Captured by the Modonians!

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Sharon attempted to explain that her "primitive species" had a taboo regarding nudity. Eventually she was provided with a "one size fits all" body stocking made out of a latex-like material. Some time later, she was escorted to meet Colonel Zib in a room not entirely unlike the transporter room from "Star Trek: TNG" (at least, that is how Sharon thought of it).

"Go ahead and stand on the pad," he said with what approximated a grin. "I will send you down first because we have to make sure the transporter correctly handles your different species."

Sharon convinces the Colonel to beam down with her. Fast forward to them checking out the "sights" of Regellum II.

Heading to the Rendezvous

"Go ahead and stand on the pad," Colonel Zib said with what approximated a grin. "I will send you down first because we have to make sure the transporter correctly handles your different species."

That worried Sharon. "What will happen if it doesn't handle me correctly?" she wanted to know, afraid that the answer would be that she would die in a spectacularly unpleasant fashion.

"Nothing terribly bad," Zib lied. "And anyway it's highly unlikely to happen." (That bit, at least, was true.) "I think I was being over-cautious so, if it will make you feel better, I am happy to beam down with you." It would be unpleasant having to comb bloodly fragments of Sharon out of his fur afterwards if things did go wrong, he reflected, and he wouldn't get his handsome pay-off from the Modonians, but at least there should be no risk to his own safety.

"Thank you," Sharon said, reassured. She stood on the pad and then moved over a little to make room for the colonel. He stood on the pad beside her and then reached out to press a red button on the wall. Sharon heard a humming sound gradually increasing in intensity and started to feel tingly all over. There was a momentary sensation of nothingness, and then they were at their destination, a seemingly identical transporter on the surface of Regellum II.

Soon Zib was showing Sharon around the sights. The planet's natives turned out to look rather like over-sized beavers and were about seven feet tall. Sharon did not find the tourist attractions that she was shown all that impressive. It didn't help that the visibility was no more than fifty yards or so, the air having a strongly reddish-brown colour. This was due to nitrogen dioxide forming about twenty per cent of it by volume. Thanks to the universal adaptation drug that Sharon had been given, she felt no discomfort from this.

However her body stocking fared less well. It seemed that the nitrogen dioxide reacted with the material from which it was made. Within five minutes of their landing on the planet, holes were starting to appear in it, and within an hour the last traces had disappeared. "I suppose we ought to have thought to check the material's compatibility with this planet's atmosphere," Zib said off-handledly. "But it really doesn't matter. The Regellans are an advanced enough species to have no hang-ups about nudity... Now through this doorway here you'll find something very interesting."

Sharon walked through the open door that Zib was indicating and he walked through after her. Then she felt something poking her in the small of the back. "I'm holding a blaster against your rear," Zib said. "Don't move if you want to live."

There were half a dozen beings resembling human-sized toads already in the room, standing facing Sharon and Zib and pointing items at them which looked like rayguns. Sharon immediately realised that she was in deep trouble.

One should never trust the Modonians. Now that Zib has served his purpose, they kill him.

Into another frying pan

When the front-most Modonian spoke, Sharon understood him clearly (though his voice had an unmistakably 'croak' quality to it). "Thank you for delivering, Zib," and then it chuckled, "and now for your payment." With this, Zib was shot from about four angles with ray gun blasts and died screaming. "Oh god, don't kill me!" shrieked Sharon, who was traumatized and currently covered in Zib goo. She then fainted, thudding onto the ground. It was all just too much.

"Females..." muttered one of the Modonians, who moved over to Sharon and attached a little sticker to her skin. "Ok lets go." With a nod from one of the Modonians who had a tattoo of a sword with a star on his chest, all of them transported out (including Sharon).

Sub-Lord T'lag, Commander of the Vice Brigade of the Modonian 2nd Fleet, had to decide how to handle this, and fast. It might be better to put the human in surroundings she would find comfortable, and use a Reimager (technology the Modonians shouldn't even have) to talk to her in humanoid form. Or, they could just seek to break her spirit the old fashioned way, and put her in irons. That way was by the book, but T'lag had found that the nicer method often yielded better results (though it wasnt always as fast). Whichever way he chose, he needed to do it quickly.

Meanwhile Head Researcher Zathar was having a bad feeling. Zib had been gone a long time. He felt an increasing desire to get into the Colonel's office so he could find out if something was going on. Rumors spread, and Zib had shown an unusual interest in the human. Unfortunately, Colonel Zib's office was securely locked and so getting in would be difficult. But what of Zathar's first contact with the humans? Surely it was more important than the Colonel's privacy...

We stick with Zathar, trying to break into the Colonel's office.

A Corpse is Discovered

Zathar was staring at Colonel Zib's office door, realising with a sinking feeling that he did not have the first idea about how to break in, when there was an announcement over the ship's loudspeakers. "This is Major Glart." Glart was the ship's second-in-command. His voice was grave, as he went on: "We have just been contacted by the authorities on Regellum II with some shocking news. Colonel Zib is dead. His body was discovered in a disused building. It showed evidence of having been hit by multiple raygun blasts. There was no sign of the alien woman whom he had taken down with him to the planet to see the sights. We must assume that she was responsible for his murder. We shall be remaining in orbit around the planet until this matter has been resolved, and will of course co-operate fully with the Regellan police to bring the perpetrator to justice. Glart out."

Once Zathar had recovered enough from his shock at the news to analyse what Glart had said, he realised that blaming the alien for Zib's death - though perhaps a natural reaction - did not really make sense. For Zib to have been hit by multiple raygun blasts, Sharon would have needed to have had several armed allies. Even assuming that, for some unknown reason, she had wanted Zib dead, surely she could have had neither the opportunity nor the necessary knowledge to contact a Regellan criminal outfit in the few hours that she had been on the surface? It seemed much more likely that someone had wanted to possess the alien and had been prepared to go to any lengths to capture her. But how had whoever it was even learnt of her existence, let alone where to find her? Could there be a traitor on the ship?

He decided that it would probably be futile to tell Glart of his suspicions at this stage. It could even be that Glart was the traitor. But what had happened did give him a pretext for breaking into Zib's office openly rather than surreptitiously, as he could say - truthfully - that he hoped to find evidence that would shed light on the motive for the colonel's murder. If he couldn't get in through the door in any other way, he would get an oxyacetylene torch and cut his way through.

On the Modonian Ragestrike-class War Juggernaut "Dominate", Sharon comes to, in luxurious surroundings.

Oh so fancy

Sharon woke up with a mild headache, and with more than a little surprise at her surroundings! She found herself in a very large room, laying on what was probably the most comfortable bed she had ever slept on. The room was laid out like a five star hotel penthouse, there was even a grand piano over there next to the full bar.* The room was decorated with over the top luxury, with every possible amenity. There was even a 110-inch TV over there on the wall.

"Hello," she called out, receiving no response. Sighing, she investigated the giant walk-in closet and dressed herself in some comfy (and expensive!) lounge wear. She then flopped down on a couch and turned on the tv. All she saw was a deep-field logo with "M S" on it diagonally, with the S hook looping into the M (the Multiversal Standard logo). A scrolling message at the bottom read "CANNOT VERIFY MULTI-SAT ENCRYPTION ID OR VERSA-SAT TRANSPONDER. PLEASE CALL 22- 528567-B-48128 AT YOUR EARLIEST CONVENIENCE TO VERIFY BILLING AND AUTHORIZATION INFO."

Muttering to herself, Sharon made her way to the full kitchen. Finding the (huge!) fridge and pantry fully stocked, she made herself a big ham, turkey, and three types of cheese sandwich, then before she took a bite shrugged and fried up some thick cut maple bacon for it too. Add to that a big glass of orange juice and some Cool Ranch Doritos, and she sat down a the breakfast nook table to enjoy a good meal. She allowed herself to sigh, happily. Maybe these aliens weren't so bad after all.

After a leisurely meal, Sharon went to the massive ensuite and enjoyed a long, relaxing, and well overdue soak in the massive jetted tub. She poured in a few drops of some conveniently placed essential oils for maximum relaxation. After her soak she climbed back into bed and took a blissful nap.

*- The Modonians have a LOT of technology they are not supposed to have, including a level 4 override back-door into the Hitchhikers Guide to the Multiverse and an anonymous bidding slot at Multiversal Standard auctions. They researched 21st century Earth and used their nicest Holodeck to base her room on a penthouse suite at a hotel on the Vegas strip.

Wait, wait. Absolutely nothing happened in this episode. Reaibn has lost his touch. Sharon's room catches on fire.

Things Had Been Going Too Well

T'lag watched all of this from his command station on the War-Bridge of the Juggernaut. He chuckled to himself. He had made the right call. He decided not to interrupt her slumber. He could afford to wait a few more hours. Judging by how readily she seemed to have accepted her situation, the tranquillising gas that had been made a component of the atmosphere in the holodeck appeared to be doing its job. He had worried unnecessarily that it might be ineffective in spite of all the data on the alien's physiology that Zib had passed on to him before bringing her down to the surface.

It occuured to him that it might be rather fun to contact Zib's ship and let them know that he was responsible for the death of the colonel and that he now had the alien. They would be furious, but since his ship outmatched theirs there was precisely nothing that they could do about it.

T'lag's gloating was unexpectedly interrupted by the sound of the fire alarm. Looking at the status lights on his command station, he saw that the one for the holodeck had gone from green to red. Of all the places for a fire, it had to be there! As it was programmed to do, the holodeck shut down, leaving Sharon in much more spartan surroundings. The TV was real, as its error message had indicated, and so was the bed - though not nearly so grand as it had been made to look - but not much else. It was actually the TV that had caught fire, as the cloud of smoke emerging from it clearly showed. (For now, at least, the CCTV was still working.) The technicians had evidentally done an incompetent job of matching it to the ship's electrical supply. T'lag would see that they were severely punished, but for now his primary concern had to be to ensure his captive's safety.

Sharon might have slept through the alarm - it was optimised for a sound frequency to which the Modonians' ears were much more sensitive than human ones - but there was no chance of her sleeping through being doused with water from the overhead sprinkler system that had turned on automatically.

1. Even the effect of the tranquillising gas isn't enough to stop her from feeling very alarmed.
2. Perhaps the tranquillising gas is over-effective. She doesn't seem to appeciate the danger that she's in.
3. We return to Zathar, who has found a way into Colonel Zib's office!

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