metrorail Company. They purchased me right when I was built and I work and live in their company quarters on station." She shook her head. "Sorry, I am supposed to be giving you the tour! You just, uh, flummoxed my vacuum tubes right up with that pretty comment!"

Mark, though, frowned. "Company quarters?" he asked.

"Oh, it's quite generous! The Metrorail Company lets me live and charge there, free of charge. They pay out in Metrobucks too -- I get a great deal at the store for space parts and upgrades!" she said, nodding cheerfully. "Now, speaking of Metrobucks, do you want the tour spiel?"

Mark frowned even harder, but didn't say what was right on his mind. Instead, he tried to lighten his expression and said: "Uh...sure, Gennie. Spiel away!"

"Well, this is Ringcity One, the biggest city in the Kingdom of Saturn," Gennie said, cheerfully, gesturing around herself. "With these monorails, you can reach any section of Ringcity in almost no time at all -- and for cheap too! What kind of places do you want to visit first, Mark?" she asked. Then she did a quick double take. "Oh! And I'm sorry, so sorry, the reason I know your name is that my memory-banks are updated every six seconds by the spaceport traffic control so that I know how to help new visitors. And who the new visitors are."

Mark chuckled. "Handy for a tour guide. And...well, to be honest, Gennie," he said, shrugging one shoulder. "What I need most right now is a place to stay."

"Well, what's your economic price range?" Gennie asked, giggling. "You can't exactly stay in my place, after all!"

Mark grinned at her, slightly. "Honestly, that sounds nicer than the best hotel in Ringcity."

Gennie made a low whirring sound, as if some cooling fan inside of her had just gone from middle to high power. Her cheeks were so red now that they were literally glowing, like every single semiconducting diode was flaring to life. "W-Well, I, ah! That, uh...hehe! Oh!" She ducked her head forward, wringing her hands together. "...I do have a...b-but...but it's against company policy..." She whispered. "I...I technically have already violated it -- we're...we're flirting on company time!"

Mark took her hand, grinning slightly. "We got a saying, back on my home of Earth..."

"Y-Yeah?" Gennie asked, her glowing, camera lens eyes widening.

"Boss makes a dollar, you make a dime. I say we fuck around on company time," he said.

Gennie let out a squealing squeak, a literal spark shooting out of one of her carved ears. "Whaaa- no! No! That's completely against my programming!" she exclaimed, shaking her head. "I...I couldn't do it. Even if I badly wished to."

Mark considered that. How would Jasmine get past that kind of thing? He thought to himself. Putting himself in the mind of his long lost comrade in arms, he snapped his finger, then grinned. "Gennie, your directive is to follow all your corporations rules?" She nodded. "And, your other directive is to serve company customers and make money, right?" She nodded again. "Okay. Any other directives?"

"Uh...allow no non-bots to come to harm, through action or inaction!" she said, nodding sagely. "It's the basic routine all of us robots are programmed with, right into our magnetic reels!"

"Okay," Mark said. "So, here's the logical flaw there. I gotta find a place to sleep. If I don't find a place to sleep, I'll be out on the street -- lots of harm on the street. Could get mugged. Could freeze at night. Could just get run over by some peddlecab or something. So, if you don't take me back to your place for drinks and conversation, that'd be letting me come to harm -- and since I'll be paying for those drinks at your company store, you're keeping the company from making money. That's two directives to one!"

Gennie began to tremble. Her eyes slowly grew more and more red, flickering and crackling as sparks hissed and buzzed out of her ears. Mark felt a sudden nervous lurch as he saw her trembling. He looked around, ready to call for help -- but then the sparking stopped and Gennie blinked. "Oh," she said. "...that's...a good point." She bit her lip, making the rubbery texture depress under metal teeth. "Want to...ah..." She fidgeted, shyly. "T-To come back home and...uh...have drinks?"

"I'd love too," Mark said, grinning.

She took his hand, then stepped away from the platform, the two of them heading into the milling press of Ringcity One.

***

Claudette groaned as she squirmed, wriggling around in the big, comfy bed that she was sprawling in. The last thing she clearly remembered was purchasing a gift for her lover, Altair Polaris, the Pirate Queen of Ceres. She could already picture Alta's bashful expression as she handed the gift over -- and then she would...well, she wasn't sure which she hoped for more. Would Alta profess undying love to her? Or would she express it more...physically. In the way that Claudette would, if pressed under torture and torment, rather prefer: Via thrusting Claudette onto her hands and knees and filling her eager pussy with her massive, throbbing girlcock.

She opened her eyes in confusion as her hands, rather than pressing to a comfortable set of headboards or pillows instead bumped against something hard...and close. Her eyes opening brought only more confusion and fear to her breast as she realized she was in something dark and close and confining. She could see not a thing within her prison and her hands fumbled, pressing left, right...she laid upon something comfortable, but it was banded by thick wooden slats to her left, to her right!

Her heart thundered in her chest and Claudette forced back a scream as she realized to her horror precisely where she was, and what had happened to her.

She...

Was within...

A coffin.

It was far worse than Claudette knew -- she was in no mere coffin at all! But rather, she was entombed within a space coffin, made of hardened laminated faux-wood crafted by the finest coffinmakers on the whole of Mars, and quite unbreakable even to superhuman strength. To her, it was as inescapable as the depths of a distant black hole! Claudette breathed evenly, steadily, then pressed her palms against the wooden slats: It's okay! She thought. Wherever I am, Alta will save me...Alta...

Alta!?

Her memory flashed, then, upon the horrible memory of the all consuming voice, speaking within her hypno-ensnared mind!

Now, you will write a letter to Altair Polaris -- telling her how you needed to go to Mars. You will write to say that you never truly loved her, but only remained with her for lack of better options. You will sign it with the name Claudette T.S Grant...

"No!" Claudette cried out, despite herself. "It is a lie, my Alta! A lie!" But she knew it was hopeless -- that her voice would never carry through this damned coffin, let alone to the distant Salty Sirius that was the home of her now distant and falsely spurned lover!

The coffin lid slid open, and dark gray light shone down upon Claudette, who gasped and sat up before she could stop herself. She breathed in the stale, dead air of the chamber beyond -- and gaped as she looked right into the eyes of the very woman who had captured her upon the asteroid of Eros! Those selfsame red on black eyes, slitted and alien, glowed faintly as the woman crooned. "My mistress' doll is awake? And such bad dreams..." she cupped Claudette's cheek -- and Claudette just barely resisted the urge to slap aside that hand, to scream in rage and fury and fear!

For she knew...if those eyes once more swirled...if she was once more ensnared within their hypnotic grasp, she might never escape again! And so, instead of tempting the strange, bat eared woman, she allowed her jaw to go slack, her eyes to go out of focus, and simply sat there, waiting for orders from her vile vampiric captor.