Page 19 of The Captain's Pet
Regardless, each boy did his part to find a way to escape. Everyone had memorized the layout of the ship. They’d found the shuttle bay and Wid and Joel hoped they could fly one of the smaller crafts housed there, although they’d yet to figure out a way to descend into one of the other rooms and still be able to get back into the conduits again. Until they worked out that problem, they had no way of knowing how closely the operating mechanisms in the shuttles mirrored their own. The other remaining issue was where in the hell the cruiser patrolled and how realistic was it to get home in a smaller ship. That was what made the bridge so important. The answers would be there, if they could find it.
The ambient noise of the tunnel shifted in a manner Wid now recognized as meaning he neared an opening. They’d learned that noise passed through the barrier, although in a muffled form. He had to be careful to be quiet, even as he strained to catch the nature of the sound. There was a slight shimmer to his right, the next indication that an opening was there. Given how unerringly Kell found the storage compartments for the balls and towels in the exercise room, Wid assumed Travian eyes saw the openings more clearly. It had taken weeks for one of the boys to notice the phenomenon. Once it had been pointed out, however, it was easy enough to spot. Because they didn’t know if Travians could see through the barrier as well, as a precaution, the boys were careful to slide past openings only when no one appeared to be looking in their direction. Wid dropped silently on his belly and inched forward to peek out. His heartbeat sped up as he recognized the buzzing noise as voices. When he peered into the room, his heart all but stopped.
It was the bridge. It had to be. Consoles ringed a larger room and there were two rows of four aliens each lined up in front ofa giant screen of space. Behind them, sitting in a large chair, was Kell. Even though Wid looked into the room from the back, he was familiar enough with the captain’s body to recognize it from any angle. Another shiver ran through his body and his cock actually stirred at the sight of the broad shoulders peeping up from the top of the chair. Those large hands, so good at wringing pleasure from Wid’s body, gripped the armrests.
His momentary and inappropriate preoccupation with the ship’s captain meant that it took a moment for him to realize there was something going on. Crawling forward a bit more, he turned his ear toward the opening to catch what was being said.
“It’s definitely on a trajectory to reach the far side of the planet, Captain,” one of the Travians sitting in front of Kell said.
“Armament?” Kell’s question was given in a crisp, authoritative tone that Wid hadn’t quite heard before. The sound of it goosed his dick even more.
The junior officer peered into his console before answering. “Minimum, sir. Defensive only. Scans show a cargo primarily of large metallic pieces, probably equipment of some sort.”
“Or arms.” This observation was made by the first officer, Garen, who walked up to stand beside Kell’s chair.
Wid stared at the alien with loathing. He hadn’t forgotten or forgiven his treatment of poor Stuart. They’d learned his name and the names of all of the other officers who kept a pet. Spying on the aliens wherever they found them was one of their most important past times in addition to mapping out the ship. Whoever had decided to force the translation chips into humans had made a tactical error. It allowed the boys to understand much of what they’d heard from their eavesdropping. They’d discovered that the Travian culture wasn’t so different from their own in that there were different cliques among them and some were more laid back than others. Garen’s name came up inalien conversation almost as much as Kell’s. Each man had his supporters and detractors.
Kell shot a look at Garen before responding. “What’s your opinion on that, Ret?”
“I don’t know much about farming or human tools, sir, but these don’t look like weapons to me.”
“It hardly matters,” Garen replied. “We need to destroy it anyway. Sir,” he tacked on, as if the respect was an afterthought.
Wid didn’t care about the internal politics of the ship at that moment, however. His stomach turned at the idea of the human ship being fired upon. He knew it was likely from one of the older, more established colonies, like Five or Six. They had resources to spare on occasion and unlike Seven, the Travians weren’t claiming those planets. The occupation had made it harder to do anything to sustain Wid’s people. They depended on getting supplies when possible from the outside. He’d known it was dicey for them to make the trip. He hadn’t appreciated before that the aliens were running a blockade.
“Thank you for your input, Garen,” Kell said in a tone that implied he wasn’t thankful at all. “But our orders are to make sure no hostile ships get past us and this vessel is not a battleship. It possesses defensive weapons only, so if we don’t fire on it, it won’t fire on us. And if it is only bringing supplies to keep the humans alive, then it is also not within our command objective.”
“With all due respect, sir, we are not on a mission to help the humans remain in the invaded territory. It is hardly our concern if they starve to death. So much the better, I’d say.”
Wid’s stomach turned to ice. It was hard to catch all of what the aliens said. They spoke so quickly to one another. Still, he caught enough to understand that the first officer recommended destroying the human ship to make the colonists suffer, to make Wid’s family suffer. He held his breath waiting for Kell’s reply.
“Such a strategy is above our pay grades, Garen, and one that would do our race no credit. If the death of the humans as opposed to their leaving is our goal, it would be more honorable to round them up and kill them directly.”
“I agree, sir, but as we’ve not been given that leave, we should do what we can to squeeze them out.”
Kell sat silent for a long time, or at least it seemed that way to a non-breathing Wid. Finally, he spoke, and his words made Wid relax enough to draw breath.
“No, that is not what our orders say. This vessel presents no danger to us or our troops, dirt side. Let it pass.”
Garen looked at Kell and opened his mouth, then shut it again. Wid couldn’t see his expression, although by the set of his shoulders, it appeared as if he were angry. Kell, in contrast, leaned back in his chair with his arm draped lazily to the side. He projected a commander at ease with his own power and decisions. That much was clear. With a strong sense of relief, Wid slithered back down the tunnel. He’d learned as much as he could that day and needed to return to the others.
He found the shaft he’d climbed up earlier to reach the floor and started the long descent back to the level that held the boys’ room. This was always the tricky part because the Travians did use the shafts from time to time, for maintenance probably. Wid hadn’t run into any of them in his wanderings, but a couple of the other boys had had some near misses. It was a matter of keeping one’s ears open to the sound of someone entering from one of the few access points that could accommodate the larger beings. As dark as the shafts were, it gave the boys time to duck into one of the smaller tunnels and out of sight.
He had almost reached the right level when he heard something, a scrape, then voices drifted up to him. Because he was right by a conduit, he quickly slid feet first into it and scrambled to get far enough to become invisible. He had to be assilent as possible and was grateful when it turned out to be two aliens talking to each other as they climbed. Their voices helped mask the sound of his movement. His gratitude turned to stark fear when he saw the top of a dark head just above the tunnel entrance. Damn, they were doing some maintenance right there by the tunnel opening.
As he pushed back, he heard something about an automated system shorting out and it being a pain in the ass to have to climb in to do it manually. Yeah, he could relate. It pissed him off too. He had to get farther away from them. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw he approached an intersection. He braced his palms against the slippery floor and shoved hard. His body slid into the four-way and with his foot, he pushed against the wall to turn right. Fear caused him to create a momentum so strong and fast that he kept turning and bumped into the side of the new tunnel, except there was nothing solid there. He knew a moment of stark terror when he realized his feet, then his legs, punched through an opening.
As his body dropped down, he scrambled for purchase to stop himself. There was nothing to grab onto, of course, the tunnels having no ridges or grooves or handles. For a second, he dangled halfway through the opening before he fell all the way and down to the ground. He landed with a jarring thud on his side, which was better than on his back. Barely. The force of the drop rattled his bones and his brain. It also knocked the wind out of him, so all he could do was lie there and pant his way through the pain. When the worst of it passed, he gingerly tested his various body parts and thought he’d miraculously escaped without breaking anything or doing serious internal damage. Just as he geared up to stand and figure out how he’d make it back to where he belonged, his dilemma was solved for him. A large set of black boots entered his field of vision.
The alien who’d stumbled upon Wid tossed him into the boys’ room with enough force to send him back to the floor. He gasped as his already bruised body took on new pain. When he looked up, eleven pairs of eyes stared back at him with dawning horror. It was almost their worst nightmare come true. They’d known there was a chance of being discovered in the tunnels, in which case, they’d be sunk. The idea of being caught outside the room but not in the tunnels hadn’t occurred to them—or it hadn’t occurred to him, at any rate. There’d been no discussion, therefore, as to what kind of plausible story one could tell that would explain a boy’s presence outside of their room without giving away their discovery of the conduit system.
Wid had made it up on the fly when the random Travian had hauled him to his feet and demanded what he was doing lurking around where he had no business being.
“I told him I’d slipped past one of the officers this morning,” he relayed now as he pushed up to his feet. When he wavered, Joel and Jordan ran up and grabbed his aching arms to steady him. “Ow!” Ignoring his protests, the other boys led him to the pool and he sank down gratefully in the soothing waters.
“Do you think he believed you?” Joel asked.
Closing his eyes, Wid sank farther into the water. “I don’t know. I don’t even know if he told Kell, but if he hasn’t yet, he will soon.”
